12: Chapter 12, Frenzy of Farming, Rift Ant Queen

"How many should I pull at once?" Chen Qi looked over at Lin Yan.

Lin Yan had already been crouching at the edge of the soil layer, observing for a while. The patrol Rift Ants had irregular movement patterns, but each one circled in a small area, with the vast majority concentrated within five meters of the nest entrance.

Their fifteen-centimeter size meant they had to be right against his feet to bite him, but they moved very quickly, almost as fast as a Rift Wolf.

"Pull ten first and let's test it." He stood up and flexed his ankles. "Ten per group; once we clear a group, pull the next. Don't wait for me to rest, just keep pulling."

Chen Qi nodded. He took a deep breath and activated his Scout Talent.

A barely perceptible tentacle of perception spread out from under Chen Qi's feet, landing precisely on one of the patrol Rift Ants at the outermost edge of the soil layer.

The Rift Ant's antennae suddenly stood up, its six legs spun in place twice, and it crawled toward Chen Qi. The nine nest-mates behind it were also startled by the tentacle of perception and instinctively followed.

The ten Rift Ants formed a loose formation and moved quickly across the soil layer.

[Monster: Rift Ant] [Level: 3] [HP: 250] [Physical Attack: 30] [Physical Defense: 10] [Magic Defense: 10] [Type: Common Mob, gregarious creature, no skills, melee biting attack. Usually moves in groups of 30-100; individual threat is extremely low, but relies on numbers to wear down prey.]

"They're coming!" Chen Qi shouted and retreated.

He Ming raised his round shield and stepped forward, but Lin Yan walked past him, moving more than a step faster than him.

"I'll handle it."

The moment those two words fell, Lin Yan had already strode into the center of the Rift Ants' formation. The invisible mark of Heartsteel landed on all the Rift Ants simultaneously, and the three-second countdown began.

The Rift Ants' reaction was slower than he had anticipated. They were first confused by the shadow of a foot descending from the sky, their antennae flailing for nearly a second before they turned to launch an attack on Lin Yan.

By this time, three seconds had passed.

Ten pale red light spots simultaneously lit up at the joints of the Rift Ants' dorsal carapaces.

Lin Yan raised his right foot sharply and stomped hard on the Rift Ant at the very front.

Splat. The crisp sound of the boot sole crushing the carapace mixed with the sound of body fluids spraying.

The Rift Ant's body was firmly crushed into the crevices of the hardened soil layer, instantly turning into a blurry mess of carapace fragments and green body fluids. Faced with 316 points of true damage, its 250 HP didn't need a dagger; the Heartsteel weak-point damage was enough to kill it.

One stomp per kill; it was even easier than Lin Yan had expected.

After his left foot landed, Lin Yan shifted sideways, dodging the second Rift Ant's Rend. Its small mandibles bit into the hem of his iron bone breastplate with a soft clinking sound, causing almost no damage.

He raised his right foot again and stomped on the second Rift Ant. Another crisp sound, and green body fluids splattered everywhere.

The third one crawled onto the top of his left foot, attempting to bite through his leather boot. Lin Yan stomped his left foot, shaking it off, and then crushed it with his other foot.

The fourth, the fifth, the sixth... In less than a minute and a half, all ten Rift Ants had turned into ten green stains on the ground.

[Ding! Successfully killed Level 3 Rift Ant x 10, gained EXP: 300!]

Zheng Tong stood where he was, his mouth slightly agape.

He had originally thought Lin Yan saying "one hit for one" was an exaggeration—but it turned out the guy was literally doing it in one stomp, just like squashing bugs.

The sound of the Rift Ants' carapaces cracking mixed with the sound of body fluids spraying, so dense it sounded like popping a string of bubbles.

He Ming peeked out from behind the edge of his shield, looking at the pools of green stains on the ground, then looked down at the round shield in his hand. His lips moved, but in the end, he didn't say a word.

He had spent half a day practicing shield blocking, only to find it was completely useless on this team run.

"Continue." Lin Yan rubbed his boot sole against the soil, scraping off the carapace fragments stuck to it. "Next group."

Chen Qi didn't say a word and activated his talent to pull the second group.

Ten more. They turned into ten piles of green stains.

Lin Yan stomped one after another; the Rift Ants couldn't get close to him at all. A few crawled up his boots, but he simply flicked his leg to shake them off and then stomped on them.

When they were halfway through pulling the third group, He Ming, who was standing beside Chen Qi, suddenly tugged on Chen Qi's sleeve and whispered: "Do you think... he seems a bit taller?"

Chen Qi was fully focused on controlling the pace of the monster pull and didn't even turn his head. "He's just standing straight."

"No," He Ming said with a serious tone. "He was looking Zheng Tong in the eye earlier, but now his shoulders are already higher than Zheng Tong's. Zheng Tong is at least one meter ninety."

Chen Qi frowned and scanned Lin Yan with his Scout Talent, then suddenly froze.

Lin Yan's HP had risen again, and not just his HP; his physical size data had also changed.

His Scout Talent was very sensitive to the physical size of living beings, and the data wouldn't lie. From the time they started clearing the Rift Ants until now, Lin Yan's height had already grown to two meters.

"He's getting bigger." Chen Qi pushed up his glasses, his eyes behind the lenses wide open. "Both his HP and his physical size are increasing."

Zheng Tong leaned in from the side, sizing up Lin Yan not far away. The temporary teammate who had been about his height earlier now required him to tilt his head slightly up just to see the other person's shoulders.

The change had happened quietly while they were clearing the monsters group by group. He had previously only thought that Lin Yan's combat posture had become more relaxed; he hadn't expected that his physical size itself was continuously growing.

