The process of releasing the tremendous amounts of black goo that her Core produced for the process was miserable and time-consuming. The second time, it hadn’t been any different from the first, because the goo was more condensed with Biomass.
This time, while each bit of the goo held quite the amount of Biomass, she still had to expel way, way more of it. Despite the egg being colossal compared to her earlier evolutions- at least as tall as the tunnels and equally as wide, but obviously not as long-, it was still eventually filled to the brim.
Finally, the actual evolution began.
Third evolution has commenced. Your accomplishments and subtypes have all been kept track of by the Myrmidon Control System, and your selection of evolution options has been tailored to your existence.
As the second Myrmeke to reach the fourth Stage among the 23rd batch, you have been granted a special privilege: Access to random Greater Myrmeke evolution.
Direct the evolution of your Lower Paths. You are capable of utilizing 3,567 Biomass (…).
Acid (Hydrochloric)
Articulated Arms
Bladed Legs (111)
Durability
Lockjaw Mandibles
Rending Claws (142)
Scorpion Stinger (124)
Size
Slingshot Feeding (121)
Springlegs
Strength
Superior Compound Eyes
Venom (Neurotoxin) (132)
Wings (121)
! Poisonous Gleam (456)
! Rapid Regeneration (1023) (Conflict)
Biomass Essence Combinations
(…)
Absorbable Commendations:
None of the Biomass Essence Combinations were new, which made sense since she’d only been killing second Stage Myrmekes; the same as she’d been at the second Stage.
A few of them were still good, though. She focused on other things for now, though.
Avoiding Venom any longer was simply absurd. She even had Venomous Lockjaw Mandibles, and their venom was still very weak for her Stage because of its absence.
Paired with ‘Scorpion Stinger’, which she felt didn’t need much looking into in order to understand, it would become a very useful addition. She finally came to the final decision that she didn’t want or need wings. Every time she’d come here, she’d seen them and almost wanted them, but… her mobility was plenty good enough, and it wasn’t worth sacrificing her durability for them.
Rending Claws was another thing she decided she wanted. Improving the claws at the end of her legs was a great thing that she’d wanted for a while.
Finally… she looked at the reward she’d been given; access to a Greater Myrmeke’s evolution. Seeing it, she… Zero desperately wanted it. She healed at an already rapid pace as a Myrmeke, recovering from wounds in mere hours, but Rapid Regeneration was on a whole different level. It would allow her to expend Biomass to regenerate even limbs in mere seconds. The power in that was overwhelming, but…
The cost was staggering, because it had a conflict. Thus, the Myrmidon Control System would need to expend several times as much Biomass to get it to work.
Her nature as a Lower Myrmeke was the conflict, and that fact made her angry, but not towards the Myrmidon Control System or the Queens. That would grant only death. Instead, she decided to just be angry at her circumstances; born lowly rather than Greater.
She quickly got over herself, though, realizing that something could stumble across her egg at any second. She wasn’t particularly pressed for time, but wasting it still wasn’t in the cards.
Besides, the staggering cost was well within her budget.
∑
You have chosen:
! Rapid Regeneration (1050) (Conflict) 1050
Venom (Neurotoxin) (500) 1550
Acid (Hydrochloric) (300) 1850
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Scorpion Stinger (200) 2050
Articulated Arms (200) 2250
You cannot change your mind once your Evolution begins, and your form won’t grow or change until you reach the Fourth Stage. Are you certain?
You have an excess of unspent Biomass.
Having so much Biomass was a blessing and a curse. She really didn’t want to have to have her body shredded a thousand times again, and so she’d been deliberately stingy with most of it aside from Rapid Regeneration and hadn’t gotten anywhere near it. With a sigh, she got to work bringing unimaginable agony unto herself.
Soon, the text rose up again.
You have chosen:
! Rapid Regeneration (1100) (Conflict) 1100
Venom (Neurotoxin) (750) 1850
Acid (Hydrochloric) (500) 2350
Strength (500) 2850
Articulated Arms (300) 3150
Durability (217) 3367
Scorpion Stinger (200) 3567
You cannot change your mind once your Evolution begins, and your form won’t grow or change until you reach the Fourth Stage. Are you certain?
She was, and the agonizing process she’d feared began.
∑
The pain had been too great for words this time. It was over now, but shadows of the pain she’d endured made her body convulse as she lay in the center of the enormous egg she’d evolved within.
Mercifully, her brain had shut down eventually throughout the process, and so she was eventually able to stand. Unbeknownst to her, that was actually what was meant to happen, but her mind had instead been durable enough to resist the sleeping chemicals and pain.
Well, not this time, but that was incredibly fine with her.
As a result, her mind wasn’t utterly mangled; it was just exhausted again. She could sleep in a while, though, as a bit of excitement at the prospect of checking out her new form helped to clear her mind.
She- Zero! It was very difficult to remember that she had a title now- emphasis on title, and not a name. Zero summoned the System’s text that she had dismissed while she was salvaging as much of her stable mental state as she could.
In order to evolve to the second stage, you must expend 10,001 Biomass.
Your Evolutionary Status has changed significantly.
