Chapter 3 A rat's home

My consciousness return to me, I did not know how long the process of my partial evolution lasted but it didn't seemed long. With great difficulty i opened my eyes for the first time in this life. My vision was not good to say the least, even with a +1 eye evolution, all i could see was a blurry mess.

I checked my stats.

[Name: Adrian Walts]

[Level: 1]

[Species: Rat rat (juvenile)]

[Skills: Bite(level: 1)]

[Ability: Flesh stack(level: 1)]

[Partial Evolution: Monstrous muscles +1, Eyes +1, Growth +1]

[Health: 3/3]

[Mana: 0]

[Strength: 3]

[Speed: 2]

[Durability: 0]

[Intellect: 12]

[Will: 4]

[Skill point: 0]

[Evolution point: 0]

Infant to juvenile! Not bad. The eyes don't have a suffix like the muscles do so it must not be much of an upgrade. And what is the baseline of the body part evolution is, I mean at +1 my eyes are still shit and my nose even without an upgrade are much better than a humans. Is the one listed here in the stats only include the ones we get through the systems evolution? Is the one we get as a species not included at all. Thoughts for later.

As for my stats my mana and durability sre still at zero, need more growing for those two. Nothing I can do for now. I pickup a small bone and started biting it, I want to use my [Bite] skill so I keep on biting but from what I could tell it was in every way a normal bite. I don't understand was the skill a normal thing. So I tried the ones listed on the skill menu, the ones I didn't pick. Jumping, digging, scratching and squeaking, don't know if there are another but I can do them no problem. The bite I did was infact no a skill and just a normal action I performed. As for the ability there was not really a corpse i could fuse with at the moment, I tried it on the bone but to no avail. Either bones are not counted as a part of corpse by the system or I couldn't use it like the skill.

Wait my mana is at zero so it could be that both the skill and ability need mana to work. That must be it, which would also means that I'm currently just a normal rat. That's great, that's real great. Not focusing on the system anymore I started to look around.

The place we were in was really dark, I am pretty sure a normal human would see nothing but black. Fortunately for me my rat vison help me see in the dark and unfortunately for me the resolution i could see in was quite low. Basically night vision but at 240p, still a lot better than being blind but as someone used to a normal human vision it will take a while to adjust.

I couldn't really tell with smell but mother rat is huge, if I am a normal size baby rat which should roughly be the size of a human thumb she should be at least the size of a cat, a chonky cat. I see my rat siblings still drinking its milk and after actually seeing it with my own eyes I don't think I'll partake in anymore rat milk, I've drink enough in my life. I count twelve nipples and with that it was time for me to leave for I have seen everything.

"For all the protein you provide me I thank you but it is time for me depart" I squeaked or tried to but I don't how rat speak and I doubt that was what I said. I don't even know if the rats here are smart enough to communicate but I owed her my gratitude. So long mother rat and siblings.

I looked for the exit and clumsily walked towards it. I could feel her gaze on me and turn back to see her staring intently at me. Mom you don't have to look at me like I'm defective or something and no need to worry about me I can see and I can walk which is more than what I can do as a human, so I have everything I need. Besides you will still have one, two, three.... five other babies, let them continue the bloodline as for me I'm not really about the rat life.

Wow I feel a lot more attached to this fat rat of a mother then I thought. I guess with a rats body comes a rats desire, wait I really hope that is not the case. The implications it could have would be devastating. With me saying what I want to say or thinking it really, I walked forward.

After a few steps from mother rat's chamber i realised we were inside a tunnel. It was more so an interconnection of caves, it was dug by cat sized rats so it was quite big for me. A few more steps and I could smell the scent of other rats, adults and many of them.

I avoided the places with too many rats as I don't really know what they would do to a baby wandering off by itself, I had to pass a few along the way but to my relief they just ignored me. And they are not as big as mother rat maybe it's a rat sexual dimorphism at play here, and pregnant rat grow really big. Whatever it is it's not really going to affect me or anything, so I ignored it.

I kept running around looking for warmer parts cause warm mean close to surface until I did reach the exit. There was some sort of dried straws covering it form the outside and I slowly poke my head outside and all there was was more straws. On closer look the straws are grain leaves stacked atop another, nearly a meter tall stack. At the top I looked over and quickly realised where we were, it was a farm.

It was quite hard to see with my eyes but on the distance i could see the blurry silhouette of a humanoid figure. I'm reminded of my past life by what I saw, a farmer tending to his farm, we had a family farm a big one too but farm work wasn't it for me but I still visit alot. Brother took over the farm and I remember the complaints he made a lot of the time, an often subject of his complaints were pests, especially the one called rats.