Remembering how this whole issue began, from when he stepped on the Sand Beetle then to his frantic fight with a second one. Both times had one thing in common, and that was the mysterious energy flowing into him when he killed both of them. Thinking back to the changes in The Bestiary because of that, he remembered how he gained one point of Aether.
Aether, was that what it was? If it behaves as a hybrid of mana and experience, then that would make sense, no it is more like the more mana one has, the higher one's rank will be. It's similar to playing a mage, as what keeps them from spamming an overwhelming amount of spells is either an insufficient mana pool or cooldowns, cooldowns aside, having a higher amount of mana usually means more firepower.
If that's true, then I should have gained more Aether after killing the second Sand Beetle. The Bestiary has a section that shows the amount of Aether I have, and if its the same as my other abilities, I only need to focus on it.
Closing his eyes and focusing on the thought of using his grimoire, a grimoire appeared in front of him. Secretly rejoicing at his success, he tried to open up his eyes, but with no luck, panicking a bit he remembered how closing the book always kicked him out of the darkness.
Opening up the book to the first page, he smiled when he saw the amount of Aether he had.
[Page 0
Race: human
Name: Euan Hahn
Rank: 1
Enhancements: none
Aether: 2
Boon: The Bestiary
Description: a ranked human by the name of Euan Hahns, as he has obtained some Aether he is capable of changing into different forms as per the abilities from The Bestiary. Turning back into the human form is temporary and will undo when Euan Hahn is incapable of supplying the amount of Aether needed, the amount of Aether used increases according to the Rank and Enhancements Euan Hahn has, external forces can also affect the amount required. Note that Each has a cooldown of a minimum 24-hours, any increase can be affected by the rank and a few other factors.]
Chuckling at how happy he was for an increase in one point in Aether he looked through the next page and saw that the Aether amount was the same, 2 points exactly. While curious about the correlation between the two amount of Aether, he put it aside due to a lack of information about it.
My only question at the moment is if the amount of Aether you get from killing the Sand Beetles stays the same. And if you need to directly kill them, if there is no change then farming the beetles for a while is possible, hopefully until I can get strong enough to go in the forest. If I don't need to kill them all directly, I can herd them into a tight place and drop something big on them, that way, I can kill them with more efficiency. Though unfortunately finding something large enough to kill a group of Sand Beetles may be a bit of a challenge, the only rock I've seen so far is nothing short of a mountain to me, I can't even climb it let alone move it.
Closing the Grimoire, Euan was soon engulfed with the same blinding light. Looking up at the already bright sky he looked towards the sun to see if there were any differences in it or the amount there, thankfully and disappointingly there was only the same old sun.
It's already so bright out, I guess focusing on using the grimoire took more time than I thought, thankfully nothing happened during that time. Now for my priorities, the powerful existence told me to survive, grow, and learn. I've survived so far but to keep myself from getting killed I need to grow and learn, growing, I assume would mean absorbing more Aether and increasing my abilities. As for learning, I may need to learn more than just what The Bestiary has to offer, where I am, and what the norms of this place are is one of the things I need to focus on, especially what others deem as common knowledge, standing out too much when I get my human form back would be troubling.
As he was near the shore of the beach and the tide was still relatively low, he came across a few patches of seaweed and other ocean plants occasionally. There were some shells, but they were all unable to withstand any force from his legs and broke only after applying a small bit of pressure, so he ended up ignoring those until he came across one almost twice the size of the others and a darker shade of grey. Pressing one of his legs down on it he was surprised that it didn't break, let alone leave even the slightest of marks. Raising a non-existent eyebrow at sight, he applied more pressure only to be met with the same conclusion, repeating his action again but with his full force focused on one point he was shocked to still see nothing, not a single mark was left on the shell.
Picking up the shell with his mandibles, he decided to save it for later, who knows, a hard shell can be used for quite a bit even as a beetle. Scouring the area for any more hard shells only to be met with disappointment. After an hour of walking without anything new, the first pangs of hunger began appearing.
