After re-entering VLO after talking with Gelot, I was a bit down because of what happened.

Appearing in the palace where Flor and Levi were waiting they walked over with worried looks.

"So how badly was it?" Flor asked, anxious.

I took a deep breath and let out a sigh. "They almost got killed… for real." I say and begin to explain what happened making them wide eyed.

"Are you serious... how can they be so cruel!?" Flor said with a disguised expression on her face.

"Yeah, Gelot told me what happened including what was said. My guess is that they will be adding a bounty to my head to catch me." I said.

"How do we avoid it then?" Flor asked.

"Well, doesn't daddy use just a Glaive. He can switch to a spear and still be able to fight more or less right?" Levi said.

"Yeah, i was planning that. Anyway, we are heading to the south region." I say.

"What will we do there?" Flor asked.

"First off I want to try my luck at getting a few desert bugs and already adapted animals for that region. My hive terrains sorely lack the variety department even after I rushed the rabbit dungeon and caught several rabbitman to add humanoids." I said.

When I had left town I did indeed jump into the dungeon and rush through it and catch rabbits and rabbit men sending them to all different terrains. After them came more wolves, foxes and some bugs I already had. Along the way on the road I even spotted some bears and goblins and took the cubs, parents and most of the gobs.

Still it was a small variety that I hoped would start to grow. But for now it was enough. The monster levels in the hive range from 16 to 77 already and as i add more it will grow.

Oh right, before even leaving the city, Levi began to plead for me to visit a farm house. She explained that she saved a family from wolves and promised a flare fly light show.

Though we were a little pressed for time, the teary puppy dog eyes she made at the time were far too effective for me to deny so with instructions from her went to the house.

It was thankfully already getting a bit dark so the light show would have a lot more splendor.

At the house Levi called them out and introduced us. I simply gave them a nod but the parents of the three kids came up to me and took both hands and gratefully thanked me for raising such a wonderful girl that protected their children. I had a somewhat cramped smile since it's not a common thing to say.

From there Levi spoke with the kids and then called the parents away from the house to give room.

Then I summoned the flare flies and Levi did the same with the Ice Flare Flies.

They began to spin around the family while lighting up green, red and blue lights making a true lightshow. Levi had explained how she had deterred the wolves with the light but at the time it was only red and green light the flare Flies made and there weren't any Ice Flare Flies. With them in the mix it gave a beautiful dimension to the light show.

I controlled one side of the flies while levi did the other and we each made the lights flash differently. After a few minutes the lights ended with all the bugs swirling around them and rising up in one go and ‘exploding’ like fireworks before they all returned to the hive to rest.

After that I bid them all farewell, even though Levi wanted to play, I clearly made sure to stay firm now since we needed to leave. It was when I had the idea to fly at night once we left on the road.

Before leaving I had my bugs go along the path I had taken to reach this house and erase the tracks to keep them safe. Didn’t want to cause trouble for good folks.

Once done we started travelling which was when Gelot called after we had flown a good distance. Flor and Levi were in the Hive while I flew with the Vampiric Mosquitos holding my back.

Back inside the hive...

"I think we can continue travelling by air until the next town. I just need to be careful and to check up on the bounty posters to see if i have one and if there is a picture of me." I say.

"I'll be doing that. You will stay in the hive until I am done. If I don't see a wanted poster out for your head then you can enter the village." Flor said in a stern tone.

I sighed and agreed.

I choose five rested Mosquitos and jump outside into the air and start flying over the roads. Thanks to the silence of the Mosquito’s wings we were flying at around 25-30 km/h in a quiet night sky. The moon was out and shining so we could see down below but they couldn’t see us because we were about 60 meters in the air.

While we flew, my head was in the hive. I had thought of the fight and I was thinking of breeding magic bugs now. From the ones i have seen i already knew bugs would have some form of magic or another later on but at the moment i want bugs that gain magic abilities in tier 2. As you can probably tell, or not, I was talking about Flare flies. The basic type is the original Flare flies that have the acid spit that can nearly make wood catch fire. From this one, mainly due to the larger number of them, I plan to make variants.

