Now, with my privacy secured, it's time to mutate. Time to dive once more into the depths of the menu lists and bring back only the finest mutations. It's time to begin where it all began: my eyeballs. It seems like a lifetime ago that I first mutated my eyes in order to improve my then terrible vision. Even now I'm not satisfied with my eyes, but then my memory of what it was like to view the world as a human is more than a little funny by now. I've been in ant form for months now, and even then I've been in five different ant bodies so far. It's hard for me to remember exactly what my eyesight was like as a hatchling at this point, let alone remembering what it was like in my previous life.

I might have been a human for fifteen years, but recency bias is real!

Alright then, my vision is currently sitting at +20. The Heightened Perimeter Eyes have served me well during the siege. The improved clarity has been a massive boon, helping me make the best of my reflexes by seeing the threats coming at me from all directions. In hindsight, my focus has really been to try and take all the best parts of compound eyes (multi-directional vision) and combine it with the benefits of a more humanish eye setup. The end result is that I still have compound eyes, but each one of the thousands of tiny lenses that make up my eyeballs are almost as good as those within a normal eye. It's pretty crazy to think about. That level of precision and complexity would be completely impossible for a normal creature on Earth, yet here I am on Pangera, an ant with super vision.

And there's no need to stop now! I want sharper eyesight! Better motion tracking! In all directions at the same time! Gweheheh!

The only way to achieve something like that is to just keep piling on the upgrades, one by one. The list of mutations in the menu is as overwhelming as ever and the crazy options overflow. X-ray vision, firing heat blasts from the eyes… why though? TIME VISION? See things … after… they happened? Isn't that just normal vision? Or this like a peering into the past kind of thing? Seems far less useful than the future vision I get from my antennae… Weird.

I can't even begin to imagine the sort of things that would pop up in here if I cashed in my eye mutations when I evolve. Laser eyes? Curse eyes? Goodness knows. I trawl through the seemingly endless list until I find the sorts of things I'm looking for: upgrades that continue to track in the direction my mutations are already going. Plenty of stuff to expand the range of the vision, another upgrade like the one I chose earlier which creates patches of sharper focus. Eventually I find what I'm looking for in a generic focal enhancement. With this, my eye shall become the Sharpened Perimeter Eyes + 25!

Lock it in, what's next on my list?

The Pheromone Gland! The ol’ faithful. Who would have thought that the simple mutation of the language gland would have such far reaching impact? Come to think of it, packing the capacity for language into one mutation is a little generous of the System, isn't it? It's not the sort of thing that Gandalf is known for, the stingy bearded bugger. I wonder if this became some sort of standard mutation for more intelligent bugs down in the depths? It does teach language, not really, it just expands the range of scents the pheromone gland can produce to have sufficient gradient that language can be expressed. It does increase it a lot though… The pheromone gland went from "danger, food, warm, cold" to "hello guest, please be welcome. Care for some tea?" all in one mutation!

Eh. I'm not going to look a gift mutation in the pheromones… or whatever. What do I want here? To be honest, most of the upgrades here seem like a waste to me. There are options that do all sorts of things in here, turning pheromones into weapons, as a sleep poison, even a choice that helps create sensory illusions in organisms that smell them, basically hallucinogen scent! But since I use them strictly for communication purposes, most of these options are bunk. I'll just take one that makes my pheromones travel further so I can 'yell' harder. My last two mutations were both about making my pheromones more persuasive, which in hindsight is a bit of a waste. I don't need to be persuading the Colony, they don't need any help doing what I ask them.

So my Convincing Pheromone Gland +20 will become the Loud Convincing Pheromone Gland +25. Next!

I've got the three acid glands to deal with and the Gravity mana gland. I'll think I'll do the Gravity gland next. For every single mutation I've selected for my Gravity Mana Gland, I've gone down the same path, which is to expand the capacity. This is for a few reasons, namely that the Gravity Bomb takes a huge chunk of mana to cast and the better I get at condensing mana the more mana I need to fuel the spell. But I want to take something different this time, I want to borrow a leaf from (of all the beings) Tiny. His lightning glands have a great little mutation that condenses the mana inside the gland. It doesn’t condense it much compared to doing the work manually, but it gets the process started. It also has the benefit of making every spell I weave with mana straight out of the gland a little bit stronger without me having to do any heavy lifting.

So the Unending Gravity Mana Gland +20 will now become the Compressing Unending Gravity Mana Gland +25

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Three upgrades down and a cool three hundred and forty five Biomass gone, just like that. The only body parts I have left are the three new editions to the business district and the neural network, not all of which are sitting at +20 yet. This part is going to be expensive, I hope I have enough to afford it, I really don't want to have to eat anymore right now. Firstly, I'm going to look at the neural network. Who would have thought that starting to mutate my nervous system would have such a beneficial effect in the long run? Combined with my carapace and my antennae, this nervous system has been what kept me alive long enough to reach this level. Having impossibly fast reflexes is always a win, no matter what. The question is, what do I want to mutate into the network now? Trawling through the list, I can see upgrades that will help me make it even faster, but at this point, I'm not sure that's even necessary. I'm already reacting to the future, having my nerves send signals .0000001 of a second faster doesn’t seem necessary at this point.

