Laws of the Insect Hive

Chapter 56: Bizarre Body

System followed the rhythm in his bloodline, compared it with the pupa’s bloodline, and tried to activate the [Cold Resistance] in [Insect Adaptability].

Unexpectedly, when he used the EXP bar to start activating [Cold Resistance], System realized that the EXP stored in his body was out of his control. That episode gave him a strange feeling.

System recalled the Frost Dragon’s yawn before its departure, as he had ended up in such a miserable situation because of it. Not to be unfair, the emitted chilly aura had also caused a sudden surge in his EXP bar.

Surprisingly, that cold and weird aura had not disappeared. Instead, it reappeared and interrupted him when he used [Insect Ability Activation].

System noticed that his blood and the pupa’s blood generated an irregular rhythm, while his EXP bar began to deplete bit by bit. Instead of activating the ability [Cold Resistance], it began to activate something that he himself could not explain. It seemed to be something that did not even exist in an insect’s bloodline.

He sensed a special kind of icy energy from the surrounding falling snowflakes, converging into his body. System’s body became stiff once again, and soon, his heart gradually stopped beating from freezing.

Finally, System fell into a deep sleep…

…

System woke up again, feeling very dazed.

Fortunately, the timer function in [Tools Menu] let him know that he had been sleeping for five days.

He had thought that he would die, but he surprisingly survived. Although he was buried in the snow, System did not feel cold at all.

Before System had more time to think, the feeling of hunger came from his abdomen. This was the first time since he had been reborn as a grasshopper that his hunger felt so intense.

System waved the mandibles in his mouth randomly and swallowed the surrounding ice crystal particles to fill his stomach with snow.

Swallowing the ice and snow did not bring System any discomfort. He could feel the ice and snow slowly melt after mixing with stomach juice and easing his hunger.

Not only that, but also the ice and snow were tasteful, unlike the untasteful rainwater System had tried in the past. The ice and snow had a light, salty taste, similar to monosodium glutamate, giving off a vague freshness during swallowing.

This was the first time System had tasted salty food since he had come to this world. What he had eaten before was basically sweet, sour, or bitter. His body liked the taste of sweet and sour, but the bitter taste was a bit harmful to his body. Usually, food that could be toxic to his body would have a bitter taste.

System was very excited to be able to taste saltiness for the first time, so he devoured the snow around him faster.

As he ate the snow, System felt as if a strange cold energy appeared in his stomach and rushed towards his throat.

A new organ seemed to appear in his throat, but System did not care about it. He was hungry and busy eating the snow around…

Soon, System found that swallowing the snow was no solution to his hunger at all. When the snow melted into water in his stomach, he could only feel a very vague feeling of fullness. Then, the melted snow water would be urinated from his body soon, making him even hungrier.

System waved his tentacles haphazardly and rolled some dead leaves and frozen weed beneath him into his mouth to chew.

As compared to the salty snow, dead leaves and weed could better fill his stomach.

And as his hunger was eased, System finally noticed how weird his body had become.

The pupa he had before passing out had disappeared, together with half of his remaining femur and his left middle foot limb.

System found remnants in the snow beneath him—there were the pupa’s shell and his foot limb’s green exoskeleton…

System speculated that he might have eaten the pupa and his remaining foot limb while he was unconscious and hungry.

Perhaps it was because of the lack of nutrients in his body that his [Limb Regeneration] could not fully perform its function. System’s broken foot limbs had no sign of regrowing, and instead, a few tentacles had grown out of them.

He now had 15 tentacles in total.

Due to the uneven absorption of nutrients, the 15 tentacles varied in length and thickness, with the longest one being nearly 30 centimeters, and the shortest one being less than 5 centimeters long.

In addition to the newly-grown tentacles, System found that his abdomen, which was fat previously, was now shrunk to a quarter of its original size. He probably had used up all the energy he had saved in his abdomen these days.

System used his tentacles to search for weeds and dead leaves from the snow and stuff them into his mouth. As he was getting full and gradually regaining his consciousness, System started to think about his current situation.

The snowfall was apparently much worse than System had expected. In just five days, the climate here had already changed from early autumn to late winter.

The snow burying his body was, at least, tens of centimeters thick. He could not even feel the air above if he tried to stretch his longest tentacle upward.

Luckily, for some unknown reason, he had acquired a mysterious frost power. Otherwise, he would not be able to survive the harsh weather even if he had [Cold Resistance].

This ability caused a new organ to form near his throat and changed his blood in a special way.

Although he was still a cold-blooded insect, something special seemed to have appeared in his blood, preventing it from freezing in the bitter cold.

…

[Frost Cold Breath] (6/15): Derived ability activated by [Insect Adaptability], [Digital Code], [Data Compilation], and an unknown power. Spews cold breath through a special gland.

…

When the hunger in his stomach eased a bit more, System tried spewing this [Frost Cold Breath] with the newly-formed gland in his throat.

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He could spew out an icy blue gas from the gland, and the amount of gas was about as much as the volume of a coke can from his previous life. He could spew out about three times in a row, and it would then take about five hours to fully restore.

However, System could not know about the actual power of this breath, as this kind of [Frost Cold Breath] did not affect the snow that buried his body.

System used his tentacles to move his body in the snow. It was slow, but his body was still rising bit by bit in the snow as he fiddled with his tentacles.

After all, being buried in snow like this was not a good thing, System decided to climb out of the snow.

Only by going aboveground could he see how bad was the forest damaged by the snow, and he could use his tentacles to climb up the tree to feed on the frozen leaves.