Looking over my little drone, I noticed a purple crystal stuck between both of its eyes. It lit up periodically as it lifted bundles of the earth to munch at the insects inside. These things had been eaten before so they didn't provide more traits but benefitted the biomass that the creature needed to evolve another time.
It would require much more biomass this time to evolve, but it could also eat at a much higher speed than the others. I'd have to experiment and see what getting a massive amount of biomass would do to the larva when it evolved, currently, the options seemed lackluster.
Taking my airgun, I loaded it with several steel balls each one sitting in a grove that fed them into the air chamber. I couldn't find anything for a decent magnet strong enough to keep them in place. So each shot would load one of the twenty steel balls in the container, these didn't have to be magic as the velocity would be the determining factor of their damage. The magazine functioned much like a P90, a spring and recoil assisted reload slotting the new metal ball into the chamber to be shot.
Pumping the gun until the force against me was almost too much to handle, I aimed at a small hedgehog on the ground that was sniffing a few berries. The small lamps lighting up on the side about halfway, I let the shot out towards its center mass. The recoil made me take a step back, not letting me see the immediate impact of the pellet, but when I saw the results I couldn't tell if I hit or not.
A few moments of pumping up the gun again, I noticed that the hedgehog hadn't moved at all. Walking over to it I noticed a small straw-sized hole in its head and a bloody hole on the tree behind it. There was no practical way to get the pellet out of the tree as I inspected the hole.
"This... Is beyond expectations." I smiled warily. I had expected it to kill the hedgehog, but tearing through the body with little to no resistance was not a thought.
The part of me that was Nikolai knew that letting people know about this would be detrimental to my health. Since this weapon can be replicated at a lesser degree without using creation magic this would make many mages worried. Neither of us was dumb enough to let people know about this trump card before it was needed. The loud sudden release of air made it so it would only be useful for one shot if I used it for stealth.
There needed to be a more practical way to release their air, or make the gun without gunpowder so it's silent. Until then, I'd have to follow the concept of a sniper rifle, just be far enough away so that even if they did hear me I'll already be running away from the spot. These cautions, however, weren't a concern for now.
The sharp shots of air filled the surroundings as various small creatures were shot through their heads. Rodents, birds, reptiles, nothing escape vision, though some would run away after a shot went completely south. After three hours of shooting, I sent out the drone to pick up the corpses laying them in front of the other larva. Now the field around us was pretty much completely cleared, and not even 1/20th of mana was left in my body leaving me very fatigued.
'Practice session skill increases calculating. 62 creatures engaged, 45 killed, 5 injured. Shooting skill ranked at a C standard.'
"I could probably earn metals for that performance back home, but here I'm only graded as average?" A strange feeling of loneliness filled my chest with longing when I mentioned home, and I looked off to the Drone behind me. My home was a hospital bed, there was no reason for me to want to be there again.
What I missed truly was my brother and the few nurses that were nice to me during my stay. I had a craving for chocolate pudding and milk that came with my meals every day. Those days didn't seem important to me before when I thought that I was going to spend the rest of my life in that room.
"I was so caught up in revenge, and I missed my chance to say goodbye to those that I care about the most." A heavy sigh escaped my lips as I was feeling a sense of forlorn that I couldn't shake for some time. Wanting to take the feeling out on something, I set down the airgun.
A rush of some of my remaining mana spilled out as I gathered some of the metal from the ground once more allowing it to form a metal Jō staff. Without adding any enchantment to it, the staff wouldn't take up mana each hit, it would only need it during creation.
I needed water to help with the leather I had gathered, so I could prep it for tanning later. Sadly creation magic couldn't be used at my proficiency to tan the leather. The good thing was I didn't have to worry about the condition of the leather once it was tanned so I let the drone rip up the animals so the larva could eat them.
Considering that this small world that was made by the system seemed to be a living breathing ecosystem there was no way that there wasn't a water source of some kind. Securing it, and maybe rerouting it were on my to-do list at the moment. Eventually, my little bug friends will need water to live and I wasn't sure if it rained here but I wasn't going to patiently wait to find out.
With one last look at the drone, I turned my back walking into the forest. The staff was up across my back as I held it in a very relaxed manner as I haven't seen any carnivores yet except the mosquitoes that didn't seem to bother with me. Considering this was inside my head, I doubted they could gather any blood from me which was a relief in itself.
The blue boxes hadn't been any help about my current condition, and it didn't respond to my questions to concerns. I had read a few novels during my time where people would get responses from such systems but mine didn't seem to have that function.
Some might say that I adjusted very quickly to the blue screens but they were normal in the world that Nikolai was from. Everyone getting 'blessed by the world' as they called it at the age of ten, allowing them to see their own potential so they didn't waste their energy on pursuits that they weren't suited for. If you had a high potential for magic and a low potential in physical labor you wouldn't train to be a boxer.
I personally didn't like it, because if you had dreams and ambitions to be something you didn't have the potential for then to adjust that you needed a large sum of money. Most people were fairly happy with the system in place even if it caused some people to be treated like trash as soon as they came of age because of their crappy potentials.
One's potential could increase or decrease based on certain things, but they were usually stable for most of your life. If you got brain damage, or your arm cut off then you would have a drop in potential. Some alchemical products could also increase potential, but increasing it would be an expensive endeavor. The difference between an A and a B in your potential could be the difference in years of training to reach the same goal.
Nikolai had always had very average scores, but they were spread out making him not fail in a single aspect, though not excel either.
"Status."
Name: Crowley
Race: H͢ų̩͕m̻̬a̫n̶̜̪̳̖̝̥̭
Physical: B
Mental: S
Magic: A
Spirit: S
Reflexes: A
Senses: A
Affinity:
Creation - S
Life - A
Death - A
Wind - C
I nearly stumbled seeing the status, nearly everything had jumped up a single letter grade except physical which stayed the same. Everything was unfamiliar on this page especially the rank of S which I had never heard of before today. I mean there were rumors that some of the richest nobles had progressed their potential to perfect through the use of Alchemy, was that what an S represented?
Thinking about it, it made sense that the numbers increased since now two souls occupied the same vessel, but my affinities didn't make any sense.
No one could gain a new affinity as far as I knew, let alone three. Affinities were something not dictated by the body or mind, but a blessing of nature. A thought though crept through my mind, "Reincarnation is a cycle of life and death, could that have blessed me with that affinity? But what about the wind affinity?"
There were many questions to ask, but no one to ask them to. Especially the problem considering his race, as human seemed to be messed up in some way on the status.
"Another secret I have to keep." I sighed in annoyance at the series of questions that I had, since as an engineer unanswered questions were my bane of existence. Every problem should follow a basic set of rules and be able to be solved, but I lacked the tools necessary to solve them.
With my frustration at an all-time high, I was happy I had my metal staff since something would suffer a migraine worse than what I had now. With a flick of my fingers and wrist, the staff fully extended out as I rushed forward into the brush to relieve my stress.