Humans

So I decided to test out the human's strength. Hopefully, they didn't disappoint me. The best way to go about it, in my opinion, was to send out creatures that I could find in the forest and make them fight the group of humans. Perhaps I could find a bear or some horned rabbits. So, with this plan in mind, I used [Grow] to grow out more tendrils to look for suitable beasts.

Surprisingly, I saw a change immediately. My growth was much more powerful after I had evolved. When I used it, my tendrils extended out further than before, and they were stronger even without using [Reinforce]. It was a pleasant change, but I would get to look into it some more later. After I finished with this. First things first.

Using my extended tendrils, as well as [All Sense], I spotted out a stray bear that was looking around for prey. Perfect! Immediately, I began using [Body Manipulation] to try taunting it to follow me. Soon enough, it spotted me and let out a deep growl as it brandished its claws.

"This is too easy," I thought as the bear followed me towards the human camp.

Eventually, we reached the camp, and the humans instantly got up at the threat. Then they began to fight.

The combat of them versus the bear that I sent was certainly interesting. The warrior and rogue had quite standard combat abilities though they got injured multiple times throughout the fight. However, they did showcase some powerful skills. The warrior had used his weapons and brute strength, while the rogue could mask his presence, concealing himself and then striking in with deadly but swift attacks.

Orbs of frost were thrown by the mage in the blue robe, causing the beast's movement to slow. Then he would into dealing significant damage as he completely froze a chunk of its flesh. Glowing lights radiated throughout the party of combatants as the white-robed mage healed them of their injuries, rejuvenating them and allowing them to fight for longer.

I was quite happy with their overall battle power, so I kept sending beasts to further test them. However, after a while, the party's strength seemed to die down due to fatigue. The ones affected most by the constant attacks were the mages as it seemed like they could barely regenerate enough mana to be useful in the fight.

Soon enough, they noticed something was off with the number of animal attacks they were suffering so I toned them down quite a bit. I wouldn't want them to find me...

The party seemed well-rounded, with its stereotypical RPG roles. But I still think I could take them on if they hadn't been holding back so far. I could attack from multiple directions at once with tendrils while providing myself with supportive fire with the use of turrets.

One weakness I noticed with the mages of the party was that their magic seemed quite limited, almost without flexibility. The same spell was used multiple times over and over again without any noticeable variation. That alleviated some of my worries.

After a while of nothing happening, and me just watching them. They stood up and began moving once more. During the time they conversed, I continued picking up small words from their language as they kept heading towards my central location.

+[Language Comprehension]

A new skill granted by the system and quite a useful one at that! Now, I could understand all of the adventurers' conversations and could glean much more intelligence from them.

Mostly, they spoke of dungeons and complained about the animal attacks. And they didn't seem to say anything about my existence or the fact that they were heading towards my heart.

"Argh, this stupid quest ain't worth the gold. All of our reserves are already running out from fighting those weak runts"

The one who spoke seemed to be the leader of the group. He looked overconfident of himself, thinking of wild and vicious animals as weak...even though he probably would have been dead without the healer in the back supporting his every action. How distasteful.

Perhaps this could help me split them off for scanning and finding out knowledge. But even if they were overconfident I still needed some precautions in place against them. Perhaps they had tracking spells attached to them or something that monitored their vitals from another place letting other humans know if they were dead or not.

Still, this was an interesting development. Getting stronger did feel good, but it was quite boring without something truly challenging to face. Add on the fact that there were no media to consume. I reached the edge of insanity. Patience was truly a virtue. Wish I could listen to some music right now, it would help with my thought process.

I still needed to scan them, but since the party seemed like it consisted of good friends, taking one hostage would be quite hard. But I would have to engage them after sunset, my flesh still burned quite quickly even after all the evolution. I didn't feel pain, but losing my senses in a certain part of your flesh wasn't a very nice feeling.

The party didn't mention anything about nearby civilization, so it was most likely one wasn't close to here. That was both good and bad. Good in the fact that I didn't have to worry about angering a city and bad in the fact that I can't gain mass amounts of intelligence from other races.

I thought that capturing the mage, absorbing his mana, scanning him, and interrogating was the best thing to do, as it was reaping the most benefits. But once again I was worried about tracking spells and such. Kidnapping the mage would be hard, knowing that he probably had several spells in case of such a thing happening. As any competent mage would. I think...

But I wasn't so sure if I was overestimating them or not. Tracking spells had to have a limit of mana usage right? No way they could last forever and indefinitely.

So I decided to take my chances. They kept nearing the center of my body, but eventually, they decided to rest again due to it being dark already. This was perfect for me. I could take one out when the rest were asleep. And soon I would have my own mage Subordinate on my team...