In another part of the forest, in a deep cave not too far away from Liu Shu, a seductive woman lay on a bed made from leaves, branches, and a handcrafted sheet to insulate her from the cold, rocky floor.
In addition, about twenty bugs the size of a large dog crawled around and carried mushed food in oval shapes, stacking it probably for the woman to eat later. All these insects had six legs, a large thorax, and a pair of large and powerful mandibles.
They were ants.
The seductive woman was also not very human-like. While she was the shape of a human woman, she had compound eyes and a pair of long antennae sticking from her forehead. Inside her mouth, there were a set of powerful teeth and fangs.
Her body was the size of an average female, and the dress she wore had a reddish texture and also looked like many layered carapaces. This dress was also opened on the back, allowing for her own extra appendage to stick outside.
It was an extremely thick and large thorax attached to where her tailbone would be.
The color of the carapace matched her eyes and hair, a beautiful red color.
She was the
After resting for a few hours, the Ant Queen woke up. Her compound eyes didn't have eyelids, as they were attached to her face, so the first thing she did to wake up was soak her face in water, cleaning the accumulated dirt that impeded her vision.
Looking around at her little children moving, she sighed, looking a bit bored. 'Another uneventful day.'
When her children saw that she was awake, a few of the youngest approached and began crawling all over her. This made the bored Ant Queen smile, and she used her clawed hands to pet them. "Good morning, my children."
While she spoke with sound, her antennae similarly secreted pheromones to communicate with the least developed children.
After she crossed the Level 10 boundary, there were almost no challenges left in the forest. It was not easy protecting her ant colony until she went from a
However, after finally crossing that boundary and gaining a humanoid body, there were almost no creatures in Golden Sap Forest who even dared attack her nest.
Therefore, the Ant Queen focused on increasing her proficiency in her skills, especially her egg-laying capacities. It had been a few years since she started this routine. By now, she had a few skills at the max level and was ready to be upgraded to the next tier, but she lacked comprehension and experience points.
While breaking through the tier could be said to be as simple as using experience points, that was not entirely the case for non-World Tree creatures. First, one needed to understand the skill's essence, and then one needed to study how to improve it.
That's why many beasts who were born with F Rank skills were stuck in this rank generation after generation. Reaching an F+ Rank from an F- Rank was not difficult; it was a matter of time, but evolving it to an E- Rank was the complicated part.
The reason creatures became human-like as they increased levels and gained intelligence was exactly this.
A creature without intelligence would never be able to overcome the limits set by their birth. But, on the off-chance that one creature from that species was born intelligent enough and managed to increase enough levels, they would eventually develop their species toward a new place.
The current strongest beings were creatures of the past whose ancestors managed to consecutively break through these limits.
Meanwhile, as the little darlings of the Universe, World Trees just needed to spend experience since their birth was somewhat connected with the energy around them. This allowed all World Trees to understand what to do to increase tiers, levels, etc.
The only thing holding back World Trees was, first, their immobile nature.
Second, some creatures actively hunted them and gave a lot of experience points when they died.
Third, the struggle they had to go through to reach a state of maturity. Many died before they could spread their roots or gain offensive skills to defend themselves. Moreover, while defensive skills were normal to develop in World Trees, World Trees that could develop offensive skills early on were extremely rare.
And finally, their slow growth and inability to gain too many experience points.
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The higher a creature's tier, the more experience it needed to cross levels. World Trees were naturally born with high tiers, which made it impossible for them to gain as many Experience Points as other beings during combat and with many other sources.
Creatures in the past have tried to "force-feed" prey to World Trees they adored by offering sacrifices and such. But the System was fair and somewhat sentient.
Growth needed to be natural, and trying to circumvent the rules never ended in a positive outcome. If one wanted to get stronger, then one needed to, well, "experience" things. That's why they were called "Experience Points."
Meanwhile, the rest of the creatures needed more than just experience. They needed to understand the skill, how it worked, and what kind of path the skill could follow to become stronger.
For example, one of the Queen's abilities before it reached F+ rank was
This already set up the skill to become E Rank because of the large change in the nature of the skill. The Ant Queen managed to do so after becoming humanoid. She felt that her glands were not enough to produce as much attacking spit, so she transformed the skill.
As with everything, it was not always necessary to do this kind of change, as some skills with higher potential could break through with just experience. However, for most skills, one must understand and then tier up.
