"So you’re storing these slimes in webs to use for later, huh... I am impressed, Ant Queen," Theo couldn’t help but think.

"You showed tactics that help you hunt so many slimes. Good job." Theo sent emotions of patting its head, making the Ant Queen feel better.

She then showed him different chambers where the other shardjaw ant queens were giving birth. Theo looked at the size of the brood and couldn’t help but smile; they were bigger than he thought would come out of these smaller ants.

"This new type of ant is also big. Maybe with just a little more evolution..." Theo’s mind went toward a greedy point.

He looked at Clara on the side and moved his hand toward her with a smile.

Clara nodded and moved a flask out of her waist belt.

The vial had green blood inside it.

The moment the mantis felt the blood’s presence, it wanted to consume it, only for Theo to stop it.

"You already have an evolution potential I don’t quite fully understand yet, mantis. This blood here will go to the Ant Queen."

Theo opened the flask, making a musk come out of the vial. It had a sweet fragrance to it that made Theo want to drink it too.

"Maybe..." Theo thought. The flask was in his hands, and twenty-something big mandible ants were out of the colony to get the vial to the Ant Queen.

Theo took a deep breath and kept it on the ants, who took it back carefully to the Ant Queen.

"Should I consume this blood too?" Theo asked, looking at Clara and Elias, whose expressions changed almost instantly.

"Are you kidding me, young master?!" Clara spoke out loud with a look of shock on her face.

Elias just shook his head and sighed.

"I was only joking," Theo spoke. "Do you really think I would drink this blood?" he asked, making Clara look at him with a gaze that said, "You can’t be serious."

"You like taking risks, so I can’t really trust you on this one."

Theo chuckled and waited for the Ant Queen to get the vial to drink it fully.

He looked at another two vials and couldn’t help but think that using them on himself would be a waste.

"I can’t consume this because there has been no testing related to how a human can consume it or not... And we can’t show these vials to anyone, or we might get punished for stealing kingdom property."

The moment Theo said that, he started feeling a smirk creep over his face.

Clara and Elias didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

But suddenly, a small notification popped in front of Theo, making his blood pressure go up.

[Evolution Potential: detected]

Theo opened the evolution option right away and moved both his hands to the back of his head.

"There is no way..."

He quickly closed it, thinking what ridiculous play fate was making with him.

"Do you want to get this one, Ant Queen?" Theo asked, as the last time, it clearly didn’t want the evolution options previously.

But soon, a nod-like emotion came from the Ant Queen, making Theo take a deep breath.

"We have a lot to do and a lot to prepare," Theo spoke while looking at Clara and Elias, who were sitting in the shade of a tree.

But before they could say anything back, a slime hopped into the clearing they were in.

The moment Theo saw it, his mind went back to the time he helped a slime evolve and then left it be.

"What happened to that slime?" Theo asked the Ant Queen, making it send emotions of not knowing where it went.

The slime in front of them was a normal moss one.

Clara got a knife out from her side pocket and shot at it casually while sitting.

The thread-attached knife went and got inside the slime before stopping right before it could damage the core.

"Tsk." Clara clicked her tongue and moved to hit another knife, but Elias was already ready with a bow out and then shot at the slime, making the arrow touch the core, enter it, and then move outside of the slime before hitting a tree.

Theo saw the slime dissolve into the ground, but soon enough, a small army of ants made its way toward the slime and started picking it up in their mandibles and moving back.

"I will leave you be until the next evolution, Ant Queen. Try to double the ants till then," Theo commanded in the bond before starting to move back.

"What are we doing now, young master?" Elias asked while they moved back to the carriage where Warren was sleeping casually.

"We will go and study now," Theo spoke. "One thing I noticed in all the political interactions we had—there was a problem with the way we approached things. We need to change that."

"So we are going to that secret library now," Clara spoke, making Theo nod.

He had come to see what the ants were doing, and seeing them work so hard to gain protein and resources on their own made Theo feel like he should leave them be. Maybe that way, they could grow in more unpredictable ways.

Soon, the carriage got to the castle, and soon enough, Theo saw an individual he didn’t think he would meet anytime soon.

"It’s been a while, elder brother Cedric," Theo spoke as they saw the young man in front of the castle gate moving inside.

When Cedric saw Theo, his gaze was fixed on his head and how he was already very close to being the same height as him.

He then looked at the sword and then looked at Theo.

"Your aura is on the weaker side right now. You should train it more to help you move forward," he spoke in a casual tone before moving inside.

Theo was surprised to see the young man giving him advice, but even more so was the fact that when Theo looked at his sword—

He couldn’t get his eyes off the scabbard.