When the pain and discomfort finally vanished, Dominic checked his progress again.
Level: Evolved Beast Level 24 Tier 2 (Path of Evolution)
Progress to Evolution: 1392/744 PP level up
‘Right, so Regeneration and Constitution this time?’ he checked with Leo.
‘Perhaps we should see what effects the new Abilities have had: there might be better options,’ pointed out the lion.
‘True,’ agreed Dominic, though he figured that more health and health regeneration would probably be good options regardless of what he’d actually received. Still, he was curious so it wasn’t like it was a hardship. It looked like he wouldn’t be getting two more levels right now, unfortunately: double 744 was well over 1400, after all. Still, he should be close to level 26 within the next fight, probably. Unless there were better choices at that time, he’d get the enhancements to his wings then.
As for his new Abilities, both Tail Strike and Spatial Awareness were much as he’d expected though he was still pleasantly surprised by each of their more specific details.
Tail Strike (T1) level 1 (0% to level 2) – Use your tail to strike an opponent causing blunt damage which is increased according to the momentum and the durability of your tail. Base damage at level 1 is 10HP. The speed at which you are capable of striking is: your maximum speed x (your level of Enhanced Muscular Body x level of Tail Strike)/2. This Ability may be enhanced both by equipment and by other complementary Abilities.
The description of Tail Strike that he’d seen when he’d first checked out the Core hadn’t been obvious about the specific calculation, nor by how much damage it did. While 10 units of damage weren’t exactly impressive, the devil was in the details. That, after all, was base damage.
The durability of his tail was a big factor, and Dominic immediately equipped his tail armour. The weight settled heavily on his spine, yet he found that it was a lot less uncomfortable than before: the changes Tail Strike had caused apparently made the weight more bearable. Having metal encasing his tail would significantly increase the damage, he was sure. And then there was also the damage offered by the tail morningstar which added even more.
Then there was the fact that the damage was increased by momentum. If he remembered his physics lessons correctly, momentum was mass multiplied by velocity. Equipping the tail armour helped out again here: while its weight might reduce the speed at which he could move, it increased the mass of his tail by a large amount.
The icing on the cake was the fact that improving Muscular Body – now Enhanced Muscular Body – so much during level ups was now paying dividends since it affected two of the factors in this Ability. First in calculating his maximum speed, second as a bonus to that maximum speed. The calculation didn’t exactly say how much momentum would impact the base damage, but he could work out the speed at which his tail would move.
With a base maximum speed of 40 m/s, and a level in Enhanced Muscular Body of 1, that meant his current tail speed would be 20 m/s. At the moment, that wasn’t very impressive, but he could double that just by increasing either Enhanced Muscular Body or the Ability itself by one level. If he increased them both by one level, he’d be getting 80 m/s instead of 20 m/s.
Of course, it was likely that his tail armour would slow things down a bit, but he was fairly sure that the mass it offered would make up for that. Dominic was excited to try it out on an enemy. Especially since it explicitly said that it could be enhanced further by complementary Abilities. He was eager to see if Quick Strike could improve his speed – and therefore damage – even more.
The next one was less immediately exciting, but it had some intriguing implications for the future.
Spatial Awareness (T0 level 1 (0% to level 2) – Be aware of what is around you. At level 1, your awareness range is 1 length, and your precision is 1. Always know which way is up.
The description which he’d read before had indicated that it was a way of knowing which way was up and which was down, but not that it offered an all-round view or that it contained both range and precision elements. Dominic suddenly realised that he knew where his pride members were and what they were doing, even without being able to see all of them with his eyes.
He knew what was beneath his belly, the small divots in the ground; the plants growing almost tall enough to brush his fur. It wasn’t like he could see the things; he just knew where they were and their approximate shape and size.
Beyond about one of his body lengths, the perception faded away, only his eyes being capable of seeing them. But the implications were quite interesting.
What if this new Ability was capable of working in pitch blackness where he couldn’t see at all or even past obstacles and walls? Or able to extend significantly further outwards? He’d never be surprised by something landing on his back again, unless he was too distracted to notice it. Even in the dungeon, he had a better chance of spotting traps with this new sense.
So yes, Dominic was rather pleased with his two new Abilities. From the feelings drifting across from Leo, it seemed like the lion was satisfied too, though impatiently curious to see what had changed about the Abilities he’d already had.
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Pulling up those, the two of them inspected the new descriptions.
Venomous Acidic Bite (enhanced) (T2) level 2 –> 3 (34% to level 4) – Use an acid gland below your tongue to shoot balls of acid. At level 3, the maximum range is 3 lengths, and the maximum diameter is 4 cm. Enhancement: your teeth have become resistant to acid damage and your top canines have become capable of absorbing the acid and transferring it in your bite. Haemotoxic venom is now stored in venom glands above your top canines and can also be injected into your opponent with a bite.
