Three days ter, after System saw that everything had calmed down, he brought Shava and a team of ant knights to the ratman wizard's warren again.

  Because nothing had happened in the past three days, System's fear of ratmen had gone down a little.

  When System had left the wizard's warren earlier, because he'd been in a rush, he'd only grabbed some of the books from the bookshelf. There were still more books and many other items that had been left behind. Maybe he could find more information about his curse from these books and items.

  ...

  Because they were underground, the temperature wasn't very high, so the rat corpses in the warren hadn't started rotting even though the rats had been dead for three days. The corpses weren't very fresh, though.

  System tore off a small chunk of rat meat with his tentacles and put it in his mouth. Even though it was a bit old, he thought it still tasted pretty good.

  While eating, System's antennae moved slightly, and he suddenly heard a strange buzzing sound from deep inside the warren.

  The group moved forward until they reached the source of the noise. System was relieved to discover that the buzzing sound was coming from a big fly that had flown down here to y its eggs on the rat corpses.

  The fly was very agile. System tried to catch it with his tentacles more than a dozen times, but he always failed. Instead, the fly kept buzzing back and forth around System as if to provoke him.

  Finally, the female fly was frozen into an ice cube under System's [Frost Breath], then swallowed by him in one bite. He thought it tasted pretty average.

  ...

  The odor inside the ratman warren wasn't very strong. System was actually very satisfied with this location.

  As he recalled Excavator's slow progress in recent days, System estimated that it would take half a year or even longer to dig out a nest as rge as this warren.

  He'd considered the idea of taking the warren over for his own use. However, he hadn't confirmed whether it was safe yet, so he wouldn't act rashly. If no ratmen came to cause trouble in the next two months, and there were also no visitors to the warren, System decided that he and his ants would occupy and transform it.

  The warren was only a little more than two hundred meters away from his nest. Perhaps he could build a long passage underground to connect the two locations.

  At the same time, he also decided to be cautious with any ratmen that he encountered in the future.

  In order to master the ratman nguage and writing, he still needed to capture one of them.

  As for other ratmen, he still hadn't given up on the idea of hunting them after mastering the nguage. The next time he hunted them, System wouldn't be as reckless as he'd been before. He would no longer simply charge into the depths of a warren with only Shava by his side and allow many rats to escape.

  He decided to make sufficient preparations before hunting ratmen in the future. Once hunted, he would kill them all, not even letting go of the ordinary small rats.

  ...

  After ordering several worker knights to carry out the dead rats, System finally returned to the wizard's room deep inside the warren.

  The two magic mps that had been extinguished the st time he'd been here were emitting a faint light again, clearly illuminating the red-eyed ratman's corpse that had been cut into two pieces by Shava.

  The bck blood, bits of meat, and bone shards that had been produced when the ratman wizard had exploded were everywhere, but after three days, the remains had partially congealed due to the loss of moisture.

  As System was carefully searching the bookshelf, he found a huge scroll one meter long that had been tucked behind it. He guessed that the wizard had likely hidden it there.

  The scroll was obviously a handmade map, but System didn't know if it had been drawn by the wizard. There were several locations on it that had been circled with red ink, and there were also words written on it.

  He saw a stream that had a familiar shape next to a red circle. After observing the shape and direction of the stream, he realized that the red circle should be his current location, but the shape of the stream in the picture was still somewhat different from what he'd seen while flying in the sky.

  He guessed that the wizard hadn't had any high level technical methods avaible to him when he'd observed the nearby ndmarks and recorded the map, which was why the map contained such a rge error.

  As System looked over the map, he suddenly noticed some familiar markings in the corner. He seemed to have seen this part of the map before.

  He quickly remembered where he'd seen it. He used his [Tools Menu] to pull up a video of the treasure map that he'd seen through the magic fake eye many days earlier.

  There were some slight differences between the treasure map and the marks in the corner of this rge map. System thought that it was likely just another error. The marked location on this map should be the same one as on the other map, and it was located about a few thousand kilometers away.

  System felt that the words on the treasure map were also very familiar. He continued comparing the maps with other videos from his [Tools Menu]. Soon, he discovered that the words on the treasure map were almost identical to those in the ratman wizard's bck book that was bound in exquisite animal skin.

  Even System, who had no understanding of this nguage, could see that the location marked on this treasure map seemed to have some connection to the unknown existence recorded in the bck animal skin-bound book.

  Shaking his head gently, System rolled up the map and put it aside.

  Although he knew that this might be the location of a hidden treasure or some ruins, System didn't have any intention of going out treasure hunting. Perhaps some hidden treasure would help him lift the curse, but it was too far away from his current location.

  Moreover, the unknown existence in the book was just too strange. Even if the pce the treasure map led to had been close by, System wouldn't necessarily go looking for any so-called treasure.

  He continued looking through the books on the bookshelf.

  Although [Severance Curse] had improved his physical fitness, it also consumed his lifespan at all times and had made him completely lose his ability to mate.

  He'd been thinking about how to remove the curse in recent days, but it would have been better if he'd never tried it. He found out that his [Ability Enhancement] could also strengthen the [Severance Curse], making the curse even worse.

  Fortunately, his [Severance Curse] had already reached the upper limit of its level. Otherwise, System might had gotten itchy fingers and strengthened the curse as an experiment.

  However, the [Mental Transmission] talent that he'd obtained from Quin was able to affect on the curse. It seemed like he could use [Mental Transmission] to transfer [Severance Curse] to other beings.

  However, as System had continued his analysis over the past two days, he'd found that the curse was extremely special. Although it could be transferred to others with [Mental Transmission], the curse wouldn't be eliminated. Instead, it would exist in the bodies of both creatures at the same time.

  Plus, even though it wasn't a true transfer, the level of [Mental Transmission] still had to be higher in order to copy the curse to someone else.

  System guessed that this limitation was due to him not having a deep enough understanding of the curse. If he did, he might have been able to transfer the insidious curse out of his body.

  He casually flipped through the remaining books, but still couldn't find any further information about the curse. It seemed like he had to put catching a ratman on his agenda.

  After setting the books aside, System started looking at the bottles and jars on the ratman wizard's table.