Insect Tamer's Ascension-Chapter 324. Non Tamed beast guided Successful! (5)

’So I know what it can do for offense... now the question is whether it can share EXP with me or not...’ Theo thought.

To find the answer for that question, he needed to level up the crawler, but in a controlled environment so that it wouldn’t die.

Theo wasn’t particularly attached to it yet. After killing all these crawlers nonstop for the past few days, he had grown a bit desensitized towards them.

And if this young one died, it would simply mean he had to look for another one and somehow get it to cooperate with their plans all over again.

With that thought, Theo headed toward a nearby location where they had fought the crawlers before. He had just drawn his sword from its scabbard when he heard a shout from the side.

"YOUNG MASTER, WHERE IS YOUR ARMOR???!" Clara called out from the side, prompting Theo to glance down at his arms and then back at her.

"Oh. I forgot."

The amount of scolding he had received from Clara afterward was too much to count, but the fortunate part was that his armor was already dry.

Once he put it on, Theo and the crawler started moving again until they finally reached the new fighting area.

The clearing had already been prepared with the help of the boar and the pup, who had done a really good job by getting all the grass and moss out of the way, while the leftover work was finished by the crawlers who burrowed through the ground, making the soil all loose and bare.

As Theo approached, he felt that the area was quite peaceful, at least for a moment, until finally, several crawlers burst out of the ground.

They were close.

Theo reacted instantly, jabbing his sword straight into the center of the worms to stop their advance.

’Tell it to attack whatever I am attacking and to kill them.’ Theo commanded through their connection.

A moment later, the crawler at his side sprang into action.

All that stabbing he did to the crawlers never really killed them but injured them deep enough to have trouble healing themselves; still, they were tenacious bastards and only truly died when Theo stabbed their heads.

Only three crawlers had surfaced to the ground, and since he had injured all of them, the two free ones tried to retreat by burrowing back into the ground. The third, however, wasn’t lucky enough and remained stuck, with Theo’s sword still embedded in its body.

Theo watched as his crawler circled the trapped one, then clamped its mouth directly onto its body.

At first, the injured and stuck crawler thrashed around normally.

But as time passed and the more Theo’s crawler remained attached to it, its thrashing became violent. The creature’s struggle became so intense to the point where the sword lodged in its body began tearing through its flesh, but it still tried to move away.

Theo thought that the sight was too revolting; according to him, it was nothing short of torture. But the next few seconds seemed to be the end of the crawler as its movements started slowing... until it stopped completely.

A kill message appeared before Theo’s eyes.

He stared at his crawler with his mouth slightly agape; the thing had sucked so much blood out of the other crawler that its own body already looked bloated.

’Ask it if it can keep on fighting...’ Theo asked through their bond.

Almost immediately, he received a response; it was excited to go again.

Theo could only chuckle to himself about that.

A few minutes later, more crawlers emerged, and Theo repeated the process. He stabbed one of them cleanly in the middle and grabbed hold of it.

But before he could deal with the one that was stuck, since he didn’t want to see the torture again, his bloated crawler suddenly darted forward and latched itself onto another one.

The second crawler seemed surprised at first and recoiled in shock before it moved all the way back flexibly and attached itself too, forcing Theo to look at the horrifying sight of the two leeches greedily sucking each other’s blood.

When Theo thought that his didn’t seem as bloated as before, he stepped in and stabbed the enemy crawler, earning the kill message in the process while his crawler detached and eagerly went off to the next one.

"..."

Theo didn’t know what to say. He had killed thousands of crawlers before, yet this was the first time he was witnessing this side of them.

Still, he was so used to the EXP grind that a few hours passed with them doing the same thing until he realized that his crawler had become dangerously bloated.

It looked like it might burst from a single sword attack, which finally made Theo get out of the fight area while dragging it back with him.

The ant queen informed him that the crawler seemed disappointed for not fighting anymore, which nearly made Theo want to kick the damn bastard.

Instead of being grateful for thinking about its safety, the thing was whining.

For the next few days, Theo’s routine remained the same. By the very next day, he noticed that the crawler had levelled up once, which filled him with more motivation.

That night, the mantis returned in perfect condition, completely unharmed.

Theo eyed it judgingly.

The little thing had slaughtered almost nine gigantic worms and returned casually as if nothing big had happened.

Yet Theo could tell that the mantis had grown slightly larger than before, making him realize that the gate’s effects were a lot more wondrous than he had initially assumed.

But while Theo was progressing smoothly, the Baron grew increasingly annoyed.

Theo could feel it with each passing day; his father’s face dropped more and more until all he could see was a deep frown.

Eventually, Theo asked him about it, and the Baron’s answer caught him completely off guard.

"You are having it far too easy, you brat," the Baron snapped. "It’s as if you have completely flipped the danger level of this gate."

He continued, his voice sharp. "You need to shed some blood to truly grow. Do you remember Cedric? That kid went into a gigantic beast’s stomach and carved it inside out."

Then, the Baron stared straight into his eyes.

"I need to see something like that from you!"

"???"