Chapter 132
If possible I'd wanted to wait a little longer before reconstituting my second pet . With higher levels of core engineering I'd be able to customise the creature to better fit the intended role I had in mind .
Sadly events are pressing me a little faster than I would have liked and mining the cores in the farm has proven to be a little slow . If I had a month then I could afford to wait but I feel that things always accelerate faster than I want in this world . I mustn't forget that I still have to raise a reconstituted monster from an infant form up to the mature, combat ready form it had when it was killed . That process will take a fair amount of time and has to accounted for in my planning .
If I'd had time I would have been able to grind out a few more levels and then, with my skills raised I had hoped to embark on the kind of mastery that Formo had displayed to me . The Sophos have carved out a life for themselves within the Dungeon using their hyper modified and specially raised pets, showing just how strong this technique can be .
I want to supplement my own strength with a few select pets also . I can't be in every place at once and defending the colony whilst also hunting to raise my own strength is proving difficult . Eventually the colony will be strong enough to look after itself, with a number of more highly evolved workers and sheer numbers to overwhelm more powerful monsters . Until then I want to be able to leave the colony for a stretch of time and be assured that it is well protected .
The Jellymaw is an incredible defensive creature . Within the confines of the Dungeon, inside a narrow space, even without the power of sight there is nowhere to hide from its fearsome tentacles and incredible strength .
Imagining an enemy attempting to assault the ant hill, sending soldiers down the main shaft to hunt the Queen and ants huddling within, only to meet a wall of brutal tentacles that rip the flesh from their bones and devouring them whole .
… . Yuck . Effective, but yuck .
Ok! Bringing my antennae forward I throw my mind into the dark gem resting on the soil before me . Immediately a flood of information invades my mind, all of the details of the JellyMaw as a creature, its body type, organs, limbs, musculature, stats and evolutionary pathway are laid bare in my eyes, ready for manipulation .
The first thing that strikes me is the stats . I'm kind of surprised at how intelligent the monster is . I hadn't thought the creature would need much of a mind and had prepared myself for another all brawn no brain associate like Tiny . As I investigate deeper it starts to make a bit of sense .
By not included sensory organs, no eyes, sense of taste, smell or hearing, a tremendous amount of … space … was left available within the brain . It's a little hard to explain but when I explore more deeply all of the things that contribute towards the final 'stat' value the intricacy and complexity of the system starts to become more apparent .
So if there was only ten 'points' worth of energy available to devote to a monsters brain, then you would need to spend that developing all of the aspects of a brain for a rounded mind . Some of the energy would go to unconscious body management, like how a person doesn't have to think about making their heart beat, a good chunk of it would go on memory, more on increasing the speed and efficacy of the brains connections, that is to say, intelligence . Since sensory organs are quite complex the parts of the brain that deal with those are also quite complex requiring a heap of energy to properly form them . By not including any of these, large amounts of energy was instead devoted towards pure intelligence and memory, gaining a relatively high Cunning stat fairly cheaply .
Interesting!
Similarly the JellyMaw has no bones, much like a regular jellyfish . Without having to spend energy on a skeletal system, more was devoted to the powerful musculature . I'm still not exactly sure how the monster manages to function out of water without bones though, I'll need to dig a little deeper .
The more I look the more impressed I am with the way this creature is constructed . That incredible power has come about as a result of a series of trade-offs that have been made everywhere . Limited senses, no bones, reduced nervous system, very simple selection of organs, all cut back to produce that fearsome strength I'd been able to witness .
However, this is still room for changes . Since the JellyMaw already has greater than expected intelligence, I want to push that advantage a bit further . Intelligence will ultimately trump strength, the human race rising to supremacy on Earth is living proof!
Besides, the JellyMaw is already crazy strong, any power I shave off now can be made up for in future evolutions by ensuring that the core is maxed out .
I begin to put my mind to the changes, forcing and shaping them with my will and then holding them down until the new form holds steady within the core . Reducing the strength of the tentacles a little here and there, adjusting the musculature of the face to pour more energy into the brain . All of the extra energy is devoted to pure intelligence, raising the cunning little by little .
I manage to squeeze another four points of intelligence before I stop . I don't want to take away the creatures strength too much .
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