Lia turned her attention to the windows that had patiently been waiting until the battle had finished. A few of her Skills had leveled up, though most of those weren’t particularly exciting. Battle Commander had gone up to level two, increasing its range and stat boost, Night Vision had gone up and gave her another ten meters of black and white vision, and Power Attack was up to level five and was now dealing fifty percent more damage.
And Venomous Bite had leveled up, too. There were no new effects, but everything had gotten just that much stronger.
Venomous Bite
Level 4: 394/500 EXP
Applies venom to your bite attacks.
Level 1: Venom deals 25% of the hit’s original damage 5 seconds after any successful bite.
Level 2: Venom deals 25% of the hit’s original damage every 5 seconds for as long as the venom lasts. Venom lasts a random period of time from 10 to 20 seconds.
Level 3: Venom numbs the target area, interfering with the target’s motor control for as long as the venom lasts. Venom lasts for a random period of time from 15 to 20 seconds.
Level 4: Venom’s numbing is stronger, and the interval between damage is reduced to 3 seconds. Venom lasts for a random period of time from 20 to 25 seconds.
It gets better, I promise
Finally, she had gained one more Skill.
You have gained the Skill Mindspike!
You have gained 3 Skills this evolution! Further Skills will require more practice to obtain!
Mindspike
Level 1: 59/200 EXP
Allows you to apply psychic damage when you use magical effects that target an opponent’s mind.
Level 1: Deals minor damage for 100% of the cost of the original spell.
Puts pain in the suffering you inflict.
Yes, that would certainly come in handy. More damage was something she could always get behind.
You have converted three Goblin Sentries into a Swarm Drone and two Swarm Foot Soldiers! You gain 100 EXP, 40 of which is distributed to the members of your swarm that contributed (scaled to their level and evolution)!
You have leveled up! You have gained 10 HP, Stamina, Mana, 5 Mental Fortitude, 2 Defense and Dexterity, and 3 in all of your other stats!
Ah, the goblins had finished converting. Right, so, all in all, she had five sets of hands, and there were five goblin corpses near her which worked out perfectly. There was no helping all the blood on the ground, but she needed to get these bodies back to base for processing, so she ordered her swarm to start dragging them off.
As they walked back, Lia got to considering her next move. The goblins had always reacted to even one patrol going missing, so there was no way they were going to let the disappearances of three patrols go unnoticed.
Fortunately, she had received a rather substantial boost to her firepower. Or…she should have, right? She hadn’t actually checked the goblin foot soldiers’ stats, so she opened one up, just to make sure.
Name: None
Race: Swarm Foot Soldier (Goblin)
Level: 1/10, 0/7 EXP
HP: 30/30
Stamina: 30/30
Mana: 5/5
Strength: 8
Defense: 8
Dexterity: 8
Magic: 1
Magic Defense: 3
Mental Fortitude: 3
Title: None
You have not yet obtained a Title. Information on your currently equipped Title will appear here when you obtain a Title.
Titles:
None
Skills:
None
Yes, it looked like their base stats were about double that of one of the rat foot soldiers. Stats weren’t everything, though; what was almost more important was that the goblin foot soldiers were the same size as the other goblins. This meant that the goblin sentries couldn’t just…pick them up with a hand and eat them.
They could use weapons and armor, too. That would provide a bunch of other benefits that weren’t directly listed in the status and would even the playing field even more. Fortunately, Lia had been able to retrieve the clubs and lanterns of the fallen goblins by just laying them on top of the bodies while they were being dragged, meaning she had more than enough to equip her new troops.
And she wanted to see what would happen if she included a lantern while converting a rat, too. Actually, there were a lot of things she wanted to test when it came to conversion. What would happen if she included a bunch of rocks or sticks or something? Could she find a way to encase liquids in modeling wax and include them in the conversion too? What if she put a rat and a goblin in the same cocoon?
Wait, could she convert plants? Plants could be monsters, so it was within the realm of possibility. Once they made it back to her burrow, she’d go find a shrub or something that she could test it on. She wasn’t sure how useful plants would be if they could be converted, but she couldn’t just…not try it.
They got back to the burrow, and Lia left the swarm to put their new acquisitions away while she left in search of rats and a shrub. As she had suspected, she found a rat within moments of leaving the burrow. She took a moment to pin it to the ground and cover it with modeling wax before moving on. She didn’t start the conversion process quite yet, in the hopes that Amelia would get that she wasn’t looking for rats at the moment.
