System Assistance Progress Used to familiarize Essences with their capabilities Used to give new Essences advice Used to manipulate and view information of your domain System Aspect Manipulation Reality Adjacent Systems Create and control realities, dieties, or anything else that falls under your purview Make use of a reality's extraneous physics and rules to affect how it interacts with your related aspect

My small amount of looking into the system quickly led me from the menu I first saw when intereacting with the system to a couple of 'submenus' that, according to the descriptions, helped me understand what I could do as an essence without outside help or what I could do with the systems other essences added to this reality.

Heck yeah, now this is some progress! No. No. I shouldn't get excited, there's still plenty to work on before I even think about celebrating. For now, I have to just rely on the 'adjacent systems' avaliable.

Looking in, I found a list of the various 'systems' that influenced this reality and those who lived in it.

This seems to be one of the realities where creatures can go through some kind of magic metamorphasis. People aren't left out either I see. They have their own independant 'class' system that seems to pack a punch. So far it makes a good amount of sense, but I don't know why Crecur feels the need to disturb the normal cycle of reincarnation. They have some kind of 'hero summoning' stuff they put in. Normally souls go through life, go through the river of souls to lose their memories, and then are born in a random reality to get on with their new lives. Messing with that just to give slightly less random people power seems a bit unnecessary outside of emergencies. Granted I don't know what kind problems would warrant an essence to build an entire system just to deal with it, so I'll hold my tongue for now. I also don't want to deal with these 'summoned heroes' either. From what I can tell they both start stronger and, unlike natives of this reality, never stop leveling. Terrifying and unfair, an unpleasant combo to deal with. At least I know what I'm up against if push comes to shove. I would rather avoid it altogether, but I understand that probably isn't in the cards for me. Realities with rules involving monster evolution tend to lean heavily into conflict and violence. Heck realities in general have their fair share of fighting. No matter where I started, my creatures would have always needed to protect themselves. I mean, I know they are going to die eventually but I'd rather not find out how bad that is for me outside of a tutorial. Just because I escaped the rebirth cycle doesn't mean there isn't other stuff to look out for.

I'd deal with the need to fight when it became an immediate problem, for now I had more pressing concerns. Most important was taking stock of what I had at my disposal and how I could use it to my advantage.

It wasn't looking good so far.

You know, this enchantment stuff would have been really cool.

Enchantment and Rune system unavaliable, cannot interact with a reality outside of your aspect and influence.

Yeah, you told me that already. Magic items are off the table. I hope it's not ALL inorganic things that are unavaliable to me. I'd really like a robot army, I can already imagine how efficient they would be. Not sure how I would make them eusocial, but I'd like to at least have the chance to try. Either way, that leaves one thing I have avaliable.

Thanks to my research, along with the basic memories I had from certain previous lives, I knew that creatures could vary in how they 'evolved'. Everything so far has led me to believe I could use systems that other essences put in place, such as the evolution system for the various creatures here. Theoretically, I could choose the evolutions for my creatures to give them the best start possible. I wasn't sure how close or far any of them were to evolution, but I was fairly sure of my ability to affect the outcome at least.

"System, show me the evolution menu for anelosimius-

In a split second, I decided to do an additional bit of research. I wasn't really sure how aware of my desires the system was. At times it responded before I even tried to contact it, but it also seemed to misunderstand me like with the reminder of enchanting being off limits. It was time to make a cursory attempt to understand its limits. If my system could understand what I wanted without exact commands, which seemed likely considering the few times it answered me unprompted, it would be likely it could understand my intent on some level. That, combined with the ability to adapt according to crecur, could open a lot more possibilities when I actually got to control more exact details like my creatures DNA.

"System, show me the evolution menu for my creatures."

Due to the [Eusocial] ability, the evolutions of all in the brood except the queen's are predetermined.

Abilities, I had learned about these during my research. They turned out to be a fundamental aspect of the class and evolution system in this reality, supplementing and enhancing the capabilities of any creature or person using them. While stats improved baseline capablities to beyond normal limits, this was on a different level. Abilities could take something as simple as throwing a rock, and turn it into a powerful form of attack that surpasses actual weaponry in a non-system using individual, and that wasn't including how abilities also often benefitted from the 'stats' of the individual. The only issue is, abilities usually aren't gained from effort or practice. You need either a class as a human or to be a creature capable of evolution, the latter of which requiring mana on some level. Gaining an ability is difficult, but it's even harder to get rid of one. Humans would have to change classes, going back to the very base level with minimal compensation for their previous progress. In the case of a creature like my spiders, unless they got an evolution that explicitly removed an ability, they were stuck with it.

