The Collector started with the woman, knowing that she had the most direct experience with this phenomenon known as 'magic'. After all, she had utilized it herself, spitting out balls of flame that, though useless, had mechanisms of functioning that entirely eluded the Collector.

It inspected the woman's corpse, her attire, and the stick she held, and confirmed to itself that there was nothing anomalous about any of it.

The female specimen did not utilize any tools of noteworthy advancement. Her clothes were comprised of a weave of soft plant fibers that did not even provide the pithy protection her male brethren wore with their clunky metal and animal skin paddings.

And the stick -

The Collector knelt down and picked up the stick, eyeing it from top to bottom. A simple stick of wood. Its many gleaming yellow compound eyes noted tiny inscriptions lining the stick, but this written language's meaning eluded the Collector.

Was it possible then that another civilization had crafted this tool? This fire creating weapon that seemed intrinsically linked to 'magic'?

And why was it that this 'magic' seemed to be tied to the utterance of the language of the spacefaring human variant? Was it perhaps that 'magic' was technology passed from the spacefaring humans to this more primitive variant?

The mere presence of that language gave the Collector a cause for concern. It scrapped its previous hypothesis that the humans of this world were a divergent but similar evolution entirely separate from the spacefaring humans.

Not to mention that with the presence of the language, there arose again caution for the presence of the spacefaring humans themselves, and they were a dangerous threat the Collector could never surpass in its current state.

Yet, nothing would indicate that the spacefaring humans had any presence here aside from the utterance of their language. The Collector had already reasoned that through with the complete absence of signs of advanced civilization upon this planet.

The most likely conclusion the Collector reached was that the humans of this world were a subspecies split off from the main spacefaring group of humans.

The Collector knew that the spacefaring humans had experienced an era of interstellar colonizing, and that some of these colonies were lost when warp technology was yet new and unstable.

It was entirely possible that this world held humans that had degenerated in advancement from the original spacefarers once they were cut off from the main body of the species and their support.

This would explain how far away this world was, far enough such that the Collector could not establish any connection with the Collective, for a faulty warp was easily capable of sending errant groups of humans to the far flung edges of space.

Yet that still did not explain this 'magic' and how it did not match any technology profile that the Collector had in its memory bank.

The Collector bit down on the stick, chewing and swallowing the wood, but found that there was nothing useful about it.

As the Collector had expected, it was simply wood. Simple plant matter just as mundane and of the same nature as that comprising the countless trees surrounding it.

Useless even for gaining a point of biomass. The Collector threw the stick away in disappointment, though it did note that a tinge of warmth pricked the Collector's stomach as it digested the wood.

The nature of the warmth eluded the Collector also, as it was unlike it to face any kind of biological reaction to consumption, its innards and digestive fluids bioengineered to fend against any manner of toxin known throughout the cosmos.

Odd. Was this also tied to 'magic'?

The Collector would know once it consumed the female specimen.

It picked the female's corpse up in one hand, its thick hand wrapping around her slim waist almost entirely.

It opened its jaw and mandibles grotesquely wide, its jaw bones unhinging and its mouth muscles contracting, and shoveled the female's form into its throat, and within a single second, she was gone, flesh and blood and bones and all.

It was as if she had never existed at all.

>>>

*Biomass gained (+10)*

Biomass level 35/100

>>>

The Collector cocked its head in muted surprise. Unlike the other human female specimen from within the goblin den that provided a measly five biomass points, this one provided ten.

Yet the female herself possessed nothing different about her. Searching her genetic code found no aberrations or mutations that set her aside from her brethren.

Where did the additional biomass come from?

And strangely, that warm feeling permeating throughout the Collector's being from consuming the stick now intensified as the female was broken down, though it did not develop into anything that caused discomfort.

Too many questions.

The Collector would find answers soon enough by searching the female specimen's memories before the short timeframe in which her memories were accessible after consumption expired.

It stood still as its mind focused on the keyword of 'magic'.

The Collector's mind blanked out, and it temporarily saw a flash of white and heard a dull, droning buzz hum in its auditory systems: signs that indicated a failure to extract memories.

Why?

The Collector knew only of two instances where it could not extract any memories at all.

One: the consumed species was far too intellectually and evolutionarily complex. This was unlikely to a probability greatly hugging at zero.

The human was indeed a relatively intelligent species and the Collector's processing power was dampened from being severed from the Collective, but the human was not nearly evolved as either a species or potentially aberrant individual to hamper the Collector.

She was just as primitive as the rest of her kind, ruled by an unnatural mixture of budding but underdeveloped higher thought and base instincts.