So what do I want my nerves to do? They do the job that nerves do extremely well already. They send signals and they do it really, really fast. What else can I possibly want here? I pour through the list, weighing up the options I find until I come across one that I like. This mutation creates nerve bundles at certain points in the body that help manage coordination better. It's like how an octopus has a separate set of nerves for each tentacle, helping to coordinate the movement of each limb so they can work together. If I'm not wrong, this may even synergise with my existing mutations, since the hyper fast signals will be transmitted to these new bundles, who could make my legs move without my main brain even having to be contacted! Perfect!

The Instant Transmission Sub-Neural Network +20 shall become the Coordinating Instant Transmission Sub-Neural Network + 25! Boom!

Now, it's nozzle time. So far I've upgraded it to increase the range of my acid shot and introduced a scattershot mode. I'm pretty happy with both upgrades as is, to be honest. I don't need to have absurd range with my acid, I'm not trying to turn myself into a sniper or artillery like some of the scouts are, and the scattershot does a good job spreading the acid over an area when I'm shooting at max range. If I upgraded that mutation more, the acid shot would eventually become more like a shotgun, blasting over an area up close, which I don't think I need. So I'm in the unusual place of looking for a new upgrade. What has the menu got for me?!

Lots. It has lots. Just like everything else, there's a ton of options that seem either excessive, weird or rather imaginative. There's the usual list of properties that the nozzle could add to the acid, including elemental damage, somehow. There's actually an ignition option here as well, which I suppose would be handy if I turned my acid flammable. Hang on, I could literally shoot fire out of my backside?! Holy moly! It's a bit more extreme than what I'm looking for though… As usual, I'm more interested in mutations that move along the lines of what the organ was intended to do in the first place. The nozzle makes aiming easier, helps me shoot further and can scatter the acid over an area. Is there something I can purchase that will help aim? I trawl through the list for a while until I come across just what I'm looking for.

It's an odd little mutation that adds a bundle of nerves to the nozzle that assist in making unconscious aiming corrections. Combined with my rapidly climbing accuracy Skill, this mutation could help me hit the target first time every time. Just what the doctor ordered!

So the Hyper Pressurised Scattershot Acid Nozzle +20 will become the Guided Hyper Pressurised Scattershot Acid Nozzle + 25! That's a mouthful. I guess that's what happens when you mash three different mutations onto one organ.

Now the acid concentration gland! I really like this gland, it was cheap to buy and its sole function is to be the acid gland's hype man. It makes whatever the acid is already doing, do it better, and I added the weakening property to try and drain my enemies during long fights. It's a solid combo and I think I'm going to stick with it by enhancing the weakening property this time around. It's pretty simple to find the mutation I want and with this the Thickened Weakening Acid concentration gland +20 becomes the Thickened Draining Acid concentration gland +25!

Nice.

One to go! Six hundred and ninety Biomass down the drain! Holy smokes this is expensive. Checking my Biomass total, I think I'm just going to have enough to squeak all of the necessary mutations in, although the last one is going to be the priciest. The Fatiguing acid stimulation gland of +10. I need to upgrade this dude three more times! Better get to it. Activating the menu I upgrade the gland to the +15 mark and choose to consolidate the existing mutation. The stimulation gland works to increase the production of acid, which is great, the mutation I chose lets the organ drain stamina in order to replenish the acid faster, which works well with my Vestibule since my stamina is topped up by that organ. For the +20 and +25 upgrades, I kind of want to go in a different direction, see what else the menu has to offer.

There's plenty to choose from, as usual. Most of them are around different ways to increase the regenerative speed of the acid, but others are a little more creative with their interpretation of what 'stimulate' means when it comes to the acid gland. Stimulate it to do what? Make more acid? Thicken the acid? Bring about change in the acid? Add properties to the Acid? It's a complex system I've got going on back there and only the finest produce are allowed to emerge from it, so I need to pick well.

In the end, I select something that works with what I have already. This mutation drains stamina, but rather than increase the production rate of the acid, it thickens it, making it more potent. This obviously synergises on multiple levels with my existing setup. By the time this is done my acid is going to be craaaaazy! At +25, I choose another mutation to enforce my new selection and with that I'm finally done!

The Fatiguing Acid Stimulation Gland +10 has become the Exhausting Thickener Acid Stimulation Gland +25! Whoo!

[Do you wish to confirm these selections? This will cost nine hundred and sixty Biomass.]

Holy McBiomass! That's a lot! Do I have enough? I do! By… two. Phew, that was close! Confirm it all, Gandalf! Let's get his show on the road!

… Any second now.

…

Here it comes…

…

BLATTAPHLATTACAAA! It's so bad! MY NERVES ARE ON FIRE DAMMIT!