Paxton took a moment to reflect on his current situation, he has been reincarnated into a fish person and needs to consume creatures to survive. It was not as demanding as his past life was, in a lot of ways he was going to have it easy. He began to take stock of his stats, right now with his strength at a mere 1/10 it was by far his weakest stat. However, his intelligence stat being at 4 was the highest, which explains why he was able to comprehend and retain the information just given to him.
Paxton was most curious about his new name, Yam was right, his name was a big reminder of his past self. As Paxton tried to think of a new identity, a few ideas crossed his mind. After going through a few cringy names, Paxton finally settled on what he felt was a great and awe-inspiring name. As he looked at his display, he wondered just how his name change was to take place, as if hearing his thoughts, the system asked him aloud in Yam's voice; "would you like to commence name change?"
"Yes." Paxton agreed, understanding that in the future he just needed to think about things to get them done.
"What would you like to be called?" the system asked, still sounding like Yam.
"I would like to be referred to as Caspian Munro."
[Confirmed, now referring to user as Caspian Munro.]
Name- Caspian Munro, LVL 1
Race- Merrow
Essence- 9,994
HP- 10/ 10
MP- 10/ 10
Strength- 1/ 10
Agility- 2/ 10
Intelligence- 4/ 10
Skills- NONE
Status Points- 0
1 Status Point = 2,000 Essence.
Caspian gazed at his stats and realized that his Essence really was slowly going down and that he needed to go and hunt other creatures and get stronger soon. Just as he thought this however, he noticed two things; one being that he was in the body of a toddler, and the second being that there was something watching him from a distance.
It was large, around 100 feet long, it was too far away to make out exactly what it was, but Caspian knew it was hostel. He knew one thing for sure, it was like nothing he had ever encountered in his past life. From his current position, he could see that the creature had the head of snake with bright green glowing eyes and instead of one tail it had way too many to count. On top of that, the creature had two long arms with hands forming into massive claws that looked to be designed for tearing into flesh. Spikes ran down the creature's head and back making it seem like a hybrid between a dragon, octopus, and a serpent.
As Caspian watched the creature, a black substance began to escape from the many giant whip like tails. In a matter of seconds, the entire area was encompassed by the inky substance, making Caspian's vision extremely impaired. After gaining his bearings, Caspian started flailing around trying to escape the darkness. Suddenly, as Caspian turned around, he found a bright green glowing eye directly in front of him. Caspian screamed in shock and turned to swim away as fast as possible but found himself being gripped by the clawed hand of the creature. Caspian tried to wriggle around and escape the creature's grasp to no avail. The creature flicked its tongue at Caspian as if it were excited to eat this new morsel, and without warning, promptly threw Caspian into its mouth, swallowing him whole and going about its way.
......
Caspian was surprised to feel himself tumbling down a slime covered tunnel, he was sure that he was supposed to be dead. As it turned out, however, this fearsome creature did not seem to possess any teeth. It now made sense why the creature was blessed with so many other weapons to kill its prey, it relied on them in place of using teeth and needed an evolutionary advantage to survive. As Caspian was elated at the prospect of not being torn to shreds by the creature, this new circumstance, although it seemed safe, was much worse. If he was swallowed whole, that only meant that he was headed for the stomach to be slowly digested by the creature's stomach acid.
It was impossible to try and climb back up the esophagus, as it was covered with a thick layer of slime. Even trying to gain a sense of being upright proved to be a futile task as Caspian tumbled down the smelly damp tunnel. Finally, after what felt like an hour, Caspian was shot out onto a hard lumpy surface. The first thing he noticed, was the absence of water, or rather, the water being drained into a giant hole in the middle of the enormous stomach. The hole was surrounded by what appeared to be green glowing veins. Furthermore, Caspian quickly gathered that dry air was not harmful to him, but he suspected that he would need to return to water soon.
Caspian started to explore this new prison he found himself in, carefully avoiding the giant hole in the center as he walked. Once he finished taking in the unpleasant sights, Caspian sat on one of the walls and began to get acquainted with the functions of his system. He deduced that if one status point was worth 2,000 Essence, he could afford a total of four status points at this current moment.
The most obvious stat to increase right now would-be strength. Caspian assumed that the system would just react to his thoughts as usual, so he simply asked the system to convert 4,000 Essence into status points. After gaining two stat points, Caspian told the system to put them into strength. Instantly, Caspian could feel his muscles tear and repair making them stronger than before. While painful at first, Caspian could feel his strength reaching new heights. The new problem, however, was that Caspian had effectively just knocked an entire month from his life. If he did not start absorbing Essence from other creatures, Caspian was not going to last long in this world. As if answering his wish, the chamber began to tremble as a new wave of water came falling down the tube from which Caspian originated. Unlike the previous meal of the creature, this new catch contained hundreds of small to medium sized fish. Just like that, Caspian had found his Essence source while he would remain in this living dungeon.