Chapter 78 The actual evolving situation (1/2)

Bioma.s.s has been spent, food has been dispensed, traps are taken care of and Tiny is happily sleeping off his food coma.

The time is ripe!

There is something so exciting and freeing about being able to become a completely new creature via evolution. A human changes over their lifetime also, going from baby to toddler to child to teen to adult but the process is so slow that the change doesn't always feel meaningful. Only in hindsight can you appreciate the different stages of your life.

I didn't even make it to adult in my life as a human! After more than ten years!

I've not even been in my new world of Pangera for a single year and I've already reached my second evolution. If I were to line it up with the stages of human life, then I've been a baby monster, currently I'm a toddler monster and I shall promote myself to child monster!

Considering how weak the ant species is individually, these a.n.a.logies actually feel pretty accurate to me.

Ok, no more stalling Anthony, time to go for it!

[Would you like to use the Evolution menu?]

I would!

[Congratulations on reaching the maximum level for your current species. Evolution will allow you change your form and increase your stats as a monster.

Warning: evolving will make securing XP and Bioma.s.s more difficult as fewer rewards are given for preying on creatures less evolved than yourself.

A special core has been detected, by advancing your core beyond normal limits special options may be available.

Your evolution options are as follows:

- Juvenile Queen (formica)

- Soldier (formica)

- Monster Worker Ant

- (Special) Command ant (formica)

- (Special) Mind ant (formica)]

What the heck!? So many choices?! I only had two last time, and one of those involved changing my species! Ok…. Let's slow down and not prejudge. Take the options one by one and let Gandalf explain each one.

[Juvenile Queen (formica). A young queen of the formica species, this evolution includes wings and an egg laying organ allowing the new Queen to begin her own colony.]

Ok. Wings! Egg laying! All very Queen like stuff. Just one problem… one little query that I have… I'm a boy! Why the heck do I have a queen option?!

Wait.

I remember now… How could I be so stupid? I've known this for ages. All workers in a colony are female!

I'M A FEMALE ANT!

DAMMIT GANDALF!

Is it funny?! Huh?! Taking someone who was a boy and stuffing them into a female monster body?! Is this your hobby? You lousy bearded buffoon! May your robes be ever grey!

Grrrrr…

Look, when I calm down and think about it, being a male ant wouldn't be that good. Male ants basically mate with a Queen and then crawl away to die, acting like disposable fertilisation machines who are then frequently eaten by the colony. In this world I'm not even sure male ants exist at all. The queen seems to be doing just fine without mating, laying eggs at a steady rate. I'm not really sure monsters in this place procreate in a normal way at all.

So I guess gender isn't all that important to a monster. But still! I'm annoyed.

Not really sure I want to be a Queen anyway, to be honest. The wings sound awesome but I don't really want to be stuck inside the colony laying eggs all the time. I mean… I may be moving away from my humanity but laying eggs out of the business district just doesn't sit right with me.

Next option.

[Soldier (formica), a larger, more combat oriented worker, this evolution includes +10 might bonus to size].

Ok. So if I was to avoid the Queen route then becoming a larger, fighting oriented worker would be the choice. This selections seems to come without any free body upgrades but instead a significant boost to the might stat all of which is dumped into size. With all of the energy in my core I could probably take my might score up another ten or fifteen points easily, making me a seriously strong ant!

This seems interesting but let's move on.

[Monster worker ant, losing the species formica and becoming a generic Monster worker ant, this selection allows two free body part choices as compensation].

This selection is back. I would lose my species, but this time I would get two free choices of body part. Is this because my species would change but generally everything else would stay the same?

As nice as two free new body parts would be, I would be forced to abandon the colony and go back to leading the solitary monster life. I guess I would still have Tiny with me but I'm reluctant to take this choice. I like staying with the colony, it's almost like having a family, something I didn't get to experience as a human.

Just having a place with other creatures in it who won't attack me is a nice feeling.

I don't think I'll take this choice.