"What the hell kind of talent is this?" Zheng Tong asked in a low voice, his tone devoid of fear, sounding more like pure curiosity.

"I don't know. It's not C-rank; even B-rank can't dynamically stack attributes during combat. A-rank... but I've never heard of an A-rank talent where attributes grow this fast. Could it be an S-rank talent?!" Chen Qi scanned him again with his Scout Talent. "His HP is already heading toward 6000."

The fourth group was cleared. The surface patrol ants were gone.

Chen Qi's Scout Talent extended deep into the soil layer and pulled out the fifth group.

This time there were fifteen. The soldier ants that swarmed out from the nest entrance were slightly larger than the patrol ants, a full 50 centimeters long, with darker carapace colors and thicker mandibles. These were Rift Soldier Ants.

[Monster: Rift Soldier Ant] [Level: 4] [HP: 500] [Physical Attack: 40] [Physical Defense: 25] [Magic Defense: 25] [Type: Combat unit of the Rift Ant colony, powerful combat capability, uses giant mandibles to bite enemies, attacks in groups.]

Lin Yan turned to meet them, his movements even more sweeping and expansive than when he started.

Each step spanned nearly two meters.

Fifteen Rift Soldier Ants swarmed in from all directions. He stomped on one with his right foot, shifted his left foot sideways to block three, then raised his right foot again to stomp down. His movements were as fluid as walking.

The Rift Soldier Ants' encirclement formation completely lost its meaning in the face of his lengthened legs and stride.

Before the ant swarm could even open up their encirclement, he had already stepped to the other side of it.

Two Rift Soldier Ants took advantage of the gap while he lifted his foot to crawl onto his left leg, moving up along his pant leg.

Lin Yan felt the biting sensation on his lower leg. He stomped his left foot hard, the vibration shaking the two Rift Ants off, and before they could even hit the ground, he stomped on them and crushed them.

"Two point one meters now." He Ming's voice drifted out from behind his shield, his tone having shifted from shock to a kind of excitement of someone watching the show, "Still growing..."

The fifth group was cleared. The sixth group. The seventh group.

Every group consisted of a dozen or twenty Rift Ants swarming out from the depths of the nest, only to be turned into green stains by Lin Yan's constant stomping.

His height had broken through from the original one meter seventy-five to around two point three meters before it stopped growing; the Heartsteel physical size growth limit was 30%.

He Ming wasn't even holding his shield anymore; he placed the round shield by his feet and stood there, tilting his head back to help Lin Yan count his height.

"Eh, it seems it's not growing anymore. See, I told you, there must be a limit. Otherwise, if it kept growing forever, what level of talent would that require!" He Ming let out a sigh of relief.

"But his HP seems to still be increasing," Chen Qi said, shocked.

Su Wan hadn't said much since the battle began. She stood in the back, clutching a short blade, looking up as Lin Yan grew all the way from one meter ninety to nearly two point three meters.

Her healing talent gave her a more intuitive perception of living beings. Every time Lin Yan crushed a Rift Ant, the vitality within his body jumped up a notch, the frequency of the jumps as dense as a rhythmic beating, and the intensity of that life energy was rising continuously.

"What's his HP at now?" Zheng Tong turned to ask Chen Qi.

Chen Qi scanned with his Scout Talent, pushed up his glasses, and said in an unusually calm voice: "My perception limit is twenty thousand, and I... I can no longer see his bottom line."

"What do you mean you can't see his bottom line?"

"It means his HP has already exceeded the maximum range I can detect. Twenty thousand is his lower limit; I don't know what the upper limit is." Chen Qi turned his head to look at Zheng Tong.

"Although my Scout Talent is only C-rank, I can see the HP of elite monsters of the same rank at a glance. His base HP has now exceeded the limit of what I can see. Do you have any idea what that means?"

Zheng Tong fell silent.

The hardened soil layer under their feet suddenly shook violently.

Unlike the dense vibrations from the Rift Ants swarming out earlier, this was a dull and heavy impact, as if some big guy had turned over deep underground.

The largest crack in the center of the soil layer suddenly tore open to both sides, and a massive, crimson figure slowly crawled out from the fissure.

Rift Queen Ant, Level 5 Elite.

Its size was comparable to a small calf. Its dorsal carapace was crimson, with glowing patterns slowly flickering on the surface. The tips of its six legs were as sharp as spears, and its front mandibles were half a meter long, shimmering with a dark red faint light.

Its abdomen was fat and massive, and with every contraction, it squeezed out clumps of viscous, translucent liquid from its glands, which made a corrosive sizzling sound as they landed on the ground.

Its antennae trembled slightly, and all the surrounding Rift Ants simultaneously turned toward the five people.

[Monster: Rift Queen Ant · Elite] [Level: 5] [HP: 5000] [Physical Attack: 150] [Magic Attack: 100] [Physical Defense: 100] [Magic Defense: 100] [Type: Elite Mob, leader of the Rift Ant colony, possesses the skill "Acid Spray" — deals 100 points of magic damage upon hitting an enemy, and deals 50 points of magic damage per second for 10 seconds.]

Chen Qi's Scout Talent poured the information into his mind. His voice was unusually calm: "Rift Queen Ant, Level 5 Elite, HP around 5000, attack power around 150. It carries a corrosive skill, spraying body fluids; it's acidic, and if you get hit, you'll take damage over time."

Lin Yan looked down at his hands, then at the Rift Queen Ant crawling out of the fissure.

The Rift Queen Ant's size was comparable to a small calf; in the eyes of the two-point-three-meter-tall him, it was roughly equivalent to a slightly large mongrel dog. He flexed his knuckles, producing a series of crisp sounds of bones rubbing together.

"Pull it over." He said.