It took an entire hour before the swarm of Blade Sardines finally decide I wasn’t worth the effort. Some of them tried to swim into the cave but ended up getting stuck and eaten from behind to make way. I was scared that they were going to be able to bite through the stone and dig their way to me but it seems that they can’t do that.

Fucking hell, why did they have to stick around so long. Why couldn’t they go after some other monster, do octopus taste that great? As I dwell on that thought I look at my tentacles wondering how I taste. Best not think about it too hard. I leveled up quite a lot from that fight if I’m right, let’s check my status since I was more concentrated on running away with my life than reading the notifications.

Name: Unnamed

Race: Baby Octling

LvL: 5/5 (max)

HP:2/10

MP: 0

Strength: 5

Vitality: 6

Defense: 3

Agility: 5

Endurance: 8

intelligence: 8

Rank: O

Status: Posioned(tiny)

Titles: [Reincarnator] [Kin Eater] [Curiosity]

Unique skills: [Multi-limbed lvl 1] [Poisonous beak lvl 3] [Ink Cloud lvl 1]

Skills: [Acid shot lvl 2] [Inspect lvl 3] [Night Vision lvl 2] [Hidden Presence lvl 2]

Resistance: [Mental Resistance lvl 2] [Hunger Resistance lvl 3] [Acid Resistance lvl 1] [Pain Resistance lvl 2] [Fear resistance lvl 3] [Rage Resistance lvl 1] [Weakness Resistance lvl 1]

I maxed my level out just from that fight. I guess fighting monsters of higher rank gives you more exp. as I look through I notice that my max health has improved drastically. It’s twice the amount of health I had started with. Hmmm, mana is still zero… Is there a way to get mana I think to myself before noticing that I’m stilled positioned. Oh yeah, that sea cucumber poisoned me. I wonder when my status is going to go back to normal.

I’m a bit concerned that I’m might die from that but I haven’t lost any hp as of now only a mild stomach ache.

My Vitality, Strength, Defence, and Agility has improved as well. Wait… what do they even do? Does strength quantify my actual physical strength? How would you even represent something like strength as an actual quantity? Does that mean Vitality represents my health, Agility my speed, Defence the toughness of my skin and strength, well, my strength?

Questions for future me, right now I have a small headache and I rather not make it worse.

Wait so I’ve maxed out my level what do I do know? I use my newly leveled up inspect on my level and all of a sudden a mechanical voice rings in my head.

[Congragulations for maxing your level for your current evolution]

[You have unlocked the ability to change characteristics of your body to a certain degree, new skill [Alter] has been obtained]

[Please choose an evolution choice from the following]

[Baby Octopus] [Rank: F]

A larger variant to the Baby Octling with increased physical strength and size.

[Assasin Baby Octling] [Rank F-]

Using acidic projectiles from afar and extremely poisonous saliva to render prey immobile. Assassin Baby Octling is stealthy Assasin that Belen’s in with their surroundings but have weak bodies.

[Baby Squidling] [Rank F-]

With the addition of 4 more limbs and a small internal skeleton for protection, they are quick and dexterous, unlike their beefy cousins.

[Magical Baby Octling] [Rank F]

An oddity of nature, who would have thought that a low leveled monster would enough intelligence to understand the workings of magic.

I’m left pretty baffled as I hear another voice in my head other than my own. Hello? Anyone there I talk to myself in my head. Did I hear that right? I’m not going crazy, am I? After I’ve confirmed that the voice is no longer there, I look at my evolution choices. Baby Octopus was most likely what my siblings were. Assassin Baby Octling seems like a pretty viable option but its rank seems to lower than the Baby Octopus. Baby squidling? Wait I can turn into a squid? This evolution seems to focus more on speed which looks nice but I’m already having a tough time with eight limbs I don’t think the answers would be more limbs. As I gaze into the screen considering the choice of Assasin Baby Octling I notice that a fourth option was present.

Magic Ba-... I stopped reading as soon as I see the word magic. D-does this mean I can make fireballs out of thin air and throw them. The wait isn’t mana and magic-related somehow, I’m pretty sure I’ve read about something that goes along the lines of you using mana to do magic. I waste no time hesitating and immediately click on Magic Baby Octling.

[You have selected [Magic Baby Octling] are you sure?]

YES!

[You have selected [Magic Baby Octling]]

[You have unlocked mana]

[4 intelligence, 1 Endurance point have been awarded]

[Mana Manipulation lvl 1 has been acquired]

[Mental resistance lvl 2 has leveled up]

[You can alter your current body]

Huh? I say as the mechanical voice speaks in my mind once again. Wait did I hear that, so I’m not going crazy after all the notifications are speaking to me, also what does that mean. Immediately a screen showing my body is presented to me. I try moving around but it seems my gaze is fixed on the screen. I guess I’ll alter it. How do I even alter my body now that I think about it? I look at my body and I try to see if I can do something by touching it but nothing happens. Wait am I supposed to do? I imagine having a longer tentacle and then one of my tentacles elongates. Woah that’s pretty cool. As soon as it’s finished elongating I feel slightly depleted of something. Hmm, I don’t think I want this kind of modification and immediately the tentacle retracts to its original size and I feel some sort of energy come back to me. I wonder what that feeling was?

