I can tell she’s not happy about it.
“I just don’t want to stay so useless!” she huffs.
“Believe me, this path will make you useful faster, not slower. You really think a tier two mature worker is good for anything around here? Absolutely not. You still wouldn’t be able to fight the monsters, and you sure as heck wouldn’t be able to help with any of the projects around the Colony. By taking the special hatchling evolution, you might remain small and weak at tier two, but you’ll get payoffs down the line. You’ll be stronger at tier three than you would have been otherwise, same for tier four, and that’s when you’ll finally be of use to the Colony.”
“Fine,” she grumbles, accepting the core from my mandibles.
A brief moment of hesitation, then the core dissolves, the energy contained within flowing into her body to join her own core.
“This… isn’t very comfortable…” she grunts.
“Sure isn’t!” I agree. “Wait till you try a rare core! Now evolve so you don’t have to put up with it for long.”
The hatchling falls into the listless view of someone fiddling with their menu, and after ten minutes, she drifts off, starting to softly glow as the process takes hold. Tiny hovers over the defenceless youngling, taking the job far more seriously than I’d have thought him capable of. Giving the big ape a satisfied nod, I prod Invidia and start a Mind Magic battle with him to help hone my Skill. He always wins, but there really isn’t anyone else for me to practise with. Just a couple more Levels and I’ll have the power!
A little less than an hour later, the hatchling stirs, and we greet her back to the world of the waking.
“Welcome back, little one,” I tell her. “How do you feel?”
She shakes herself alert, then gives herself a quick look over.
“I feel… stronger than before. Better. I suppose.”
“You’re even very slightly larger!” I encourage her.
She checks herself again.
“Huh. I suppose I am. Alright then, let’s get back to it! I want to be useful and I’m not there yet!”
“You sure aren’t,” I chuckle. “Right you are, back at it.”
104. The Mutation Discussion
“Are you sure this is going to be important?” the hatchling asks again as we munch on some Biomass.
“Of course it is! Mutations are extremely important—supremely important! Raw stats are only one aspect of the strength of a monster, and those are decided by evolutionary tier. Mutations give us access to all sorts of things that can completely change what we are capable of. Depending on the mutations you pick going forward, you’ll become a completely different ant! You need to think harder about what you want to do with yourself from this point forward.”
I made the hatchling evolve with maxed mutations for her first go through, not wanting to miss out on that sweet 10% bonus. The amount of evolutionary energy available going from tier one to two was piddly, and ten percent of piddly is, I think, piddly-diddly, but turning your antennae up at free evolutionary energy is a fool’s game. And we members of the Colony are not fools!
Having said that, for the first time in her existence, the hatchling struggles to be decisive when it comes to picking her mutations. I make some fairly generic suggestions and we go with those. My knowledge of the intricacies of the System has vastly improved since the early days, both from my own experience and from consulting with Granin and his Triad. After considering the disposition of the hatchling, what I believe she might need in the future, and potential going forward, I made selections I think will work out well for her.
I just wasn’t going to do it a second time.
I’m not lazy! It’s very important that each ant have a clear picture in their mind of the creature they want to be! I’m not going to stand here and imperiously dictate another’s future. In this colony, we have the right to self-determination! Not only is it a right, it’s a sacred tradition!
“You have to max out your mutations for that bonus ten percent energy. And anyway, you’re far more capable with mutations than you are without them.”
“There’s just so many options…” She looks a little blank, and I can tell she’s going through the list. “I want them all!”
[Looks like you’ve got a friend here, Invidia…]
[Ssssheeee can’t havessss them! I will havessss them firsssst!]
[I know, buddy.]
“You can’t have them all,” I tell her bluntly. “You have to pick. Think about the sort of work you want to do. You want to fight? There’s mutations that are great for that. You want to mine? There’s mutations for that. Smelt? Be a smith? Care for the young? Lay eggs? Research? Cast magic? There’s mutations for all of this stuff.”
“How can an eye mutation help me cast magic?” she retorts.
“Mana sensitive lenses, look it up.”
“Oh.”
“I actually took a mutation that helps me absorb Mana through my legs.” I lift a leg for emphasis. “Helps keep my core topped off when I’m doing some serious spell slinging. There are all kinds of things you can do. Vibrant is obsessed with speed and has taken heaps of mutations to help her move quicker. I’m pretty sure she actually took mutations to make her carapace more aerodynamic.”
“What does that mean?”
“Like… smoother. She doesn’t get as much resistance from the air when she’s bustling about. She’s a good example, actually. To become the kind of monster she wanted to be, she had to consider all of her mutations to that end. Her eyes have to be able to see at high speeds, her brain needs to function faster, her reactions have to be quicker, she needs particular musculature in her legs, she adjusted her carapace, she probably has a mutated metabolism and respiratory system to provide the level of energy required. On top of all that, she’s a powerful soldier with strong jaws and tough defence. This is the kind of thing you can achieve when you really think about what it is you want.”
“What about you, senior?” the hatchling asks shrewdly. “You don’t seem to have specialised at all.”
“I’m greedy.” I shrug around a mouthful of Biomass. “I really wanted to be able to cast magic, but I didn’t want to be too weak in terms of my physical attributes. I wanted the best of both worlds. It’s good in some ways, I can cast magic pretty well, and I can fight up close and personal. But I can’t cast as well as Invidia over there, since he is completely specialised on it, and I’m not nearly as physically powerful as Tiny, even though they are on the same evolutionary tier as me. There are trade-offs.”
“Doesn’t sound worth it,” she muses. “I think I’d rather be the best at something rather than average at everything.”
“I thought you already were the best,” I tease.
“I am!” she flares. “I’m just going to be more the best!”
“Well. If you want to be exceptional, then you’ll need to specialise. Go hard at one thing and focus on it with mutations and evolutions.”
“But what do I pick?” she mutters.
“There’s an almost infinite number of combinations and specialisations you could go with. If you want to be good at spellcasting and Mana Manipulation, there’s a variety of things you can do. You could purchase Mana organs and use those, you could go for manual spell weaving, you can specialise in one kind of Mana or make yourself more of a generalist. Same with physical builds. You can focus on speed, defence, offence, and you can do all of those in a variety of ways. There really is nothing for it but to get deep into the menus and think about what you find there.”