Well, that's not targeting at all. Even if they did get an evolution that could remove the ability, I still wouldn't be able to take advantage of it because they have to be eusocial for me to control them and benefit from them. I mean, an Essence of eusociality using non-eusocial creatures? I find it unlikely that would be allowed. Although, the fact I can still evolve the queen does give me a minor work around. But, it's still less than ideal. I was really leaning on the idea of using evolution to give my little creatures a better chance. Without access to the evolution system in the same way as other creatures, they're no doubt at a severe disadvantage. Which, while making sense due to the sheer number of creatures that can live in a eusocial group, negates the last thing I have left to use. My bees and spiders would be no better of with me than without me, would they be sitting ducks?

It said there were predetermined evolutions, maybe those could be good enough? They should be able to survive without me after all, and abilities are supposed to be helpful in the first place. It's possible that whatever they evolve into is still useful, or even that there are more than just a single evolution- like ant colonies having different ant types.

....

No, that's just hoping for the best. Even if it's supposed to give an advantage, which isn't garunteed as I wasn't fully sure what advantage Eusocial even gave so far, that advantage might not be useful in the way they need. Relying on chance is a fools plan. I can't remember giving up on an obstacle before, and I won't give up at something as simple as this. I need to find an actual workaround.

But how do I work around something that absolute? You can't say no to gravity, and I imagine the systems an Essence puts in place are in the same vein of untouchable. If the system says eusocial creatures have to evolve a certain way I can't just say no.

...However.....

It never said there that the restrictions themselves were absolute. Sure I may be limited to what the evolution system allows me to do, but If there's an ability to restrict evolutions- there could be one that does the opposite? It's not exactly a sure thing, but it's possible. If that's the case I should be able to use the.... tutorial box? I can't keep calling it a system that would be confusing. Whatever, the orange screen thing: I can probably use it to find what I'm looking for if it exists. On the bright side, this means another chance to experiment with the boxes.

"System, how do I deal with this downside?"

I never explicitly stated what the downside was, or ask for a certain way to solve the problem. If it manages to identify how I want to solve the problem, that would mean the boxes most likely can understand my intent. Even better if there actually is a solution.

The [Individualistic] ability allows for eusocial creatures to undergo various different evolutions. Although these evolutions are more limited in scope to non-eusocial creatures.

Now we're in business! Intent? Understood. Solution? Found! Ok, so I just have to make sure the evolution my queens go through have the individualistic ability. That shouldn't be too hard.... hopefully. I'm still pretty sure they can't evolve just yet, it hasn't even been a full day since I got them. I'll have to double check to see if I'm right about the evolution, regardless of the answer I might as well get ahead of the curve and see what options I have. After all, the entire point of this was to take advantage of any information I can get a hold of.

"What are the evolutions avaliable to my spider Queen with that ability?"

Conquering Yellow Arachnid

These queens are less mothers and more generals, producing smaller but more powerful 'militia' of offspring to fight battles alongside them, and reap the rewards of hard-fought frontline combat at the cost of their nest building abilities. This species is all about high risk high reward, and putting all your eggs in one basket.

Spider Queen

These queens are slow to build up their nests full strength, but are the hardest to get rid of when established. If you find a nest in your home- that's no longer your home, it's theirs. This queen bolsters her children making them better at what they're already good at, Quality and Quantity- A force to be reckoned with.

Caring Crawler

These queens hold a small amount of magic power, and a strong desire to keep their swarm alive. This species is adept at attritional combat, and have a nasty tendency to come back from whatever's thrown at them. With the intelligence to hold a grudge, these are very protective and very vindictive mothers.

Ok, new problem. Those seem like good choices, but I don't know for sure what the quantifiable difference between them is. What is the difference between 'quality and quantity' when compared to 'putting all your eggs into one basket'. As a matter of fact the 'system' in place is supposed to be quanitifed from what was said. So.... where are the numbers? Show me my creature's stats!

