Chapter 215: Chapter 215: The middle forest (6)- 8 ants evolved?

"For starters, if I evolve the ant queen, it will make every single brood that comes next be of that species... so if I choose Spined Queen Ant, then that would mean the new ants will be Spined Worker Ants and I can’t change that..." Theo said out loud to make sense of things for himself.

"But... if I keep the ant queen without evolution... that would mean the new ants will be the normal species and then I can evolve them to one of these three, maybe more by the time I find the other evolution paths..." Theo thought, and it made sense in his mind.

But being unable to take help in making such a crucial decision made him second-guess his own decisions a lot. They had to be right.

A few minutes of thinking over it made Theo believe that he may be right for now, getting the queen evolved could only have downsides if he wanted diversity in the ants.

’But will the ant queen still take the newly evolved ants in when their species are different now?’ Theo thought only to nod in his own agreement, ’It took the spider too, they are still ants but... I should try with some first... the evolutions are quite easy.’

’The Spined Worker Ant needs the ant to be level 4, which is not going to happen for another week... My only options are Aquamandible Worker Ant and Embermaw Worker Ant...’

Theo got the page out with the description of the species and its abilities in his journal. It was a lot better than making the ants come out again and again, and looking at their stats.

He quickly got a rat whose grade was this time not ordinary but a common one.

Just like always, the ant queen came out and made the rat freeze, only to get all the ants to swarm over the rat and kill it within minutes.

Theo made the ant queen make the level 3 ants stay back, only to see that most of them had the requirement complete for all of them since they fought and defeated the rat together.

Theo heaved a sigh of relief. In his mind, there was a doubt whether the ants might have had to fight alone against these higher-grade beasts, but he was happy it wasn’t like that.

All of the 30 level 3 workers had the ’Spined Worker Ant’ evolution for some reason, meaning they all ate that same crystal seed or shared it with each other. It wasn’t the same for the other two.

Out of the 30 level 3 Worker Ants, only 8 had Aquamandible or Embermaw evolution options. The rest didn’t have it as they hadn’t consumed it, which made Theo order a lot more of these three ingredients to have all of them get all the options.

Out of the eight that had these requirements, Theo found that six of them had the Aquamandible evolution option, while the remaining two had the Embermaw option.

Theo was relieved that the evolution didn’t start on its own, as the requirements were complete, he had the ability to choose when there was more than one option.

For the six that had Aquamandible, Theo just thought in his mind that he would choose it, only to see that the requirement vanished from the status screen of the Worker Ant.

Theo didn’t wait for them to complete it and instead made the only two Embermaw ones choose their evolution too, making it vanish from the status screen.

The ants had not changed whatsoever for almost a whole minute until Theo could see that they had just fallen to the ground.

"!" He suddenly felt the distressed emotions of the ant queen through the bond, which made him look at the colony.

From the entrance, many ants came out of the colony and went to the weak and evolving ants.

Theo saw them grab the ants in pairs of three and drag them inside the colony.

’I want to look at them evolve, don’t take them in, let them stay,’ Theo said through the bond, only to feel the emotion of the ant queen as if it was outright declining.

Theo felt annoyed but could understand the worry of the ant queen; its children seemed to be hurt, and it was the first time it was experiencing an evolution or something like that.

Theo waited patiently, only to feel a knock at the door. He opened it and looked around before he looked down and saw it was the mantis.

He made his hand come down, which made the mantis hop on it and then calmly climb its way onto his shoulder, which was a little small for it now.

’They are going to evolve soon, mantis. When they do, and I have seen it, we will go to the new area of the forest to fight.’ Theo thought in the bond, making the mantis look at him and, nostalgically, get into his fighting stance.

Theo chuckled and saw it for many, many minutes until he was asleep. The mantis stayed there on the shoulder, alert to protect its human.

Almost an hour later, the mantis noticed a few ants coming out of the ant colony.

It quickly tapped its foreleg at Theo, making him wake up and look at the mantis in confusion.

Theo’s eyes automatically went to the ant colony, where his eyes widened in shock.

He got up and went to the colony and crouched down.

There were eight ants outside the ant colony, and six of them were a totally different color from the Shardjaw Ant species.

Theo could differentiate them even without seeing their stats.

The Aquamandible Worker Ants had a bluish hue to their carapace, their size had increased a little, and Theo nostalgically made his finger go down, only to realize they were as big as his whole nail and a little more.

There were two ants among them that had a burned carapace, making them stand out from the other six.

Theo finally opened their status, and a stream of happy hormones filled his body.

"Awesome..."