[NunuNote: We’ve reached Chapter 100! I’m very happy to have achieved this, especially after so many people doubted I would get this far LOL! Thank you for being part of this journey with me!]
"I think I found it!" Lohan said excitedly as he digested the brain of one of the beetles.
Although he didn’t receive any new evolution from these latest creatures, Lohan was digesting hundreds of biomass per hour while they rested.
Unlike the low-level monsters he digested days ago, these Level 10 Beetles were highly dense in biomass.
If Lohan had time to completely digest their bodies, each Beetle would yield him between 300 to 400 Biomass.
That was around 4,000 Biomass available to him!
Unfortunately, to digest this at his normal speed, he would still need 15 hours, and even with [Hemolymphatic Tissue] active, it would still take him 5 hours to digest it all.
Sure, after finishing the Dungeon raid, it wouldn’t be too late to go back and finish digesting these beetles.
For now, Lohan focused only on digesting the most important parts, such as the head with the brain of each creature.
And while digesting that brain, he read an interesting memory!
-xXx-
In that memory, the world was a strange mixture of refracted lights and rhythmic vibrations felt through the strange jointed legs.
The insect flew through the tunnels of the third floor, where the air was denser and laden with a sweet smell of Mana.
There, the internal architecture of the tree changed slightly... the wooden walls were not only curved, but supported dozens of cocoons hanging like macabre fruits. Inside some, the beetle saw small figures of creatures whose wings were withered, and in other niches, pulsating eggs awaited the vital essence to be drained from the prisoners so they could hatch.
The beetle’s flight was steady, driven by a simple instinct to patrol without any critical or individual thought, until the air seemed to freeze.
Suddenly, a powerful and overwhelming consciousness invaded his mind!
It was not a cry, but an absolute command that crushed the insect’s already low individuality in a millisecond. His body no longer belonged to him, his wings flapped with artificial force, driven by the power of a higher source.
"TO THE SECOND FLOOR. AMBUSH. KILL."
He felt his mind being connected to a network.
Through this connection, he realized he was not alone; dozens of other beetles, coming from deep crevices and from the floors above, were being artificially moved like lifeless puppets.
Consciousness controlled his every movement, forcing him to position himself in absolute silence on the second floor, keeping a safe distance so that the invaders would not notice the trap.
When the Slime and the Fox crossed the hole in the ceiling, the mental voice gave the signal.
The beetle dove under the direct command of that will. He saw the commands appearing as flashes of light in his mind: "Flank the fox on the left! Bite the slime’s black shell now!" He fought with a coordination he would never have had on his own, moving in perfect sync with his hive brothers to overwhelm the defenses of the pair of intruders.
At first, the beetle was satisfied to be carrying out the mental orders he received, but when his brothers began to die and he realized that he might not survive the attack of these monsters that had invaded his nest, the consciousness that controlled him also began to tremble.
When the last group of beetles was wiped out, a wave of pure, destructive mental rage hit his mind, coming from the top of the tree.
The control disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, leaving the beetle stunned and vulnerable.
The last thing the creature felt before total darkness was the frustrated fury of his Queen and the pain of the Slime digesting his still-living body...
-xXx-
Through the beetle’s memories, Lohan was able to better understand the structure of the tree and find the place where the eggs of captured creatures were kept, as well as the location of the Queen!
"Lisa, I have good news," Lohan said with relief.
Hearing this, the still-wounded fox looked at him with hopeful eyes, totally different from the unshakeable confidence she had when entering this dungeon.
With so many accumulated injuries, Lisa was already wondering if they would really be able to complete this dungeon.
Lohan could recover from his injuries, but for her, with each battle, the accumulated injuries and the pain she felt increased...
"What is it?" She asked.
Confirming the information again through the beetle’s memories, only then was Lohan sure. "I found the locations of the creatures captured by the beetles! They are scattered across the upper floors at specific strategic points in the tree, guarded by other beetles, but although the remaining beetles are even more powerful than the ones we’ve faced so far, their numbers are much smaller than those of ordinary beetles."
