Enhancement

When Rowan regained consciousness, he had no idea how much time had passed.

Although he did not move, the fine hairs on his body told him that the White Grub nearby was still tirelessly gnawing on the tree root.

Still a bug? How is it that I haven't died yet?

He had originally held onto a sliver of fantasy, hoping that after death he might begin a third life or return to his previous one.

He hadn't expected that this bug, which sounded like a pretty impressive species, would have such tenacious vitality. Even after being gutted, with food passing straight through him as soon as he ate, he had still managed to survive.

It was truly incredible.

However, there was no point in dwelling on it now. He checked his body and found that the three-segmented torso that had been hanging from his abdomen had shriveled up and fallen off to the side.

Although the wound had healed, no new segments had grown back, leaving him looking a bit shorter than before.

He couldn't see the injury on his back, but it didn't seem to be anything serious; the wounds where his hind legs had been severed had healed, though no new limbs had grown in their place.

At this moment, his body was extremely hungry. Since his tail end had healed, it meant he could finally retain the food he consumed.

He dragged his weak body, forcing himself to crawl back to the tree root where the White Grub was contentedly drinking tree sap. Without a second thought, he kicked it aside and moved in to take its place.

After licking his fill, he dragged the White Grub back to open a new wound. After several cycles of this, his stomach finally felt full.

As soon as he was fed, his mind began to grow weary again. Ignoring everything else, Rowan moved his body back to his hiding spot and drifted into unconsciousness once more.

And so, waking up, kicking the White Grub, eating, and then falling unconscious—this repeated for who knows how many times until Rowan's spirit finally recovered, leaving behind a scattering of molted shells around him.

By now, his appearance had changed drastically.

First, he discovered that his eyes had grown much larger, taking up nearly half the size of his head. Furthermore, his field of vision had widened significantly, like a 360-degree wide-angle camera; he could even see his own back.

This was the first time he had seen his own back. Although he hadn't seen what he looked like before, he could feel that there was a small piece of hard armor on his back, while the rest of his long abdomen was directly exposed—which was exactly why those Ants had been able to attack his abdomen so easily.

But now, starting from his neck and moving backward, that original shoulder armor had grown larger, extending to both sides and wrapping around his flanks, greatly increasing the defensive capabilities of his sides.

That wasn't all. Behind this shoulder armor, a new semi-circular dorsal plate had grown, protecting the abdomen that had been shortened. It made his entire back look like a ladybug, except his back plate was a single, solid piece, jet-black and covered in fine hairs.

His crippled hind legs had fallen off at the base, and new ones had grown in their place, thicker than before and covered in sharp, jagged barbs.

At the same time, he discovered that his two new hind legs could exert force in reverse. Given his now rounder physique, it should have been even harder to flip over if he were to lie on his back.

But on the contrary, in this situation, his two hind legs could make contact with the ground in reverse, using that leverage to prop him back up.

Finally, there were his mouthparts. The original sucking-style mouthparts hadn't disappeared, but they had shrunk significantly. Perhaps because he didn't want to keep bothering his "tool bug" deep down, a pair of large mandibles—the ones he had dreamed of—had grown from the corners of his mouth. Finally, he could be self-sufficient when it came to drinking tree sap.

The various problems he had encountered in his previous life had all been compensated for and improved during this round of evolution. Rowan could only silently exclaim, "Efiash, you're amazing!"

Although he had received an all-around enhancement, Rowan didn't plan on seeking revenge against the Ants immediately. Two fists are no match for four hands, and there were far more than four hands out there.

After this round of intensive, multi-faceted evolutionary enhancement, he had gained some understanding of his own body.

First, evolution must follow the law of conservation of energy, which was the reason he had to eat so many times during the process.

Furthermore, when encountering certain difficulties, his body would instinctively select and activate the gene sequence from his internal gene bank that was best suited to solve that specific problem. If his body had sufficient energy, it would accelerate the activation process. A clear example of this was when he realized digging was too slow; he had just finished eating, his energy was high, and he had promptly grown a pair of Digging Legs.

Rowan had a feeling that as he continued to grow and develop, he might even be able to choose which gene segments to activate autonomously.

The size of this gene bank was determined by the bug's mother. If the gestation period was sufficient, the inventory would naturally be large, and vice versa.

However, Efiash usually only left behind an egg in a rush when they were on the verge of death, so most eggs didn't carry much of an inventory.

Unfortunately, Rowan belonged to this majority; one could even say he had almost no inventory at all. He only had some simple genes for digging, eating, fire resistance, and cold resistance—just enough for a larva to get through its early stages.

However, even this was enough. After a larva survived its weak early stages, it would inevitably encounter a wide variety of creatures, witness their various specialties and abilities, and then select the best ones to arm itself.

Rowan had an epiphany: perhaps his initial understanding had been wrong. The fact that the bugs only left their offspring with basic genes might not have been a hasty decision, but a deliberate, well-thought-out choice.

The environment in which each Efiash grew was different, and the creatures they encountered were strange and varied. If they activated certain gene segments without having seen the corresponding traits in person, it would be a simple waste of energy at best, but at worst, they might grow something entirely inappropriate.

Perhaps a long, long time ago, there were Efiash who rashly activated gene segments they didn't understand when facing difficulties. In the end, not only did they fail to solve the problem, but they also lost their lives.

Perhaps this choice to only leave basic gene segments was itself a result of evolution.

After thinking it over, Rowan felt this decision was incredibly, incredibly logical.

For instance, if some jerk had put a gene segment for a "suicide bomber bug" into the gene bank.

If one day he encountered a difficulty and needed to fight for his life, he might just be looking for a way to temporarily stimulate his potential and increase his strength without too many side effects.

But the gene bank lacked intelligence; it couldn't understand such complex thoughts and would just instinctively recommend this "fight to the death" method. If he didn't understand the specific mechanics and chose to activate it, he might wake up to find he had turned into a bomb...

Rowan speculated with malicious intent that perhaps some predecessor had encountered exactly that.

Now, he could finally sleep soundly, without worrying about accidentally killing himself through overthinking.