| |
Larvae
The world around me was vibrating. I could make out every single vibration and was capable of roughly determining what they were based on their shape. Beyond that, I could sense the fact that the tiny ‘puddle’ I was in was currently being besought by droplets upon droplets of water. They were slow, but recurrent enough to be notable. I ‘awoke’ feeling significantly... lighter.
[Evolution Completed.]
[Installing {User} skills...]
[Skills Installed]
[You have attained the skill {Lesser Molting Lv. 1}]
[You have {11} copies of this skill.]
[Copies Combined]
[{Lesser Molting Lv. 1} has become {Lesser Molting Lv. 10}]
[{Lesser Molting Lv. 10} has evolved into {Basic Molting Lv. 1}]
[You have attained the skill {Swimming Lv. 1}]
[You already possess this skill. You have additional {11} copies of this skill.]
[{Swimming Lv. 1} has become {Swimming Lv. 10}]
[{Swimming Lv. 10} has evolved into {Fast Swimming Lv. 2}]
[You have attained the skill {Lesser Metamorphosis Lv. 1}]
[You have {11} copies of this skill.]
[{Lesser Metamorphosis Lv. 1} has become {Lesser Metamorphosis Lv. 10}]
[{Lesser Metamorphosis Lv. 10} has evolved into {Insectoid Metamorphosis Lv. 1}]
[You have attained the skill {Minor Diapause Lv. 1}]
[You have {11} copies of this skill.]
[{Minor Diapause Lv. 1} has become {Minor Diapause Lv. 10}]
[{Minor Diapause Lv. 10} has evolved into {Diapause Lv. 1}]
The veritable storm of information rushed through my ‘vision’ through the translucent screen. Disbelief, I believe, was the primary sensation that ran through me. I could not, had not believed that skills attained from mosquito larvae would possess any merit, but it seemed I had been proven wrong.
I wished I possessed eyes capable of seeing my reflection, in which I would be able to see the aesthetic changes that came with my evolution. Unfortunately I did not, and I could only make out the basic changes to my form in minor ways. I did feel smaller, however, I also did not feel as constrained nor as slow as I had been prior.
Status.
Status
Name: [Unnamed]
Race: [Mutated Annelid]
Specie(s): [Small Predator Earthworm]
Level: 1
HP: 10/10
MP: N/A
HP Regen: 8/Day
MP Regen: N/A
Negative Effects: [N/A]
Positive Effects: [N/A]
Title(s): [Reincarnated] [User] [Gorger] [Larvae Slayer]
8HP regenerated per day? This was phenomenal compared to the meagre amount of 0.5HP per day I possessed earlier. This meant... every twenty-four hours, I would be back to nearly-full health. This – this was invaluable.
Predators in the world did not have the ability to go home and lick their wounds after a failed hunt, and come back the next day feeling near-completely refreshed and ready to hunt again. Human professional fighters and boxers could not fight a heavy match today, get beaten into unconsciousness, and then return the following day with nigh-all their wounds healed, and ready to fight again. However, I could do such.
I could attack an opponent, leave them with wounds and flee. I would rest, becoming healed, and return the next day to pick up where I left off, with my opponent nowhere near healed. In this manner, I could whittle down foes vastly superior to myself merely by the virtue of my ability to come back for more each and every day.
The ripples in the water increased in tempo. I took note of the numerous vibrations, before turning my attentions to my latest titles.
Title: [Gorger]
Details: An uncommon title. Grants the ability to stockpile food in the form of reserve health. Eating twice the user’s body weight provides 10% of their total HP as reserve health. Consuming four times the user’s body weight provides 20%, and consuming eight times the user’s body weight provides a maximum of 50% as reserve health.
Reserve health? Extra health attained at the cost of merely eating more? With my 10HP, consuming twice as much as my body weight would provide me with 1HP extra health. Consuming eight times my body weight would give me 5HP as extra health. This was useful. There was potential in possessing more health and being overly fed.
Title: [Larvae Slayer]
Details: An uncommon title. Grants +25% Damage to larvae and infantile opponents while granting +30% Damage Reduction from larvae and infantile opponents.
