Chapter 36 (1/2)

Translator: Atlas Studios

Editor: Atlas Studios

After feeling the change in his bloodline, System ate like crazy to prevent any possible overconsumption during his molting.

System instructed Foolish, who could potentially betray him, to leave him alone. Then he prepared plenty of food near the ant larvae in the temporary nest.

System continued to secrete enough [Corrosive Slime] near the nest entrance, in case any ants attacked him when he was in the weakest stage.

Once System took care of everything, he began his third molting in an empty chamber of his temporary nest.

…

He thought his third molting would go as smoothly as the previous two, but things didn’t go as he had imagined.

Like his previous two moltings, he followed the rhythm of his bloodline and slowly absorbed his exoskeleton’s essence, leaving behind the dross’ outermost layer.

According to his previous experience, System would only need to leave the molting process to his body’s instinct at this point in time. His insect body would naturally complete molting with his instincts inherited from the bloodline.

However, this time was different.

The blood in his body was still pumping, urging him to start molting, but his instincts showed no response as if there was no intention to molt.

It felt horrible, just like when one’s body felt itchy, but they could not scratch.

[Molting Growth Mode] in [Self-Information Generation] also did not appear as before.

His outer shell had softened. System couldn’t stop this molting, but he did not know how to make it continue.

Something seemed to be missing for his molting.

System recalled the images Quin had sent him before she died, but the images about her third molting were blurry. In those images, Quin had seemed to be in a semi-comatose state, far less conscious than he was now.

System now realized that he had taken his third molting too lightly.

He had only been pursuing the third molting and wanted to extend his lifespan. However, he had overlooked the fact that a normal grasshopper would only molt twice to become an adult grasshopper. It was very rare for an adult grasshopper to molt a third time.

Hence, it was very likely that he had no instincts inherited to complete the third molting from his grasshopper bloodline due to the rarity of this event.

In other words, he would not be able to refer to anyone’s experiences because every grasshopper’s third molting was unique.

System wondered if his guess was correct.

When trying to control his blood and flesh, System realized he could not even get his limbs and antennae to make the slightest flicker.

The blood in his body was churning and intensifying over time, like slightly boiled water.

System felt as if his blood vessels were slightly inflated, and his blood seemed to be bubbled up like boiling water.

‘Am I going to explode? It would be funny if I just blow myself up and die like this…’ thought System as he tried to enjoy it in adversity.

After half an hour, System’s boiling blood had caused his veins to expand to an incredible size.

Thud—

Thud—

System did not explode to death, after all. The blood vessels in his body had several cracks as they were expanded, gushing out white gas like a pressure cooker. As a result, some of his white blood splashed out.

Maybe it was because of the motion of this gas gushing out, or the fishy smell from the blood he spat out, that several ant larvae in his temporary nest slowly squirmed over.

The ant larvae were similar in shape to the butterfly larvae that could turn into a chrysalis. Their bodies were creamy white, like reptiles. But compared to butterfly larvae, they did not even have legs, except for having a head.

Apart from being able to wriggle their bodies, they had to rely on worker ants in order to move.