Karma's a Bitch

That's a lot of new stuff and it sounds good. After looking into all the rewards I got for killing the Scyphozoa's, none of them are bad, weird when I consider my usual luck. The title 'Seed of Calamity' grants a bonus +50% to my total experience gain. Other than that it doesn't do anything else except for stating my potential evolution into one of the four Heralds. The title 'Immortal Slayer' on the other hand has some more combat-oriented bonuses, albeit very conditional. Whenever I am in combat with an immortal being, my STR, VIT, DEX, INT, WIS, MND all get a +200-200,00 bonus depending on their tier. Moreover, all attacks again immortals deal an additional 500-100,000 true damage that once again scales based on their tier. That's a pretty big bonus but I honestly don't think I will be fighting many immortals to be able to make good use of it, not right now anyway. While the two of those are both nice, however, the real kicker here is the acquisition of the natural mutation, Soul Furnace. Whenever I kill other creatures that have a soul, I can absorb it and gain a permanent bonus to almost all my stats. Currently, my bonus is at +3, more than likely, no more like a 100% guarantee that it's due to the death of the Scyphozoa's. From now on eating whatever small fish I can find will do far more than grant a pitiful amount of experience and biomatter. Even the tiniest of existences can feed my ever growing power.

With the new goal of raising the power of the Soul Furnace, I had begun wandering around in search of an easy snack. To my surprise, I'm actually lucky enough to find enough defenceless prey to easily raise my bonus up to +10. Cowardice for picking on the weak? Well, being brave and picking fights with monsters capable of fighting back around these waters is practically suicidal... even if the large biomatter and experience are tempting.

For my last meal before I begin to look for a place to rest, I steal the kill of a weird eel monster that's about half my size. At least I think it's an eel. It's got the shape of an eel but its sides are coved in some kind of sharp bone, and sprouting right off the front of its head is an appendage that resembles the bill of a swordfish. And it doesn't seem very happy, about having its dinner stolen, rather it seems really mad over a single small fish. Well, it's only half my size anyways, no big deal.

Race: Young Bladed Eel Shark

Tier: 4

Level: 10

State: Enraged

HP: 1,477/1,477 MP: 598/598 SP: 1,829/1,829

STR: 183

VIT: 158

DEX: 123

INT: 77

MND: 73

Details: A shark with a body plan that's similar to an eel. Its sides are covered in sharp points made from bone. It has a blade-like appendage that is used to slash at prey. its blade is also covered in small sharp points like the main body, getting hit can cause severe bleeding.

"Skill: Investigate has levelled..."

Listen here, System, now is not the time for that. There are more importing things going on right now. In the end how no matter how much time passes some things never change, the System will always give me notifications with horrible timing and anytime something good happens to me, a whole lot of bad stuff is sure to follow. Karma for the actions of my past life? Not a chance, I was in the right for every decision I ever made. I'm just really unlucky. And why does almost everything I run into have to be enraged? Of course, I do the normal thing in this situation, run for the hills! I use Acid Beam at the shark's face in an attempt to blind it, but the water causes it to disperse before hitting; good enough for a smokescreen at least. And for good measures, I give the shark a nice old fashioned slap to the face with the backend of my tail, as I hightail out of here. Needless to say, my tail slapping did much more than initially let on due to my Toxic Scales, but the actual amount of damage I dealt still pales in comparison to it's actual HP, hardly doing more than 30 damage. Well, it also probably angered the shark even more, but that's not a good thing so it gets ignored.

Every so often I turn my head to see the shark still chasing me, and every time I throw out another Acid Beam. After repeating this process a dozen times its health has dropped a considerable amount, well in my eyes anyway, down to 1,346. Thankfully it's taking more damage than it normally would if the shark hadn't lost some of its reasoning to rage, with it just blindly charging into the pool of acid. Is this perhaps... doable? Can I actually win if keep this up? Due to my acid slowing the shark down and the slippery nature of sea snakes, I let this chase go on for a few hours before then shark finally shows signs of retreat, with a little over 500 HP remaining. Turning once more to use Acid Beam, before I can open my mouth I feel the water rapidly hear as a loud pulse is sent out before a shockwave blows the shark to bits. Alright, now this is karma. Looking at the source of the jerk who stole my kill I find a small crustacean with unusually large pincers, pulling itself up from underneath the sand. With having learned my season from the eel shark and from the little crustacean's display of power, I make sure to use Investigate before trying any funny business.

