Come morning, the city returned to being lively as ever but there was a subtle difference.
On one of the tables I was writing several notes at high speed after reading the selective breeding section in ‘The BugMan Tribe’ book.
There were 40 pages on the topic but I had nearly made a 200 page notebook with ideas and hypotheses of ways I can do things for the current bugs I possess.
The way of a bug breeder was finding a specific trait you want. In the case of the toxic blowflies. They have venom that if put in a ranking chart of 1-10 it would be around 3. Their strengths would rank at 1 and speed at 2. They were weak without a doubt in my mind but they were also the first generation.
After looking through the book I found that I didn’t need to actively tame bugs. As long as they were placed inside the hive inside me they would be tamed after they fed on enough of my mana.
It was a truly convenient way to do things but I found it would be inefficient in my mind. The reason is simple. If I were to take a corpse of rats and put it in the hive I would gain at least 200 bugs that said they would be regular bugs and not ones that would be growing into monsters.
On the other hand if I tamed about 20 each body then had them kill off competition and they would grow to the size of those I have if I give the same orders.
Though I still need many more types of bugs, I can slowly gather them as I go. That said, I should plan on getting the adults I have and having them lay eggs in the hive since they are already more monster like breeds.
I have also been thinking of a method to clean up much faster. I currently have only 20 usable flies but 15 are females while 5 are males.
I gave them the order to breed and lay the eggs in their separate nests and had left them.
As the sun rose and the city became lively I finally gained the message I was waiting for.
You have gained 553 Toxic Blowfly larva and 518 Gale Strider Larva
As I look at the numbers I note down my new hypothesis.
“Game has lowered the number of larva’s produced the balance out rapid growth.” I mutter as I note down the observation.
“Well time to get to work then.” I say and get up and organize my notes. I then organize all the selective breeding notes into one book and store the remaining stuff in my inventory.
After Thomas arrives and I head outside and head towards the slums. Arriving near a random alleyway I feel into the hive and send the order to the adult flies.
“Every adult will take three larva to each corpse. There can’t be more than three of my larva on any corpse. When you return, grab a random larva that doesn’t belong to either species I own.” With that order I opened a single portal under my seat and one by one the flies left with a small egg in their hands.
They flew quickly and placed their cargo on the target body in the alleyway and grabbed a random one and dropped them on the stick I was holding.
From there I tried using bug lore skills on them and succeeded on getting five of them.
I then ordered the flies to bring back more of these bugs I identified and had them placed inside the hive.
I stood up and quickly grabbed the body of a nearby rat and tossed it inside the hive and ordered the newly tamed larva from the new species to feed on that and the larva on the corpse.
The new species were: Flesh Fly, Scavenger fly, Biting Midges, Rove beetle and the Carcass beetle. Most are real bugs species which I have personally worked with before. Once these enter adult phase I will have them breed and continue doing the same as now.
Bugs are weak, that is a fact, but their evolutionary potential is undisputed. In this game as a breeder of bugs, though unwilling, I will make the most out of this trait.
After filling one alleyway with the eggs I do so with two others until I run out of larva. Finally I gave the order to the larva that were leisurely eating away.
“Attack together and kill all other larvae that don’t belong to me and secure the corpse for yourself. Eat all other larva as you eat the corpse.” With that done I would effectively gain some strong starting breeds.
I take a look at the stats of the new generation's strongest and am surprised that at level 1 he has 0.3 as stats. Maybe this is the result of breeding and training them. It would explain how the bugs from the tribes would get so powerful overtime.
All this was taken care of within 2 hours so it was 8 am now.
I had lots of time now that I had mostly researched everything. I looked through the book already and found that most of the stuff was too complex for me to do at this moment.
I am thankful that research has increased my INT and WIS to 19 and 16 respectively within such a short time. Still, I will eventually need strength so I might as well go to the training hall.
After asking I found it was nearby, just a few blocks into the city at the border between the slum and the middle class district.
The place actually had the largest concentration of players in the city as a lot of people wanted the extra stat points since it made a large difference later on.
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As I stepped in I was met by the trainer.
“Oh hi new meat, what are ya looking for. Train the way of the sword, or the bow?” He asked.
I took out the book with the diagram for the Glaive weapon I saw and showed him.
“You have anything like this?” I asked.
He looked a while before looking at me, “This thing is a two headed spear?” He asked.
I look at the picture then after a bit of thinking I said, “I think two bladed glaive is the proper name”.
“Ah! I know what it is now, but kid this is some strange but really high difficulty weapon you trying to learn here.” He said.
“Yeah, guessed that already but it’s a class weapon.” I replied.
“Ah so the limitations of a class huh, one of the most painful kinds. Well I can provide a staff and show you the basic movements that two bladed glaives would perform, that fire with you?”
“Perfect.” I said.