I had been thinking of what could cause them to become a variant. When i thought of the Ice Flare Flies they were put in the freezer and the strongest ones survived and became variants but the other types aren’t as easily accomplished. Well that’s a lie since i realized something after i began to set these up.

I breed my strongest pairs of Flare Flies and have Levi take them to the Electric Cove. I order them to place the larva on some of the electric crystals that are exposed throughout the cave. I know this because I am looking through the queen Thunderbolt Darter’s eyes as she oversees his.

With that set it takes a few moments before I get the notification that says I have tamed them and then I order them to feed off the lightning mana of the crystal. It takes a moment before it starts to do just that but what amazes me is that it goes from a tiny larva to a level 9 larva rapidly in under a minute. It’s whole body had rapidly turned yellow.

I have more places and like before they react the same as before. I had begun wondering if there wasn’t something behind this because they were all rising to level 9 so rapidly.

So I have the flare flies fly outside and find a Wind Magic crystal and lay the eggs. What I get is the same reaction. At this point I was starting to understand what I was looking at. From what i had already guessed was this. Flare flies naturally eat fire mana from a large flame. In nature this wouldn’t give them many occasions but to do this but i have artificially done it so they have grown stronger. I also noticed why I haven't gained tier 2 bugs yet. Besides the stats I have forgotten that the larva are what are important in this. By feeding them well early on, I can get tier 2 bugs.

I wanted to test this so I had another pair of Flare flies breed and find some Fire Crystal and lay the larva on it and what shocked me was that Flare fly larva in 1 minute capped out at level 20. It was easy to see that this would turn into a tier 2 but the others stopped at level 9 so it meant it was the limit they could reach and get the variant.

I tell my top Flare flies to find all the types of crystals and breed some larva onto them.

When I had stopped to change the mosquitoes I had found that all the mana crystals besides Light and Dark ones were effective on them. Light ones didn’t matter since they already made lights while the dark one would counter their ability to make light.

Still, now I have a Flare Fly of all elements. Knowing the method to properly feed them now, I knew I would be able to make them reach Tier 3 quickly.

I took off again after a short break to eat and drink some water both in game before I started flying again.

When I looked at the time after a while of flying I noticed the sky was starting to brighten but I also saw a small village in the distance and stopping about 2 kilometers before I finally got to rest since it was almost time to go to work. Still…

You have hatched Variants of Flare Flies…

Flare Fly has breed Earth Flash Beetle

Flare Fly has breed Spark Fly

Flare Fly has breed Breeze Signal Fly

Flare Fly has breed Water Skid Blinkers

Flare Fly has breed Ice Glow Fly

Flare Fly has birthed Nitro Flasher

I couldn’t help but laugh as I see what I had gained, AND FUCK! Nitro Flasher that sounds so epic.

I call all of them to see what they look like. Of course I left the best for last.

Starting from the top, Earth Flash Beetle is rounder and has a more robust and heavier carapace but the carapace opens up like most beetles and reveals the wings under it. When in the air, though slow, it can still flash it’s brown and green light.

Next is Spark Fly, it had a larger abdomen like the Thunderbolt Darter with thin wings but a silent wing beat and flashed Yellow, gold and green light.

The Breeze Signal Fly was similar to the Flare fly but green in color and with longer wings and a slimmer body that could catch the wind better and fly with more agility and the stats also show that.

Next the Water Skid Blinker is a unique bug that it looks like a water skidder with long thin legs and its blinker was on its entire back and the small tip of its butt like the normal firefly. They could fly but when I watched them on water it was like watching a small motor boat moving and it was really fast.

Though I am against it, I have to admit they are good fishing bait and maybe they can evolve into fisher flies and catch small fish to eat or drown bugs in the water by using the light and eating them that way.

This one rather shocked me… a lot. I was expecting an Ice Flare Fly like normal so when i called it up and found a navy blue Flare fly that had a somewhat cold aura to it similar to how the Flare fly had a heated aura. The wings beat so fast I can't notice it and the light it gives off is a Violet, Navy blue, dim blue and green. I wondered why they were different and so I started to think.