So this body also gets hungry, I guess that should have been expected. There is not much here other than sand, sand, and more sand; eating the sea is simply out of the question, and the forest is too far away for me at the moment.
Looking around, his gaze lands on one of the many plants washed ashore from the sea, a piece of wavey green seaweed.
Edible? I think so, though I'm not sure about this type of seaweed though. Though I don't really have a choice, amongst all of the kinds of plants here, this is the only one that looks familiar.
Reaching down with his mandibles, he tore off a small piece and ate it, it gave off a salty taste but other than that it was quite bland, like chewing sawdust. After feeding himself for a few minutes, he managed to fill himself with enough seaweed to keep him running for the rest of the day, and then some, this, however, made him feel a bit bloated. With a full stomach, he decided to walk it off while pondering his next course of action.
Walking around like I'm doing now is pointless, I'm getting nowhere, and the only thing I got out of this was a single shell. It could be used as armor if I was able to strap it on my back, but I have neither the ability to do so or the supplies, the seaweed might work as straps, but they tear too quickly, so that's out of the question. I might be able to use it in a fight against the Sand Beetles, whacking them with it is going to do nothing so maybe pushing it in between their mandibles into their mouth might work, that may work.
The shell aside, how should I go about attacking? Its all but sand around here so an ambush from under the sand? Afterward, I can bury myself, so I won't be ambushed while I'm looking through the grimoire.
Steeling his nerves, he decided to give it a try, after a few minutes of wandering and observing the patterns of the Sand Beetles around him he chose a spot on the path of one of the wanderers. Setting aside the shell he was carrying he buried himself just enough that he would be able to feel it as the Sand Beetle walked over him and would be able to act without too much sand hindering his movements.
As time slowly passed and within a few minutes the sound of something skittering along the sand, holding his breath as his nonexisting sweat flowed down his carapace he waited for the Sand Beetle's first two feet to pass over his head. As soon as it passed, he lunged upwards with all his strength clamping down his mandibles on whatever he could get ahold of, unfortunately, luck wasn't on his time as it was for his second kill, and he ended up clamping down on the rims of the Sand Beetle's shell. In a struggle to get the advantage, he attempted to push the Sand Beetle over, but due to a lack of proper footing with a hole underneath him he wasn't successful and ended up falling back with the beetle on top of him.
Seeing as things weren't going as he hoped, he let go in an attempt to clamp down on the softer underside of the shell, and this time being successful despite the constant struggle of the Sand Beetle he clamped down right under its head ending the Sand Beetle's life in a few seconds. After welcoming the sensation of gaining Aether, he dug a hole and proceeded to bury the carcass of the Sand Beetle.
Now that the Sand Beetle is buried it shouldn't attract any groups unlike the first one, as a precaution I should burrow underground some distance away.
Burrowing under the sand, he placed his focus on the thought of using The Bestiary, and shortly after the familiar sight of a grimoire appearing in the darkness took place. Looking at the Aether for his Sand Beetle form he was reassured that his theory was correct, precisely 3 Aether, one more than before.
[Page: 1
Race: Beetle-Sand Beetle
Name: Euan Hahn
Upgrades: none
Aether: 3
Rank: 1
Description: a beetle that makes it's home in the sand, unlike its unranked cousins, this species has absorbed the bare minimum of Aether to become a ranked creature. Due to The Bestiary Euan Hahn now can use a Sand Beetle as one of his forms, note reverting to his human form can only be done after a 24-hour cooldown and may require a high amount of Aether to sustain it.]
Flipping over to the first page in the grimoire, he saw that the Aether was the same as the amount the Sand Beetle form had again.
[Page 0
Race: human
Name: Euan Hahn
Rank: 1
Enhancements: none
Aether: 3
Boon: The Bestiary
Description: a ranked human by the name of Euan Hahns, as he has obtained some Aether he is capable of changing into different forms as per the abilities from The Bestiary. Turning back into the human form is temporary and will undo when Euan Hahn is incapable of supplying the amount of Aether needed, the amount of Aether used increases according to the Rank and Enhancements Euan Hahn has, external forces can also affect the amount required. Note that Each has a cooldown of a minimum 24-hours, any increase can be affected by the rank and a few other factors.]
