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Chapter 8 – Skill Tiers

  As soon as he'd seen the fire approaching from a distance, System had immediately jumped to the opposite side of the tree he was on to hide.

  Insects were very flexible and reacted quickly to environmental changes.

  Unfortunately, his chosen hiding pce wasn't completely safe, and he was still hit by the heat wave the creature emitted. One of his antennae was bckened a bit, and had obviously been burned.

  Fortunately, except for his fragile antenna, the parts of System's body that got hit by the heat wave didn't have any obvious injuries.

  The creature covered in fire that rushed past the tree resembled a wild boar. Not long after it sped by, four or five green-skinned creatures holding weapons appeared behind the boar. They looked somewhat simir to goblins in a fantasy world.

  The green-skinned monsters shouted as they chased after the boar, soon disappearing into the dense forest.

  The wild boar that could emit fire and the creatures that looked like goblins undoubtedly told System that the world he was in was a magical world like those described in novels or games in his previous life.

  'A magical world...'

  A few moments ter, System sighed, then stopped thinking about it. As a grasshopper, it made no difference what kind of world he lived in.

  Compared to those powerful creatures that could use mysterious powers, System was more afraid of the ordinary birds and lizards that could eat him at any time.

  He gently rubbed the discolored antenna on his head, which had suffered a lot of damage when it was hit by the wave of heat. Although it could still wiggle around, it had lost almost all of its original functionality. It would probably take some time for his body to repair it.

  With only one functional antenna, System's ability to keep himself banced became much worse. If the spurs on his legs didn't have such an excellent gripping ability, he might even have fallen over whenever he tried to jump.

  ...

  The ground in the dense forest was very wet, so the fmes released by the wild boar didn't cause a forest fire. The fmes burning in several pces were quickly extinguished, leaving behind only a burnt smell.

  The dozens of butterfly chrysalides that had been directly facing the heat wave were still intact, though some of the pupae inside them were wiggling from time to time after feeling the sudden burst of heat. It seemed like the heat insution ability of a chrysalis wasn't very good.

  System looked at the chrysalides and shook his head helplessly. He had no way to deal with them for now.

  However, because of the sudden appearance of the fming boar, System had found a new source of food.

  He activated his Derived Skill [Information Reading] and jumped toward the path the fming boar had taken. There was a high possibility that the corpses of some unlucky insects would appear on this burnt path.

  As System had expected, after jumping only a few meters away, he found a green katydid lying on the ground. It was on its back, and its legs were twitching constantly. The katydid's antennae were burnt, and half of its body had turned somewhat yellow due to suffering burns.

  Katydids looked simir to grasshoppers, but they were rger and had sharper mandibles. They were fairly typical omnivorous insects.

  The katydid in front of System was seven or eight centimeters long, which was about four times the size of his own body. If this katydid hadn't been dead or seriously injured, System would have definitely jumped as far away as he could to avoid it.

  He immediately found the best angle of attack, and quickly bit the vulnerable joint connecting the burnt insect's head to the rest of its body!

  The katydid's legs scratched wildly, as its body still possessed some awareness, but its filing legs completely failed to reach System.

  He soon managed to bite the katydid's head off completely.

  Now that it was dead, he began eating with peace of mind. If the katydid had only been temporarily dazed due to the heat wave, and he didn't kill it before he starting eating, the injured katydid could have been the one to kill him instead.

  System used his mandibles to tear apart the katydid's soft abdomen. He greedily swallowed its flesh and blood. Unexpectedly, he found dozens of small, oval-shaped eggs flowing out of the katydid's abdomen. If not for the accident caused by the fming boar, it might have started to y eggs within a few days.

  Katydid meat tasted delicious, and its fvor was very simir to a rich cheese. The tiny eggs also had a wonderful fvor. They were simir to banana cream pudding, and were only slightly less efficient for his body's growth than the katydid's meat.

  As he looked over his data with [Personal Information Generation], System estimated that he would have to eat about one-third of this katydid in order to reach level 6 and undergo another round of growth.

