I'm crippled; I just got my new life and already fucked it over. My shell is cracked, my claws bent, broken teeth, and my muscles exposed.
Indeed the difficulty settings went from hard to hell.
Navigating the menu proved to be doable though frustratingly specific. By uttering random words, small snippets of knowledge, saying I don't fit the requirements [ do not have x or y].
Helpful but not what I need:
Species: Deformed Hatchling Abyss Crab - A hatchling crab of the second strata, after surviving a traumatic experience; lives on as a warped and broken Monster.
Biomass: 5 - used in the upgrading and modification of mutable organs.
Skill Points: 1 - used in the purchasing and promoting of skills.
This is what I was able to scrounge up after a lot of prodding, and I got a skill out of it.
[Tip: Gain relevant information from the status board]
I spent one of my points to get it, vastly improving my planning and information gathering.
So to reiterate: I'm a monster born on the second strata, an environment with an inclination towards stealth, poison, and shadows. Meaning most monsters will take on one or more of these traits. Thinking back towards that ell monster, it seems to have taken stealth and shadows.
Using [TIP], I try to find if there is an inclination status table and what I find really is the final nail in the coffin:
Race: Deformed (Brachyura) -Defense, ++Strength, ++Recovery.
Skills: ++Strength, +Intelligence.
Environment: +stealth, +poison, and ++shadows.
My build is scuffed to hell and back. My race has the "Deformed" status makes me think I was supposed to have a different stat setup, but now I'm more or less a meat_shield. My skills thankfully complement my strength, but the environment is what throws everything out the window.
A tank's job is to soak damage with armor giving them more effective health than the enemy; comparatively, a meat_shield forgoes armor for pure regen.
So where does stealth, poison, or shadow fit in all that? It doesn't!!
And because everything else takes advantage of it!!
Meaning I'm surrounded by stealthy, poisonous, and possibly magical monsters on their home turf.
Wonderfull... truly a hell-like experience.
Nothing else but to crack to it. Can't cry over spilled milk now, can I? First things first; food, [Tip] says the coral counts as a monster by the system and is edible. But isn't this stuff made of rock, calcium carbonate, if I am not wrong. That or starving, I guess, can't go hunting in this state.
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I start by swallowing the loose chunks from my escape tunneling; they taste coppery with a hint of Blue? Something I missed during my bodyparts roll call is my antennae. There are small bulbous things just under my eye ports, and they're super sensitive to smells. I think they're the reason I survived that eel encounter. Under more human circumstances, I should have frozen seeing the thing, but the smell of it made my crab instinct lose it.
[You have consumed a new source of Biomass: Umbra Euphyllia Ancora, you are awarded one Biomass.]
[Basic profile of the Umbra Euphyllia Ancora]
Wow, a point of Biomass already, that was a mouthful. How about BM for short. And Skill points will be SP. For now, profile, please?
Um, [TIP] profile: Profile function allows the monster to gain relevant information on preyed Organisms.
The completeness of such information comes into tiers, the lowest being Basic.
Again, filler info and not what I wanted, but still relevant and helpful for the future. Ok, one more time, Umbra!!
[Umbra Euphyllia Ancora: Shadow wall coral, brittle and suffocates from neighbor growth, grows in the presence of shadow mana.]
Wow, this is worthless.
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Day 1 of coral excavation:
To help mitigate mental degradation, I have elected to use [TIP] as my survival log. So for day one, I'm eating rock. That's it. I swear, when I'm level 100, this will be nostalgic. BM-7 SP-1
Day 2 of coral excavation:
I killed it, I killed it, ah haha haha.
I'm still sane, I promise. I'm still sane, I promise. I was digging around when I noticed that the blue taste was a bit stronger coming from a particular direction.
So I go eating my way thru where I find a blue, pulsating Vein? The thing was huge and was evidently responsible for the blue blood.
Before I cracked into the artery, I made a nice large basin to collect the blood; it bled for most of the day, and in the end, it died, and I got to level up, and the blood was BM rich. BM-12 SP-2
Day 3 of coral excavation:
Making expansion plans for my little crawl space. The blood pool will be the center, my impromptu entrance will be south, and the poor rock stockpile area to my west.
Oh, and I made another discovery, the closer to the center of the rock, the more potential BM it will yield, with the blood being the richest. Meaning that some of the outer layers have absolutely no value. BM-16 SP-2
Day 4 of coral excavation:
Vistors. Haha, after finishing the eastern entrance, I got some lovely guests. Long, aerodynamic, and devilishly fast little pest that bit my back leg. It still stings. I killed and ate that one in front of its friends.
Leveled digging and Bite. Nothing else of note. BM-17 SP-2
Profile:
[Umbra Incitus Piscis: shadow dartfish, small, fast, and move in swarms, blind, uses a combination of smell and mana sense for navigation.]