{Vito POV}

Even after he had finished telling his story, none of us could have voiced a response, for we all knew even though Crete was reckless and pursued power doggedly, that he truly cared for each of us. The realization that we could have never seen him again, forever consumed by the darkness of non-existence, truly shook us to our thorax…

It was obvious he tried to make light of the danger he encountered by cracking jokes in and between his recollection, but he couldn’t hide his blue blood-painted, cracked carapace nor his missing antenna. The seven, well 6 of us stood in silence still processing the information, and judging by the increasing feeling of irritation I could feel from my side, I could tell Amore was not happy.

“So, you’re telling us that you snuck into a weird room, that had FIVE beetles, one being much larger than any other we’ve seen before, and you tampered with a mysterious floating orb that you found out was something called a dungeon core…? An action that almost got you killed by the beetles you oh so magnificently ignored?” the irritation intensifying even more I heard some sarcasm mixed in there and deciding to help my brother out I interjected.

“It’s not as if he could have known that the alpha beetle would have the ability to use a sonic blast Amore, cut him some slack. But truly brother your actions were reckless and foolish enough to nearly cost you your life, I-, no we hope you learn your lesson from this.” my words came out a little more instructing and scolding than I intended.

“So, what’s the plan you were talking about brother? I hope it’s not charging in that room again by yourself… we can’t afford to lose you like that…” the meekest of the siblings, Aretha, softly chimed in. “She’s right, though I still think you better stick it to those beetles for doing this to you, our evolution can wait.” the ever-rambunctious Amara declared. “I think you should take Amore and Vito with you brother; they could help relieve some of the danger for you” a brilliant suggestion by the calmest of the triplets, Althaia.

Finally getting a chance to respond I watched as my older brother went through an array of emotions before settling on something I felt was appreciation. “I really am grateful for having such caring siblings… and Vito I definitely learned my lesson from this experience and it's one I’ll try my best to let never happen again. That’s a great idea though Althaia, but what happens if a beetle or two evolves while all of us are away? Dynamis wouldn’t be able to fight until a few hours later so we would essentially leave you guys defenseless…”

I was once more reminded why I so very much respected my brother. Even with revenge on his mind, he was able to prioritize the ones he cared about, and breaking a silence he had suspiciously maintained for a while, I heard Meneo speak “… I could take care of that brother, don’t worry I’ll protect my younger sisters even if it’s the last thing I do” he was quite shaky at the start but evened out his voice coming to the end, I wonder what happened to him, he was much more talkative a while back.

I saw Crete look into his eyes for a long moment, before knowingly nodding his head “Okay I’ll leave that to you then Meni, make sure to keep your sisters and Dynamis safe until we come back, I’ll be leaving once I recover and get some of the stuff I need in order.” upon saying that he moved to leave the colosseum and disappeared into the feeding chamber.

{Amore POV}

I watched confusedly as Crete moved about scraping some of the glowing moss from the walls that had regrown from the last time we used it. For the life of me I couldn’t understand him sometimes, but taking my mind off of it I continued moving the cocoons Vito and I had found from the last set of grubs into the holding room of the colosseum. The things were appearing more frequently than ever, and we wondered if Crete hadn’t evolved if we would have stood a chance against waves of beetles… probably not…

So that made me wonder once more of the plans that he had said the Queen had in store for us. Thinking about 8 nymphs facing off against a handful of the creatures, I found it difficult to imagine a scenario where we all made it out alive, maybe some of us were meant to be killed… The prospect made absolutely no sense because the Queen wouldn’t do that to her subjects, the rational part of my mind turned into a background character by my base instinct to have complete faith in our royal mother. A quality I realized all of us innately held...

The nymph speeding past me redirected my attention however, ever since Crete had come back and announced that the 3 of us evolved termites would be going on an expedition into the room, he had been acting this way. As the termite with the earliest impression of Meneo, I could determine that his being the last of the 4 of us to evolve deeply hurt his pride.

Even though he tried his best to hide it, and successfully did so from all the others, I knew that deep down he held himself to a standard too high just because of his ability to do everything longer than everybody else So, seeing that all his efforts so far were only enough to place him in front of the triplets I understood that discouraged him greatly, but the damage to his pride also served to renew his vigor towards practicing his skills.

The way that he pushed himself now until he was absolutely exhausted and beat stung my instinct to protect and keep him safe. However, at the same time I felt pride in knowing that his efforts were not in vain as other than probably Crete he definitely had the highest levels in his skills so far and I could tell from the effect some had, they were most likely evolved too.

Observing as he raced across the room, picking up the bits and pieces of dead grubs and corralling the remaining low-leveled ones into a corner, I couldn’t help but admire his work ethic. Ever since Crete made the colosseum, the majority of grubs became something of a resource to us, and other than using them for food and sport they didn’t serve much of a purpose; Because it would take much more than their current numbers to even allow one nymph to reach level 10, much less the 4 unevolved nymphs present.

I decided to leave him be and continued moving the cocoons to the colosseum while mentally preparing myself for the battle that would take place. From the pieces of the plan that Crete informed me and Vito about, we would be handling the 3 beetles and any other ones that had recently evolved while he would deal with the Alpha beetle. The thought of being able to familiarize myself with my new power as well as being able to help my older brother made me restless and I couldn’t wait to face the creatures.

{Meneo POV}

It wasn’t long after I finished training that Crete called for Vito and Amore, and I assumed he had finally filled them in on his plan because they were discussing for quite a while before he approached me. “Okay we have everything prepared and ready, so we’ll be heading off now Meni, keep everyone safe, including yourself alright?” he spoke words that held confidence in me.