Essentially a title that made it considerably easier to continue hunting larvae. However... ‘infantile opponents’ was, again, rather vague, not to mention sounding rather dastardly. It sounded as though I was some eater of babies –
... Ah.
Nevertheless, I was not going to stop now. The larvae were easy, an untapped well of experience. Besides, they were mosquito larvae. They would grow into become bloodsucking creatures whose existence was only good for spreading disease and culling population. They would most certainly not be missed.
Regardless, it was time to investigate the latest skills I acquired.
CRA-BOOM!
The sensation of immutable waves of pressure rolling over the world struck me abruptly. The water droplets cascading down into the puddle became a fusillade. I knew, instantly, what this meant.
A storm.
A thunderstorm, to be precise. My body burst through the puddle at speeds that I previously found myself sorely lacking. Movement in the water was natural, easy, and most significantly, it was swift. No longer was I a slow waddling creature, rather, the aid of [Fast Swimming] and my newest evolution enabled me to traverse water as though I were a fish. A slow, finless fish.
I contemplated my next, most immediate and pressing need. On a certain hierarchical pyramid, the physiological needs of food, water, warmth and rest came first. Food, predominantly was the biggest hurdle, as this thunderstorm would most likely sweep away all the larvae within the puddle. Mosquitoes often laid eggs on what they believed should be stagnant water, and this puddle would have qualified, had it not been for the rain.
The ‘puddle’ was no longer a puddle and was instead now a ‘stream’. Accumulating enough momentum to pass the areas of least resistance, it began flowing, and I possessed little compunctions against attempting to stop it from dragging me along.
“Swimming against the current” was an expression used for something difficult, if not often impossible, and I was not going to attempt such a feat. Rather, I moved out of the way of potential obstacles I could sense with my vibrations, ensuring that I maintained a steady path.
The more I thought, the more I gathered that I knew not the terrain or the type of environment in which I was ‘reborn.’ I could only assume I was within some sort of dense forest because of the water puddles and the rain and the richness of the soil, however, I could also be in someone’s private backyard garden. My sense of ‘scale’ as a worm was limited, tiny, and until I became something capable of further exploration, or perhaps, increased my Vibration Sensing skill, then I would never know truly where I was.
However, if I was flowing from this puddle, downhill, most likely I would arrive either at a river, a pond, or an even larger puddle. The difference in vastness would be problematic, because a pond would feel like an ocean, and a river would be an ocean beset by hurricanes.
It took only a few minutes for my journey through the puddle to end and for me to find myself splashing into a significantly larger pool of water. The water was clean, at least, considerably cleaner than the puddle which possessed granules of sand and mud weighing it. Most likely this meant that it was a local source of freshwater – either a pond or lake.
[Intelligence has risen by 0.1]
Again? I was being awarded intelligence for assumptions? Why did I have intelligence as a statistic, and truly, what other statistics did I have available?
Stats.
Status
Name: [Unnamed]
Race: [Mutated Annelid]
Specie(s): [Small Predator Earthworm]
Level: 1
HP: 10/10
MP: N/A
HP Regen: 8/Day
MP Regen: N/A
Negative Effects: [N/A]
Positive Effects: [N/A]
Title(s): [Reincarnated] [User] [Gorger] [Larvae Slayer]
The stat screen came up, and I dismissed it. This was not what I needed.
Specs.
Nothing.
SPECIAL.
Still nothing.
Attributes.
Further, there was nothing. I began thinking of other potential keywords, before another one immediately popped into my mind.
Parameters.
[Parameters]
Attack: 0.3
Defense: 0.1
Intelligence: 0.2
Magic Power: 0.0
Sense: 0.3
This is odd. Attack, Defense, Intelligence, Magic Power and Sense? Was that all that was truly available? There was no Charisma or Luck, no Perception or Agility, no Endurance or Strength. Why then, was intelligence present, if all of the other customarily accustoming parameters were absent?
Further, how did I measure my parameters? What was the base average in order to know how powerful I was? What exactly was sense?
