I wanted to tell everyone what that tick had said, but I understood that they wouldn’t take me knowing tick language lightly.

But I didn’t get the time to tell either as an unusually long fit of unconsciousness hit me, according to them. In real, I was checking out my skills updates.

*Ting*

[Title: Skill collector gained.]

Title: Skill Collector(Epic)

Collect 100 skills.

Reward: 1st Tier Skill: Greed (Max)

Greed: Makes you Greedier.

[Skill: Treasure sense gained.]

*Level up*

[You have become lv 3]

{All skills have leveled up by one.}

{Focus has become lv 10}

{Focus has reached its maximum level}

And is presenting you with the option to focus on:

Everything or one thing

I wanted to get both of them, but a smirk later I decided to just focus on one thing at a time.

*Ting*

[Skill: Concentration gained.]

Concentration: If you concentrate hard enough then the world might stop.

{Your trust with your companions is at the highest}

*Ting*

[Skill: Bonding gained.]

Bonding: Allows you to sense the feeling of your party member. The number of members depends upon the skill level.

This was a useful skill.

I thought it was the last one, but unfortunately no.

{Memory has become lv 10}

{Skill memory has reached its maximum level.}

And is presenting you with the option to:

Think fast or Think more

It was another skill which I wanted the both options of, but decided to simply go with thinking faster. After all in a fight only those who can think fast enough, and then act faster than the other party gets the win in the end, mostly. Just don’t fight with anyone superior to yourself.

*Ting*

[Skill: Fast Processing Gained]

Fast processing: Allows you to think more in less time.

And taking a breath of relief I looked around and saw five more brown ticks lying at the side shriveled up.

“You need to control yourself you know. Getting lost in your thoughts in the middle of enemy territory; don’t make me say what could have happened.” Team leader said while poking my head with her antennae.

“Yeah, thank god we haven’t encountered any blood worms yet. Otherwise…”

I don’t know why, but that name sounded ominous to me.

We then continued to move forward into the tower jungle, and saw another grey Tick relaxing on the ground.

“Fufu… two grey’s in one day. Is this our lucky day??”

“Maybe our new member is a lucky fellow?”

The two leaders chatted with each other in audible sound, probably trying to make me comfortable. I thought of using [Bonding] on them, but decided against it. One, that I could only bond with one person per level, and two that the skills in tier 2 didn’t rise like the ones from its upper tier. Who knew how long it would take to get another level in it.

But on the other hand this Grey Tick turned out to be the easiest prey of them all. It didn’t even move, or maybe it couldn’t move because of its weight and mass.

Its legs weren’t even touching the ground anymore. They simply wriggled at the side, as one of the soldiers got in front of it and bit its head off.

The carriers then did their work, and sucked the life out of it.

“Are you full?” The leader asked the carriers who looked too bloated to even move, and they nodded their heads.

“Okay, then this ends our mission. Nice job everyone. Now, let’s go home before the moving mountain moves.”

And we started our journey home.

“So how was it?” She asked me and I smiled.

“I actually didn’t think that a scavenger job would be such an exciting job. I only joined to travel outside the mound, but now I have another reason to say that this is one hell of a job to have.”

{Talk has become lv 9}

“Fuufu…” she tried to suppress her laughter, but her bulging cheeks showed it.

Then controlling her emotions and suppressing her laughter, she took a deep breath before looking up at the sky and said, “But there are three even more exciting and super dangerous secret jobs available to only the most capable of ants.”

I excitedly asked her what they were, but she denied my request saying, it was information that wasn’t gained and could only be earned.

“Maybe one day you will learn about them with your own capabilities, until then why don’t you do your best with us?”

I nodded my head.

Anyways, we reached the place where we had killed the first grey tick and I felt a slight, very small presence looking at us.

The presences then turned into tens and I told the leader about them.

{Perception has become lv 4}

“Oh don’t worry. They are probably novice ticks, and nothing more.”

I asked her if could kill them, but she said that I shouldn’t, otherwise we wouldn’t have ticks in the future to hunt.

{Common knowledge has become lv 8}

Then I felt something. It was a presence directly below us, and was becoming bigger and bigger.

A second later, the presence grew to be big as the grass hopper, and I shuddered.

The ground shook before I could tell the others, and then someone pushed me.

*Boom*

Something came out of the ground from the place I was standing at.

I hurriedly checked that everyone was alright, and shuddered at the thing.

{Fear resistance has become lv 14}

{Push resistance has become lv 4}

“Everyone scramble, it is a blood worm!! And don’t move!!” Team leader shouted, and the team members spread across and apart from each other, and then stopped moving.

{Basic Military formation has become lv 3}

I couldn’t react according to the situation and stood up, which made the worm react, and with a shriek it plunged upon me.

It looked nothing different from the towers standing at the side, but a whole train jumping at me scared my shit completely.

{Fear resistance has become lv 15}

I saw at least five rows of blade like teeth’s rotating inside its mouth, as it jumped out of the ground and upon me.

{Examine has become lv 8}

I panicked, but my strong will held me. I concentrated on the thing and my body moved on its own, before I could tell it to.

{Reflex has become lv 3}

{Muscle memory has become lv 2}

I rolled on the ground just as was about to engulf me, and it drilled into the ground like it wasn’t even there.

{Roll has become lv7}

{Perseverance has become lv6}

But just as I took a breath of relief, I once again felt its presence coming directly from below, right where I was.

