I woke up once again, tearing out of a teal cocoon, my body feeling all gangly and unfamiliar, like that one time when I was 14, when I grew three inches in a week. It took a while to get used to it since me and Bug Jacob were fighting each other again, the brain fog from waking up not helping.
But we eventually managed to get along. I looked around Guppy’s cave; it looked slightly different, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then I saw Guppy themself, doing that rigid statue impression my minions did when I fell unconscious.
What a minute, Guppy looked different, had they gotten smaller? No, I just got bigger, and from what I was seeing, a lot bigger, I was as large as Guppy now, if you counted my wings. Then I decided to look at my status to see what else had changed, but something strange popped up.
“Congratulations on passing the first stage of The Great Debate. The second stage shall commence soon.”
Leader Board:
Must be within the Top 5 in (14/14 days) to get to the next stage, or be automatically eliminated. The second stage starts in (2/10 days)
1: Fifth of the Mist
2: Krath Nixm
3: Julian Seawrite
4: Ninth of the Flame
5: Urg Flaow
6: First of the Sea
7: Jacob Davidson
8: Second of the Snow
9: Hiroto Parker
10: Halian Rith
11: Anya Abashev
12: Hanna Guy
13: Trom Halk
14: Grn Fet
15: Eighth of the Stone
Oh, come on! I just got done with one doomsday clock, and now I have to deal with another!
After throwing my well deserved tantrum, I got back to thinking.
Ok, so I have to get into the top five. I'm number seven, moving up two spots ain’t that much, I can do that. But what do the colors mean? The only logic I find behind them was the names. The ones in green seemed like regular old names, and the other two colors each followed their own logic as well.
But the names that were crossed out… I think I can safely assume those people were eliminated already, but that would change my position a bit. I wasn’t just two possessions from passing, I was second from last… No! Jacob, stop it!
I gently thwacked my head with one of my Tarsus.
That thinking will do nothing for you, just shove it down! I still have two days until this whole thing kicks off. What can I do till that happens? I hadn’t even seen what I can do with this new evolution.
So that’s what I did.
Species: Junior Queen Lunar Scale Moth
Level 0/25 till Evolution
Antenna: Royal
Wings: Royal
Tarsus: Royal
Abdomen: Royal
HP: Green
Lv: 5
MP: Green
Lv: 13
EP: Green
Lv: 9
Core Skills: 3/5
Lunar Scale Dust
LV 3/5
1/10
Moon Silk
LV 3/5
Royal Will
LV 0/5
Locked
Locked
Gained Skills: 2/5
Stealth
LV 2/5
Appraisal
LV 2/5
I checked what the ‘Royal’ mutation meant, but it was just my former mutations combined and strengthened. After that, I noticed my HP, MP, and EP levels had increased drastically, but I had expected something like that. The third thing I noticed, and what really got my attention, was the new Core Skill, Royal Will. I used Appraisal on it immediately.
Royal Will: Your decree is passively enforced by the divine right of a god; anything you wish to happen will be more likely to happen. But you first have to make the possibility, fate is not such an easy thing to bend.
That seemed… wildly overpowered. Maybe surviving isn’t entirely out of the question. And I suppose this god enforcing my decree was the same one in the descriptions of my evolutions.
But I couldn’t make much sense out of the rest of the description, so I went over the rest of my status. Nothing much popped up, just a few level caps increasing. Then I opened up my mutations to see if there was anything new. There was. But I couldn’t even afford a single one despite my 10 MuP.
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Mutation Points: 10
Antenna: Royal, Mutations available
Sonar, 15 Mup
Wings: Royal, Mutations available
Confusing Patterns, 15 Mup
Superior Wings, 20 MuP
Tarsus: Royal, Mutations available
Telepathic Tarsus, 25 MuP
Abdomen: Royal, Mutations available
Silk Storage, 15 Mup
Complex Pheromone Production, 20 Mup
HP: Green
Lv: 5
Use 2 MuP to level up?
MP: Green
Lv: 13
Use 4 MuP to level up?
EP: Green
Lv: 9
Use 4 MuP to level up?
I just ignored the Mutations for now, instead focusing on my stats, since they didn’t seem to increase in price despite them going up so much after my evolution. I put one level in all of them, completely wiping my Mup stockpile.
