As he was looking down at the scorpion corpse and ant team in the rubble, System started thinking.

  Once the sky darkened and the day ended, the ant colony's range of activities would gradually shrink, eventually reducing down to only a few worker ants patrolling near the ant nest.

  However, when a rge amount of food was found, the ant colony would still send out a horde of worker ants to haul it back, even in the dark.

  Ants were the type of insect that started storing food in summer to prepare for the severe cold and food shortage in winter.

  System remembered a parable from his previous life.

  It was about a grasshopper who spent all day making music and ughed at the ants who worked hard every day, menting that the ants didn't know how to enjoy life in the summer. As a result, the zy grasshopper was punished by the severe cold once winter hit.

  The story used the ziness of grasshoppers to set off the diligence of ants.

  And that was indeed the case. Ants certainly lived a very hardworking life.

  'But even without the severe cold of winter, grasshoppers still couldn't live that long...'

  As he thought back on the story, System considered his own situation. He looked at the lifespan column on [Personal Information Generation]—62 days.

  Once this dark night passed, his lifespan would drop down to 61 days.

  Anyone would be unhappy if they watched as their limited lifespan ticked down in real time. However, System was also gd that he had such a countdown avaible to get sad about in the first pce. If not for that, he would have died suddenly and unexpectedly in te autumn.

  Without thinking too much, he tore off a small section of dry grass and jumped toward the ant team.

  After a whole day of fighting and sparring, he was already very familiar with the worker ants from this bck and brown ant colony.

  If System could successfully deal with the ants' innate fighting instinct, they would be reduced to fools that he could manipute at will.

  Usually after encountering an enemy, these ants would bite onto their opponents tightly and secrete pungent acid that contained pheromones. Other ants that smelled this scent would rush over and secrete even more acid, attracting more and more ants until the opponent either died or escaped.

  System's method of leading this group of ants away was also based on this principle. He would catch an ant and let it cover the chunk of grass with its acid, then use the grass to lead the ants away.

  ...

  System's actions were very smooth. He first caught an unlucky worker ant and forced it to secrete acid onto the grass, then used the pheromone-covered grass to get most of the ants near the scorpion to follow him.

  Step by step, he led these ants to a water puddle two meters away. Finally, he inserted the bit of acid-covered grass into the muddy water.

  Because ants hated touching water, the group of ants kept circling around the puddle. System didn't know if they would forcefully wade into the water at some point in order to reach the grass he'd driven into the mud.

  He didn't waste any further time observing the stupid ants and returned directly to the scorpion's corpse.

  Now that System had prevented the rge ant team from calling their companions for help, he began testing the effectiveness of [Corrosive Mucus] on the two ants that still remained near the scorpion's corpse.

  Although using [Corrosive Mucus] to draw a prison on the ground seemed like a good idea, his entire pn hinged on how effectively the smelly substance would repel the ants.

  After ten minutes of observation, he deemed his test very successful. [Corrosive Mucus] had a strong repulsive effect on both ants.

  If there were no special circumstances, the ants would actively avoid the [Corrosive Mucus], backing away to a distance of three to five centimeters. However, if System provoked the ants, they would ignore the [Corrosive Mucus] and charge directly at him.

  After kicking the two ants away one after the other with his powerful hind legs, he began drawing a prison on the ground with his [Corrosive Mucus].

  This prison wasn't made by drawing solid, uninterrupted lines on the ground. After all, the amount of mucus he could produce was very limited. Instead, he secreted more of it near the route where the ants traveled most often, while only dripping a small amount in other locations.

  If any ants broke into the restricted area due to the poor coverage, he would have to expel them manually.

  ...

  There were very few creatures active at night after the rainstorm. System didn't encounter any of the common mice and mantises he'd seen during the first few days after his rebirth.

  Except for the buzzing of a few mosquitoes flying nearby, System's eating went undisturbed.

  The only problem was that as time went by, he started to feel a little tired because he hadn't rested.

