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.

knowledge of the system has greatly expanded and the weightiest nugget of wisdom to come out of that was the importance

core, I was ignoring two aspects of the holy trinity of monster power!

it is within the monster. When one tree is watered over much, it does not grow properly, drowning instead of thriving,

shortcomings of my mutations but my skills are still lacking. When Beyn had found out that none of my combat skills was of the fourth rank he'd nearly slapped me out of sheer shock and in the process lost his only remaining hand. At least now with Shattering Bite advancing I have

the time has come to take part in that

grind like

important thing to grind? Of course its

me of. I'd thought I'd made use of an awesome hack in using

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

was sure it was a particularly advanced form of mana, which means that

I have to level up my basic affinities, which will unlock the

once I get water magic affinity to the third rank, the next wave of affinity skills will unlock. That is my most immediate goal. Apparently the exact types of mana that unlock are not necessarily set, and can vary from individual to individual. With a bit of

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 want to waste my time on the lower

Rush to the top!

and I settle in 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,

exhausted as we are, I don't want us diving into frenetic combat. Keeping to the upper tunnels and picking on some plants

like this, we grind,

skills, grappling shredding, dismembering. After much persuasion, I eventually get a mortified Crinis to attempt to use her skills on me, thinking that as a