Chapter 293: Energy Pool

Many things that were harmless and beneficial to extraordinary creatures would instead become a death sentence when they fell upon ordinary creatures.

Seeing this, Gaemi did not force them to come any closer. She did not want these laborers to get into trouble as well, so she instead climbed toward the edge of the pool herself with great effort.

She only had the honey-pot ants brought over. Cultivation could not replace eating, while ordinary food was basically no different from something stuck between her teeth to her, so naturally she had to keep the food with her.

Of course, if she had a choice, Gaemi did not want to drink honey water every day either. She always felt that if she shook herself now, she would be able to hear the water sloshing around inside her.

Gaemi used her Mental Power to draw out some of the energy, planning to first break open the pupa.

The pupa indeed protected the Ant Queen’s safety very well, but it also had quite a few flaws. Even the Ant Queen herself had difficulty breaking it open, and there was even a possibility of becoming trapped and dying inside.

This was also one of the major difficulties that many ants faced when they transformed into pupae. All ants would go through this process, and many of them had no way to come out of the pupa on their own and needed help from their companions. If their companions failed to notice them, they would die inside.

The Ant Queen naturally would not reach such a state, but she still needed to expend a great deal of energy.

For the sake of her own safety, Gaemi had put every bit of strength she had into transforming into a pupa back then. Now, naturally, getting back out would be extremely difficult.

However, although Gaemi was eager, she did not lose her sense of order in what she was doing. She first drew over a small amount of energy and adapted to it, judging whether it would cause any harm to her.

The Ant Queen was truly fragile, so Gaemi did not dare be careless at all when it came to protecting herself.

Just as she was testing it, she saw the honey-pot ant beside her instinctively trying to move toward the energy pool. Seeing this, Gaemi did not even think about it and immediately headbutted it away.

At present, the honey-pot ant did not seem to have displayed any harmful behavior. However, mutated ants were slow to respond to pheromones and were already considered the "troublemakers" within an ant colony. Who could know whether this one was simply hiding its true nature very deeply?

Therefore, even now, Gaemi had been keeping the honey-pot ant alive without giving it any precious food. Even though the honey water produced from feeding it ordinary food had already displayed some characteristics of heavenly treasures and earthly wonders, she had still never thought about trying to feed it other types of food.

It was enough for now. There was no need to be greedy.

She had not even dealt with the situation concerning her own body yet. If another unexpected problem appeared, she might not be able to keep it under control.

A qualified Ant Queen naturally had to learn how to see the situation clearly. Otherwise, how could she command an entire ant colony?

This was a talent they were born with, and Gaemi was naturally very skilled at it.

Sensing that Gaemi had already gone to the energy pool, Joo Joowon raised his eyebrows but did not pay much attention to it.

Since he had already said that Gaemi could use it, there was no difference between her using it sooner or later. Besides, judging from the current situation, she still knew her limits, so it was unlikely that anything terrible would happen.

Joo Joowon did not plan to go to the protected zone for now. After reaching Level 10, one’s level could no longer be increased in just a day or two, especially for someone with his special class. Therefore, there was no need to take risks by going out to kill monsters. His gains so far were already quite good.

Moreover, when he had calculated several different directions back then, all of the results had been unfavorable. Joo Joowon was also worried that something might happen to the little ones if he left them at home, so he simply could not feel at ease without going back.

As soon as he reached the entrance, Joo Joowon saw a corpse lying there that had already been stabbed until it looked like a hedgehog. His expression changed slightly.

When the earth fire had attracted all the nearby creatures to the mountain, Joo Joowon had already wondered whether some mutated beast might pass by the area around his home. He had not expected his worry to actually come true.

He quickly walked over and discovered that there were no traces of a fight left in the courtyard, which made him breathe a sigh of relief.

Thinking about it, this place was, after all, an area where humans had lived. Even if there were still surviving animals, there could not possibly be that many of them. The protected zone was the real home of the animals, so naturally, they were unlikely to attack this area.

The spikes on the corpse were obviously from Bomi. Joo Joowon dragged the corpse inside and could not help praising Bomi. "Well done!"

He threw the corpse in front of Bomi. "Keep this one for yourself. You’ve worked hard these past few days."

Bomi moved its tentacles and drove them into the corpse, showing no particular reaction.

As a cactus, it had very little desire for material things. After all, it was originally a plant that lived in harsh environments. The energy accumulated from the mutated rats before was already enough for it to go without eating or drinking for an entire month. Therefore, after killing the intruder, it had not even bothered to go over and retrieve the corpse.