In a hidden spot located between two tall trees and bushy shrubs, the loam soil around this spot had small craters aligned uniformly as if someone scooped then intentionally.
There, Iziul sat in front of three blue pearl-like eggs as she swallowed another handful of loam soil while waiting her 'eggs' to hatch.
Casually scooping another soil and swallowed it, she heard a notification ringtone.
TING!
...
[Title Acquired: Gluttony]
- Due to constantly eat without pause, you have acquired a title for your gluttonous behavior.
- +1% Geno Points on every 10 Geno Points you gain
...
Feeling an imaginary nerve popped on of her forehead, Iziul sighed inwardly and calmed herself.
'At least there is a silver lining that I'll receive an additional Geno Point every once in a while.' Iziul comforted herself.
Due to her non-stop excavations and soil digestion, Iziul gained 24 Geno Points already after her transmigration.
Feeling satisfied after gaining this much in the span of 1 hour based on intuition, Iziul decided to check her Racial Skills.
...
[Skills]
Racial:
Bit Creation (Active) - MAX
Instant-Devour (Passive) - 0/20 Geno Points
Instant-Digest (Passive) - 0/20 Geno Points
Geno Recovery (Passive) - 0/20 Geno Points
...
Thinking about this, Iziul decided to use 9 of her Geno Points to experiment.
Adding 3 Geno Points on each slot that hasn't been maximized yet, Iziul tried to eat again to see if there were differences when she fills that slot or not, unfortunately, nothing seemed to change and the process was still nornal.
Understanding that she would need to Maximize her skills before seeing any difference, Iziul placed the issue at the back of her mind for now as she saw the eggs moved a bit.
Waiting intently, it was another five minutes that one egg showed some signs of hatching.
'Ha!' Iziul covered her 'mouth' and 'blushed' mentally.
Seeing the web like cracks that spread by every second, Iziul gasped as an adorable head of what seemed like an elliptical blue caterpillar with a white mask on its face came out of the shell and started eating it. The other eggs hatch after a few minutes as they also begun eating their own egg shells.
'How cute...' Iziul broke it, she had a very soft spot for children, especially babies.
Satisfied, they lay down on the ground for a while to digest what they just ate.
'C-Can I touch them? I just want to squeeze them...' Iziul thought to herself, unknown to her, her thoughts were transferred directly to the trio through some faint mind connection.
Instinctively, their attention was caught by Iziul's presence and immediately referred to her as their mother, then they rolled their way towards Iziul who couldn't help but crouch down and held one.
Holding a grub closely, Iziul smiled inwardly after squishing their soft bodies.
'You're so cute!' Iziul thought as her happy thoughts was immediately sent to the grub who wiggled happily.
Putting it down, Iziul took another one and praised it too.
'You're cute too!' It paused and shivered, but Iziul could feel that the grub was also happy.
Taking the last grub, Iziul praised it too, but there was no response. She praised it again, still, it did not respond.
Shaking her head, she placed it down and looked at the three of them intentionally as a window pop-out.
...
Name: [UNNAMED]
Race: Larva Bit [PLEASE CHOOSE A PATHWAYD]
Core: [NONE]
Tier: 0
Geno Points: 10
.
[Status]
HP: 5/5
MP: 0/0
.
Strength: 0
Defense: 0
Speed: 0
Intelligence: 1
.
[Due to early Bit Creation, the spawn is defected and could only have lesser potential pathways to choose from]
...
Reading this, Iziul tilted her head while pondering. Looking at the grubs, Iziul sighed inwardly.
'I don't quite understand anything just yet, is there a manual or anything I can learn from the system?' Iziul thought to herself, then decided check the 'available pathways' she need to choose from.
...
[Spawn Evolution]
- Slightly Quick Bit
- Slightly Harmful Bit
- Slightly Tough Bit
- Slightly Smart Bit
- Slightly Wild Bit
...
With the limited 'Evolution' Pathways, Iziul frowned inwardly at the word 'slightly'.
'This...' Without much to choose from, Iziul decided to reassess her mindset first and assessed the possible personality traits of her children.
Sometimes in a job and career planning, personality trait dictates one's effectiveness and compatibility to the career field. An example of this is when you give an introverted worker an advertising and field-type job, both the company and the person in charged won't benefit from it since the opposing behaviors of both required work and the worker itself will become a barrier that prevents both from succeeding. By simply aligning the person's personality and job behavior will then yield good results.
'Hmm... this one grub would possibly turn into a hyperactive Bit so a meticulous decision-making trait isn't ideal for it... This one would become a shy Bit, I would need to give it more attention to try to change this trait... while this one, quite cold and decisive... hm...' Iziul pondered and created a few life simulations inside her head. She imagined them like infants given different environments that suited their traits.
After reassuring herself, Iziul decided to finally choose their evolutionary pathways.
...
[Spawn Evolution]
[Slightly Quick Bit] (Active larva)
- A bit that purely focuses on speed.
- Due to spawn defect, the spawn will only receive the following:
+10 Speed & +5% Intelligence from the 1st Generation Queen
+[Agile Feet] and [Nimble Fingers]
...
[Slightly Harmful Bit] (Cold larva)
- A bit that purely focuses on offence.
- Due to spawn defect, the spawn will only receive the following:
+10 Strength & +5% Intelligence from the 1st Generation Queen
+[Crooked Horns] and [Keratin Needle Creation]
...
[Slightly Tough Bit] (Shy larva)
- A bit that purely focuses on Defense.
- Due to spawn defect, the spawn will only receive the following:
+10 Defense & +5% Intelligence from the 1st Generation Queen
+[Slightly Tough Shells] and [Slightly Big Body]
...
