Chapter 9 - New heights (1/2)

I have to admit, I was super excited to finally be something that's not completely useless. Being a bug was a pretty pathetic experience. All I could do was eat and eat, and let's not forget, be food for anything that's bigger than me. What an exciting life!

Time passed while I rested inside the cocoon. I could feel my body changing, quickly growing, filling out the big shell that I was engulfed in. Previously I had a lot of space, but now it felt that I was filling it up almost completely. By now I could tell when I will emerge. I felt the energy coursing through me, ready to erupt and shatter my protective cover. In a moment the egg shattered, and I could feel my vision slowly returning.

For the first time in my life I could feel a regular head forming, with its usual accessories: a pair of eyes, a mouth with teeth, and a tongue! No mandibles, no antennas, nothing weird. I had no legs or hands, I was almost the exact same copy as my deceased predator, just slightly bigger. I would say I was about around a meter long.. More or less, hard to be exact.

I had crystal clear vision, and with my boosted Dark Sense, I could clearly see and sense the entire cavern system I was in. It was actually pretty weird, as I could 'see' the entire corridor and the connecting cave as well. I could not see it with my eyes per say, but combined with my vision and my system assisted mapping feature, I knew every single detail in my previous home.

Looking back to it now, that cave was about half the size of this one. How large it felt back then!

My whole body was covered in golden scales. They looked really cool, very shiny. I had 2 large fangs in my mouth that I felt I could use to spray my venomous spit ahead of me. I probably need to practice with it later on, as I have no idea how to aim with it currently. It was just a feeling, and I could remember that my huntress used it against me previously as well.

I probably spent way too much time just slithering around myself and looking at my body at every angle. Just let me enjoy myself a bit, finally I wasn't at the bottom of the food chain. I really just wanted to release a loud roar to let the world know they should get ready because I am coming!

Unfortunately, while I was capable of producing sound finally, it was limited to hissing and similar sounds. Anyways that will not going to ruin my mood, so with that I hissed as loud as I could.

'This feels much better. Okay let's take a look at the Evolution Status now.' I had a feeling it had some incredible additions.

[Evolution Status

Current form: Cave Viper(Tier 1)

Level: 1/25 (0/100 xp) -

Mastery: 0%

Tasks:

*LOCKED*

*LOCKED*]

'Really? Both of them are locked? How will I know what to do?' I complained. First of all, I can only see 2 tasks, and both of them are locked and hidden. What should I do now?!

[Simple Aiden. The system after the fight wants you to go out and explore. It will not give you visible pointers and would like it if you could just go and live your life.]

'Live my life? But… *sigh* You are right, if I just go from task to task that will not accomplish anything at all. It was quite useful so far, but if I have to do my own thing from now on, then I will do just that. Will the tasks unveil themselves at some point?'

I had to admit, that while it annoyed me that the safety net that I was given previously was taken away, this is a liberating feeling as well. I do not need to rely on the tasks solely, I should just live my life to the fullest.

[The tasks will be unlocked if you happen to complete them, or if in any case the system deems it necessary to guide you. Most likely you won't even need them. Your mastery rating will go up as you naturally understand your current form better. ] Answered Enya.

'Also how does the level that I can see here work, and what is the Guided Evolution Path that brought so much change to you?'

[The guided evolution path is a specialized evolution tree that is available to different life forms. Your current form has a complete tree that will be available to you. Once you reach the level requirement for the upgrade, you will be able to evolve into a new species that is one step higher than your current one. As for what those are, unfortunately that is not something I can show you. Once you are strong enough, you will be able to pick and select from the available ones. Also note that with the Absorb ability in most cases you will not get enough life essence from the absorbed life form to be able to evolve into it. So far you absorbed only primitive life forms, so you got it pretty quickly, but most likely from now on, you will just get a very small amount of usable essence, and you might just want to use that and convert them to experience points in the system to use it to strengthen your abilities.]

Enya went into a long-winded explanation, to answer all of my upcoming questions. She was right, I started to think of my Absorb ability as a surefire way to get new forms right out of the bat. That should not be the case.

There was one more thing that kept bothering me. I just could not remember anything since I woke up to how I got to this cavern, who I am, and what I am. I mean, I know that my name is supposed to be Aiden, and the sisterly voice I keep hearing is called Enya, and that there's a unique guide inside me, deep inside my soul that provides me this weird system that Enya keeps referring to… but besides that nothing.