Law of the Swarm

Chapter 3
The fifteen-centimeter toad in front of him made System tremble all over, similar to the feeling he had when he encountered the little praying mantis last time.

His [insect intuition] played a strong role again, System's pair of thighs responsible for bouncing accumulated huge strength, and the instinct from his body urged him to jump and escape here immediately.

"Is it the [insect intuition] that jumps to escape as soon as it detects danger?"

"But this time my intuition has backfired..."

System forcibly suppressed his [Insect Intuition] power, the derived skill [Insect Intuition] is simple and effective, can avoid most dangers, and greatly increase the survival rate of the grasshopper group.

But this intuition obviously doesn't apply to Toad.

If the toads in this world had the same habits as the toads in System's previous life, bouncing in front of the toads would definitely be courting death.

System can guarantee that as long as he jumps now, he will be sucked into the belly by the toad's tongue, and will be turned into a puddle of thick water in the toad's gastric juice.

The habits of toads and frogs System just knew from his memory that they like moving food and have no interest in dead things.

System seemed to have kept frogs as pets in his previous life. Sometimes the bread worms he bought were inactive or dead, so he would tie the worms with a rope to tease the frogs.

Facing the toad in front of him, System knew that the best thing to do was to remain still, because stationary things were not attractive to the toad.

Forcibly suppressing the [Insect Intuition] that made him want to jump away immediately, System's abdominal breathing gradually slowed down, and he entered a semi-dormant state again...

While System was waiting for the toad to leave, the previous "ant search team" gradually came near it and the toad.

The team of ants obviously didn't find the toad hidden in the dead leaves, and they were still searching for possible food among the dead leaves.

Whoosh!
The dynamic vision of the compound eyes of insects is very powerful, but the tongue of the toad is obviously faster. System saw the tongue in the mouth of the toad flicker, and an ant about [-] centimeters away from the toad disappeared.

Half a dead leaf spit out from the mouth of the toad, which should have been accidentally stuck in the mouth while preying on the ants with its tongue.

The impact of the toad's tongue on the dead leaves on the ground aroused the vigilance of several ants. The ants accelerated their movement and crawled around to search for unusual places that caused the dead leaves to vibrate.

But not long after, several ants were preyed on by the toad's tongue one after another, and only one ant escaped the catastrophe because of the different search directions, and gradually walked away.

Even in the face of unreasonable and weird crises, these ants are not timid at all, and it is not known whether it is their low IQ or their habits.

It should be a habit.

System recalled a scene in a documentary in his previous life. Even when facing their natural enemies, anteaters thousands of times their size, ants would charge without flinching.

……

It wasn't until noon that the toad in front of System started to leave.

During this period, the toad ate more than a dozen ants one after another, as well as several flying insects similar to bees and a huge dragonfly.

After the toad left, System, who was out of danger, finally had a chance to eat.

Eating and growing are the survival instincts flowing in the grasshopper's blood, and it is also what System decides to do after thinking about it at night.

Insects like grasshoppers, which rely on fecundity to continue, have a survival rate in the larval stage that is dozens of times lower than that of adults, so he must grow up as soon as possible and become an adult as soon as possible to increase his chances of survival.

After releasing the dormant state of his body, System found a direction and jumped up cautiously.

The jumping of the grasshopper is somewhat similar to the feeling of a human being on a roller coaster, but the grasshopper is not a human being. During the jumping process, System felt that his body was like a machine, without any abnormalities, and he could move very calmly. Check out the surrounding anomalies.

On the first plant he jumped to, System found two white flowers at the top, about five centimeters in diameter, because the distance was too far to see the shape clearly.

System had an idea and decided to collect nectar. If he wanted to grow his body quickly, he needed nutritious food, and nectar was obviously a good choice.

Not only that, but System also wants to taste the taste of nectar. He can eat the leaves of plants with a slightly bitter taste like fruits, so what kind of taste will he have in his mouth when he eats nectar that tastes sweet? ?

System is looking forward to it.

On the way to the flowers, System, who was walking cautiously, encountered five small white translucent insects. These small insects had the same six legs as him, and they should be a type of insect.

They are very small, only 0.2-0.3 cm, about half of his body.

These small insects use their unique mouthparts to destroy the plant wall, and at the same time suck the slightly cloudy juice from the plant wall wound.

They were obviously peaceful herbivorous insects, and System was not polite, and directly squeezed a small insect away with his strong body to swallow the juice collected by these small insects.

As System expected, this small insect was not a social insect like an ant. After seeing System's strong body, the small insect squeezed away by him quickly fled away.

The other ones ignored System's actions and continued to suck the juice of the plants. Obviously, they didn't think that System would pose a threat to them.

After seeing the performance of these little bugs, System began to devour the plant juice. The juice tasted very good, somewhat similar to the mango juice he drank in his previous life.

It's just that after continuing to snatch the juice produced by the two little bugs, the remaining little bugs all escaped one after another.

System tried to bite the wound of the plant wall for a few more times, but found that the plant wall no longer flowed juice after these small insects left. It is estimated that the unique ability of these small insects can make the plant wound bleed out. Maybe they The mouthparts inject some special biological mixtures into the plants.

Abandoning this juice, System quickly climbed onto the flowers using the hooks on his feet.

The flowers are larger than what he observed at the bottom of the plant, with a diameter of about seven or eight centimeters and a shape similar to a chrysanthemum.

The stamens in the center of the flower are dense and firm. System tried to clean these stamens with his fangs, but ended in failure. These stamens were still too hard for his fangs.

The shallow layer of nectar under the stamens has been sucked by bees. If these stamens cannot be cleaned up, the deeper layer of nectar can only rely on the straw that comes with the butterfly.

Reluctantly leaving the two flowers, System tried to eat some mature leaves.

The taste of a mature leaf is almost the same as that of a young leaf, and the effect on his growth is also almost the same, but it is very laborious to chop this kind of leaf with its soft fangs, and the efficiency is more than three times worse.

If you only eat this kind of mature leaves, the speed of eating may not be as fast as the speed of digestion, which will undoubtedly make him more and more hungry. System can only give up. It seems that if you want to eat this kind of leaves, you can only Wait for him to molt for the first time.

And just as System continued to jump and observe the danger.

System found hundreds of pale green crystal clear insect eggs on the back of a leaf, and his insect head showed a greedy expression unconsciously...

……

Grasshoppers' diet is not limited to grass. When plagued by hunger, they will also eat some meat, even young ones.

(End of this chapter)