Looking over my options I scanned their differences. They all upgraded me from being only a carnivore to an omnivore. Each of them had another rare skill they granted me as well as two mutation paths. Each one had another mutation path for my stinger and some type of pheromone. Apparently, I would have unlocked pheromones either way but this way I’d gained two separate paths I could go down.

  I had no idea what the different pheromones did, so they didn’t factor into my decision. That left the skill given and the stinger mutation paths as the deciding factors. I didn’t like the upgrades for tree wasp, it seemed to push me some sort of builder path. The Saxon wasp was more interesting and seemed to focus on combat much more with a more deadly stinger. However, it was the first option that had caught my attention, Venom Sprayer and Venom-arbalist both implied a ranged attack. With my lack of wings right now I needed every advantage I could get, and a ranged attack was something I lacked and could let me pick off targets before they could even threaten me.

  Ultimately all my options were a gamble. I picked the option for Blackjacket. My mind went still, and my vision darkened. I couldn’t close my eyes since I didn’t have eyelids. I just entered a dreamless sleep as my body underwent its metamorphosis.

  My eyes snapped open. I looked around. The sun had moved its position from just setting to having just risen. There were still ants along the shore of the puddle although far fewer than there had been last night. Apparently, their colony couldn’t waist resources forever just trying to hunt me. I looked down at my body to see what had changed. My carapace had changed from striped yellow and black to mostly black with a few white stripes. My shape and size hadn’t changed much so I had to guess most of the changes were internal.

  What? I’d been a hatchling this entire time! The system had just shoved a hatchling out into the world with no backup and just expected me to not only survive but save an entire extinct species?

  I guess to be fair I’d done the first part so far if with some injury to myself. Still, I was all by myself and apparently barely older than a toddler in the eyes of the system. I suddenly felt very lonely. I couldn’t remember the family I’d had before but I was suddenly very conscious that I didn’t have one now. I pushed the depressing thought to the back of my head. I would find other members of my species, I told myself. For now, I had to survive until my wings regrew and I could go out and find them.

  Pulling up my new skills and mutation paths I looked them over to see what my changes were.

  I could use every skill and mutation path I had. Even Enmity Pheromones could be used but I suspected it wouldn’t level up until their were other wasps around to use it on besides myself.

  What I needed was experience and biomass, I needed to find some creatures in ready number to grind my skills on. Hopefully a species that didn’t have a massive colony with high level members that would come out to seek revenge if I killed some of their members. For now, I had to escape this pond and sneak past the ants on guard for me.

  First, I needed to spend all the biomass I could. If I did get into a fight with the ants I wanted to be as prepared to face them as I could. I pulled up the biomass menu and selected Venom Sack. My new mutation path revolved around me shooting poison, so I needed to upgrade the poison I shot.

  Before my race upgrade I would have chosen necrotic poison for the extra damage but since my subrace revolved around shooting my venom out I needed Compressed Venom Sack. Having a ranged weapon wouldn’t do me any good if I didn’t have enough ammo for it. When I selected it there was a searing pain in my chest above my heart. It went on for about ten minutes before ending.

  Twelve shots weren’t much but it was better than six. Hopefully with more charges to do poison damage I could level up my poisoner skill faster to get even more charges and increase the regeneration rate for my Venom Sack. Since I was level five now, I could upgrade all my abilities twice instead of just once. I was going to upgrade Venom Sack again since it affected my two primary methods of doing damage.

  This choice was more difficult, all of them would benefit my fighting style in some way. However, if I were to focus more on my ranged attacks which I felt I would have to in order to survive the next five days I’d need to focus on keeping my distance. With that in mind I chose Pressurized. The pain above my heart returned and lasted for around fifteen minutes this time. I barely held onto consciousness this time but managed through sheer will.

  I’d hoped my next upgrade would be at level ten but apparently there was a lot bigger jumps in-between ranks then what I had guessed at. I could upgrade my stinger and armor again. I hadn’t upgraded most of my mutation paths, but I needed to focus on the ones directly applicable to combat first. I hadn’t touched Venom Sprayer yet. Pulling up that mutation path I looked over the options.

  I had to specialize in either multiple targets or single targets. Thinking it over I selected rifling. It would increase my chance of actually hitting my targets and wouldn’t affect my range. Not everything I went up against would be in large groups and accuracy was more versatile than crowd control.

  I could upgrade it again and was curious to see what the accuracy tree of this mutation would provide me.

  Looking over my options I picked the third. The first didn’t seem like that big an issue to have and the second wasn’t what I was going for. I was looking to be able to take down my targets with one shot hopefully not pepper them with a series of shots. There was more burning in my stinger focused towards its tip as the mutation took effect. It lasted only for a minute the changes made very small.

  There was no name change this time just an alteration to weapon’s description. I still had forty-five biomass left to spend. I pulled up the mutation path for my carapace.

  I picked Spartan Carapace. More armor equaled more better in my opinion. Spikes could get caught on things or damage my own allies and a chance to avoid hits wasn’t good as guaranteed damage reduction.

  That upgrade had practically doubled my damage mitigation. With that done I just needed to upgrade my stinger. Opening the menu, I brought up my options.

  Looking my options over I was most attracted by the first and second. The first would let me do more poison damage while the last would let me bypass even more damage reduction. Doing more poison damage was good but my Venom Sprayer focused on that, and I didn’t want to specialize to heavily into only one form of damage. If I encountered a creature resistant to poison, I’d be screwed if that was the only thing I was good at. Picking Diamond-tipped my stinger burned as the biomass was extracted to enhance it.

  I stood up, I still had thirty biomass left but I would save it for now. I needed to test my current upgrades before deciding on my full build. My first step would be to sneak past the encirclement of ants and find a better hunting ground. Diving into the water I started swimming to shore.