Chapter 176: Hero Rank

In his limited knowledge of ants, he did not remember ever learning how ants actually mated.

What he did remember was that this period often attracted many predators that fed on ants, allowing them to gorge themselves all at once.

Because of this, only a very small number of princes and princesses usually survived long enough to mate and mature.

However, things were different now.

Ants were no longer weak creatures that anyone could bully.

At this moment, there was not a single creature nearby willing to come over and provoke trouble.

Even so, the princes and princesses did not simply carry out their mission peacefully.

Instead, fierce competition broke out among both the males and the females.

It seemed that only the strongest princes and princesses possessed the right to leave descendants behind.

The ground quickly became covered with a layer of dead flying ants.

The battle clearly was not going to end anytime soon.

Seeing this, Joo Joowon understood that he would have to wait for quite some time.

Since that was the case, he opened the system interface and began reviewing the information there.

The system notification he had heard earlier seemed different from the ones he had received before.

After checking carefully, he indeed discovered something rather unexpected.

Hero?

Why wasn’t it classified as Elite?

What exactly did this new rank represent?

Normal monsters, Elite monsters, and Boss monsters were generally the standard hierarchy for enemies.

Ranks such as Hero, however, were usually titles reserved for the player’s side.

So... Joo Joowon thought about it carefully.

Could this Hero rank mean that the creature had the potential to break away from its original faction and be recruited by players?

The more he thought about it, the less impossible that idea seemed.

For one thing, the Chimera looked far more like a chicken than a zombie.

For another, it appeared to have retained the eating habits it possessed when it had been a chicken, preferring to eat insects rather than human flesh.

Compared to a creature that fed on people, many players would probably not mind having such a "Hero" by their side.

Joo Joowon felt that this guess was probably very close to the truth.

Even if it was not completely correct, it likely was not far from reality.

After all, the item dropped by the Chicken Chimera had not even been a zombie core.

At the very least, it had not been entirely a zombie core.

Even so, he did not regret using the seemingly valuable Chimera as bait.

No matter how much the Chicken Chimera looked like a chicken on the outside, it could not erase the fact that it had once been human.

Who knew whether, after reaching higher levels, it might recover the memories it had possessed as a person?

What if Chimeras eventually gained the ability to switch freely between human and animal forms?

What then?

It was not a real animal.

No matter how much it resembled one, that fact alone was enough to make Joo Joowon wary of it.

Still, if Chimera zombies could become Hero units, then perhaps Byeol and Hwi could as well.

The only question was what they would need to do in order to become Hero units themselves.

Based on his experience playing games in the past, if a unit did not begin as a Hero from the start, then promotion into a Hero usually required completing a long series of quests or overcoming difficult challenges.

Sometimes special items or tokens were also required.

For example, something like that crystallized heart.

Joo Joowon suddenly felt as though he understood why the queen ant had chosen this particular moment to allow them to mate.

In nature, the mating season for prince ants and princess ants usually occurred after rainfall softened the earth.

Soft soil was easier to dig through and made it easier to establish a nest.

Under normal circumstances, the ground was much harder.

A princess ant trying to establish a new family entirely on her own might exhaust herself to death before she could dig out a nest suitable for living in.

Perhaps the queen ant had never intended for the princes and princesses to leave and establish colonies this early.

Just by looking at the endless lines of worker ants returning with food, it was obvious that they were supporting an enormous population.

The appearance of the Chicken Chimera had simply disrupted the queen ant’s original plans.

Joo Joowon had no interest in investigating the queen ant’s situation any further.

What he knew was that the current circumstances were perfect for scavenging opportunities.

As for how he might obtain those spirit mushrooms, he would simply leave it up to fate.

If the queen ant did not force the princes and princesses to leave "empty handed" the way they did in nature, then she would probably allow them to take some local specialties with them when they departed.

If that happened, that would be his chance.

And if that did not happen, he still believed that a newly born queen ant would be no less valuable than the spirit mushrooms themselves.

After all, his original plan had already failed.

Joo Joowon felt that waiting a little longer to see how things developed would not hurt.

While waiting for the competition between the princes and princesses to end, Joo Joowon opened his status panel and took a look.

There were only a little more than ten minutes remaining before the marketplace opened.

According to the usual seasonal pattern, the sky over Sabi City would become almost completely dark around six o’clock and before seven arrived, darkness would completely cover the city.

Joo Joowon certainly did not possess night vision.

Although his Mental Power, which had already reached an astonishing twenty two points, allowed him to move through darkness without difficulty, it could not grant him the ability to see through the night as though it were broad daylight.

The structure of human eyes simply placed limits on such things.