Sitting down I meditated until most of my MP had regenerated before going over my Skill increases from the previous fight. This was a good habit for me to get into because it meant that I was making the most of my time while also making sure that I was using my Meditation and Controlled Breathing Skills before checking my Skill Increases which was especially important for my Controlled Breathing Skill which I didn’t use as often as I perhaps should.

Skills increased!

Caustic Bomb increased to Lvl 3

Create Giant Amoeba increased to Lvl 7

Minion Control increased to Lvl 12!

Acid Arrow increased to Lvl 4

Mana Blade increased to Lvl

Mana Manipulation increased to Lvl 19

Stab increased to Lvl 4

Controlled Breathing increased to Lvl 5

Growth Rate increased by 1 Endurance!

Available Aspect points increased by 8

Total Aspect Points: 10

After considering my options to see if I had any better ones than what I had already planned I decided that putting the points into my Aspect of Perception was the best choice for me.

Closing my eyes, I found myself once again in my internal world and watched as a large arthropod ran through the primitive forests. From the looks of things, it was trying to escape from some sort of predator but when I finally saw what was chasing it my eyes widened in surprise. A strange green blob-like creature that closely resembled my amoeba flowed over the ground behind the bug that it was obviously chasing. Despite its similarities to my Amoeba this thing was quite a bit faster, but it became clear that it wasn’t just faster. It had another ability that made it far more dangerous than my Amoeba. As soon as the thing felt that it was close enough it rose up slightly and squirted some sort of liquid at the bug that it had been chasing with impressive accuracy.

When the liquid landed on the bug that the amoeba like creature had been chasing it started steaming in a manner that reminded me of my own acid-based magic and sure enough the exoskeleton of the bug started to melt.

“What the hell is going on?’ I muttered as I watched the amoeba envelop the now badly injured and start to eat it. I remembered that the ability to fire acid at things was an option when my Create Giant Amoeba had reached Level 10 but I had chosen the other option so what was going on?

And then I realised my mistake. I had given my amoeba the ability to absorb Essence which I had already figured out was actually DNA. I had even been warned that the choice that I made would affect the amoeba’s in my inner world as well. So, I was guessing that this had somehow increased the rate at which the amoeba’s in my internal world evolved.

Opening my eyes, I sighed as I read the notifications that had appeared in front of me.

Aspect of Perception increased to 10/25!

Perception allows one to notice things that they would otherwise miss. This means that it is useful to just about everyone in existence. Warriors use Perception to allow them to hit agile targets or dodge attacks and mages use it to make sure that they hit their targets with their spells. Even crafters use Perception to make sure that the things that they were making were the best that they could be.

Perception increased by 4!

Soul Aspect increased to Level 235!

A new development has occurred in your internal world that will change the course of evolution in this world forever. An ancient predator has evolved to be one of the most dangerous predators thanks to its newfound ability to mutate at an incredibly fast rate by taking parts of another creature’s genetic material and repurposing it for their benefit. This new type of creature can fire caustic liquid over a significant distance and can move faster than previous species. What this development will mean for your internal world is yet to be seen.

Willpower increased by 2!

Growth Rate increased by 1 Willpower and 1 Unassigned Stat Points!

New Aspect unlocked!

Create Giant Amoeba has become Create Gel.

“Well shit,” I muttered when I saw that I was in fact correct in my assumptions and turned to see that the once grey amoeba was slowly turning green as it became a Gel like the ones that I had seen in my internal world. “I didn’t think that the choice that I made would have such a bid effect so early on. I may have made a mistake.”

If things kept going the way that they were then I could end up with my internal world being almost entirely populated by these ‘Gels’ instead of bugs like I wanted it to be. On the other hand, this could actually work to my advantage if I played my cards right. After all, if it was that easy for a Gel to kill something with a thick exoskeleton like a bug then it would be even easier for it to kill something that didn’t have the extra protection an exoskeleton provided and if I could increase the Levels of my other summoning Skills then I might even be able to mitigate the spread of these things enough that things would work out for me.

However, in the short term this was quite likely to be a good thing as far as I was concerned. My amoeba had been quite helpful up until now, but its usefulness was limited by its form which lacked anything resembling the weaponry that more advanced predators had like claws and teeth. This was especially true against the Scourge who were practically immune to the amoeba’s normal attacks so having the ability to spray acid would massively increase the combat effectiveness of my amoeba… no, my gel against them.

Turning to where my amoeba had been sitting patiently while I had been meditating and saw that it had changed from a sort of translucent white like someone had mixed milk and water to a translucent green colour more akin to green tea. I could also feel through our connection that its Stats had also increased slightly. It technically wasn’t stronger or faster than the scorpion, but its new ranged attack capabilities definitely made it more dangerous.

