Perched on a fallen branch I quickly devoured the soldier ant adding twenty points of biomass to my storage, where all that mass was actually stored who knew. I was level eleven now and I wanted to push that to level fifteen and hopefully get another race upgrade. The sun was beginning to set but I still had plenty of energy and so I began to scout the area more confident in my survivability. I flew up as far as I could then let myself drift regaining stamina while I descended slowly. I could see for a long ways. A wall of bushes far to the north rose like distant mountains. The towering oak overshadowed everything and next to it ran a brook with cattails and reeds growing along its bank. The jungle of grass and weeds extended nearly as far as I could see to the west and south.

  With these new points of interest scouted out I headed towards the stream. I had to stop and rest several times but my Flight skill was quickly advancing and passed level fifteen. I stopped to rest again and use the skill point. I had a narrower selection than last time but it was still more than the three mutation paths you could branch down.

  All these new options revolved around going faster which made sense since I had focused on going faster last time. I looked over my options, some let me fly faster against the wind, or in rain. Other let me fly faster when in a group of other wasps using our combined wingbeats to create a sort of air current to carry us. I looked through the many abilities before settling on one I liked.

  I looked over the changes to my skill.

  My stamina back to full now and my skill level up I took off again making much faster progress as my wings carried me above the ground faster than any land bound bug, like a stupid ant for instance, could ever travel. I was the king of the skies absolutely nothing could threaten me.

  Something buzzed behind me and I stopped beating my wings and dropped down just in time to avoid being skewered as a massive insect flew past where I had been. It turned around and I got a good look at it.

  This thing was nearly three times my level, luckily its hit points weren’t to high I buzzed backwards and blasted at it with my stinger. The mosquito moved to the side faster than I would have thought something its size should have been able to, and its wings beat faster the currents of air pushing aside my venom. It charged towards me again its long rapier-like beak glowing red which didn’t look like a good sign to me at all.

  I darted to the side barely dodging its beak and getting slapped with its wings throwing my flight out of control. I steadied my flight and had to jerk to the side again as the mosquito came at me again. I needed to land, as much as I like flying I was running out of stamina and couldn’t do this forever. I dove for the ground. I’d set my notifications to silent but could feel my Flight and Dodge skill going up. I landed and rolled as the beak of the mosquito tried to impale me from behind.

  Whirling around I shot off another three shots with my stinger. One hit while the mosquito managed to dodge the other two. With my poisoner skill focused on dealing damage with my poison at range I knew that one hit should take out a fourth of its health. The issue was the mosquito was so agile it could dodge most of my shots or buffet them away with air currents with its wings.

  The long legs of the mosquito let it tower over me, and it charged forwards stabbing forwards with its beak. I rolled to the side and tried stabbing its beak, but my stinger just bounced off it. It swiped its stinger to the side, it wasn’t edged so it didn’t cut me, but the impact still did fifteen points of damage. It struck again scratching my leg with the tip of its beak. Red lines traveled up its beak and I watched as its health bar went up by twenty points while mine went down by the same amount.

  Shit! Shit! Shit! I rolled towards the mosquito now was the time to act desperately I was almost at half health. The mosquito darted backwards but I used my spring legs to jump forwards and drove my stinger up into its abdomen. The physical damage and my poison and fire damage began to eat into its health bar. The mosquito suddenly dropped down intent on using its bulk to squash me between it and the ground. I rolled out from under it pushing off back into the air and firing down on it hitting it three times with a volley of venom shot.

  It was bound to die within the next five seconds, I just had to survive until it gave into the poison. I dodged another attempt of its to charge me. It lashed out with its beak striking me and hurling me towards the ground. I managed to catch myself with my wings just before I hit the ground and rolled to the side. As it plunged after me. The mosquito staggered towards me then collapsed.

  Despite the massive influx of XP I didn’t level up from this kill.

  More buzzing filled the air and I looked up to see more Mosquito’s headed towards me. I felt panic rising in me until I saw these ones were much smaller.

  I briefly wondered what made something at Monstrous vs Beast as I took aim and fired at the swarm of mosquitos.

  These smaller mosquito’s must be closer to hatchlings since I was getting reduced XP from them. I kept firing, I had twenty-four venom charges to work with but I was already down to fifteen. I just began blasting as they dive bombed me. I rolled the side and stabbed out with my stinger taking down them as they landed or shot overhead. They dropped down their legs curling inward and I dodged attacks the few that got through doing little damage, but I was already at half health from my other fight. I felt the level up come and I rolled into the shade of a large flower.

  The cover from the flower was what saved my life as the swarm of mosquito’s was destroyed as an insect three times the size of the monstrous mosquito swooped in snatching up a dozen of the little ones in its jaws.

  The swarm of little mosquitos was devoured in a moment. The dragonfly then darted off and I breathed out slowly. I hadn’t even been able to see how much health it had but it had been in the four digits so at least a thousand. I would have to grow much stronger before I even thought about taking on something like that although the mutation paths that thing had would have to be spectacular for me to unlock.

  I crept forward my stealth active, I couldn’t stick around here and I needed to analyze my kills quick and get out. Looking up now I saw this area was heavily arial contested a war between different flying species going on. I’d been lucky just of face those mosquitos something like that dragonfly would have one shot me.