And, it seemed Amelia did, at least for the time being, as Lia didn’t encounter any more rats on her quest to find the nearest shrub. It took only a minute or so to find something of roughly the right size, which just left Lia with the problem of how to cover the thing. With the rats and goblins, the modeling wax had just sort of…spread out to cover them, but she wasn’t sure if that would be the case for the shrub.
Well, there was only one way to find out, and that was to try it. So, she grabbed one of the shrub’s branches, and willed the modeling wax to flow. And, to her slight surprise, it reacted like it did with the rats and goblins; with the lanterns, the process of covering the object wasn’t nearly as easy as it was with living things. It didn’t quite form up around the thing and begin to automatically cover all of it until it had been manually covered about a quarter of the way.
But the shrub cooperated, and was soon encased in an egg-shaped cocoon, bent in slightly where Lia was biting. Once she let go, the cocoon filled itself out, becoming near perfectly egg-shaped. Curious, Lia gently rested her teeth on the edge of the cocoon and let some venom flow, and was greeted with a window showing what she could turn the shrub into.
Based on your abilities and the abilities of Highland Sagebrush, the following options are available for conversion. Please pick one:
Lesser Swarm Prickler:
The Swarm Prickler is a form of stationary defense for the swarm. Swarm Pricklers appear at a glance to be ordinary plants, but closer inspection reveals that they are, in fact, plant monsters. Swarm Pricklers are little more than a regular thorn bush, but they have a few distinctive qualities that set them apart from similar plants.
The first is that they are able to move their branches slightly, and automatically do so for any members of the swarm that come close. Furthermore, like all swarm plants, they can be planted and survive in any type of modeling wax, and can consume corpses placed near their roots to raise their level.
This creature does not have enough intelligence to understand anything other than very simple commands.
Lesser Swarm Terraformer:
The Swarm Terraformer is a simple plant-based creature capable of slow, limited locomotion. The Swarm Terraformer performs a simple task – an overseer designates a spot, and the Swarm Terraformer plants its roots, converts all soil within 1 meter of its roots into modeling wax, uproots, and repeats the process until all reachable ground within 50 meters of the original location has been converted.
Like all swarm plants, Swarm Terraformers can be planted in and survive in any type of modeling wax, and can consume corpses placed near their roots to raise their level.
This creature does not have enough intelligence to understand anything other than very simple commands.
Interesting. The terraformer sounded like it had some potential for farming modeling wax, but that was not an issue at the moment, and it looked like it needed a lot of oversight. Lia wasn’t sure what counted as an “overseer”, but she was pretty sure she didn’t have anything that qualified.
The prickler, on the other hand…didn’t look amazing either. That wasn’t surprising, though, the plant was literally just a harmless shrub before she tried to convert it. But Lia supposed that the prickler had more immediate value to her; it would provide some defense for her base, and while it wasn’t great defense, it was good enough against things like goblins.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
But, before she got it converting, she wanted to relocate it. She was guessing it would be easier to move in a cocoon than once it was converted and its roots were back in the ground, so it was probably best to move it to the entrance of her burrow now. She called over two goblins, the drone and the higher-leveled lightborn, and set them to moving the plant while she went back to the rat she had encased earlier.
She gave it a few taps, casting a meaningful glance up at the sky. To her great surprise, a few moments later a piece of paper just sort of…appeared on the cocoon. Lia grabbed it with a paw, dragging it down so she could read what was written on it.
Hey, it’s Amelia. The paper read. So, I was kind of wondering if I could get your permission to read your mind? I haven’t been doing it out of respect for your privacy, but I don’t want to start teleporting in a bunch of rats when you don’t want them. Go ahead and give that cocoon one tap for yes and two for no.
Lia hesitated for a moment, then gave the cocoon a tap. Another paper appeared on top of it, and Lia began to read again.
OK, thanks. I’ll try to avoid it while you’re in your burrow, though. You deserve some privacy, at least. Oh, and I’m not going to send messages like this unless I absolutely have to. I want you to be as self-sufficient as possible.
…And before you even think about it, the rats are different. They’re kind of important to you right now, and I didn’t supply the dungeon with more than the standard number of rats, so I’m just making up for that while I’m working on putting in a rat generator. The eventual goal is to make it so I don’t need to teleport them in all the time. Anyway, that’s all for me for now, you go get ‘em, I’m rooting for you!