‘Nice,’ commented Dominic. The Ability had changed pretty much as he’d hoped: he could now have a venomous bite if he chose to. Even better, he’d gone up a level in the Ability, meaning that the acidic aspects had been improved as well. ‘Haemotoxic venom, eh?’ he mused to himself. Something to do with the blood. Making his opponent bleed more? That would make sense in terms of what he’d seen from the snake bites they’d suffered.
‘I wonder what would happen if we absorbed enough Cores from other venomous foes,’ wondered Leo. ‘Would we start collecting different venoms? Or would we develop some super venom?’
‘It would be pretty cool if we add other venoms and then could choose the venom to use,’ agreed Dominic. ‘I don’t think combining loads of venoms together to make a ‘super’ venom would work though: a venom for clotting and a venom for increasing bloodloss probably wouldn’t work very well together.’
‘Others would complement each other better, though: a venom for clotting along with one which eats away at and destroys the cells, for example,’ Leo points out.
‘Perhaps,’ replies Dominic non-committedly. ‘Either way, I agree that we should collect Cores from other venomous creatures to try it out.’
Glancing over the increases in level among a few of his existing Abilities, he pulled up the last changed Ability and looked at it.
Powerful Swipe (T0 –> T1) level 5 –> 6 (3% to level 7) – Use stamina to enhance the damage of your swipe. +20% - +120% damage increase for 2-62 stamina per second. Add a 20% chance to gouge your opponent and create an ongoing bleeding effect that is harder to heal than a normal wound for 5 extra stamina units. Bleed effect lasts for level/2 seconds and causes initial damage*level of Powerful Swipe/10 per second.
This time, the Ability tier had actually gone up – Dominic guessed because it was adding more complexity to something that had originally been very simple. Upon reading the description, Dominic wasn’t sure exactly how to feel about it.
The bleeding effect that it talked about sounded pretty good, but there was only a one in five chance of it being triggered and he had to commit extra stamina to even get the chance of triggering it. He suspected that he wouldn’t be ‘refunded’ the stamina if it didn’t trigger, which meant that basically it cost the stamina of five attacks in addition to the 25 for the Bleed attempts.
Then there was the fact that the bleed effect depended on the initial damage to take into account. It would be unfortunate if the bleed effect triggered on a Swipe which he’d made with only a 20% damage increase. It would be helpful if the chance of the bleed was triggered on the fifth Swipe as he’d then be able to plan for that, but he’d have to test it out to see. He also questioned whether ‘initial damage’ was considered to be the damage he should have caused, or the damage he actually had caused – given the defences of his opponent, the two were often different.
Still, if he saw it as his Swipes just costing an extra 5 stamina and having a possible bonus of a damage over time effect left behind, he felt better about essentially being forced to gamble. The idea that the wound might be harder to heal was interesting too – that could be useful if he came across another beast with his levels of regeneration. It was also something to be aware of that his opponents might have too.
Having checked out his new and improved Abilities, it was time to level up again.
‘Maybe we should enhance our Muscular Body again instead of Carnivore Constitution,’ suggested Dominic after seeing the updated upgrade list. ‘It would help twice over with Tail Swipe.’ Lengthening or strengthening his tail were also new options which hadn’t been on the list of possible enhancements before, but Dominic felt that those were too limiting. Maybe something to consider later.
‘Perhaps, but that’s only one Ability,’ replied Leo. ‘Having more health points will give us better chances of surviving attacks. If our tail is damaged or unable to act for whatever reason, our enhancement will be wasted. Besides, it’s already pretty strong: we will do better by using the Ability and increasing its level.’
‘Fair point,’ Dominic agreed with a mental shrug. It had just been an idea which occurred to him.
Quickly levelling up he committed his two points to Carnivore Constitution and Enhanced Regeneration. This time it was much more pleasant and Dominic allowed himself to bask a bit in the enjoyable sensations running through him.
When they died away, he was almost disappointed. Checking his progress to the next level, he saw that sure enough, he wasn’t quite at the point to be able to level up again.
Level: Evolved Beast Level 25 Tier 2 (Path of Evolution)
Progress to Evolution: 648/819 PP
His stats were looking a little better, though, with the four enhancements he’d so recently committed to them.
- Brain level 5 –> 6 (Cognition speed standard measurement 7.5 –> 8)
- Nervous System level 3 –> 4 (reaction speed +40% –> 55%)
- Carnivore Constitution level 3 –> 4 (600 –> 800 HP) +60% –> +80% health regeneration
- Enhanced Regeneration level 3 –> 4 (2.25 –> 2.75 HP / second)
Taking a few minutes just to try things out in the seemingly safe clearing – doing his best to ignore the looks he got from his other pride members – Dominic was able to get a slight sense for what had changed about his body.
Once he felt more confident, he moved back over to the rest of his pride.
‘OK, is everyone ready?’