[There you go, Tiny. Now you are the most intelligent ape you’ve ever been.]

He looks at me, bat features drooping miserably.

[It’s not that bad! You are being absolutely ridiculous. I took what, twenty points of Might and juiced up your brain. You’ll probably get two hundred Might or more in your next evolution. Knowing you, more.]

The big ape flexes sadly, poking at his bicep with one, thick finger.

[I didn’t even take it from your arms, you big dope. I took the bulk of it from your legs and glutes.]

If anything, he looks even more distraught now, his eyes widening with shock, then narrowing as tears begin to build in the corners. Disgusted with him, I send him off to the golgari.

[I’ve had enough of this absurd nonsense. Get in there and have your consultation, then manually evolve. That’s an order! And you may not lower your Cunning below thirty this time. That’s also an order! Now shoo!]

~~~

Tiny was very grateful to his master. It was Anthony, after all, who had done so much to keep him alive, and if he wasn’t alive, Tiny wouldn’t be able to hit things.

That would be bad.

However, his master really didn’t understand where power came from. The legs? The glutes? They gave so much lift! Without shifting his weight and using the oomph granted by his legs, he couldn’t generate punches nearly as large!

He didn’t know why that was the case, but he knew it was.

Perhaps he should make sure to spend his new Might on his rump. Really pump the area up. But then… his shoulders… and arms!

Tiny frowned. Evolving was fun, but was much harder than it needed to be. Thinking about all the decisions he would need to make made his head hurt.

[Hey there, big guy. You with us?]

Tiny nodded, still frowning, and Granin laughed.

[Look, I can tell you’ve got a lot on your plate. We’ll try and simplify everything as much as possible for you.]

That was good. Simple was good. Simple like a clean straight right.

[Last time, you reset your bones, correct?]

Tiny flashed a quick thumbs up. He had indeed reforged his bones to become sturdier, then mutated them to become sturdier again! Now even he couldn’t break them… he didn’t think.

[Right. This time around, you’re going to want to focus on your musculature. Your muscles. Even if you aren’t offered a free reforge for them, it’s important that you make sure you do it yourself. Understand?]

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The big ape scoffed. Even if they didn’t tell him to, he was always going to reforge his muscles. He’d only done his bones first because these three had told him his body would tear itself apart otherwise.

A smaller one stepped forward.

[You should also consider making your ligaments mutable. These are the tendons that connect your muscles to your bones. If you improve your strength without also anchoring them to your bones with a stronger material, they are likely to tear straight off.]

Why was it so complicated to hit things hard?! Tiny groaned out loud.

[Lig… ligaments…. Then muscle?] he asked.

Granin smiled and nodded.

[That’s right. Make your ligaments mutable, then you can reset your muscles. In fact, if you get an option that will grant you enhanced ligaments off the bat, you should consider it. It may soak up some of your evolutionary energy, but it would be worth it.]

Tiny flexed his diminished rump sadly. He needed that energy to put more pump in the dump! If it wasn’t to be, then it wasn’t to be. He would make what sacrifices were necessary.

The other smaller rock people stepped forward.

[In terms of your lightning generation organs, there are a number of directions they could go, should you choose to. Acceleration organs, ionising organs. You can improve the range and damage of your lightning by quite a bit. Right now, you have a decent quantity of lightning mana, thanks to the dual mana organs you possess, but you haven’t supplemented them with anything to improve their output or increase the rate of generation.]

[Corun… you need to break it down a little.]

The little figure scratched at his head.

[You can add stuff to make the lightning… better,] he finished lamely.

This poor effort earned a chuckle from the big one. Granin.

[Look, evolution is difficult and there are many, many options. Especially when you get to this point. With more evolutionary energy comes the ability to make even more choices. Do you want to spend it all on a few, expensive upgrades, or spread it out a little thinner, but give yourself more flexibility? It’s unfortunate, but Anthony has said that you are the only one who gets to make those choices, Tiny, so you are going to have to make them.]

As painful as it was, Tiny was pleased that he was the one to decide. He liked being able to choose for himself, he just disliked all the thinking that had to go into it.

Why think, when hitting is so much more satisfying?

[It’s going to boil down to this,] Granin tried to explain. He used his finger and some mana to draw a line in the table in front of him, straight down the middle. [This side, we have the things that you are, for sure, going to do. Muscle reforge goes here. Ligaments goes here.]

This was something Tiny could get on board with. He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, leaning closer to stare intently at the desk.

[Now on this side, we have the possibilities. Things you might want to do. We can break these down into categories. First, your wings. It’s weird that you even have shadow wings, but you have them. If you add to the muscles in your back and shoulders, it may be possible to make yourself fly. That’s something to think about.]

He looked up at Tiny to see if there was any reaction. There wasn’t.

[Fair enough. There’s your Sonic Enhancer. With some additions, that can be improved to become extremely dangerous, increasing the intensity and the range.]

Still no response.

[Lastly, your lightning glands. Storm generators will increase the rate at which you accumulate lightning mana, and you could purchase bolt channels to give the lightning a clear path from the glands to your hands or upper arms, making it easier to discharge the mana.]

A slight stir. Tiny did like lightning.

[Alright, let's explore this a little bit further. But just a little,] Granin sighed.