I flew through the dungeon for hours, creating a map of the hornets’ nest in my mind.

At first, I thought the nest was complicated, but it turned out it wasn’t. All paths, regardless of direction, eventually circled back and led to their queen.

The workers would go out and capture other monsters. I’ve spotted them carrying a blue-scaled, lizard-like creature a few times.

At other times, they carried creatures that resembled crabs, only bigger.

The entire nest was in an uproar, and after observing them for a few days, I finally figured out why.

It was because one of their major food sources was gone: the dungeon rats.

I’ve spotted a lot of dungeon rat remains in the nest. The Rat King I killed was responsible for the creation of dungeon rats. It must’ve been one of the abilities given by the Rat King title.

The ’Boss Monster’ title also gives this ability: the ability to create lesser monsters that are more or less copies of you.

There were a lot of studies online and in the forums about Boss Monsters and the benefits given by the title, but those were mostly theories and speculation since no player has ever gained the title of a Boss Monster.

One of the theories about Boss Monsters that interested me a lot was the ability to mark out their territory and create dungeons from that territory.

Dungeons mainly came in two forms: either they held one specific species of monsters, or they were an ecosystem of different monsters.

Wiping out the dungeon rats disrupted that ecosystem, causing the hornets to go out of their way into another section of the dungeon they didn’t frequent, in search of a new food source. This in turn made things much, much harder for me.

After doing some research on the forum, I found that those blue-scaled lizards were called Electrosaurs.

These beasts carry with them a parasite that hijacks their bodies and gives them an electric property.

Since the flame hornets began eating them, they also developed the parasite. The bad news was that the hornets were now at least twice as fast as they were before, and touching them could cause you to be electrocuted, even after they were dead. Combine this with the flame affinity these creatures possessed, and we’re left with one powerful species.

But the good news is, if I melt them down with my acid, it will kill the parasites and allow me to devour them without being infected with the parasite myself.

Devouring a flame hornet usually gives me around 25 biomass, but with the parasite, that number gets bumped up to 30 biomass.

I estimated that there are around 50 flame hornets in the nest, excluding their queen, so I should be able to net 1500 biomass if I devour them all.

This was one step closer to being able to purchase the obsidian dragon bloodline.

All of this was 2 days’ worth of information, which means I only have 5 days left in the dungeon. The reason why it was possible for me to stay here for so long without being discovered is that I spent a total of 20 skill points to get my camouflage skill to level 4.

Whenever I encountered a hornet, I would just stay still, and usually they would think I was a harmless piece of obsidian rock.

All the flame hornets return to the nest around the same time to bring food to their queen. That was the moment I decided to make my move.

My first act was to seal all their exits so they couldn’t escape the nest. I sealed them with my sticky goo.

Which reminds me, I need a better name for this substance than "sticky goo." It doesn’t sound right.

I’m going to call it Googum from now on, since it’s sticky like goo and stretchy like gum. That should work.

These hornets had strong senses, so it only took a few seconds for them to sense the strange structure in their nest and come flying after me.

The moment I saw them approaching, I disappeared into one of the tunnels and camouflaged myself on the wall like a piece of rock.

There were 5 of them in total, their bodies glowing bright blue with crackles of blue electric aura around them.

Their stingers remained sharp and pointed, ready to pierce any prey they encountered.

Before I could be seen, I sprayed acid at them. They acted instantly and tried to evade, but my acid hit its mark: their wings.

With their wings melted, the hornets could do nothing as they fell from the air onto the obsidian spikes waiting down below them.

The obsidian spikes skewered them, ending their lives almost immediately.

Spending 20 skill points, I leveled up my mold skill to level 4. Now with this level up, I could not only manipulate the obsidian on my body but also use it to create obsidian formations on any surface I touched.

I had prepared this trap beforehand.

[You have slain 5 level 2 Flame Hornets]

With them now dead, I then sprayed them with acid until I received another notification.

[You have slain 5 Electro Parasites]

Without hesitation, I quickly devoured what was left of them and gained a total of 150 biomass and collected their cores.

At the same time, more flame hornets appeared.

Using my mold skill once again, I created a stinger of my own on my back end and prepared to face them head-on. I also coated my entire body in Googum to protect myself against their electricity and since my Googum shared some properties of rubber, it worked well.

Roughly 10 hornets lunged at me all at the same time. Vibrating my wings at supersonic speed, I created a strong sonic pulse to disorient them, then without hesitation sank my stinger into their vitals and used it to decapitate them.

[You have slain 10 level flame hornets]

Just as before, I sprayed them with acid and killed the parasites that infested them, but just as I was about to begin the digestion process, a massive ball of flame exploded towards me, covering my entire body in flames.