“Alright then I suppose that I should check the description for this updated Skill then,” I said as I brought up the information on my Create Gel Skill.

Create Giant Amoeba (Primordial) Lvl 6 has evolved to Create Gel (Primordial) Lvl 6

Allows you to create an amorphous organism known as a Gel that can follow simple orders. A Gel produces a caustic liquid inside of its body that it can use as a ranged attack.

Costs 25 Essence.

Requires 10 Control Points.

Increases Growth Rate by 2 Unassigned Stat Points.

Well, the Essence cost of creating a Gel was five more than creating an amoeba had been but thankfully the Control Point cost hadn’t increased along with it which meant that the Skill was actually significantly better overall and that was without even considering the fact that I was also getting an extra Unassigned Stat Point as well.

Now that I had checked everything else, I decided to take a quick look at my Stats before heading back out again.

Status

Level 3

Exp: 22%

HP: 278/278

MP: 611/611

HP Regen: 25.7 per minute (+1)

MP Regen: 38.6 per minute

SP: 201/201

Essence: 21

SP Regen: 21.7 per minute

Control Points: 40.2 (10.2)

Str: 32 (+13/Lvl)

Agi: 48 (+14/Lvl)

Con: 41 (+ 6/Lvl)

End: 34 (+9/Lvl)

Tou: 44 (+9/Lvl)

Int: 81 (+39/Lvl)

Coor: 32 (+8/Lvl)

Vit: 37 (+8/Lvl)

Wis: 51 (+21/Lvl)

Will: 52 (+38/Lvl)

Per: 50 (+18/Lvl)

Cha: 27 (+11/Lvl)

Additional Growth Rate: +18 Unassigned Stat Points/Lvl. +40 MP/Lvl. MP regen increased by 1.4/min per Lvl +5 Control Points/Lvl.

Unassigned Stat Points: 0

“Okay then,” I sighed as I rose to my feet and stretched. “Once more into the breach dear friends. Once more.”

Making our way back to where the Scourge were, I decided that I had made enough of a scene that it was pretty likely that they would be lying in wait for us so as soon as I felt that we were close enough the Gel and I started to climb a tree. I had already asked Tane whether a Scourge would climb or not and as expected they couldn’t so this would allow the Gel and I to attack the Scourge without having to worry about being attacked and the Scorpion could keep them distracted. It would get injured of course, but I did have a healing spell that I could use when I needed to.

The scorpion stayed back so that it wouldn’t give away our position while the Gel and I painstakingly made our way through the trees towards where we had been fighting the scourge. It wasn’t easy and I nearly fell out of the trees a couple of times, but we made it eventually.

Sure enough, when we finally reached the place where the Scourge’s burrow was and looked down at the foot of the tree there was a Scourge hunkered down behind it waiting for us. Looking around the area I saw another seven Scourge all attempting to hide so that they could ambush us. Most of them had actually somehow managed to bury themselves in the ground but thanks to my position and recently increased Perception I was fairly confident that I had spotted all of them which Tane quickly confirmed. With a smirk I ordered my scorpion to re-join us and a couple of minutes later I heard it crashing through the undergrowth towards us.

Now that everything was in place, I ordered the Gel to attack the Scourge underneath us. A mere second later the gel and I fired our respective acid-based attacks at the creature making it hiss I pain and scuttle out from underneath the tree. Once it was out from underneath the tree it bent its body upwards in an attempt to look at us and giving the Gel and I the opportunity to fire another salvo of acid its way.

Some of the acid must have gone inside its mouth because this time the thing went berserk and started bucking like a bull just in time for the scorpion to ram into it like a freight train. By now the other Scourge were charging in the direction of the one that we had started to attack so this time I decided to use a Caustic Bomb instead of Acid Arrow like I had been and launched the blob of acid at a clump of the monstrous slaters which all hissed and attempted to retreat. Unfortunately for them this wasn’t the best plan as the ones that had been hit ended up trying to clamber over the top of the ones behind them which only served to make the acid spread further as I fired another Caustic Bomb their way.

While I was doing this my two minions were both attacking the Scourge that had been sitting underneath the tree that the Gel and I were still in and it was already starting to falter. Seeing this I switched targets and fired another Acid Arrow at it and then followed it up with a Stone Shot that drilled into the things weakened shell and punched through to the soft flesh inside.

The Gel immediately fired another spurt of acid at the now badly injured with much better accuracy than I expected from something without eyes. Then again, I hadn’t actually checked whether a Gel had some form of vision or not so maybe my assumption that it was blind like it had been when it was still an amoeba was incorrect. Either way its attack obviously did quite a lot of damage since quite a lot of the acid managed to make its way inside the Scourge’s body and I was able to finish it off with another Stone Shot.