I didn’t waste any time as it came drilling out of the ground and rolled to the side, but its flying pole like body still slid against my body, leaving abrasions there.

I got flung from its simple touch, and slid on the ground after landing.

{Roll, Iron skin, Hard skin, Evade has become lv 8}

{Slide has become lv 6}

It shrieked as it saw that it had missed me, but then a ball of fire flew toward it.

{Overwhelm resistance has become lv 9}

That only distracted it for a second, as it wiggled it was out of the fireballs path and jumped at the carrier who had ended up being too close to it.

“Move!! Don’t let it eat him. Tanker, charge at him. Green spray acid at it. Carrier, create blood mist.”

{Battle tactics has become lv 9}

And following her command the fire ‘mage’ ant fired fireballs at it to make it change its descending path, but it didn’t work and the vice captains acid spry failed to even dissolve its outer skin.

But mist created by the carrier in danger allowed it to save its life.

The only black soldier ant except team leader, struck its side with his head, and stopped it from drilling into the ground.

Then the Vice captain the Green ant dug its teeth inside the worms outer skin, and anchored at the ground, refusing to let it go.

“What are you doing standing there? Come and help us!!” Team leader yelled at me and ran to bite at the worm as the others continued to harm it by spraying acid; firing fireballs and the carriers took bites after bites at it.

I too joined the fray and bit, stabbed, pierced worm with my mandibles and legs.

{Decider has risen to lv 7}

The whole process continued for a whole ten minutes before the worm finally lost its light and stopped moving.

{Bite has risen to lv 8}

{Stab has risen to lv 6}

{Bare handed mastery has risen to lv 8}

{Pierce has risen to lv 7}

The last of its breaths left its body, and the sound of exp gained proved that it had died.

“Hah…hah…hah…” everyone was felling exhausted after the bout and the vice captain was even taking deep breaths.

“Pfft…” the fire ‘Mage’ ant laughed when he saw the vice captain acting like he had come after running a marathon.

Who also didn’t get angry and laughed instead. And in the end the whole team had a laugh.

“Who would have thought that we would even meet a blood worm on this mission?”

“Hah, this is not luck anymore… this is heaven defying.”

“This kid is too lucky…”

I then thanked team leader for helping me out at the time and pushing me away from its path, but she just moved her hand and said, “Don’t mind, don’t mind.”

I observed the dot on the worm’s dead body to see what kind of a thing it was, but it didn’t work. So I decided to ask team leader.

“This is also a kind of blood sucker. The thing is also the evolution of a tick larva.”

{Common knowledge has risen to lv 9}

Which surprised me, because the worm looked nothing like the ticks from before. They were too passive and this was too…

“Dangerous…” she predicted what I was thinking about and smiled, “Just look at your team. Even we ants sometimes evolve into unusually variants. Like our fire breathing ant. He is officially a fire ant, but we call him the mage, and then your vice captain is a Green ant, specialized in acids and is extremely aggressive, when it comes to it.”

“Huh?” was my reaction. To me they looked just like each and every other ant. And if she hadn’t told me about them then I wouldn’t have known.

{Interrogation has risen to lv 9}

{Common knowledge has risen to lv 10}

{Common Knowledge has reached its maximum level}

And is presenting you with the option to:

Read or steal

This was an unexpected skill up. First once again my [Greed] was acting and wanted me to choose Steal, but like hell I would have let it do what it wanted to. So I fought against my own instinct and choose read.

*Ting*

[Skill: Mind read gained.]

[Common knowledge has evolved to Intermediate Knowledge.]

Mind Read: Allows you to read surface thoughts of the observant.

I stop my eager heart to read their minds and listened to what they were talking about.

“Then what should we do about the worm. You know it’s a score. But taking it back will be a hassle.” Vice leader asked the leader who contemplated about it and said,

“We’ll take it with us.”

“but…”

“No, we’ll take it. Even if we have to drag it all the way. We’ll take it back.”

Vice captain sighed at her persistence, but the situation turned completely when an earthquake occurred.

{Confusion resistance has risen to lv 9}

I asked them what is happening and the scout answered me saying, “The Mountain is moving. We have to go otherwise we will never be able to return back.”

“Then what about the worm?” I asked him and the leader answered with a complicated expression.

{Military knowledge has become lv 8}

“We have to leave it behind. There is no way to take it back in these circumstances.” Her jaw gritted and eyes burning a hole on the worm. Then she broke ten long and sharp teeth’s off the worm, one for everyone, and then ordered, “Team let’s return back.”

And we started running.

The earth quakes become more rampart and violent, as seconds passed and just as we reached the place we had seen the first tick at, violent air started blowing.

I hurriedly gripped the towers to not get blown away by it.

{Iron grip has risen to lv 7}

The wind blew and I saw some ticks getting thrown around by it. I tightened m grip as hard as I could and after some seconds everything became quite again.

{Wind resistance has risen to lv 7}

{Climb has risen to lv 9}

{Balance has become lv 10}

I thought I might as well check the skill up, but then heard the team leader shouting at me.

“What are you doing, it is going to move anytime now!! Hurry up!!”

We somehow got past it. And as we reached the foot of the mountain that was our entry point, happiness likes never before engulfed my soul.

The team started jumping from the mountain one by one, and at the last I was about to jump off when the mountain stood up and my team on the ground became too far so fast that I couldn’t believe my eyes.

“NOooooo…..” I shouted and spoke, “Now what?”