The trainer walked into a back door which was probably a storage and after some time he returned with a bo-staff that had some weights on both ends.
“Well I don’t have any glaives since it’s not from this area but this weighed staff should help to a degree.” He said.
I took it and then we went to a mat and he began showing me the basics he knew about. I followed his instructions and after a bit I started to get them right as he slowly fixed my form and gave tips here and there.
Soon my glaive mastery leveled up which surprised me since I barely started and it was already leveling up but it must be because of the trainers presence.
After a while I leveled up again and the trainer said I was good enough to start practicing on my own on the dummies.
I took the weighted staff and using the forms I learned from the teacher I began pounding the dummy. I just pounded away but not with reckless abandon.
After a while I was drenched with sweat so I walked over to a seat for a breather and took out the water container. I downed the water replenishing my thirst then taking a bit of the tasteless bread.
I finally activated my notifications.
You have gained +1 Str
You have gained +1 Agi
You have gained +1 End
You have gained +1 Dex
A faint smile appeared on my face as I saw the progress of 6 hours of exercise.
“If I had the real weapon maybe I would gain even more experience in using the weapon.” I mutter but thinking of getting such a weapon with so little money was only a fool’s dream.
I need to get money first though it doesn’t hurt to check how much it costs to make the weakest model.
I opened the book and with a spare paper I drew up the most simple model the book had.
After storing the stuff I went back to pounding the dummy until it was nearly dark and I had to return to the library.
I returned to my training weapon and headed out.
A quick look at the stats I saw showed that most of the larvae were between levels 10-12 which meant they would grow into some stronger breed, maybe the higher ranked ones like toxic blood sucker or something.
All your Toxic Blowflies and Gale Striders have died
…
I looked at the window and sigh. I think for a bit as I gathered the info I had on them.
Lifespan seems to be small as well to balance the game. 1 day as larva, several hours as a cocoon then a few hours of adult life. It might have been decreased due to laying the larva which means I need to dedicate a few to breeding so I am not careless. Well the first few will always be sacrifices. I also noted that the feeling of them dying was annoyingly painful as shit. It really felt like a small part of me vanished.
All your larva have begun metamorphosis, 10 hours until complete.
I couldn’t help but sigh. It was getting dark and I really didn’t want to stay out but I had no choice but to pick them up out of fear for what may happen if found.
Looking around I spot an unlit torch near a few lit ones. I walked over and seeing no one I grabbed one and lit it with the fire from the other nearby torches before racing off towards the slums. Through the hive mind I easily felt out their presence and found them all. As strange as it was, the slums at night were much more empty than during the day though the more deadly assassins walked around instead of regular thieves. They ignored me as I went around picking up random ‘stones’ off the ground.
When I had gathered them all I tossed them into the portal and ran as fast as I could to the library. I was pale with fright from being in an alleyway during the dark.
I quickly lit all the candles in the library making it brighter and let out a sigh.
Thomas was gone but a note that said ‘Get working after getting back’ made me chuckle.
I did as it said and made the pile of books vanish in a short time after putting them back in their places.
In the morning as I guessed correctly any flies that were level 10 or above were either toxic blood suckers or lightning striders.
Since I had a large number of each breed I told them, the bug with the genes for high strength move forwards.
From there I found the strongest pairs to breed and lay larva. I did the same with all six stats making only the ones with the genetics for highest stats have offspring and let weaker ones become workers.
I didn’t get more than 40 larva from each species and each specific stat so I had 1 larva from each type put on one corpse each so they would benefit the best.
As for the ‘workers’ I told them to gang up on adult bugs. I had them drag the enemy bugs into the hive. I spent a whole day dragging bugs into the hive.
As dusk approached I also had the workers drag several dozen corpses into the hive and retrieve the larva I left during the day.
As I had guessed, bugs that lay larvae or eggs have their lifespan shortened because those that made offspring died at the end of the day while those that didn’t were left to work.
It was a useful discovery. Also, just as the book said the next generation of bugs all had a few decimales more of points on the specific trait and were a bit bigger.
Oh right, just before I had the larva gathered this popped up.
You have leveled up. You gained 5 extra stat points.
Yeah, I didn’t pay attention but it seems that the bugs give me a VERY tiny share of their exp gain but they need much less than me but it eventually summed up and I leveled up.
Well I think the exp I gained from the quest of gathering and burning corpses also helped.
Level 1 to level 2 I needed 300 exp so it does make sense if I sum up the quest reward and the exp form the bugs.
Well I wasn’t against this since I gained a level. Who would complain. I put 3 points in str and 2 in agi so that I can move faster.
Nearing the end of the day I recalled all my bugs after they collected the cocoons and finally logged off to go get ready for work.
Tomorrow I will have another round of the rat corpse burning. Oh, in the three days I gained 2 weeks on the timer for the main quest which I was happy for. With nothing left except a setting sun I left the game and began to get ready for work.