Tieyu craned his neck to look at his agonizing thigh.
It was already dripping with blood, and that Mantis was still chewing with its mandibles.
He lost his nerve.
"My Iron-Beaked Bird Family is massive, and I'm a Lord's son! If you actually dare to kill me, the Iron-Beaked Birds will hunt you down with a vengeance..."
"Let me go, and I swear I won't hold a grudge."
"Or just name your price! I can agree to any condition..."
The ceaseless begging annoyed Lu Qing to no end.
"So annoying!"
Even this alien world had powerful families?
Then again, since any species could communicate through consciousness, even the most absurd things were normal.However, he wasn't buying it.
His Sickle Legs clamped down on the bird's beak and neck, and he took a massive bite.
"Don't... urgh—"
The communicating consciousness instantly weakened, fading away completely in mere seconds.
‘Flesh Value +0.3’
‘Flesh Value +0.3’
...
The entire bird provided him with 60 experience points.
The other bird had only been Fourth Grade, providing a mere 15 points.
He was only four birds away from leveling up and evolving!
Lu Qing felt quite satisfied. His only regret was that while he chased down this Fifth Grade Iron-Beaked Bird, the Fourth Grade one had managed to escape.
...
Dazhuang hid trembling behind a large tree.
"Stop hiding and come out."
Hearing Qing Yi's call, Dazhuang finally gathered his courage and stepped out.
"Did you chase them away?"
"Chase them away? You look down on your brother too much!" Lu Qing tossed a chunk of meat to him. "Here, taste this!"
Dazhuang had never seen red meat before, so he immediately turned it over and over, staring at it closely.
"What is this?"
"Bird meat!"
"Ah!"
It had always been birds eating Mantises. Today... they were truly inverting the heavenly order!
Dazhuang dropped the bird meat on the ground. "I'm not eating it. I'm scared."
"What are you scared of! Didn't you want to win the favor of the female Mantises? Bird meat is a massive tonic. Eating it will make you grow tall and mighty, leaving the females weak in the knees!"
Those words struck right at Dazhuang's core.
To realize his dream of a wild night, he would charge through a mountain of blades or a sea of fire.
Today, he would be inverting the heavenly order!
Dazhuang snatched up the bird meat and took a ferocious bite.
"Mhm, this is delicious."
...
Daytime.
Thanks to his kind brother's help, Dazhuang fell into a deep sleep after finishing the bird meat.
When he woke up, his body had grown a full size larger, reaching about twenty centimeters in length.
It seemed the meat in this world contained energy; consuming and absorbing it allowed one to grow and advance.
It was just that their advancement speed was relatively slow, nowhere near as absurd as his own cheat-like progress.
Dazhuang was ecstatic.
"Haha, I've grown a whole size bigger! My body feels full of power! This feels awesome! If the Mantis Lord saw me now, wouldn't she drool?"
She probably would.
Dazhuang's mind was completely filled with thoughts of mating and reproducing.
"Brother Qing Yi, thank you. If it wasn't for your guidance and your gift, I wouldn't be anywhere near this majestic. You really are a good Mantis. I'll be grateful to you for the rest of my life."
Hearing Dazhuang's heartfelt thanks, Lu Qing nodded slightly.
Not bad. At least he knew how to say thank you and recognized him as a good Mantis.
"Dazhuang, the sun is bright and the weather is warm today. It's a perfect time to sunbathe!"
"Huh?"
Dazhuang didn't understand why he was suddenly bringing this up.
Lu Qing pointed a Sickle Leg at a boulder not far away.
"There are no trees blocking that boulder, and the top is flat. It's a great spot to catch some sun."
"Huh?"
"What do you mean, 'huh'? You've eaten your fill and grown plump and strong. Now hurry up and get to work."
Dazhuang obediently headed toward the boulder, but asked in confusion, "Sunbathing is sunbathing. How is that working?"
"We're fishing." Lu Qing didn't explain further, simply lying in ambush within the shadows beneath the boulder.