And so the orange boxes answerd

Progress Domain Essence Everything that is under your control The progress of unlocking your memories and skills Creatures Creatures that represent your domain and will, including dieties and their worshipers. Territories Areas that are under your uncontested control grant influence based on how well off the land is. Realities under your dominion also fall under this category. [You currently have no uncontested territory] Resources You may take and move certain items relevant to your domain to other realities. [You currently have no resources]

Oh..... Well ok then.

I selected the creatures option, the dieties and followers option unsuprisingly greyed out. I doubted there would ever be a time where I got to that point, but I'd just have to see for myself. Instead of finding a list of individual creatures under my control, I found an option called 'collectives' which I took to mean groups of eusocial creatures.

I guess that makes sense. Better to be able to differentiate between individual groups rather than sorting through my entire collection of bugs.

Selecting collectives finally got me what I was looking for.

Bee Colonies Spider Broods

I don't get why it needs to call them by different names, but more differentiation can't hurt I guess. Anyway, Spiders first because that's why I came here.

Queens Drones

Oh, It let's me choose between queens and drones. That's really useful. If I start getting multiple colonies then I can just select the specific colony I want through this by picking a queen. Unless multiple queens are in a hive, but I'm not even sure if that's a thing. Let's try drones first, I imagine that will take the most time out of the two. I'm probably going to have to sort through a good bit of information-

PAIN

For an unknown amount of time agony was all I knew. Information overwhelmed my sense of everything, including myself. It felt like everything was nearly bursting at the seams as infinity flowed through me. I had no mouth to scream with and yet I could hear a chorus of screeching and shattering glass filled the entirety of my conciousness. It felt like I had gone back through the river of souls, but now it was made of burning light and sharp fragments.

Opening the drone page turned out to have been the wrong choice. If I had been a living thing still I most likely would have died outright from the sensory overload. Thankfully I was an Essence, and only in agonizing, disorienting pain for....

Ouch, that was a whole 4 hours. Note to self, look before you leap on the menu. I just wasted around a fourth of my time left in the day. Granted time moving forward just gives me more essence, but my creatures don't have the luxury of being able to just wait like I do. Speaking of which, I should check on them.

The bees had become disorganized, which while normal was.... wrong. There was no way to put it, I just felt they could be doing things better. I may not have been an essence of efficiency, but life is survival of the fittest- and sometimes doing things fast was the determing factor. I organized my bees, having them fly in tandem to observe flowers and collect pollen from those untouched. They took a while to get into a pattern, and often failing to follow it until they observed the correct behavior. I would have to occasionally remind them in order to make sure they didn't revert back to their base instincts. I noticed what seemed to be a very tan, stocky man looking at my bees in either awe or terror. I wasn't sure exactly, I just vaguely remembered a mouth hanging open being one of those. My spiders got the same treatment as the bees, only instead of better pollination they webbed out a nice defensive alarm system for prey and predator alike. This would ensure more of them got fed, and would be better prepared if something out of their league came close.

That was... a weird feeling. Starting to think the menu might have been holding back information when it said I was unchanged. Either that or I've always been obsessed with making things work better. Speaking of wierd feelings though, why the heck did I get knowledge-flashbanged by my own system

I looked into my memory to understand what happened to me and how. Apparantly, I had recieved so much information because I was getting information on every single creature down to their fundamental basics. Mainly DNA which, being massively complicated and able to store massive amounts of information, made what my senses took in far larger than one would expect by looking at a group of spiders. It didn't help that I was taking in each individual's DNA structure, which all had small differences further increasing the flow of data.

I imagine my 'mind' still isn't used to or capable of taking advantage of not relying on a brain to store and process information. That could explain why I have to spend essence as part of a 'tutorial'. It did something to my conciousness to make it better at dealing with that stuff. Too much information before I'm ready, and my mind goes blank with overstimulation. Heck if my theory about it being a sign of danger, like pain normally is, it could be I actually can't handle that much information at once yet. I imagine being an essence dealing with eusocial stuff would require at least some DNA tweaking every so often, otherwise why would I have the ability? Probably best to ease someone into that, to avoid potential death. Granted, a better warning for when I was overstepping my bounds would be nice.

I looked at the numerous pages in front of me. All of it showing information for different, individual spiders. Every page showing different stats and levels as well as a catalogue of various genes that I knew nothing about.

Yeah, I'm not going to keep track of the status of every individual creature. Heck, I don't even need the DNA stuff just yet. I'm fine with keeping track of them on a macro scale, unless there's some kind of fight they're better off dealing with most of the minutia.I'll get a better handle on things before I try to take over completely. Maybe when they evolve I'll try a more detailed look into them, but that much information is beyond me right now. I'd rather not push my luck a second time. In fact, I think it's time the system started pulling some more weight....

