Chapter 261: Chapter 261: Getting sunlight to grow the ants (2)- Will the ants die?

Throughout the day, Theo gave the mantis all the good things it wanted to eat one by one to help improve its mood.

And he continued grinding to make the level 3 ants reach level 4.

Now that the ants were level 3, he had them fight individually against small insects as well. Insects that were mostly herbivores and couldn’t, unfortunately, attack back.

This made the EXP gain a lot more than just dividing it among 40.

Even the ant queen was now level 4 with how much it had leveled up through its people.

Theo could convert it to a spiked ant queen, but before doing that, he needed to make sure of one thing that could only happen when some of the other ants were level 4 too.

The whole day went by just like that, and he was able to make them reach the end of level 3, close enough that a couple of hours of grinding could push them to it.

Elias and Clara were tired from studying so much, but having mature brains made them cram a lot of it in less time.

They pestered Theo to sleep on time, which made him kick them both out of the room and lock it.

He was having too much fun leveling them up and waiting for the rewards to show themselves.

They knocked after an hour and got no response, so finally, Elias brought in a master key through the head butler only to see that Theo was still working.

"I will call your mother if you don’t sleep now, young master," Elias spoke in a serious voice, only for Theo to stare at him.

Clara knew what was coming up. She had made that mistake too once.

"Call her. I am just too near a breakthrough to care, Elias." Theo spoke casually, which surprised them both. Theo was getting more nonchalant about these things, which made Elias feel like something needed to be done, but today was not the day, not when he was at a breakthrough.

Later at midnight, Theo finally stood up and stretched his body. He had been in the same position for god knows how many hours now.

Level 4

A smile bloomed on his sleepy face when he saw five of the ants achieve it.

He stopped them from working anymore and made the ones who had been working hard for a while rest for the time being. Even they needed it in his eyes.

Theo went and slept, and for the first time in a long time, he was fast asleep till noon.

It was the same dreaded day Rhys decided to show up to start his training again, only to see him sleeping till noon.

A vein popped in his head, and he moved his hand forward only to pinch Theo on the arm and move away.

Theo got up with widened eyes, holding his arm, only to look at it and see a red spot.

"It isn’t that severe, young master," Rhys spoke with manners, but his voice was cold enough that it did not matter.

Theo got on his feet right on the bed and looked at Rhys with surprise, only to greet him and get to bathing right away.

Rhys had to wait for no more than 10 minutes when Theo got out with his full dragon leather on and an excited smile.

"Eager to train this much?"

"You have no idea, Sir Rhys. I have not been able to follow my training since I went there. Oh—" Theo realized that he still hadn’t told Rhys what had happened.

But as if he read Theo like a book, he only smiled with his sleepy eyes. "I have already been told most of it by the baron. Don’t worry about it. Let’s go."

By the time Elias and Clara came back the tenth time to try and wake up Theo, he was nowhere to be found. They went to find him in the terrarium room, and he wasn’t there, which led them to many different places he could be.

Theo trained till sunset and finally stopped.

"Your body is sluggish right now. That’s what you get for skipping training, young master," Rhys spoke sleepily.

"You will never be able to achieve anything with the sword if you go on like this." He stated, and Theo froze.

He thought about it and felt like Rhys was right. He was already doing both things at the same time, giving more time to leveling his insects, which was normal for him.

But his eyes became determined, and a light smile formed on Rhys’s face that vanished almost instantly.

"You will come train from sunrise to sunset every day from now on. I don’t care if your taming journey gets ruined in the process," Rhys spoke again.

"That’s the least you need to ignite an aura in your sword."

Just by the thought of that, excitement flashed inside Theo’s eyes, and he soon thanked and bid farewell to Rhys before moving back.

First came the medicinal bath that calmed his nerves to some extent, and that’s when he went on to make the five ants convert to the spiked worker ants.

He fed them the ingredients, and all the other requirements were already complete.

For the next 30 minutes, Theo just stared at the ants sitting and shivering on the floor of the terrarium room in the process of their evolution.

The ant queen showed concern quite a few times in the process, expressing emotions that made Theo feel like they were not doing that well.

And honestly, even he could tell something was wrong.

That’s when it kicked in, since the first time he made insects evolve to the current.

There had never been a time when the evolution went badly.

But this evolution was so important and needed the ants to be level 4 before beginning, that Theo realized something for the first time:

The ants might not be able to take it.