Having pushed my stomach to the maximum possible level quickly starts to pay dividends. After mutating, the three of us pick ourselves up and start to move to another spot. The usual method to traverse the coral reef is to climb our way back down to the ground and move from there. This has a few benefits. Firstly, we don't get hunted by monsters from above and there's no chance of accidentally bumping into any leviathan class monsters, which is nice. Safety first as I always say! Secondly, we increase the possibility of happening across a nest or den of monsters along the ground. The crabs proved to be such a tasty and delicious meal of XP and Biomass, one I have no objection to indulging in once more. We haven't stumbled across many such treats but if we don't try then we never will.
It just so happens that in the process of moving, always a careful and slow affair in this web of coral plants with their stinging barbs, I sense a signature of a nearby cluster of monsters. How delightful! A travel snack!
[Tiny, Crinis. I can sense a nest of creatures to the left over there. Can you see them Crinis?]
[Oh! Ah, yes! I have them!]
[You should have picked them up way before me. What's the story Crinis? Have you been sleeping back there?]
[I haven't been asleep! I was just … distracted.]
[Distracted? By what? Is there something else around here?]
That'd be the last thing I need, jumped by some monster leaping out of nowhere to smack me in the thorax whilst my supposedly omnipresent eye was dazed and confused. It's very unlike Crinis to be anything but perfectly diligent. She's almost obsessively careful in her scouting responsibilities. Her Ability to sense mana sources at great range and clarity is such a blessing down here. I haven't checked, but I hope that the first thing she mutated to +20 was her Mana Sensory Gland followed closely by her Shadow Eye. The latter of those two has grown to be quite the handy thing here in the Second Strata. It gives her the ability to see through shadows, and since shadow mana is literally everywhere down here, she's able to get a good look directly at whatever is in range of the thing.
[No, there isn't anything else here! I was just … thinking.]
sort of development
If you don't mind
to build a sense of independence in my pets for a long time, I'm certainly not going
[… It's nothing.]
or not. Your thoughts are your own. If you decide that you'd like to chat to me, you
[Yes, Master.]
then. Now let's go annihilate whatever it is that's occupying this
it's Centipedes again,
THE HEAT OF
my own, but with the assistance of the colony, we may be able to accomplish one day. The thought of millions of ants hunting the hated centipede throughout the entire world of Pangera puts a warm fuzzy feeling in my heart. It's decided! The moment we return to the colony I shall pass on
we're busy munching on the Biomass,
I think
monsters? Excellent! I'm
sure that it's monsters, it feels
going on here? I reach out with my own mana sense, but I can't get a handle on what it is that
I want to try
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