Chrysalis

I'm exhausted and my mandibles are aching something fierce after all that digging, but is it time to rest?

NOPE.

Those damn pupae are teasing me with their very existence. The twenty large casings are resting against the side of a chamber, taunting me with their stillness. Within them, the hope of ant kind is taking the final steps of their gestation, turning from a grub into something more, something incredible. The ant species to end all ant species.

At least that's what I'm hoping for. If they suck I'm going to be really disappointed…

It shouldn't happen though! I reinforce my own positive mindset. They are going to be great, I've put so much effort into creating them and into making sure they'll get a solid boost to start out their new lives, surely they'll be great!

The closer this project is getting to fruition the more stressed I'm getting.

Put it behind you Anthony, put all of it behind you!

Focus on yourself for a while, treat yourself. To what should I treat myself? To skill training, of course!

Not only me, Tiny and Crinis have been roped in as well.

his knowledge, our knowledge of the system has greatly expanded and the weightiest nugget of

the energy within my core, I was ignoring two aspects of the holy trinity of monster power! Evolution! Mutation!

much, it does not grow properly, drowning instead of thriving, and the other trees wither. Only when the life giving succour is evenly distributed to

and in the process lost his only remaining hand. At least now with Shattering Bite advancing I have one fourth

come to take part in that

grind like there's

thing to grind?

of an awesome hack in using my free magical affinity gland on gravity mana, and in a way, I still

it on fire, water or earth or something basic like that, it would have been a massive waste since I'm now able to produce those mana types now without too much stress. The problem is that having the gland doesn't give me access to what I really need to make use of it, which is the spell forms. I have the generic spell shapes that

Gravity magic before, he was sure it was a particularly advanced form of mana, which means that the skill I want, Gravity Mana

affinities, which will unlock the next rank of affinities, and so on until I

the exact types of mana that unlock are not necessarily set, and can vary

is apparently a powerful skill fusion available by levelling all of the basic affinities to the third rank and then fusing them to form the skill Elemental Mana Mastery, which gives powerful boosts to the basic elements. Most local mages aim for this elemental path apparently, but it seems like a waste to me. The higher ranks of magic will surely also have potent fusions available, I don't

Rush to the top!

to grind our skills, repetitively, endlessly, mind numbingly. For me, that means forming and releasing the ice mana construct over and over again, casting water and ice spells at everything I can see. The walls, dipping

situations against monsters gives a much faster boost than just hitting the walls but being as mentally exhausted as we are, I don't want us diving into frenetic combat.

we grind, and grind,

grappling shredding, dismembering. After much persuasion, I eventually get a mortified Crinis to attempt to use her skills on me, thinking that as a highly evolved monster she'd get more experience using her