The message appeared as soon as I finished off the ant leg.

  “What is biomass used for?” I asked hoping the voice would answer.

  I got nothing.

  “Open menu,” I tried.

  Still nada.

  “Status,” I tried again.

  Thinking back to my starting stats my health, stamina, and focus had each gone up by around five points per level. I still had no idea what Focus was even used for. I also didn’t know what my abilities did even though I’d been leveling up a few of them and even had a skill point for Flight. Ripping off another ant leg I chewed it, the raw meat didn’t taste bad, and eating it made me feel substantially better.

  I had skills but I had no idea what they did for me or how to use my mutation paths.

  “Skill Description,” I said.

  I was greeted with a wall of text I’d never seen before.

  It was hard to take it all in, but I managed. Based on them Toughness and Dexterity were the ones used by most of my abilities. Brawn was a second followed by Charisma which was also my lowest stat. The abilities that used Charisma however were also the ones I couldn’t use so that would be my lowest stat for a while now.

  I scarfed down the rest of the ant’s leg and ripped off another.

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  “How do I get Light Carapace?” I asked.

  Again, the voice didn’t say anything. I sat and thought while I chewed. Swallowing the leg I ripped off another, despite eating mas that weighed as much as two chickens I was still hungry. Also eating would help me regain my health and level up Carnivorous. I needed to grow or acquire the carapace and pheromone glands to use them.

  “Spend Biomass,” I said testing out another command.

  The various submenus inside the Biomass Menu all had lists of options, I could see a few and guess from context what they were about. Selecting the first one I decided to investigate my unlocked mutation paths. I then selected Hunter’s Antenna to see what would happen.

  I looked at a glowing dot with three branching paths going from it to circles with a pulsing glowing border. Each circle was a separate path that I could pick for my antenna.

  I guessed that picking one path would block off the others. Looking them over I tried to think which one would help me in combat and to survive the longest. It was probably Analyzing Sensors, if I knew more about the creatures, I was facing I could make better decisions on whether to fight or flee. It didn’t matter much since I only had two biomass right now.

  I finished off the ant leg I was eating and got another point of biomass and ripped off a fourth leg.

  Going back to the main Biomass Menu I selected the option for available Mutation Paths. There I clicked on Head since it was the first of the options there. Again, I saw a filled-in circle representing my head with three branching paths to black circles with a white pulsing border. This again implied to me that I would only be able to choose one of the available options.

  I suddenly felt excited as I looked at my list of options. I looked at the first option, I didn’t even need to consider this as one of my paths. I’d unlocked it by analyzing the corpses of the ants. If my biomorphs didn’t count against this, then I’d be able to unlock multiple branches in my upgrade trees rather than being locked to one as supposedly everyone else was.

  Going over to my Biomorphs menu I clicked on Pheromone Gland to see how much it would cost.

  I didn’t have a nice circle with branching paths from it this time. Instead, I had several circles that glowed an angry red. They floated in a vast empty space; I could see other orbs as dark shadowy impressions in the distance, but they moved or disappeared whenever I focused on them.

  The cost of activating the biomorph was way less than unlocking a new mutation path. I had to guess that had to do with me already having all the requisite information and genetic code and just needing the materials to create it. I still didn’t have enough biomass to do anything with but I had two ants to eat.

  I began tearing off legs and chewing methodically before swallowing as I ripped off the ant’s remaining two legs getting another point of biomass per leg. I ripped off the ant’s head next, it dripped fluid from one end and I tipped it back and began slurping it down.

  I wasn’t sure if my human self would have found this disgusting, but my new species had no problems with eating the ants raw. I drank the fluids from the ant’s head and scrapped the inside for meat like a coconut. Dropping it to the side I grabbed the ant’s midsection before doing the same to the thorax leaving them all scraped clean of meat.