There wasn’t much. That was fine. Before looking at her Evolutionary Status, she looked at herself using the ‘self-affirmation’ pseudo-feature.
Rapidly, she inspected her new form. She’d felt the enormous difference, but it looked even weirder to see her stinger inverted to be hanging over her back. She was able to move it enough to sort of attack to the left and right, but the long tail-like thing the stinger was now attached to was clearly meant to stab forward at a lightning pace.
Of course, that was only the most noticeable change. Her exoskeleton was still glowing, as the System’s bounty on her head still remained- it had updated to say that she was a fourth Stage Myrmeke, though. Zero had changed in many other ways, though, and she went over them.
Her Articulated Arms were a bit larger and significantly stronger, to the point that second Stage Myrmekes would likely struggle to damage them. Zero flexed her clawed fingers, feeling enough strength in the hands to crush stone with relative ease. They could get through the average second Stage Myrmeke’s chitin pretty easily, she reckoned.
That wasn’t very impressive, though, she admitted; she was two entire stages above them.
The change that Rapid Regeneration had made to her overall body was intriguing. Due to the conflict with her Lower Myrmeke body, it seemed like she’d gained a few other traits that were usually only seen in Greater Myrmekes; for example, horn-like growths protruded from her forehead and several sections of her thorax. She wasn’t meant to have those, as they were usually only ever seen on Greater Myrmekes, but she did now.
Of course, there were more important changes, but they were the most visual ones. The less visual ones were internal. Her blood was no longer green and viscous, but was red and sticky. Her organs felt firmer and more complex, improving the overall performance of her body, and her flesh was different, too; firmer, but also performing better.
It was difficult to separate the changes that Rapid Evolution had brought and the Biomass she’d sunk into her Strength and Durability, but the self-affirmation pseudo-feature was actually very useful. She’d recognized it before, but hadn’t had enough time to look into it thoroughly and still didn’t.
In physical strength, she was massively stronger than before, and she made the rough guess that 30% or so of that had come from Rapid Regeneration as a side-effect of solving the conflict.
That was a benefit she hadn’t been expecting. Eventually, she tired of looking at her otherwise mostly-unchanged body and brought up her Evolutionary Status.
Nameless Lower Myrmeke Pupae
Greater Path: Scout
Current Subtype:
Fourth Stage
! Rapid Regeneration: Transcendant/Pitiful
Acid: Greater
Articulated Arms (Bladed): Powerful
Durability: Powerful
Scorpion Stinger: Greater
Size: Pitiful
Springlegs: Powerful
Strength: Powerful
Venom: Greater
Venomous Lockjaw Mandibles: Superior
Biomass: 0
Commendations: “Extraordinary mental faculties.” – Lower Queen Andromeda. “Good senses.” – Lower Queen Burhun.
Beseech Lower Queen Andromeda for a name?
Beseech Lower Queen Burhun for a name?
It was funny to see that her Rapid Regeneration was simultaneously ‘transcendant’, which she instinctively felt was likely one of if not the highest ranking and pitiful, which she was certain was the lowest. It was because one was comparing her to other fourth Stage Lower Myrmekes, who didn’t have access to it, and the other was comparing her to fourth Stage Greater Myrmekes. It made sense; they all had access to it- and a more powerful version of it at that- and paired with a greater amount of Biomass to spend on things, her version of Rapid Regeneration was truly pitiful compared to theirs.
It was still Transcendant when compared to her peers, at least, but even thinking of it to try and cheer herself up, that drastic difference was disheartening. The idea of bridging the gap between Lower Myrmeke and Greater Myrmeke seemed impossible; even having become some weird Lower-Greater hybrid Myrmeke… it was only enough for them to consider her pitiful.
She almost slipped into a pit of self-pity, but shook her head and snapped her mandibles powerfully in order to try to clear her head.
Having Rapid Regeneration was objectively incredible, and that was all that mattered. It was weaker than a Greater Myrmeke’s, but that was fine. She didn’t need to be stronger than Greater Myrmeke, anyway.
Zero had the System get rid of her Evolutionary Status before she could get distracted by its words. She had things to do, and none of them included being rejected of a name or being called pitiful.
∑
When Zero returned to the Cavern, she was happy to see that none of her subordinates had left. She was very unhappy to see that, with her gone, they hadn’t been able to keep complete dominance over the cavern- which made sense.
That was fine; it only meant that there were more second-stage Myrmekes to kill or recruit. Of course, their Cores would be worthless to her now, and so what it really meant was that her subordinates would get closer to reaching the third stage, and that she’d gain more subordinates.
Her subordinates luckily recognized her due to her glowing exoskeleton, and began making their way over to her. They were on the other end of the Cavern, though, and so she decided to clear the way; after all, a few hundred second and first stage Myrmekes that had flooded into it in her absence.
It reminded her, though, that she would need a way to keep track of who was who after they evolved, as their appearance would change. If not for her glowing exoskeleton, her subordinates wouldn’t have recognized her at all. She knew that her glowing exoskeleton wouldn’t last forever, though- hopefully-, and so there was even a need of such a method for her.