Two spikes were set. Two remained in my stash.

  My beak clamped onto the third Barbed Bone Spike. The tip floated, nearly weightless, while the base dragged heavy against my jaw. Artificial density. Mana static tickled my tongue. That concentrated weight would anchor it deep.

  I hopped to the left wall of the log’s interior, just past the entrance.

  My new Wisdom stat painted lines in the air. I could see the trajectory of a pouncing Wire-Rat. They launched low, pushing off their back legs, aiming for the throat.

  If an intruder cleared the first floor-spike, they would land… here.

  I drove the third spike into the soft, rotting wood of the wall. I didn't just push it; I twisted it. The barb caught the grain of the Iron-Wood, locking it in place. I tested it with a tug of my talon. It held.

  This spike was angled horizontally, at knee-height for a larger beast. A trip-wire made of bone.

  One left.

  I craned my neck toward the mossy arch overhead.

  The phantom crunch of the Mana-Grub’s shell verified the math. Falling meant acceleration. Velocity converted mass into damage. The darkness above wasn’t just a roof; it was a launchpad.

  I fluttered up, digging my talons into the mossy roof of the hollow log. It was precarious. My stamina drained slowly as I held the position, hanging upside down like a bat.

  I drove the last spike straight over the "kill zone." The gap between the traps on the floor and wall.

  It pointed straight down.

  If a creature reared up to attack me on the ledge, or if they jumped to avoid the floor trap, they would skewer themselves on the ceiling.

  I dropped back to the floor, landing silently.

  [Stamina: 18/25]

  It all checked out. Step forward, lose a foot. Flinch sideways, spill guts on the wall. Jump, and gravity feeds the skull to the roof shard. No safe angles remained.

  But it was too clean. The white bone stood out against the dark, decaying wood like a beacon. A blind mole might miss it, but anything with eyes would spot the trap immediately.

  I needed camouflage.

  I moved to the back of the log, where the dampness had turned the wood into a black, peaty mush. I scooped up a mouthful. It tasted of earth and dead insects.

  I returned to the spikes. I plastered the dark mud over the white bone, breaking up the outline. I pressed dead leaves and bits of gray moss into the mud.

  I stepped back.

  The spikes disappeared. They looked like just another knot in the wood, another piece of forest debris.

  My stomach growled. A sharp, twisting pain that doubled me over.

  [Hunger: Critical]

  I looked at the Ant.

  It was still impaled on the side spike where it had died. The System timer floated above it, a cruel blue countdown.

  [Fermentation Progress: 98%]

  [Time Remaining: 00:03:12]

  Three minutes.

  I paced. My talons clicked softly on the wood. The hunger was a physical weight, dragging at my focus. The scent coming off the Ant was changing. The acrid, chemical smell of the formic acid was fading, replaced by a heavy, sweet aroma. It smelled like overripe fruit and copper.

  I hopped up to my resting ledge, forcing myself to wait. Discipline was the difference between a monster and a meal.

  I checked my Mana.

  [MP: 6/35]

  Regeneration was painfully slow, even with the Wisdom boost. I needed to be careful. If a fight started now, I wouldn't have the juice to craft more spikes or use any active skills I might acquire later. I was reliant on my beak and my traps.

  I watched the Ant.

  The chitin was losing its sheen. It turned matte, dull. The exoskeleton, usually hard enough to deflect a glancing blow, was softening. It looked like wet cardboard.

  Inside, the biology was being rewritten. The Larder wasn't just rotting the meat; it was distilling the essence. The mana that had once powered the Ant's muscles was breaking down, fermenting into raw XP.

  Drip.

  A drop of liquefied biomass fell from the Ant's mandible and hit the floor.

  [Fermentation Progress: 99%]

  My mouth watered. Saliva pooled in my beak, thick and eager.

  I focused on the details to distract myself. The Ant was a Scavenger Ant. Low level. Low threat. But it was biomass.

  I needed to understand the yield. The Weevil had given me a massive boost because of the level gap and the size. This Ant was Level 1. I was Level 3.

  Diminishing returns.

  The math of the System was cruel. As I grew stronger, the weak would provide less sustenance. I would be forced to hunt bigger game. I would be forced to take risks.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  The countdown hit zero.

  Ping.

  [Fermentation Complete]

  [Consumable: Fermented Scavenger Ant]

  [Quality: Common]

  [Effect: Restores Stamina. Grants XP.]

  I gave it no thought.

  I leaped from the overhang, sailing down to the corpse.

  I landed beside the spike. Up close, the smell was intoxicating. The "sweetness" was thick in the air, masking the underlying rot.

  I struck.

  My beak tore into the softened thorax. There was no crunch, only a wet tear. The meat inside had turned into a gray, viscous jelly.

  I gulped it down.

  The taste was electric. It was sour, like licking a battery, but with a rich, savory aftertaste that coated my throat.

  I tore the head off next. The mandibles, once dangerous weapons, crumbled under my bite. I swallowed the brain matter, the eyes, the sensory organs.

  [Critical Consumption]

  Heat flooded my stomach. It wasn't the warm fullness of a meal; it was the searing burn of energy. The Larder converted the dead matter instantly.

  The heat shot through my veins, reaching the tips of my wings and the base of my skull. The fatigue from the trap-building evaporated. The hunger pain vanished, replaced by a buzzing alertness.

  Ping.

