Chapter 745: 745

Trawling through the list I see tons of interesting but niche Skills that would be useful but would contribute to Skill bloat that I pass over after a glance. Do I want to have a digging active? Sure, it might sound nice to have Shovel Mandibles to work in tandem with the Dig Skill, but it’s just way too niche. I bet a lot of the carvers focused on construction have it at a high rank though…

There’s actually a few sensory passives that I spy which would probably be exceptionally handy to have. Sharp Eyes, Open Ears, Fine Touch, Particular Taste, Picky Smell are all passives that give a boost to their respective sense, and I have absolutely no doubt that they fuse at almost every rank as well. It’s also possible that they might turn into actives in the higher rank, allowing me to expend energy to enhance a particular sense. This is really tempting, I’m just not sure which ones I would want… or at what rank I would fuse them… I know I need to avoid buying too many rank one Skills… I mean, if I picked up eyes and touch… would those would be the most useful for me? Eyes is obvious, and touch would help my antennae pick up vibrations in the air. Ears… doesn’t really appeal, since ants have pretty poor hearing in general. Smell might also be good… since my antennae are so sensitive now… Argh! This is hard. Shelve it for now and move on. Combat actives! Focus on the Goal!

Oho! What have we here?! Mandible Parry?! Helps the wielder to use their mandibles to parry blows? Starts off passive, but I bet this turns into an active down the line! Not to mention that it provides another layer to my impenetrable defences. Gweheheheh. This one is in for sure. I wonder when this chap unlocked? I’m not sure, but I’m very happy to see them now!

What else, what else… there has to be some more juice in here somewhere.

Mandible spear?! Are you serious?! How do you even stab with mandibles?! Well… again, I suppose you could mutate or evolve to make that less of an issue. Another one that is likely to turn into an active as it levels up. I’m not sure I’m sold on this one, but is there a chance that it fuses with charge? There could be something in that combo that is worth my while…

I keep flicking, evaluating and dismissing dozens of Skills until I find something like what I’m looking for.

Crunch Combo! A bite attack combo skill similar to what Tiny has for his fists! This is good stuff! Tiny’s turned active at rank four, letting him turn it on to give a huge boost to his punching speed for an increased cost of stamina and I’m fairly certain this will act in a similar manner, which will prove hugely useful. With my effectively bottomless stamina reserves, is there a chance I’ll be able to activate this together with Doom Chomp and unleash a torrent of potent bites in rapid succession? Gah! I’m practically salivating just thinking about it! So exciting!

With a number of Skills as likely contenders, I turn my attention over to the mutation menu to see what I can see in there. The Vestibule and Nave are… particular and somewhat intimidating organs whose functions go way beyond what I might have expected of a biological component of my body. Which naturally makes me more than a little bit nervous when it comes to messing around with them, but in all honesty, I can’t just ignore them. They are powerful, and will be more so with mutations, so I need to make it a priority to max them out. For now, I have enough Biomass to take both to +15, which means two mutations and a fusion for each.

Ideally I want the options I choose for both to have good synergy, a multiplicative effect, if you take my meaning. But what aspect of the organs do I want to improve? Sigh. No point delaying any further, let’s get into the menu and take a look.

Hmm. Being honest, there are less options for the Vestibule than I expect, ditto for the Nave. Has it been reduced since the last time, or was it always this size? I honestly can’t remember. Perhaps this is a product of the reset? It wouldn’t shock me if Soul Crystal was perhaps a touch less mutable than a more base component.

No matter. If anything, this will help make things a little easier on me.

Starting with the Vestibule, what sort of options do we have? The range extension is there, just as it was before. Pretty straightforward, it allows the Vestibule to collect Will from further away than it could before. Something I’ve noticed since the reset, is that the Soul Crystal has already expanded the range of the organ from what it originally was before I mutated it the first time. It isn’t the same as the +25 range I had before evolving, that would be nuts, but it’s a significant boost nonetheless. Certainly enough that I don’t see range as an issue.

There are a range of other options that surprise me, such as the determination mutation, which would allow me to manually direct the energy to emphasise a particular aspect of the organ. Do I want increased Stamina regeneration? Direct it that way. Increased healing? Off you go! Recharge my organs faster? Get on it! Obviously pointing the energy at one thing makes the others replenish slower, but being able to push the resources in the direction you most need at the time would be handy indeed.

The Pure mutation will simply make the Vestibule better at doing what it already does, refining it and allowing it to collect and distribute Will more efficiently, increasing the regenerative effects. This is a straight forward option that is hard to criticise. Do what you do now, but gooder! Might lack the oomph of some other choices, but is certainly a safe bet.

I don’t see the option to include more species in the Will collection anymore, which is odd. Not that I would ever pick it…

There’s an option that allows the gathered regenerative energy to be shared out as an aura, which is a cool one. I’d become a walking healing battery for all the ants around me, refilling their energy and stamina during battle. I have to admit, that’s a tempting option, but it’s not exactly how I see the Vestibule functioning for me. I like the Vestibule because it allows me to fight for my family, rather than help them fight with me. The whole idea is that they don’t have to fight! That’s what I want!

I wonder what else there is? I poke through the list and find various options that might suit what I’m looking for. Buried in the list I find something that sounds decent. The Empowering Vestibule. Basically allows me to convert the energy from restorative to strengthening for a limited period of time. Judging from the description, this essentially translates to a boost in my effective Might stat whilst the effect is active, improving the mutation will increase the size of the gain, as well as the duration, which is fairly short.

I can see this mutation coming in clutch when I’m under the pump, so long as there are enough members of the Colony nearby, as well as helping me overcome my still somewhat lacking physical strength. It’s certainly tempting… There’s another mutation which does something similar for toughness, which would make me more durable in a pinch, but I feel as though my defensive options far exceed my offensive ones at this point, so perhaps I’ll put that option on the backburner.

Alright, I think I’ll commit to the empowering mutation and take it all the way to +15. This will help create a new trump card that I can use as a last measure, shoring up one of my weaknesses.

Which leaves me with the Nave. The Communal Spirit Nave is a strange organ, to say the least. Attached to the Vestibule, it acts as a signal booster, a force multiplier, taking the energy fed to it and strengthening it as it focuses and delivers it to… nothing right now. Once the energy exits the Nave it’s dispersed into my body where the regenerative properties kick in, but the more I think about it, the more I think it’s likely there’s another component to these connected organs which I’m likely to be offered in a future evolution. I wonder what it could be? Maybe I should have poked through the evolution menu and looked for it… ah well.

As I browse through the options for the Nave, and there really aren’t that many compared to most organs, probably due to the rather narrow focus it has, I can’t help but feel like knowing what the ‘destination’ would be that the Nave is supposed to connect to would have a significant impact on my decision regarding mutation. Well, if worst comes to worst, I can reset the thing and move on with life. For now, I’ll go with the Purifying Nave, which essentially means the organ does its current job, but better. I’ll take that to +15 as well whilst I’m at it.

Which means my final purchases of this session of self-improvement look like this:

Empowering Collective Will Vestibule +15 (Soul Crystal).

Purifying Communal Spirit Nave +15.

And my new Skills:

Charge.

Crunch Combo.

Mandible Spear.

Mandible Parry.

I’m going to leave the sensory passives for the time being, but I’ll look to pick at least some of them up at a later date. I’m grabbing spear in the hopes that it can fuse with charge to make something interesting, as I really don’t see my mandibles as stabbing weapons. Let’s confirm the purchases!

… here we go…