After a lengthy discussion with Granin, Corun and Torrina, the three golgari excuse themselves and head back to the third, but not before promising to continue their painful adaptation process.

Apparently, there’s a ton of people who are trying to make their way down to the fourth, only the intense levels of mana standing in their way. I have to say, if we had the priests and human soldiers fighting alongside the ants, it would help a lot in holding off the wave, although Solant would have to rebalance her formations all over again.

In fact… I should probably encourage a group to come down early if they can survive it. The sooner the little general learns to work with our allies as part of her army, the better. It’s not like the Colony will turn its back on our allies, we need all the help we can get!

With the triad’s valuable knowledge and assistance, I have an idea of what I want to purchase, so I scuttle myself off somewhere I can be alone and start flicking through my menus.

I grab the full package of Skills they recommended, and then start picking out my mutations. For my mandibles, I pick Savage twice and then reinforce it before hunting down the Gravity Injection mutation, which I take twice and reinforce.

To implement the idea Torrina had for my acid, I actually find a couple of workable mutations. It probably helps that I’m looking at +35 mutations, which tend to have more bang for the buck, so to speak. In essence, I want my acid to make the target heavier, to weigh them down, which will, in turn, make them more susceptible to my gravity magic. The simplest method is to go for a hyper thick acid, which sounds like it’d be the equivalent of shooting bricks of acid, which are so dense they basically aren’t liquid anymore.

Thanks to my earlier mutations, the ‘bricks’ would stick to the target, burn them, and start to propagate, creating more of the stuff. Thanks to the intense level of concentration, the acid would be more damaging as well, which would help, but it would reduce my rate of ammo production severely. The stimulation gland and Vestibule will help on that front, making this a simple but attractive method to implement the strategy.

The other method is a little more… odd. Clearly a +35 option, this mutation would imbue the acid with gravitational energy from the jump. Once I fired it and it stuck to the object of my wrath, the acid would then weigh down the monster, the gravity mana pushing it down to the ground.

Both are nice and would be effective, and it’s kind of nice that I have the option of resetting my acid gland later if I choose one and end up not liking it as much. In the end, I go with the hyper-thick option, mostly because it has the benefit of concentrating the effects the acid already possesses. It’ll burn more, be stickier, eat more mana and propagate faster.

With the mandible and acid selections locked away, I look at my two latest resets and wonder what I’ll be doing with them. My Gravity Mana Gland has undergone quite the transformation, turning into a hard stone sitting inside my carapace that regenerates energy from the gravity of the planet, which is handy.

Capacity mutations, at least two of them, are basically a must. Gravity magic takes a hell of a lot of oomph, and although the capacity of the reset organ is a heck of a lot more than when I first received it, there still isn’t enough juice in there for my liking. So two capacity upgrades and I’ll reinforce it, bam.

I don’t quite have enough Biomass to take this all the way to +30 along with the Nave, however, so I’ll leave it there and turn my attention to the more important organ. Every part of the cathedral within me is a key component of what makes me strong right now, so I need to give it my best attention.

I’ve kind of resigned myself to dedicating the first two mutations to increasing the seating capacity of the Nave and then reinforcing it at fifteen. I’m not sure what effect it has, other than granting me communication with the people in there, but that alone is extremely useful. These days, the number of places I can go is diminishing as the demands of my core increase, so being able to get in touch with folks regardless of distance is nice.

But what to do for the mutations between +20 and +30? I’ve got two selections to make and I don’t mind admitting that I’ve got little to no idea what I want to do with them. Before the reset, my default mutation was one that concentrated the energy passing through the Nave. Now that I actually have an Altar as a focus for that energy, that particular mutation might be a heck of a lot better than it was back then, intensifying the effects of the Altar of Self.

I flick through the list of mutations idly, wondering if I can find something better. There’s a lot of odd stuff when it comes to the Nave and I don’t quite understand how a lot of them work. Add Columns to the Nave? What the heck does that even mean? It’s a figurative cathedral! Not a real one!

… Right?

Ah whatever. I’ll take the energy intensifying one, and then look for a new form of mutation when I mutate to +35. There’s bound to be some wild stuff at that level.

