Screams and shouts erupt from the crowd as the target falls to his knees, a disbelieving look on his face as his hands rise to try and grasp the ethereal spear emerging from his body. Then they scream once more, their momentum completely broken, as the rings of light expand out in a flash, encompassing much of the crowd.
Then the pulling force of gravity kicks in.
They don’t seem to notice at first, but the force grows stronger with each passing moment until they cannot resist it. The crowd tries to hold on, bracing their feet and leaning their bodies as if fighting against a strong breeze, but the potent pull cannot be denied. Eventually they all ‘fall’ toward the bewildered gentlemen whose chest still proudly sports the spear.
Even I’m a little stunned at the potency of this spear, and momentarily stop running to admire the sight of almost fifty people squashed together like sardines in a can. I can’t even see the guy I targeted anymore. He’s become buried under the bodies of his fellow townspeople.
That isn’t something I’m going to see every day.
Muahahaha!
So long, suckers!
With a jaunty wave of my antennae, I Dash away into the darkness.
I’m not exactly sure what has happened in that village. At the very least they’re taking their community safety seriously. I’m still a little concerned that despite their committed attitude, eventually something too badass for them to handle will poke its head out of that hole and the people there will be food.
I may have to advance some of my plans.
Rushing back to the trees we meet up with Tiny, and I command the little worker to climb back up onto my head before we hurry back to the nest. I’ve noticed that in the forest, the monsters we encounter Level up a little during the night time. I hadn’t realised it at first since they’re still pathetically weak. In any case, we make it back home without any stress.
Once we hit up the farm and ensure we’ve all had a good feed, leaving a heap of disabled monsters for the colony and extracting another fresh core, I head back to my chamber and dig out my collection. The little one seems to have had enough excitement for the time being and decides to have a nap to help digest her meal.
Once I’ve assembled my selection of treasures, I take all of the cores that are completely unmodified and place the Jellymaw core to one side. I need to go through all of these cores and alter them as much as possible in my final push to Level up Core Engineering.
Summoning all of my intellect, I focus on the first core and begin the arduous process of making adjustments to the energies contained within.
After several hours of mind shattering work, it has been completed. I managed to take five cores and make all of the changes I can, successfully grinding out two more Levels of Core Engineering.
Argh! My head is thumping! Core Engineering is ridiculously taxing on the mind, like shoving a boulder uphill using only your thoughts.
Taking ten minutes in order to refresh myself, it’s time to face the Jellymaw core. I was super impressed with this monster when I fought against it. The terror it managed to elicit, even from other monsters, was something I had never beheld before. Not to mention, I suspect this is a creature that has only evolved once, meaning not much growth potential has been lost.
Yes, I intend to make the Jellymaw my second pet!
19. Crafting of the Jellymaw!
I’d wanted to wait a little longer before reconstituting my second pet. With higher Levels of Core Engineering, I’d be able to customise the creature to better fit my intended role for it.
Sadly, recent events have sped up the timeframe, and mining the cores in the farm has proven to be a little slow. If I had a month, then I could afford to wait. Except things always accelerate faster than I want in this world. I mustn’t forget I still have to raise a reconstituted monster from an infant form up to the mature, combat ready form it had when it was killed. That process will take a fair amount of time and has to be accounted for in my planning.
With more time I would have been able to grind out a few more Levels and then, with my skills raised, embark on the kind of mastery Formo had displayed. The Sophos have carved out a life for themselves within the Dungeon using their hyper modified and specially raised pets, showing just how strong this technique can be.
I want to supplement my own strength with a few select pets. I can’t be in every place at once. Defending the colony while hunting to raise my own strength is proving difficult. Eventually the colony will be strong enough to look after itself, with a number of more highly evolved workers and sheer numbers to overwhelm more powerful monsters. Until then, I want to be able to leave the colony for a stretch of time and be assured it’s well protected.
The Jellymaw is an incredible defensive creature. Within the confines of the Dungeon, inside a narrow space, even without the power of sight, there is nowhere to hide from its fearsome tentacles and impressive strength.
Imagining an enemy attempting to assault the ant hill, sending soldiers down the main shaft to hunt the queen and ants huddling within, only to meet a wall of brutal tentacles that rip the flesh from their bones and devour them whole.
…Yuck. Effective, but yuck.
Ok! Bringing my antennae forward, I throw my mind into the dark gem resting on the soil. Immediately a flood of information invades my mind, all the details of the Jellymaw as a creature, its body type, organs, limbs, musculature, stats and evolutionary pathways are laid bare, ready for manipulation.
The first thing that strikes me is the stats. I’m kind of surprised at how intelligent the monster is. I hadn’t thought the creature would need much of a mind and had prepared myself for another all brawn, no brain associate like Tiny. As I investigate deeper, it starts to make a bit of sense.
By not including sensory organs—eyes, sense of taste, smell or hearing—a tremendous amount of… space… was left available within the brain. It’s a little hard to explain, but as I explore, all of the things that contribute toward the final ‘stat’ value, the intricacy and complexity of the system starts to become more apparent.
If there were only ten ‘points’ worth of energy available to devote to a monster’s brain, then you would need to spend that developing all of the aspects of a brain for a rounded mind. Some of the energy would go to unconscious body management, like how a person doesn’t have to think about making their heart beat, a good chunk would go to memory, more for increasing the speed and efficacy of the brain’s connections, that is to say, intelligence. Since sensory organs are quite complex, the parts of the brain that deal with those are also quite complex, requiring a heap of energy to properly form them. By not including any of these, large amounts of energy was instead devoted toward pure intelligence and memory, gaining a relatively high Cunning stat fairly cheaply.
Interesting!
Similarly, the Jellymaw has no bones, much like a regular jellyfish. Without having to spend energy on a skeletal system, more was devoted to the powerful musculature. I’m still not exactly sure how the monster manages to function out of water without bones though. I’ll need to dig a little deeper.
The more I look, the more impressed I am with the way this creature is constructed. That incredible power has come about as a result of a series of trade-offs. Limited senses, no bones, reduced nervous system, very simple selection of organs, all cut back to produce that fearsome strength.
However, there is still room for changes. Since the Jellymaw already has greater than expected intelligence, I want to push that advantage a bit further. Intelligence will ultimately trump strength. The human race rising to supremacy on Earth is living proof!