Chapter 21 Eye for an eye (1/2)

Phew, that was a furiously busy day. They have said in the past that great risk bring great reward and of course that is true.

It isn't like I didn't know that already, but I'd hoped to minimise as much risk as possible, circ.u.mstances have forced me into being aggressive and thankfully it has paid off!

I check my status to behold my incredible bounty!

Name: Anthony

Level: 4

Might: 15

Toughness: 12

Cunning: 25

Will: 18

HP: 28

MP: 0

Skills: Digging level 4; Acid Shot Level 5; Grip Level 4; Bite Level 4; Advanced Stealth Level 1; Tunnel Sense Level 3

Mutations: Eyes +3, Antennae +2, Acid +2

Species: Hatchling Ant Worker (Formica)

Skill points: 1

Bioma.s.s: 4

After consuming the Thorn Lizard and remains of my Coral Slug I had two Bioma.s.s, I held onto those and found another isolated Coral Slug to battle. By repeating my trick from earlier I was able to deal critical damage by landing a shot inside its mouth, however I wasn't quite as quick and didn't manage to avoid the acidic mucus the slug managed to project at me.

Having that sticky goop fired on me was bad enough but oh boy did it burn. I had a partially melted section of carapace on the back of my thorax and lost 10 HP before it stopped melting into me. Even just that small bit of acid was a third of my health! I'm severely tempted to upgrade my carapace in the hopes it provides better protection but there are so many priorities!

Thankfully after consuming the slug (which took a good while) I was able to regenerate eight HP and mostly restore myself to a picture of ant perfection.

After using so much acid in combat the rewards have finally shown in the form of Acid Shot level 5! Ready to be improved.

There are still a few basic skills I'd love to purchase but I cannot pa.s.s up the chance to improve my most effective offensive weapon!

[Acid Shot -> Improved Acid Shot. cost 1 sp: The upgraded Acid Shot skill, continues to improve accuracy with ranged acid attacks whilst giving additional improvement to attacks from increased range]

Buy!

Immediately the warm trickling sensation of skill learning melts through my brain. So nice!

With this additional range boost I'll be able to make more reliable shots from greater range, improving my safety as well as my ability to reliably output damage. It's a win-win!

If only I had access to more skill points! I'll have to level up again as quickly as possible, so many skills are converging to level four! I want to upgrade all of them if possible, leaving them behind and losing out on XP would be a crime…

Now for the tricky bit.

The Bioma.s.s.

I really want to upgrade my eyesight to +4. Having superior vision to other monsters has been critical so far in allowing me to locate isolated prey and prevent others from sneaking up on me, the advantage in senses must never be lost!

However if I want to battle and gain more Bioma.s.s then directly improving my combat effectiveness would mean improving my acid, this would then leave one extra Bioma.s.s that I could spend on legs, carapace or mandibles, all of which would increase my capabilities.

Let's work with a process of elimination, carapace upgrade would probably be pointless, +1 won't make much of a difference to anything, my defence is terrible, I'd rather work on speed first.

Which means that +1 legs is tempting, I'd become a bit more mobile which would help for scouting, retreating and fighting all together, cost effective indeed. +1 Mandibles doesn't tempt me much, larger, stronger mandibles would help me dig a bit and sharper mandibles would help fight a little but not much, the only creature I've managed to bite much at all is the Thorn Lizard and they seem quite rare.

This leaves me with really only two viable paths, +4 eyes or +3 acid with +1 legs. Do I continue to place my senses at the top of my priority list? My instinct is to be more defensive. Moving into another unknown environment down below I want to have every possible advantage I can get. That means being able to see the enemy before they see me.

It's settled then.

[Would you like to purchase +4 eyes? This will cost 4 Bioma.s.s]