ushernet Chapter 12: Gathering Strength
Chapter 12: Gathering Strength
Lia stared in shock at the new drones Rose had made. There were…more than she had expected. A more than she had expected.
Lia said weakly. twenty
Rose explained.
Lia replied,
Lia said.
Lia blinked in surprise. sure
Lia nodded distractedly. too
Lia said.
Rose hesitated for a moment before looking down and continuing.
Lia said firmly, cutting Rose off. anyway
Rose looked up, eyes filled with an emotion Lia couldn’t quite place. Admiration? Loyalty? Lia wasn’t sure. She was oddly good at reading Rose’s emotions when she took into account the fact that Rose was a rat, but she still couldn’t figure out this one. Rose said.
Rose gave her a curious look, but said nothing.
Lia commanded.
Lia nodded.
Understanding dawned on Rose’s face.
least
Rose swelled with pride.
Lia replied.
Rose blinked.
Rose protested.
Lia pondered that for a moment. I’d
Rose hesitated, mulling that over. have
Lia was silent as she considered that.
Lia said. talk
Rose replied.
With that settled, Lia commanded her swarm to listen to Rose’s orders, and set off in search of interesting things to bring back. She definitely wanted to bring back a plant, to see what options having both a plant and an animal would give to a conversion, but everything else was sort of up in the air. She was even considering opening the Dimension of Discounts and buying a couple of cheap things, just to see what they did in conversion, and not because they’d be useful in the upcoming battle.
She eventually decided against that last course of action. If she wanted to make any sort of efficient use of the Dimension of Discounts, she the search function. And if she wanted to get that within the sale period, she needed to save her Blood Money.
She’d also have to carefully balance killing and converting goblins. While converting things gave her more experience, it didn’t give her any Blood Money, and the goblins gave precious little of that to begin with. The goblin sentries gave five each at her Skill’s current level, which meant she’d have to kill about two hundred if she wanted to afford the search.
That was…honestly somewhat doable. It seemed that kills made by her swarm gave her Blood Money as well, and if there was a goblin stronghold in the bazaar like she expected, there would probably be enough goblins for that.
But that would also leave her swarm relatively understaffed. If the other areas were this difficult, she would have a rough time getting through them with a small swarm, especially if she assumed she would lose much of her swarm in the process of hunting the goblins.
But not goblins would be sentries. She suspected many of the ones she would face later that evening would be soldiers of some sort, and those should give more Blood Money. They would also likely convert into much better things, but…she’d get there when she got there.
She reached her first target, a plant not dissimilar to the one she had converted into a prickler, and quickly coated it in modeling wax. She hardened the cocoon for ease of transport, then began to lug it back to the burrow.
As she returned, she caught sight of Rose, who hurried over.
Lia replied.
Rose said.
Rose explained.
Lia nodded.
.
Lia blinked. much
Rose beamed.
Lia replied, before making her way into the burrow. Rose was… proving to be far more competent than Lia was. Was…was it really right that Lia was the one leading the swarm when Rose was doing such a good job?
Those doubts were swiftly crushed by an even stronger feeling. Her instincts were screaming at her, telling her that this was job. She had been reborn for this purpose, and if she harbored doubts over every subordinate that outshined her in an area, she would never get anywhere. Rose was proving to be an amazing manager, but that was just one thing.
Amelia was perhaps the strongest magic user the world had ever seen, but she was still planning to become part of the swarm, and Lia wasn’t going to let Amelia lead. The same went for the great warriors or adventurers Lia would convert. So, why should she let a manager lead? It was for the same reason rulers didn’t give their position to their advisors, no matter how competent those advisors were. They were a symbol, something that couldn’t be easily replaced.
Perhaps that logic was flawed, but it was enough to satisfy Lia. She finished dragging her cocooned plant over to a neat line of five cocoons that had been set into a sort of nook in the wall, then moved over to a much messier group to the side. These ones were the ones Rose had wanted her to convert, so she set them to convert into burrowers, and turned her attention back to the ones set aside for her experimentation.
She combined the cocoon of one of the rats with the plant cocoon, then took a look at her available options. There were the standard options for both the rat and the bush, but there were also a few new ones that caught her eye.
Based on your abilities, the abilities of Fearful Rat, and the abilities of Highland Sagebrush, the following options are available for conversion. Please pick one:
Lesser Rat Druid (Plant):
A Rat Druid is a rat that has become attuned to nature. They possess magical abilities much like the Rat Aristocracy, but their magic tends to focus less on combat and more on influencing animals and altering their environment. This particular druid is specialized in dealing with plants, and has bonuses to magic that targets plants.
Lesser Swarm Gardener:
A Swarm Gardener is a worker specialized in tending the swarm’s plants. Swarm gardeners are particularly excellent at raising plants that have been modified by the swarm, and are at their best when raising a relatively small number of plants. In addition, Swarm Gardeners are capable of converting plants into several common types of swarm plants, such as the swarm prickler.
