The bizarre life form controlled the ant that had sprouted from his body and made it perform simple actions.

  The ant used its mandibles to clumsily gnaw on some nearby tree bark for a while. Eventually, the meatball creature opened his huge, round mouth again and swallowed the gray and white ant back into his body.

  The meatball's surface started wriggling again. This time, his wriggling was even more intense than before.

  His body sprouted eight thick, bck, exoskeleton-covered legs, and the meatball's entire surface was soon covered in a hard, bck exoskeleton, but his form was still changing.

  The meatball eventually transformed into a nearly half-meter-round bck spider. However, unlike ordinary spiders, this one had a pair of translucent wings simir to a bee's wings on its back.

  The bck spider skittered around on the ground for a while to stretch his legs. He tilted his head to look at his body, then observed the surrounding snow for a while. He seemed to be thinking about something.

  After pondering for a while, the bck spider's exoskeleton trembled slightly. His bck color gradually faded. The exoskeleton slowly turned gray, then continued shifting from gray into a snow white color.

  The spider spread his wings and began flying through the forest. As he flew, he stretched out his antennae—another difference between this strange creature and ordinary spiders—and began to search...

  This white spider had no name. He may have once been given a name by Ying, but after Ying had left, the spider had forgotten it. He'd even forgotten whether he'd ever been given a name in the first pce.

  When Ying had disappeared a few months earlier, their angry master had searched for her several times without success, so the spider had ended up taking over Ying's work.

  The spider had come to the main world to locate and capture insects that had broken through their species limit. He also needed to search for any traces of Ying. If Ying could be tracked down, the spider had been given orders to kill her.

  After his third pupation, the spider had gained a certain amount of wisdom. He couldn't understand why his master had sent him to the main world to find a bunch of weak insects. Insects that could be easily crushed to death had no value at all.

  However, as long as his master gave him a mission, the spider would do his best to complete it.

  The few ants just now had been very close to their species limit. The white spider felt that it was a pity that the ants hadn't advanced a bit more, as he would then be only a little bit away from completing the task given by his master.

  There were still seven days left. The white spider knew that after the glowing thing in the sky rose and fell seven times, he would return to the Abyss due to the [Swarm Teleportation] technique that would be performed by his master.

  ...

  System and Shava continued on their way back to the winter nest. Along the way, he couldn't sense the aura of the Abyss and no longer felt uneasy.

  After pnting a few frost flowers in the snow near the nest, System finally made up his mind and decided to rest that night. Tomorrow, after he acquired enough energy, he'd start transforming his [Molting and Growth] talent into [Pupation].

  After entering the nest, System went to the huge chamber where Linda, the queen ant, usually stayed, then used his tentacles to check her status.

  Over the past six months, System hadn't been able to find a male ant to pair with the queen. Although some ants in the nearby nest had survived the initial snowfall, he hadn't found a male ant among the survivors.

  Five months ago, the nearby ant nest had fallen completely silent. At that time, System hadn't known whether the ants had all died or if the surviving ants had gone into hibernation.

  It wasn't until two months ago, when his ant subjects had first explored the other ant nest, that System had finally found out that the nearby ants had almost all been wiped out by the cold. Only about a dozen worker ant pupae were still struggling in hibernation underground.

  Although System's ant colony had no male ant around, after more than a month of continuous strengthening, Linda had inexplicably started ying eggs.

  It was just like how a hen could y eggs without the presence of a rooster, but those eggs would never hatch into chicks.

  The same was true for the ant queen. Ever since that day, she'd occasionally y eggs, but any eggs she id would only hatch into workers and soldiers who had no reproductive ability.

  System specuted that this was a method used by ants to ensure the continuation of their species in situations where they lost both the queen and the male at the same time.

  After System's continuous strengthening over the past few months, along with him requiring Queen Linda to restrict the number of eggs she id, the quality of her offspring had gradually improved.

  Between expanding the colony's popution and producing elite ants, he'd finally chosen the tter.

  System knew that in this snowy forest with its ck of food, if he rashly expanded the colony's popution, his ant subjects would undoubtedly end up starving.

  "We should wait for another two months. After the butterfly popution increases, we can expand the size of the colony."

  System retracted his tentacles that were wrapped around the ant queen. Through his investigation, System knew that Queen Linda was very close to her second pupation.

  He estimated that in about ten days, Linda would enter her second pupation, just like Shava and a dozen of the other ants had.

  However, it was still unknown how long it would take her to complete the pupation process. It had taken Shava nearly four months to successfully break out of her pupa.

  As for the dozen other ants that had reached their second pupation, two were soldiers, while the remaining thirteen were workers. They had all entered their second pupation within the past month. System had no idea how long it would st.

  "It may take over two months for you to break out of your pupa, so let's wait until you complete your pupation before expanding the colony's popution," System said to the queen in a mental message.

  "King, you said...I don't understand..."

  As could be seen from the queen's response, although she was smarter than ordinary ants, she was clearly not as intelligent as Shava or the grasshopper queen, Quin. Perhaps the queen's intelligence would improve after her second pupation.

  System shook his head and left the queen's chamber.

  While he was thinking about the intelligence of ants, a special ant appeared in System's mind—that retively undersized worker, Bck.

  Bck would be waiting to greet System almost every time he returned to the nest, but System hadn't noticed that he hadn't seen Bck when he'd gotten back this time.

  Bck was called Little Bck by System because of the tiny bck spot on her head. Bck had been an accidental product of one of System's failed attempts to strengthen the worker ant eggs.

  At that time, he'd wanted to try giving the worker ants the ability to spin silk like a caterpilr, but he'd failed. Then, inexplicably, the worker ant had gained extremely high intelligence.

  Even though Little Bck was only an ordinary worker, her intelligence was even higher than Shava's. In terms of computing ability alone, Little Bck had even surpassed System.

  Ten days earlier, System had taught Little Bck how to py the game gobang out of boredom. System had first drawn a grid on a piece of ice that he'd created, then used dead leaves and ice crystals as game pieces.

  The first few games they'd pyed had been fine, and System could basically win easily. Soon, though, he and Little Bck had been evenly matched. After a few more games, System had vowed never to py the game against Little Bck again.

  However, while she was very intelligent, Little Bck's ability to gain levels and the strength of her bloodline were very poor.

  Still, Little Bck had an unimaginably strong spirit and never admitted defeat. System could feel Little Bck's desire to become stronger and would always help whenever he could.

  For this reason, System, who had decided not to lie to his ant subjects anymore, had ended up lying again.

  In fact, Little Bck didn't have the potential to activate [Mental Connection] at all. Also, because it was difficult for Little Bck to gain levels, there was little hope of her ever undergoing a second pupation.

  ...

  System took a quick look around the nest and soon found Bck shuttling between the nest's empty chambers. Bck obviously saw System as well and quickly scurried over.

  "King, I just checked several times. Excluding the worker ants that are currently out searching for food, there are only 117 worker ants still in the nest. Five are missing."

  "What?"

  System showed a puzzled look. Although the ant colony had occasionally lost one or two ants during the past six months, it was very unusual for five ants to go missing at one time.

  At this moment, System's body trembled slightly, and his [Intuition] gave him a feeling that the five ants were most likely already dead...