Laws of the Insect Hive

Chapter 47: Communicating With a Slime

Originally, in order to kill the mouse, System had planned to first use [Corrosive Slime] on the mouse’s eyes. After the mouse lost its vision, he would use branches and stones to harass the mouse continuously. In the end, when the mouse was exhausted, he would use his mandibles to finish it off.

However, back when System had been exploring the extent of his flying strength, he had felt that his tentacle could hold a wooden stick half a meter long while flying. Thus, he had chosen that method just now.

He brought the mouse into the air and let the mouse fall to its death.

However, although the mouse’s weight was slightly lighter than the wooden stick, it was obviously much harder to handle the struggling mouse than the stick. Hence, it was harder to fly.

Fortunately, his impromptu plan was basically accomplished as the mouse had successfully fallen down from a height.

…

Unexpectedly, the mouse did not immediately die from falling. Probably, the fallen leaves and dead branches within the forest had softened the impact. Even so, the mouse was twitching non-stop on the ground and had already lost its ability to move.

Blood was flowing out of its mouth, and when the mouse saw System approaching, the mouse remaining eye revealed a trace of fear.

“Eh? It still had not lost consciousness from being so gravely injured?”

System opened his mandibles, intending to deal the final blow to the mouse, but he quickly stopped.

System recalled how the mouse had tortured Shava, so he used his remaining four tentacles to dip in the blood, which flowed out from the corner of the mouse’s mouth. Then, he tasted its blood in front of it.

The mouse’s blood was similar to the blood of birds he had tasted a long time ago. After the milk taste, there was a tea-like taste, which tickled System’s taste buds.

Only after tasting the blood on all four tentacles consecutively did System realize that the taste of blood on his four tentacles was different.

One of his tentacles gave off a rich coffee taste, and at the same time, as he tasted it, he felt a slightly sharp pain in his stomach, as well as an inexplicable, soothing feeling.

The EXP of the blood on that tentacle was a total of four times the blood on the other tentacles.

“Why would there be such a taste?”

System used his four tentacles to dip in the blood that had dripped out of the corner of the mouse’s mouth and tried them one by one.

System realized that it was still the same tentacle, which had a different blood taste. The coffee taste was still there but blander than before.

As System stared at the dying mouse, he suddenly understood why his tentacle gave off the taste of coffee.

At that thought, System’s body could not help but tremble slightly.

Even if he had decided to be cautious, he had consumed the liquid from the spider’s venom gland. His tentacle had already been laced with the venom, and he had accidentally mixed it with the mouse’s blood!

System felt like he was about to die from accidentally eating a rat poison of his own creation…

Fortunately, from the way System’s body acted, it seemed that he would have no problem consuming all of the grayish-black spider’s venom. However, it was still unknown whether he was tolerant of other more toxic spider venoms. Anyway, it was quite beneficial to his body now.

…

Upon seeing that the mouse had already stopped twitching, System grabbed the mouse’s carcass and started returning to his temporary nest.

If System were to choose the most suitable one to eat this mouse, then it would definitely be the soldier ant, Shava.

System chased away the worker ants patrolling the area near the nest and made great efforts to stuff the mouse into the nest, only to find Shava still in her deep slumber.

It seemed that System’s earlier information-gathering method had exhausted Shava, so she still needed to rest for some time.

System moved the mouse’s carcass to an empty room and checked on Shava’s physical condition before leaving his temporary nest again.

He stretched his wings and flew to the direction of the swamp he had spotted in the day. There were two slimes there.

When System had been clearing the glowing mushrooms, an idea had suddenly struck him. Since he could now perceive the mushrooms’ emotions, what prevented him from trying to perceive the slimes’ emotions?

Slimes could split themselves countless times, and each split part had an independent consciousness.

In System’s mind, the slimes were essentially a cluster of organisms, like fungi or bacteria. In theory, he could perceive their emotions through [Mind Transmission]. Maybe, he might even be able to communicate with them.

System flew swiftly and arrived at the swamp. Soon, he spotted one of the slimes. It was silently staying in the swamp, just like what he had observed in the day from the clouds.

The slime’s colloid was dark green and was of a slightly different color than the brown slime.

System flew around the slime, but he did not discover the other slime he had seen earlier. It was unknown where it had gone.

After searching to no avail, System gave up and returned to the swamp where the first slime was.

After grabbing a dead branch from the ground, System flew above the slime and threw it down. He wanted to test how that slime would react.

Its reaction was the same as his old slime friend. The slime’s colloid started to tremble vigorously and swallowed the stick that System had thrown.

As the slime devoured the tree branch, System could feel the slime’s desire to devour food.

It looked like he was able to feel the slime’s emotions by using his [Mind Transmission] and [Spirit Connection].

The slime’s emotions seemed to be the cluster of numerous weak consciousnesses. They influenced each other and thus formed a common emotion. Evidently, slimes should be life forms that were similar to fungi, bacteria, or a cluster of microorganisms.

As compared to mushrooms, the emotion that the slime had was much stronger and more concentrated. That was because it was the emotion of the combination of countless weak consciousness, unlike the fungi in the mushroom that had no collective consciousness.

System continued throwing tree branches a few more times to test the slime.

He discovered that slimes, such a life form, were much simpler than he had imagined.

When it devoured a tree branch, the slime would show excitement, and that emotion would last about three seconds before disappearing.

After a few seconds, the slime would have the feeling of a foreign object in it. After a while, the slime would eject the indigestible tree branch out of its body.

System realized that the intelligence of slimes was even lower than insects, and they would only move according to their bodies’ instincts.

After testing the slime for a while, System tried to communicate with it.

“Jump!”

As System ordered the slime through [Mind Transmission], the slime really jumped after two seconds.

The slime was a complete replica of Foolish before she was named Shava. After System sent an order, the slime would react to his command.

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However, that reaction was fundamentally different. Foolish trusted him, while the slime only followed System’s orders due to its instinctive reaction.

The slime’s body was like the collection of numerous tiny life forms’ consciousnesses. Thus, when System sent a message to the slime, as long as one of the many consciousnesses responded, the other consciousnesses would also be influenced. Therefore, a chain effect would be formed, and it would complete the message System sent.

As a result, System could make use of [Mind Transmission] to control the slime. Even so, using such a method to control slimes was not that ideal either.

Slimes were unable to understand some of System’s overly complicated orders, so he could only order it to move and jump.

Also, slimes seemed to have short memories, only lasting a few seconds. Even if the slime was ordered to continue moving toward a direction, it would stop voluntarily after three to five seconds because it had forgotten the order.