4 Chapter 4: The First Skill and the Second Panel!

Bates knew that he had returned to the place where he had been born.

Looking at both the worker ant in front of him, and the young ant with food, Bates could easily work out what had happened after he'd fainted.

After choosing to advance, he should have fainted in the tunnel of the ant nest. The worker ant in front of him must have found him and dragged him into this hole.

Perhaps the worker ant had thought Bates had fainted from hunger, which explained the large amount of food the young ant bought for him.

He felt very touched by this.

"Thank you, Brother." Bates patted the worker ant twice with his two antennae and said, "Eat, eat..."

The worker ant released its scent again and pushed the food closer in front of Bates.

He looked at the worker ant for a while then decided, "Okay, I'll eat it," and he grabbed a white ball with his tusks.

The amount of evolutionary energy that could be obtained from eating the white ball was very low, but in order to make the worker ant feel at ease, he tried his best to eat.

After swallowing a number of these white balls, Bates' body, which had been weakened due to his advancement, was once again filled with energy.

Bates didn't know if it was just an illusion, but he felt that the worker ant in front of him seemed to have increased his intelligence significantly.

After eating, Bates opened his attribute panel.

[ Ding! Congratulations, Master, your rank has increased! ]

"You have obtained the chance to choose a skill!"

The skill options popped up.

For the first rank increase, Bates had the option of two skills:

[ enhanced fangs ] or [ enhanced armor ].

As he could only choose one of them, he clicked on 'View Skill Explanation' to help him decide.

[ enhanced fangs: passive skill. By choosing this skill, your fangs will become stronger and sharper, and you will be able to easily crush objects and food that you couldn't before. ]

[ enhanced armor: passive skill. By choosing this skill, your armor will become stronger, and able to withstand more attacks. When facing an enemy, you have a greater chance of surviving. ]

Bates only needed a few seconds, and decided to choose the enhanced fangs.

In an ant nest, he shouldn't encounter an enemy too powerful any time soon, so his safety was still guaranteed.

More importantly, the skill 'enhanced fang', coupled with the ability to devour and evolve, could make it easier for him to eat more, and better quality food, speeding up his evolution.

After selecting the skill, the upgraded attribute panel appeared.

"So Powerful!" Bates couldn't help but exclaim. The new attribute panel in front of him was much stronger than before!

[ name ] : Bates

[ race ] : Mutated Ant

[ class ] : Tiny

[ level ] : Tiny

[ attributes ] : Strength 0.15, Agility 0.10, Energy 0.11, Spirit 0.5

[ talent ] : Soul Bonus (soul talent), Devouring Evolution (unique talent), Adaptability (race talent)

[ skill ] : Enhanced Fang (passive skill)

Bates' race had changed from an ant to a mutated ant, and his level and class had also changed from 'extremely small' to 'tiny'.

His attributes had also increased by several times, and even his body size had changed from 1.2cm to 2.5cm. A 2.5cm body size was considered giant in that ant nest, as the average body length was less than 1cm.

During the advancement, Bates not only increased his strength, but also obtained information from the voice in his head.

Bates already had a clear understanding of his position in this world.

The minimum level was the lowest of this world's strength. Ants, flies, dragonflies, earthworms, mosquitoes... these creatures that had almost no fighting power were all classified as the minimum level. They were at the lowest level of this world, and their existence was unimportant and ignored.

Above the 'extremely small' level was the 'tiny' level.

Even if it was just an increase of one level, the difference in strength was enormous. Creatures at the peak of the tiny level could easily destroy thousands of extremely small-level creatures.

For example, currently, Bates could kill hundreds of ordinary ants just as easily as opening his mouth to drink water.

Despite this, the 'tiny' level was still the lowest level in this world. It wasn't even an official level! Only after the 'tiny' level can you evolve to level 1!

In order to become the lowest level 1 monster, the most basic requirement was to raise all four of his attributes to above 1.0 point!

To all the players and monsters in this world, any attributes below 1.0 were trash.

However, to Bates, who had just leveled up to the 'tiny' level, it was more than he could ask for. If it wasn't for his talent of devouring and evolving, he might not have ever been able to achieve this in his entire life.

'1.0 in all attributes?' Bates thought, as he looked at his attribute panel and felt a little downhearted. All of his attributes had only reached about a tenth of that!

Out of all the four attributes, his spirit attribute should reach 1.0 the fastest. This was most likely because of his human soul. As long as his body became stronger, his spirit attribute would automatically increase.

However, the other three attributes were not so simple.

For one, it was almost impossible to hide and eat food in an ant nest, so if he wanted to reach 1.0 and become a real monster, he had to go out and look for food!

He had to constantly fight and kill creatures of the same level or even higher!

Suddenly, Bates saw a flashing '+' symbol in the upper right-hand corner of his attribute panel.

When he'd been eating the green insect, he had seen a different message in the notification!

'This might be something new, right?' he thought to himself.

He hastily clicked on it, and a new panel appeared!

'Second Panel!'

[ gene points ] : Green Worm Gene 3 points.

[ evolution points ] : 0 points

On the second panel, there were only two small statistics, but they gave Bates some useful information.

Gene points were the genes of other species that Bates had obtained by using the 'Devouring Evolution' talent while he was eating. The 3 gene points on the interface were acquired by Bates when he devoured the corpse of the green insect.

However, the method of gaining evolution points was as follows:

Only by eating a sufficiently precious item, or by personally hunting and devouring a creature, would one be able to obtain evolution points.

Evolution and gene points would be the foundation for him to evolve from an ant to a higher level of life!

He had to continue fighting, and quickly devour more food!

"I'm coming World!" exclaimed Bates, as he closed his attribute panel, swung his six ant legs, and once again headed out of the cave, onward!