  The katydid's meat was dense and nutritious. After eating for about fifteen minutes, System's abdomen was already swollen. It was obviously difficult for him to quickly digest this nutritious food.

  He could only repeatedly jump around in circles to exercise so that he could speed up his body's digestion.

  After almost two hours, he'd eaten nearly one-third of the katydid's corpse. By then, his abdomen was swollen to an incredible degree, like a grasshopper about to y eggs.

  His experience had also reached the peak of level 5 at this time, and he soon began to level up.

  System's body felt sore and numb all over, and his stomach started rapidly digesting and absorbing the food inside. His nearly 2.5-centimeter-long body grew rger again, reaching 3.2 centimeters in length, and the wing buds on his back further extended by one-third.

  His [Molting and Growth] talent didn't increase in level this time, but he could clearly feel that the amount of power stored inside his blood had grown. As long as he continued eating nutritious food, the level of [Molting and Growth] would definitely increase.

  At the same time, System's [Insect Adaptability] (9/21) increased by two more levels, reaching [Insect Adaptability] (11/21).

  He felt the power of [Insect Adaptability] in his blood become more active, and a mysterious scene, somewhat like a movie from his old life, was transmitted to his mind.

  In the movie, System transformed into a strange-looking green-tailed grasshopper and followed tens of millions of other grasshoppers as they flew over mountains and kes. They even flew past frozen terrain covered with gciers and burning mountains surrounded by va.

  In the movie transmitted from his bloodline, System had seen countless colorful worlds. He even felt a strong urge to fly with those other grasshoppers.

  When he came back to his senses from the movie sent by [Insect Adaptability], all of his Derived Skills that had been obtained from [Insect Adaptability] had upgraded.

  [Insect Instinct] (2/5) was upgraded to [Insect Instinct] (3/5), [Limb Regeneration] (2/11) was upgraded to [Limb Regeneration] (4/11), [Dark Vision] (2/5) was upgraded to [Dark Vision] (3/5), and [Acid Resistance] (1/4) was upgraded to [Acid Resistance] (2/4).

  The injured antenna on his head had also been restored to its original state at some point, and he'd acquired a new Derived Skill, [Fire Resistance] (2/7).

  ...

  [Fire Resistance] (2/7): A Derived Skill obtained from [Insect Adaptability]. Passive ability. Provides resistance to fmes and high temperatures.

  ...

  The changes that had occurred when [Insect Adaptability] was upgraded to level 11 were very simir to the changes that had taken pce when [Molting and Growth] was upgraded to level 11. Both of these Special Talents had given System some kind of inheritance information from his bloodline.

  He specuted that whenever his abilities upgraded to level 11, they would rise to a completely new tier. Otherwise, those two Special Talents upgrading to level 11 wouldn't have had such a huge effect on him.

  At the same time, abilities would become difficult to improve after they reached level 11. [Molting and Growth] hadn't upgraded for a long time. This increase in tier should be the reason.

  System couldn't find detailed information about these high level abilities using [Personal Information Generation]. He specuted that the level of [Personal Information Generation] was too low, so it was impossible for it to analyze the power of higher level abilities.

  After these brief thoughts, he went back to devouring the katydid's body.

  Because his mandibles had hardened again after reaching level 6, the speed at which he could chew through the katydid's cartige had increased by nearly one-third.

  As long as System ate the cartige, his mandibles and carapace would become harder, and after leveling up again, he would be able to eat even tougher foods, such as the hard carapace covering the katydid's head and chest.

  However, he didn't have much time to eat. Before he'd eaten even half of the katydid's body, a group of a dozen bck and brown ants appeared nearby.

  Ants, like hyenas, were skilled at snatching food from others. If the smell of food was in the air, they would soon show up to rob unreasonably.

  System could only jump away helplessly. Leopards at least had a trick where they would drag their prey high up in a tree in order to avoid hyenas, but System had no way to deal with this group of ants at the moment.

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