I think over what I want to modify and I remember that I had a limited amount of acid shots. There has to be some sort of organ where I store the acid. I imagine it getting bigger and a whole lot of this energy I can feel disappears. My main body also becomes slightly larger. Interesting so there is an organ of some sort where I store acid. I still have some energy left over to spend. I think about my beak and wonder how I could modify that. I try to make the beak bigger but it seems I don’t have enough energy left to do that so I try making the beak sharper and all the energy I have left leaves my body as my beaks become a bit more menacing.

[Are complete with your alterations]

The mechanical voice speaks in my mind. Yes I confirm and I suddenly feel tired and I slowly sink myself into the darkness.

Even after killing those pathetic excuses of monsters the alien stench still lingered. One of those slimes even dared to bite his eye and cause his majesty discomfort. It annoyed his eminence a great deal and he made it very obvious when he crushed a crab that was cleaning him. The other smaller crabs cringed back as the tyrant king started to eat the remains of the unfortunate crab. He would have to go back out and sully his presence with the peasants. He would wait until he became hungry enough to stand the presence of the lesser beings rather than eating all his attendants. He slowly scuttled back into his den and once the smaller crabs were sure that he had left they crawled slowly to their dead comrade and ate whatever scraps the tyrant had not finished.

I woke up to find the cave I was in smaller than I had remembered. What the? I looked around to find that I was taking up more than half the space. Woah so I evolved I guess… I checked my status just to be sure.

Name: Unnamed

Race: Magic Baby Octling

LvL: 1/15(0/15)

HP: 6/12

MP: 8/8

Strength: 5

Vitality: 6

Defense: 3

Agility: 5

Endurance: 9

intelligence: 12

Rank: F

Status: Normal

Titles: [Reincarnator] [Kin Eater] [Curiosity]

Unique skills: [Multi-limbed lvl 1] [Poisonous beak lvl 3] [Ink Cloud lvl 1] [Alter]

Skills: [Acid shot lvl 2] [Inspect lvl 3] [Night Vision lvl 2] [Hidden Presence lvl 2] [Mana Manipulation lvl 1]

Resistance: [Mental Resistance lvl 3] [Hunger Resistance lvl 3] [Acid Resistance lvl 1] [Pain Resistance lvl 2] [Fear resistance lvl 3] [Rage Resistance lvl 1] [Weakness Resistance lvl 1]

I unlocked mana and my race name has changed. My status has changed back to normal, that’s comforting to see. I look at my skills and I see Mana Manipulation has been added. It’s time to make fireball boys, there’s a new top dog in the ocean and he’s a tentacular magician.

I activate [Mana Manipulation]

I don’t know what I expected but maybe something like a fireball was what I expected. Instead, I felt some weird slime like liquid all around me. Huh…

Talk about anticlimactic…

WHAT THE LITERAL AND UNGODLY FUCK IS THIS!

I was lead to believe I could throw fireballs at whim or anything along this line. I have been deceived and cheated. I demand a refund. I shout to the mechanical voice I heard in my head. Now you stay silent you little shit. If I see you again I’m going to make sure you wish you never tricked me!!!

After blowing off some steam and several insults and curses I relax and use inspect on Mana Manipulation to get a gist of how to utilize the skill.

[Mana Manipulation]

[The ability to manipulate mana into other forms]

That’s pretty self-explanatory. I activate the skill and try to reach out to the slime-like liquid that I think is mana all around me when I’m using the skill. I slowly tug on the mana and try to move it around me. Slowly but surely the mana starts to move around me and I notice that I lost 1 mana in the process. I tug on the mana harder and the mana starts to move faster as I keep moving it.

[Mana Manipulation lvl 1 has leveled up]

I deactivate Mana Manipulation as the notification register in my mind. I check the amount of mana I have and I noticed that I have lost 4 mana. The description that I got from using Inspect on Mana Manipulation said that it was the ability to turn mana into other forms. Keeping that in mind I again activate Mana Manipulation and start to manipulate mana once more but this time I try to manipulate the mana and get it to influence the surrounding water.

Once again I lightly tug on the mana and it starts to move. I try thinking about the water and the mana surrounding. I tug harder on the mana and I start to feel a small current of water form around me. Before I can admire at my handiwork my mana drops to zero and I feel a strange emptiness that feels as if my insides were emptied out and I was hollow.

Mana Manipulation immediately stops and the current dies down. Soon the feeling vanishes but I feel pretty weirded out by the feeling. I wonder what would happen if I tried to continue using Mana Manipulation but I have a feeling it isn’t going to be good.

My stomach started to grumble. I guess it’s time to go look for something to eat again. I look at where I think my stomach is and I wonder how much I can eat. Oh well, I feel like having a little feast today I think to myself happily as I squeeze myself out of the tiny hole.