Although my ultimate goal is to be an all-rounder, with powerful physical skills as well as magical prowess, I feel as if I’m right on the edge of being able to use magic the way I want to. With a boost to my Cunning, Willpower and some extra juice in my sub-brain, the currently daunting and impractical task of transforming Mana could be shifted within reach. With some practice, I might be able to master a few transformations and cast fire or water spells to round out my complement of offensive magic.
Then I could double back and pour my resources into physical strength on the subsequent evolutions. It shouldn’t take too long for my body to catch up with my mind. After all, if the pattern holds true, the next evolution will require me to reach Level 40 and buff my core to 200 MP.
My crew track our way back to the seemingly even larger anthill and its contingent of defender ants. The colony is getting back into a regular groove it seems, with trails leading off into the surrounding territory, and workers scurrying back with food in their mandibles. I’m not too worried the workers will be challenged by the surface level monsters. Unless there’s some very old beasts lying about unseen. I haven’t noticed anything capable of tackling a swarm of workers up here though.
Descending into the colony, I find the queen is happily recuperated, resting in the warm glow of the Dungeon light. As monsters spawn in her chamber, they are instantly covered in a pack of manic workers, protecting their queen, as well as supplying the much-needed Biomass.
Curiously, I don’t notice too many new brood in the nest. Those that we had before have mostly hatched, bringing our numbers back to over a thousand. Since then, there haven’t been many new ants born. Perhaps the queen was on break while she healed up?
Never mind, I’m sure it’ll kick into high gear again after we settle in. Once I’ve trained my skills, I might even be able to finally activate my long-held plans for ant supremacy!
Taking the gang back into our own little chamber, we add the cores we were able to harvest on our field trip to the established hoard. Compared to what we stole from the human queen, it’s a drop in the ocean, but another fifteen cores are always welcome!
As Tiny retrieves the sack of cores from the wall, my eyes light up with the precious gleam and glitter of the small spherical gems. Wealth! Precious wealth! If I’m a dragon, then this is my hoard!
“Senior, why are you drooling?” Vibrant asks.
Gah! I hastily wipe my mouth on a foreleg and attempt to regain my dignity as the senior ant. Did Tiny see that?
The ape is standing in front of me with a curiously blank look on his face as he holds the sack open. Pretending he noticed nothing, eh… Good work, Tiny! Now you won’t have to be smacked in the head with cores!
Quickly estimating, I think we have around four hundred cores on hand. With these, I’ll have to make sure my pets and Vibrant get the perfect evolutions they deserve, as well as train my Core Engineering skill to the peak.
Before that though, time to consider what to spend all of my Biomass on!
Through repeated cycles of eating, digging and resting I have amassed 142 Biomass! Unfathomable largesse! Lucking into a few highly evolved prey makes all the difference.
It might sound like a lot, but when I consider how much is needed to get every organ to +15, my current maximum, it isn’t nearly enough.
My mandibles are at +9 already, so they’ll be the first thing upgraded. I still don’t know exactly what will happen once an organ reaches +10. I’m hoping for another mutation advancement. Perhaps I’ll have the same menu as before, or new, more potent options?
Time to find out!
Excitedly, I ring up Gandalf and get this show on the road.
[Would you like to upgrade Infused Mandibles to +10? This will cost 10 Biomass.]
Yes!
[At this Level you can choose a mutation advancement. Please select from the menu.]
YASSSSSS!
The now familiar long list of options appears in my mind for my scrolling pleasure.
Hmmm… Yes, I see. Indeed!
The list of options is basically what I thought. There are the same options I had before, a few new ones, and several related to the Infused Mandibles I chose before. A familiar headache starts to develop. Just what to choooose!
To start with, I pick out a few options I like.
The Vampiric Mandibles are still here. Draining life from my foes and healing myself as I bite sounds awesome. Except I already have the healing gland. What worries me more than not having enough healing is not being able to break through the defence.
Berserk Mandibles which increase the damage the more I bite the target also seems good, but I’m worried about spending that much time chomping on one monster. This doesn’t seem useful in a swarm situation.
Let’s check on some of the Infused Mandibles upgrades.
Potent Infused Mandibles. Increases the speed of Mana flow into the mandibles. I guess this will help me wind up for a big chomp faster, but I’m not sure that’s needed all that badly right now.
Efficient Infused Mandibles. Provides a greater effect for less Mana, increasing efficiency in Mana consumption. This is ok but it doesn’t really excite me. Since I’ll have more uses for my Mana shortly, an increase in efficiency sounds great, but I want something a little more offensive…
Frustrated, I continue to scroll through the options, looking for something that meets my needs. My focus for my mandibles is to simply have the most powerful bite I can. It’s my bottom line. When all the fancy skills and magic are stripped away, what I want is the most damage I can get with my face hands.
In the end I come back to the most basic of all of the upgrades.
Savage Mandibles. Increases the size and density of the mandibles to directly increase penetrating power and compression force.
Bigger, badder mandibles. Nothing more, nothing less. Combined with infusion, my offensive bite will receive a huge boost.
[Do you wish to confirm your choice?]
Gimme!
ARRGH! MY BEAUTIFUL FACE!
58. Laying the Foundation
GAAAAAH!
The itching continues for a good long while, and this time, I can actually see my own mandibles changing shape during the process. They’re becoming longer, more vicious in appearance, and heavier. To compensate for the increased weight, the muscle density in my face is also shifted as part of the mutation, causing even more itching to consume me.
After flailing around on the ground for five minutes, the sensation fades away. Scrabbling back onto my legs to try to retain my dignified pose, I once again hit up the menu for more mutations.
As much as I hate the feeling, I have to mutate. Mutate or die! I didn’t spend those days eating dumb plants because I needed a fibre boost.
Now I have a single body part at +10, and all of the rest at +5. I don’t have nearly enough to upgrade everything. To take one body part from +5 to +10 will cost me 40 Biomass and I have 132 left. That means I’ll be able to take three more parts to +10 and have twelve left over to play with.
I’m quite disappointed by that. I spent all of that time trying to fill myself with food, eating until I was practically a bouncy ball rolling around and it only gets me this far? Four body parts at +10!
I’m insanely tempted to go back down into the Dungeon for another few days to pile up more Biomass. I haven’t been able to get nearly enough! I have nothing at +15!
A small part of me regrets not eating those humans when I had the chance. I wouldn’t be in this position if I hadn’t gained all of those Levels without eating anything at the same time. Still… eating humans is not quite right with me.