“Yes brother, I’ll make sure to keep everyone in tip-top shape. so don’t worry about us and focus on your expedition.” Not wanting to betray the confidence placed in me I said in a reassuring voice. He nodded at my words and his eyes went over me and my now sleeping sisters and the still unconscious Dynamis, who had made it about halfway through his evolution, I assumed based on his slowly increasing mass.

“Alright I have confidence in you, but don’t push yourself too hard if something happens, and don’t be ashamed to run away” were his last words before he turned around and fastened the husk of a dead beetle, filled with green glowing moss to his back. “Also make sure to steer your sisters clear of danger first before trying to move Dynamis, they’re more likely to be injured.” The steady and lecturing voice of my younger brother Vito came from his side. “It’s okay Vito, I have faith in Meni, he knows what to do and he has the ability to do it,” Amore’s voice coming from the other, “I believe in you Meni, you can do it” the supporting words wasted on me because I was already annoyed.

Amore being able to evolve before I did was fine because she was the oldest other than Crete. Dynamis evolving before me was to be expected as well, but what irked me was the even younger than me Vito being first to evolve. Why is it that he was lucky enough to get a springboard of experience from his encounter with the first beetle and be the first to level 5? I just couldn’t understand it… It didn’t feel right to me that my younger brother had access to that level of power before me…

Releasing the jealous thoughts with a sigh, however, I concluded it was just my wounded pride rearing its ugly head, and despite it being slightly difficult, I did my best to nod at their words. Watching the last of their legs disappear into the ceiling, I found peace once more. Right then and there I made a promise to myself that I would evolve before they came back and become the termite I was meant to be, and looking at the results of my training I found the reality was inching ever closer.

has leveled up! (Lvl 4 > Lvl 5)

has leveled up! (Lvl 2 > Lvl 3)

has leveled up! (Lvl 2 > Lvl 3)

has leveled up! (Lvl 2 > Lvl 3)

has leveled up! (Lvl 2 > Lvl 3)

Skill info: The acknowledgment and consolidation of repeated physical feats resulting in a small boost to all physical capabilities.

has leveled up! (Lvl 1 > Lvl 2)

Skill info: A rapid succession of attacks carried out within a period of time is a fraction faster than should be possible.

*Status*

Name: Meneo

Species: Cleial Isopteran (Nymph)

Gender: Male

Level: 5

Health Points: 35/35

Stamina Points: 58/115

Mana Points: 0/0

Spirit Energy: 3/3

Strength: 4

Endurance: 10

Agility: 3

Vitality: 6

Intelligence: 8

Luck: 2

Spirit: 3

Perception: 4

Will: 7

Undistributed Stat Points: 0

Experience Points: 112/160

Skills:

(Active)

Masticate Lvl 2 > Lvl 3

Inspect- Lvl 2

Sneak Lvl 2 > Lvl 3

Sprint- Lvl 4 > Lvl 5

Flurry- Lvl 1 > Lvl 2

(Passive)

Strong Body- Lvl 2 > Lvl 3

Pheromone Language- Lvl 1

Compound Eyes- Lvl 2

Athletics- Lvl 2 > Lvl 3

Hyper Metabolism- Lvl 2

Titles: N/A

Achievements:

Member of the clutch (5% faster experience gain)

I was particularly proud of having unlocked two new skills, being created after running a couple of laps around the chamber and jumping over some of my self-created obstacles. was a little more difficult to explain, because while I was repeatedly using the skill with increasing intensity, I had created the skill by successfully releasing a few dozen attacks back-to-back in under a minute. I had not yet informed anyone else of my discovery because without my abnormal endurance the cost of using the skill would tire them out before they could even achieve the threshold for creating the skill.

Nevertheless, I would not let my pride cloud my vision, well maybe not until I had successfully evolved, I mentally corrected myself. I would then expose the method of doing otherwise mundane activities continuously, in order to develop new skills, and already imagining the shock and awe of my other siblings, I couldn’t wait to revel in the feeling.

From the 4 battles I had spectated with Beetle against Nymph, I was pretty sure I had a foolproof plan that would allow me to easily dispatch one of the creatures in order to initiate my evolution. Heck, if even that plan didn’t work, I devised a simpler backup plan, if push comes to shove, I would simply run in circles… Don’t laugh at my genius just yet, hear me out, although the beetle had a larger stamina reserve than me, I was certain that I could outlast it in a battle of endurance.

That conclusion was made from repeated observation of the beetles during battle, and even from observations of my evolved relatives. The theory I had come up with was spectacularly named Meneo’s theory of relativity, from what I had seen it appeared that every creature, even evolved ones had stamina usage relative to their size. The only other factor which affected this was the number of points they attributed to the endurance stat.

For example, consider a beetle that had a practical mass to stamina ratio of 1:2, so for every kilogram it weighed, it had to expend two points of stamina to use a skill like charging. So, a 30-kilogram beetle could take 60 points of stamina to perform a full charge, although it could still charge and expend less stamina but in a shorter distance. The number of points invested into endurance, however, would increase its total stamina and its relative physical ability, meaning it could charge for longer with the same stamina expenditure.

That meant a low weight, endurance-focused nymph like me could still practically outlast an evolved creature if the ratio was small enough, and estimating mine to be around 1:1.2 I wasn’t worried. Still basking in my cleverness, I walked with a renewed enthusiasm. So what if everyone else evolved before me, I was confident in my physical abilities and the ever-growing levels of my skills. So confident in fact, that I was convinced of my decision to hide one of the evolving grubs from the eyes of my now departed siblings was a stroke of brilliance. Chuckling at my foresight, I carried my soon-to-be opponent into the colosseum, where I would conduct my glorious ascension.