Mele and Kahula danced in my shadow, looking up at me. Alongside them were my serpents, snake and bird showing no animosity towards one another as they waited, alike in worship, for the arrival of their maker.

Mele was singing– Kahula strutting back and forth in a silly dance, wings raised. Their performance was the story of the battle, interspersed with mimickry of the giant sloths’ battle cries, the cracking and tumbling of the walls, the terrible fury of the flames. The serpents swayed back and forth in trance.

As my consciousness returned from that liminal space, I brushed their minds with reassurances. “I have returned. All is well. We encountered danger, but overcome it. I am stronger now– those beasts will not trouble us again.”

Nameless Core

Level 2.

– Mutagenic Phenotype –

Control: 1 // Intuition: 1 // Empathy: 2

[+2 stat points waiting]

Domain: 700 meters.

Leveling Condition: Collect Rare or rarer Schemas. To advance past each Blessing, you must collect a Legendary Schema.

—

– Blessings –

[Reach lv. 15 to unlock]

Special Abilities:

Gain no Blessings for your first 10 levels. At level 10, gain a secondary phenotype.

You can grant each Schema an additional trait chosen from all known traits.

– Mana Production –

Ethereal: 0.3 IpH (Waking) // 1.5 IpH (Torpor)

Blood: 0.1 IpH (Waking) // 0.2 IpH (Torpor)

– Reserves –

6.4i Ethereal Mana

0.1 Blood Mana

The choice was made easy by the promise of a second Phenotype when I reached level 10, but the promise of eventually being twice as specialized wasn’t why I had selected this one. In truth I considered it a neutral proposition– I was trading growth for eventual power, a difficult choice when I didn’t know how close the empire loomed.

But what convinced me was my lack of access to any sea-going phenotypes. There were, I knew, countless cores beneath the ocean. Deep in the rifts and trenches of the sea they concocted leviathan beasts that would drag whole ships down into their domain, or struggled against one another with ferocious underwater armies deep beneath the sight of humanity.

These things existed– but I had no access to their paths.

My conclusion was that I was simply too cut off from the water to meet the requirements. But at the same time, I had no mainland to extend into. Choosing a purely terrestrial phenotype could easily have been a trap that cut me off from expanding past the limitations of this island.

The Mutagenic Core allowed me to escape that trap. I would have 10 levels to reach the water and begin to fulfill the requirements for a phenotype that would allow me to set sail across the oceans, delve beneath them, or rise above.

In addition, it would mean I had two mana-types I would generate– a proposition that appealed to me with versatility.

And finally…

The primary benefit was actually the last of my considerations, but it was utterly fantastic when viewed on its own merits. Hybridizing an additional trait of choice onto each of my creations would make each of them more powerful, more specialized, and allow me to avoid the awkwardness of trying to breed in traits across multiple generations of fusing.

It was a power that would grow better with each new trait I found. The small price to pay, an additional bottleneck every 5 levels where I would need to find a Legendary Schema to progress further, was something I found acceptable.

As I accepted the changes, my core began to shift. The crystalline outer shell that surrounded my inner essence cracked and splintered into new facets, the color shifting from a translucent cloudy white to include threads of vibrant blood-hued white. Crystal veins extended across the skull of the hermit farmer who hosted my physical being, fusing him to the wall against which he rested as they crawled outwards.

A subtle wave of power rippled outwards then, expanding my domain forward. For a moment I was purely dizzied by the awe-inspiring rush of information as my area of control doubled, bringing with that expansion the perfect knowledge of every small blade of grass, every worm in the soil, every wood-chewing beetle on the bark of every tree.

They existed within me so clearly that if everything had been wiped away in a fiery instant, I could have rebuilt that frozen scene with perfect accuracy.

In real terms my ability to control the world now extended past the farm and down the hill, into the forest. New biomes had opened up– the trees here were wild, infected by colonies of small boring insects, and home to birds that feasted on these parasites. The plants on the ground below were small and meager however, having been denied sunlight by the thick canopy above. That canopy was a biosphere in its own right, with serpents twisting along branches, small furred creatures darting and leaping between trees to hunt for grubs and acorns, birds singing their mating cries to the open sky.

I watched as a myna bird hopped towards a tempting, wriggling little grub– only for that grub to suddenly burst forward and grab it by the neck, revealing itself as the tendril of a tree-dwelling octopus who had blended into the colors of bark and moss. A curious creature indeed; the octopus was a small predator, but acutely adapted to its situation, with color-changing skin, dexterous arms, and a ferocious little intellect burning its soft shapeless skull.

Equally amusing were the tree sloths that had developed a strategy of collecting poison leaves from certain vines and chewing them into a poison contained within a second, ironclad stomach. When threatened they would spit a thin jet of concentrated arsenic and stomach bile, aiming for the eyes.

Fluttering moths that patterned their wings with staring eyes…

Caught in the scythe-limbs of mantis that disguised themselves as fallen leaves…

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Multicolored and feathery-antenna’d beetles that cultivated acidic mosses around their colonies to ward away predators…

Agile cousins of the anteater that swung from tree branch to tree branch, their slippery tongues darting into nooks and crannies to deliver a paralyzing saliva to anything they touched…

It was a forest of poison and deceit.

And it was an opportunity. Carrion lay on the ground, decomposing under the weight of swarming flies. Eggs hid in nests like little treasure chests. Everywhere, there was plant life, rot, and organic matter to subsume into mana. I even had access to the river now, making fishing out its specimens far easier. I could easily complete the quest I was given even in the short hours before night arrived…

I scraped the forest clean of anything I deemed unnecessary, and reaped the reward. Enough mana to take me from teetering on the edge of torpor to fully awake, revitalized, alive.

