Because he'd consumed so much slime before advancing to level 10, System's [Corrosive Mucus] (10/15) upgraded and became [Corrosive Mucus] (11/15).
As System had long deduced, levels 10 and 11 were two completely different tiers. His [Corrosive Mucus] had been improved in all aspects, including spray distance, mucus capacity, viscosity, and corrosiveness.
The most significant improvement was to the signs of life his mucus had gained the first time he'd eaten slime.
After the skill reached level 11, the [Corrosive Mucus] secreted by System's gnds could actually move. Although it couldn't bounce around like a slime, System could control his mucus to slowly wriggle on the ground. It moved about as fast as a snail could crawl.
His [Corrosive Mucus] now felt like an extension of his body, and controlling it was as easy as moving his own legs.
However, his ability to manipute the mucus came with some major limitations. First, it couldn't be too far away from him; his control only extended to a range of about twenty centimeters. Moreover, after the mucus was separated from the gnds in his throat for more than a minute, it would become inactive, and he could no longer make it move.
In short, simply gaining the ability to control his mucus wasn't enough to make it an effective means of attack. Still, even without controlling it, his improved [Corrosive Mucus] had already become an excellent hunting tool.
By repeatedly spitting his newly improved mucus and utilizing the powerful mobility of his grasshopper body, System successfully hunted a flower spider nearly eight centimeters long that was disguised as a yellow and white flower.
The hunting process sted a little over an hour, mostly because System was being very cautious. After unching each mucus attack, in order to prevent the spider from charging over, he would immediately jump another half a meter further away. Once the spider calmed back down, System would approach to a distance of thirty centimeters, then squirt out another shot of [Corrosive Mucus].
While the spider was initially willing to fight him, it started running away ter on. Eventually, it even shrank into a ball and pretended to be dead.
It wasn't until an hour ter, after he spat mucus several times and threw a number of twigs and pebbles without seeing any reaction from the spider, that System finally confirmed it was dead.
The spider's body was obviously resistant to [Corrosive Mucus]. System had wasted a lot of his mucus while hunting it, and even eating the spider's entire body hadn't made up for the consumption.
After that, he gave up on using [Corrosive Mucus] to hunt strong enemies like spiders for the time being and decided to return his focus to robbing ants instead.
However, by being able to kill the highly venomous spider without getting hurt, System had undoubtedly climbed up a level in this forest's food chain.
...
At noon, System visited his old friend, the slime, who was once again resting quietly in a mud puddle.
System jumped his way to the top of the tallest tree nearby. After estimating the time, he took a look at his status with [Personal Information Generation] and saw that he had 51 days left to live.
He used [Personal Information Generation] to look through other information at random and discovered that his estimated combat power had improved to 0.8 at some point.
After increasing from 0.4 at level 9 to 0.7 at level 10, his estimated combat power had once again risen to 0.8.
System had never really understood what combat power meant in [Personal Information Generation]. He also had no idea how his combat power was calcuted. Plus, besides himself, he had no way of knowing what any creature's combat power was.
Each time his combat power improved, he only knew that he'd become stronger. As for how much stronger he'd become, he had no idea.
System shook his head and gnced at the sun hanging high in the sky, then looked far away in one direction.
'It's coming...'
Since three days ago, System could feel a faint fluctuation in his body from an unknown aura at this time every day. Sure enough, his blood soon began to tremble slightly.
This time, he'd come to the top of the tree precisely so that he could feel the aura more clearly.
This was a strange and familiar aura that resonated with his grasshopper bloodline. It seemed to be calling out to him, unconsciously making him want to fly in that direction.
'Is it you?'
A familiar figure appeared in System's mind—his kindred, the grasshopper queen.
From this aura, System felt something familiar. It seemed like the grasshopper queen was summoning other grasshoppers. She wanted to be like those scenes from System's bloodline and lead a swarm of grasshoppers to fly over mountains and kes, setting out together to explore this vast world.
From the top of the tree, System's compound eyes could see twenty or thirty vague figures flying out of the nearby trees. They should be other grasshoppers. The grasshoppers flew through the air above the forest in the direction the aura was coming from.
At the same time, with a few piercing chirps, a rge red and brown bird flew up from a tree and began chasing the flying grasshoppers.
'Is it really worth it? It's already this dangerous, and you still want to explore the world?'
Seeing fellow members of his species being chased by the bird, System silently jumped down from the top of the tree, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable in his heart. Even he couldn't tell exactly why he felt so uncomfortable.
He quickly resumed his old job of robbing ants. It seemed that as long as he robbed ants, he would feel better...
Two days ago, System had found a tree hole high up in a retively thick tree. The hole wasn't very big and couldn't accommodate his body.
However, because the tree hole was high off the ground, few ants passed by, so this hole had become a warehouse where he could safely store food.
Usually, after grabbing some non-perishable food from an ant, he would stash it in the tree hole, then plug the hole with pnt leaves and mucus.
The weather had become cooler these days, and System could often see scattered leaves falling in the woods.
Autumn was getting closer.
He discovered that the pnts in this forest were very strange. Some were obviously tropical pnts, while others were subtropical. He couldn't analyze what the climate here was like or whether it would snow in the winter.
He knew that he had to make more preparations. Otherwise, even if he completed his third metamorphosis, he would still be a cold-blooded creature, which meant he would quickly turn into a lump of ice the first time it snowed.
System thought that his best option was to dig a hole underground. As long as he had a hole to nest in that was at least two meters deep, he could effectively withstand the severe winter cold.
Although grasshoppers didn't have any sort of hibernation ability, the dormant state of an insect was still quite useful. When the time came, he would bring some food into his nest so that he could survive the winter.
If the forest didn't freeze in the winter, that would be even better, and he could continue going out to look for food instead.
After deciding on his pn for the winter, System began studying the structure of ant nests whenever he took a break from robbing ants for food. He also started looking for a suitable location where he could dig a winter nest.
...
Five days passed. Since [Molting and Growth] had reached its maximum level, System was much less picky about his food.
His experience bar had increased by half, and he estimated that he would reach level 11 in another five days.
However, it was a pity that his slime friend, who had been with him for more than ten days, had finally colpsed and fallen apart while battling ants. It had been drowned beneath a tide of ants and had died completely...
Over the past five days, the special aura sent out by the grasshopper queen had become stronger and stronger.
In the early morning one day, System, who was busy snatching food from ants, heard the familiar buzzing sound of insect wings. He looked over to find the grasshopper queen flying straight toward him.
