The lich offered System many temptations, such as ciming that by becoming his servant, System would gain powerful strength and have a nearly eternal life just like the lich.

  However, System chose to ignore all of that and cut off the spiritual connection with the other party.

  Although the lich's conditions were good, if he became the other party's servant, wouldn't he be pcing his life and death in the lich's hands?

  Perhaps the lich's temptations would have an effect on Abyss creatures with low intelligence, but System wouldn't be fooled by them.

  He rubbed his head with his tentacles again. Because of the lich's summons, he felt much more tired than before, and he also had a headache.

  He decided to return underground to rest immediately.

  While System and Shava continued carrying back the corpse of the giant bck snake, Ying and Meatball, who had been out hunting, finally appeared.

  Meatball had morphed into a spider with eight sturdy limbs and a length of nearly three meters. He was using strong spider silk to drag a giant toad's corpse nearly two meters tall through the mud.

  There were many wounds on the keratin covering the toad's body. It seemed like it had fought a fierce battle before its death. The reason Meatball and Ying had been out hunting for so long was probably because they had encountered this huge Abyss toad.

  With the help of Meatball's strong body, the problem of carrying back System's giant bck snake corpse was also solved. Before long, the two corpses were transported underground.

  System also entered the semi-dormant and half-awake state unique to insects as he'd wished and began recovering his energy.

  ...

  Seven days passed.

  With Excavator's help, System's Abyss nest had been excavated to form a circur area with a diameter of twenty meters and a depth of thirty meters. There were many empty chambers of different sizes and passages of varying lengths.

  System was becoming more and more satisfied with Excavator's construction of the underground nest.

  However, while the construction of the nest was progressing smoothly, activating the Shadow Key wasn't going so well. His ant subjects still needed to wait for a while before they could come to the Abyss.

  It had taken half a month to charge the bck gem ring in the main world, while it took one and a half months to charge it in this level of the Abyss. In other words, System still needed to wait for another month before his ant subjects could come to the Abyss from the demipne.

  This wasn't because the ring's charging speed had slowed down. According to Aura's expnation, because the pnes were different, the energy required to open the demipne would also be different, so the bck gem ring needed to store more energy. This resulted in a significantly longer charging time.

  System didn't suspect that Aura had lied to him. Ignoring the fact that if the butterfly lied, System could detect it with [Mental Transmission], in reality, Aura, who was extremely obsessed with treasures, might be even more anxious than System to access the demipne.

  If System's ant subjects really were able to return, Aura would have had them bring his gold coins and treasures to the Abyss long ago.

  ...

  After seven days of research and investigation with Ying, System had basically figured out why the Abyssal bck snake had surrendered.

  Just like some carnivores in System's previous life had used urine to divide territories and decre sovereignty over an area, in this level of the Abyss, Abyss creatures that had reached the magic level also had that habit.

  All Abyss creatures that had reached the magic level would take the initiative to occupy a territory of their own. They would then emit a unique aura at the border of their territories to warn intruders not to set foot in the area they ruled.

  The giant bck snake that System had met previously had been the magical life form ying cim to the nearby one-hundred-meter area.

  Because System had just become an Abyssal life form, he wasn't very familiar with the aura of the Abyss, so he naturally hadn't noticed the warning aura the giant snake had left in the air. That was why he'd been attacked and had been forced to kill the giant bck snake.

  As for the bck snake that had surrendered to System, it had originally been a subordinate ruled by the giant bck snake. After the giant snake had been killed, the bck snake had naturally surrendered to System.

  The giant toad that Ying and Meatball had killed had also been a magic life form and had ruled over a territory of more than one hundred meters.

  In addition to the giant bck snake and toad, while exploring the surrounding environment over the past seven days, System and Shava had successively killed a two-meter-long lizard and another purplish-bck snake. They had also been magical life forms from this yer of the Abyss.

  It was after killing these Abyss creatures with strong territorial awareness that System had gradually discovered the territorial awareness of Abyss creatures.

  As for the fact that the magical life forms in this yer of the Abyss generally had territorial awareness, Ying had only been here for two months previously, so she hadn't been very clear about it.

  According to her, this pce seemed to be different from the 26th yer of the Abyss. The Abyss creatures there didn't divide the territory like they did here.

  System understood why she hadn't learned this. After all, Ying's invisibility ability not only made her body transparent, it also concealed her aura, meaning she wouldn't be attacked by creatures with territorial awareness. Not to mention two months, even if she'd stayed here for an entire year, she still wouldn't have found a single clue.

  It was natural that some toads and small snakes would choose to flee as soon as they saw System. On this level of the Abyss, ordinary mortals had an innate fear of magical life forms, and the toads and snakes that fled as soon as they saw System did so because of this.

  However, there were exceptions to everything. On this level of the Abyss, there were also some species that didn't py by the rules.

  The enormous mosquito popution was one of them. These mosquitoes weren't afraid of death. As long as a target appeared within a few meters of them, they would rush over in a swarm.

  The second was a type of carnivorous pnt in the swamps. They used solid pnt walls to form huge containers. The inside of the containers was full of corrosive liquids. At the same time, they had vines that could ensnare and drag creatures into their containers, simir to some man-eating pnts in System's previous life's horror movies.

  These carnivorous pnts would attack any creature that touched their vines.

  The st kind of life form that didn't py by the rules was the slime, nature's scavenger and System's old friend, just like in the main world.

  These slimes rarely appeared near System's nest. As for the slime as huge as a house that Ying had mentioned, System hadn't seen it in the several days since he'd come to the Abyss. Only a few normal-sized slimes had appeared in the nearby area.

  In this yer of the Abyss, slimes seemed to be born to stand on the opposite side of the other Abyss creatures. As long as slimes appeared, they would be violently attacked by other creatures.

  On the several occasions when System had seen these slime friends, they had been under attack by some lizards, snakes, or rge toads. He hadn't hesitated to rescue his old friends several times in a row.

  He didn't know if it was because his tastes had changed after becoming an Abyss creature, but System found that the slimes in the Abyss tasted even better than the slimes in the main world.