I have no idea what kind of metal these mandibles are made out of, but it's really great. It's sharper than a razor, bisecting enemies and rocks with ease. This is the kind of magic bullshit I can get behind.

As I'm ripping a rodent in half, I fling part of it across the room as part of a swing to get my mandibles on another, which quickly passes out from blood loss as I slice it to ribbons. I swing my massive, ridiculous looking arms and paste another with a single swing. The only reason they're giving that other centipede a hard time is because it only has 1 weapon and there's several hundred of them. It can only kill them so fast.

The rodents must be reading my mind, because a pack of around 20 charges out of a larger tunnel on my left, trying to take me off guard. I leap back by pushing with all of my legs at once like an antelope, hosing the group down with fire as I defy gravity, flying backwards through the air. They're dead before I hit the ground. These creatures are no longer a challenge.

If it wasn't for Sunny being so excited, I'd be bored. This new body is using a ridiculous amount of mana though, and thanks to sunny, that's being mitigated a little. All the leaves around that sweet light source of his have tripled my mana regen. Unfortunately, I'm using somewhere between 10 and 15 times more than before. Looks like every upgrade comes with new problems. At least these problems are far less serious than potentially getting killed by giant rats. I retreat back to the original room I first woke up in, and block the door while I ponder solutions.

I'm not sure if I can improve my mana regen but if I can figure out a better/faster way to retrieve mana cores, I can improve my longevity in combat. My lifeforce fills back up in under two minutes, and I estimate at least 5 until I fill back up on mana, so I have plenty of room to make modifications.

What if I make use of all that empty space where the digestive bits used to be. I could kill a rodent, "swallow" it, then dig through for its core and dump it out the back all while still in combat!

"Defend!"

Ah, yes, my new passenger.

"Rest first, then defend. I'm tired."

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Ah yes, I'm supposed to be helping beef up the three bees that are accompanying me too. Let's crush up this little rodent mana crystal, since apparently that makes bees get super big.

"You guys wanted to be like Eliza, right? Give this a try. I suspect it will take a lot, but this should get you started on the path."

I feel a twitch of gratitude. I wish I wasn't so easily distracted, I keep forgetting about important stuff like this. Speaking of, let's begin remodeling the gut cavity a bit.

I'm going to take a little inspiration from the human body and line the whole thing with roots that wave, pushing everything in one direction like the cilia in the lungs. I'll make a bunch of roots on the ceiling with sharp tips for digging out the cores and finishing off survivors. And some extra pockets on the sides to store all these cores, and I think I'm about ready to test it out. Back to the slaughter.

I head back into the main tunnel room, and can't help but notice the rodents are getting sparser. They're not all gone, but I don't think it will be long until they start to dwindle away. Fine with me!

Scooping dead rodents into my maw, the cilia conveyor works great, but the stabbing implements, not so much. I end up having to make an additional kind of limb for picking up the soul orbs, because it's like trying to pick up a marble with chopsticks. Also the rodents keep getting stuck on the back hatch, so I have to make some adjustments to the rear as well.

The whole time I'm doing this, I'm busily killing creatures of course. Once I get the system working, I start shoving them into my maw as fast as I can manage.

There's an addtional positive effect I didn't foresee also! The root cilia end up absolutely slathered in blood in no time at all, and since they're roots, they end up drawing in a little nutrients and mana from the raw material. A bit gruesome, but I won't say no to any help I can get. I add more stabbing roots inside the harvesting chamber, if I perforate the corpses more, I should get more blood out, right?

I spend another hour mindlessly killing rodents, and suddenly, the tide finally ends. I still see some hiding, but they're not the fighting type I guess. As long as they aren't hostile, I'll leave them alone. Maybe Grimal could use some friends.

As I finish scooping up the dead rodents, blood dripping from my maw all down my metallic underbelly, a trail of clotted blood and shredded bodyparts following behind, it never occurs to me that they're the ones smart enough to be terrified.

I've gotten a handle on my new body, and it's time to see what that other centipede outside is up to.

...............

Turns out the other centipede is gone. It left a few tables with large bite chunks taken out of them, and a large pile of corpses behind. I can clearly see it ate most of them, but it must have gotten full.

Well if you're not going to eat that.... Don't mind if I do!

I end up having to make more space for mana crystals and soul orbs, between the other centipede and I, it's likely I retrieved almost 800 cores of each kind. I begin leveraging my lifeforce to see if I can increase the size of my cores enough so I feel safe adding the larger centipede cores to my reserves

A few minutes later, I'm off to go see Eliza and ask for advice before I go see if I can give that asshole spider a piece of my mind. Maybe it's time to remake my armory a little too. I need more grenades......