Day 1

Truemass was the name of the game in this existence. The more Joe gained, the more powerful he’d become. Effectivizing the rate at which he gained truemass would be important then.

As he looked through the tabs he realized there was one made just for this purpose. Apparently, smelting and refining the ore his units mined would provide him with more truemass. He wasn’t quite sure why, but he started thinking of truemass more like value then actual mass.

He spotted furnaces he could purchase, refining stationeries, and to top it off, there were smaller-mindless cores he could build that would passively generate truemass.

It seemed that there were two methods of gaining truemass. The first would be to actively go and mine it, and the second would be to passively collect it through these cores he could build. Creating one core would cost fifty truemass, and at the moment they wouldn’t produce as much as his units, but in the future they could be a stable source of truemass.

He put it off his mind, and refocused on the stone ladybugs. They’d managed to mine one centimeter into one of the stonewalls. His UI showed a clock, working on human time measurements, and he realized that for each centimeter three hours would pass.

I’m going to be here for a very long time.

Even though the rate of progress was slow, his senses didn’t quite understand it as such. His core body measured time in a different manner than his human body. He entered some sort of daze after a moment of inactivity, and somehow his mind was taken off the passing time whilst he was in this daze. He was thankful for this ability as he was certain that he’d go insane otherwise.

Ego switched from needlessly ordering the ladybugs to go faster, to banging his head against the wall. Joe realized that the little wisp had a fun time abusing his body, and since no damage was caused, Joe didn’t stop him.

Day 2

Eight centimeters. That’s how much the ladybugs had managed to mine. Joe hadn’t needed a ruler to see that. His mind was able to see measurements almost naturally. Part of being a core, he assumed.

He had twenty more truemass he could spend. At first he hadn’t wanted to spend it all because of one large reason. If all of units died in some sort of disaster and he was out of truemass, then he’d be stuck. Nothing to do. Just waiting for another core to come and claim him.

He’d reserved an amount of truemass in case that happened. He’d always be able to restart if he had an amount of truemass put to the side, but he realized that twenty was a large number, and that he use some of that into creating new creatures.

That’s why he created three ants.

He directed the ants to start mining the opposite wall. They didn’t mine at a much faster rate than the ladybugs, but three of them seemed to match ten of the ladybugs. Although, they were much messier, creating a more rough look to the tunnel whilst the ladybugs had straight walls and ceilings.

Nice! I’ve effectively doubled my earnings with this.

He felt a good feeling spread through his body, making his core shine a little bit brighter. That was really one of the only ways he could communicate. He had grown. It was a small step, but a couple of those would turn into large one.

With this change done, he checked up on Ego, which was waging some sort of imaginary battle in his head. He’d ram his head into the air in front of him, and then skit back, grunting. Joe chuckled, his core shining brighter in a rhythmic fashion

He fell back into a daze and woke up a little bit later. The ground around him vibrated, and he’d heard a large explosion go of somewhere close to him. Ego stopped playing immediately and turned his head in the direction of the sound. After a little while, the tense atmosphere in the room dropper.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

This was the first sign of outside life they’d experienced. That explosion had certainly been powerful. Whatever had caused it must have also been rather powerful. Joe was happy for the walls surrounding them. He’d probably have to face whatever that was, but not for the moment .

Day 3

Twenty four centimeters in two directions. It was rather good progress.

Joe had wondered just how the ladybugs were able to store so much stone. The system had said that it had imbued the units with some sort of storage device, allowing them to carry more than their body’s would otherwise handle. It was still freaky to see in person. The ladybugs had all consumed at least fifty times their body size.

“Work harder soldiers,” Ego said, posing behind the ladybugs. “Glory awaits!”

Fortunately, his units could go without food. They received their nurture from their connection to him. Joe found that pretty amazing, triumphing in his broodmother-ness.

Also, they didn’t create any excrements. He was thankful for that. Whilst his body, the core core, had an amazing sense of smell, it wouldn’t unconditionally gag or retch. He couldn’t say the same for his mind. Being surrounded by insect shit would be disgusting in its own right. It wouldn’t impact him in any serious way, but he was still happy that he didn’t need to deal with it.

Without a body, his mind had come up with a plethora of ways to communicate mentally. He’d giggle, laugh, throw up, scream, sigh, and even, just for experimental purposes, moan mentally. His human self couldn’t go without communication.

Day 4

The rate at which his ladybugs worked had slowed down considerably. They hit a patch of stone with a darker color. At first, Joe felt bothered at this unwanted interruption, but he quickly realized that they’d reached a patch of ore! This would promise much better loot.

Quickly, he told them to return and give him their truemass. He wanted to see how much truemass roughly twenty four centimeters of stone wall would provide him. The ladybugs flew towards him, which shocked him enough to mentally scream. He’d forgotten that they could fly with how much he’d seen them walking.

Fifty truemass gained.

He felt much more full, and realized that he could only contain one hundred truemass his current core rank. But, the truemass filled him with a bunch of happiness. It took his total up to sixty, and with this he could make more changed.

Technically, he only had twenty slots for units, which really wasn’t that much considering that his units were cheap. To up this number, he had to build another sort of structure. It was called a barrack, and was roughly the same size as himself. It cost fifty truemass but would double the amount of soldiers he could keep.

Perhaps he’d take one of them later on. For the time being he was much more curious as to what he could level up, and unlock. Like last time bringing this tab up filled his sight with thousand of options.

A couple more circles were available now though. He reasoned this was because of the amount of truemass he had. Firstly, the first circle of the slugs and snails tree had lit up, allowing him to go into those specs.

Snails, whilst not good at offensive attacking, would be great for traps. He could fill a pit with them, and since he’d read that they were acidic, anything which fell into that pit would be devoured. And slugs were terrifying.

On Earth, each time he’d seen a slug, he’d be absolutely terrified. Those things fought like mad, letting their organs go everywhere, and seemed absolutely restless. He could only assume the terror he’d inspire in others units when they saw a group of slugs heading their way.

Secondly, there was the praying mantis. These things were the assassins of the insects. They stood in some sort of kung-fu position, and struck with lightning speed. They were danger, and when he got to fighting, he’d need them.

Right now though, he was mining. He needed to improve the rate he was mining at. That was why he discounted the third option of firebugs. He wasn’t sure what they were, but he had a feeling they were tied to magic, and it was certainly something he was interested in.

He returned to the stone ladybugs, and looked for improvements. Interestingly enough, he could purchase an evolution of them. It was labeled greater stone ladybugs. He wasn’t quite sure where the lesser ones had gone, but he wasn’t complaining.

From the short description the system gave him, these seemed to be more capable than the stone ladybugs in almost every single way. They were essentially, greater.

But, there was the other option of upgrading the current ladybugs. These upgrades would carry over to the ladybugs he’d already created. As he focused on that option, a new list containing many new upgrades showed up.

One perk immediately caught his attention.

[Breedable]