Lesser Lurking Rattrap:
The Lurking Rattrap is a carnivorous plant that specializes in eating rats. The Lurking Rattrap emits an odor that attracts rats, and consumes any that stray too close. The Lurking Rattrap then proceeds to digest the rat, converting any matter not needed to sustain itself into modeling wax, which it deposits in a cavity underneath its roots.
This creature does not have enough intelligence to understand anything other than very simple commands.
Interesting. All three of those were tempting in their own ways, to the point where she wasn’t sure what she wanted. The Lurking Rattrap sounded like it would make hunting for rats easier if used correctly, but that required a lot of preparation, so it was probably out for now.
Both the druid and the gardener seemed like they might have applications in the near future, specifically for strengthening the fort once she took it over. The druid would be able to help shape the landscape around it to something more defensible, while the gardener would help her reinforce the walls with pricklers and other plants.
Well…why not both? It wasn’t like she had concrete ideas for the other four, so there wasn’t any harm in using up another one of them. So, she got the cocoon in front of her converting into a druid, before stopping by the burrow’s storeroom to stock up on modeling wax.
While she was there, she stopped, then decided to completely fill Dimensional Storage with some of the stuff. And, to her surprise, she got a pair of windows for her troubles.
Dimensional Storage has leveled up!
Dimensional Storage
Level 2: 30/500 EXP
Gives an extradimensional space to store items.
Level 1: Spend 10 Mana to store an object you’re touching. You have a maximum storage capacity of 1m3, and objects within experience the flow of time normally. Retrieving an object costs 10 Mana and you may choose to place it in your grasp or on the ground in front of you.
Level 2: Spend 9 Mana to store an object you’re touching. You have a maximum storage capacity of 5m3, and time flows slightly slower for objects within the storage. Retrieving an object costs 9 Mana and you may choose to place it in your grasp or make it appear in any spot within 1m of you that you can see.
way
Apparently, she had been close enough to a level that just putting in all that modeling wax leveled the Skill up. It was a bit of a surprise, but it was definitely welcome.
That being said, there wasn’t enough modeling wax here to fill her storage to its new capacity. There had barely been enough to fill her storage , and she didn’t want to completely deprive the swarm of its stores while she was away, so she had to be satisfied with what she had in there already.
She left the burrow and headed back to where she was getting the plants from. On the way, she played around with Dimensional Storage a little, and found that the modeling wax was treated as one giant object, meaning she couldn’t open her storage and use it as a faucet that spouted modeling wax.
A shame, that. Perhaps when the Skill was higher level, she would be able to do that; it would be really nice to have a way of applying modeling wax that didn’t involve using her mouth. Though…this probably be used like that, if she was fine with dropping a huge block of the stuff on something. Wait…would that even automatically spread and cover like normal modeling wax?
There was one way to find out. When she encountered her first bush, she dumped the contents of her storage on it and watched in delight as the modeling wax expanded to cover the bush, just like it did when she applied it manually. The extra modeling wax sloughed off into a pile at the base of the cocoon, which she was easily able to put into her storage.
She was able to fit the cocoon in there too, now that her storage was bigger. She happily put it in, and began her walk back to the burrow.
You have converted one Fearful Rat and one Highland Sagebrush into a Lesser Rat Druid! You gain 10 EXP!
You have leveled up! You have gained 10 HP, Stamina, Mana, 5 Mental Fortitude, 2 Defense and Dexterity, and 3 in all of your other stats!
…When did she get enough experience to level up? Last she checked, she had still been fifty-ish experience away from the next level.
Wait, Rose had converted a of rats. Lia had made the notifications for those stop appearing, but she had gained one or two experience per conversion, and she had gained that Title that doubled all of her experience gain. Yeah, that actually wasn’t surprising. She’d probably gain one or two more by the time she was ready to raid the goblin fort, too.
She got back to the burrow, where the druid was waiting patiently. It was…well, a rat with vines and leaves growing out of its fur. The fur had a slight greenish tinge too, but other than those two things it was just a larger than normal rat. She took a moment to confirm its status before she got the next rat converting.
Name: None
Race: Lesser Rat Druid
Level: 1/6, 0/7 EXP
HP: 15/15
Stamina: 10/10
Mana: 20/20
Strength: 1
Defense: 3
Dexterity: 10
Magic: 10
Magic Defense: 10
Mental Fortitude: 10
Title: None
You have not yet obtained a Title. Information on your currently equipped Title will appear here when you obtain a Title.
Titles:
None
Skills:
Minor Nature Magic Boost (Plants)
Minor Nature Magic Boost (Plants)
Level 1: 0/100 EXP
Increases the effectiveness of nature magic that targets plants.
Level 1: Increases effect by 1%.
So…the druid had a Skill that boosted nature magic, but no Skill nature magic. It… use magic, right? She commanded it to cast a simple spell if it could, and the druid complied. A small flower bloomed at its feet, bursting through the dirt-like modeling wax that was the floor of the burrow.
That meant that it just had to…use the magic. Did that…theoretically mean that could use magic too? She had assumed she couldn’t, because she couldn’t chant, but that assumption probably didn’t hold weight now that she was a monster.
Right, conversion experimentation could wait. She had to figure out the answer to this question first – it might make all the difference in the upcoming fight.