  [Experience Gained: 45 XP]

  [Larder Bonus: +15 XP]

  [Total: 60 XP]

  I paused, licking the last of the gray sludge from my beak.

  60 XP.

  It was a fraction of what the Weevil had given.

  I pulled up my status to check the threshold.

  STATUS: REND

  Level: 3

  XP: 60 / 300

  Ten ants.

  I would need to kill and ferment ten Scavenger Ants to reach Level 4.

  Or something bigger.

  I cleaned my beak against the wood, scraping off the sticky residue. The math was clear. Farming small fry was safe, but slow. And "slow" meant starving. The fermentation timer was the bottleneck. If I had to wait four hours for 60 XP, I would never evolve before something big found this log and ate me.

  I needed efficiency.

  I needed to fill every spike in the Larder.

  I looked at my empty Kill Ring. Four spikes. Four potential slots.

  If I filled all four with small prey, that was 240 XP every few hours. That was viable.

  But to fill them, I had to hunt.

  I moved to the entrance of the log. The tar-paste I had smeared earlier was drying, but the scent was still strong enough to mask the smell of the Ant I had just eaten.

  Outside, the Basin was waking up. The bioluminescent fungi were dimming as the cycle shifted, though true "daylight" never really pierced the canopy.

  I peered into the gloom.

  Movement.

  Twenty feet away, near the base of a giant fern. The leaves twitched.

  I froze. My feathers clamped tight against my body.

  A shape emerged.

  It was round, covered in erratic spikes. A Spine-Hog piglet? No, too small.

  It scuttled.

  [Target: Iron-Shell Beetle]

  [Level: 2]

  [State: Foraging]

  The same species I had bluffed earlier. But this one looked harder. Its shell was a dark, burnished gunmetal.

  It was sniffing the air. It smelled the residue of the Weevil. It smelled the Ant.

  It was coming toward the log.

  Perfect.

  I backed into the shadows of the hollow. I didn't need to hunt this one. I just needed to be the bait.

  I hopped over the trip-wire spike and settled near the back of the kill zone. I ruffled my feathers, making myself look larger, and let out a low, rasping hiss.

  That's it, I thought. Welcome to my domain.

  The Beetle paused at the entrance. Its antennae twitched, tasting the tar-paste. It didn't like the smell, but the scent of the fermented meat behind it was too strong to ignore.

  It clicked its mandibles and stepped forward.

  One step.

  It cleared the threshold.

  Two steps.

  It was inside.

  The Beetle moved with a jerky, robotic rhythm. It was heavily armored, a tank compared to the squishy Ant. My beak would struggle to pierce that carapace.

  But I didn't need to pierce the shell. I needed to flip it.

  It walked right over the first floor spike. The moss camouflage held; the Beetle didn't even tap it with its legs.

  It was now in the center of the funnel.

  I shrieked.

  A high-pitched, piercing sound that reverberated off the wooden walls.

  The Beetle flinched. It was a reflex action. It tucked its head and scrambled backward, trying to retreat to the safety of the open forest.

  Snap.

  The backward motion drove its rear leg directly into the hidden floor spike.

  The barb caught the joint.

  The Beetle squealed, a sound like grinding metal. It thrashed, trying to pull free.

  It lunged forward to dislodge the hook, panic overriding its programming.

  I dropped from the ceiling.

  I didn't aim for the Beetle. I aimed for the space behind it.

  My talons dug into the thick, wet rot of the log floor. I flared my ragged wings once, a sharp clap, killing the downward velocity of my dive. I slammed both feet, hard, against the Beetle’s immense, cooling iron flank.

  The creature’s already-pinned back leg turned instantly into a critical fulcrum. Its heavy, dome-like shell wavered, losing its center of gravity. I applied all my stored energy into that single, devastating push.

  It tipped. The massive, shining brown shell, which had been its fortress, now became a disastrous weight pulling it over.

  It rolled onto its side, exposing the pale, soft underbelly.

  It flailed, legs churning the air, trying to right itself.

  I didn't give it the chance.

  I stepped in, my beak descending like a pickaxe.

  I struck the soft tissue where the head met the thorax.

  Squelch.

  Blue blood sprayed, coating my face.

  The Beetle twitched once, twice, and went still.

  [Target Eliminated: Iron-Shell Beetle (Lvl 2)]

  [XP Gained: 0]

  [Larder Triggered: Prey must be Fermented]

  I stood over the kill, breathing hard.

  The trap worked. The funnel worked.

  I looked at the corpse. It was heavy.

  I grabbed the severed leg joint, twisting until the body came free of the floor spike. I dragged the carcass deeper into the log, toward the back wall.

  I lifted it, straining against the weight, my talons slipping on the wet wood—and slammed it onto one of the new Barbed Bone Spikes I had crafted.

  The sound of the spike punching through the underbelly was satisfying.

  [Larder Activated]

  [Prey: Iron-Shell Beetle]

  [Size: Small]

  [Fermentation Time: 05:00:00]

  Five hours. The shell made it preserve longer, which meant a longer ferment.

  I wiped the blue blood from my eyes.

  One down. Three spikes left.

  I looked back at the entrance. The scuffle had been noisy. The squeal of the Beetle would attract attention.

  Good.

  I stepped back, letting the darkness swallow me.

  I waited. Something else was sure to come sniffing around.

  And when that happens…

  I'll be ready.

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