So far it's they are both the same, I'll do a few more up until I get five points in Aether to see if there is any change. I need some sort of base of operations or at least a place for a focal point so it would be much easier to map things out.
Digging himself out into the open, looking around for signs of any Sand Beetles he noticed that the spot where he buried the dead Sand Beetle was dug up and the only thing left inside was a skeletal frame and other than that there were no other signs of them around him. Shifting his gaze up towards the sun to see how much time passed, and in the end, it was only around 2 hours. Shaking off the sand left on him, he headed off in the direction the stone boulder was located at after picking back up his shell.
Sometime later, after trudging through the sand, he encountered a wide area of sand with bumps in the sand, which looked awfully similar to the shell of a Sand Beetle. At first, there was no problem, but after a few minutes of walking the frequency of the bumps appearing increase drastically to the point where there would be one every few feet. Focusing on one of them an illusionary scroll appeared above it, reading it he froze.
[Sand Beetle]
Looking around in a panic at the hundreds of bumps in the ground, he backpedaled a bit and stopped a few inches from one. Looking around, he began to move lightly-or as lightly as a giant beetle can-through the groups of Sand Beetles attempting to go around the large group back into the out area that held only a scarce few. Moving around and about he managed to get past the large group with only a few minor slipups which ended up only stirring the Sand Beetles, as he got to the out circle he resumed his journey in the direction of the boulder. Half an hour later as he passed the last of the Sand Beetles, a cloud of sand exploded in front of him. Surprised, he ended up dropping the shell as he jumped back only to see a sand beetle lunging at his from where the explosion occurred from. Dodging to the side as the Sand Beetle grazed the side of his carapace with its mandibles, he quickly took aim and countered his opponent by clamping down on his opponent's backside with one of his pincers sinking into flesh.
His opponent thrashing around in a violent frenzy managed to throw Euan aside, giving it just enough time to turn around and attack once more this time head-on. Crouching down the Sand Beetle's attack went over his head, this time it managed to bite into something, one of his antenna. Unlike his unranked omophron relatives he sported a relatively small pair of antenna, only a centimeter and a half long. As the Sand Beetle proceeded to bite the antenna and then tear it off Euan was given a window of opportunity to strike, letting him bite right into the soft underside of its head killing it in a few seconds.
After crawling out from underneath the dead Sand Beetle, he collapsed as his rush of adrenalin wore off, the first thing he noticed other than a lot of green fluid covering his eyes was the change in his surroundings or what changed was how he viewed his surroundings. As Sand Beetles have bad vision and a severe case of color blindness their antenna's function entails through the use of Aether a way to fix that problem, it also picks up other things such as the vibrations in the air such as sound, it serves as a receptor for smell, and a few other things. As his antennas are responsible for quite a few of his senses mainly two things occurred, the first was a decline in his perception and a slight loss in color, the second was an excruciating pain only second to his body reformations, it felt as if all the nerves in his hand were injected with stimulants causing their sensitivity to skyrocket to the point that even the slightest of touches would feel like a thousand burning hot needles were piercing your arm. Then proceeding to cut into it with a pair of knives with serrated edges, then proceeding to rip it off.
While the pain subsided quite a bit after the surge of Aether entered him. It still lingered, another positive is a small portion of his lost senses returned after the wave of Aether.
While I cant see my antenna right now and I definitely don't want to bring anything near the missing antenna to check, with the slight return of my senses and the lessening of the pain there's a possibility that the Aether is capable of healing me.
Remembering how close he is to the large group of Sand Beetles, he looked back to see over a dozen of them already up and running at him. Sprinting off after grabbing his not so useful shell he headed the way he was initially going, he only managed to run for a few minutes before needing to correct his course again as his muddled senses were messing up his direction from time to time. After a few hours of running and nearly going in circles a few times, he managed to shake off most of them except one persistent Sand Beetle, and by now he was already nearing the boulder.