Day 6
Another day, another good couple of hours spent in a daze….
Yeah, that doesn’t have the same ring to it.
The first thing Joe noticed was the jawed ant resting above him. Despite being the product of two creature’s capable of mining, it was only capable of combat. Like Ego, it spent most of its time lazing around me.
The second thing Joe noticed were the new units. The [Breedable] perk had the feature of randomly activating when two creatures with the perk stood beside each other for long enough. He assumed the creature would see its parents mining the wall, and would join them, despite not really knowing why.
Before he took to handling them, two new ants and four new ladybugs, he ordered his units to come over to him and hand over the truemass they’d gained. They stopped mining the second the order came, turned around and marched towards him with the type of obedience only insects were capable of.
This is quickly becoming my favorite part of the day.
The truemass rushed into his core as an addictive high only grew stronger. Suddenly, it halted. It didn’t feel like they’d given him everything they had. He commanded his units to hand over the rest of their truemass, but they wouldn’t.
Greedy bugs.
A new window popped up on his screen, gaining his attention after a moment.
You have reached the maximum amount of truemass.
Would you like to evolve from an F ranked core to an E ranked core?
[Yes] [No]
Ahh that makes sense.
The window detailed a possible evolution. It cost all of his truemass, and if he purchased it, he’d wouldn’t have much in the bank. Despite gaining more truemass, the costs were constantly rising, making him feel behind.
The amount of truemass he gained increased each day, but so did the prices, leaving him feeling behind. Purchasing upgrades, buying new units, building new structures, the list of things to do went on and on, and he needed truemass for it all. He needed to effectivize his mining efforts.
Should I evolve now, or postpone it for later?
“Hey Ego,” Joe said.
“Yes, lord commander.” Ego stood behind the units, overseeing them as always. He perked up at Joe’s voice.
“What are the benefits to upgrading my core?”
“Ahh master,” Ego said. “It sorrows me that I do not know the answer to that. This type of ignorance is unacceptable and I will punish myself with twenty head bangs.”
Ego had devised a new punishment called head bangs. They included banging the head of the caterpillar into the stone wall repeatedly. The poor caterpillar, who Ego had taken over, was almost certainly going to have brain injuries.
“You don’t have to do it.”
“But I must!” Ego rebuked.
With no evidence to go under, Joe assumed it worked like a game. The rest of the world had featured many game states. Evolving his core would probably increase the amount of things he could do, as well as give him small upgrades to everything else.
But before he upgraded his core, he wanted to expand the amount of units he could hold, in other words building a barrack. This would give him the upgrade he wanted without depleting the amount of truemass he had. Afterwards he’d upgrade the core.
He built the barrack. The building formed one meter ahead of him, somehow it didn’t block his sight for what was behind it. It looked more like a shabby shack than anything else, with wooden walls and a slanted roof. In the middle of the wooden door was a logo for a sword.
The amount of truemass inside of him immediately dropped to 50, and he gained 16 more from his units, putting his total at 66.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
He thought about the source of the truemass. Yesterday’s collection totalled at 44, and the seven ants had cost 21, leaving him with 23 truemass. Today’s collection of nine ants, giving 63, and ten ladybugs, giving 30, totalled at 93 truemass.
It’s only going to get bigger.
Each ant produced seven truemass mining stone each day. The ladybugs produced three truemass mining some unidentified ore each day. Despite this, they took up just as much membership space as the ants.
Joe pondered if he should just replace all of the ladybugs with ants. The ants were fiercer in combat and they netted him more truemass. The ladybugs were prettier, mining in a more precise fashion. Typical.
Although he wasn’t a guy who cared for orderliness as much. He valued efficiency much more highly, but he’d found the hard way that when things were clean and orderly, it was much easier to plan efficiently. Also, at the moment, with the increased space, he didn’t need to kill his ladybugs.
In the end, he purchased ten new ants, dropping his total down to 36. Ego nodded seeming to approve with the decision. Joe was surprised that his neck still functioned.
He entered a daze, feeling that he’d forgotten something, but wasn’t able to figure out what.
Day 7
He noticed the faint noise of hacking coming from beyond the walls. Was somebody mining there? It came south, the one direction he hadn’t mined in.
If this was the activity of another core then they’d have to meet eventually. He’d need to be ready for that, carrying a strong enough military force that it would at least dissuade the other core from attacking. What was the quote? The best way to ensure peace was to have a strong army. Something like that.
The total amount of truemass he’d gain today would equal out to 163. That was much more than enough to upgrade his core, and still have enough left over for improvement. So that’s what he did.
You have reached the maximum amount of truemass.
Would you like to evolve from an F ranked core to an E ranked core?
[Yes] [No]
He pressed yes.
It hadn’t occurred to him that he hadn’t felt pain yet. His existence as a core was one where he was peculiarly close to everything, almost able to sense their being in its entirety, yet at the same time distanced, not in the same space.
Ouch that stings a lit… AAARH. His core shook and vibrated, pain spasming through his entire being. It felt like he somebody had poured molten metal into his veins. He was burning up from the inside. He shrieked, and the other creature’s would be happy that he did it mentally.
Fortunately the experience ended after twenty some seconds. With the pain gone, his average state felt good. He did not take breaths, but being there and being able to experience everything peacefully felt good.
He noticed that his vision of his surroundings felt more full. It was like he was seeing more textures. He could more fully see the curves and edges on the stone around him, the sharp and dull parts.
The maximum amount of truemass he could hold went from one hundred to one thousand. He wondered if the amount would be multiplied by ten each time. In a couple of evolutions the maximum would reach staggering heights.
All in all, in total he had 99 true mass (63 + 36). Furthermore he had 19 ants, ten ladybugs, and the jawed ant. As he counted them he realized that he’d forgotten to dominate the newly spawned ones, so that's what he did, realizing that there was more than there usually was.
Sadly, it only ended with him gaining one other ant. He needed to effectivize this process somehow. It bothered him to lose units he could otherwise have gained.
The sound of hacking hadn’t disappeared. It was much more pronounced now, but Joe had the feeling it was because of his evolution rather than them coming closer. It worried him that they wouldn’t be prepared for the eventual onslaught.
The maximum amount of units he could hold increased by ten, now allowing him to hold fifty units. He noticed that he could purchase nineteen more ants and fill it out, but he wasn’t sure that was what he wanted to do.
If he met an enemy that countered ants, he’d be doomed. He needed to diversify his army to be able to handle multiple times of units, and buy him time. Than he’d be able to mass-produce special types of units made for combating that particular foe.
He bought five more ants sending them to start mining in one of the holes, and also five more ladybugs who promptly started mining the strange ore on the wall. This action left him with 79 truemass.
He opened up the ladybug menu. They were cheaper than the ants, so that explained why they weren’t as useful, but he refused to believe that this unit couldn’t be made into something really useful. The fact that they took up as much space as an ant could mean that they had as much potential.
Then again, it could also not mean that.
He had enough truemass to purchase the greater ladybug. He had a feeling it would be a larger size and cost more truemass. He was much more interested in evolving the current ladybug though. He felt that making the ladybug more useful would do him well.
He’d have a disposable unit, as it only cost one truemass, which he could use to achieve many different purposes. The ladybug’s small size and ability for flight allowed it to move well too.
There was one perk which caught his eye. It would increase the speed the ladybug mined at by two percent. He could invest into this perk a total of twenty times, but it didn’t stack. It started off at a cheap price, but he had a feeling it would quickly increase.
He decided in the end to spend more time on combative options as he probably had a fight coming up very soon. He opened up the mutations and perks he could give the ants.