Race: Adult Bullet Mantis Shrimp

Tier: 8

Level: 46

State: Healthy

HP: 53,877/53,877 MP: 40,408/40,408 SP: 58,7258/58,7258

STR: 1,070,534

VIT: 119,607

DEX: 168,096

INT: 183,720

MND: 21,551

Details: The Bullet Mantis Shrimp is capable of snapping its claws at such strength that enough pressure is generated to heat the surrounding water to temperatures close to that of stars. The shockwave can stun large creatures, assuming they are bulky enough to survive the impact. Will often kill large monsters and drag the portion it can eat with it when it burrows, leaving the rest for any lucky passerby.

You win mister shrimp, I respect your power and will not attempt to kill you right now. The shrimp eventually swims up to a piece of the shark and returns to its place beneath the sand. and just like with the shark I hightail it out of the area, of course not without eating up the remains that the little big shrimp left behind. can't just let perfectly good biomatter go to waste, given the size of the shark I was able to collect quite a lot, 332kg.

After travelling for an hour and making sure the area is relatively safe, I settle down and take a look at all my gains today.

Name: Cordelia Auspin

Race: Elite Juvenile Sea Snake (Talonian Regional Variant)

Tier: 2

Titles: Provoking Giants (-5 INT), Coward, A Fool, Immortal Slayer, Soul Eater, Seed of Calamity

Level: 8

EXP: 63/1255

HP: 158/148 (+11) MP: 33/23 (+11) SP: 363/353 (+11)

STR: 59 (+11)

VIT: 68 (+11)

DEX: 35 (+11)

INT: 69 (+6)

WIS: 47 (+11)

MND: 19 (+11)

CHA: 11

LUCK: 5

Acquired Skills: Investigate (5)

Innate Skills: Acid Beam (3), Tail Swipe (6), Venomous Bite (6)

Natural Mutations: Toxic Scales, Soul Furnace (+11)

Mutations: Superior Eyes, Enhanced Size (See Potential Mutations)

Current Biomatter: 948kg

Lifetime Biomatter: 1,488kg

Available Evolutions: N/A (See Potential Evolutions)

Details: A reincarnated Talonian Sea Snake. Some stats have been altered to accommodate for the previous life's attributes. As an Elite monster, you gain a bonus to all stats, current bonus +5. An unusual Juvenile Sea Snake that's only slightly smaller than an Adult Sea Serpent. Take that you cheater, how's it feel to lose all that precious EXP, karma's a bitch.

For the sake of my mental health, I erase that last line from my mind and move on. Due to only killing a few low tiered and levelled fish, my experience for the day is pretty low. I did manage to collect the shark's soul to put the furnace at +11. And getting more than 300kg of biomatter from something half my size is a nice achievement, but I wonder how much I could gain against something that's actually my size for once? The real topic though, is what the hell is with those monster's stats!? Completely absurd.

"Due to your current level of authority, your current question may be answered."

I didn't even know that even existed. What's my current authority level?

"Your current level of authority is not high enough to know your current level of authority."

*Hsss*(sigh)... okay.

"Monsters species of Tier 4,7,10 are of a higher quality than their predecessors. This results in significant jumps in base stats when compared to a monster one tier below."

What tier is the Sea Drake? I'm sure it's higher than my current tier. Actually, almost anything I evolve into will probably be a higher tier than my current species.

"Sea Drakes is a Tier 5 Monster with no specialisation, as such the Sea Drake has well-rounded base stats with almost no immediate weakness."

Nice, tier 5 here I come.