Chapter 5: Skill Fragments and Evolution Points!

On the fifth day of being reborn as an ant, Bates climbed out of his ant nest for the first time.

The ants in the game may have been more powerful than the ants in the real world, but leaving the nest was still a struggle. The cave wasn't dug out from the ground, it was located on a desolate hill, where the exit was half a meter above the ground. This was so that the nest would not be flooded, in the event of a rainstorm.

After leaving the nest, Bates was in no hurry to rush away, instead, he decided to follow the route the other worker ants were taking.

He smelled two scents along the way. These two scents represented 'gathering' and 'fighting'.

Among the ant species, there were only two scents. One signified an enemy had appeared ('fighting'), and the other indicated that the worker ants had found a creature they could eat ('gathering').

In either case, it was Bates' first battle in this world!

He was excited, and followed the direction of the two scents. Just over ten meters away was the battlefield.

He saw an earthworm, that was about ten centimeters long, struggling around, desperately trying to fight off the hundreds of black mother ants that had swarmed its body.

A single ant alone could not cause any harm to the earthworm. However, when hundreds of ants gathered together, they could torture the earthworm to death and turn it into food in the ant nest.

As soon as he saw the fight, Bates joined the battle. If it had been any other creature, he may not have been so eager.

However, facing an earthworm that was purely a meat shield, was the equivalent of gaining free gene and evolution points.

Ordinary ants would bite with all their might, and only after a long time would they be able to make a small wound on the earthworm's body.

However, Bates' four attributes far exceeded the limits of the ant race. Furthermore, his [ strengthened fangs ] skill injured the earthworm, and it writhed violently.

As expected, Bates saw new messages pop-up:

[ eating... gained 4 experience points... ]

[ eating... gained 3 experience points... ]

[ Ding! You have swallowed earthworm meat, gained 1 earthworm gene. ]

One earthworm gene was not much better than the green worm gene, but it was a good start.

Feeling encouraged, Bates' gnawing sped up, and he tore off small pieces of flesh from the earthworm's body and swallowed them.

"Eating... gained 3 experience points..."

"Ding! You have swallowed earthworm meat, gained 1 earthworm gene point."

"Ding! You have swallowed earthworm meat, gained a skill fragment!"

'Skill fragment?' Bates stopped, and he quickly opened his attribute panel.

On his second attribute panel, there was a new row of data.

[ gene points ] : green worm gene 3 points, earthworm gene 2 points

[ evolution points ] : 0 points

[ skill fragment ] : heal 1/10

As Bates' gaze stopped over the third row of attributes, he suddenly recalled some information:

[ heal: passive skill. When suffering from bleeding and serious injuries, the effects will be slightly reduced, and your wound-healing speed will be slightly increased. When there is enough food, you can slowly heal your wounds by eating. ]

Clearly, this was a very powerful skill!

As an ant, Bates can not drink healing potions, find a healer, or even have a healing skill! Once injured, all he could do was wait for death. However now, with the appearance of the heal skill, his chances of surviving increased greatly!

The only downside was that this was only a skill fragment, not a whole skill. If he wanted to learn the [ heal ] skill, he would still need to obtain nine more skill fragments.

Bates looked at the earthworm with hunger in his eyes, as he continued to tear away at the earthworm's flesh, getting faster and faster. With his ability to devour and evolve, Bates' appetite was immense.

The earthworm's flesh would be converted into experience or gene points and skill fragments. This allowed Bates to easily devour creatures that were several times larger than his own body.

Even so, it took him a few minutes to completely devour the earthworm.

After losing the enemy (food) to Bates, the group of worker ants waved their antennae in confusion, and continued to search for new food.

Bates, who felt a lot happier now, opened his attribute panel, and after eating the worm, the first attribute panel had not changed. His class and four attributes had not increased, but the second attribute panel was slightly improved.

[ gene points ] : green worm gene 3 points, earthworm gene 5 points.

[ evolution points ] : 1 point

[ skill fragment ] : heal 3/10

A living earthworm provided Bates with five earthworm genes, three heal skill fragments, and one evolution point.

Seven more heal skill fragments were required before he could complete the skill. This meant that Bates had to devour at least four more earthworms.

Participating in the hunt of the earthworm provided Bates with one evolution point. It didn't seem like a lot, but as long as he had five evolution points, he could begin evolving!

The thought of being able to evolve brightened Bates' mood.

Bates knew he wouldn't find this difficult. Even just relying on his fellow ants had earned him a complete hunt and one evolution point.

As long as he could hunt and devour four more random insects, it would be enough.

Closing his attribute panel, Bates crawled towards the ant nest.

Instead of having to search for prey, he preferred to rely on the ant nest, as he could just wait for one of the worker ants to find insects to hunt.

Compared to ordinary ants, he was already powerful enough, but compared to the entire jungle, he was still at the bottom level. There were still countless creatures that could easily kill him.

If he acted rashly, it was more than likely an accident would end Bates' life.

After a while, Bates, who was guarding the nest, smelt the gathering scent. He set off straight away, and when he got to the source of the sent, he found a cricket with a broken leg.

Compared to the earthworm, a cricket with a broken leg was much weaker. Bates only had to bite the cricket's neck once, before he was able to swallow the whole insect. This three-centimeter-long cricket provided Bates with two cricket genes and one evolution point.

He continued to hunt more crickets, and after an entire day, Bates had killed five insects and gathered all the evolution points needed for him to start evolving!