Two: the consumed species held a psionic connection to a far greater whole that could create a mental structure complex enough to resist extraction. In essence, the very same mind to matter mechanism that linked the Collector to the greater hive mind of the Collective.

This did not seem likely, and yet, it was more likely than the first.

The Collector did not waste any time on doubt. It settled on this explanation and immediately geared its mind towards the potential threats this hypothesis would generate.

There was one tinkering species known as the Klaxia that the Collector knew of that did possess the rare adaptation to produce psionic links, but they were weak ones that only linked their thoughts and emotions to each other among small groups.

Not at all on the level of the Collective hivemind that could unite billions of lifeforms into a greater, perfected whole. No, it was a grave insult to even begin to compare the two.

The Collective hivemind was an evolutionary marvel that developed alone and unique in its sheer scale and complexity among countless star systems.

The probability that anything similar had developed here, especially with these primitive humans, was exceedingly low.

But it was possible that potentially this subspecies of human did possess psionic links with each other, and if enough were linked together, it could comprise a mental body sufficiently complicated enough to repel the Collector's individual extraction effort.

The Collector hastened its movements.

That meant that there was potential that other humans, particularly those in the nearby settlement, were linked to this human, and that meant they might already be raising an alarm against the Collector.

The Collector quickly consumed the two males.

Again, there was nothing of note worth on their bodies. The only commonality that existed among all three humans was the presence of a patch on their clothing that had a rudimentary weave representing the crude visage of a single star.

What that meant, the Collector did not know, though it did recall one of the males referring to the group as a whole as "one stars".

Possibly a term of classification that indicated humans that were psionically connected for again, as with the 'magic' familiar female the Collector consumed, these males had memories it could not extract.

Further investigation was needed.

>>>

*Biomass gained (20)*

Biomass level: 55/100

*Genetic material gained*

Stored Genetic Material:

-Black Ant

-Black Goblin

-Human

-Frostboar

>>>

Again, these two males provided double the amount of biomass as the female specimen in the den. The animal skins that one of the males wore also provided the genetic material for a species known as a Frostboar as well.

The Collector clicked its mandibles.

The frostboar possessed a thick layer of blubber and insulating skin that would provide strong resistance to the cold. Useful.

And an indicator that these humans were widespread across this world, for the male could not have obtained the frostboar's hide without a significant degree of travel or trade pre-established by the human species as a whole.

As it thought to itself, the Collector moved, wasting not a single moment of time.

It sprinted out of the den's clearing and into the woods, shrinking its muscles so that it could weave across thickets of tree trunks with graceful agility.

Its compound eyes, ultra-sensitive hairs, quick mind, and untiring musculature meant that it could cross through the heavily forested woods with a speed that made it almost seem that there was nothing blocking its way.

It headed north, deeper into the forest and away from the settlement, for it had changed its mind. It would not near the human settlement now, not when there was the possibility that the humans had raised an alarm.

No, it instead utilized the few bits of dialogue and memories it extracted from the goblins to head towards their other nests where there would be more hobgoblins that were part of the plan to overrun the human settlement.

The Collector mapped out the approximate locations of a total of five more hobgoblins spread across five more dens that would provide an enticing amount of biomass.

The Collector ran a quick calculation.

Five hobgoblins, if they were similar to Draug, plus a number of goblins to accompany each, would provide easily enough biomass to reach its fourth level of metamorphosis.

The Collector clicked its mandibles in anticipation as it leaped across a bush, swerving its body so that it slipped past two tree trunks before resuming its quick sprint.

Even with how quick it was, it created little to no sound, every single on of its many steps carefully calculated and placed in spots with the least dead and dried foliage to minimize sound.

Once it reached the fifth level of metamorphosis, it could begin to keep single adaptations it harvested from creatures native to this world even if the Collector discarded their forms. It would also be able to increase the number of genetic samples it could splice together to create a new form from three to four.

Not to mention that if the humans had raised an alarm, then the Collector had to become stronger to face them.

It was confident that if the humans it had just consumed were the extent of threat that the humans could muster up at their primitive level of technology in this world, then even in its current state, it could annihilate dozens of them with utter ease.

But it erred on the side of caution, for it knew the humans could breed and populate and gather themselves in even greater numbers like the swarms of pests they were.

________

STATUS RECAP

Metamorphosis Level 2

Biomass Level: 55/100

Stored Genetic Material:

-Black Ant

-Black Goblin

-Human

-Frostboar

Current Adaptations:

-Ultrafiber Muscles Rank 3

-Sensitive Hairs Rank 2

-Organic-Hyperalloy Carapace Rank 2

-Monomolecular Claws Rank 1

Current Form:

Black Hobgoblin/Striped Centipede/Jungle Spider