Wow! That’s great! After clicking a couple of times with my new jaws, I felt a lot more confident. Besides, I’d gained some more experience. I need to upgrade the jaws to a hundred and then develop my hands. After that, there’ll be plenty of time to consider the inner organs and the genes. I’ll have to learn how to invest my points better, because I’m not getting enough experience. Now my stats looked like this:

Character’s name: Tes Sel Er

Race: Monster

Class: -

Level 5

Experience: 20 (Total: 120)

Health: 22/56

Energy: 30/30

Basic stats:

Mind: 6

Evolution: 5

Structure: 2

Complexity: 1

Secondary stats:

Mobility: 1

Knowledge: 1

Strength: 5

Life: 6

I seemed to be growing and had some energy, but how should I use it? Khha might know something about it. I got hungry and decided to eat a rubitus. However, as soon as I looked at my inventory, I started hissing in anger. Those damn rippers had snatched up some ingredients while I’d been dead. It was a bit painful because I’d spent so much time searching for them. Having eaten the rubitus, I was pleasantly surprised to see my health had totally recovered. Life became much better. After stretching my legs, I headed back to the old fellow.

The “Strength” stat had grown and I felt it at once. My movements became more confident and firm. Each step seemed different from before, as if my body had become a lot lighter. I wondered if I’d be able to breach the shining shells of the two-legged by upgrading my legs and strength. I’ll need to check it out. While approaching the old fellow’s stone, I saw something unusual. There were three rather big beetles standing by it. They were twice as tall as me, green, had big claws on their forelegs and quite powerful jaws covered in numerous spikes. Each of them had four dark-brown eyes that glared at everything around them. Their shells were covered with small, sharp spikes as well. These beetles somehow resembled the two-legged with their shining armor, but they were bigger. They rolled the stone aside, and after dragging the old fellow out, started kicking him with their powerful legs. I nearly rushed over to help the old bug, but he noticed me and looked at me so strangely that I couldn’t move.

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Spiker, level 55

Spiker-warrior, level 57

Spiker-fighter, level 61

The information about their levels stopped me dead in my tracks once again. I couldn’t defeat them. It was damn hard, and it hurt me to watch the kind, old bug being beaten, but I couldn’t do anything about it.

“Where are our supplies?” one of them asked Khha.

“Kh…”

“I can’t hear you!” the other one shouted.

“We fight the two-legged around here, defending small freaks like you, and you can’t even get us some food to help us regain our power after our deaths,” the fighter was walking around him as he spoke. “How can you explain this, Khha? You haven’t let us down before, which is why you lead a quiet life.”

“You’ve killed me seven times…” the old fellow hissed.

“No big deal, gonna do it an eighth time too,” said the fighter merrily. “Well, Khha? Why haven’t you gathered our supplies? Where’s all the stuff?”

“May the dark gods take you, I’m sick and tired of you, you four-eyed freaks… khe… khe” the cave bug started coughing from the strong hit the warrior delivered to his belly.

“Look, his shell is soft there” the warrior grinned.

“Maybe here as well?” he hit the old fellow’s back with his sharp claw and the shell cracked open at that spot.

“What’s up, Khha?” the fighter asked? “Not feeling too well?”

“No, I’m alright, but you’re sick monsters” the old fellow spat out some blood. “Looks like the rippers have rotted your brains by chopping you up like little gvalkhs over and over.”

“You’re too talkative, old man,” the high-level spiker hissed. “I think we have nothing more to talk about. We’ll look for another supplier. Have a nice afterlife,” he said, and with one powerful blow, he rammed his foreleg through the smaller bug’s body. The fighter’s claw even broke the stone underneath the cave bug. “And now you die.”

The beetles left, and the old fellow lay there, wheezing. I waited until the three of them were a good distance away and then rushed over to the old man.

“Can I help you in any way?” I looked at poor Khha: his shell had been broken in two places and I didn’t know what I could do for him. Blood was flowing out of the wounds, flooding the stones under the cave bug.

“No, you can’t, there’s no way,” he wheezed out. “But it’s good you didn’t interfere, otherwise those freaks would’ve made you collect supplies for them”

“I gathered everything you asked for but I don’t even think they needed it.”

“Kh… I see you’ve succeeded.”

The task “Stock up on food” completed!

100 points of experience received!

“Now take the supplies you gave me earlier. They’re in the cave, under another stone” the old fellow spat out a glob of blood and I felt uneasy.

“Are you going to come back soon?”

“I’m sorry, kid, this was my last rebirth” the old man looked at me with kindness. “I just didn’t want anyone to pity me, that’s why I lied. Take this as well, I don’t need it anymore, but you’ll make use of it someday.” Khha stretched out his claw. There was a little sack hanging on its edge, tied to it with a red string. “It’s good to not have to die alone, Tes Sel Er… long-awaited.” The old fellow’s jaws twisted in a strange way and he became quiet.

“Hey, Khha, are you…” I sat next to the old bug and looked at the little sack.

Carefully taking hold of the string with my claw, I untied it and saw ten yellow, circular objects inside. I didn’t know what I could use them for, but something told me that the old fellow had given me a great present, which would help me in the future. I threw the stones out of my inventory and put the disks into the now empty cell. The old man had a transparentus and ten turquoitus, not counting the ones I had brought him earlier. Now, I had to do one more thing. I swallowed some of the cave bug’s blood, but I saw no changes. After that, I took the old fellow’s body and carefully brought it into the cave and placed it there. After covering it with small pebbles, I tried to move the big one, but I barely managed it. It took me almost an hour to put that stone back in its place.

“Rest in peace, Khha, and thank you for your help,” I said and headed off after placing everything into the cache, apart from the round disks.

Your body is getting more adaptive

+1 to Complexity

30 points of experience gained!

“Thank you for this present as well, old man”