I continued to explore this other side of the brook. The fire ants were on the other side, but I was sure there was some dominant species here but then again with the presence of those ground-beetle humanoids maybe not. It was possible I was finally getting close to civilization or whatever passed for civilization on this world. I hopped from flower to fallen brank to thistle and so on using stealth to keep myself from being targeted by some unknown predator. I also did it to keep from any potential prey from spotting me. Thanks to my flying I spotted a new target, a giant caterpillar chomping away at a broad-leafed plant.

  Wasps often preyed on caterpillars and I was no different. It had tons of health for its level even to what I’d grown accustomed to from the monstrosities. Its health didn’t help it though, it had no ranged attacks, wasn’t very fast and its defenses were extremely lacking or non-existent. I didn’t even know how it got to the level it did unless plants somehow gave XP.

  That was weird, why had I gotten so little XP? It was hatchling! The realization added more information about my new world. I’d noticed that I’d gotten only one third of the XP when I went up in tiers from creatures of a lower growth level than me and this thing had been two tiers lower. I’d gone from Hatchling, to Young Adult to Adult. This caterpillar despite all its size, its descent level and massive health pool had only been a hatchling. Oh well, every bit of XP counted but now it was time to decide whether to eat or analyze this creature.

  It was way to big to eat it all before something else came along to contest the kill. On the other hand what would I get from a caterpillar. I sighed remembering my main objective, I was here to look for other wasps and hunt down heavy carapace, I’d eat ants later if I needed biomass. I reached out and touched the caterpillar, I paid the six XP and it dissolved into dust.

  I winced at the cost, but it actually sounded like it might be useful bigger wasn’t always better I knew but I was pretty tired of being dwarfed by absolutely everything. I flew up to a flower finding one to hide in and spent the biomass. I bit back a scream then passed out.

  When I woke up, I didn’t notice anything different at first, so I pulled up the description.

  “This biomorph is more like a skill,” I mused.

  While most of my biomorphs were based off my attributes I’d never had one that connected to my Level before. At my current level it wasn’t a huge bonus, but it was percentage. I needed to focus on this biomorph a lot. Screw Heavy Carapace at least for the meantime, I needed to upgrade this biomorph as far as it would go. I started to move back towards the brick then saw movement in the distance. I didn’t know what it was but felt nervous and landed on a branch perching myself high above the ground and activating my stealth.

  My paranoia was rewarded as the grass and plants began to sway and the ground shook. I clung to the branch I was on and waited doing my best to remain motionless and unseen as I camouflaged myself into its bark. What emerged was terrifying, I’d thought I’d seen big, pill bugs the size of semi-trucks, caterpillars as long as seven train cars. A mouse the size of a fortress emerged its nose twitching.

  I counted the question marks and nearly shit myself. It had at minimum a million hit points and I was no expert but a skull in place of a number is never a good sign. The mouse moved off and my heart eventually stopped trying to be on the outside of my chest.

  “Just when I think I’m starting to understand things I see something like that,” I said shivering.

  I took off flying again darting across the brook and to the safety of my trapped grass jungle. My traps would do nothing against something like that but I still felt better. I started killing ants my mere presence enraging them as they recognized my scent but only their heavy units were much of threat to me now. I killed and ate going up in level and most importantly biomass. I didn’t even bother using stealth just killed with my stinger in straight up combats luring them into my traps when they pursued me. After I’d consumed enough ants to gain a thousand-and-five-hundred biomass.

  I’d been working on new traps as well, taking some of the fire glands from the artillery ants and the flint and hematite rocks to make fire traps. I also used my silk cord and my long-neglected Raider skill to lift and suspend bits of rock the size of boulders into various traps. I retreated then to my tunnel hunkered down and looked over the options for my biomorph for Dire Growth Gland. I already knew what I was looking for, a Brawn bonus was nice but I was Dexterity and Toughness focused. I picked the option that increased my hit point bonus, my body burned but I didn’t pass out this time. It had cost four hundred biomass but it was worth it.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  It was only an extra three percent to the hit point bonus but that would stack, already it was at thirty percent and in one level it would be thirty-eight percent. That wasn’t the end of it, I hadn’t returned to my hideout for a single upgrade, I needed to upgrade it again. I had more options and my eyes focused on a new option related to the mutation tree I’d selected.

  Regeneration. There weren’t a lot of details besides that.

  I selected it and endured the pain in my stomach of the gland evolving and the pain of my body as it toughened and changed to grant me more hit points.

  It wasn’t a big regeneration bonus, I wasn’t some troll able to weather a storm of attacks and have my hit points just shoot back up, but it would let me get back into fights much faster without having to use my health potions. My bonus had also gone up now at forty-five percent.

  “Nice,” I said with a smile.

  I tried to upgrade it again but was prevented.

  “What’s a major task?” I asked but got no answer.

  I had to guess “tasks” were something like my quest. I’d intended to upgrade this thing four to five times but apparently it wasn’t to be. It was no information and made me consider that my analyze trait might be an even bigger cheat than I thought letting me upgrade biomorphs beyond not just what I could do based on my level but what even higher level creatures could as well without finishing these “tasks”.

  While I wanted to go back to my hunt for Heavy Carapace, I had some other upgrades to go over. I had a skill point for Stinger Knight, Venom Slinger and Poisoner as well as sixteen attribute points. I dumped five points into Toughness, five into Dexterity and split the remaining eight across my other stats again. I decided to go over Poisoner first since its upgrade might affect both Venom Slinger and Stinger Knight. I’d chosen to make my poison harder to resist and my options were all related to that, right now I already had a thirty-eight-resistance difficulty, not low but not super high either. I looked over the options then spotted another one that I just had to take.

  It was perfect, I thought back to the mouse. If I ever wanted to fight anything like that I’d have to do absurd amounts of damage or attack it with an army but this skill could potentially ramp up my damage against something like that. If I got my Poisoner skill high enough and a creature kept failing to resist its effect the damage would just increase. Of course, my poison only lasted for eight seconds right now but that was a problem to plan for in the future.

  I brought up my skill options for Stinger-Knight next. I’d focused on doing damage while moving, all part of my skirmisher rogue build. Now with my carapace upgrades and my new Dire gland I was branching out as a tank. With my new capabilities I looked over the options. I selected an option that would let me do both rolls.

  Brining up the options for my last skill, Venom-Slinger, I’d focused on accuracy and rapid fire which had paid off, but I was still not accurate enough when panicked or up against smart enemies as I’d discovered when fighting the Widows. I selected the option that reduced my penalty to shooting while moving. I didn’t know what the penalty was, but I definitely had struggled when shooting and retreating from the Widows in the ziggurat. I selected the option that reduced my penalty when rapid firing and moving.

  I shrugged my shoulders as I stood up. My size had increased by five percent, well no, I reasoned that if I went up by one percent per five levels then it was probably cumulative, not just based on my original size but the size I grew at. If I ever got to level one-hundred just how big would I be? Suddenly I wasn’t so sure if this mutation had been the best choice but it was done by now. I looked at my status and saw that I had four-hundred-and-six hit points now, my health had gone up by almost half and I had almost as much hit points now as those Widows who had been twice my level.

  “As soon as I get Heavy Carapace I’ll make finding other wasps my priority,” I told myself. Once I had that kind of damage reduction and the amount of hit points I would end up getting I’d feel a lot more comfortable ranging wider and exploring farther from this area I’d cleared out for my own.