The strange aura had nothing to do with the pitcher pnt. It was emanating from an unknown tree about ten meters away. The tree looked simir to an ordinary popr, and its trunk was about the thickness of a human thigh.

  System had already eaten this tree's leaves before, so there happened to be data describing them in his [Database]. They tasted slightly sweet, but only provided five percent as much experience as caterpilr pupae of equal weight.

  As he approached the tree, he began to feel its peculiar aura more strongly. Even in the humid forest, he could detect a hint of dryness.

  This dry feeling wasn't strong. If it weren't for the powerful perception ability of his antennae, System would likely have had difficulty detecting it.

  He jumped onto one of the tree's branches and started eating a leaf. The slightly sweet fvor of the leaf matched the description in [Information Reading], but the experience provided was five times as much as the original leaves.

  After the lizard corpse, this was the second food he'd eaten where the increase in experience didn't match how good it tasted.

  System jumped up onto one of the tree's branches and carefully observed what was different about it, but aside from the dry aura it was emitting, he didn't notice anything unusual.

  'Is it some kind of special magical pnt?'

  Thinking back to the wild boar that was covered in fmes and the old druid whose aura contained a sense of nature's purity, System specuted that both this tree and the lizard should belong to magical species that possessed supernatural powers.

  The reason for the abnormal experience gain should be that while eating this food, he'd also absorbed the special energy attached to it. It was this special energy that was providing such a significant amount of additional experience.

  In reality, his body couldn't digest and assimite this special energy, so his taste buds were unable to detect any additional fvor.

  It was very likely that as long as his body continued to absorb this energy, once the special energy had accumuted to a certain level, the quantitative increase would lead to a qualitative change, and something special would happen to his body.

  However, these were all inferences System drew based on the subtle feelings of his body, which may be very different from the actual situation.

  Neither his Derived Skill [Personal Information Generation] nor the inheritance from his bloodline had any information about this magical power.

  He specuted that he would find some clues about this after his third metamorphosis, since the grasshopper queen's mental communication ability had been obtained during her third metamorphosis.

  Because he didn't know what the consequences of eating a rge amount of these leaves would be, System chose to move on after eating a few bites. This would help avoid unknown changes to his body that would hinder the improvement of his [Molting and Growth] talent.

  In the final analysis, System still knew too little about this world.

  After arriving in this world, except for the grasshopper queen he'd met, he had no one to communicate with. Everything he'd learned so far had depended on his own investigation.

  ...

  Soon after System resumed his exploration of the forest, he encountered yet another magical life form.

  This time, it wasn't a pnt with a special aura. Instead, it was a light brown ball of some gel-like substance, about twenty-five centimeters in diameter, which was emitting a faint acidic odor.

  This gel-like ball slowly moved along the ground while absorbing rotten branches and decayed leaves, which it quickly dissolved. It seemed to be eating them.

  The gel-like creature seemed to be very simir to a traditional slime from fantasy stories.

  Slimes had appeared in many games that had magical settings in System's previous life. They had weak combat capabilities and fed on vegetation or various types of waste. They were usually the monsters the protagonist fought at the beginning of the game.

  A slime's getinous body was full of corrosive goo, which could digest many different types of debris, making its role in the forest that of a scavenger.

  In addition to its acidic smell that corresponded to the dry aura of the magical tree, the slime also exuded a unique herbal aroma that greatly attracted System.

  As he watched the slime moving slowly among the dead leaves, System decided to give it a taste.

  Not to mention the tantalizing herbal aroma, the digestive fluid in the slime's body would definitely promote his [Corrosive Mucus] to a certain extent, making it worth a try.

  He quickly jumped over.

  Right when he reached a position one meter away from the slime, the blood in System's body suddenly trembled.

  His [Insect Instinct] issued a warning!

  As soon as he received the warning, System's mind immediately became clear, and he froze in pce.

  His thoughts and actions just now had been very, very wrong. Why would he, who had always been so cautious, suddenly decide to rush toward the slime without any precautions and start eating it?

  He adjusted the antennae on his head, and the strange herbal fragrance emitted by the slime entered his mind again. He seemed to have entered a strange state of rexation.

  However, this time, System was already alert.

  He shook his head to clear away the fog. After a little thought, he grabbed a five-centimeter-long bit of twig and hopped his way over to a branch stretched out over the slime. System took aim and tossed the twig down onto the slime from above.

  The twig nded directly on the slime, then bounced off onto the ground.

  Upon sensing the impact of the twig, the wobbly slime suddenly shrank in on itself. The creature then trembled and jumped out violently. The slime nded directly on top of the twig, which was soon absorbed and trapped inside. The whole process happened in an instant.

  The herbal fragrance emitted by the slime didn't represent how delicious its body was. It was simply used to lure in, trap, and kill insects!

  Slimes could be easily killed by humans, but to insects, they were a deadly predator.

  When he saw the miserable fate of the twig, System's body trembled unconsciously. If it weren't for the reminder from his Derived Skill [Insect Instinct], that would have been him getting swallowed by the slime instead.

  Although he had [Corrosive Mucus] to make his body resistant to corrosive substances, which meant he wouldn't be easily digested, being swallowed into the slime's body would undoubtedly result in his death by suffocation.

  Species from the magical world may not be as simple as their video game depictions implied. They also had unexpected habits and abilities of their own and may even feed on insects.

  After this lesson, he decided to be doubly careful when encountering other unknown creatures in the future, so as not to make the same mistake again.

  ...

  After jumping away, it wasn't long before he found some reddish-brown ants. He followed the trail of these ants and quickly located their nest. Unlike the bck and brown ant nest, this nest was built inside a rotten tree.

  The reddish-brown ants were a little under a centimeter long. Their nest was smaller than the bck and brown ants' nest, but there were still many ants coming and going.

  While System was watching the thousands of ants wandering around the nest, an idea suddenly popped into his mind.

  What would happen if he led the slime over to this ant nest?