After System spent three days stuffing himself with food and expending rge amounts of experience points, he managed to strengthen the ant queen's [Pupation] talent from level 13 to level 15, allowing the talent to reach its level cap.

  However, the two extra levels didn't cause the eggs that Queen Linda id to change much.

  Except for a very small number of gifted eggs that had naturally inherited the queen's high-level [Pupation] talent, most of the eggs' [Pupation] talents were still between levels 6 and 8. These ants would still need to eat a rge amount of slime in order to undergo a second pupation.

  However, compared to the [Pupation] talents of ordinary ants, which typically ranged between levels 3 and 5, Queen Linda's eggs had made great progress. There would be no longer be any individuals like Bck who were born with congenital deficiencies.

  Because they were currently in the middle of winter, and food was somewhat scarce, System eventually settled on asking the queen to start by ying a thousand eggs.

  If the colony ended up having enough food, she could y more eggs. If there wasn't enough food, they would wait until spring when food was abundant before expanding the colony's size. At that time, they would be able to find plenty of insects and pnts to eat in the grassnd.

  Ants were born as food-storage experts. When they were expanding the size of the colony in the summer, the ants would take the initiative to collect enough food to st through the winter even without System's orders.

  ...

  When he was strengthening Queen Linda, System had suddenly come up with an idea. Once the idea appeared in his head, he couldn't stop thinking about it.

  System's mind was filled with thoughts of flight.

  If his ant subjects had the ability to fly, it would be extremely convenient for them to collect food, locate prey, or migrate long distances.

  In fact, both male and female ants possessed the ability to fly. However, after winged ants mated, their wings would fall off and never grow back.

  As for worker ants and soldier ants, because of ant genetics, they were born without wings.

  But this didn't mean that workers and soldiers didn't have the potential to grow wings in their bloodlines. It was just that this part of their bloodlines didn't manifest, so workers and soldiers had no possibility of growing wings naturally.

  Unfortunately, even after System used [Perception] for a long time, he still couldn't figure out which part of Queen Linda's bloodline was responsible for activating wings. The part of an ant's bloodline that was responsible for wings seemed to be very different from the part of System's grasshopper bloodline that dealt with his own wings.

  System also didn't discover anything when he used [Perception] on the worker knights and ant eggs.

  In order to figure out how to give his ant subjects wings, System decided to search other ant nests in the Warren Pins for some winged male and female ants, then compare their bloodlines with Queen Linda's bloodline.

  Although there were fewer ant nests in the Warren Pins than there were in Lilt Forest, there were still quite a lot of them.

  In the past three days, whenever System hadn't been busy strengthening the queen's [Pupation] talent, he and Excavator had dug through other ant nests searching for winged male and female ants.

  In the past year and a half, Excavator could be said to have grown the fastest out of System's many ant subjects.

  ...

  Species: Big Worker Ant (renameable)Level: 14/14

  Length: 0.26 metersWeight: 17 kilograms

  Estimated Combat Power: 12-16Special Talents: [Pupation] (12/12), [Insect Adaptability] (9/19)

  ...

  System guessed that Excavator may have grown so fast by absorbing the power of the earth. She had reached her maximum level of 14, which was the same level as Shava. The exoskeleton covering her body was surrounded by a thick yer of mud armor, which made the ant very heavy.

  Today's Excavator could quickly drill a tunnel underground for herself to pass through, just like the Earth Escape Technique that was frequently seen in cultivation novels. She could dig through nearly half a meter of soil every second.

  If it weren't for the fact that it was so difficult to improve the level of Excavator's [Pupation] talent, Excavator might have already started her third pupation half a year earlier.

  With the help of Excavator's mighty digging ability, it was naturally very easy for System to dig through a few ant nests, and the two of them quickly tore their way through five nearby nests. In the process, they were able to harvest a lot of food that had been stored by the other ant colonies.

  Most of the ants in these nests were in a dormant state for the winter. While System was even able to locate the ant queen hiding deep inside each nest, he wasn't able to find a single winged male or female ant.

  He was confused about this at first, but after further thought, he soon realized that no ants would choose to mate in the middle of winter, so it wasn't very surprising that there were no young male or female ants.

  His idea of creating flying ant subjects had to be temporarily shelved. He specuted that he wouldn't be able to find any flying male or female ants until spring. He would have to wait until then to compare their bloodlines to the queen's.

  ...

  A few days ter, while System was flying around searching for small animals, he noticed a fire and a huge number of things moving hundreds of kilometers away to the northwest.

  If it weren't for the sudden light from the fire, it would have been difficult for him to detect the movement in the distance.

  Many different types of zombies were gathered together in a dense cluster, including wolves, antelopes, ratmen, and gnolls.

  More than 100,000 zombies had formed into a group, and they seemed to be attacking a town that was surrounded by stone walls.

  System saw red fmes exploding among the zombies, but he didn't know if the fmes were from a spell or if they were from a magical item simir to a bomb.

  Because he was so far away, he couldn't make out many details, so he couldn't tell whether the zombies attacking the town or the gnolls defending it had the advantage.

  He descended from the sky after watching for a few more minutes.

  System hadn't been able to make out the distant battle clearly, and he still knew very little about the recent changes in the Warren Pins.

  'If only Ying was here...'

  He suddenly thought of Ying, the grasshopper beast who had gone to assassinate the old druid in order to avenge Quin.

  Ying had the ability to become invisible and hide her aura, so she was naturally suitable for spying. Moreover, she'd escaped from the old druid after failing to assassinate him, which meant that she was strong enough to handle most situations.

  If Ying was here, she would definitely be able to easily find out what was going on in the Warren Pins. Then System wouldn't still be stuck in a state of ignorance even after spending more than two years in this world.

  During his long pupation, he'd sensed Ying's presence at one point. After his pupation ended, he'd learned the details behind her visit from Bck.

  According to Bck, after Ying had failed to assassinate the old druid, she'd successfully located the colony's nest, but she'd only visited the nest for a few days before leaving again.

  Ying hadn't been pnning to make another assassination attempt on the old druid when she left. Instead, she'd decided to return to the twenty-sixth floor of the Abyss. She'd wanted to rescue some of her former insect beast companions and bring them to System.

  Bck knew that System wanted to develop the colony in a low-key manner, so he'd tried to persuade Ying to stay in the nest until System's pupation ended. After he was back, they could make pns for rescuing her companions together.

  However, Ying was obviously someone who wouldn't change her mind no matter how much advice others gave her.

  She'd already made up her mind to leave, but before she left, she'd listened to some of Bck's advice.

  Ying had promised Bck that she would be as careful as possible when she rescued her fellow insects. She would make sure that her former master didn't find out that she was back in the Abyss, and she would definitely not bring any trouble to System's nest.