Turns out, that goo that the Blind Commander dropped all over the place? Yeah. That wasn’t just a steaming goo.

Shortly after my brief period of joy because of the massive experience dump, I decided that the furball could take a break. I was strong enough now that I had enough confidence to sprint down the tunnel faster than the beetles could fly. So I made my way down to the end of the tunnel, where all the bees and beetles flew around doing… whatever it was they did. With a single Macamme nut in my hand, I gazed out to the den of workers.

The cloud was thicker than usual. Perhaps the beetles were on alert now? There were definitely a few Blind Commanders flying around the area.

I shrugged, and threw the Macamme nut straight into a cloud of beetles that didn’t have any Commanders nearby.

Thunk!

The nut cracked right into the head of a beetle, and bounced off of him onto others below.

A raging swarm of beetles turned towards me, and charged.

I sprinted away. Killing this many beetles was going to take a while…

At least a hundred bugs came swarming down the tunnel, occasionally stopping to examine the goo, their heads twitching as they looked around. Mandibles clacked, and the bugs soared into the room with the light.

Well, that’s… convenient?

So the Blind Commander was more than just blind. His goo was some sort of distraction to the bugs. I guess Frieda pulling him was a lot more useful than I’d expected. I managed to enter the room with almost none of the beetles on my tail, and sighed as the bugs followed me in, swarming upwards towards the light.

Guess it’s time to toggle GrindMode.

Hey, at least this was going to be worth a ton of experience! As the swarm stunned themselves against the light, one bug stayed in the dark tunnel, next to the glowing liquid, watching me.

Huge red eyes emerged from all over the black carapace that seemed to have ruptured as they burst through. It didn’t have any wings, but the massive clawed hands at the end of its legs lead me to believe it couldn’t have carried its own weight if it tried.

Queen’s Exile [Lvl 17]

Holy…

If that thing fought me, I probably wouldn’t stand a chance! Much as I’d like to bet on myself because of my success against the odds with the Blind Commander, that monster didn’t look like it’d be easier to fight at all.

If I was caught by those sickled legs even once, the game was probably over.

And I wasn’t eager to test my luck against the odds of another glitch in the matrix, to be honest. I still had to figure out how I’d managed to survive because of the previous one.

But that dilemma was for a me who had time.

I started my typical ritual of biting off the heads of all the beetles that landed, stunned, on the ground, and kept an eye on the Queen’s Exile. After watching me through furious eyes as I slaughtered half the horde, it turned, scooping up some of the glowing liquid into its hands, and disappeared down the tunnel.

Weird…

You have received 105 experience for killing [Jungle Tunneler]. You have received 105 experience for killing [Jungle Tunneler].

You have received 105 experience for killing [Jungle Tunneler].

The list went on. And on. And on and on and on.

I killed a hundred bugs by the time I was starting to wish that I had Sailboat’s ability to breathe fire or something. No doubt would’ve come in handy at a time like this. Would’ve been way easier, anyway.

But hey, on the bright side, I leveled up a lot.

The Queen’s Exile probably wouldn’t pose too much of an issue for me anymore, and bonus! I practiced a ton of skills on the beetles before killing them so that I could regain some of my old ones, as well as level up the current ones.

Congratulations! You’ve leveled up! X10

You are now level 17 [312/1610]. Your [Health] and [Stamina] are now restored.

Ugh. This became so much harder at each level than before.

It really was going to be a pain. But, at least I had a virtual mine of experience to exploit.

Hey, what level was the max anyway?

Magic boxes? Care to enlighten?

Nothing.

Um… Evolve?

Error.

Eeeevolustionx NOT AvailablE t[he\max level\] Dinosaur: u2ntil.0. Fusion.

Oooookaaaay. Uhh... What?

Okay. There was definitely a glitch in the matrix. That weird font around the Guided Evolution ability and the fact that it said “DISABLED” wasn’t a joke, huh. I mean, I figured, but still, having hope isn’t pointless.

Maybe it would fix itself!

I certainly couldn’t.

I read the message again. Carefully, this time. It wasn’t extremely sensible, but there was a bit I could dissect from it.

If I recalled correctly, the first message went something like “You cannot evolve until you reach max level: [INSERT LEVEL HERE].” So, since this message looked like a slightly reworded and potentially scrambled form of it, could the max level maybe be 20?

If that was the case, then I was close enough to the max to be confident calling out to the waterfall guy again.

“Raaga!” I shouted, standing on the bridge, and looking towards the waterfall. This guy said he’d stay awake for me, right?

A few seconds later, as I stared into the spray of water, it suddenly stopped moving, and a vortex of water formed, floating over the air. It hovered towards me, and revealed the same muscular man of water as before.

He stood there, a bright smile on his face as he examined me.

[You’ve grown! And so fast!] Raikam, the Nature Spirt, exclaimed, the smile growing broader across his face.

One of his hands reached out, and brushed along my neck, down to my chest, where he placed a palm flat against it.

[Much stronger, I see.]

His hand glowed, and a long column of water grew in his other fist, stretching outward from his hand, and becoming a long staff. He pulled away the hand on my chest, but the glow did not vanish. Where he’d touched me, a white light emerged from my chest, as though the skin there no longer even existed. No muscle, no organs. There was just light.

“Gah!” I gasped, as the staff made of water suddenly stabbed me where the light was glowing. I glanced to my health, expecting to see a critical alert, but instead, I saw a full bar.

What?

Raikam shoved, forcing the staff of water further into me. I gagged again as the pain blasted through my chest, and the staff slowly disappeared inside me. He waved his hand again, and the light around my chest vanished, taking the pain with it.

I collapsed to the ground, gasping for air.

[My apologies for the lack of a warning. It takes better if you don’t expect it.]

I looked up, to see the wide smile of the bearded Nature Spirit looking down to me.

[I’m glad the conveyance worked!] He said, before turning back into a swirling vortex of water. [Now you just have to figure out how to harness that power. Good night, virtuous one!]

The sound of the waterfall blasted past me as Raikam vanished, and while I lay there, feeling mentally exhausted, a notification floated before me.

It was all I could do to read it.

Congratulations! You have learned the spell [Heal Lvl 1]. Now to see if it can cure your stupidity!

These boxes… really didn’t like me anymore, did they?