On the way to the scavenger’s barracks, he asked me how I neutralize the undead king’s barrier and I laughed it off.

Then he asked me what kind of fire that golden light was, but I couldn’t laugh it off this time. His face was yelling at me to tell him what it was or he would smack me. So taking in account his interest, excitement and caveat, I could only tell him the truth.

Well not like I was in any kind bind, stopping me from telling him. But I wasn’t expecting the kind of reaction that he gave. It was like winning a small time lottery and earning in the millions.

“They are both skills!?” he stopped on his tracks and yelled out. His open mouth easily explained the kind of emotions he was going through.

Though I couldn’t understand at that time whether my skills demanded such a reaction or not, but it made me happy nonetheless. The power of advanced [Heal] and [Cancel] had also surprised me a little, but not in such a way.

“Yes.” I replied to his question and he still didn’t believe me.

“And they are third tier skills!?” I was feeling annoyed with how his voice was rising with every question, but I still replied to him without showing my dissatisfaction on my face. He was my senior after all.

“Yes.”

“How the fuck is that possible? How could you who just recently evolved into a ranker have two Third Tier skills? When, Even I, who’s already a third ranker don’t a single third ranked skill!”

I wanted to ask him whether there was any need to put so much emphasis on those three words, but i couldnt. That information shocked me a little too much. A third ranked ant didn’t have any third tier skills? How was that possible?

“Don’t kid me, surely you have one or two of them right?”How is that possible?”

“*Snort*”

He snorted in response and shook his head in denial. A deep breath and after taking a long and heavy sigh, he once again looked at me, and to say the truth, his face seemed to have lost his previous seriousness and energy. His face looked more desperate, like a kid asking for something, rather than a senior preaching a junior.

“What possible…” He dragged the words to show his dissatisfaction and continued with, “You think third tier skills are fruits on a tree which everyone can have?” I could see his annoyance with me on his face. Annoyance, for not having an advanced skill of his own to boast about.

“It’s already something great that I received two second tier skills upon my evolution into Skull breaker ant.” But he suddenly paused in the middle of his sentence and looked at me with his eyes wide open. “Wait! Don’t tell me… did you receive a tiered sill from your evolution too?”

{Knowledge has risen to lv 8}

“NO.” I replied or rather lied.

I had already harmed his confidence by telling him about my third tier skills. I didn’t want him to feel insignificant knowing that I had also received second tier skills upon my evolution and that I have had more than twenty such skills since I was a level five novice.

One of the elite’s dying from heart attack wasn’t what I wanted.

‘Yeah, let’s not tell him that.’ I decided and we didn’t talk after that.

Anyways, we soon reached the headquarters and I saw that its condition was a lot better than the tunnels and rooms we had travelled through.

Though repair work was still going on here and there, but its overall looked undamaged.

But the same couldn’t be said about the tunnels. I had seen hundreds of workers trying to repair those massive holes and cracked walls all along the way.

There were some tunnels which had been partially destroyed and workers were working double time to dig them out.

The ants working around and moving about did look at the both of us, but they only gave us a passing glance before getting back to do what they had been doing.

“Thank god they don’t recognize you because of your advancement; otherwise you would have died by now, drowning under the sea of your followers.”

That felt ominous for some reason, but then we reached the door to senior captain’s office.

“Alright let’s go in.” he said and we both entered the room.

I saw the captain sitting on his rock bed talking with his special agents and just as we entered all of them stopped talking and their eyes fixated on us or rather me alone.

The atmosphere suddenly tensed as they saw me, someone whom they had never seen before.

“Relax guys, I brought him. It’s him, our Hero.”

But thanks to Mr. Elite’s interference or him vouching for my identity, they soon understood who I was and their curiosity overtook their vigilance toward me.

Including Sir Captain, there were four ants in the room.

“Oh.” Captain nodded his head and asked us to come in, while the three other agents standing in front of him whispered to each other. Well, I was able to hear them easily.

“That him?” Said a pure black ant with two horns instead of antennas coming out of his forehead.

Having fought with the juggernaut, I had my doubts about him at first, but considering how he must have been selected after a proper trial of some kind, he was probably an ant. Just a rather amusing looking one.

The ant in the middle was a bright red ant and I could see the air around him getting heated just from his presence. “But he looks so…” he said, pouting.

The last one was huge. He was same in size to my brute uncle. But rather than adoring a shiny matt black color like him, this one was pale yellow, kind of like the dirt and had clubs at the end of his antennas. His exoskeleton looked heavy just to see, it was thick; Very thick. He didn’t have a stinger at the end of his abdomen, but a hammer like attachment… made out of solid stone.

I had to lift me head to look at his face, he was that big.

“Different. Hmm…” he completed the crimson ant’s sentence for him. And Mr. Elite or the skull crusher by my side replied to them.

“Haaha, what did you expect? He evolved from the last time you saw him after all.”

“No shit he did!” The shiny black ant with the horns on his head cursed with heightened voice. He was a creepy dude to look at.

“Now now…” The old captain came forward and stood before me. He looked at me with his keen eyes, and came forward to check me out. He circled around me once, lifted my rear legs, checked my antennas, checked the sharpness of my mandibles, tried to lift me and only after ten minutes of thorough inspection did he return back to his desk, slightly nodding his head and making, ‘Fuu, fu, fu’ noises on the way.

“So how are you feeling with the evolution? Is your evolution any good?” he asked me and I only had one thing to say to him.

“To tell you the truth it feels great. Too Great actually. I feel fast, strong and I think I can take on any of the captains alone now. I feel so good.”

“Oh!” he exclaimed and asked me to tell him the specs of my new form and the skills it came with.

I felt a little doubt whether I should tell them about my skills or not. Not because I didn’t have faith in him or anything, but because of the reaction Mr. Elite had given on the way. I didn’t want to be annoyed once again.

So, I asked him whether he only wanted to know the skills I got with the evolution or what.

“Yes only those. I don’t want to know about your other skills.”

“Alright then. As you wish…”

Mr. Elite snickered beside me when he heard that, but I had no reason to stop him.

But who knew everything which was a drop in the ocean for me, was a brilliantly dazzling sun for them.

I told him that I was getting a stat point in agility every level up and all of them looked at me in surprise.

“So a specialist. Not bad for a rookie.” One of them commented.

But that was just the start. I then told them about the skills I had gotten from the evolution and the old captain asked me what Tier they were.

I heard my guide snickering and grinning like an evil being and I knew what he was thinking. But little did he know, even he was in for a surprise.

“[Acceleration] is tier two, [Inventory] is special tier, [Rapid fire] is tier one, [High Light Resistance] I guess is second tier.” And all of their jaws dropped.

“FUCK ME IN THE BUTT! YOU ARE ALREADY GETTING SECOND TIER SKILLS! THE FUCK!”

It was my guide losing his calm for a second. I didn’t knew what he was getting so… excited for until the old captain told me the reason and I truly thanked my angel for blessing me with something so great.

“Okay, okay calm down, don’t forget he is the one who killed the king, actually how did you kill the king?” The old captain asked and made me sigh. I knew they would yell once again and hardened my heart.

Let’s just say everything after that was them looking at me as if I was God and my guide laughing his ass off looking at their faces and reactions.

Sighing, sir captain asked me whether I could share my status with them and I said, “Okay, why not?”

Maybe that was a mistake too.