The Antventure Begins

39. Finally! Evolution!

Finally! Finally, I can evolve!

I’m emotional. It hasn’t been easy. I’ve had to struggle and use my wits, which aren’t much, but I finally made it.

Thanks for your support, Gandalf!

Thanks for persevering, Anthony!

Alright, let’s calm down and focus. This is serious business. The first thing I need to do is spend my five Biomass to upgrade my acid.

[Do you wish to improve Acid Gland to +5? This will cost five Biomass.]

Yes!

[At this Level you may choose a mutation advancement. Select from the menu.]

Nice!

A large list of potential options appears in my mind. So many choices! Searing Acid, Concentrated Acid, Freezing Acid. All of these sound amazing. I have to be careful with my selection, there’s only one shot at this and I don’t want to make a mistake.

Some of the upgrades seem to have an elemental flavour, such as Shock Acid, for example. I’m not sure if I want to take that path. For sure they all sound powerful but I don’t want my acid to become ineffective against creatures who are resistant to one particular element.

The Wolf Dragon Cubs are resistant to heat damage. If I were to choose Searing Acid then my effective combat options would be greatly reduced. There are potentially monsters out there who are straight up resistant to acid damage, which means I have one potential weakness already. I don’t like the idea of doubling that to two!

Reluctantly I put aside the awesome sounding elemental acid options and look at the remaining choices.

There’s an option to increase the aerodynamics of the spray, greatly increasing my range… I don’t really feel like I need that. I’m happy with my current range.

Another option keeps the acid burning for a longer time, basically increasing the duration of the acid’s damage. More damage sounds nice, though having to wait a long time for it to work won’t help in a pinch situation…

Oh ho! This option seems interesting.

[Restrictive Acid: This upgrade will cause acid to become sticky and solidify after being fired. This effect will make the acid adhere to the target and restrict their movement.]

I like this one. Not only will the acid stick to the target, which will have the effect of increasing my overall damage, it will also gum up the enemy and make it harder for them to move.

If I spray one larger enemy three times, I might have a chance to slow them down, and if I spray a smaller enemy once they’ll be much easier to avoid, increasing my crowd control options.

Confirm Restrictive Acid!

Oh God.

The +5 mutation is on another level. Truly, it elevates the word ‘itch’ into a higher plane. I shall endure! I hope…

Finally, the horrible feeling deep within my abdomen begins to fade away. Phew… Right. Now for the big one.

Evolution!

[Would you like to use the Evolution menu?]

Heck yeah!

[Congratulations on reaching the maximum Level for your current species. Evolution will allow you to change your form and increase your stats as a monster.

Warning: Evolving will make securing XP and Biomass more difficult as fewer rewards are given for preying on creatures less evolved than yourself.

Your evolution options are as follows::

– Mature Worker Ant (Formica)

– Monster Worker Ant.]

A new option has appeared. What does this mean? Has maxing out my core unlocked a new choice? So, my two choices are to become a fully grown version of what I am now, keeping my species as Formica, or become a non-species-specific monstrous ant?

I’m not exactly sure what the benefits are of losing my species during evolution… I don’t want to consider this option. If I were to lose my species then I’m not sure I would be accepted back into my colony. Meaning I’d have to continue making it on my own in this Dungeon and even my own family would hunt me down as my enemy!

Too cold. That kind of life would be so damn cold! I’m already sick of being wary and fighting every creature I see. It would be so nice if I could find something that didn’t want to eat me.

I will remain as my current species and re-join my people!

Choose Mature Worker Ant, Formica!

[Your core has been formed and enhanced. It will provide bonus energy to your evolution.]

Aha! Forming my core and upgrading it will allow me to boost my stats further when I evolve? I made the correct choice condensing my core after all.

[Due to high Cunning stat, manual evolution has been unlocked. Would you like to enable manual evolution?]

Uh… Yes?

My mind is flooded with information and a large window with evolutionary steps and stat allocation screens unfolds. Why the heck are there so many options! I was almost looking forward to not having to choose anything, Gandalf, you crazy wizard.

Alright then. Being able to personally allocate everything does give me more control over the evolution. That seems like it should be a good thing.

Let’s have a look then.

There’s a set amount of evolutionary energy which has been boosted by my core and I need to spend this energy to change myself during the evolution process. If I had chosen not to use manual evolution… the system would make all of the choices for me, I guess?

As part of my evolution, I’ll gain a new organ, the Pheromone Gland. Nice! Then I’ll be able to lay my own trails. This will come in handy when I make it back to the colony, I’ll be able to create new paths to let my fellow workers know where the food is and so on.

And I get to choose one additional new organ… It feels kind of weird choosing new body parts for myself. Let’s have a look at the options then.

You must be kidding.

A massive list opened including everything from extra legs, a second set of mandibles, wings, additional eyes, camouflage skin, stink glands. Even the Coral Slug mucous skin is in here!

Or I could add a tail… what would an ant even do with a tail!

If you were to mix and match the options over multiple evolutions, you could turn yourself into a truly messed up looking monster.

There are also lots of internal organs and glands to choose from and some of them I have no idea what they even do. The adrenal hyper stimulator apparently induces a kind of frenzied, berserk state. Sounds risky…

It takes about ten minutes to scroll through all the options before I settle on one I really like.

[Regenerative Healing Gland: Can release a burst of healing fluid that will result in rapid regeneration over a small span of time.]

With this baby I can trade hits with other monsters and still come out on top. It also provides incredible insurance for emergency situations. If I’d had this gland when I was found by the five centipedes while wounded, I’d be able to regenerate a couple points of HP and not be in such a dangerous position.

Upgrading this gland to +5, might ensure I’m able to regenerate a lot of HP quickly and get some other cool options!

I lock in that selection and turn to my stats.

Might:15

Toughness: 12

Cunning: 25

Will: 18

Looking at Might first, I have two options when I add stats. I can either increase my overall muscle mass, which will increase my size, or increase the muscle density which costs more energy but doesn’t increase my size by nearly as much.

Next is Toughness. I can either increase the solidity of my external defence or improve the robustness of my internal resistance.

For Cunning… whoa. Thanks to my already high Cunning stat, it is super expensive to increase it. Checking my options, I can improve my processing speed or increase my brain matter? That’s freaky. I can even add another brain!

Right…

It looks like I can add smaller, self-contained brain sections to look after certain processes on their own. There are a few animals like this. An octopus has a separate brain to manage each of its legs, or even a human who has a significant number of nerves attached to the digestive system. I could attach one to my acid release zone back in my business district that would handle aiming for me, effectively giving me automatic aim.

But doing anything like that costs way too much. I’ll leave it alone for now.

Adding to my Will can improve either Mana Manipulation or Mana Regeneration… since my Will is already pretty high, this isn’t worth it for now.

I decide to pour all of my evolutionary stats into Might and Toughness. For both of these I go for a 50:50 balance. If I put all my Might into just a size increase, I’ll end up with a higher Might score, but I’ll be far larger, which will make sneaking around and scouting more difficult. By taking the balanced approach I lose out on raw stats but gain in flexibility.

I hope.

When I’m done allocating this, the manual process is finished.

Uh, I think I’m good to go?

[Would like to confirm your choices and evolve?]

Yes.

The world fades to black.