Jump, grab, jump, jump. In the briefest of moments, System successfully captured a bck and brown ant and hopped away gracefully.

  Whether it was speed, strength, or size, System held an absolute advantage over these ants. As long as he didn't make foolish mistakes and avoided fighting head-on with an ant army, it was very easy for him to catch a single ant. After all, although ants had a certain degree of vigince, they rarely ran away.

  When ants encountered an abnormal situation, the first thing they thought of wasn't running away; it was biting the enemy.

  System's ant-capturing process went very smoothly, but he was unfamiliar with handling the aftermath.

  His four forelegs easily caught the smaller ant, but the ant wasn't going down without a fight. It directly bit the base of one of System's forelegs with its mandibles.

  In fact, even if System tried to drop the ant at this point, it would still remain tched onto his body. Rather than saying System was holding the ant, it was more accurate to say they were locked onto each other.

  The exoskeleton around System's forelimb was slightly injured, and he felt a burning sensation from the ant's formic acid.

  Back when he'd metamorphosed into an adult, System's exoskeleton had become much stronger. With that added defense along with the Derived Skills [Limb Regeneration] and [Acid Resistance], this injury wasn't actually serious.

  With a bite from System's huge mandibles that were the same size as the ant's head, the bck and brown ant's head and body were quickly separated.

  But an ant was an ant. Even if only the head was left, its mandibles were still cmped onto System's foreleg tightly.

  In order to avoid further damage to his limb, System used his [Corrosive Mucus] to melt the ant's skull and mandibles. Afterward, he successfully removed the ant's head from his foreleg.

  After eating a few bites of the ant's chocote-like skull, System jumped back to where the ants were scuffling with the tadpole in the mud.

  Unlike ordinary insect hunters that consumed their prey immediately after catching it, System's actions were more efficient. He wanted to kill more ants now, then eat them all at once ter.

  Ants had low intelligence and poor eyesight. Although System's sudden appearance had confused the group of ants for a while, they didn't discover anything unusual and resumed their battle with the tadpole in the mud.

  System did the same thing again and caught a second ant.

  This time, the ants were obviously more alert than they were the previous time. Two ants even chased after him for half a meter.

  However, a distance of half a meter was just a simple jump for System, and he easily shook off the ants' pursuit.

  He quickly figured out why the ants had started chasing him immediately after he'd captured the second ant. It should have been due to the pungent sour smell that the ant's formic acid had left on his foreleg. Ants had poor vision, but their sense of smell was extremely sensitive.

  When carrying away the second ant, System was much more careful, and he used two of his forelegs to push the ant's head away. Although his forelegs were scratched by the ant's mandibles many times, the ant always focused its mandible attacks on System's body.

  In the end, System was able to bite off the second ant's head without suffering any injuries.

  While munching on the ant's head, he began thinking about how to remove the sour smell that the ant had left on his body.

  There were still many puddles of water remaining in the forest. He would definitely be able to remove some of the sour smell by hopping into the water. However, instead of bathing in water, he pnned to use a special method, which was his [Corrosive Mucus].

  His [Corrosive Mucus] had evolved from [Smelly Mucus] and still retained the previous skill's characteristic foul smell. System felt that this smell would be able to cover up the scent of the ant's formic acid.

  After secreting a few drops of foul-smelling [Corrosive Mucus] onto his wound, he attacked the group of ants again.

  ...

  As System expected, the smelly substance had successfully covered the smell of the ant's formic acid. This time, the remaining ants didn't chase him very far. They just searched for a while near the tadpole's body, then continued their tussle with the dying tadpole in the mud.

  While System's attempt at using [Corrosive Mucus] to cover up the formic acid smell was successful, that success was soon followed by a failure, as he made another mistake while capturing a third ant. During its struggles, the third ant managed to escape System's grasp, and System once again found himself with an ant's mandibles firmly tched onto his foreleg.

  However, after the issue with the third ant, System's movements gradually became more skilled.

  Dozens of ants arrived one after another to dismember and carry away the tadpole's body. By noon, System had successfully hunted nine ants.

  After the third ant, he'd never gotten injured again. He'd gradually figured out the ants' attack pattern.

  They would only attack according to instinct, which was easy to predict, and they wouldn't let go once they bit onto their prey.

  Based on the ants' characteristic of not letting go after biting something, System had invented a specialized tactic for hunting them. While capturing a fifth ant, he'd held a torn-off bit of grass in his mandibles. After grabbing the ant, he'd forcefully stuffed the grass into the ant's mandibles. The ant, now firmly tched onto the grass, no longer had any ability to threaten System.

  He'd also hunted the sixth and seventh ants in the same way, but when it came to the eighth ant, he didn't use the grass again. By this time, he was already very familiar with these ants, and could easily hunt them even without using grass to remove their ability to attack.

  ...

  System moved the corpses of the ants he'd killed onto a low tree branch, then began to eat.

  He could feel that his [Molting and Growth] talent was absorbing some nutrients from the ants' corpses. As long as he kept hunting different kinds of insects like this, he estimated that [Molting and Growth] would reach its maximum level of 13 by the time his level hit 10 at the test.

  It wasn't just [Molting and Growth] that was improving, either. As System ate the ants' gnds that secreted formic acid, he felt that his [Corrosive Mucus] was getting even more corrosive. He estimated that this ability would advance when he reached level 9.

  After looking at his experience bar with [Personal Information Generation], System estimated that if he ate all nine of the ant corpses, his experience bar would reach a quarter full.

  The nutrition provided by these nine ants, along with the cricket from earlier, was equivalent to that of a caterpilr pupa.

  After careful calcution, fifteen ants were equivalent to one caterpilr pupa.

  It must be said that if System wasn't eager to improve the level of [Molting and Growth], his best choice would no doubt be to guard the caterpilr pupae he'd left behind.

  While System munched on the ant corpses, he began pnning his next move. He could continue hunting these ants, but eating too many of one type of creature would reduce that creature's effectiveness at improving [Molting and Growth]. His time would be better spent finding and eating a wider variety of creatures.

  System thought of many pns for these ants, such as driving tigers to swallow wolves. If he used a stick to collect the acid produced by these ants, he could then use the acid to direct the ant colony to attack any enemies he couldn't deal with on his own, such as spiders.

  However, that was much more easily said than done. Not to mention the fact that spiderwebs were generally high up and difficult for an ant colony to attack, even if System managed to knock the spiders down to the ground, the spiders wouldn't necessarily be killed by the ants.

  Not all species of ants were marching ants that could dispatch millions of troops at any time.

  If hundreds of ants and a spider were pced in a bottle, the spider would definitely be torn to pieces by the ants. However, if the ants and spider were pced in the wild, the spider would have already escaped as soon as it saw how bad the situation looked.

  ...

  About two hours before the sun set, System finished eating all of the remaining ant bodies.

  With his meal complete, he continued on his way, but he soon encountered a rge number of ants again.