Chapter 21

I was starting to encounter larger creatures, like insect larva. Every battle was against a goliath. These guys were hungry, and some of them would swallow up dozens of my cells at a time. Thankfully, at level five, I could make thirty-two of them, so I had plenty to spare. Usually, I'd move a few to my edge of defenses as backup, and then try to direct the battle from a distance. I'd use several groups of five, but it was a slow and clumsy process.

If the larva got its mouth to one of my groups, it'd swallow them whole before I could even react. A single swing of its massive body was enough to do lethal damage. Furthermore, enemies couldn't be down in a single round. Sometimes, my battles would take hours to bring one day. I'd even take breaks and use Mitosis to recover cells that I lost. I also made sure to use Autotrophy to recover the HP of the survivors. I held back from using Apoptosis.

While it did a good amount of damage, it had started to affect me mentally. I started getting a nervous twitch and feeling paranoid. Eventually, I just couldn't bring myself to keep using it. I left it as an ace in the hole which I would use if things went south. Most of the time, though, the fighting went fine. It was only a few days before I reached my next level.

Congratulations! You have reached level 6.

You have unlocked the skill, Detached Automatism.

Another control skill? This one was exactly what I was missing. Automatism was self-response. In other words, it allowed my individual cells to react! This wasn't a skill I had active control over. It was a passive skill. It seemed to just work on other cells. When I wasn't directly commanding them, they'd read the situation and react accordingly. It was like an AI update on a badly written NPC. At first, it just ran around and would run right into the line of fire. After the update, it would work to preserve its life and know when to attack and when to defend.

My fights went much easier this time, and while it took about ten goliaths to level last time, this time took about a hundred.

Congratulations! You have reached level 7.

You have unlocked the skill, Chromatophore.

This supported my original theory that every level seemed to be about ten-fold harder than the previous, at least within a specific enemy group. That meant to reach level 8 would require 1000 enemies and to reach level 9 would require 10,000. Evolution would require 100,000. These bug larvae were thankfully plentiful, and there was no shortage of enemies where I was located.

Why didn't I consider going after anything larger? It's because the things bigger than bug larvae were much bigger, and I had no confidence within this evolution of being able to take them. Simply put, I was an assortment of cells. We could work together to an extent, but there was no way I could face larger multicellular organisms. A few thousand cells were my limit. Anything bigger than that was like a single person trying to attack an armored castle. No matter how equipped I was, it was a fruitless endeavor.

As for my new ability, Chromatophore, I was only able to figure out what it did based on the name. Chromato- simply meant color, and phore meant to contain or have something. So, the name was color having… in other words, I could change my color appearance. That fits with its body modification skill type. Such a thing was useful for an octopus, but I wasn't sure how changing my color would help me.

Instead, I focused on my current leveling, bringing down more and more insect larvae until I finally leveled again.

Congratulations! You have reached level 8.

You have unlocked the skill, Anatomical Separation.

I could now create 256 cells, but even with the support of Detached Automatism, it was just too much. My only chance was to put them into the group, just like I had done with my clones. My only saving grace was that these cell bodies wouldn't turn their backs on me. We were all interconnected and of a like mind, a single organism combined by a weak network of signals.

"I want to evolve."

Who knew that the jump to a multicellular organism was such a large one? Yet, I had not gotten any new attack skills. There was nothing in my status that would change the game. Beyond my now ridiculously high-status points which seemed to be pointless when fighting goliaths that could one-shot me, I didn't feel myself being all that powerful.

Name: ???

Evolutionary Form: 6

Evolution Level: 8

Species: Coenobium

HP: 899900/899900

Stamina: 899900/899900

Attack: 899902

Mana: 0

Defense: 899903 (1,349,855)

Agility: 899902

Skills:

Absorption Skill: Active Diffusion, Endocytosis, Phagocytosis, Pinocytosis,

Attack Skill: Phage Tail, Pilli, Water Jet, Spores

Body Modification Skill: Cellular Growth, Chromatophore, Shape Modification, Specialization

Buff Skill: Anatomical Separation, Decoupling, Toxins

Crafting Skill: Adhesion, Cohesion, Glycosylation, Lysis, Transcription

Control Skill: Autobiokinesis

Defense Skill: Apoptosis, Encapsulation, Cellular Wall

Endurance Skill: Aerobic Respiration, Chemosynthesis, Fermentation, Glycolysis

Experience Skill: Conjugation

Health Skill: Autophagy, Binary Fission, Homeostasis, Mitosis, Photosynthesis, Regeneration

Knowledge Skill: Nuclear Envelope, Replication

Language Skill: Translation

Movement Skill: Cilia, Flagellum, Pseudopod

Perception Skill: Chemiluminescence, Chemotaxis, Photo Sense, Thermoception

Storage Skill: Endocytosis, Exocytosis, Selective Permeability, Vacuole

Stealth Skill: L Form Switching

Support Skill: Acidify, Mutation

However, I was already committed to the path. How many games had I played which had some point where you had to grind levels? This was no different. I was grinding toward my evolution. I didn't want to think about what it would take to evolve, but 1,000 kills still felt doable. I killed and I killed in an endless cycle of find, attack, and then regroup and repair. Time seemed to blend into each other, I hadn't felt it slip away quite like this since I was a small prokaryote struggling to get enough energy.

Compared to that, I was now an army of cell bodies that in great numbers could be used to knock down any enemy, although usually with a cost. Kill after kill passed me by, and finally, the text I had been waiting for in what felt like forever came.

Congratulations! You have reached level 9.

You have unlocked the skill, Cloud Control.

You until now? I would have cursed up a storm if I had a mouth to do so. Cloud Control, or the ability to manage a large group all at once, snapped into play. Suddenly, it was almost like I was playing one of those old strategy games where I had an isometric view and could just select and assign troops. It wasn't like I could see outside my body, but anywhere I put one of my cells became a body.

Furthermore, my senses expanded explosively. The distance continued to grow at every level. At this point, I could see the entirety of the bug larva and even a good bit of distance beyond. However, Cloud Control gave me the ability to compile the senses from every cell simultaneously. In other words, I could string my cells along. As long as the two cells were within range of each other, my senses would expand that much again beyond the next cell. The difference was like night and day.

By sharing the senses, I could expand my range over an entire quadrant. The world that had once seemed vast and unknown suddenly became a clear picture for me. I still had limits. I only had 512 cells, but I was able to map out my area very well. I was even able to see some of what I called massive organisms wriggling by, although I continued to keep my distance.

Most importantly, I could now coordinate my attacks with ease. I could even use Detached Automatism to engage in two battles at once. Just like before when I started sending out teams. I changed my strategy completely. I'd come to a new area and then spread out a few dozen cells, bringing a small quadrant of space under my control. Then, I would divide my teams into groups of sixty-four. Each group would get a target and then go off to eliminate it.

With 512 cells, I could have nearly eight teams running at once, and Cloud Control made it easy to direct them. I kept an area as a backup and main base, and then the others left and did raids. My speed of defeating enemies went up by about ten-fold, and best of all, they didn't need to have to regroup and use Conjugation. All of the experience was automatically shared. With one area as a hub, I would send them out to clear out everything in a quadrant, then we'd regroup and move to a new area.

It wasn't particularly long before I finally reached my goal.

[You have reached the maximum level for a Coenobium. If you wish to proceed, you must evolve. Your level will return to level 1. Do you want to evolve into a Symbiotic Population?]

I hit yes before I even looked at what I was evolving into. Hmm? Still not multicellular? Was I destined to remain a single-cellular organism forever?