System moved through the central passageway in the temporary nest. As he got closer and closer to the nest's exit, he began to smell the scent of many worker ants and hear the sounds of many ants rushing around. It seemed like there were many workers patrolling near his nest.

  'Did Shava command them?'

  As he emerged from the nest's entrance, more than one hundred nearby ants rushed toward him in a surging wave.

  It was clear that Shava's ability to command the ants hadn't improved significantly. These workers still regarded System as an enemy and would attack without hesitation as soon as they saw him.

  System didn't jump away. The wings on his back, now covered with complex patterns, casually fluttered open. Like a feather blown by the breeze, he gently rose up into the air in flight.

  After his third metamorphosis, System's body and wings had changed significantly. His body was now lighter and his wings had become more flexible.

  System couldn't expin what specific structural changes had taken pce inside his wings, but they were obviously more useful than before. He could easily control his body and was now able to hover in the air.

  In addition, the sound his wings made when he flew was extremely quiet. It was no longer like his earliest days of adulthood, where as long as he fpped his wings, there would be snapping and roaring sounds.

  System fpped his wings gently and flew above the group of worker ants.

  As he rose into the air, the group of workers didn't continue chasing him. Instead, they began to wiggle their antennae, quickly returning to their patrol routes around System's temporary nest.

  System didn't continue watching the group of workers after he rose into the air. He suddenly detected a hint of Shava's scent. Following the unique smell in the air, he soon found her lying next to a sapling a few meters away.

  ...

  After two days, the wounds on Shava's body had condensed into light gray scabs.

  Aside from the severed antenna on Shava's head that appeared to have regrown a bud of flesh, System noticed that her other missing limbs showed no signs of regeneration. It seemed like Shava didn't have the [Limb Regeneration] ability.

  He chose not to disturb her immediately and instead hovered nearby to watch her from a distance. Even if they were several meters apart, with his current vision, he could clearly and easily see her every move.

  He felt that his eyes were sharper than an eagle's now. He could even vaguely see a fragment of a dead leaf floating high above near the clouds in the sky.

  Shaking his insect head, System concentrated on observing the nearby Shava.

  Shava, who only had one limb left, was obviously much more flexible now than she had been right after she'd sustained her serious injuries two days earlier.

  Her abdomen seemed to have become a second limb. System watched as Shava used her remaining left forelimb and abdomen to push off of the ground and jump forward. She opened her huge mandibles in the air and bit fiercely into a sapling!

  After biting the tiny tree, Shava checked the marks she'd left on the trunk, then slowly moved back to her original position. Once more, she pushed herself forward, leaping into the air and biting the tree.

  System observed that there were at least dozens of wounds on the trunk. Shava had clearly been practicing on this tree for a long time.

  'Is it because of the images I showed her?'

  System recalled the mental messages he'd transmitted to Shava before completing his metamorphosis, as well as the various scenes featuring the knight that he'd imagined and sent to her.

  In the scenes created from System's imagination, there had been a knight who'd always practiced by chopping at a wooden stake with an iron sword.

  Perhaps Shava was practicing like this because of those images. Although she didn't have a big sword, she was born with a pair of huge mandibles, so she practiced by biting with those instead.

  System didn't think that the human knight's training method could be applied to insects. On top of that, the contents of the video hadn't even been real. It had only been a fantasy scenario that he'd dreamed up in his mind.

  System thought that instead of practicing like this, it would be better for Shava to spend her time eating more food so that her body could grow rger. That was the correct method of progression for insects.

  Moreover, her current body was already disabled, so this kind of practice wouldn't produce any results at all.

  System decided to stop her from wasting time on such unproductive practice. However, after watching Shava bite into the small tree two more times, he stopped. A fsh of blue light seemed to pass through his dark green compound eyes.

  After opening the [Data Bank] in his [Tools Menu], System carefully compared Shava's three consecutive attacks. He discovered that his feeling just now had indeed been correct.

  Shava was making progress. She'd take a moment to think after each bite, then fine tune the process of her next attack on the tree. System couldn't observe the strength of each bite clearly, but the speed at which Shava leaped toward the tree was getting a little bit faster each time.

  "Is it a coincidence, or maybe the hidden potential of an insect? Could it be that Shava is simply gifted?"

  System stopped and quietly observed Shava's practice while using his [Tools Menu] to record and count her attacks.

  Over a period of one hour, Shava had bitten the tree 131 times, and 117 of her attacks had been faster than the previous one. In a full comparison, her attacking speed after one hour was nearly a quarter higher than the first leap System had seen her perform.

  After Shava bit the tree over a dozen more times, the two-centimeter-thick and badly damaged sapling was finally bitten completely in two.

  Although System was reluctant to admit it, practicing like a human did indeed work for Shava, and it even seemed that the effect was very good.

  ...

  After cutting down the little tree, Shava seemed to have consumed all of her physical energy. She started eating the food that was piled up next to her.

  Seeing this, System flew down from the high branch he'd been resting on and used [Mental Connection] on Shava. She was stunned for a moment, her insect face revealing a look of confusion, but soon her emotions transformed into joy. She excitedly crawled her broken body in front of System.

  System saw the stinger on her abdomen suddenly stretch out, and he was very confused. Could it be that Shava was going to attack him with her stinger?

  Impossible!

  Shava suddenly turned her body over, then stabbed the stinger on her abdomen into the soil. She actually stood up by using her stinger to support her body.

  Shava, like a human, pced her remaining limb on her chest, then moved into a very strange posture.

  System's mandibles unconsciously began to twitch, and he felt a little embarrassed. He really couldn't understand what Shava was doing with such weird actions.

  Confused, he asked, "What are you doing?"

  "Swear!"

  The mental message from Shava was full of pride and dignity.

  "Swear? Uh...was what you just did a knight's oath?"

  "Yes!" Shava answered excitedly.

  System's mandibles again twitched uncontrolbly. After seeing Shava's embarrassing actions, he felt that sending her images of the knight he'd imagined had been a mistake.

  What a mess he was making of this perfectly good ant!