Using [projection] I projected out half of my status and made them flabbergasted once again. I deliberately hid my blessings and skills from them. Who knew what kind of a hassle they would create if I showed those to them.

“I asked you to tell us your stats, not this… how are you even doing this?” Old captain said absent mindedly, but the damage had already been done. Unknowingly, I had been showing skills way over my rank, and abilities, which I didn’t deserve to have. Like this [Projection].

Spoiler: STATUS

Jack ‘Greedy’ Light

Lv-2/10

Rank - 1

Silver “Trap Jaw” Ant (Unique)

Job- Scavenger

Gender - Male

Health

157.80

Mana

148.40

Stamina

124.30

Health reg

28.20

Mana reg

63.60

Stamina reg

107.70

Attack

49.96

critical rate

1.75

Movt Speed

312%

Attack speed

71%

critical hit

18%

Crit Dmg

101.44

Attack mag

72.29

Defense

26.93

Crit Dmg(mag)

146.80

Stat Tier: ‘F’

Stat gain/Level: +0.3Agility, +0.1Strength, +.1vit/+.1 End

Strength

29.3

Intelligence

21.2

Agility

26.5

Wisdom

42.4

Dexterity

35

Endurance

22.1

Charisma

12.1

Vitality

14.4

Luck

7.8

Constitution

13.8

“YOU! Who are you!?”

“How can this be? How is this possible?”

But before the others could blow the roof from over our heads, the captain put a lid on their mouths saying, “Shut up and let me talk.” But he couldn’t stop them from whispering to each other and looking at me in disbelief and with slight hostility.

The hostility was probably them being jealous, I was sure.

“You… don’t show your status to anyone from now onwards.”

“Why?” I asked and he sighed tiredly. He looked at the roof above and mumbled something pointing at me.

“Give him some sense God.” Was what he said. And that hurt me a little. Turning his head back toward me he asked, “Do you know the stats that a normal soldier, or a ranker is supposed to have?”

“Surely their stats are higher than mine right?” is what a stupid ant would have said, but not me. I knew my stats were directly related to my skills and having seen ‘Kings’ status, I actually knew what they were thinking.

But that was where I was wrong. I answered his question with a cute little, ’no’ and this is what he replied back with.

“You know us ants are limited to only 12.50 stat points at the highest achievable rank-2, right…”

“That’s…?”

That was a great number wasn’t it? I hurriedly checked my stats and saw that only my agility was higher close to 27. ‘If every stat can hold 125 points…’ Just thinking about it was enough to make my heart race.

“I know that’s too little, right?” The captain asked me with a sullen expression, while I thought, ‘What is he feeling so sad for? When did thousand become a small number? Or maybe his ambitions are just too damn high and he wants to grow endlessly.’

“Little? That’s too much! I don’t think any of my stats will ever reach that high. I mean, I still haven’t reached hundred in any stat, so…”

But all of them face palmed at the same time hearing me say that and while I looked at their tired faces in confusion, my guide who was standing right beside me asked me,

“You do know he is talking about the total amount of stat point’s right? Ants are not supposed to have more than 12.50 stat points total. That’s it. Not 125!”

“What? Not 125 points in one stat, but 12.50 total points?”

But their expressions were clearly saying that it was the truth. That was an ant’s limit. A small ant could only grow so much.

“What the fuck!?” I yelled, but then the old captain gave me another blow in the gut and brought me down from the heaven I was flying at.

“Moreover, after taking the effect of skills and titles in account, there is no ant whose stats will ever touch that 25.0 mark in their life in a single stat.”

Remembering that my agility was already above that and I had stats nearing 50 points… I couldn’t help but shudder at the possibility that maybe I wouldn’t grow much from now onwards.

‘That means I won’t even grow twice as much fast as I am now? That’s…’

I wanted to retort, say that he was wrong, an ant could grow stronger than anyone else, but…

“But…!”

He stopped me from trying to debate the strength of ants with him. His face looked old, very old.

‘He must have tried to cross that line too…’ the thought was enough to make me understand that maybe he was right.

“Let me finish first.”

“Okay.” I sighed and decided to hear all that they had to say before coming up with some kind of a decision or something.

“Now, to tell you the truth, your stats are already as high as a third ranked ant.”

“What?” that was news to me.

“But wait… if my stats are already like a third ranker then…”

He smirked awkwardly hearing me mumble.

“Yes, what you are thinking is right. But the problem here is that you just had your first evolution and you are already equally strong, if not stronger than him.”

He pointed at Mr. Elite who was still standing by my side who scratched his cheek upon being mentioned adoring a shameful smile. He was probably feeling ashamed being compared to a ranker like me.

But they probably saw me frowning more and more with time, and that is why the red and hot ant came to me rescue by explaining the conditions of evolution for us ants.

“Here, let me give you an example. One of the conditions to evolve into third rank is to have four of the base stats; mainly strength or agility, dexterity or defense, vitality or endurance and intelligence or wisdom cross the seventy five points mark.”

*Gulp*

And I already had Wisdom, Intelligence, Agility, Endurance and luck way above the required points or very near to them.

“And seeing your stats, I don’t have anything to say at all. You can evolve into a third ranker after leveling up three or four times.” He smiled giving me the awesome news.

“Ha-ha… and the other condition?” I asked feeling somewhat tired.

“The other condition is to have at least one second tier skill above level 10.”