Lia gave a nod, then had one of her goblins bring her a spare lantern. She wanted to see what exactly it would allow her to make with the rats. Presumably it would be something relating to fire or light, but she wouldn’t be able to know for sure until she tried it.
A moment later a foot soldier came out with the lantern, already covered in modeling wax. Lia directed it to add the lantern to the cocoon containing the rat, then she dripped some venom onto it, and took a look at her options. There were the standard options she had come to expect from converting rats, but there were also two new ones.
Lesser Rat Ironclad:
The Rat Ironclad is a rat that has been fused with a coating of iron. This drastically increases its HP, Strength, and Defense and moderately increases its Stamina, but moderately decreases its Dexterity and gives it a weakness to electricity.
Lesser Rat Baroness Pyromancer (Requirements not met):
Rat Aristocracy Pyromancers are specialized version of the Rat Aristocracy. They trade their proficiency for mental magic with proficiency in fire magic, but are otherwise the same as other members of the Rat Aristocracy
Requirement: 2 rats in the same cocoon. Missing: 1
Fascinating. Why had the rat got a metal-themed option while the goblins hadn’t? Was it because of their size? Well, for the time being she had no need for fire magic and was wanting more durable fighters, so the ironclad sounded good. She was about to start the conversion when she paused. The modeling wax had hardened to allow for conversion, but…was there a way to add more things to the cocoon after it had been hardened? That would be quite convenient, and would make showing the missing requirements for a conversion more…useful.
She had more than enough Mana to use Analysis level three, so she did, seeing if that would give her the answer she was looking for.
A cocoon can be unhardened by dripping venom on it once again. Modeling wax not used for a cocoon can also be unhardened by a similar process, though it requires more venom and does not unharden all connected modeling wax.
Good to know. She unhardened the cocoon, and began hunting for more rats. She only had so many lanterns, so she wanted to make the ironclads she could make as strong as possible. She wasn’t sure how the level scaling would work with more than two of something in a cocoon, but it wasn’t like rats were a rare thing, so she rounded up five more and dragged them back to the cocoon. She ran out of modeling wax after the third, and had to use a goblin as a mobile reservoir of sorts, but soon enough she was looking at the options once again.
There was a “Lesser Rat Viscountess Pyromancer”, and she could start the baroness pyromancer at a higher level, but she wasn’t interested in those, and the ironclad had more interesting changes anyway.
Lesser Rat Ironclad (x3 start at ½ max level | x2 start at 2/3 max level | x1 start at 6/7 max level):
The Rat Ironclad is a rat that has been fused with a coating of iron. This drastically increases its HP, Strength, and Defense and moderately increases its Stamina, but moderately decreases its Dexterity and gives it a weakness to electricity.
It appeared that one lantern was enough to make multiple ironclads, which was…good to know. And it seemed that increasing their level by adding more creatures to the cocoon had diminishing returns, so it probably wasn’t worth doing unless she had an excess of materials or needed something strong fast.
She began the conversion, choosing to make three ironclads, then set off in search of more rats again. Once she had gathered four, she brought out another lantern and checked her options again. She wanted to make sure that she wasn’t only given the option for three ironclads because there wouldn’t be an “even” way of dividing the levels, and found that three was indeed the maximum number of ironclads that could be made from a lantern.
And, in this case, it seemed that if she started the conversion with just four rats in, the three ironclads would start at 1/4th their maximum level. But, finding rats wasn’t particularly hard, so she got two more, and set the second group to converting as well.
It was about that time when the first group finished converting. She ordered them to come to her, so she could take a good look at them.
They were…well, they more or less looked like slightly bigger rats. Their fur was a bit darker than normal, but other than that they were nearly indistinguishable at a glance. A closer inspection, however, would reveal that where there should have been skin, there was a smooth metallic coating that was growing fur.
Satisfied with their looks, Lia checked their stats, too.
Name: None
Race: Lesser Rat Ironclad
Level: 3/6, 0/13 EXP
HP: 30/30
Stamina: 20/20
Mana: 5/5
Strength: 18
Defense: 18
Dexterity: 8
Magic: 3
Magic Defense: 3
Mental Fortitude: 3
Title: None
You have not yet obtained a Title. Information on your currently equipped Title will appear here when you obtain a Title.
Titles:
None
Skills:
Iron Defense
Iron Defense
Level 1: 0/100 EXP
The user takes a defensive stance, increasing their Defense at the cost of their Dexterity.
