I chomped down on what was left of the snake. It only took me a few hours to almost completely decimate the humongous monster, all thanks to my new skill. No matter how much I ate, my stomach never got full, and I was reasonably certain that the skill somehow boosted my eating speed. How else could I have eaten so much, so fast?

Along the way, my HP and MP both got overhealed to the new maximum the skill allowed. A steady trickle of XP and data points accompanied me during my task until that coveted system message appeared.

You have leveled up!

Congratulations on reaching level 20 and completing your evolution goal, traveler.

Access to the Evolution Menu has been granted.

Ah, so that was how this worked. I was glad to know that I wouldn’t have to evolve on the spot. Because, while I considered this location somewhat safe, I had eaten most of the monster the other monsters were afraid of. So it was only a matter of time until some came over here to steal my food.

There was still about twenty-five percent left of the corpse and I didn’t intend to miss out on the XP I could gain from it, so I stored it in my inventory. Since this was always accompanied by a blue light show, I booked it immediately after. As fast as I could, of course.

Thankfully the cave systems on this world were anything but smooth and littered with rocks, boulders, and similar places for me to hide in, behind, and below. So it didn’t very long for me to find a suitable hole to crawl into where I was perfectly hidden. My black coloration really helped me out in situations like this. Even if there were some bright colors around as well.

Hey, at least I didn’t glow in the dark.

Now, in the relative safety of my new hiding space, I opened up my status. I took a second to marvel at how far I’d come before looking around for the newly added evolution menu. It didn’t take me very long, since the button was pulsating with blue light, most likely to draw my attention to it.

Welcome to the Evolution Menu, traveler.

Congratulations on earning yourself the right to evolve into a Tier 1 monster!

You will have the following options available to you:

Choosing a new species from the available options. (Depending on current species, stats, and actions taken during leveling up, more options become available.)

One mutation will be available to you.

Five attribute points.

Due to you completing both bonus objectives, the following will apply:

Two more mutations will be made available.

Due to you completing the T0 hidden quest, the following rewards will be obtained:

Evolution potential will be increased in all evolutions going forward.

You have collected the first piece of the hidden access key(1/4)

So that’s how evolutions worked, huh? The bonus objectives I completed seemed to give me one mutation each, which I welcomed. Mutations gave some pretty nice upgrades, and this time around I’d get three of them. Pretty good haul.

On the other hand, the rewards for completing the hidden quest were much less straightforward in comparison. I guess the fact that my evolution potential was increased was a very good thing… I couldn’t be entirely sure how that would quantify itself, but I’d probably just get some more, and better options when evolving.

No clue what the hidden access key was, but considering what I’ve learned so far, it’d probably unlock some functions of the system. For now, it was a basically useless reward, though. Who knows if I’d ever find more pieces.

I took another look over the rewards, before continuing with the process. What followed was a new window with a meager three options. This was the shortest list yet, but if I hadn’t completed the hidden quest, there might have been only one or two options for me to pick.

Possible Evolutions:

Poisonous Monster Slug

Boulder Slug

Elder Slug

The first option was very clearly the tier-one version of my current species. I’d noticed before, all tier-one monsters I’d encountered just had a monster modifier slapped in front of their species and it seemed like it wasn’t any different for slugs. I was automatically more drawn towards my other two options, but I wanted to know what each of these new species would do for me.

Poisonous Monster Slug

The evolved form of the rare monster, Poisonous Slug.

One free poison-related mutation.

So far, so boring. This was pretty much what I expected it to be, even if the free mutation was nice to have. I’m sure the other two would be better.

Boulder Slug

A durable slug whose skin is covered in magical rock armor.

Rock Armor mutation.

Five constitution points.

Unlocks the Earth Magic skill tree.

This was already better by a wide margin! Compared to the three evolution bonuses this option provided, the Poisonous Monster Slug almost seemed sad. I was curious about the skill tree that was mentioned, so I had the system explain it to me.

Apparently, skill trees were something that travelers could use. Since my traveler bonus was locked, I didn’t have access to them, although that was about to change. Skill tree slots were apparently very limited, so it was important to choose wisely.

It would also appear that the spells I’d learned so far, could be learned through such skill trees. Although I had learned mine through either being a certain species, which was something akin to inherited magic, or through achievements.

Satisfied with this new knowledge, I moved on to the last option.