It felt painful using them up. I thought of all the things I could’ve done with them later, but I knew if I hadn’t used them now, they would’ve just gone to waste. My long years of min maxing on video games finally becoming useful, no, that was an insult to min maxing. I was just blindly putting levels into things I thought would be useful, not like there was a wiki or guide.
Was there? No, I would’ve seen it…
I searched the System to see if I had missed something, but to my relief and anger, there wasn’t.
Damn, stingy System.
I went back to looking at my status to find anything useful, looking at Lunar Scale Dust. The level and minion cap increased, but the real surprise was when I toggled open my minion list. My eyes bugging out at what I saw. (I wish that pun was intended)
Giant Construction Salamander
Lv 8/10 till Evolution
HP: Green
Lv: 13
MP: Green
Lv: 7
EP: Green
Lv: 12
Notes: Why do you have to be so damn slow? Poison mucus, sticky spit. God, I wanna eat something, gahahahghahalskdjfasdjlfkhsdakjf.
It was displaying the Evolution level. Does that mean I could evolve them? Oh ho… ho ho ho ho! And Guppy’s only two levels away from doing so.
I turned to Guppy and did my best mental impression of a certain cartoon character.
Guppy, I know what we’re going to do today!
OOO
It took a little time to get out since I wasn’t small enough to fit into Guppy's mouth, so they couldn’t just swim me out. And I couldn’t swim myself, so I had Guppy dig a tunnel out. It was annoying and time consuming, but it worked.
The first thing I did was gather an army of Rain Ravens. At this point, I was pretty sure I was going to drive them to extinction with how I was going through them. But that was beside the point. After gathering them, I cooked up a plan to get some more Anteaters.
But it turned out to be useless, because when I got one cornered and used Lunar Scale Dust on it, it just automatically succeeded. I guess I would have Royal Will to thank for that, at least that’s what I guessed, since that was a sort of decree. I was basically telling it to become my subject, which seemed like a royal thing to do. Or Lunar Scale Dust just increased in strength after evolving. Either way, it was a good thing.
After that, I kept a steady stream of minions up, using them to feed Guppy XP to make him evolve. It was slow, and the ants probably would’ve been better. But, well, my mind went back to the last fight I had with them, and shuddered at the memory. I've had enough of Ants for a lifetime.
When I get back home, I'm going to move somewhere where ants don’t live. Unfortunately, the only places I knew that didn’t have ants were Antarctica and some of the countries in the Arctic Circle. And I just didn’t handle the cold that well.
Well, I’d have to get back home first… Was I going to get back home? There was no guarantee that after this whole ‘Great Debate' thing that I would get sent back.
I decided not to think about it. At the very least, I was living, that’s all I needed.
OOO
I was watching my minions do a conga line of death into the lake Guppy was in, where the Salamander would then tear them apart. Snacking on a leaf, my stomach's week long starvation being properly compensated. I kept the highest leveled Rain Ravens and Anteaters to the side, two each, ranging from levels 8-9.
But this was much slower than the previous day, so I checked Guppy’s status again.
Giant Construction Salamander
Evolution lv: 9/10
HP: Yellow
Lv: 14
MP: Green
Lv: 8
EP: Green
Lv: 12
Notes: Why do you have to be so damn slow? Poison mucus, sticky spit. God, I wanna eat something, gahahahghahalskdjfasdjlfkhsdakjf.
Broken Bone: Yellow
They’d gained a level, but they’d broken a leg a day before, when I hadn’t noticed a crocodile looking thing sneaking up on us. Having been attracted to the mountain of corpses in the water. I’d dealt with it rather quickly, but it had left Guppy crippled.
I had hoped that I would be able to get Guppy to evolve and heal the injury before the second phase started, but it wasn’t looking like that. The injured leg, having significantly slowed Guppy’s pace, the truth was dawning on me. I needed a healer.
I had checked for one in all of the nearby forests and lakes, and absolutely nothing came up. But there was one place I still hadn’t checked, the desert, and I had been avoiding it for good reason. Guppy would dry out the moment they stepped into there, and the Anteaters would die of heatstroke because their fur was so thick.
