Chapter 366 Rounding out the evolution (1/2)

After selecting the species I would evolve into, the expanded manual evolution menu appeared. I was thankful just to have the distraction, my core was full to bursting with energy and I couldn't wait to drain the stupid thing dry, improve my body and cease this horrific suffering!

Alright, now that the menu is in front of me, what did I have to do again? I feel like I had to eat something… Oh right! My stomach!

Eagerly, I fiddle about with the menu and begin to check my options for changing my stomach from a non-mutable organ and into a mutable one. Since it turns out that not every organ within a monsters body is able to be upgraded at the time they are born, getting the new members of the colony to enable their stomachs for mutation during their first evolution was critical. Once they could upgrade it, selecting the option to make food consumption more efficient by negating the evolution penalty.

Now I would get the opportunity to do the same thing!

Gweheheheh!

After I messed about navigating the menu, ignoring the twinges of flaming agony that flared inside my body, I was able to find the option to enable my stomach for mutations. Thankfully it was quite cheap, roughly half the cost of a basic organ to do so.

I wasn't done here either, I also wanted to take a leaf out of Tiny's book and enable my muscles to be mutable as well. He'd been able to upgrade his musculature to be incredibly powerful, and if I wanted my bite to pierce the heavens one day, I'd need to do the same thing.

Two for the price of one!

How much energy do I have left?

Holy smoking mackerels! I have freakin' tons! Is this the benefit of pus.h.i.+ng my core beyond its limits? And then pus.h.i.+ng the extra 10% bonus for a completed mutation set on top? I'll be able to go much further than I already have with my stats! Not to mention glands! What should I buy? More organs? An aura?! Ah, the s...o...b..ll effect of my repeated special evolutions has finally come into play! I feel like a kid in a store! Except that I have money to spend!

It's intoxicating! I feel like I might pa.s.s out!

No wait, I really might pa.s.s out. Hold on, me! Nearly there!

The first thing I do is go for the Cunning. I'll play with my stats until I'm happy and then I'll worry about organs and other such things afterwards. Alright then. With the +15 I got from my evolution, I decide to spend most of it shaping a third sub-brain which I place between the other two and connect to the coordination cortex. I have the cortex after all, it'd be a ma.s.sive waste to not take advantage of it, which means more sub-brains!

My new third brain I make larger and more potent than the other two, I want it to act as a kind of 'boss' brain that will lead the way in combined spell casting, acting as the guide and brunt force. While I'm at it, I beef up the other two sub-brains slightly, giving them a little extra punch. Having done that, I have a shade of my free +15 Cunning and Will left over, so I spend it upgrading my main mind, and I give a little extra boost from my spare energy as well.

When that job is done, I sit back and admire my new brain power. Fearsome! With this evolution I've taken my mental game to a whole new level! Now onto the physical stats. I want to spend my Might on roughly sixty percent size and forty percent density. It'll make a bit larger a bit faster, but I really need the quick stats. In my next evolution I may be able to correct the imbalance and give more energy back to density, but for now I need to emphasise raw stats.

A straight up forty might does a long way in making me a larger boi. I try to ensure that the density of muscle is concentrated in my head, since those are the muscles responsible for powering my bite. I'll need all the juice I can get in that department if I'm going to match it with a giant crocodile. I supplement the free stats with some extra from my evolutionary energy pool, making my overall might gain fifty points. If I'm going to address my terrible physical stats in this evolution then I need to commit.

Toughness is mainly spent thickening and powering up my carapace but I spare some thought to buffing up the walls of my internal organs. It's unlikely to help much but some types of energy, such as electricity, are able to go straight through my outer defences, so toughening up the insides should help reduce that damage, at least a little. As with my Might, I spend some energy to bring my overall toughness gain up to fifty, rounding out the bonus stats nicely.

Since I'm already in the menu I decide to poke around at my new Collective Will Gland. Each of the three rare evolutions gave ma.s.sive stat gain as well, as powerful as what was described as a 'rare' organ. In the case of this evolution, it was the Collective Will Vestibule. Rather than an organ it almost appeared to be formed from crystalised flesh. Which is creepy enough, but more staggering than that was the sheer cost of the thing.

This was one expensive organ! It cost more than most of the high end aura glands! Significantly more! And I get it for free?! Viva la rare core! Viva la rare evolution!