"The Queen values the cocoons of the captured creatures very highly, so she leaves one or two of these beetles to guard these areas separately!"
Lohan didn’t need to explain to her why this was good news.
Honestly, in this battle, their biggest disadvantage was not that they were weaker than the beetles individually. In fact, with their synergy, their strength was much greater than that of ordinary Level 10 monsters, even though they were still at Level 8, but it was impossible to deal with the numerical disadvantage...
Facing more than ten enemies at the same time was very physically and mentally exhausting, so knowing that they would have to face fewer enemies, even if they were stronger, was not bad news!
Knowing that there were few beetles left on the tree, the two allowed themselves to rest even more.
To maximize the speed of digestion, Lohan even asked Lisa to hit him with a weaker attack to activate the [Hemolymphatic Tissue] since he couldn’t activate it on himself.
With a speed of 780 Biomass per hour, in 1 hour and 17 minutes Lohan accumulated 1,000 Biomass!
Of that 1,000 Biomass, 700 Biomass had to be used to heal him and stored to be used as a reserve in battle, but the remaining 300 Biomass was quickly converted into evolutions!
The first 100.77 Biomass of that was spent on one of the most useful evolutions for him at that moment!
[Hemolymphatic Tissue Lv 10 → Lv 11]
[After 10 minor evolutions, Hemolymphatic Tissue is undergoing a qualitative evolution...]
[New trait obtained: Bio-Synthetic Mana Circulation!]
[Bio-Synthetic Mana Circulation: The hemolymphatic system becomes capable of channeling byproducts of accelerated molecular breakdown directly to the core. During the processing of biomass under combat stress, a percentage of the converted matter is refined into pure mana, replenishing the user’s reservoir proportionally to the digestion rate.]
Reading this description made Lohan’s eyes light up!
’Now I can recover Mana while using my digestion in battle! With this, I’ll be able to use my spells with much more intensity!’
This was great news for him!
Before, he depended solely on the standard, slow rate of mana recovery he had, but with this new feature, just as his biomass was almost "infinite" during combat if he had corpses around to digest, his mana now had that potential too!
With such a big advantage on his magical side, Lohan decided to invest a little more in magic, to try to abuse it to be even more useful in combat, accepting even more this symbiotic and supportive side that he was developing for now.
’When I finish my basic development, when I can digest thousands, or even tens of thousands of biomass per hour, it won’t be too late to focus on my solo combat methods as well!
Seeing that the cost for the next evolution of the Magic Core was only 106.64 Biomass, he didn’t hesitate and bought it too!
[Magic Core Lv 10 → Lv 11]
[After 10 minor evolutions, Magic Core is undergoing a qualitative evolution...]
[New feature obtained: Parallel Processing Core!]
[Parallel Processing Core: The vital core expands its internal architecture to support the opening of multiple independent mana paths operating simultaneously.]
Upon reading this new feature, Lohan became even more delighted!
Not because he wanted to fire magic simultaneously like a machine gun, which could also be interesting, but because he saw in it the possibility of making his little clones even more useful!
Before, even if he tried to use magic through the clones, the process was almost impossible, with him having to stop using spells in his main body to allow the clone to also use spells.
His limit was to use [Pigmentation Mimicry] on the clone’s body and his main body simultaneously, and that alone was very exhausting for him.
Now with this new feature, instead of the clones being useful only for setting small traps to capture or digest enemies, the level of strategies he could form would escalate directly!
The clones could serve as small turrets to attack unsuspecting enemies from angles that were impossible to defend against!
Since he was already at it, Lohan gritted his teeth and spent a little of his budget to purchase another evolution in this area.
[Artificial Magic Core Harmonizer Lv 7 → Lv 8]
The cost for this evolution was 144.25 Biomass, but with greater control over his Mana for combat, Lohan felt even more excited to deal with the next enemies!
"Are you ready, Lisa?" Lohan asked.
Lisa looked at him, and without understanding the reason for his sudden excitement, considering the difficulty of the battle they had fought a short time ago, she answered positively, but a little hesitantly.
She didn’t want to show weakness to him; the family training she had undergone would not allow that.