These nuances to the system that creatures understood instinctively were also why most creatures didn't go on a slaughter, killing everything in sight to level up their things. A creature needed as much comprehension as it needed experience points.
One without the other amounted to nothing.
The Fire Ant Queen ate the food prepared for her by her ant workers when she suddenly heard a loud explosion outside her nest. 'Oh? A visitor?'
Her antennae twitched, and a smile spread on her lips. However, as she prepared to climb to the surface, she felt the death of some of her high-level fighter children, which made her smile disappear as cold rage burned in her compound red eyes.
At her maximum speed, the Ant Queen moved and flashed through the complicated tunnels, reaching the nest's entrance in just a few seconds. She was followed by hundreds of ants that flooded outward like a brown tide.
When she arrived outside, she could see a few injured ants surrounding a tall, burly half-man, half-lizard. And further outside, she could see one of her Level 7 children with her head missing.
Her compound eyes took everything in as her sight finally fell onto the lizard-like creature with bark-like skin. "Ho, ho? I didn't expect Froorar to come to my humble nest. To what pleasure do I owe your visit? Was it fun to slaughter one of my children?"
The man frowned, feeling the killing intent radiating from the Ant Queen, and looked at her deeply. "Ignatia, do you have anything to do with Fraar's disappearance?"
Ignatia, the Ant Queen, showed an honest, confused expression. "What are you talking about?"
Froorar nodded. "It's not the Myconids, it's not the River Beavers, and it is not you either… Did the Rose Fairies take action?"
Ignatia frowned when she saw Froorar turn around to leave. She spoke chillingly. "Hey, do you think this is your nest? You came, injured my children, killed one of them, and now you want to leave?"
Froorar stopped and looked back menacingly. "I killed it because it was getting annoying. I didn't have any intentions of killing any of them, so what's the problem?"
Ignatia's lips split into a murderous grin far larger than a human's anatomy would ever be able to make. "Do you think that you are invincible because you've reached Level 11?"
Froorar stomped the ground, making it crack, and smiled coldly. "I do think I am. What can you do about it? Go ahead if you want to challenge me and lose half your colony. I could do some roasted ant-meat for dinner."
Ignatia's hair flowed as Aether Mana and Anima Energy gathered around her. Froorar's face changed when he realized something, and he became serious. "You are also Level 11?"
Ignatia looked at him coldly, but after a few seconds, she snorted and dispelled her energies. "Leave. Next time, call me before you hurt my children, or I'll visit your nest with them so that they have a feast. This is my last warning, Froorar: If I hear that any of my children have died at the hands of any of your people, I won't rest until your species has been eliminated from the Golden Sap Forest!"
Froorar squinted, but he didn't say anything. He knew that Ignatia's ant army easily crossed a thousand units. Even if they were generally weaker than Thornstrides, their innate ability to spit inflammable substances and work as one could literally drown a stronger creature in a fire.
Froorar killed that Level 7 Ant because it went crazy and attacked him. If not, as he did with the rest, he would've just injured them. Moreover, he also had confidence in his Level of advantage. But now that he knew that Ignatia had caught up with him, he became cautious.
In short, provoking the Ant Queen wasn't worth it. After giving her one last look, Froorar turned around and entered the forest again.
Ignatia looked at his disappearing figure and got thoughtful as she approached her dead child. 'Something happened to Fraar?'
Her lips arched, and she ordered, her compound eyes gleaming with interest. "Scouts, search around the area for clues of what is happening. Focus in the east area."
A few dozen black and green ants scurried out of the nest and entered the forest, perfectly camouflaging with their surroundings.
Ignatia smiled and sashayed her wide hips away, the large ant appendage swaying behind her. "it seems that the stale forest is about to become fun again. My colony will thrive in war and grow."
Then, Ignatia calmly entered her nest and went to the nursery. She saw a few empty spots where there weren't any larvae or pupae and moved her ant appendage.
Ignatia squinted and smiled in pleasure as she placed 20 new
[You've gained 8 Experience Points after laying 10x
Ignatia tilted her head. 'Warrior? Lucky~, three of my children are in F+ ranks today! Moreover, one of them is a very rare warrior! One of those can fight against three normal F+ Soldiers~.'
She patted those three eggs lovingly with a happy smile and kissed the Warrior egg. Then, she returned to her room and lay back on her comfortable bed, starting to eat the accumulated food so that she could lay more eggs tomorrow.
'I wonder what interesting things will my children find?'