A loud buzzing woke me. My eyes didn’t so much as snap open (no eyelids) as my awareness returned to me. I looked up and the ass of a giant bee was moving towards me as a bumble bee. Its eyes spotted me and it buzzed angrily aiming its thorax towards me. The tip of its stinger shot forwards like a spear extending nearly teen feet out of its body as it telescoped out. I rolled to the side and the stinger pierced the petals of the flower ripping a hole through it before retracting back into the bee’s body.
Eukaryota Bombus Cryptus (Monstrous Bumble Bee); Level 10, Health: 450
It stabbed its stinger at me again and I rolled to the side. I lifted my arm and blasted the bee with five shots of venom. The health bar ticked down but not as much as it usually did. Even with my Poisoner skill specialized to help bypass poison resistance
The stinger of the bumble bee continued to stab out as the bee furiously pursued me angered by me occupying one of its flowers. Its stinger tore apart the flower petals. I charged forward driving my stinger into its head and unloading a charge of poison. The bee buzzed angrily for a moment then died.
You have killed a Level 10 Monstrous Bumble Bee, 105 Experience Earned
I breathed heavily I looked down at the bumble bee, I hadn’t planned on a fight first thing in the morning but I was alone and without any backup to be on the lookout for threats. I reached out and touched the bee.
Would you like to absorb Eukaryota Bombus Cryptus for the cost of 75 XP and all the creature’s Biomass?
That was a lot of XP but I was quickly learning that XP was something that could quickly acquire, at least for now. I actually had way more XP then biomass at the moment and would need to stop absorptions to get my reserves of biomass back up. I selected yes and the bumble bee dissolved to dust,
Extending Stinger Unlocked! You now have access to the Extending Stinger mutation path! Stinger found upgrading now!
A burning in my stinger I looked down an saw ridges in the stinger now. With a thought the stinger shot out almost as long as my arm as it tripled in length. I pulled up the description of it to examine its changes.
Vampiric Extending Stinger (Rare): The chosen weapon of the wasp, sharp and lethal and capable of delivering lethal loads of poison. Yours is specially designed for bypassing a creature’s carapace, it also absorbs a portion of the damage dealt to heal you. Can at will extend to three times its normal length.
Deals 18-26 piercing damage plus poison damage if added. Your attacks ignore 17-21 of a creatures Damage Resistance and restore 16% of the damage dealt as health to you (Increases with Toughness).
Damage and DR bypassing is increased by Dexterity and Brawn and the Stinger-Knight Skill.
Despite all the upgrades my stinger was still only classified as rare, I wondered what had to happen for it to increase in rarity and what even was the next rarity or did it not exist? It was time to leave this flower it was heavily damaged and I needed to find more biomass. I flew out from my ruined temporary base searching for new prey.
I spotted a group of pill bugs. This area was far enough from the fire ants territory that I felt comfortable in not having to worry about swarms of them descending upon me but it could be the territory of something else so I was still careful. These would be good targets, they were heavily armored but I doubted they had much if anything in terms of ranged attacks.
Quickly analyzing one I examined the pill bug.
Oniscidea Cryptus (Monstrous Woodlice); Level 25, Health: 1,555
This bug had the largest health pool I’d ever seen. There was no way that just came from its Toughness, it had to have some skill or mutation that gave it more hit points or perhaps its species just had more hit points naturally. I doubted I could kill it but I needed to train and try.
I began to hover midair and blast the woodlouse with venom. My shots hit and burned against its carapace, the pill bug curled up the rest of its herd curling up as well. The bug was as big as a semitruck and I just kept shooting hitting the same spot over and over again burning a thick hole through its carapace. It took every shot I had but I dissolved a hole through its carapace literal flames starting to grow as the venom burned against its shell. Its health began to tick down and I waited until at last it hit zero.
You have killed a Level 25 Monstrous Woodlice, 819 Experience Earned
Level Up! You are now Level 13! 4 stat points available!
Most of the XP went to waist but I was one level higher and had a massive feast of biomass before me. I swooped down and crawled into the hole I’d melted in its carapace and began to gorge myself on the pill bug as crawled into the gooey mess of its biomass.
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The notifications of all the biomass began piling up and I felt my stomach began to distend as I ate more and more. Eventually I couldn’t stomach another bite and lay exhausted in a meat cave within the shell of the pill bug corpse. My eyes slowly drifted close as I went into a mini food-coma.
The pill bug’s shell began to move and my eyes snapped open. I poked my head out my antenna waving as I looked for the source. Ants, a legion of ants were surrounding me. Guardians, arbalists, scouts, soldiers and thousands of worker ants. The other pill bugs had left but this legion of ants was trying to pry open the pill bug.
Dirty Scavengers!
I couldn’t fight the legion, there were way to many arbalists and who knew what other variants they had in their ranks. I would get back at them eventually but I had to abandon my prize. I’d gotten six hundred biomass out of it. I sprung into the air and fled dodging blobs of acid through the air before disappearing from their range. I flew back towards the brook keeping my eyes open for more threats.