Elder Slug

A magically inclined Slug species that is seen as a bad omen by intelligent life forms.

Mana Gland mutation.

Five intelligence points.

Five wisdom points.

Unlocks a magic skill tree of your choice.

Holy moly! I basically made my decision as soon as I laid eyes on these bonuses. A mutation, ten attribute points, and a skill tree of my choice? Sign me up, chief! At this point, I was certain that this option only appeared due to me completing the hidden quest. Or maybe I’d still have gotten the option, but with less bonus stuff? Whatever the case may be, I decided on being an Elder Slug!

Originally, I only put so many points into intelligence and wisdom so I could strengthen my only means of attacking. But it looked like I’d be going down a path of magic in the future.

Elder Slug has been selected.

Attribute points will be distributed upon completing the evolution process.

Mana Gland

A special gland used for storing Mana. Increases MaxMP bonus for each point invested in wisdom by 50%.

Please select a magic skill tree to unlock.

The list of available skill trees wasn’t as crazy as I’d expected. Probably due to my technically still low level. It didn’t make sense for something as crazy as time magic to show up here if it even existed, so the trees were relatively unexciting.

I saw the usual suspects, such as the elemental trees, including the earth skill tree I’d have gotten with the Boulder Slug evolution. Then there were some other strong-looking ones, such as lightning, curse, and enhancement, which I suspected was used to buff the caster and others.

I spotted healing magic, which was a tasty option, but I already had a pretty good source of healing from my gluttony skill. No, what I wanted was synergy. So, as soon as I saw it, I locked in the Poison Magic skill tree. My poison spells were still my main way of attacking, and if I could get some neat bonuses from the skill tree, all the better.

Next up were mutations. I had three mutations available to me, so I could do some neat things for sure. Although, there was one mutation that I had to get no matter what. I immediately used the search function and locked in my first mutation, better eyes. I was sick and tired of seeing the world as a blurry mess, so this one was mandatory. With two left, I tried searching for something that would let me unlock my agility stat, but there were none to be found.

Apparently, the system just hated slugs.

So instead I went to my go-to, the poison mutation. I was going for synergy, after all. Of course, I went straight for an upgrade in potency, to make my poison truly ridiculous. But, apparently, the next tier of potency was so strong that I’d need to spend three mutations on it.

I really wanted to get it, but I wasn’t willing to compromise on my first mutation. All of a sudden, the free poison mutation from the Poisonous Monster Slug didn’t seem so bad anymore. It was entirely possible that my current poison mutation would have cost me two points, but I got it for free because of the emergency quest reward.

Well, now that I was becoming a magical creature, I may as well invest some mutations to help me out there. I filtered out anything that didn’t have to do with magic and came face to face with a whole bunch of mutations I’d never seen before. Apparently, my new species unlocked them for me.

The upgrade for the mana gland was there, which would definitely be useful, so I put it down as a maybe. There were mutations that’d help me recover my MP faster, mutations that would make my Mana usage more efficient, causing my spells to cost less. An organ that would concentrate the Mana so that the spells I used it for would be more powerful, and many more.

Eventually, I decided on a mutation to my brain, which would help me cast my spells faster, and a skin mutation that gave me higher MP regeneration. Apparently, ambient mana was absorbed through my skin, who’d have thought.

The knowledge on how to cast spells was usually dumped into my brain by the system whenever I acquired one. But the process was still a bit complicated and took some time to do. Right now, my spells weren’t that complicated, but in the future, that would probably change. So in order for me to not have to cast my spells forever, it was better to start upgrading now.

With this, I had completed all of the steps required for my evolution. I quickly threw my unassigned attribute points into wisdom, intent on getting as much MP as I could for now, and then confirmed my selections.

All necessary selections have been made. The evolution into new species will now commence.

Evolution is an incredibly painful process since complete reconstruction is necessary. You may choose to be put to sleep.

Y/N

Who in their right mind would ever pick no for this? There was no hesitation as I went to select yes. It was already insanely painful when I got my mutations from the gluttony skill and emergency quest, so complete evolution must be crazy painful.

Then again…

There were very clearly hidden quests for doing crazy and impossible things. As I already said, nobody in their right mind would subject themselves to pain like this. Just like nobody in their right mind would gather stupid amounts of XP after maxing out their level… What if there was some hidden reward associated with going through the process without being put to sleep?

I think it was time to take a gamble here…

No!