Chrysalis

When did he begin to hear the call? Even I can't be sure. Long before I warned him, of that I'm sure. Such a subtle thing, that siren song, the incessant pull that pushes them to dive ever deeper, until they are crushed by the pressure or forged into something new. I firmly believe he would have gone there even without my influence, it's inevitable, the call will find all of them in the end.

I have to believe that.

He is gone now, to places that I can no longer reach, where the mana is so thick my very cells would disintegrate within minutes. None but those born of the Dungeon can ever hope to touch that ground. I desperately hope that he finds what he's looking for there, perhaps he will be able to save himself, and in so doing, save us all.

Perhaps he would have gone, even if the Dungeon had never spoken to him, never sunk its claws into his mind. That's the kind of person he always was.

But part of me believes that he felt that call very early. Perhaps even from the moment he was born in this world.

• From the private journal of Granin Lazus.

It doesn't take long for us to secure a little hideaway and I ask my companions to shield me whilst I trawl through the menus. My current haul of Biomass represents several weeks of hunting, though I've share the haul the final total is still quite respectable, if I do say so myself.

Seven hundred and fifty six, in total.

at all! Even if the first hundred was

to buy quite a few things with this little stash, push a few more things towards the max. At the rate I'm going I'll be maxed out on mutations a heck of a long time before I come close to reaching level one hundred and

which of my lucky organs will it

could take my brains all the way… I will absolutely upgrade my eyes, the old classic, the first body part I ever mutated.

then! Eyeballs

I at with those things… Sharpened Perimeter Eyes +25. So far the upgrades I've taken have given me all around better vision, emphasising being able to have a better view in all directions, and I also took an upgrade to have certain areas of my sight be more in focus than others, letting me see straight ahead much more clearly, for example. I've noticed that having pockets of better vision is bringing back the human habit of turning to face things so I can see them better, whereas an ant generally wouldn't have to do that. I know for a fact that some of the castes have been leaning in this direction though, mainly the carvers, but a few others as well. This mutation is simply the cheapest and easiest way for our compound eyes to provide a patch

to see in every direction isn't useful,

I think I'll just continue down the path I'm on and fuse here.

As long as I keep it fully upgraded I can cut that reduction in half for the tier below mine, which I clearly want to do! I do wonder if I might eventually end up reforging the stomach

done, another

What's next?

actually have an interesting decision to make on that front… I've made my muscles incredibly reactive, able to fire at full power with only an instant of warm up time, which obviously synergises exceptionally well with my nervous system of foresight antennae. Predict the future, react with hyper speed and have my muscles fire in the same moment, it's been a winner that has helped me position

of what I can do with each of the different mana types I can pump into the chompers, but it does mean that I haven't used my mutations to increase the pure chompiness of my mandibles, making them sharper, stronger or more damaging, aside from a couple of early choices when I picked up the savage option. In order to compensate for that lack I decided to do what the famous trap jaw ants did back on earth, introduce a locking mutation which let my muscles

think I want to emphasise that aspect of my current mutations going forward. So that's another one forty tossed

five sixty, which will probably do me for now. I don't mind the idea of keeping a little Biomass in reserve for emergency purposes, you