Changing targets, I decided to fire another Caustic Bomb towards the group of Scourge. Since I was a little bit worried about hitting the scorpion, which was currently wrestling one of the Scourge, so I aimed the large globule of acid a bit behind one of the Scourge which chittered in pain. Then I fired a couple more Acid Arrows at the affected Scourge.

Now that I had over 500 MP I had to worry a whole lot less about running out but I decided to let my two minions do as much work as possible to increase the Level of their respective Skills as quickly as possible so I closed my eyes and started to meditate so that I could absorb some mana to increase my Elemental Affinities. Thanks to my connection to my minions I would know when the scorpion was injured enough for it to be worthwhile to heal it with my Heal Minion spell. Occasionally I also used my Earthen Grasp or Sticky Bog spells to immobilise some of them since I hadn’t been using either of those spells anywhere near as often as I should’ve, so I decided that this was a good time to do so.

It was far from a thrilling experience, but it definitely got the job done which was the important thing. As soon as I was sure that more monsters weren’t going to attack us, I dropped down from the branch that I had been sitting on and ordered the Gel to start devouring the bodies while I used my Essence Drain Skill on the rest. While we were doing this, I sent the Scorpion over to the mouth of the burrow to make sure that nothing decided to attack us while we were doing this.

“Tane, do you sense any more Scourge nearby?” I asked the tree telepathically.

“No, but you might want to collapse that burrow just in case,” Tane responded instantly. “No point in leaving it like that when something else could decide to use it as a den.”

“Good point,” I agreed. “There’s only one problem though.”

“And what would that be?”

“I don’t think that any of the spells that I know right now can produce enough force to collapse the burrow,” I replied.

“Hmm, that’s a good point,” Tane responded. “Well why don’t you give a try anyway. Even if none of your spells work trying them out might give you an idea.”

With a shrug I sat down to completely regenerate my MP. I did have a couple of ideas that I could try but I had a feeling that I might have to create a new spell. Hopefully I would be able to come up with something that would be useful in other situations, but we would just have to see.

When I opened my eyes, I went to work. The first thing I did when I opened my eyes was go inside the entrance of the burrow and use my Condense water spell to soften the walls slightly. Once I was done inside, I made my way back outside and found the area where I thought the largest open space was and used my Condense Water spell once again until the ground was absolutely saturated. The I started casting my Gale and Mana Blast spells in an attempt to collapse the burrow. I thought that this tactic had the highest chance of working but the only noticeable effects of this was spreading mud everywhere including all over me.

“Well, bugger,” I sighed as I wiped the rather viscous mud off my face. “Looks like this isn’t going to work.”

After thinking about things for a few minutes I concluded that I needed to make a new spell, so I sat down and started meditating once again. By the time I had regenerated my MP I had already come up with a concept for my new spell. I wasn’t sure how useful the spell I had come up with would be in literally every other situation but for this particular job it should be perfect.

Placing my hand on the ground I reached out with my Earth Mana and started to vibrate the ground above the burrow. Soon enough I could feel the vibrations through the soles of my feet and a couple of seconds after that the ground that I had already weakened with water started to collapse in on itself. Naturally now that the burrows structural integrity was compromised the whole thing collapsed and I staggered back as the ground under my hand also fell into the hole that I had created.

“Well that was considerably more effective than I thought that it would be,” I said once the dust cloud had settled. Once I was sure that the entire burrow had collapsed, I brought up the information on my new spell.

Tremor (Specialised) Unlocked!

Makes the ground shake powerfully which can throw your enemies off balance or destroy structures.

Cost: 15 MP/minute.

Growth Rate increased by 2 Wisdom.

2 Aspect points awarded for unlocking Tremor.

I whistled after reading the description for my new spell. While this spell wasn’t that useful in normal situations but if I ever needed to destroy something like the burrow then it wold be invaluable. Hell, if I had used the spell right away instead of fighting all of the Scourge and then destroying their burrow things probably would’ve gone better. Well that’s if burying like that was enough to kill any of them.

“Right then,” I said. “Time to head home it’s getting late.”

“Thank you for helping me out with that,” Tane said as my minions and I made our way back to where we were staying at the base of the massive tree.

“That’s no problem Tane,” I replied via telepathy. “We both have things that we are capable of that the other isn’t and so far, you’ve been helping me a whole lot more than I’ve been helping you. So, if you ever need help just ask.”

“I’ll remember that,” Tane agreed. “Hopefully, I won’t need your help again for a while though.”

I grinned as I ran through the forest back towards my new home.

“I hope so too Tane.”