"I know what fishing is! There's this 'golden thread worm' with a long whisker on its head and a piece of meat on the end of it. I heard that's called bait... But Brother Qing Yi, shouldn't we go to the river to fish? There's no water on the boulder! And what about the bait? How the hell are we supposed to fish without bait?"
Not receiving a response from Lu Qing, Dazhuang obediently lay back on the stone, his belly facing the sky.
‘Qing Yi is foolishly pretending to be aloof. There's no water here, no bait, and we don't even have a long whisker! How are we supposed to fish!’
‘Whatever, I can't be as dumb as Brother Qing Yi.’
‘Now that I've grown so strong, the Mantis Lord will definitely favor me when she sees me.’
‘Then again, Brother Qing Yi is taller and mightier. She'll probably fall for him instead.’
Just as his mind wandered, he suddenly picked up the scent of danger.
Looking up, he saw a yellow-tinted bird high in the sky, rapidly swooping down.
Needless to say, it was aiming straight for him.
Terrified, Dazhuang sucked in his gut, wanting to flip over and run for his life.
However, it was too late.
The razor-sharp talons shot straight for Dazhuang's belly.
‘I'm done for, I'm done for! I'm dead meat!’
Just as the talons were about to grab him, a Sickle Leg suddenly struck out from thin air and clamped directly around the bird's neck.
Dazhuang stared at the swirling feathers in a daze...
Qing Yi had saved him!
He flipped over and craned his neck, only to see that Qing Yi had already snapped the bird's neck.
...
‘Species: Golden Thread Bird
Strength: Low Tier Third Grade’
Its strength was a bit low, but it was still a bundle of experience anyway.
Lu Qing took three massive bites before a notification appeared.
‘Obtained Flesh Value +0.1’
He'd be lucky if this entire bird gave him five experience points.
Watching Qing Yi skillfully dig into his meal, Dazhuang suddenly realized something.
"When you said 'fishing'... you weren't using me as the bait, were you?"
"I was!"
Lu Qing admitted it right away.
Dazhuang instantly grew furious.
Unbelievable!
Here I was treating you like a big brother, and you were using me as bait to fish for birds!
Did you really think I was that much of an idiot?
Just as his anger flared, a bird's leg smacked onto the ground right in front of him.
"Eat up."
Dazhuang froze.
What do you take me for?
I...
"You can have this wing, too."
There was nothing a bird leg couldn't fix. And if there was, tossing in a wing would definitely do the trick.
Dazhuang's anger instantly vanished into sheer joy.
"You're a real one!"
He had to admit, bird meat was incredibly tasty—far more delicious than green caterpillars.
Since he had chipped in some effort to earn this meal, he savored every bite.
Now that he was bigger, a single leg and a wing weren't quite enough to fill his stomach.
After Dazhuang finished eating, he wiggled his belly, expertly scrambled back onto the rock, and lay flat with his large stomach facing the sky.
"Brother, how's my posture? Looking good?"
He had officially developed a taste for the rewards.
Lu Qing laughed. "Standard, way too standard! Even I have the urge to stab your belly."
...
A plump, twenty-centimeter Mantis lying belly up, posing like a free buffet... what bird flying past could possibly resist such temptation?
Unable to resist, they would swoop down to enjoy the feast, only to instantly become a feast for the Mantises instead.
Throughout the entire day, the two sneaky bastards managed to catch four birds.
It was just a pity that the grades of these birds were a bit too low, so they weren't enough to make Lu Qing level up.
But Dazhuang was completely hooked. Every time, he would lie on the stone, striking seductive poses to lure in the birds flying past...
...
Several days passed like this. Nourished by all the bird meat, Dazhuang actually leveled up again, reaching the Third Grade.
...
The Mantis Lord was a female Mantis named Caiyi.
Her territory was roughly divided into four regions.
The Dense Forest Region was only one of them.
A single territory could house multiple Lords of different species, but there would only ever be one Lord per species.
The Mantis species was only considered a third-rate power within this territory, sitting near the lower-middle end of the food chain.
It was the height of summer and the mating season had arrived. Therefore, Caiyi had dispatched four female Mantises to search for the strongest male Mantises to play their little game.
‘Meichi’ was one of them.