Similar to when I came to this world, I awoke with a start. None of that slowly waking up stuff, just awake and fully conscious from one moment to the other. As it turned out, not only was there no reward for staying awake during evolution, it was also extremely painful, just as promised. Thankfully I passed out from the pain right quick. Well, maybe I just didn't get the reward because of that, but now I wasn't too keen on trying again next time.

The first thing I noticed was that my hiding space had become somewhat cramped. When I’d crawled down here, I still had plenty of space left to move, but now I’d have to struggle if I wanted to turn around. I was about twice as big as before then? Not exactly a huge improvement to before, since I was still going to be a lot smaller than everything else in these caves.

I carefully stuck out my eyes and was blown away by all the details I was now able to see! My newly mutated eyes didn’t feel as good as my human eyes were, but the difference wasn’t that large. Maybe I just needed some glasses and then I’d be golden.

The cave outside was a dull brown, and there was still no apparent light source. A lot of the things I thought were rocks before, were actually stalactites… or stalagmites? I always confused the two. Aside from that, there wasn’t really that much to see. Just rock everywhere, although there seemed to be some moss growing all over the place.

I quickly took a moment to sense for any vibrations in my vicinity, and after feeling nothing, decided to take a quick look at my new status.

Name: Gary

Traveler Tier:1 Type:Monster(P2W)

Species: Elder Slug

Level: 1

Max HP: 90(99)

Max MP: 220(242)

Strength: 5

Agility: 1(permanently fixed)

Intelligence: 16

Wisdom: 26

Constitution: 15

Skill Points: 0

Data Points: 231

Skills: Fatal Poison Mucus Armor Lv.2, Compress Lv.2(defensive)

Magic: Fatal Poison Shot Lv.10, Fatal Poison Spear Lv.1, Giant Spike Lv.1

Passive Skills: Bottomless Inventory, Stealth, Turret, Giant Hunter, Gluttony

Mutations: Fatal Poison Mucus, Mana Gland, Mana Absorbent Skin, Spell Attuned Brain, Tier 1 Monster Eyes

Skill Trees: Poison Magic (1/1)

It would seem like two more things got added to my status screen. I could understand the addition of skill trees, since I didn’t have access to them before, but why did mutations only show up now? Maybe because tier-zero creatures weren’t supposed to have any?

Though, what my attention was focused on the most, was my maxMP. I had pumped quite a bit into wisdom this time around and it looks like I ended up with 220 maxMP. I almost tripled the amount, which meant I finally had enough MP to cast Giant Spike! And I’d still have quite a bit leftover after using it as well.

Just thinking about it made me giddy and I wanted to do a test run as soon as possible. I technically would still need to look at the details of my new skill tree, and as far as I knew the shop should be available now as well. But those wouldn’t run away. I could take my time and test drive this new body of mine!

I had to squeeze a bit in order to get outside of my hiding spot, due to my new size, but I got out in short order. Now that I had a bit more room, I swiveled my eyes to look at myself. I still looked pretty much the same as before, although there were some tiny spikes on my mantle that I could have sworn weren’t there before. I also had grown two more tentacles that seemed to extend some ways over my back.

I tried moving them, but the only thing I was able to do was retract and extend them. Aside from that just seemed to wave around a bit, as if caught in an invisible wind. It took a moment, but then a weird feeling of remembrance overtook my brain. Apparently, those tentacles were a feature of the Elder Slug and were used to help draw in ambient mana.

It would seem that the system, once again, had implanted information in my brain. Still creepy.

Satisfied with my little self-inspection, I picked a random direction and started moving. While leisurely strolling around, I took note of the world around me a bit more. It would appear that I was in an especially damp area of this cave system since there were stalactites and stalagmites everywhere. The ground was pretty wet and slippery, making it hard for me to even move around.

After moving about for a few minutes, I started to feel some slight vibrations ahead of me, so I made sure to change up my approach. Sure, I may still be pretty strong now, but I wasn’t about to just meander in front of every monster I found and start a fight. I used the natural formations as cover, making sure to poke my eyes around every corner before continuing forward.

Eventually, a flash of color caught my eyes. I stopped moving immediately. Something big and red was moving ahead of me, barely visible between the stalagmites. It seemed to be mostly stationary, so I carefully inched my way to a closer vantage point.

Turns out it was a rather sizable crab feasting on its newest kill. It was using its sharp claws to snip off chunks of flesh and then move them towards its small mouth. The eyes were situated on stalks, similar to my own, and looking in my general direction. Thankfully, since I approached carefully and only my eye-tentacles were exposed, it hadn’t seen me yet.

Or maybe it just didn’t care about a little slug.

