The King looked at the Skill Tree which popped into his vision. It wasn’t much of a tree but more of a web, all of the options were connected and influencing each other. However, most of them were greyed out and he couldn’t even Inspect them to find that they did.
Four upgrades were available to him:
🕸️Transformation: Spider
🕸️Enhancement: Obsidian Armour
🕸️Enchantment: Dark Sacrifice
🕸️Modification: Monster Core
The upgrades had a theme going on, and it fit well with his Monster King character. Luckily, he could Inspect the four to get to know that they did.
Spider: This transformation grants the abilities associated with spiders, such as enchanted health and agility, resistance to mental attacks, climbing walls, producing webs, and heightened senses.
Obsidian Armour: Your Tough Skin hardens even more taking the properties and appearance of obsidian. This unique perk provides exceptional durability and resistance to physical and magical attacks.
Dark Sacrifice: Sacrifice a part of your HP pool to power charge your abilities. You become stronger, faster, sharper and a lot meaner.
Monster Core: A crystalline core forms within your body. It grows and evolves with you granting increased MP pool and new abilities.
Okay, some were better than others, but all in all, all four were very sweet upgrades. He already knew which one he wanted first. The choice was obvious! Who didn’t fantasise even once about being able to fling webs out of their hands and fly through the city like some sort of a superhero? – a child without a childhood that’s who.
“I’ll be a spider-man!” Ups that was definitely copyrighted. “Ahm, spider-king? Spide King…” That didn’t sound like there would be much of a change; he already was that. But with this transformation, he would be the Spider King also in body and not just in the title. “It is decided.” He selected the Spider upgrade.
His body felt funny and ticklish for a moment, but also, he could feel becoming more powerful. One thing was left, it was to test the transformation.
“[Transform: Spider],” he activated the ability.
Yeah… It wasn’t just an ability to shoot webs. He really did transform into something else. His whole body grew larger, his skin turned black, new limbs sprouted, and he even grew an extra pair of eyes. He was more spider than human at this moment.
He blinked all four of his gem-like yellow eyes. “Wow, this is different.” He saw the world in different colours. He felt like he was a different man. “[Status]”, he went through the changes. His HP pool doubled to 2000HP, he felt much stronger, there were six legs to do the running, and also, there were a bunch of useful spider perks: [Spin Web], [Wall Climb], [Danger Sense], plus [Dark Resistance: Medium]. However, there were drawbacks too, aside from the fact that during the transformation he broke his clothes, there were disadvantageous perks such as [Fire Weakness: Medium] and [Light Weakness: Greater].
And indeed, his senses were sharper because he finally realised that in just a few seconds he, and the monster he was standing on, would be slamming down into a mercilessly hard ground. This wasn’t the time to be playing with the Monster System.
He looked around, there were no skyscrapers for him to attach a web and escape the predicament. In retrospect maybe he should have picked Obsidian Armour since it provided physical damage resistance, but that definitely wasn’t as cool as becoming the spider-king™, even if his current from was monstrous.
The ground was getting dangerously close and if he didn’t want to become a red splatter, he had to do something quickly. Well, there was the Undying perk, which would leave him at the death's door with 1HP, but that came with all the pain too so…
“[Spin Web]!” He invoked already having an image of what he wanted to do.
Surprisingly, no, relievedly (yes that’s a word), the webs didn’t come from his butt but from his hands. He was a proper superhero and didn’t need to rely on cartridges to do that. He was spinning a large purple web just above his head. Interestingly it drained his stamina and not mana.
Soon, there was enough of it and like some sort of flying spider he was pulled up by the building air pressure and carried away from the falling monster.
“I’m flying!” He shouted all too pleased with his ability to make improvised parachutes.
He looked down, the distance between him and the falling corpse got even greater and then… For one, the King expected it to leave a large crater with the body intact since it was so durable, or something like that, but apparently, this wasn’t how the physics worked…
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*Thundering SPLAT – it exploded like a ripe tomato thrown against a wall at supersonic speed. Chunks of bones and meat scattered in a large radius sending a cloud of pulverised ice in its wake.
“Gruesome!” He was just glad he managed to make his web parachute and avoided that fate.
Just after all the ice dust had settled, he too was approaching the ground.
“Uff!” He exclaimed at the much harder landing than he anticipated. It even knocked a 100HP of him, if not for his six legs which cushioned it, it might have been much worse. After all, the Web Parachute wasn’t perfect, it only slowed down the fall.
A group of spider builders ran towards surrounding him.
“King, you. Changed!”
“You have. Evolved?”
“Congratulations!”
“You look so. Magnificent.”
“Very spidery. Very nice!”
The spiders approved of his new transformation. He shouldn’t have expected any less.
“Thank you, thank you. But no, this is only a temporary transformation.”
“Oh…” The spiders exclaimed betraying disappointment.
“Anyway, the monster is dead. Let's gather the resources.” He urged.
“But, King. Before that…” The spider sounded somewhat hesitant.
“What is it?” He asked curious.
“Aren’t you cold?”
He looked down at his own body. “Right…”, he was completely naked and indeed he was beginning to feel chilly. “I should transform back and get the backup equipment on.”
“No, King. Stay in this form. For a bit longer.” The spiders definitely liked his new image. “We’re not crafters. But we can make. Something for you.” A spider offered.
