Chrysalis

Biomass has been spent, food has been dispensed, traps are taken care of and Tiny is happily sleeping off his food coma.

The time is ripe!

There is something so exciting and freeing about being able to become a completely new creature via evolution. A human changes over their lifetime also, going from baby to toddler to child to teen to adult but the process is so slow that the change doesn’t always feel meaningful. Only in hindsight can you appreciate the different stages of your life.

I didn’t even make it to adult in my life as a human! After more than ten years!

I’ve not even been in my new world of Pangera for a single year and I’ve already reached my second evolution. If I were to line it up with the stages of human life, then I’ve been a baby monster, currently I’m a toddler monster and I shall promote myself to child monster!

Considering how weak the ant species is individually, these analogies actually feel pretty accurate to me.

Ok, no more stalling Anthony, time to go for it!

[Would you like to use the Evolution menu?]

I would!

[Congratulations on reaching the maximum level for your current species. Evolution will allow you change your form and increase your stats as a monster.

Warning: evolving will make securing XP and Biomass more difficult as fewer rewards are given for preying on creatures less evolved than yourself.

A special core has been detected, by advancing your core beyond normal limits special options may be available.

Your evolution options are as follows:

- Juvenile Queen (formica)

- Soldier (formica)

- Monster Worker Ant

- (Special) Command ant (formica)

- (Special) Mind ant (formica)]

What the heck!? So many choices?! I only had two last time, and one of those involved changing my species! Ok.... Let’s slow down and not prejudge. Take the options one by one and let Gandalf explain each one.

[Juvenile Queen (formica). A young queen of the formica species, this evolution includes wings and an egg laying organ allowing the new Queen to begin her own colony.]

one problem... one little query that I have... I’m a boy! Why

Wait.

How could I be so stupid? I’ve known this for ages. All workers in

I’M A FEMALE ANT!

DAMMIT GANDALF!

and stuffing them into a female monster body?! Is this your hobby?

Grrrrr...

Queen and then crawl away to die, acting like disposable fertilisation machines who are then frequently eaten by the colony. In this world I’m not even sure male ants exist at all. The queen seems to be doing just fine without

I guess gender isn’t all that important

I want to be a Queen anyway, to be honest. The wings sound awesome but I don’t really want to be stuck inside the colony laying eggs all the time. I mean... I may be moving away from my humanity but laying eggs out of the business district just doesn’t

Next option.

larger, more combat oriented worker,

the Queen route then becoming a larger, fighting oriented worker would be the choice. This selections seems to come without any free body upgrades but instead a significant boost to the might

seems interesting but let’s move

becoming a generic Monster worker ant,

lose my species, but this time I would get two free choices of

solitary monster life. I guess I would still have Tiny with me but I’m reluctant to

creatures in it who won’t attack me is a nice

think I’ll take this

Let’s see

this evolution comes a +5 bonus to might and a choice of aura gland which would be tuned to affect nearby monsters of the same

hype! A new evolutionary path of commander ant eh? The might bonus is nice but I’d get a free aura effect to buff

fight with the colony all of the workers would be

One to go.

evolutionary chain, a formica mind ant. This evolution grants a +5

Ohhhhhhhhh baby.

to mention the magic affinity gland, would that let me produce one kind of force naturally? Like how

the special evolution choices. They really do live up to the billing. I definitely plan to choose one of the special options, they both give me options that are extremely tempting and hard to come by, with the added bonus

one to

bonus is so tasty, the idea of being an incredible ant general, leading troops into battle is so appealing

magic monster user, giving me a free affinity to boot. I could be spitting fireballs or lightning, or goodness knows what?! I don’t even

Gah!

This is hard!

me much stronger when acting together with other ants, since the aura will be able to show its full effect only when I’m with the rest of the workforce, whereas the mind ant will be more suited to a lone ant style, although

organ for healing magic... making her the ideal support mage. I could do something similar possibly, or I could

I just can’t decide!