I cautiously eyed its thick carapace, considering the best way to approach this fight. I hadn’t tested my poison spear yet, so I was unsure how much penetrating power it had. But since it was technically a liquid projectile, I seriously doubted it could pierce through this crabs armor. I could go for old reliable and poison its food, but since it was looking in my direction, it could see my attack and retaliate. I may have gotten stronger by evolving, but I was reasonably certain those claws could fuck me up.

Furthermore, crabs were fast. Like, really fast. No, if I did this, my initial attack would need to do a lot of damage. Enough to properly make it suffer. And since I was out here to test my new abilities anyway, what better way to start this fight off than impaling it on a giant spike?

Giant Spike was a spell I received from an achievement, and it sounded like it would do tons of damage, at least on paper. But I couldn’t be sure about that until I tested it at least once. I took another look at the food of the crab, judging how long it’d take to finish eating.

The corpse was a mangled mess, so I couldn’t be sure what it was when still alive. But I’d wager that about half of it was eaten at this point. The crab’s mouth was small, so it had to cut off these tiny pieces to eat. Maybe I had enough time to wait for my Turret skill to activate, then.

So I settled in for the long haul. According to the system, I needed to be in the same spot for at least ten minutes to activate the skill. I wasn’t entirely certain if the system would tell me when the ten minutes were over in some way, so I decided to just count the minutes out. To adjust for bad timing on my part, I decided to wait for twelve minutes.

Should the crab be finished earlier and move to leave, I’d just fire off the normal giant spike and hope for the best.

Thus began the stare-off the crab wasn’t aware it was participating in. I carefully counted the seconds in my head, trying to be as close as I could by imagining a moving second hand on a clock. It was truly boring, but the prospect of finally seeing the giant spike in action kept me motivated throughout.

I kept observing the crab as it ate, enjoying all the detail I was now able to see. Even if all the gore was still disgusting. When before, all I could see was colored blurs, I was now able to see the details on that crab monster. How the joints moved, how easily the claws snipped off pieces of meat, the rough texture of its shell, and the fast movements of its mouth as it shoved pieces of meat into its mouth.

Thankfully, it didn’t seem too intent on leaving or speeding up the eating process. Which meant, just as I had counted up to about nine minutes, I could feel the turret skill activate. A weird feeling overcame me as if I’d been superglued to the ground. It almost felt as if my foot had created a vacuum below me, rooting me in place.

It would appear as if I’d been counting too slowly, but at least I now knew that there was a physical sensation associated with the skill activating.

And now it was finally time to do the deed. I was getting kind of nervous as I began shaping the spell, which was a lot more complicated than the simple poison shot I’d been using up until now. Thankfully, my newly mutated brain helped me along and it wasn’t long until I was ready to release. Contrary to the poison shot, I didn’t have to aim for this spell. I just needed to dedicate a target that was within my field of view and let it rip.

I finally cast the spell, which immediately made itself known with a magical glow from below the crab. It seemed to notice as well, and momentarily paused its eating to take a look below, and what greeted it was pure death.

Just as the name implied, a giant spike emerged from the ground, so fast I almost couldn’t follow the movement. From one moment to the next, a giant, red-hued spike appeared, skewering the crab without mercy. You could really tell that this was a spell meant for creatures that were a lot bigger than a measly crab since the poor monster was literally ripped in half by it.

You have killed a Lv. 4 Monster Crab

You have been awarded 30 XP

You have been awarded 4 Data Points

You have leveled up!

Holy shit! I watched on in amazement as the magical construct slowly vanished, and looked at the mess it had left behind. The two halves of the crab were lying some distance away from each other, the legs still twitching occasionally.

Wasn’t that just a little too powerful?

It didn’t feel nice to use most of my mana on a single spell, but the results spoke for themselves. If I just casually used this spell to kill monsters, I could just breeze through the first layer of this world. After using it, I still had enough mana left to cast about three poison spears, four if I was overhealed.

But then again, it was a costly spell. In my evolution, I went almost all-in on poison, so it’d be a shame to just ignore the fact that I had this available to me now. I had a new skill tree, and if I kept leveling up poison spear, who knows what kind of fun things I’d unlock?

Yes, I was walking the path of poison, and the giant spike was just a nice bonus for me. I’d keep on using it liberally, especially on the stronger, bigger monsters, but there was no reason for me to just ignore my amazing, poisonous capabilities.

Speaking of which, I leveled up. Even without the double XP bonus, it seems like killing this crab was enough to get me to level two. I quickly threw my newly gained attribute point into intelligence before seeing that I apparently had gained a skill point as well.

I quickly collected the crab’s corpse, as well as what it was eating, and started looking for a hole to hide in. I had tested the giant spike and gained a skill point. What better time to finally check out my fancy new skill tree than now?