Only one thing for it then. If I’m going to get the peace and quiet I need to change the destiny of ant-kind, then I’m going to have to clear up our little croc problem.
First things first!
[Tiny! Crinis! It’s time to go smash stuff and eat!]
“Vibrant! Where did you get to?”
“Here-here!”
She’s on top of Tiny’s head for a change. I should encourage that.
“We’re moving into the Dungeon, we need to clear it at high-speed and stuff ourselves with Biomass as we go. You coming?”
“Yippee!”
Of course she is.
I’ve already done what I can to organise the humans for the time being. They know where to go and where not to. They have access to water from a nearby spring and they’ll need to sort themselves out food-wise to some extent. It isn’t as if we have a heap of ant bakers churning out fine baguettes or anything.
The first order of business is to go into the Dungeon and check out the situation there, whilst power eating. I need more Biomass and Crinis needs to grow up as quickly as possible. I send a quick message to Enid letting her know that I’ll be in the Dungeon for the next few days, and to make sure her people and any newcomers stick to the rules I’ve lain down in my absence. I’m not worried about these humans overpowering the colony at all. They’re mostly farmers and craftsmen. It’d be best to avoid unnecessary casualties on both sides though. We have bigger crocs to fry.
I break off the mind bridge to Enid and my sub-brains relax into little balls of goop. It was damn hard maintaining it over that distance, but I wanted to test my limits. Formo managed to weave one over a distance of kilometres without breaking a sweat. I’m still a mile away from that level. Even maintaining it over a distance of one kilometre was about all I could manage.
I also allow the Mind Magic construct to collapse, further releasing the burden on my brains. Now that I succeeded once, I’m sure I’ll be able to reproduce it easier the next time.
Once my brains have had a rest, I’ll need to get to testing some more combat-oriented transformation constructs. Probably the water one.
Into the Dungeon!
The gang advances at a rapid pace. Tiny can quickly slap to death any of the regular customers we see as we rapidly descend through the upper tunnels. We take a few detours here and there to make sure nothing is slipping past us as we travel, fleshing out my Tunnel Map a little more and pushing the skill to Level five.
Any time we encounter an evolved creature, we get the little ones to stuff themselves with it to mount up that Biomass. There is one problem though.
[Crinis?] I ask.
[Yes, Master,] she responds faster this time, perhaps sensing I wasn’t going to tolerate silence on this one.
[Are you actually growing? You’re the same size as you were when you were born,] I point out.
It’s true. She’s still roughly the size of a tennis ball. Sometimes she appears a bit larger, and anytime she’s eating she looks much bigger, but when at rest, such as now, she reverts back to a handy tennis ball.
[Well?] I prod.
[…I am growing, Master,] she responds, sounding embarrassed.
[And?]
She clearly doesn’t want to be talking about this. [I can compress the extra mass, Master, due to my nature as a shadow beast. I have been growing properly.]
[Why do you choose to be such a small size all the time?] I ask, baffled.
Wouldn’t it be more impressive to be larger? Display her strength to the world?
[…I think it’s easier like this,] she suddenly gushes. [I fit on Master’s back much more comfortably!]
Well… that is true, I suppose.
[If you want to stay small, you can stay small, Crinis. Whatever floats your boat. Just let me know the second you’re ready for combat, we need to power Level you in a big way.]
[Yes, Master! It won’t be long now!]
[Oh? Good!]
The sooner she can turn into the blending tentacle orb of death she was before, the better. She’s seriously taking a lot longer to grow than Tiny did. Is it because she’s a more complex creature? At least, she was at the time of her reconstitution. I’m starting to see how the skill that increases the speed of pet growth might be desirable.
We continue our way down the tunnels. So far everything appears to be the normal, dumb plants, occasional pig, and various other little bits of nothing. Other than Dashing about every now and again to train the skill, I leave most of the fighting to Tiny. I need to let my brains rest before I test new magic constructions. I do manage to put my new mandibles to work. The Savage Mandibles have way more impressive cutting strength than the regular mandibles. The bites are nastier, wider and look like they’d be more difficult to heal as well. All in all, I’m quite happy with this upgrade.
Time to go deeper.
71. Ape Slap
We make rapid progress in our descent this time as opposed to the first. Tiny is stronger after his second consecutive special evolution. He smashes his way with extreme speed and a strangely casual attitude through these small fries. I don’t think I’ve even seen him throw a punch. He’s just squashing monsters flat beneath his palms for the most part.
I really have no idea exactly what he gained in the evolution. Perhaps some new organs? Something related to his lightning? Maybe a boost to his sonic scream? I’m more tempted than ever to take the skill that allows me to look at a pet’s status, simply for convenience’s sake, but I resist. Now that I have the Core Surgery skill, I can take a look at his information using that. It’s just a bit more difficult to do so. I have a lot of Skill Points saved up at the moment, so the thought of casually spending one or two to make life a little easier is extremely tempting.
As Tiny keeps slapping his way through the upper layers, we pause every now and again to let the little ones eat. I’ve told Crinis to exercise as much as possible to aid her digestion in order to allow for maximum food stuffage in the shortest period of time. What this ends up being, is her frantically waving tentacles all over the place whilst riding on my back. She can extend a lot more limbs a lot farther than she could not that long ago, so I’ll take that as evidence of her growing properly.
Whenever we take breaks, I flip through the skills menu, looking for anything new that’s appeared or anything that might be useful. There are a few skills I hadn’t seen before that I’m considering purchasing. Especially these:
[Water Magic affinity: Increases the user’s comfort, speed and efficacy when using Mana of the water attribute.]
[Fire Magic affinity: Increases the user’s comfort, speed and efficacy when using Mana of the fire attribute.]
[Earth Magic affinity: Increases the user’s comfort, speed and efficacy when using Mana of the earth attribute.]
[Wind Magic affinity: Increases the user’s comfort, speed and efficacy when using Mana of the wind attribute.]
The appearance of these skills seems to answer a few of my questions. It appears that once an intelligent creature has mastered the Transformation skill to some extent, they will be able to choose an affinity to make it easier to advance onto the next step. I’m guessing that with higher levels of the Mana Transformation skill, or perhaps when the skill advances to the next rank, then other, more advanced affinities will become unlocked.
It makes sense that these basic elements are the first to become available, since of all the Mana types, these four have the most basic transformation constructs, making them the simplest attributes of all.