The war has dragged on beyond what any thought was possible. As I look back now on those early years, I can scarce reconcile what I thought then with what I know now.
An easy conflict, over in months, I had been convinced of it. So confident. Now all of that is gone, drained out of me over the long conflict. So many have fallen in battle, so many have been lost in the depths.
I honestly can no longer recall how it started. When the first battles were fought, before the stories had been worked out and the politicians got involved, who was it that made the first strike?
I suppose it doesn't matter now, both sides are fully committed, have been for a long time. When the silver city fell, the alliance could no longer settle for anything other than total victory.
Perhaps the civilised races of the world should have come to this conclusion a long time ago, but we are unified now. Either the Dungeon will be cleansed, or we will fall.
- Excerpt from a diary of an unnamed General. Year thirty six of the Dungeon War.
It's hard to describe the level of joy I experienced when I finally saw that Skill appear in the list. It appears that Gandalf has finally seen my dedication to all matters gravity with my latest investments. And perhaps my magic Skills have finally become high enough that I can handle this amount of raw power.
And it is freakin' hard. It takes a huge amount of my mental energy to create the construct to produce Gravity Mana, it's complex beyond imagining and it'll be ages before I can reliably make it.
Fortunately, I have a ready supply of the purple stuff ready to go!
The new technique I unlocked was somewhat disappointingly bland, but extremely powerful nonetheless.
I was hoping for all sorts of crazy spellforms to drip into my brain, but I only received the one. It takes a ton of mana, and is hard as heck to cast, but it lets me create what I would suppose are gravity wells.
Effectively, I can make a localised gravity field over which I have total control. I can use it to lift things up, or pull them down, or drag them sideways. It's cool as heck.
Even better, it resonates with my new carapace, mandibles and mana gland whenever I'm within the effect.
The new materials that compose my body are incredible also. Each of the resets have been super impactful and I'm very pleased with them. The carapace and mandibles, from what I've seen so far, are hard as heck. And heavy! The gravity-compressed diamond is far darker than I would have liked, but so far I'm impressed. Considering what I paid for it, it should be at least this amazing!
I still have to mutate it as well. I don't know what I'll pick up, but that's going to be an incredible opportunity to power up.
But the central component of the evolution, the big ticket item, is the Altar of Self. I wasn't exactly sure how this was going to work, the descriptions being what they are.
As it turns out, the advantages of the Altar are completely off the chain. They're out of control. They're… like… really good.
The description stated that the will of the Colony would be able to do more than just refresh my body, that I'd be able to use it to empower my Skills and abilities.
I'd figured that meant I'd be able to convert that Will into mana, or some sort of mana adjacent energy source that could pay the stamina and mana costs for my abilities.
Which would have been absurdly overpowered. With all the energy that the Colony gives me, I'd basically never run out of resources… effectively ever. With the incredible level of toughness and sustainability I already had, I figured I'd become an invincible, durable killer who never ran out of juice!
As it turns out, it doesn't do that. A shame, it would have been so sweet.
Instead, what it does is something I completely didn't expect. When the description said it would "empower my abilities," it quite literally does that. I can use the Will of the Colony to use more powerful versions of my Skills and spells. A perfect example being that monstrous Void Chomp that I used on the demon.
The Altar serves two purposes. First, it draws in and stores the Will that enters through the Vestibule, and then it allows me to expend that energy to support the purpose I chose for it, which was to empower myself. I assume it has some sort of maximum capacity, which I may well have reached at some point, I wasn't actively checking. Finding a mutation to increase that may be a priority.
Essentially, with the support of the Colony, I can now punch well above my weight, which is perfect since that's exactly what I need to do if I'm going to keep the family safe. With tier eight monsters, ancients and whatever other nonsense the Dungeon is going to make me deal with, having this ability to hit much harder than I normally should be able to is going to help me protect the family until we can truly establish ourselves.
With my hugely buffed stats and array of new abilities, which will only get further out of control when I start mutating, I really am starting to become a truly beefy monster, and it feels good!
[Are you happy with your evolution, Master?] Crinis asks me.
[More than happy,] I tell her with satisfaction, perusing my status. [But it's not just about me. It's about time that I take a look at where you three are up to.]
[You mean?]
[Yep. Time to have a peek at those cores!]