Chereads / Brutalis: The crucible of life / Chapter 9 - Chapter 9: Working men

Chapter 9 - Chapter 9: Working men

Ethan had to really put in some work to grow himself so that he was basically a cherry tomato to the larger monsters, to do that.. Ethan was going to have to really start making his traps work for him and stay away from the larger monsters for the time being.

To that end, Ethan started experimenting with different sorts of traps he could make with his webbing on top of the bigger trap webs. So far, he made a pretty basic rope trap. It would consist of webbing laying on the ground while wrapped around vines to make sure that it held its structural integrity and wouldn't lose its stickiness. Basically, when a schmuck stepped into the trap it would swing them upside down and gravity would keep them that way unless they had a way to cut the vine.

Ethan also was laying web traps that had a single thread of webbing across a pathway and if they broke it, a massive amount of webbing would fall down onto them from the trees above. While they do take longer to make, they are much harder to see and have already been paying dividends back for his effort. So far, he has killed 8 creatures. Which actually helped him complete his quest. "Eat so that you do not die." Since he has completed this he gained 100 mutogene and unlocked the evolution tab.

"Ah, you finally unlocked evolution's! Oh man, you're about to have your mind blown... for monsters evolution's and mutations are everything!" Hiamel said with rising passion.

"Wow, he is really passionate about this." Ethan thought to himself.

Just as Ethan thought that a screen showed up and started playing yet another cartoon tutorial. The robotic female voice started playing again. " Congratulations on not dying! You did better than percent of other victims.. I mean candidates!" Ethan and Hiamel made eye contact and sighed and Hiamel shrugged which from his tone suggested he was saying " What can you do?"

The video continued, " monsters can use something called evolution to vastly increase their power. This increases in a multiplicative fashion for the first evolution it is increased by 10 percent. Then after the second evolution it goes up to 20 percent and then from the 3rd evolution it would go up to 40 percent... you thought it was 30 percent didn't you? Hahahahahaha no. It DOUBLES your percentage buff for each evolution. Not only that, but you get to choose an evolution path and focus on building a build. Think on it before making your decisions, there are no second chances" The robotic female voice said.

The voice continued " Evolution occurs when your skills reach a multiplication of 5, for example once all your attributes reach 5 you will unlock your first evolution and then after that when they reach ten, and then 15 and then 25 and so on and so forth. Sounds easy enough? Wrong! Each level of your skills takes more and more of mutogene. It will be a grind!"

The screen disappeared and then Hiamel spoke " You have 210 Mutogene, more than enough to upgrade the rest of your skills to level 5, you should do so now."

Ethan pondered for a moment and then made his decision, if he was going to get out of this situation, he needed to become more powerful so he would play their game... for now.

" I will use this power that they gave me to tear everything down that they worked for, just like they did to me."

Ethan opened up his stat menu and upgraded his legs, webbing and mandibles to level 5 which left him with 30 mutogene as each one cost 60 Mutogene.

Ethan

Species: Cheiracanthium inclusum (infant)

Gender: Female

Power level 5

Strength: 55

Agility: 40

Intelligence: 65

Luck: 25

Vitality: 50

Mutations:

Skills:Mandibles +5

Legs +5

Webbing +5

(mind control) Venom+5

Then a screen popped up with a little fanfare and confetti. The screen said " Yay! First evolution! You're a big boy now!"

Then the screen changed to a page with 4 lit up nodes and what looked to be thousands of grayed out nodes connected in a spiderweb pattern to the lit up nodes. Essentially it amounted to choosing a beginning node and then from there going down the tree further and further down the spider hole so to speak.

Ethan had 3 options to choose from, The venom-ancer Which name implies it affects all things poison it gives plus two to all venom based abilities and going further down this tree will make you a poisonous terror from the shadows.

The next choice is the metal body spider this changes all webbing to razor sharp metal webs that retain their stickiness how you ask? Magic! This choice will instantly upgrade your webs by plus 2 and going further down this path will add more and more metal based abilities and allow you to become a walking behemoth of spidery destruction.

The last choice is the path of the Brood-master,are you feeling... lonely? Not any more if you choose this path! You can spawn brood-lings from your body and control them with your mind as if controlling another limb. Further upgrades down this path will consistently both the amount of brood-lings you can control and also how smart and strong they are.

Basically you will become a walking army depot and you will be able to constantly spew out reinforcements. Choosing this path will give you a plus two to legs as you will need it for your increased mass. " Ethan knew that this was a big decision and it had to be a careful one.

Ethan was focusing on the webs and looking at the different options and future upgrades so intently that everything else dimmed and only the screen with the options existed to him.

Just as he reached that state a new *ding* sound could be heard. " Congratulations you unlocked your first passive ability! Detectives mind, you can drown out any and all outside sources and focus intently on your objective and you will notice things that others may not notice.

You may find hidden objectives or options with this ability. This levels up with use unlike with your main abilities. "

Ethan read this in surprise, "Wow this could come in handy I am starting to feel like my old self a little bit."

Ethan went back to the screen looking everything over and soon entered into that state once again, he then noticed that every 3 evolution's each tree had the ability to branch to another. Which means that he was not locked down into one single path but could essentially have infinite choices of builds really depending on the max amount of evolution's. Then Ethan saw something down one of the trees that essentially cinched his decision. " I am going to choose..."