“Does that mean…”

“Yes, none of us have more than three second tier skills. You can forget about third tier. That is a realm of skill that only the commander has touched in our colony, other than you of course.” He said and turned silent. While other looked at me, I got engaged into contemplating the meaning of all the information that I had just received and trying to find a way out of this problem. Because I was sure I would have more than three stats over two hundred by the time I would evolve again.

Seeing that the room had turned silent like a apocalyptic war zone, the old captain finally did what he had called me there for and that was introducing me as the new member of the team.

“Anyways, boys from today onwards he is going to be part of your team.”

But no one said anything until skull breaker sighed.

“Welcome.” He said bring a smile on his face and bringing everyone out of their stupor.

And as if the storm of conflicting emotions had passed just with that, everyone become comfortable with me.

“Fuck man, now I understand why boss wanted to get you in. At first I thought it was just to train you, but nah shit, you are great, man simply and utterly fucking great.”

“Yeah.”

“Anyways now that you have introduced yourself, as your seniors we need to introduce ourselves too.” Mr. Elite said and introduced himself as Mink ‘The crusher’ Jones.

It was an odd name, but his title went perfectly with his species which was the skull breaker ant. I asked him what his specialty was and he said, “I specialize in brunt force attacks.”

Whatever that meant.

Anyways, the second one to introduce himself was the dark black ant with horns on his head instead of antennas.

“Fuck man, okay, I am Dark ‘The blasphemous’ and I’m a Demonic ant. Now don’t ask me anything about how and what that is. Just consider me as a tanker, attacker, mix. I can hit and bind anything. I can curse, leech, fly or rather glide… yeah that kind of stuff.”

He was a very fun guy to talk with. With the ominous air around him, his wide open and slightly red eyes were very charming. I knew I would go along with him very well. Not.

The next was the red mage ant or Crimson ant as he introduced himself as. According to the story, most fire mages evolve into Pyro ant, which is your regular evolution, but he somehow lucked in and got a unique class out of his evolution thanks to a fire salamander he had seen fighting once, which was an intriguing thing to know.

I didn’t want to believe that just seeing a fire breathing lizard could help him evolve into something unique, but according to Dark, he also only evolved into this version of him after being subjected to a very long curse, which a witch snail had put on him.

“Actually, we have discussed this lot of times before and the only conclusion we have come to is that, the choices one gets during their evolution depends on the skills that they have, their titles and the quantity and quality of enemies they have killed. Only this kind of explains why some get common species as their choice and others get to evolve into something unique.”

It was a thought provoking talk, but there was still an ant waiting to introduce himself. So we quickly ended our short talk and got on with it.

Anyways, the last of them came forward taking big strides and stood in front of me.

The Yellow ant looked even bigger from up close. To tell the truth I thought he was coming to fight with me, but when he put his antennas forward for a shake, I knew that his big hard body had an equally big and warm heart beating inside of it.

“It’s good that you are here now. You will be able to see places and fight things that you won’t believe exist in this world just some days distance away from here. It will be a good experience for you. Just remember to not die along the way. Welcome to the team Alpha-18. We are the explorers and I am you team leader, David ‘The Hammer’.”

A smile appeared on my face seeing that my new team leader was such a kind guy, but then the faces of my first team leader and vice leader flashed by in my mind.

‘What could that guy be doing right now?’ I thought where Genma could be. I knew I had heard him say he was going back to somewhere he would have naturally gone if it was not for chichi, but who knew he was closer than I thought him to be.

“So the team only has five members?” I asked, but David shook his head and informed me about the sixth and last guy of the team.

“He was captain’s first choice until you came along, but he also recently evolved into some unique species called a Field ant after the zombie hassle and has gotten quite strong. He is kind of a moody guy so be prepared okay.”

The description kind of reminded me of Genma, but we weren’t meant to be. I asked them what we would be doing and instead of telling me they made space for the captain to walk.

He stopped in front of me and placed one of his antennas on my left shoulder before telling me, “You went on missions as a scavenger right? The explorers are the one who finds those hunting grounds. Not only is it their duty to find a good and safe hunting ground, but also find a safe route to the place. But that is not all, you will have to take note of every little detail. Remember the lives of thousands of soldiers and scavengers lie on your shoulders. This is a serious job. You can’t mess around thinking ‘It will work out somehow.’”

I probably had stars twinkling in my eyes hearing I would get to be one of the first ones from our colony to explore uncharted territory. What did an unmanned land meant? It meant new sceneries, new people, new enemies, new insects to fight and new dangers to excel upon. Exploration gave a whole new meaning to dangers and anticipation. Entering enemy territory and make it safe for our scavengers to hunt in, it was a big responsibility and I was ready for it.

“Alright then, from today onwards I relieve you from your duty as a scavenger.”

“Yes.” I gave a salute.

“Good. And now, I announce you as sixth member of Team Exploration-18th.”

“The mortality rate here is high, but so are the rewards. Your income will be One percent worth of food stamps on the food gathered from the places your team explores. And let me tell you, one percent from five to six thousand teams is a lot of food stamps. Any questions?”

I didn’t have many questions, just one. Seeing that I had three free days to do anything I wanted to do, I decided to take Tiny and the others on a Bus ride and test the efficiency of My [Party system].

“Actually I have a question. Could you tell me if there is any safe place nearby for new rankers to level up? ”