Ten

In the dead of night, System dragged his bloated belly as he hopped toward the pile of rocks near the pitcher plant, then jumped into a crevice he had picked out during the day.

A faint rustle sounded, and a tiny cricket barely two centimeters long crawled out of the crevice. It swiftly burrowed into a narrow gap between the nearby stones.

System had no particular thoughts about usurping the magpie's nest and taking over the cricket's home, nor did he pay any attention to the little cricket that had fled.

He began to rest quietly...

By swallowing [Corrosive Mucus] into his stomach, System's digestion speed increased even further.

Two or three hours after dawn the next day, System's exhausted mind had fully recovered.

His balloon-like swollen belly had also returned to its normal size. The slime's gelatinous flesh had been almost completely digested.

Crawling out from the crack between the stones, System hopped toward the muddy pit where the slime had been the day before.

The slime still lay motionless in the mud. The ants within its body had mostly melted away, and System could no longer make out the ants' distinct forms within the gelatinous mass.

Perhaps because he had eaten the slime's gelatinous flesh, System found that he had developed resistance to the grassy, woody fragrance emanating from it. Its effect on his mind was now negligible.

System soon grabbed a dead branch and tried teasing the slime using yesterday's method.

The results of throwing the branch twice in succession were far from ideal.

The branch was bounced away by the slime's outermost layer of gelatin, while the slime's body merely twitched irregularly a few times before returning to its motionless state.

This slime seemed utterly unconcerned with what was happening outside.

It seemed that, for the time being, it was impossible to keep using the tactic of driving the tiger to devour the wolf against the slime and the ants.

System also lacked the courage to face this slime directly. Although it had not shown much reaction when he threw branches at it twice, if he took the initiative to bite at its gelatinous flesh, the slime might very well suddenly spring up and swallow him whole...

System decisively left. Apart from occasionally returning to the muddy pit to see whether the slime had recovered, he began continuing his exploration of the surroundings while returning to his old trade—robbing ants.

The heavenly way had its cycles; just days ago, the ants had been robbing him, and now he had grown accustomed to robbing them instead.

Thirty meters away, System discovered another ant nest inside a rotting tree. They were still the same reddish-brown ants that had fought the slime.

This nest in the deadwood was even larger than the one that had fought the slime.

The reddish-brown ants were very fast. System's first two or three attempts at robbing them did not go smoothly, and his body was bitten several times in succession by their mandibles.

While snatching his second ant, a quarter of one of the antennae on his head was bitten off.

After the antenna broke, System's balance worsened somewhat, but it was not a major problem.

After hunting these reddish-brown ants three times in a row, System had basically adapted to their agility. His subsequent robberies went much more smoothly.

Though he was still somewhat unaccustomed to it, System was no longer injured, and as he robbed them more often, his movements became increasingly practiced...

Through observation, System discovered that these reddish-brown ants had subtly different habits from the blackish-brown ants, especially when handling food.

They did not chop food into tiny pieces. Instead, they preferred cutting it into chunks three to five centimeters across, then having several worker ants cooperate to carry the food back to the nest.

This habit of the reddish-brown ants was exceedingly convenient for System. As long as he wandered around three to five meters from the nest, he could snatch large chunks of food.

Every successful robbery gave him enough food to eat for quite a while. And while eating high up on a branch, he could conveniently pick out the food those ants would carry next.

Enormous unknown insect eggs, butterfly larvae, plump plant seeds, earthworm corpses...

Though these reddish-brown ants were smaller, they clearly knew how to hunt better than the blackish-brown ones, and the prey they caught came in a dazzling variety.

The industrious reddish-brown ants carrying food reminded System of eating at a buffet in his previous life. All sorts of food would pass close by, leaving him unsure where to begin.

System even snatched a three-centimeter spider and a four-centimeter half of a centipede from the ants. The corpses of these two insect hunters were extremely fresh; he had no idea how the ants had managed to hunt them down.

Over the following days, System spent his time robbing ants, exploring the surrounding area, and observing that slime.

There were basically no mishaps in the process of robbing ants. During his explorations, System discovered seven more ant nests in succession, belonging to four types of ants in total.

Besides the blackish-brown and reddish-brown ants System already knew, there was also a kind of large black ant measuring 2.5 centimeters, as well as a tiny grayish-brown ant only 0.5 centimeters long. These small ants possessed a special means of attack: they could spray acid from their abdomens over long distances. System suffered quite a bit when he first encountered them.

The different types of ants searched for somewhat different foods, so System's life as a bandit went very smoothly over these days. He ate nearly a hundred different kinds of meat.

Unlike his success in finding ant nests, System's exploration did not go well these days. Within several hundred meters of the area, he found no other slimes.

He did encounter two more magical creatures, but all he could do upon seeing them was avoid them.

One was a large bluish-gray bird with blue lightning winding around its feathers. System hid deep in the grass the moment he saw it from afar, lest the bird treat him as a snack. The other was a bat he saw at night, glowing with a red blood-like light. Bats were likewise hunters that liked catching insects, so System immediately pressed himself flat against the ground and gave up foraging that night.

However, compared with searching for other slimes, the slime System had been watching recovered its vitality after resting in the mud for three days.

Its body regained some of its size, becoming only slightly smaller than a football, before it continued foraging in the forest.

Slimes and ants were like mortal enemies. With only a slight bit of guidance from System, the slime launched an attack on another ant nest.

The result of the battle was exactly the same as last time. Although the type of ant was different, the slime's appearance as it fled the nest was basically identical: its gelatinous body was filled with ant corpses, and fragments of scattered gelatin were left all over the ground as it escaped.

System was thus able to eat this gelatinous food for a second time...

Over nine days, System used the same method to eat slime gelatin twice more.

Thanks to the vast amount of experience provided by the slimes, System reached Level 10 on the ninth day. His body grew further, reaching 10.5 centimeters.

Metamorphic Growth rose to its maximum Level 13, just as he had expected. At the same time, he learned the condition for undergoing his third metamorphosis—reaching Level 12.

Being able to undergo his third metamorphosis at Level 12 was undoubtedly good news for System.

It might still be difficult for other grasshoppers, but for System, who spent every day searching for meat, it was easy.

Even without deliberately pursuing leveling efficiency, merely by snatching these ants' food, System could easily reach Level 12 within thirty days and complete his third metamorphosis.