Chapter 42: Quite Big If I Say so Myself

'Five more minutes...' Oliver thought to himself as he heard the sounds of scuffling occurring around him.

Ignoring the noise he attempted to drift back off into the world of calm dreams before he was rudely interrupted.

<Congratulations!>

<You have successfully evolved into Tier 3!>

<You're status has been updated!>

...

Oliver's first thought was to tell the system to go back to it's quiet unhelpful self before his mind gradually processed what it had said.

'Oh! I evolved!'

Finally registering the fact that he had just performed an action of literal magic in his old world, Oliver's mind shot awake, as he blinked for a few moments.

'System! Show me my status!' He thought enthusiastically.

<Showing Status...>

<Name: Oliver>

<Level: 15>

<Health: 480/480>

<Mana: 1630/1630>

<Titles: ???>

<Age: Teen>

<Vitality: 96>

<Strength: 192>

<Speed: 137>

<Endurance: 71>

<Intelligence: 94>

<Magic: 163>

<Luck: 80>

<Mutations: Torrential Barbed Tentacles (Level 1) (Tier 3), Encompassing Pitch Black Ink Sac (Level 1) (Tier 3), Rapid Crashing Siphons (Level 1) (Tier 3), Perceptive Ink Eyeballs (Level 1)(Tier 3), Heavy Physical Density Magic Organ (Level 1) (Tier 3)>

<Skills: Active: Improved Ink Cloud (Level 4) Expert Camouflage (Level 2) Passive: Fine Tentacle Grab (Level 3) Regeneration (Level 3) Bloody Shredding (Level 3)>

<Tier: 3 (Orange Rank)>

<Species: Heavy Monstrous Octopus>

<Unassigned Stat Points: 0>

<Mutagens: 13>

<Skill Points: 9>

...

Taking a look at my new stats, I'm temporarily overwhelmed as I see my new numbers and mutations.

...

"Hahahah..."

"HAHAHAHAH!"

I laugh out loud inside of the dimly lit cove and continue on in my hysterics until I hear a voice near me call out.

"Oliver?" The voice says, as I recognize where it's coming from.

Turning my vision over towards the corner of the cove to where the sound originates from. I can see a smaller crab with a one of it's pincers much smaller than the other which I quickly recognize to be in the process of regrowing itself.

"Shelton?" I say looking at the crab in confusion before realization hits me.

'I evolved! That's why he seems so much smaller!'

Looking down on Shelton, If I hade considered him to be a little larger than 2 meters before I would say that at this point I'm probably around 3 meters in length.

In terms of bulk alone, Shelton probably still has the upper hand on me in that aspect, but I can easily look down upon him again now!

Looking at him, I can see that he is clearly a little drained. However once again seeing one of his smaller pincers, I can tell tell that he had been resting to have the limb regrown.

"What happened?" I ask, as I point towards his little baby pincer.

"I joined a hunting group with Elder Carn, and elder Hugo. We ended up coming across a Synok hunting group which was led by a yellow ranked python."

Picking himself up, Shelton showcased both his regenerating pincer, and two of his legs which were also growing back that I couldn't see before.

"You can probably imagine what happened but we won in the end relatively speaking."

I can feel a myriad of emotions beneath his carapace. It sounds like, pain from his wounds, hurt from the family he lost, and on a funny note, just a little bit of sourness which I can only assume is from the clearly established mass difference between us once again.

"A yellow rank huh?" I ask trying to veer of from the definite negatives which happened in the battle.

"Did you kill it?"

Shelton's face brightens up, even amidst his soreness as I can see the grin on his face. "I'm gonna catch up to you whether you like it or not."

I laugh at that comment, finding my fake ranking amongst the tribe almost like an inside joke that no one knows about but me.

'Catch up to me? You've never been behind me in the first place!'

Logically however, I can completely understand where Shelton is coming from.

I only just evolved into the orange rank, and just looking at my stats alone it would once again appear that I could wipe the floor with Shelton were we ever to exchange blows.

That's only looking at my numbers too, if we take into consideration more of the factors in a fight such as my mutations, and intelligence, Shelton probably wouldn't even be a match for me at this point.

Of course Shelton is still much stronger than you're average orange rank creature, which makes my abnormal self stand out even more amongst them, but it doesn't mean that he's weak.

Just that I'm obviously not an average octopus.

After checking up on Shelton I crawl on top of him, covering him akin to a now massive blanket much to his annoyance, and look down to finally study my new body.

I can already see my size increase to around 3 meters in length, but looking down at my body I can also see a small color change from my original pale white color, to more of a light brown color.

Flexing my tentacles and making sure that I'm not accidentally turning the once again sleepy crab beneath me into a skewer with my barbs, I look at my self in my "combat mode".

I can definitely see more barbs popping up here and there across my body, some of them are actually starting to creep up further along my body despite the mutation being for my tentacles.

The spines are still akin to small black curved hooks lined up along my body.

Some of the original notable ones, such as those around my suckers and those at the tip of each of my tentacles have also grown in size, especially the later.

Moving my ar around akin to a child finding a sword, I entertain the thought of me impaling someone with one of my arms at this rate.

Chuckling to myself as I ingrain the picture in my mind, I hear a muffled voice beneath me.

"mghabmgh..."

Moving myself off of Shelton's much smaller head, he speaks up again. "Do you mind? I'm trying to sleep here."

'Yeouch... Someone's grumpy' I think to myself.

Then again I known damn well I would also be mad if I was waiting to regrow a baby limb, plus my newfound size and me casually flexing it on him probably isn't helping his mood either.

"Sorry, sorry." I apologize to Shelton as I float myself off of his head.

"I think I'm going to go stretch my arms, they're pretty sore plus I'm also kinda hungry." I say to him as he puffs before laying back down as I take that for his acknowledgement.

I was completely lying about the soreness in me. At the current moment I feel like I could punch straight through a rock which I only entertain for a moment before deciding that it would be against my interest to embarrass myself in such a fashion were I to fail.

However I wasn't lying about being hungry. Glancing up at my head as I hear my stomach grumble, I inwardly thank that Shelton is still resting lest I know that he would absolutely let me know about it as it was ammo to use against me in our little body war between one another.

I exit the small cave leaving the kiddy crab behind, all whilst snickering at the fact that he is now about the same size compared to me as those smaller crabs were in the arena when I went there a little while back.

'Maybe I could go back there?' I ask myself before remembering that people think I am now a yellow rank in the tribe.

Aren't I sort of a big shot now as well? I mean, I know I'm not actually a yellow rank, but in terms of strength and, well, "public image" I certainly am which is around the level of most of the elders.

The only crab I can really think of which I'm still not quite caught up to yet would be this fabled "crab leader" which I've only heard about.

*Grumble...*

My thoughts are distracted as I once again hear my head (it seems so weird that my stomach is now in my head) rumble in hunger, and I decided to go to the hunting sector.

Ever since I found out that I don't get mutagen points from eaten prey that I haven't had any part in killing, I've been avoiding the feeding cavern since it won't be beneficial to me in any other way than sating my hunger.

Thus, since I want to eat, I need to go out hunting and plus... I'm really curious about my newfound strength.

Look out Guppy's! Here I come!