Level 1: Costs 1 Stamina per second, increases Defense by 10% and decreases Dexterity by 50%.
That was…really good. Really good, almost on par with the lightborns, and she had more of them, and they would evolve sooner.
Which reminded her…how close were her foot soldiers to evolution? She had to assume that they had at least leveled up a few times, but there were also a lot of them, and experience was split between them, so she couldn’t be sure. With that in mind, she made her way back to the burrow to check up on her foot soldiers.
When she was at the entrance, she stopped. She could just check the status of one of the foot soldiers, but this seemed like a good way to check just how intelligent her swarm actually was.
You there. She directed a mental command at one of the foot soldiers that was eating one of the goblin corpses. Are you able to evolve?
The foot soldier froze, turning to stare at Lia. There was a long, drawn out moment as it tried to process the question until it finally lifted up a paw and then sort of…pointed at itself.
Yes, you. Lia said. The foot soldier in front of me. The one who just pointed at itself. Can you evolve?
The foot soldier looked…confused. There was another long moment before it seemed to have some sort of epiphany, then it nodded.
Do you need my permission in order to evolve?
It shook its head.
Do you have multiple options for evolution?
It paused, then nodded.
May I see them?
The foot soldier looked genuinely shocked that she had to ask, then nodded its head.
Good. Give me a moment here…
Swarm Foot Soldier:
A Swarm Foot Soldier is a swarm’s first line of offense and defense. While not particularly special on their own, they make up for it with exceptional teamwork, supporting more distinguished members of the swarm in whatever way they can. Furthermore, the Swarm Foot Soldier is highly efficient at converting slain enemies into modeling wax, and will automatically seek to cover disabled opponents in modeling wax.
Should no other member of the swarm capable of converting their target do so within five minutes of the target being completely covered in modeling wax, and they receive no other orders, they will carry the target back to the nearest safe point. Should they be unable to do so, they will safeguard the target or convert it to a Swarm Drone or Swarm Foot Soldier at their discretion.
Lesser Enlightened Swarmling:
The Enlightened Swarmling is a race for members of the swarm that have sapience, whether they had sapience before conversion or obtained it afterwards. The Enlightened Swarmling is little more than a jumping-off point for further evolution, a “base” that could lead into many other evolutions. For instance, a person converted into an Enlightened Swarmling might find an altered or improved version of their old Class available as an evolution afterwards, among a multitude of other options.
This race requires more experience to level up than most others of a similar tier, but offers much greater rewards upon evolving after maxing its level.
Lia gulped. The enlightened swarmling was…well, more than anything else she had seen, showed the sheer magnitude of what she was capable of now. Nothing had ever been even remotely close to being found when it came to altering Classes, and this race just…casually mentioned doing it. And, apparently, this foot soldier had somehow gained sapience. She hadn’t the foggiest idea how, but it had.
Go somewhere safe and out of the way, and choose which evolution you want. She instructed. And don’t pick foot soldier just because that was what I originally made you into. Pick whatever you feel is best. She turned her attention back to the rest of the swarm. The same goes for anyone who is capable of evolution.
Many of the foot soldiers stopped what they were doing and left to go evolve. And then, suddenly, three windows popped up in front of Lia.
Swarm Progenitor has leveled up!
Congratulations, you have obtained the Special Title “Enlightener”!
Swarm Progenitor
Level 2: 1400/2000 EXP
Swarm Progenitor provides the wielder all the required tools to run their very own swarm!
Level 1: Provides a task manager that will automatically assign tasks to members of the swarm. Intelligence of the task manager is based on the intelligence of the user, but is increased by a small portion of the intelligence of each new swarm member.
Level 2: Provides an evolution manager that automates the evolution of non-sapient swarm members. Swarm members will not evolve on their own until you have looked at possible evolutions of one member of their race. Swarm members will evolve based on conditional requirements (Such as existing number of their possible evolutions in the swarm, whether or not the swarm is currently in conflict, etc), or based on your direct commands.
*Swarm not included
Enlightener
You have managed to grant sapience to a non-sapient creature, qualifying it for a soul. All creatures you grant sapience will be considered as “high priority” for receiving souls, and will receive one the moment a new soul is available. Additionally, this title doubles the power of your light-based abilities and halves their cost. As a Special Title, the effects of Enlightener are always active.
…The gods weren’t going to smite her for this…right?