The crisis during the storm had ended in a way that System hadn't expected, and he wasn't very happy with the result. However, after careful analysis, he felt that being able to escape the crisis the way he had was already lucky enough.

  During the chase, perhaps the druid and the elf had unintentionally broken their agreement with the gnolls and set foot in the gnolls' territory because of the heavy rain. The vision-obscuring rain had provided the necessary conditions for System's escape.

  Otherwise, if the druid had discovered that the creature emitting an aura of nature was a tentacle monster like System with a body over forty centimeters long and tentacles nearly half a meter long, he definitely would have attacked.

  Even if the druid and the elf were merciful and chose not to kill System, they would definitely capture him. If System was lucky and managed to escape by chance, he had no doubt that there would still be many consequences afterward.

  The key to System's escape from this crisis had been his Derived Skill [Intuition] that had been obtained from [Perception]. If it hadn't been for the advance warning from [Intuition], System likely would have been trapped inside the nest by the druid and the elf. He could only imagine what would have happened then.

  System guessed that there would have been a plot where the druid trapped him like a turtle in a jar, causing System and his ant subjects to fight to the death.

  As for the warning from [Intuition], System suddenly remembered something that had happened a long time ago.

  Shortly before the volcanic eruptions in the Lilt Mountains, the Lord of Gciers had said to System that his eyes were very special. At that time, Aura had conjured up a huge ball of ice and asked System what his eyes could see.

  Back then, System hadn't understood the Lord of Gciers' question at all. Aura had vanished after asking the question, but he'd tossed the ball of ice on the ground before he'd left.

  System had used [System's Eye] to observe the ball of ice carefully for a while, but he still hadn't seen anything unusual.

  After a few days, when System had passed by the location of the huge ball of ice again, he'd suddenly noticed that the ball of ice was no longer there. In its pce, a tree made of ice crystals had appeared on the ground along with countless tiny ice fragments.

  A few days after that, the tree made of ice crystals had also shattered into ice fragments.

  At that time, System hadn't been able to figure out the meaning of it all, but now he suddenly thought of something.

  Perhaps Aura had also detected some signs of the volcanic eruption back then, so he'd come to System to ask about his eyes.

  System had gained his [Perception] ability after hearing the Voice of the World, and whether it was [Intuition], [System's Eye], [Enhanced Hearing], or [Enhanced Sense of Smell], they were all skills derived from [Perception].

  Aura's reason for thinking that System's eyes were special had perhaps not been because of his eyes themselves, but because of the [Perception] talent that he'd been gifted with, or possibly because of his [Intuition] skill that had been derived from [Perception].

  Although System couldn't expin how it worked, in some ways, his [Intuition] skill had some predictive power, just like a vague [Prophecy] ability.

  What Aura had asked him to see hadn't been a simple ball of ice, but the ice sculpture of a tree that the ball of ice would turn into after a few days.

  System knew that no matter how much [System's Eye] was strengthened, it wouldn't be able to achieve the level of prophecy. At most, it would only make his vision clearer and allow him to see farther. However, he suddenly thought of a possibility.

  What if he combined [System's Eye] with [Intuition] to create a more powerful ability? At that time, perhaps he would attain a true [Prophecy] ability.

  However, with his current strength, combining these two abilities together was nothing short of a fantasy. The difficulty was far too high.

  He estimated that his [Perception] talent needed to reach at least level 31 first, which was one tier above extraordinary, before he could master a real prophecy ability.

  ...

  As he flew through the rainy night sky on his way back to the nest, System shook his head and stopped thinking about the distant future.

  During his flight, he carefully kept watch for any movement around him in case the druid and the elf came back to look for him again.

  In the hour that he'd been flying toward the gnoll vilge, System had flown a distance of nearly fifty kilometers.

  During his return trip, he encountered more than a dozen slimes. These slimes that were usually hiding underground so that they could avoid the scorching sun had emerged one after another in the rainstorm. They jumped back and forth in the rain and looked particurly excited.

  Because he'd just escaped from a crisis, System was in no mood to reminisce with these slime friends. He did briefly consider bringing them back to the nest, but after thinking for a while, he gave up on the idea.

  When he arrived at the nest, he found out that something had happened while he'd been gone after all. He saw spots of red blood outside the nest that had mostly been washed away by the rain, and he could detect the faint scent of blood lingering in the air.

  Shava, who had been practicing in the rain at the entrance of the nest, had also disappeared.

  However, although the matter was a little strange, System's [Intuition] didn't give him an uneasy feeling.

  Although there was a lot of blood, insect blood was generally clear, so this red blood was obviously not from an insect.

  After going into the nest, System learned that Shava had found and captured another ratman. The ratman's arm had been chopped off at the shoulder, and she was nearly dead from excessive blood loss.

  Unlike the ratman warrior from earlier that had been wearing simple leather armor, this ratman was covered in very tattered clothing made of coarse cloth. Her clothes carried a strange scent that included a mixture of mud and blood.

  System almost subconsciously stretched out his tentacles to tear off a strip of the cloth to taste, but he stopped immediately once he realized what he was doing.

  He felt that this eating habit of his was getting worse and worse.

  According to Shava and Bck's description of what had happened, this ratman had apparently tried to sneak into the nest, but she'd been driven out by the patrolling Little Strong, a soldier ant knight who had awakened the [Strong Body] talent.

  The ratman had let out a loud scream when she'd been attacked by Little Strong. That was when Shava, who had been practicing her swordsmanship nearby, had finally noticed the invading ratman, cut off one of her arms, and captured her.

  'Did she enter the nest to avoid the rainstorm? But didn't the ratmen already foresee the arrival of the rainy season?'

  'Could it be that the ratmen in the ratman gathering pce and other ratmen don't communicate with each other?'

  System considered the ratman's possible reasons for trying to enter his nest. At the same time, a faint green halo appeared on the surface of his tentacles, and he wrapped them around the ratman's wound so that he could heal her.

  The green halo came from the [Healing Power] skill that he'd inherited from the golden acorn, which had a certain effect on healing wounds.

  However, this [Healing Power] was ineffective against poisoning and couldn't get rid of pgue bacteria. Instead, it would actually promote the pgue bacteria's growth.

  In fact, the power only accelerated the recovery ability of an organism's own body, and because pgue bacteria were actually alive, they would become more active after being affected by it.

  With the help of System's [Healing Power], the blood on the ratman's shoulder slowly stopped flowing. Scabs began to grow over her wound, eventually sealing off the ratman's injury completely. With her wound healed, the unconscious ratman's breathing finally returned to normal.

  The unconscious ratman was mumbling something in a nguage completely different from the ratman nguage, and it actually turned out to be a nguage that System already knew. This ratman was speaking in the [Pgue Language] that System had learned from the evil god, Rafael.