Chapter 16: I'm not into that!
[You have killed a level 6 Thick Pincer Crab]
[You have gained experience]
Hooooaaaaaaaa,
I breathed out the water from my siphons in relaxation.
That last crab was just a little bit stronger than the second two but by itself it was still no watch for my amazing octopus self.
And who can blame him? I did have 4x times as many arms as him after all!
Looking at my system notifications I can see that not only did I receive an increase in level, But my skills also leveled up with one of them even evolving!
Sweet! With this and the new mutagen points I'll get from this, I should see a big increase in my power!
As I reach for the corpse of the crab I just killed I see some movement out of the corner of my vision.
I look over and I see the original leader of the crab gang!
And I really do gotta say, he does not look like he's in good shape.
With one of his eyes torn out and over half of his legs gone, this crab probably wouldn't survive for more than a day before succumbing to his wounds.
I can see him staring at me with his one remaining eye, as he glares at me with both hatred but also a newfound fear.
I swim over to his ragged body as he tries to feebly lift one of his pincers to attack me, but fails to bring it up and only succeeds in opening and closing his pincer.
I place myself on his back and grab onto both of his large pincers with 4 of my arms each before I pull in opposite directions.
The reason I'm doing this is because I want to test the limits of my strength, specifically If I can literally tear an enemy apart.
I'm really not doing this because I want to torture it! I'm not into that!
As I pull I gradually see lines appear in the shell before...
CRACK!
Both of the pincers of the crab are torn off of its body, as the bloody body of the crab stops moving
[You have killed a Level 7 Thick Pincer Crab!]
[You have gained experience!]
Huh...
I to be totally honest I was thinking that the crab would be split in half. I thought that it's main arms wouldn't be torn off as easily, but I guess they're not as sturdy as I thought.
I grabbed the largest crabs legs which I had torn off before and began to stick them into my beak as it snapped shut over and over again
[You have gained one mutagen point!]
[You have gained one mutagen point!]
[You have gained one mutagen point!]
From the 8 legs alone I managed to get a full 3 mutagen points!
'Is this the advantage of fighting something that's a higher level than me?'
I thought as I made my way over to the large crab's main body only to come across a problem as I looked at it.
How am I going to eat this?
As a completely limbless body I now had nothing to grab ahold of it with!
The shell is too hard for me pry open and the body is too large for me to crush so what should I do here?
Eventually I opted to use a rock with a sharp edge to pry open the shell however the process still remained ingrained in my mind.
[You have gained one mutagen point!]
[You have gained one mutagen point!]
[You have gained one mutagen point!]
[You have gained one mutagen point!]
[You have gained one mutagen point!]
...
By the end of completely eating all of the crabs I have managed to gain a total of 29 mutagen points.
As I finished my meal I ditched the remains of the poor crabs and found a nearby hole which I covered with some seaweed and some bushes to hide the entrance before I swam in and sat down, opening my system.
Now, show me that mutation menu system!
This time for my mutations I've got 3 goals.
Firstly I want make one of my mutations get to level five so I'm going to do that first.
[Spring Loaded Tentacles have increase to level 4!]
[Spring loaded tentacles have increased to Level 5!]
[You are able to choose your next advancement for your Spring Loaded Tentacles Mutation!]
Aha! So I was right! It would seem like this system follows a set criteria of evolution rules and that the first stage of evolution is always on level 5!
Now lets looks at the options... this is where my second goal comes into play.
I didn't quite realize this during the fight, but against either enemies who are going to have a really strong defense, or who are mch larger than me, I'm going to have a pretty hard time fighting against them.
Thus for evolving my tentacles, I want to add spikes!
It looks like upon reaching the evolution level for mutations you can add an additional mutation to that organ. So for example I could make my tentacles even more springy or I can give them something such as poison on top of my original springiness.
As such I decided to go with this...
<Are you sure you want to evolve [Spring Loaded Tentacles] into [Barbed Spring Loaded Tentacles]?
<Yes/No>
YES!
<Very well>
<Mutation evolving...>
Oooooooooo, this one feels even weirder than the last one!
As I study my numb tentacles, I can slowly see different sized curved barbs growing and protruding from my skin.
They appear on both the top, where my skin is smoother, and underneath in the middle of my suckers, along with a single larger curved barb on the tip of each tentacle.
Sweet! These things not only look awesome but I can also tell that I should be able to dig into both skin and armor alike with these!
