Palpitations

Accompanied by a mysterious green halo, the bird that had been crying mournfully in the old druid's hands gradually calmed down.

The old druid spoke an unknown language as he gently stroked the injured large bird.

Before long, with a joyful cry, the bird spread its reddish-brown wings. It took flight and began circling above the old druid's head.

The old druid once again revealed his aura of nature, giving System the feeling of throwing himself into Mother Nature's embrace.

System hesitated over whether to jump out before the old druid, reveal his intelligence, and ask him for a way******* to extend his lifespan.

Deep down, he felt that there was something off about the old druid, but he could not figure out exactly what it was.

And while System hesitated, the pheasant circling in the sky flew away. The old druid took strides that seemed slow but were in fact swift, vanishing into the forest in just a few steps...

"Why didn't I go over just now?"

Only after the old druid had gradually gone far away did System come back to his senses.

Thinking of the mere two months of life he had left, System regretted not rushing in front of the old druid.

From the first time he saw the old druid scoop a creature out of the water to the expression on his face when he had just saved the large bird, System felt that the old druid's kindness did not seem feigned. He was worth taking a gamble on.

Perhaps he could have obtained a way to extend his lifespan from the old druid.

But it was already too late to go after him now. System hopped in the direction the old druid had gone, only to find that he had disappeared without a trace.

System could only hop back helplessly. Arriving near the bloodstains left by the pheasant, he decided to feed on the blood it had left behind.

Near the pheasant's blood were two ants twitching on the ground. They had likely been accidentally crushed by the struggling pheasant when they attacked it earlier, and were now severely injured.

System had no intention of eating those ants either. After kicking the two unfortunate ants away, he surveyed his surroundings. Seeing other ants dividing up another patch of bloodstains, he began sucking up the blood before him.

Bird blood tasted excellent, like a rich milkshake mixed with the flavor of some kind of tea from his previous life. Even after he stopped drinking it, the taste lingered in his mouth, leaving System savoring it endlessly.

It could not compare to scorpion, but it tasted far better than other foods, and the experience it provided was roughly 1.3 times that of insect pupae of the same weight.

It seemed bird flesh and blood were also food that conformed to System's principle of delicious experience.

Birds, tadpoles, scorpions, insects, plants—System had now eaten many kinds of food, yet he simply could not understand why that lizard corpse from before had provided anomalous experience.

Without dwelling on it, he drank a few more mouthfuls of blood. Since it could not affect Metamorphic Growth, System decisively gave up on this food.

He hopped away and continued searching for food from the ants that he could snatch...

Three days passed.

Just as planned, System rose to Level 9. His body grew from 6.5 centimeters to 8 centimeters, and his physical abilities improved further.

Although the bloodline talent Metamorphic Growth had not risen to Level 13, System felt it was only one step away from the threshold. As long as he reached Level 10, his Metamorphic Growth would certainly grow to its limit, and he would then receive detailed information about his third metamorphosis.

After reaching Level 9 this time, System's Insect Adaptation (11/21) increased to Insect Adaptation (12/21).

Once more, System sensed mysterious visions transmitted by the Insect Adaptation within his bloodline.

Countless grasshoppers once again flew freely across a vast world.

At the same time, due to this level-up, his derived ability [Limb Regeneration] (5/11) rose to [Limb Regeneration] (6/11); [Dark Vision] (3/5) rose to [Dark Vision] (4/5).

The most noticeable change was that his [Corrosive Mucus] (7/13) increased by two levels, becoming [Corrosive Mucus] (9/13).

The glands in System's mouth became larger, the venom's corrosive power grew stronger, and the total amount of fluid he could secrete nearly doubled.

Not only that, the glands in System's mouth underwent a special change. Through newly formed muscles near the glands, System could squeeze them and spray out their venom.

Like a king cobra spraying venom, or a black dragon in a fantasy world spewing corrosive poison.

It was just that System's spraying range was very short. At present, he could only spit it a few centimeters away.

Still, no matter what, this counted as System's only ranged attack. Though he could also use his legs to grab small stones and throw them from afar, it was difficult to exert any force; he could not even injure a tiny ant.

Apart from the changes from leveling up, over these three days System had become increasingly familiar with these dark brown ants, and his movements when robbing them had grown more and more practiced.

During those three days, he even used a scheme to lure an isolated soldier ant into muddy water. He then kept kicking the soldier ant back into the water, eventually killing the exhausted ant without suffering a scratch.

Unlike ordinary worker ants, dark brown soldier ants had extremely sturdy exoskeletons. They were also more violent in temperament and fought with clear tactics, attacking vital areas of their prey's body. At the tip of their abdomens, they even had a stinger capable of shooting acidic fluid.

Soldier ants were dangerous, but in some ways, they were even more foolish than worker ants.

Their eyesight was clearly much better than that of worker ants, yet they would still charge at grass stems coated in Ant Acid, even rushing into muddy water without hesitation.

It was precisely by exploiting the soldier ants' stupidity that System successfully used a puddle to torment a soldier ant to death.

A soldier ant's corpse tasted somewhat better than that of an ordinary worker ant, but hunting one was far too risky, and the efficiency was nowhere near that of System robbing ordinary worker ants for food. Thus, over the three days, System only tried killing one soldier ant before deciding to give up.

Over those three days, System was fortunate enough to encounter two grasshoppers that were distant relatives of his own.

Unlike when he had been a larva, after becoming an adult, he suddenly found his own kind very endearing.

But after only brief contact, the two grasshoppers flew far away.

Besides grasshoppers, System discovered that many mosquito-like insects had appeared in the forest. They were likely insects that bred in the water during their larval stage.

Though these little insects could fly, they were on a completely different level from nimble flies. System could easily catch them as he hopped.

With the appearance of mosquitoes, System once again encountered several creatures capable of putting him in danger—the very toads he had once narrowly escaped by using Stillness.

Perhaps due to a lack of food, several toads had been continuously hunting ants near the anthill these past few days, in addition to eating mosquitoes.

Most of the toads hunted successfully; small groups of ants had no power to fight back.

But one ten-centimeter toad came to seek death beside the earthen mound of the ant nest.

After accidentally having its leg crippled by a soldier ant's stinger, the toad was targeted by another four or five soldier ants. The outcome was predictable—it was directly swallowed by the torrent of thousands of ants pouring from the nest.

Around noon, System, having hunted through the entire night and half the day, decided to return to the nest to rest.

Over the past few days, he had not encountered that old druid again.

But just then, System felt an irregular tremor pass through the heart and blood within his body, and an inexplicable sensation arose from within him.

For the moment, however, System could not tell what this emotion in his heart was.

Just then, accompanied by a peculiar rumbling buzz, an enormous grasshopper flew overhead.

The giant grasshopper was over twenty centimeters long, its body tawny brown. It turned around in midair and flew straight toward System...