I landed a ways from the aerial contested zone and looked around for potential threats. I took the time to spend my four stat points putting them all into Toughness I needed the Hit points and stamina it provided. So many of my skills also relied on Toughness and it contributed to the damage my venom dealt so raising it helped in both offense and defense.
My compound eyes spotted movement and I spied a mosquito flying low to the ground separated from its swarm. I swooped in after it trying to take it by surprise but it was difficult to use camouflage midair and it spotted me whirling around. This mosquito was one of the smaller variations with black carapace and a long sharp looking beak.
Culicidae Machaera-rostrum Brutus (Saber-beak Mosquito Beast); Level 14, Health: 150
Its health was very close to mine and I fired with my stinger. The mosquito dodged nimbly to the side and I instantly could tell this thing had a Flight skill and dodge skill way higher than mine. It’s stinger didn’t have the red glow of the vampiric mosquito’s but it slashed at me and I barely got out of the way in time. Its beak slashed and cut at me its edge sharp unlike my stinger or the other vampire’s beak. Its wings let out loud buzz that sounded very much like an alarm and I could hear the answering buzz of many other mosquito’s approaching.
The bladed beak of the mosquito cut into my wing hampering my flight but my choice of armored wings proved correct as I was able to maintain my altitude and fight on. I shot my stinger several more times missing with each shot as the mosquito ducked and dodged an expert duelist as it cut at me. My added reach of my stinger provided effective as I used it to bat and push aside its beak to keep it from hitting my chest.
Parry an enemy’s attack with your weapon! Skill Gained, Parry level 1.
The reverberations up my stinger lessened as I gained the skill and began to fight the mosquito stinger to beak. It slashed at me while I poked at it I finally managed to lunge forwards and shoot it point blank with a charge of my venom. A few seconds later the mosquito dropped and so did I activating camouflage.
You have killed a Level 14 Saber-beak Mosquito, 214 Experience Earned
Dodge Level Up! Dodge Level 15! Skill Point gained!
Armored Skirmisher Level Up! Armored Skirmisher Level 9!
Stinger Knight Level Up! Stinger Knight Level 12!
The other mosquitos came into view but I stayed low blending into the ground as my depleted stamina slowly recharged. They flew off and I reached out and touched the mosquito.
Would you like to absorb Culicidae Machaera-rostrum Brutus for the cost of 21 XP and all the creature’s Biomass?
I selected yes.
Bladed Beak Unlocked! You now have access to the Bladed Beak mutation path! You have previously integrated Beak upgrades to your stinger path, would you like to apply this mutation upgrade now for the cost of 50 biomass?
I had plenty of biomass at the moment, so I selected yes. My stinger burned as it shifted the round smooth surface changing as it shifted gaining a single shard edge on one side
Vampiric Stinger-Blade (Epic): The chosen weapon of the wasp, sharp and lethal and capable of delivering lethal loads of poison. Yours is specially designed for bypassing a creature’s carapace by either piercing with its tip or slashing with its edge, it also absorbs a portion of the damage dealt to heal you. Can at will extend to three times its normal length.
Deals 17-25 piercing or slashing damage plus poison damage if added (only available when piercing target). Your attacks ignore 16-20 of a creatures Damage Resistance and restore 16% of the damage dealt as health to you (Increases with Toughness).
Damage and DR bypassing is increased by Dexterity and Brawn and the Stinger-Knight Skill.
Apparently, I’d passed whatever benchmark there was for my stinger as it now registered as Epic. It had lost the extended part in its name, but I was grateful for that since increasing adjectives just made it a mouthful to say. I slashed my stinge through the air mentally extending its length. I couldn’t wield it like a proper sword, except maybe a gauntlet sword, since it was fixed to my forearm. Still the added reach and ability to cut was appreciated. I couldn’t inject my poison when I cut the nozzle for that at the end of my stinger not along its edge. The blade maintained the upgrade I selected for my stinger with the ability to more easily pierce armor, my power to absorb mutation paths was letting me game the System by incorporating abilities that would never have been able to come together otherwise. I considered what I needed to do next.
In order to upgrade a lot of my mutation paths I either needed to get to level fifteen or to unlock new ones from killed creatures. My stinger had evolved to the point where I was very comfortable with it but my skills were lacking behind in a lot of areas. I needed to find a new place to gain skill levels and XP. Insects like the pill bugs couldn’t fight back against me but were good for leveling my Poisoner, Venom Slinger and Flight skill against but I needed something that could fight back but wasn’t instant death.
My mind went back to the ants. They were a dead end mutation wise but they were still a plentiful source of biomass and XP. What’s more since I could no longer gain mutations from there it would take the issue of whether to absorb them or not out of my hands. It was time to get some major payback, I would have to be stealthy, ambush them in small groups, set up lots of traps and fallback positions and be careful not to grow cocky but I could do it.
My mind made up I took to the air heading back to the grass jungle it was time to begin work.