Leaving me with my weakest, but most numerous ally, the Rain Ravens. I gathered them around me as I sent Guppy and the Anteaters into hibernation in a cave I had, well, they had built. It pained me to leave them so defenceless when I was so close to getting them to evolve, but I just had to deal with it.
Then we went off to the desert, flying over the battleground that I had prepared two days before. The ground was so completely covered with ant corpses that it was pitch black, mixing with the greenish yellow blood of the ants.
But we passed over them and into the desert, the temperate and humid air of the bog changed into the dry scorching heat of the desert. It was like a wall between the two environments had been placed, and I just passed over it.
The temperature shift didn’t affect me much, but it did bother the Ravens, their black and dark blue feathers soaking up the heat from the sun.
Crap, I hadn’t thought of that.
So whenever the birds seemed too exhausted, I stopped by some shade and had them produce water to drink. Slowing down our progress.
Maybe I should’ve done this alone. No, would rather be slow than die because I didn’t have my minions. Turtle and the Hare. I reminded myself. Turtle and the Hare.
Along our path, we found some lizards and birds that we checked out, but they didn’t have any abilities I wanted. So we flew onwards till we stumbled upon a jackpot. An oasis, nestled in between small hills that gave enough shade for water not to evaporate, and life to thrive in this death trap of an environment.
We rested there, observing the life that grew around it. I went over a dozen animals, dismissing them, until I saw the Rhinos with red crystal horns and nails. Well, not the Rhinos, specifically, but the Scarlet butterfly that flew around them.
Two younger Rhinos were fighting each other over what I presumed to be a female Rhino, one of them getting injured and conceding the match. The winner walked off and had, uh… I’m not going to say what. While the loser sat down, the scarlet butterflies swarming them.
The insects stood around the gash the loser had suffered, extending their proboscis into it and drinking the blood. When they were satiated, they extended their wings, shaking glittering scales out of them, the scales making the wound close up.
Perfect.
I went over to the swarm of butterflies by the Rhinos, but my Ravens scared them away, so I retreated, allowing the butterflies to gather again. And this time, I went over to them without my minions and easily subjugated one, but then a weird system message popped up.
“Max minion number has been hit. You can not enslave any more creatures.”
What? I hadn’t tried to subjugate any other creatures. Are you actually glitching out, System?
Then I heard an angry grunt from below, and I looked down at the herd of Rhinos. Some of my Lunar Scale Dust having accidentally fallen on one.
Ok, System, that’s B.S and you know-
Then a spout of flame came out of the Rhino's horn, directed towards me.
AHH!
I flew out of the way, dodging the flame itself, but the heat emanating from it still singed me. But the butterfly had been in the same place I was, and I looked at where my brand new minion had been incinerated.
Look what you did, you damn Rhino! I’m going to make sure you land on the extinct species list!
But when the spout of flame dissipated, the butterfly appeared, completely unharmed, its wings glowing red like a hot iron.
Ok, Rhino, you know, maybe I was a bit too harsh with you earlier. I’m sure we can bury the hatchet if we-
Another spout of flame flew towards me. I dodged, this time avoiding it completely.
Now that wasn’t very nice-
Two spouts of flames shot towards me, and more incoming as more Rhinos noticed the fight and joined in. I did some fancy flying, narrowly avoiding my death numerous times. I tried to fly high enough so the flames couldn’t get me, but I just didn’t have the strength.
That's it, I officially hate gravity. One out of five stars. First, my Lunar Scale Dust falls onto someone I didn't want them, and now this.
I sent the Ravens to distract the Rhinos, the birds quickly getting incinerated as I was running away. But their deaths just left me with more minion spots to fill, and I filled them with butterflies. In the process, getting a level up.
“Level up, +1 to Lunar Scale Dust Level.”
I didn’t check how much my minion cap increased, but it allowed me to get around ten of the butterflies under my control. Then I had them fly below me as close together as they could, creating a shield for me against the Rhino's flames.
Then we ran away from the Oasis, the Rhinos chasing me for about a hundred feet or so before turning around. When I couldn’t see or smell them anymore, I relaxed with my new minions below me, the butterflies glowing like a campfire.