With this I can finally cause actual damage without needing a grip on my opponent!
Once the mutation is finished and the numbing dies down on my tentacles, I can finally actually feel the barbs.
I also found out a handy dandy little trick with them as well.
By flexing the muscles in my arms I can make them push out of my skin so I can actually use them, and by relaxing my arm I can make them retract back into my arm so it looks like the smooth tentacle before!
I can still feel them under the skin, but this should definitely help me with not accidentally hooking onto something or not accidentally piercing myself!
Plus these barbs are relatively small compared to the rest of my body so they also shouldn't restrict me from fitting into any holes or gaps which I could have before.
Now, lets look at my next mutation.
As much as I hate to use it, my ink is indeed very useful.
So far everything in it has seemed irritated which I can only conclude is because of its taste, and hasn't been able to see very well while in it.
The only problem with it (aside from its taste and smell) is that it also makes it harder for me to see as well.
Mercifully however, there is indeed a mutation for my eyes which can allow me to see better through my own ink.
<Are you sure you would like to purchase [Ink Seeing Eyeballs] for 1 mutagen point?>
<Yes/No>
Yes please!
<Very well>
<Mutation process beginning>
EEEEEEEEEEEE!
I immediately close my eyes as I feel like moving and squirming about.
It's not painful by any means, however it is SUPER uncomfortable and weird to feel my own eyeballs moving.
Unbeknownst to Oliver however, during this process his eyes turned black with the signature rectangular pupil changing into a golden color.
As luck would have it though, this mutation only took about 30 seconds. Opening my eyes I didn't notice anything different with my vision but it's not like I got a generic upgrade.
This should mainly help me see through my ink, that was why I bought it after all, plus this is only the 1st tier of it so I'm not mad it doesn't do anything else.
After evolving those two organs I still have 20 mutagen points left so I decided to pump my [Quick Siphons] up to level 5 as well.
[Quick Siphons have increase to level 3!]
[Quick Siphons have increase to level 4!]
[Quick Siphons have increase to level 5!]
[You are able to choose your next advancement for your Quick Siphons Mutation!]
I was given the same response as before, however for my siphons, instead of splitting up my mutations, I want to just enhance the same mutation for the next tier.
<Are you sure you want to evolve [Quick Siphons] into [Rushing Quick Siphons]?
<Yes/No>
Yep, yep!
<Very Well>
<Mutation Evolving...>
This mutation wasn't that bad in terms of how uncomfortable it was, because, well, I'm not very used to having them still anyway so it's fairly easy to ignore them.
With my last 8 Mutagen points I can level up my [Dark Ink Sac] once and my new [Ink Seeing Eyeballs] twice.
[Dark Ink Sac has increase to level 3!]
[Ink Seeing Eyeballs have increase to level 2!]
[Ink Seeing Eyeballs have increase to level 3!]
I want to try and keep these two mutations specifically at basically at the same level since they are directly complimentary towards one another.
After finishing up with all of my mutations my status now looked like this
<Name: Unnamed>
<Level: 6>
<Health: 75/75>
<Mana:10/10>
<Titles: (None)>
<Age: Child>
<Vitality: 15>
<Strength: 22>
<Speed: 18>
<Endurance: 10>
<Intelligence: 13>
<Magic: 1>
<Luck: 13>
<Mutations: Barbed Spring Loaded Tentacles (Level 1) (Tier 2), Dark Ink Sac (Level 3) (Tier 1), Rushing Quick Siphon (Level 1) (Tier 2), Ink Seeing Eyeballs (Level 3)(Tier 1)>
<Skills: Active: Ink Cloud (Level 4) Advanced Camouflage (Level 1) Passive: Advanced Tentacle Grab (Level 1) Regeneration (Level 2)>
<Tier: 1>
<Species: Constricting Octopus>
<Unassigned Stat Points: 0>
<Mutagens: 0>
<Skill Points: 1>
I had already distributed my stat points into vitality and strength with 3 points in each, and then speed and endurance with 2 points each.
When I evolved I guess that I got 10 stat points per level versus 5 stat points when I was at tier zero, but that seems logical as I would imagine 5 stat points at later tiers would be completely useless.
The last thing to address were my evolved skills however I don't see any major changes excluding the "advanced" section in front of them. It seems to just make them better in general for both my tentacle grab and my camouflage.
Now, its time for the final part which I had actually managed to neglect in my initial excitement upon evolving.
My magic!