System's Derived Skill [Limb Regeneration] was very effective at healing injuries. As he continued eating the insect eggs, the burning sensation from the formic acid that had spread throughout his body quickly weakened and subsided. In just over ten minutes, the holes where his severed forelegs used to be stopped bleeding, and grayish-white scabs condensed over the wounds.

  With [Limb Regeneration], System wasn't worried that he would remain a crippled grasshopper in the future. All he was really worried about was whether his severed forelegs would heal too slowly. If his injuries couldn't heal for a long time, the bloody smell from his wounds would undoubtedly attract countless insect hunters, which would put him in danger.

  As soon as he saw the bloody scabs that had condensed over his wounds, System's worries faded completely. His focus returned to quickly eating insect eggs while keeping an eye out for any movements nearby.

  ...

  In the end, the bck and red ant didn't come back after being kicked from the pnt. System didn't know whether the ant had forgotten the way back or if it was busy carrying his severed limbs back to the ant nest.

  After eating nearly twenty insect eggs in a row, System's body's length grew to 1.2 centimeters, and he leveled up again. His body rapidly expanded from 1.2 centimeters to 1.6 centimeters, and his exoskeleton and mandibles once again grew stronger.

  However, compared to his body's growth, the improvement to his bloodline wasn't as obvious as when he'd risen from level 3 to level 4. [Insect Adaptability] (8/21) changed to [Insect Adaptability] (9/21), and he also gained a Derived Skill, [Acid Resistance] (1/4), which should be reted to the formic acid that had been released when his forelegs were bitten by the ant.

  ...

  [Acid Resistance] (1/4): A Derived Skill obtained from [Insect Adaptability]. Passive ability. Provides a certain level of resistance to acidic substances.

  ...

  As for the talent System was most focused on, [Molting and Growth], there was no change. He only felt that his blood was now a little thicker.

  Because of these upgrades, System made some specutions about the rules that his body's growth followed.

  His Derived Skills were basically obtained from the talent [Insect Adaptability]. Apart from the [Green Camoufge], [Limb Regeneration], and [Insect Instinct] skills that he'd possessed from the start, the skills [Dark Vision] and [Acid Resistance] had been obtained during his most recent two level ups.

  The former was gained after System strained his eyes while staring out at the dim night scene from beneath the leaf the previous night, while the tter was gained after his forelegs had been corroded by the ant's formic acid.

  Obviously, [Insect Adaptability]'s ability to create Derived Skills was reted to what System experienced before each level up.

  As for the improvement of the talents [Molting and Growth] and [Insect Adaptability], although System wasn't very sure, it should be reted to the food he ate. As long as he ate more nutritious and diverse food, he should be able to significantly improve those two abilities.

  ...

  After briefly pondering over how his skills and talents improved, System continued devouring the delicious insect eggs. He was even hungrier after leveling up and growing rger again.

  Because his body was bigger, his eating speed was now faster. Over a period of just ten minutes, he swallowed four or five eggs. If he continued at this speed, he'd be able to finish eating the entire batch of eggs before it got dark.

  However, just as he finished swallowing an egg, System's hunger disappeared, and the power of [Molting and Growth] in his blood suddenly filled his entire body. His trembling bloodline told him that it was time for his first metamorphosis.

  He endured the urge to molt and tried his best to eat more eggs.

  The feeling from his bloodline and the information from [Personal Information Generation] told him that his body would fall into a short period of weakness after molting and would require a lot of food to recover, so System decided to accumute as many nutritional reserves as possible before molting to ensure the process went smoothly.

  Metamorphosis was not a case where faster was better.

  However, soon afterward, System was forced to leave helplessly. The fishy smell of the eggs had finally attracted more carnivorous creatures. This time, they were two giant bck and brown ants, each two and a half centimeters long.

  If it was still the previous bck and red ant, System might have considered fighting the other party, but facing these two huge ants, he didn't consider resisting at all. He directly chose to jump away.

  He would bully the weak without hesitation, but he would run away without a second thought when facing a strong enemy.

  System became more and more aware of the change in his personality. Although he still possessed some of his previous ways of thinking from back when he'd been human, his thoughts were now closer to those of an insect.

  He shook his insect head gently. He didn't think too much about it and concentrated on preparing for his first metamorphosis instead.

  ...

  Grasshoppers belonged to a branch of insects with an incomplete metamorphosis. They didn't go through the three stages of rva, pupa, and adult like butterflies, ants, flies, and dragonflies.

  After hatching from eggs, young grasshoppers already had bodies simir to those of adults. They only needed to shed their skin to grow.

  It was somewhat simir to the molting of snakes, scorpions, and spiders, but insects go through bigger changes when they molt. After all, no snake or scorpion could change its body structure and grow wings after molting.

  In the time since System had first woken up in this new world, he'd gradually recalled more details from his past life, including a lot of knowledge about insects. He seemed to have done some research on insects in his past life.

  It appeared that he'd raised many cold-blooded creatures. He recalled raising carnivorous insects such as mantises and katydids, arthropods such as spiders and scorpions, amphibians such as frogs, and reptiles such as lizards.

  In his memories, there was a bck and brown tarantu with a ten-centimeter-long body and legs nearly twenty centimeters long. Due to System's own mistake, the tarantu had been fed live crickets during its molting process and wound up being bitten to death by the crickets.

  In this world, the molting of insects was basically the same as in System's previous life. Their bodies were extremely soft and fragile just after molting. For safety's sake, what System had to do now was find a safe pce to molt.

  The instinct from his bloodline guided System to find the cool back of a leaf as soon as possible as a preferred pce to molt. However, although that was easy, it wasn't safe enough.

  After searching for an hour, System finally found a tree simir to a pine tree. A rge fallen leaf had blown over and gotten stuck to one of the tree's branches. The space under this leaf was the optimal molting pce System was looking for.

  The branch that System chose was more than one meter above the ground, far away from the numerous ants crawling on the ground below. The tree also emitted a faint pungent smell, which made System feel a little uncomfortable. The scent seemed to have a weak insect-repelling effect, making this an ideal location for molting.

  System quickly crawled under the leaf. After firmly tching onto the tree branch with the spurs on his legs, he began his first molt according to the guidance from his bloodline.

  His entire epidermis and exoskeleton gradually softened, and his body's flesh and blood began absorbing the essence of the softened exoskeleton, leaving behind only a thin yer of dregs as the outermost yer.

  A rger exoskeleton gradually formed in pce of System's original exoskeleton, and he felt an itchy and numb feeling on his back, as if something new was growing there.

  The power from his bloodline filled his entire body, and he naturally acquired a new Derived Skill, [Smelly Mucus].

  ...

  [Smelly Mucus] (3/7): An ability grasshoppers acquire after their first metamorphosis. Provides the ability to secrete a special, smelly liquid to get rid of predators.

  ...

  A new organ had formed inside his mouth, which was a gnd that had the ability to secrete [Smelly Mucus]. By secreting this substance, grasshoppers would have a chance to escape from many predators.

  However, compared to the natural changes in his body due to metamorphosis, System's attention was more focused on his bloodline. His bloodline seemed to be making an inexplicable sound.

  [Choose!]