The menu was obviously fairly intelligent, and good at adapting to my needs, but I hadn't really attempted anything quite on this level. Sure, I had manually changed the layout of it. Yeah, It had the ability to understand me and do certain things independantly. That didn't necessarily mean those facts would work in tandem. Simply put, I wasn't sure if this would actually work. If it did, it would be an immense time saver. If not, I'd be dealing with alot of things I just wasn't yet handled to equip. So obviously I was really banking on things turning out in my favor.

"System, aggregate my drones of identical types into an average specimen in the drone menu, and create new aggregates when I recieve new Drone types."

If this works, I could probably do that for queens as well at some point. Although, considering how small their numbers are going to be in comparison, it won't be a high priority.

After waiting for a tense few moments, fearing my escape from life became it's own kind of torment, I finally recieved my spiders averaged statistics. It was a nice change of pace to have something go my way.

Anelosimus Eximius

(Pest) Average Level: 13 A mana enhanced nest building species of spider with cooperation based survival patterns. Note: 20 in a stat is peak non-system enhanced human capabilities. Base Statistic Amount Description Power 1

Raw strength, helps do damage and overcome resistance

Resilience 1

The toughness of a person to physical damage/effects

Agility 4

The flexibility of the body, person's overall speed, and muscle memory. Assists in accuracy of melee

Vitality 1

The total health and stamina of the body, resistance to ailments, and speed of recovery

Soul 1

The capacity for mana and magic

Will 0

The resilience against mental effects, focus, emotional stability, ability to 'push beyond limits' temporarily

Mind 1

Intelligence, wisdom, ability to manipulate mana and similar effects, memory

Senses 6

Reaction time, situational awareness, assists in accuracy of ranged

Level Stats Main Stats every 4th level [Main Stats] Amount Agility 1 Senses 2 Vibration Sensitivity

Senses stat is doubled when on a web or the same surface as the sensing target

Eusocial

This Creature's experience also benefits the 'queen'. This creature is considered under the control of said 'queen'

Wall Crawl

Removes penalties for vertical and upside down movement

Web

Create sticky webs to trap others

Ok, that's good. I mean, it's terrible, they're nowhere near the strength to defend themselves if a person tries to wipe them out. 20 is peak human without the system, these creatures don't even get passed 10. Even with their numbers it wouldn't be much of a fight if they faced someone with a class. However, now I know that they're terrible. Which means I can make my choice on what path for them to take in a more educated fashion, rather than flowery descriptions.

I went back to the previous menu, and picked queens. Instantly the system shifted my attention to the single breeding spider I had avaliable, while also conveniently showing me their 'Status' which I quickly trimmed to make more convenient to look at.

Anelosimus Eximius Queen

Tier: Pest Level: 13 Power: 2 Resilience: 6 Agility: 5 Vitality: 8 Soul: 1 Will: 0 Mind: 1 Senses: 9 [Level Stats] Main Stats every 4th level [Main Stats] Amount Resilience 1 Vitality 2 Senses 1 Ability Description Vibration Sensitivity Senses stat is doubled when on a web or the same surface as the sensing target Eusocial(Queen) Gains Experience from those under your control, reproduce a steady amount of drones over the course of a day. Wall Crawl Removes penalties for vertical and upside down movement Web Create sticky webs to trap others

This, is marginally better. I think? It still isn't the most detailed, but it's still better than what I had previously. I see what they can do, but it really doesn't get in detail or have numerical values. I could understand on Vibration Sensitivity, that's a simple and straightforward explanation, but others are more vague. Like, what determines the amount of experience gained and how many drones are produced-

I didn't even get to finish the thought. The orange boxes were getting faster at responding. Whether this was because of the previous attempts to use intent to better communicate, or just a natural change from the menu's adaptability, I had no clue.

[Eusocial(Queen)]:Drones produced is equal to (vitality*10) but is spread out over the course of a day. Experience gained from drone kills is halved before being further reduced based on normal experience reductions or increases.

Well there we go, then. I guees no more fumbling in the dark, I just need to ask the system to find the answers for me. I'm starting to see why other essences keep this thing around.

It was time to take another look at what my spider's potential evolutions had to offer.