Antelligent Design

6. Organise

Checking over my new mutations, I have to say I’m looking rather impressive. I’m particularly impressed with the coverage of my Diamond Carapace. The diamond coating is spreading further and penetrating deeper into my carapace, which is excellent. Not just because it’s shiny! Although I am looking delightfully sparkly. No, no, the hardness of the diamond, combined with my own carapace, which grows tougher with every +1, is adding up to some impressive protection.

I flex my mandibles, pleased with the feeling of strength and savagery I feel from them. The upgrade to +15 has made them longer, and they still look impressively sharp and barbed. They’ll do some serious damage when I clamp onto something, even if I’m not channelling Mana into them. This will be a good fusion. I’ll have a more powerful bite without using Mana, and an even spicier one when I do.

My legs are feeling good and responsive, the energy flowing through them is pouring into my core, giving me that slight buzz one gets from being over caffeinated. Naturally, a good chunk of that Mana is flowing into the Gravity Mana Gland to be converted, filling up that vastly increased capacity. Just thinking about the Gravity Bomb I’ll be able to launch with all of this juice is enough to give me shivers. Fingers crossed my fused cortex mutations are enough to give me the control needed to handle all that spice.

Going forward, I’ve got a lot of mutating that I need to get done if I want to try and perfect my body. At the very least, I’m pleased to be able to push my strength forward. Every little +1 I can tack on adds to the performance of the organ overall. It’s easy to get side-tracked by the big-ticket choices every +5, but even without those, a +10 carapace would be much tougher than a +1.

Looking at my numbers, I can’t say I’m not more than a little impressed with myself. Even getting a single body part to +5 was a massive achievement not that long ago, and look at me now! Gwehehehe. In the future, who knows how far I’ll go.

Overall, I’m super pleased with how it all turned out, but now that it’s done, there’s a ton of other things that need to be dealt with right now.

Sighing inside, I shift to another part of the cave to decide on my next moves. Tiny looks across at me before settling himself back into guard position.

Suddenly one of his hands lash out and smashes into the wall of the chamber, crushing a monster just as it was emerging from the stone. Without changing expression, the big ape grabs the Biomass in one hand, shoves it into his mouth, and repositions himself on the other side of the room. He must have developed a method for sensing where the next monster will emerge from and when, because he’s gotten so damn good at being ready for it.

Not that I’m complaining. I can sense them perfectly well with my heat detecting antennae, but I don’t want to spend my time cleaning up these small-fry.

There’s a heck of a lot more work to do. I think the next cab off the rank will be sorting out the humans. Let’s get onto that and get it out of the way. After that, I have a list of things I want to complete regarding the setup of the nest in order to prepare for the next generation, and then I need to get onto my Skills training!

Phew… So busy.