Chrysalis

My new mana practice is a little more involved than my old one, since I now have three skills to train instead of one.

Mana shaping is fairly straightforward to train. All I have to do is draw the mana out of my core and then, rather than simply releasing it from my body as I'd done before, I instead hold the mana within myself and then attempt to create the simple symbols and designs that the skill in my mind suggests I need to learn how to create.

I can only imagine that combined with other skills these shapes will enable me to cast spells in some way.

External Mana manipulation is similarly simple to practice. All I have to do is extend my senses to grasp hold of the Mana in the air around me and attempt to shift it around. Sounds simple right?

Unfortunately the above two exercises are completely mentally exhausting, even more than my original Mana Manipulation practice. I'm so damn tired!

If I have to keep doing this every day for Gandalf knows how long I'll be totally flat mentally before I have a chance to out hunting!

I'm starting to reconsider my earlier opinion on having extra brain centers. During my next evolution I might take a look and see if it's possible to attach a sub brain to my core or somewhere else in order to help carry some of this mental burden.

I can't help but feel such an addition would make practice far less burdensome and therefore much more efficient!

What's an extra brain anyway? I've got six legs now where in the past I only had two and frankly, I have to say it's an improvement. There's no need to get so fussy about such a small thing as the number of brains one has!

Perhaps….

any levels for it I drag myself back out of the nest for the next part of my day, Tiny once again hitching a ride

going to take until he's actually going to be useful? He might be adorable in his mini form

nearly twice as large as he was when he was first formed out of the monster core, consequently he's been able to eat more food and grow even faster. At his current pace I think he'll probably be larger than me after four more days. How long it will take for him to reach his original massive size I have

the large open space I can sense some

quickly scan our surroundings. On the edge of the trees not far from the ant hill I can see the source of the workers unease, two massive wolf-like creatures, their powerful, draconic tails twisting and lashing the air behind them are prowling back and forth, watching the much smaller ants with

upper tunnels. Compared to their smaller selves, these guys are easily twice the size, their fangs and claw are much larger, not to mention their most potent weapon that muscular tail.

can see the tail of one is significantly larger than the others, it also

a mutation advancement

to the nest of cubs the colony raided a few days ago? Or are they simply eyeing off the tremendous amount of Biomass represented by

they try and raid this ant hill they are simply courting death! I'll easily rally the brethren

the much larger monsters are eyeing off the

to mention the Biomass! Between the two monsters I could expect five or even more point! Enough to possibly mutate my antennae and then perhaps another body part

enters my mind it is

hold

I were to attempt to fight here there is zero chance that the colony won't get involved and I don't want any workers to

I let these

not! Are you

I can act when I'm a giant ant monster, I join in a trail of workers drifting into