Within the Tall Grass Forest, an extremely small pearl could be found on the ground. The colorless opaque pearl stood out only in shape, all would merely think of it as an interesting-looking pebble. Cracks slowly formed on the outer shell of the pearl, until it broke.
A small mantis broke free from its confines. Most of its body was a startling orange with its limbs and head both a shiny black. Zack awoke, alert and disoriented. Taking in the surroundings, Zack noticed the base was much smaller than before. It seemed he had gotten smaller with the evolution, a bit unexpected. He checked his status panel to get a read on the situation.
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Name: Zack Huntt
Species: Orchid Mantis (Hymenopus coronatus)
Age: 1 Month, 5 Days old
Lifespan: 2~ Year
Lifecycle: Nymph
Size: 16 mm
Prayers Collected: 14 Prayers
Biomass Collected: 0 Biomass
Abilities: Flowery Aroma, Mimic Flora
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Zack took stock of his new stats. Firstly, it seems his guess was correct. Evolution does increase his life span. Even if only by a year, that was enough to drive Zack forward. Next, he had shrunk. But, he wasn't as small as he was when Zack had been reborn. Lastly, the most interesting thing of all, the abilities. Zack tried mentally interacting with the abilities as he did with the resources.
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Flowery Aroma:
Emit the aroma of any ingested flowers. Different flowers may result in different effects on creatures. Smell good, smell bad, just find the type of smelly flower you want to be.
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Mimic Flora:
Imitate plants to an uncanny degree. Deception relies on form and camouflage synergy with environmental factors. A cactus wouldn't live atop a tree, or would it?
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Zack waved his antenna in surprise. The system actually gave him a description of the abilities. The cheeky sentences within even gave further insight into the limitations of these abilities.
The Flowery Aroma ability while seemly weak at first glance, Zack knew it had potential. Zack remembered a certain flower that smelled horrendous like that of rotting corpses. If he could use that to his benefit, Zack wouldn't mind being a little smelly. Although Zack wasn't excited about the fact that he needed to consume flowers to gain their smell.
The Mimic Flora was an ability that Zack didn't see much potential. As it was probably dependent on the believability of the flora he was imitating. Zack also guessed that mimicking plants bigger or a different color than himself was either not possible or less effective. However, Zack would need to test the limits and possibilities with this ability to fully utilize it.
Tall grass stalks rustled and the ground tremored. Something was approaching and it was likely bigger than Zack. Zack cursed, he had shrunk greatly after his evolution. The greater size would've been nice to ensure his safety, but life wasn't perfect.
The ground trembled and his base was slowly falling apart. Although he was proud of his newly acquired architecture skills, Zack doubted his roof would last any longer than a minute if the tremors continued. The roof unraveled moments after he finished that thought.
The warm skies blessed Zack's mantis eyes with light. But, the warm skies were less like a blessing and more like a terrible omen. The tremors stopped and Zack froze. Above him, the distinct shadow of a frog eclipsed the skies.
Zack cursed in panic, the unraveling of the base had caught the frog's attention. Luckily, the frog was much larger than himself. Zack guessed it to be twice as large as he had been before he evolved. If Zack hadn't shrunk he would've been a lot more nervous. However, Zack had another card up his sleeve to ensure he remained hidden.
Zack's posture sunk and his body stilled. The movement wasn't left unnoticed by the frog. But, surprisingly the frog hadn't attacked. That was because he just utilized his newest ability, Mimic Flora. There was only one type of plant that his bright colors could mimic, they were mushrooms! The frog had noticed not a colorful mantis, but instead a glossy orange mushroom. Needless to say, most creatures instinctively knew to avoid bright and colorful plants. Those who hadn't either died or were soon to greet their ancestors in the afterlife.
The frog's beady eyes examined the mushroom silently as Zack held still. Each second felt like an eternity, but he didn't move or shake. Frogs mostly relied on motion to detect prey, so any type of movement would be asking for death. The reason he risked movement earlier was for a purpose. Even though it attracted the frog's attention, the frog was now unlikely to jump in his direction. He had to lower the chances of being crushed alive by a jumping frog, all he had to do now was endure. Seconds crawled into minutes until the frog finally leaped away.
Zack didn't move until he no longer felt the earth tremble. Confirming he was safe, Zack hurriedly fixed up his base. The grass stalks surrounding him weren't without dangers and a base to hide in helped greatly with that problem. Time felt as if it had sped up while Zack worked and a whole day had gone by. The base had been remodeled, making further improvements to the old design. With night encroaching Zack ate from what little food he had left in his stockpile. Zack would need to go hunting tomorrow but for now, he would sleep.
Sleep took over, and he woke up the next day greeted with a surprise. His carapace's black and orange coloring was replaced by a white base color with splotches of soft pink. Zack's body had grown to 21 mm, but other than that there was no other change to his status panel. Zack forgot about how easy it was to molt during the early stages.
Upon examining his new features a devilish idea sprung up within his mind. His carapace would blend in perfectly with the flowers in Flower Forest. Zack hadn't forgotten the distress those ants had caused him. Zack had wanted to settle the score, but he was afraid of their Zerg-like tactics. However now, Zack noticed was his abilities were perfect for the Flower Forest. In fact, he had evolved into an assassin who was born to hunt in the Flower Forest. It was decided, Zack wanted revenge.