At the edge of the Dark Forest, Bates found a mountain and dug out a deep cave to serve as a temporary foothold for him and the worker ants.
Then, Bates took out a few basic magic equipment, and a few frost wolf corpses from his virtual backpack, and placed them in the cave.
He gently patted the worker ants, and said, "I need to rest for a while. While I'm resting, you can eat these frost wolf corpses. If possible, try to devour the few pieces of magic equipment too, to increase your strength. I'll wake up soon, but in the meantime, don't leave the cave."
Bates was the overlord of the Dark Forest, and his body would naturally emit the aura of an overlord.
They had set up their temporary base on the intersection between the Dark Forest and another region, so it was impossible for powerful creatures to appear here.
As long as the worker ants stayed in this cave, they would not be in danger.
After arranging everything, Bates opened his second panel.
"Ding! Evolution points met. Do you wish to begin your fifth evolution?"
"Ding! For this evolution, you can choose to undergo a mock evolution, or you can choose to give up the mock evolution and continue with the original method of evolution."
"I choose to undergo a mock evolution!" he said without a doubt.
If he followed the original method and used gene points to increase his main body's evolution, he would still be able to increase his strength. Yet, Bates believed that the increase in strength brought about by the mock evolution would far exceed the increase brought about by the main body evolution.
Following Bates' choice, all the gene points and evolution points on his second panel were used up, as mock evolution was set as the new evolution method.
Without enough information, it was hard for Bates to guess the direction of this evolution method. All he knew was that his strength would increase dramatically.
However, this time, the virtual images that had appeared during evolutions before, did not appear in front of Bates. Instead, his consciousness became blurry, and he fainted in the cave.
The little worker looked at Bates on the ground, and shook its antennae. Weak pulses emanated from its body.
"Rest... rest? I'm not afraid, I... protect..." the worker ant said in a broken language, and shook its antennae again. The worker ant looked at Bates for a while. It had grown to half a meter, but compared to Bates' size, it was still very small. It crawled next to Bates and lay down, and after a few minutes, moved even closer to him.
After a few more times of moving closer, the worker ant finally calmed down, as both bodies rested against each other.
The worker ant continued to lay next to Bates, as if it was guarding against something.
After a long time, the worker ant thought, 'Eat... eat... full. Will... grow. Can... protect... you...'
It dragged a piece of magic equipment over, and looked up at Bates, and with its extremely sharp fangs, gently bit the magic equipment.
After a long time, Bates awoke.
His eyes lit up, and he was finally able to inspect his surroundings.
He was still in the depths of the cave, and only two of the four frost wolves' corpses he had given, were left.
However, in front of him were more than ten fresh corpses. There were frost wolves, fire rabbits, lizards, and even a blue-skinned humanoid creature covered in fish scales, but he couldn't see the worker ant!
Just as Bates was about to rush out of the cave to look for it, a small figure crawled in from outside.
Seeing Bates awake made the worker ant extremely excited.
It quickly rushed to Bates' side and put down the corpse in its mouth.
"I... hunt... for you... to eat..." it said, again in its broken language.
Bates quickly understood what the worker ant wanted to express, and felt comfortable enough to fall back asleep.
This time, he slept for two days.
At first, the worker ant still followed Bates' instructions and quietly stayed in the cave, but after a day, the worker ant became anxious.
He had already eaten half of the four frost wolf corpses, and only one greatsword was left of the three magic equipment. If he continued to eat, there would be no food left in the cave.
The worker ant was afraid that Bates would wake up without food, so he had hurriedly run out of the cave to hunt.
So when Bates woke up, there were a dozen fresh corpses in front of him.
Warmth rose in Bates' heart, and he gently patted the worker ant to calm it down before looking at the results of his evolution.
He had grown to two meters, and even when lying on the ground, was still one meter tall. The current Bates had taken the shape of a giant monster.
His attribute table looked like:
[ identity ] : Lord of the Dark Forest, Bates
[ race ] : Overlord Ant
[ template ] : Warrior Attribute Template
[ level ] : Level 12
[ status ] : Health 4500, Mana 1500
[ attributes ] : Strength 180, Agility 130, Energy 150, Spirit 100
[ talent ] : Soul Bonus, Devouring Evolution, Adaptability
[ skills ] : Sharp Claws, Resistant Armor Shell, Limb Regeneration, Intermediate Poison Resistance, Intermediate Fire Resistance, Shadow Raid, Bloodthirsty Warrior
[ gene point education ] : 0
[ evolution points ] : 0
[ skill fragment ] : none
[ soul points ] : 9
His strength had increased from 107 to 180, agility from 75 to 130, energy from 80 to 150, spirit from 50 to 100. This evolution had brought Bates 248 attribute points.
A single evolution had doubled his strength!
What more, after the evolution, he could upgrade his skills once again!
Bates immediately consumed 3 soul points and raised the level of the three resistance skills from intermediate to advanced, increasing the ability to reduce the damage of these three attributes!
The speed of the increase in strength completely exceeded Bates' imagination!
This was too exciting!