More questions came out of this than answers, as there was no helpful tutorial to answer my questions. Instead, I could only assume and deduce and hope my assumptions and deductions were correct. Considering I was rewarded with more ‘intelligence’ for this, it was indeed possible that I could use the system as a way to discover the answers.
[Intelligence has risen by 0.2]
So my assumptions were correct. Now, I was going to assume that I was in a forest of some sort.
... No? Well, this was odd. How could I not be in a forest, when I was in a pond? Or was it that the system only awarded me points for correctly assuming or deducing things that were slightly difficult to assume or deduce?
[Intelligence has risen by 0.1]
Helpful. Truly the beacon and pinnacle of benevolence. Whatever would I do without such a vague system of attaining information?
If only I possessed an ‘appraisal’ skill or something similar, then I would not need to rely on this ridiculous method. It didn’t respond to me assuming that I was in a forest, which was understandable. Although there was soil and there was rain, I had yet to ‘sense’ anything remotely resembling trees or leaves or grass. So, where then, was I? A place where a freshwater pond could form had to be outdoors, did it not? Freshwater ponds often included all sorts of aquatic –
Fuck.
Ponds... ponds often included all forms of aquatic creatures.
I could sense it, up ahead, vaguely through the distorting ripples of water, one of the plants synonymous with ponds: the lily pad. This plant, unfortunately for me, was also commonly used in stock images as a natural foothold for a certain amphibian species.
I need to leave.
I struggled, less than a few hours ago, against an ant. There was little chance or possibility of me somehow becoming victorious against an amphibian, or a fish should either choose to make me their next meal.
The thunderstorm continued to buffet everything, and swimming was difficult, more so difficult when I was relying on vague vibrations to find my way out of this pond and back unto the soil. I’d been hit, consecutively by raindrops, which felt as though I was repetitively drenched in buckets of water. However, as a species adapted to aquatic life, the force of the impacts of raindrops did not hurt me.
It did, however, make things harder to ‘see.’
Constant vibrations from the impacts against the water overloaded and ‘glitched’ my ability to properly detect other shapes through the endless noise that was millions of tiny droplets of water crashing around everything. I could not make out land, nor did I even know the direction to swim in order to find land. I was relying on depth alone, which was still sorely limiting.
The situation was tremendously frustrating, and I felt that the longer I stayed within this pond, the closer I came towards death.
I reached out, finally, for something upon the surface which felt familiar. Jagged and rough, it was most likely a stone, but to me, it felt like a mountain. It was not particularly what I desired, but it was a starting point.
I ascended my way to the top, crawl after crawl. I fell after being hit by a raindrop.
I climbed up again, gripping harder.
The wind pushed me off, hurtling me back into the water.
ARRRRRGHHH! A mental roar went unheard.
A third time, I tried, gripping as hard as possible, knowing that this rock was my salvation, it was my saving grace, it was my only ho–
[Skill {Sense Danger} has gained a Level.]
[Skill {Sense Danger} has gained a Level.]
[Skill {Sense Danger} has gained a Level.]
[Skill {Sense Danger} has gained a Level.]
[Skill {Sense Danger} has gained a Level.]
[Skill {Sense Danger} has gained a Level.]
[Skill {Sense Danger} has gained a Level.]
[Skill {Sense Danger} has gained a Level.]
[Skill {Sense Danger} has evolved into {Greater Sense Danger}]
[Skill {Greater Sense Danger} has evolved into {Superior Sense Danger}]
[Skill {Superior Sense Danger} has evolved into {Sixth Sense}]
[Sense has risen by 0.9]
[Skill {Vibration Sensing} has gained a Level.]
[Skill {Vibration Sensing} has gained a Level.]
[Skill {Vibration Sensing} has gained a Level.]
I couldn’t move. Could barely think. Even as the world exploded around me in a cacophony of sounds and sensations that I was previously unable to comprehend or perceive, the only thing on my mind, was the distinctively slender shape of the coiling creature, that had no rights, no right whatsoever, to be in a pond.
Agkistrodon
[Guardian of the Creek]
Venomous Water Snake
Level ?
And to think I’d been worried about amphibians.