It all adds up to quite a nice little spend, with a swathe of new Skills and hundreds and hundreds of Biomass going out the door.

Lock it in!

……………. GRAPPABBALAP!

STUPID ITCH!

Name: Anthony

Level: 35 (Mythic) (VII)

Might: 380

Toughness: 342

Cunning: 228

Will: 195

HP: 684/684

MP: 1100/1100

Skills:

General:

Grandmaster Excavation (V) Level 10; Master Grip (IV) Level 31; Expert Stealth (III) Level 18; Tunnel Compass (IV) Level 30; Iron Mind (V) Level 38; Master Stamina (IV) Level 33; Still Meditation (IV) Level 40; Flash Dash (V) Level 28; Expert Predictive Thinking (III) Level 16; Advanced Efficient Movement (II) Level 9; Expert Observance (III) Level 1; Advanced Coordination (II) Level 7; Balance (I) Level 1; Concentration (I) Level 1; Divergent Thinking (I) Level 1;

Mana:

Advanced Mana Craft (VI) Level 33; Condensed Mana (V) Level 18; Grand Finer External Mana Manipulation (V) Level 36; Mana Hoarder (V) Level 21; Layered Mind Magic Affinity (V) Level 60; Extended Directed Mana Sensing (V) Level 35; Master Healing Magic Affinity (IV) Level 20; Advanced Omni-Elemental Affinity (VI) Level 55; Advanced Mana Masking (IV) Level 14; Wood Magic Affinity (I) Level 1; Metal Magic Affinity (I) Level 1; Lightning Magic Affinity (I) Level 1; Advanced Force Magic Affinity (IV) Level 36; Master Barrier Magic Affinity (IV) Level 20; Master Gravity Magic Affinity (IV) Level 2; Mana Weave (I) Level 1;

Pet:

Far-Flung Pet Communication (IV) Level 12; Core Crafting (IV) Level 18; Pet Growth Speed (I) Level 5;

Defensive:

Divine Exo-Skeleton Defence (VI) Level 26; Grandmaster Dodge (V) Level 22; Grandmaster Endure (V) Level 15; Master Grace (IV) Level 16; Expert Mandible Parry (III) Level 12; Six-Legged Footwork (I) Level 1;

Offensive:

Guided Acid Shot (V) Level 12; Grandmaster Precise Shooting (V) Level 16; Void Chomp (VI) Level 40; Expert Chomp Combo (III) Level 15; Spear Charge (III) Level 9;

Mutations:

Senses:

Focal Compound Eyes +30; Future Wave Sight Antennae (Twilight Filament) +30;

Defence:

Horizon Intensifying Compression Carapace (Gravity-Compressed Diamond) +35; Regenerating Amp Displacer Inner Carapace Plating (Boson Agitating Crystal Flesh) +35;

Physical:

Fortified Absorption Legs +30; Vicious Injecting Mandibles (Gravity-Compressed Diamond) +30; Hastened Potent Regeneration Gland +30; Widespread Stinking Pheromone Gland +30; Expanding Discerning Compression Stomach +35; Coiling Hyper-Twitch Musculature +30; Distributed Instantaneous Sub-Neural Network +30;

Acid:

Hyper-Thick Spreading Mana-Feasting Bind Acid Gland +35; Flexi Hyper Pressurised Scattershot Acid Nozzle +30; Enriching Draining Acid Concentration Gland +30; Viscous Enfeebling Acid Stimulation Gland +30;

Mental:

Indomitable Coordination Cortex +30; Crushing Gravity Well Main Brain +30; Mind Mana Mastery Sub-Brain +30; Mind Mana Mastery Sub-Brain +30; Mind Mana Mastery Sub-Brain +30;

Mana:

Bottomless Gravity Magic Gland (Resonant Well Stone) +15; Might Infusing Collective Will Vestibule (Soul Crystal) +30; Grand Intensifying Communal Spirit Nave (Soul Crystal) +30; Vast Starborn Altar of Self (Soul Crystal) +30;

Species: Perfect Paragon

Skill points: 150

Biomass: 129