  I’d gotten two from the remaining legs, three biomass from the head, four from the midsection, and five from its thorax. I felt stuffed but forced myself to start on the second ant’s legs. I kept eating my stomach starting to bulge as I chocked down every last bit of the ant.

  I had a total of thirty-six biomass now. That was probably enough to unlock one biomorph and upgrade one of my mutation paths.

  Going over to a biomorph I hadn’t looked at I selected Light Carapace.

  I had a thin carapace already, but it was like a fingernail in its thickness. If it provided protection, it wasn’t much and certainly not enough to rely on when taking damage from razor-sharp pincers or fangs.

  Mentally selecting yes, I fell back spasming. It felt as if electricity was running through my body, I thrashed as a painful ich grew all over my skin, then I passed out.

  When I opened my eyes again the sky was darkening. I shuddered, realizing I’d just been lying there helpless for hours. Looking down at myself I saw my thin mostly decorative carapace had transformed, it was now as thick as shoe leather and what looked like the start of spikes protruded over it giving it a bumpy, knobby surface. I felt up my neck where the carapace thinned out feeling more like leather than hardened plates. Pulling up the description of the mutation I looked it over to see exactly what it did.

  With this biomorph purchased I had eleven biomass leftover. It would be enough to upgrade two of my mutation paths.

  Before I upgraded anything else I wanted to improve my stinger. Selecting it in the mutation menu I looked over its options.

  Slashing damage wasn’t something I needed for my stinger, just a simple cut wouldn’t be enough to inject them with my venom. Puncturing had a lot of promise, it would let me deal with other creatures with carapace armor more easily. Extension also merited thought, staying farther away might help to reduce the amount of damage I took. Eventually, I dismissed Extension settling on Puncturing, the mutation path behind that would likely help me take out higher-level targets more than a bit of extra reach would.

  Again, I spasmed with pain as my right arm and stinger burned with a fiery agony, I passed out, but it was only for a few minutes this time the changes were much smaller than from the change to my carapace. The only difference I could see to my stinger was that the tip had changed from a smooth point to a more triangular one.

  With only six biomass left, I had to be very particular in my next upgrade. I wanted to upgrade my Venom Sack, but I should probably work on something besides just damage. Going back to my Hunter’s Antenna I selected the option for Analyzing Sensors. There was a burning in my sensitive antenna, and I wanted to rip them out of my head. Luckily, I passed out before I could act on the irrational impulse. When my vision returned, I wiggled my antenna but running my fingers along them and dipping them in front of my eyes I couldn’t see any outward changes.

  With my current skill, I would be able to see how much health any creature under seventh level had. I didn’t have the Detection Skill, but I guessed trying to detect things would eventually unlock it. With only one biomass left all I had left to do was spend my skill point for flight and my stat points.

  Going through my menus again I pulled up Flight.

  Congratulations! You have leveled Flight to level 5! Please select a skill upgrade.

  Unlike the set options for my mutation paths, there were lots more for skills. There was one that would let me do turns midair faster, another that would increase my diving speed, and another that would increase how fast I could ascend. They all revolved around making some part of flying faster. I’d barely done any flying yet, so I wasn’t sure which option was best. Finally, I spotted a generic option that I thought would help everything.

  It seemed simple enough and even if it wasn’t the best option, being faster at all maneuvers in the air couldn’t be bad. I didn’t feel any pain this time. Since it was just a skill instead of a body part there was nothing, the system could do to my nervous system.

  I had six stat points to spend. A lot of my abilities revolved around Toughness, so I decided to bump it up by four, the other two points I’d put into brawn and bring it up to twelve. When I spent the points, my body shuddered. It wasn’t as unpleasant as unlocking or upgrading a mutation path, but it wasn’t pleasant either. I felt the muscles under my carapace swell and shift a bit and my skin and carapace felt a bit heavier as if I’d put on a couple of pounds of weight.

  I stood up. I needed biomass and experience and there was a colony of ants around here somewhere that was a source of both.