While there is a Slightly Smart Bit pathway that is quite practical using Earth standards. Well, they aren't on Earth right now, having arms armed with weapons could help them survive if anything comes right at them.
Iziul isn't sure either of what might happen in this kind of environment and so after reading the short description of each pathway, it wouldn't hurt them to at least prepare for the worst thing that could happen.
This has always been Iziul's mindset.
The world is full of dangers, no one can say they are completely safe and everyone should prepare themselves if something bad might happen to them.
Confirming the system notification, Iziul observed the changes that might happen to to.
...
[Do you wish to choose these pathways?]
'Yes'
[Geno Points: 10 > 0]
[Geno Points: 10 > 0]
[Geno Points: 10 > 0]
...
She watched as all the Geno Points each grub had went to zero, but immediately after, they started wailing in a high frequency that made Iziul wince in sharp pain.
'WAHHHHH!!!'
'Ahhh!!! What's happening?!?!'
Due to maternal instinct of taking care of infant orphans in her previous life, Iziul scooped the soil and tried to feed each of the them like how a mother or nurse bottle feed a baby.
'...'
'WAHHHH!!!'
'ARGH!!! It's not working!?!?!' Iziul panicked inwardly, but momentarily calmed herself.
'A person can't think properly without a calm mind... calm min---'
'WAHHHHHH!!!!'
'Ghad! Would you please shut up for a bit moment please???' Iziul cried inwardly as she covered one grub with her hand.
Surprisingly, the grub quietened down as Iziul felt her cells being sucked out of her. Checking her status, she saw one Geno Point went missing.
After this observation, Iziul placed her other hand on one grub who sucked as another Geni Point disappeared.
'Oh I see... so it works like this...' Iziul nodded her head.
Looking at the last grub wailing sharply, Iziul was at loss as she only had two hands. Thinking of an idea, she leaned her body to let the grub suck her blue skin, but before that happened, she heard another notification ringtone.
...
[Skill Acquired]
[Cell Manipulation (0/20 Geno Points)]
- a Passive skill
- A skill that allows you to manipulate the cells of your body parts except your head region cells and core.
...
Immediately after, another cone shaped hand, then sprouted from her chest as the grub hungrily sucked it.
'Okay, this is definitely weird... but still its working.' Iziul thought to herself and decided to think of this as her mammary glands functioning in a different way.
As she waited for them to 'drink or eat' their fill, Iziul heard another notification ringtone.
...
[Geno Points: 15 > 2]
[WARNING! Geno Points is nearing zero. Deducting Health Points will begin after 5 seconds.]
...
'Oh no you don't!' Iziul said to herself as she created another hand that extended downward that scooped the soil rather crudely.
Seeing the imperfect shape of the crater, Iziul felt bothered.
'Arghh.... OC....' Shaking her head, she placed this matter at the back of her mind as she kept on excavating the site around her to digest more Geno Points.
Fortunately, her rate of absorbing Geno Points was greater than the rate of consumption, so the warning window disappeared after a while.
Watching her kids, Iziul couldn't helped but feel at ease.
'Huh... I feel so... relax... hmm this feels off.' She felt things were weirdly easy but dismissed that thought for now.
'Maybe I'm over reacting... maybe.'
As the grubs took their fill, they decided to lay down on one of the craters Iziul dug, fortunately they arranged themselves uniformly that made Iziul smile due to satisfaction. And soon, they started to weave silk like fibers around their bodies, like a caterpillar transitioning to a butterfly.
'Ohh... So this happens to them... hmm now that I think about it, their Geno Points vary in numbers... Maybe this has something to do with the skills they'll acquire after evolution.' Iziul thought.
Sitting on the ground while watching her kids weave their silks, Iziul's brain remembered the imperfect crater she dug a while ago.
Walking back to the site that bothered her the most, Iziul immediately leaned down and scooped the loam soil to fix the crater.
'Hmmp!' She snorted inwardly since it was her fault that the crater wasn't perfect in the first place.
With her kids busy doing their own things, Iziul sat down in front of them to reassess the things that happened to her and the information she just gathered.
This is Iziul's way of meditation. Through this, she can focus a lot more when needed and at the same time, she can internalize the information and memorized them.
She was not a genius in her previous life so she always needs to work even harder, Iziul already accepted that fact ever since.
She also did not attain high aptitude grades nor praiseworthy accomplishments during her school years, instead, she was a wild student that cannot be tamed and was carefree all day long, oblivious to the world of math, science, literature and philosophy.
Her personality became like this since she doesn't feel the need to care about those and she doesn't have an inspiration worth working hard for other than her mum.
But that only lasted until she applied for the military, Iziul finally discovered her truest desire. The force that changed her life.
It was the pure camaraderie and companionship with each individual soldier entrusted to each other.
She felt alive during those training years and finally decided to start working hard from then on.
And her hard work paid off, she graduated as the Suma Cumlaude of her batch and was immediately sent to train multiple times to become a female General of a Space fleet.
Her labor also bore fruits and one is Orphanage she established to help the lost souls she and her friends rescued during their mission.
But this change in her behavior was also the reason that killed her.
She trusted too much, even trusting the people that sent her and her comrades to their deaths.
From today onwards, she wouldn't give her trust easily to anyone anymore.
'Not anymore.'
.
.
.
'Unless they are my kids. Hm, I do wonder if I can create a warlock Bit? A Wizard Bit? Hmmmm...' Iziul thought randomly.
Unbeknownst to her, within each chrysalis, three pair of orbs ignited inside their eye sockets as three different runes were engraved on their foreheads.