  The scorpion's carapace wasn't as thick as a butterfly's chrysalis, but it was harder. System's mandibles couldn't even leave a mark on it.

  However, his armor-breaking weapon, [Corrosive Mucus], still had a significant effect.

  After the scorpion's carapace was corroded and softened, he cracked it open and began eating the meat underneath.

  The scorpion's flesh had a rich, milky aroma and tasted simir to cherries or strawberries. It reminded him a bit of cream pudding once it had solidified. This kind of meat was incredible, but System couldn't precisely describe its greatness.

  It may not have been the most delicious food he'd eaten so far in this world, but it suited his preferences the most. If the scorpion's meat hadn't suffered from being soaked in rain for a few days, making it lose its freshness, it would no doubt have been even tastier.

  The experience provided by the same weight of scorpion meat was about fifty percent more than caterpilr pupae, which fully complied with System's rule that the deliciousness of a type of food correted with its experience gain.

  However, this scorpion meat wasn't very useful for [Molting and Growth], being less than half as effective as the ants he'd eaten. It seemed that a scorpion's metamorphosis was far less meaningful than an insect's. [TL Note: Scorpions, while simir to insects, are actually arachnids!]

  ...

  After System spent the entire night eating the scorpion, the effect it had on [Molting and Growth] had reduced by more than half. Even though it still greatly suited his appetite, he could only give up on this food.

  Early in the morning, with a slightly swollen abdomen, he returned to the tree hole not far from the ant nest. He decided it was time to rest.

  Although ants passed by from time to time, System now knew how to create an invisible wall thanks to his earlier experiment with [Corrosive Mucus]. If he secreted this substance around the tree hole, any ants that smelled it would actively stay away.

  However, the [Corrosive Mucus] was very votile, and the smell would disappear after a few hours. Fortunately, a few hours would be enough time for System to rest and recover.

  He quietly entered a dormant state in the safety of the tree hole. While in a half-asleep and half-awake state, he pnned out the steps he should take next.

  The previous day's foraging had been quite successful, even though it didn't increase his level as quickly as eating caterpilr pupae.

  Still, at his current speed, he could reach level 9 in three days and level 10 in ten days. [Molting and Growth] would also reach its maximum level at that time.

  ...

  By around noon, the effect of the [Corrosive Mucus] System had pced near the tree hole had weakened greatly, and two ants passed by one after another. Fortunately, they didn't disturb his rest.

  At this time, his body had basically recovered, but he decided to wait a little longer before starting a new round of foraging. Also at this time, System began hearing a steady stream of bird chirps coming from more than ten meters away.

  Due to the rainstorm, he hadn't heard any birdsong for a long time. From this bird's chirps, he could detect misery and sadness.

  The antennae of insects were very sensitive to the direction of sound. System soon discovered that the bird was not up in the sky, but down on the ground instead.

  'Did it get injured and fall to the ground?'

  System specuted that the bird might have been wounded by some hunter in the forest. He had no intention of joining in on the fun and continued recuperating in the tree hole.

  But a few minutes ter, the bird was still chirping. Obviously, no hunter had shown up to finish the bird off.

  System finally decided to take a look at the unlucky bird and crawled out of the hole. Through the weeds in the forest, he saw a bird about twenty centimeters long with brown and white feathers struggling on the ground. It looked like a pheasant, though it seemed to have an unusually small body.

  He also saw some blood on the ground. He didn't know exactly what was wrong with the bird, but it seemed like it could only flutter in pce.

  Perhaps drawn by the scent of blood, an ant search team soon appeared. Now that the ants had found a target, System was confident that an ant army would soon show up.

  He watched and waited quietly, deciding to take the opportunity to rob the ants again and eat some pheasant meat.

  However, the scene that System expected, where the ant army surrounded and killed the crippled pheasant, didn't happen in the end. Instead, the sound of barely audible footsteps gradually drew closer from the dense forest.

  The struggling bird on the ground was finally picked up by a hand, and the owner of that hand happened to be the old druid System had recently considered searching for...