The main difference between them was the breeding method. The Ice Flare flies appeared by being frozen in a freezer but the Ice Glow Fly appeared by eating Ice mana from Crystals. Thinking of this the purity of the mana directly from the crystals would ultimately be much higher than the air in the freezer. It could mean that the purity of the mana can cause a higher tier evolution and in turn the higher grade the mana crystals are the better the bug will be. It made sense if it was like this then.

Now the best for last. The Nitro Flasher, the appearance was really cool. It was about 30 cm long with two large wings. Its body was not like one connected segment like beetles should have but instead it had simply into three parts. The part that had the blinker had actually looked like a jet plane engine and grew outwards and after it the body grew like a normal abdomen after that swollen part giving it the image of a jet engine. The mid section held the six arms and the wings and the fine part had the head. The color squeam looked like a greyish red like a dying flame. Now the light that came from it was intense. The swollen part of the blinker had a dim orange blue light while after that came red, orange, yellow and green hues of light constantly flicking and shifting.

The speed that it flew around me in circles was also impressive. The color made it hard to notice it but only the light allowed you to follow it in this dusk light.

I returned him to the hive happy and put all the new variant flies to breed.

By creating elemental variants of a magic user bug, you have gained the title, “Bug Elementalist”

Bug Elementalist

By creating a set of bugs with the four basic magic systems or more, you have made a different way to use the four elemental magics. Summoners who normally call upon one or two elementals to aid them have great power for that single elemental they would summon and cultivate into power and you as well will make the same thing from your bugs.

+10% stat growth increase for all bugs that possess magic elements from the beginning.

I couldn’t help but let out a loud laugh seeing this title. It was a perfect title to get these other two I had hidden as well as to make training the firefly element bugs grow faster. I still need to remove it whenever I am near a settlement or people so that they won’t know I mess with bugs. Would be a pain to explain how I got something like this. Suddenly a new message appeared.

By getting elemental creatures, new habits were created.

Earth Flash Beetle has caused the creation of Crystal Caverns and now lives in it.

Breeze Signal Fly has caused the creation of Windy Grasslands and now live in it. Gale Striders have moved to this location as well.

Water Skid Blinkers have moved into the swamp.

Ice Glow Fly have caused Ice Cave to turn into Glacial Caverns. Ice Flare flies have moved to this location as well.

Nitro Flasher have caused Heat Cavern to turn into Volcanic Cavern. Flare Flies and Bombardier Beetle Have moved to this location as well.

Due to the appearance of several habits that possess high quantities of mana crystals. The density of mana in the hive has gotten higher and has increased your mana capacity by 5%.

Current total boost 20%.

A grin from ear to ear was plastered on my face. How could I not be happy to get so many places. I opened the portal map and saw that all these new locations could be visited meaning the habits had developed beyond just bug sized caves.

What region would you like to go to?

Queen Palace

Wilderness Zone

Holy Land

The Great Swamp

Rainforest

Forest of the Night

Canyon

Desert

Ant Hill (undeveloped)

Vampiric Mosquito Nest (undeveloped)

Brown Spider Palace (undeveloped)

Striped Garden Spider Palace (undeveloped)

Lightning Caverns

Glacial Caverns

Volcanic Cavern

Crystal Cavern

Windy Grasslands

I really wanted to visit these new places but I suddenly heard a call.

[Leon! What just happened, Levi is suddenly jumping around celebrating like mad for random reasons.] Flor said.

[Oh… it’s that I figured out how to make variant bugs from the Flare flies and it made my mana rise and new locations appeared.] I tell her.

[What!? Really!?] She shouts.

She has been excited for a while now because the hive brings up many types of herbs and plant life that she can’t really hope to find anywhere else because they are all born from the hive and the herbs they bring inside.

When we take a break she leaves and gets herbs in the surroundings.

I’ve already figured out the hive integrates anything we bring from the outside and there is a single group of items that will be essential later on. If there is a smithy nearby then we can get it because Flor seems to only have ingots. Yep pure brute metal ore. Something we have been missing and I am going to have her get me.

We will have time later but now it’s work time and I give Levi her warnings before we both log out for work.