The whole process took five whole minutes, give or take. At the two-minute mark, the rat started to limp down on the ground with little strength. At the four-minute mark, the rat fell to the ground and panted heavily until its mouth started to foam up slowly, making a small puddle around it. At around five minutes, Theo saw the kill message of the rat. ’Your venom has some kick to it, spider. The rat may have died five minutes later, but it still became unable to fight after just three minutes...’ While he was thinking, he saw the spider approach the dead body of the rat and start to poke it left and right. Just when it was done, it dug its fangs inside the rat’s body and, after a minute of doing so, pulled out and started spinning its threads in circles around the rat until it became a literal mummy, with no way of telling there was a rat inside. It tried hanging the rat in the web, only to see that the rat got lifted for a moment before the webs broke due to the weight. Theo could understand that. The spider may have had potent venom, its webs laced with poison, but the quality of the web was only going to be ordinary at the end of the day. But his thoughts were directly cut off when he saw the spider move all around the rat speedily, putting web after web and moving it up every second. Before he could see what it was doing, the mummified rat was attached to a hanging web from all directions. And this time, when the spider tried pulling and attaching the webs to the corner of the box’s wall, the rat’s body hung above the ground, but only by a little. Yet it flabbergasted Theo. His mind diverted toward the high level of intelligence in the spider he had seen in the status. ’You’re making it hard to doubt my decision of partially taming you, spider.’ Theo thought, even though he knew the spider couldn’t hear it. While the spider was okay with making arrangements for the rat in its box, Theo went to the small compartment he had made, where the ants fought different insects to level up. Their quantity had become ridiculous, and it was something he had counted three days ago. Now? It felt like the numbers would have gone up by a few tens. From then on, the day went into trying to level up the newly hatched ants. Elias came after a while with tea and left to get some things done for Theo. He even got a few messages from Clara, who was asking about when they were going to the forest now. Theo only told her to wait a few days and asked her to come directly to his room the next time she wanted to ask something. He had told all the castle guards to let her in. By the end of the day, Theo saw Elias bring a small box into his room, and when it was opened, the crimson red mantis came out of it and perched itself on the bed to rest. The rıghtful source is 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝⟡𝕗𝗂𝗋𝖾⟡𝕟𝕖𝕥 Theo could only chuckle. Its EXP was increasing at a good pace, and by Elias’s knowledge, Theo would have to let the part of the forest the mantis was hunting in heal for the time being. It was killing and eating many boars halfway before moving ahead, which made their population decrease a lot. It made Theo realize that it may be time that they went deeper into the forest. The next day, after the sword training with Rhys, Theo went to get permission from his father only to get downright rejected on the spot. According to him, Theo had forgotten to complete all the missions he had told him to complete, which was the reason why Rhys was following him around in the forest. After a long time, Theo looked at the missions and could only exhale in annoyance. They were all different types of ones that he hated to complete, like extracting a plant or a tracking job. It was not what he specialized in, and not all had to complete every mission as there were enough to get anyone promoted and get a yellow badge. But according to the head butler and the baron, Theo was a noble who was expected to complete every mission to show his worth, which felt ridiculous. It took him another two months to complete all the missions of the yellow level, which were a lot, and helped him learn many things that he had not noticed in the forest till now. In the baron’s office, Theo stood with Elias and Clara and waited opposite the table where a parchment filled with yellow stars was kept and observed. The baron looked at the sheet and then at Theo with squinted eyes before moving his gaze to Rhys, who was sitting on a sofa at the side gazing out of the window as if his eyes were going to close any moment now. But he nodded without even looking at the baron, which made him sigh. "Congratulations... you have achieved the yellow rating," the baron spoke in a grumbling voice. Theo only smiled with a sigh of relief. That was the only tone he was going to get from his father for now, seeing how he was going to get permission to go to the middle level of the forest now. "Your Bronze Star missions will be provided to you in a few days by Alfred. Go have some rest now." The baron spoke again and kept the yellow star parchment to the side. "A few days? I got the yellow missions in a few hours, Father." Theo protested with a frown, making Alfred look at Theo with his usual expression. Theo was getting more daring with his father. "Hah! You expect bronze missions to be the same level as yellow? You must be over your head, son." The baron spoke with a grin as if he had finally caught onto something. Theo had his mouth open in confusion, as if not knowing where the situation was going. "You are not to leave your room for two days now, in the offense of talking back at me!"