Upping The Ante

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.

Sighing internally, I’ll just have to power forward as is. The urge to evolve is strong within me. I’ll ensure I dedicate a significant chunk of time to bringing my mutations up afterward. Tiny and I will need to go much deeper and expand our shortcut into the lower reaches.

Perhaps after evolving, we’ll be able to press into the boundary of the second strata!

The queen told me how the surface people have roughly divided the Dungeon into layers. The top layer goes about fifty kilometres down and is called the first strata or the layer of beasts. By far the smallest of the strata and containing the weakest monsters, the first strata is populated mostly by beast-type monsters, mutated and powerful versions of animals found on the surface living normally. Lions, tigers, pigs, centipedes and also plant types. Ants are rarely found and mostly right at the edge, between 45 and 50 kilometres down.

The second stratum is much larger and known as the layer of nightmares. The queen was a little less forthcoming with information about this layer, either because she didn’t know it or was trying to hide it. This layer extends from 30 kilometres to over 200 down. She wasn’t able to tell me exactly how far it went.

The second layer is filled with strange shadow creatures that defy nature and reality. They can employ bizarre mind-bending magic, and some of the most powerful species are able to utilise space in strange ways, leaping into their own shadow to strike out of yours.

This meshes with what I saw during the wave. As the Mana in the walls intensified, the creatures spawned were strange shadow beasts. Even Crinis was spawned at that time, and she’s clearly not a monster based on a normal animal or plant in any way.

When I learned that she was likely to be a strong monster from the second strata, I was extremely excited to see what she would be capable of in the future after evolving a few times. She’s surely going to be mighty!

About the third strata, the queen couldn’t tell me much at all. Not even how deep it is. All she could say was that it’s called the layer of demons, nobody knows much about this area of the world. In older, more established and powerful empires, they are able to delve that far, but the queen claimed to have never met anyone who had been there.

I’d be interested to hear what Formo had to say if I can ever get in touch with the Sophos again. Surely those people would have gone super deep in the Dungeon.

Enough thinking. Time for action!

I think I’ll finish upgrading my Carapace to +10. Perhaps a bit boring, I get that, but having upgraded my Mandibles, the Carapace seems to be the next most important choice. With my attack boosted, I next want to buff my defence.

[Do you wish to upgrade Diamond Carapace to +10? This will cost 34 Biomass.]

Hit me!

[At this Level you can choose a mutation advancement. Please select from the menu.]

Gimme dat menu!

Lemme see here. Self-healing Carapace is nice, Flexi-Carapace is dumb, Aerodynamic Carapace is back I see.

Much like with my mandibles, I’m not after anything too flashy. My carapace is for defence, to absorb damage and make me an unkillable, unstoppable ant monster. That is all.

Let’s look at options that directly increase my defence capabilities.

The Self-healing Carapace regenerates itself over time. This could be handy since the Diamond Carapace is already hard to crack, any damage caused to it closing itself over would be nice for sure.

There are heaps of elemental resistance carapace options, but I reject them out of hand. The element specific road was sealed by me long ago.

Are there any upgrades to Diamond Carapace options?

Aha!

Hardened Diamond Carapace. Solidifies the carapace and increases resistance to physical damage.

Reflective Diamond Carapace. Can reflect some magical attacks.

Dark Diamond Carapace. Can increase Stealth abilities by absorbing light! Man, that sounds rad as heck!

But to be honest, the Hardened Diamond Carapace sings to my heart the loudest. A straight up boost to my defence. I’ll take it!

While I’m at it, I’ll upgrade my Eyes to +10, better vision hasn’t let me down in the past and I’m curious what new options I might have.

I punch in the upgrade and dive right in! Flicking through the menu, most of this stuff has been here before. Upgrading to +10 will already give my compound eyes a quality upgrade, and honestly, ever since I took the Focused mutation, I haven’t really suffered in the eye department since I can basically see as well as a human can, but only directly forward.

The rest of the lenses, pointing up, sideways, backward and so on, are still poor in comparison to human vision, but they do well enough to get me by. My default option would be just to enhance the Focused upgrade to further improve my forward vision, but another option catches my attention.

[Omni-Focused Eye: Enhance key lenses to improve the long-range focus of the compound eyes in multiple directions.]

I like it!

It bears repeating sometimes, but I don’t have a neck. In order to face sideways, I have to turn my body in that direction, hence the compound eyes helping out a lot. Being able to see in almost all directions without shifting my head at all is obviously a great advantage. The drawback of each individual lens in my eyes being quite crud is something I’ve just had to put up with. From the sounds of things, this upgrade will go some of the way to increasing the distance I can see in all directions, not just forward!

Along with the quality increase I get from taking the eyes from +7 to +10, I can expect a tremendous improvement in my eyesight across the board. Nice!

I’ve got more to spend though. What’s next, baby?

I’m feeling the Regeneration Gland. It’s served me well, very well, in the “keeping Anthony alive” department, which I’m a fan of. Everyone in that department needs a raise and it’s coming at them right now. Punch it in, Gandalf! Lemme see the menu.

Flicking through the options for the Regeneration Gland, most of the enhancements increasing the limb regeneration aspect feel a little unnecessary, basically regenerating them faster or more frequently. Not interested. What I want from the Regeneration Gland is to make it better at what I originally purchased it for. That is, healing me when I’m injured.

[Rapid Regeneration Gland: Allows the Regeneration Gland to refill more quickly, meaning it can be used frequently to heal damage and restore HP.]

I like this choice. It’s healing, but more frequently. What’s not to love? On extended runs through the Dungeon, an upgrade like this will come in handy, allowing me to heal up between fights.

I’ve got eighteen left, that’s enough to take something to +7… Legs, why not? Everyone needs legs.

[Do you wish to upgrade Diamond Carapace to +10, Focused Eyes to +10, Limb Regeneration Organ to +10 and Absorption Legs to +7? This will cost 127 Biomass.]

Here it comes… Hit me!

OH GOD!

Back to the floor I go!

Eyes have always been extremely bad in the itch department. Your actual eyeballs changing size is a special sort of unpleasant. Combined with the carapace, which obviously extends over my whole body, and legs, and regen gland… this is torture.

TORTURE, I say!

GAH!

I wriggle on the floor for another five minutes while my pets sit idly on the side. At least Crinis can’t see me… Vibrant is actually reaching out with her antennae to poke me every now and again. How rude!

Once it fades, that concludes my Biomass spending for the time being.

Thank goodness.

Time to move on to core reinforcement!