  It was a larger XP cost then I would have liked but there was no way for me to eat the whole creature and I couldn’t leave it behind for some scavenger to steal while I tried to level up again. I selected yes and the mosquito turned to a dried husk. I’d never analyzed this species before so I had a 100% success rate.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I selected yes and my right forearm burned as my stinger began to evolve. I grit my teeth to keep from screaming and breaking stealth. I grabbed one of the small misquito’s and left, I still had several hundred XP and the cost for analyzing more was still higher than I wanted to pay. I looked around fearfully then flew up to the top of the flower and ducked inside the flower petals and settled down to eat.

  A sweet, tantalizing smell drew my attention as I sat down and my antenna twitched. I followed the scent and found a drop of liquid the size of my head I reached out gripping the blob and pulled it towards my mouth.

  I slurped down the sweet nectar and felt my health begin to skyrocket up as the calorie and energy rich food filled me. It only added a point or two to my biomass but it gave a huge boost to my omnivorous skill. I sighed as my health began to tick up and sat down to eat the mosquito as I looked over my notifications from the battle.

  Some of my skills were very close to their next skill up. I spent my four stat points putting two into Toughness and the other two into Dexterity. I had a skill point available for Poisoner and a skill point for Omnivorous to spend as well. I looked over the options for Omnivorous which had replaced my Carnivorous skill. Some would give me more hit points when on a full stomach, faster healing while eating, a slight increase to the amount of biomass a gained from eating, temporary stat bonuses depending on the quality of what I ate and so on. Looking over the many options carefully I selected one that I thought would help me survive the most.

  I looked over the changes and was satisfied with them.

  The other skill branches were good but this would basically let me use foods like nectar as health potions, if I could find a way to carry them I would be set up in a battle to instantly top off my health mid fight. With Omnivorous taken care of I looked over the options for poisoner. I had chosen my ranged poison to do max damage which had proven to have been the right choice and now all my options were related to that skill path.

  There were options to make my poison do more damage over time at the cost of immediate damage or to make my poison act more like a bullet doing more immediate damage at the cost of less damage over a longer period. I chose one that would simply make my poison harder to resist or cleanse. There would be no point hitting a target with poison at all if they could cleanse or ignore it.

  I’d upgraded my stinger so I brought it up to examine the changes.

  I did a lot more damage now, the amount of health I could get back wasn’t a lot but as I increased my Toughness that would only go up, so many of my skills and mutations were dependent on Toughness and Dexterity that I decided those would be my main stats, I would try to raise and get my other stats up but I was always going to put two points from each level up into either Dexterity or Toughness. I’d gained about thirty points of biomass from the mosquito and with my health and stamina full I could go out again. I looked up at the darkening sky. There were lots of aerial predators out there I could sleep in this flower and wait for the next morning or see if I could get away at night.

  As of right now I’d just stumbled into a zone that I wasn’t sure I could take, there were opportunities here but also lots of dangers. I decided to keep moving through the night and get back to the grass jungle. I didn’t like the ants but I did understand them. I crept up to the edge of the flower and waited as I watched the orange sun descend below the horizon.

  My wings beat and I jumped from flower to the top of a thistle to a branch doing quick short flights. I couldn’t see well in the dark but I hoped to avoid creatures like the dragonfly. My compound eyes looked about and I could actively feel my Detection skill level up as I kept my eye out for predators.

  I landed on a flower and looked down I was about to jump again when my notification went off.

  A flash of movement in the flower made me pause. I didn’t see anything and kept looking down my antenna twitching.

  The outline of the insect came into view as I broke past its stealth.

  The moth began to take off realizing its stealth had been broken. I shot it once and it squeaked before collapsing to the inside of the flower. Dismissing the death and XP notification I dropped down and examined it.

  This creature was unique, it wasn’t some predator, but it was wildly different than anything I’d killed before. I selected yes and its body disintegrated to dust.

  The biomass cost was much higher than usual but then again, my carapace was much larger than other parts since it covered my entire body. I crouched down and examined my carapace’s new description.

  This would pair perfectly with my Camouflage and Stealth skills. I felt a lot more comfortable in this environment now and looked down at my arms mentally focusing feeling my carapace shift to match the blue hues of the flower petal I was inside of. I flew out of the flower and looked around spying another moth of a different species. I shot towards it and opened fire before I even fully registered it. It tried to fly off but the poison and fire damage made it collapse to the ground.

  I dropped down to examine it as well, its white feathers stood out against the dark ground.

  It was a big XP cost but if I could get something similar to the chameleon mutation it would be worth it, these moths seemed stealth focused so adding their mutations was something that would enhance all my rogue like skills. I selected yes.

  I selected yes I had a feeling what this mutation would allow and it was something I needed. A burning sensation in my wings filled me as a layer of semi-transparent feathers layered over my wing panels. I activated my camouflage and moved into a thick clump of grass before reviewing the changes to my wings.

  My wings buzzed but the sound was now a whisper and I grinned as I took off. I flew low to the ground using my focus to blend in. I considered going back to the tunnels but I didn’t like being so close to the ground where any ant or other predatory bug might come across me. I spotted a tulip like flower and flew up and curled up at the bottom of the flower and fell asleep.