In the process I gained hosts of new traits to choose from:

Projectile Spit

Poison Digestion

Secondary Stomach

Mating Ornamentation

Mimicry (Physical)

Stridulation (Wings)

Prehensile Tongue

Rapid Metabolism

Airborne Seed Propagation

Latex Clotting

Bittering Agent

Decomposer

Electrocommunication

Root Networks

Antibiotic Properties

Burrowing Claws

Thermosensitive Eyes

Echolocation

With so much energy and knowledge at my disposal now, I had much to do. More of my deadly wasps went flying out to search for the remaining megalonychidae, those massive sloth-cousins, and deal them vengeance for their rampage.

That was the first order. All debts must be repaid.

Next, I began to splice new traits into my creations. The slime gourds were first. I intended to seed them throughout this new environment, and for that, they would need to be hardier and more self-sufficient. I gave to them the Caustic Bile trait, so that nothing would eat them and live to tell the tale.

That done I began to clear away a swathe of land by the river. The trees dissolved under a host of mana-sparks as I cleared away the canopy, dozens of small creatures fleeing the destruction of their home. It was a brutal but necessary change– I needed sunlight to fall without being impeded by the trees, so that my gourds could flourish along the bend in the river. Around them I seeded wild flowers of every type I had learned, giving them all wild chimeric traits for the simple joy of creating something new and strange. These flowers would produce pollen, which brought me to my next task.

My bees, of course, were hybridized with the Fire Creation ability. If a small swarm had been able to drive off the megasloths, the nests I made today would be able to set the entire forest ablaze. It significantly raised the cost of each bee, but I didn’t plan to make them individually. Instead I created new queens in trees I had left standing but hollow, nothing more than shells for the hive. My existing swarm I divided four ways, one battalion remaining with the original queen, the others dispersing to guard and feed her three new sisters as they set about building new colonies.

All this created a beautiful garden, an extension of my farm along the stream’s flow. My serpents would enjoy the caverns I carved for them into the muddy banks of the river, working between tree roots to form little dens where they could rest. To them, I gave the Projectile Spit trait, allowing them to fling their venom in stinging jets without endangering themselves by closing in to bite.

There were many more plans I had for the river, now that I finally had access to running water. But they would have to wait…

I was on a roll. Next I hybridized the Snapjaws, fusing them with the mimic-birds that had provided the ancestry for Mele and Kahula to create a more clever, alluring predator.

– Schema –

Precursors

Sunbathing Snapjaw x Islander Cuckoo

Level 1.

“Warbling Pitcher”

A hybrid of carnivorous plants that can catch small animals and vermin in its spring-loaded jaws, holding them in place for slow death with a sticky sap.

Relevant Traits:

Movement Sensitivity: Level 1

Adhesive Saliva: Level 3

Bite Strength: 32 Mpa

Mimicry (Language): Level 1

Mimicry (Physical): Level 1

—

Cost: 1.4 iota

This was a more expensive experiment, as I had to breed several prototypes until I had collected the right crossbreed traits, then purchase additional precursor traits until I landed on precisely the combination I wished. Then and only then I spliced in Physical Mimicry…

But the result was spectacular. While the beartrap-jaws, flat profile, and sticky mouth of the snapjaw remained the same, it now sported long tubules covered in tropical-colored feathery growths extending out from the middle of its mouth like tongues. These tubules pushed out air in imitation of birdsong, and waved back and forth to imitate motion.

To a predator high in the sky, they would see a songbird in the canopy below, easy to snatch up–

And when they tried, they would dive straight into the pitcher’s jaws. The crossbreed had even produced a more deadly bite.

Finally…

I could count the sun-quest as a given with my new access to the river. Already, my serpents were hauling up tribute to me. I made a small clearing where they could place such offerings, surrounded by poison plants to keep wandering beasts from stealing away my prizes.

The moon-quest, however, was more difficult. I would need to rest soon– I was expending mana at a ludicrous rate to populate my new environment. The digging would have to be carried out by my creatures. I had failed to catch the mole before my serpent returned to defend me– but I had another option.

– Schema –

Undying Megalonachyd

A massive relative of the common sloth, this great herbivorous monster can cut down trees with the hack of its oversize claws.

Level 5.

Relevant Traits:

Regeneration: Level 2

Armored Scales: Level 2

Adaptive Metabolism: Level 2

Iron Claws: Level 2

Burrowing Claws: Level 3

—

Cost: 129 iota.

I took the creature that had plagued me, and gave it the ability to dig through earth like butter with those massive claws. Its size would slow it somewhat in digging, but ultimately leave me with more useable tunnel structures than the tiny passageways of a mole.

As it formed, I felt the mana pulled free of my core– the most I had ever spent. The creature manifested from spiraling ribbons of light, weaving together to form the bones, the meat, the skin. It reared up and Mele and Kahula shot up into the air, twittering in panic before I reached out to their minds and explained to them.

It was friendly. It had a dull mind, easily provoked but not ill-natured, merely defensive of its territory. It slouched across the ground and began to dig, scraping away layers of soil and kicking the loosened dirt away with its hindlegs.

An excellent defender for my other creatures while I slept…

And sleep was what I needed now. I had expended too much, and my gardens wanted time to grow, so there was no fault in resting now. My creatures would awaken me when I was needed…

I held on just long enough to consume the last species of fish I needed to complete the sun-quest, and sank into torpor…