Even if the delegation causes problems, I am sure the emperor will forgive me. After all, I have uncovered a very important secret about the desert for him. I am sure that once news spreads about reclaiming land, his popularity in the empire will increase.

He is probably facing some criticism after the destruction of the palace. This should help, although I don't really know the political situation in the empire. I just hope that my presence has more positives than negatives for him.

After dealing with the ant, I move further into the desert before I locate a worm. I brush the sand away to uncover it and then send my mana into it to see what happens. The mana is taken from my control and sent towards the depths of the desert.

However, before I lose control of the mana I am able to successfully scan the worm. The worm can barely be considered as a living being, it is more like a receiver. The sand acts as the conduit for the signal that is being sent to the worm, hence why the worm will die if it leaves the sand.

That also means that the sand in the jar I gave to Sir Edvar must still be connected to the desert somehow. If it wasn't, the other worm would have already died as soon as I left the desert. Before I can figure anything else out, the worm dies, but I don't know why.

It is still in the sand, so that shouldn't be the reason, unless the connection was cut. However, if that is what happened then it means whatever is on the other end is intelligent. As soon as I have that thought I think back and compare it to the spiders.

I really hope that whatever is controlling the worms isn't as bad as the Controller. If it is, I want nothing to do with it, I am not strong enough yet to deal with something on that level. The Controller and the Maker are both still too strong for me to fight right now.

I still plan to go back and deal with both of them once I am strong enough. However, I think I will need to get close to the strength of a dragon for that to happen. Of course, that is assuming that I live long enough to get that strong.

Out of the two, I think that the Controller will be the easier one for me to kill. I have at least seen how it attacks, I know nothing about how the Maker fights. Besides, by now the Controller should be starving and unable to make more spiders.

It might even have been forced to go into hibernation, at least I hope so. I am not about to wake it up and fight it fairly, I am not above killing it in its sleep. Although, I have to wonder, just how much experience would a creature like that be worth?

Hopefully, one of these days I will find out, but for now I need to focus on getting stronger. Luckily, the desert I am standing in is a good way for me to do that. So, I send out my mana to scan the area, since a worm died more beasts should be coming.

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However, when my mana detects hundreds of beasts converging on my location, I turn and run. I take to the air and climb until I can see what is coming my way. There are hundreds of ants running across the sand towards me.

Luckily, there are no flying ants among them so I am perfectly safe in the sky. Come to think of it, in all the information that I was given about the desert, there was no mention of flying beasts. Maybe it is because once they lost contact with the sand they couldn't be controlled anymore.

If that is the case, then my ability to fly is a huge advantage in the desert. The ants mill around below me for a few minutes and then head deeper into the desert. I follow them from above, I am curious about where they are going.

Unfortunately, before long they reach a hole in the sands and they enter it. It is probably an entrance to their nest and I have no plan to go in there. There is no way I am going to let myself get trapped somewhere that I can't fly.

I promised Lin that I would try to stop doing stupid things, and that would be stupid. So instead, I turn and fly away from the entrance to the nest. Once I am a decent distance away, I land and start looking for another worm.

However, this time I am trying to see if I can scan for its life frequency. Despite it barely counting as a living being, it still has a unique lifeforce. I am hoping that I can detect that, just like I did with the shapeshifted demons.

If it works then I will be able to make some scanners for the imperial troops to use. Not to mention, it should be faster than my current method of searching. In the end, it works but the range is much shorter since the worms have very little lifeforce.

I don't do anything to the worm for now, instead I build a prototype scanner. Then I use the worm to figure out the range of the scanner, which is about fifty feet. Still, it is better than nothing and I am sure that Sir Edvar will appreciate it.

Once I am done testing the scanner, I kill the worm and then wait to see what beasts come. While I am waiting I make a few more scanners, they are fairly easy to make. After a bit, I sense two beasts heading towards me at high speed.

From their speed I am guessing that they are both lizards, so I get ready to fight. Due to their speed, this fight will be a little more difficult, but not impossible. In the end, I end up getting wounded several times during the fight, but I barely feel them.

I am pretty sure that the lizard's bites are poisonous, but I can't be sure since I am immune. It takes a while for me to kill the two lizards, they are just too fast, it is annoying. I am very careful during the fight to make sure they don't manage to hit my pouches.

2 Empowered Desert Lizards defeated! 500,000 Exp gained!

Absorb Activated! +10 Evolution Points!

After cutting out and absorbing the cores, I toss the corpses onto the barge. Then I walk deeper into the desert with one of the scanners in hand to watch for worms. Although, I am glad that I am dealing with tiny worms instead of massive ones.

Luckily, this isn't Arrakis and I don't have to worry about a worm eating me in one bite. At least, I hope I don't, I have seen a lot of strange things in this world. When I glance up from the scanner I spot something in the distance that I at first think is a train.