“Or you can. Wear mine.” Another spider began taking off its fur suit.
“Huh…” Since they liked his transformation so much he decided to oblige with their small request. “No, I have materials in my inventory. We can fashion something quickly.”
An improvised suit was made. Even if fashioned for someone with eight limbs, It may or may not have resembled a certain superhero uniform.
“King! You look dashing!”, “Spidery Magnificent!”, “Spider-King!”
Indeed, he was fully fledged spider-king™.
Anyways, with the distraction out of the way they began gathering the chunks of various sizes and carrying them back to the Dark Fortress. While they were doing that, the King was looking for a rather significant material.
“I hope it didn’t shatter.” If it did, it would be a colossal loss. “Could it be…” He looked at a rather large hole in the ground. There it was, wedged in the ice, IceShard Bird Core. “Wow, that’s big.” At least twice as big as the one he used to make a certain floating throne. Another certain project was already on his mind, but that will have to wait.
It took a painfully long time to gather all the monster materials, after all, the monster was Super Massive. The results of the gathering operation were: [IceShard Bird Meat] x 300000, [IceShard Bird Leather] x500, [IceShard Bird Bones] x 200, [IceShard Plankton] x100, [IceShard Bird Core] x 1. So yeah, not much of plankton goo since it had scattered too much after the splash, but plenty of meat. He stuffed as much meat as he could into his Magical Inventory, the rest, and most of it, will be put in the Catacombs for safekeeping.
So that quest was done, he had just to turn it to the Lamia Queen. However, the spider builders needed a new architect. He’ll have to apologise to the High Chief for a work-related accident, he’ll tell the man died a hero protecting the King. Maybe he should erect a memorial statue right here in the courtyard of the Dark Fortress.
“Yes, that seems appropriate.” He’ll add that to the list of renovations.
The plan here was to turn this fortress into the plankton and meat-gathering outpost. Originally, he planned to staff it with Blue Kobolds but that plan was ruled out because of Bad Juju. So the drows and spiders will have to do. He shared his plans with the resident builders.
“King, if you insist.” The spider didn’t sound all too enthusiastic.
The spiders never complained but he didn’t want to force them to do something they really opposed.
“You don’t sound all too pleased. Is there a problem? Is it because of bad juju?”
The spider shook its head. “That’s Kobold superstition. It’s not about that. It's just that…” the spider began sharing its feelings about the assignment.
To sum it up, there were two major issues. First, even with all the equipment the spiders found the weather just too frigid and unpleasant to work in, in their eyes this environment was even more extreme than the Fire Caverns. Second, it just felt too depressing because nothing grew here. Even if they were builders, these spiders still appreciated the sight of plants and growing nature. Admittedly, they’d missed the idyllic sight of the blessed fields of TomGrape. This was understandable since most of the spider ancestor activities revolved around TomGrape, and they were really not made for cold temperatures.
“I see. I won’t force you then.” But a job started had to be finished. “After you finish renovations all of you can go back home.”
The spider gave a spidery smile of appreciation.
But staffing the fortress entirely with Drow also didn’t seem all too fair, apparently, they too weren’t big fans of frigid temperatures and the looming threat of being Frozen.
“What a conundrum… I can’t leave the Fortress empty.” He scratched his spidery chin with a spidery hand.
…
On his way back to MegaFarm he visited the Kobolds again. There wasn’t much reason to do so, but he wanted to show his new hero form. The spiders obviously loved it but, admittedly, his arguably still human mind found his spidery visage monstrous and spooky; It will definitely take some time to get used to.
“King, your face looks less ugly now, yes-yes, you can keep this form.” Kobold nodded not too much impressed or spooked.
“Less ugly?” The Kobold Leader could be terrifyingly honest at times. “Then, sorry for having an ugly face!” Somehow the spidery one was better. But he wasn’t terribly offended, because he asked of his honest opinion and the kobold spoke using the lens of unique kobold aesthetics.
He asked around for more opinions and the Kobolds found his new appearance neutral in their eyes.
Incidentally, just after breaking the news about the work accident, he asked the High Chief what he thought of his transformation.
“I’ve never seen magic like this. I am envious of you King.” He said with sparkling eyes filled with a tinge of awe.
Okay, much like spiders the Drow found it pleasing.
Later, the two made a new agreement for another Drow Architect, the High Chief was very understanding of work accidents, he just said ‘those happen’ with a shrug. However, the High Chief admitted that the Drow weren’t all too keen on going to the Dark Fortress. So, yeah, he won’t force them either, just until the repairs and renovations are finished.
Back at home, still in spider form, he greeted the Lamia and handed out the promised meat parcels. They too found his form neutral. So as far as it was there were two for, two neutral; a good result, no one saw him as a monster. Maybe the fancy hero suit helped? – Who knows?
However, things changed once he asked the Centauri and the human volunteers. The Centauri were clearly perturbed by his spooky image and raspy voice, and the humans were downright terrified. A somewhat normal and expected conclusion. In the end, he dispelled Transform: Spider and returned to a more comfortable Spider King form. Six legs and web-shooting arms had their positives, but so did a more human form.
One thing still remained on his mind.
“Who can I put in that blasted fortress? I need at least two more IceShard Bird Cores!”
After experiencing flying he was itching to start working on that project.