The Collector burst from its crystal cocoon, and as its half-fish, half-daemon figure slid out, the shards flew up into the air in slow, wafting iridescent flakes.

Like snow under sun, the flakes melted, disappearing into pinpoints of light first before snuffing out into nothingness.

The raging waters of the swampy pond calmed in an instant, and all light that previously charged it disappeared, leaving the clearing as dark as it had been when the Collector slew the assassin bugbrute.

The world around the Collector swirled into a blur as it felt nausea – a sensation that it was largely immune to due to possessing various sensory systems – and yet, it hit hard, doubling it over for a split second, completely bypassing the tactile sensory imaging from its sensitive hairs or auditory systems.

Even now, though, with nausea assaulting the Collector, it did not waste time, taking this second to sense any irregularities within itself for this cocoon, this forced evolution, was extremely anomalous.

It put a clawed hand to its chest.

An immediately noticeable aberration: the beating not of one heart, but two hearts.

But it did not ponder this long before its sensory systems quickly recovered, allowing it to perceive the scent of iron tinging the blood of humanoids in the air.

The compound eyes on its forehead moved from side to side, each of them operating independently from each other, and it assessed the situation before it.

Twelve goblin corpses bloodied and torn apart into nigh unrecognizable shreds

The female daemon specimen looking up at it with wondering eyes, her hand trembling and outstretched, charged with what the Collector could now see so clearly as magic: an outline of gleaming purple light around her entire body.

The Collector did not question what was occurring before it. It simply acted on instinct first. It spared the frozen hobgoblin in front of it one glance before it slithered forwards and slammed its monstrously muscled, carapaced fist into the hobgoblin’s chest.

The fist sprouted straight to the other side.

The hobgoblin’s heart beat in the Collector’s hand. Quick beats that grew shallower and shallower by the moment, separated as the organ was from the body.

The Collector crushed the heart in its hand, feeling the soft organ squelch and squish under immense pressure. With a pop, blood spurted every which way, splattering the Collector’s ashen carapace for a second before draining into pores within the carapace.

The hobgoblin’s corpse slumped down, free from the female daemon’s manipulation.

The daemon sighed and grit her teeth as she stood up, swaying from side to side, trying to stop herself from falling.

The Collector sensed extreme muscular and now mental fatigue from her.

It clicked its mandibles.

Judging from her state and minute differences in temperature in the area, some time had passed.

“Tell me, how much time have I spent in this aberrant evolutionary cocoon?” said the Collector as its six eyes followed goblin tracks in the mud to where they had entered the clearing.

More would likely come.

Good. The Collector would finish what it had started to the end this time.

‘You…you’re back,’ said the daemon.

“Do not waste time. Answer my question,” said the Collector. “That you have defended my cocoon allows me to understand to minimal furthered degree your aberrant tie to my continued well being. Your usefulness thus increases in small measure.

But it does not grant you leeway to be inefficient.”

‘Ah, yes. Um…six hours, maybe? I think it’s afternoon now, but it is hard to tell here where light doesn’t shine,” she said.

The Collector clicked its mandibles.

Unacceptable that it had allowed itself to be vulnerable for such an extended period of time.

And yet, curious – it could not even begin to conceptualize what had occurred, but it knew at an instinctive level that everything had changed about it.

It checked its status.

>>>

*[SYSTEM STABILIZED…]*

*[ASSIMILATION COM…PLETE]*

Metamorphosis Level 6

Biomass Level: 10/100

Stored Genetic Material:

-Black Ant

-Deer

-Black Hobgoblin

-Human

-Lesser Oni

-Frostborn Hobgoblin

-Horse

-Lesser Greatcentipede

-Lesser Greatbeetle

-Spitting Greatbeetle

-Leafblade Insect

Adaptations:

<Internal Systems>

-Ultrafiber Muscles Rank 6.4

–Coilboosters

-Autonomic Neuro-Bodily Matrix

–Metalloglottic Ossifier

<External Systems>

-Sensitive Hairs Rank 5.2

–Quill Spray

-Organic Hyperalloy Carapace Rank 5.4

–Longchain Chitinous Sublayer

<Weapons Systems>

-Monomolecular Claws Rank 4.4

-Pyrocatalytic Glands Rank 3

Current Form:

Assassin Bugbrute/Daemon/Dullscale Rohu/Jumping Arakka

*[SYSTEM UPDATED]*

<<<[?Magic¿] Status>>>

Mana Level: 100%

*(Take care to note this resource. With time, you will better feel its flow and become more efficient in its usage. You may restore portions of your mana by consuming beings with cores, even dormant ones.)*

Active Cores (2/3):

-Prime Core

–Trigger: Desire

*(Your primary magical core. Irreplaceable.

Take care that it is not damaged, for harm to it will limit mana flowing from this core, limiting all abilities associated with it. As you are now, damage to your prime core will also limit your ability to draw power from secondary cores.)

-Daemon Core

–Trigger: Wonder

*(Your secondary magical core. Damage to this will cause loss of function in using the Inhera tied to it: Sapia. You can increase the amount of cores you may have active in your body, but you will require the Neuro-Circulatory Reserve <internal system> adaptation that allows you to generate additional vital organs.)*

-EMPTY SLOT

Inhera:

-Sapia (Daemon Core)

*(Inhera of the Daemons.

With this, you may expend mana for a variety of force based magic. Pushing and pulling with the mind. Generation of a personal shield. Assistance with flight. Draining of mental energies in others to empower the physical body or to lower a target’s susceptibility to mental manipulation.

Take note that if damage is registered on the Daemon Core, this ability will suffer as well)*

Ethera:

-The Devourer (Prime Core)

*(You are a devourer from the void.

All living things are bound the limitations set upon them by their birth on this world. The number of their circuits, the strength of their cores, the talent they have vested unto them or the sharpness of their instincts – these all limit life in this world.

You are not of this world. You are ever evolving.

By consuming a living being, you may add a portion of their spirit roots to your own and take their cores, allowing you to manifest the inherent powers associated with them.

In concept, you are capable of infinite growth.

Take care to note that slotting a consumed core only grants you its inherent powers such as Inhera, Ethera, and Primal Magic.

Marks of experience such as developed martial arts and skills will not be gained.

These, you will have to learn.)

Primal Magic:

-None *(Devour monsters that are attuned with mana flowing within them, and obtain the secrets of their forms and powers)*

Blessings:

-Blessing of Mount Oe

*(Blessings are tied to your essence, and regardless of what form you take, if you usurp the blessing of another being, it shall transfer to you and stay with you permanently)*

Primal Density: 5%

*(Consider this a form of magic resistance. At 5%, you may resist 5% of all the damage from magic sourced from Gates. However, magic that does not herald from gates such as primal magic, certain Inhera, and Ethera will bypass this.

Continue to evolve to raise this attribute. Consuming creatures with primal density of their own will increase this attribute’s growth rate.)

Root Consumption Limit (Level 6): 50%

*(For every metamorphosis level, you can consume a set amount of spirit roots to add to your own. Once you reach a maximum consumption limit, you are unable to absorb more – any excess converts into raw mana.

Reach additional metamorphosis levels to gain even more powerful physical forms to increase your capacity to intake spirit roots.)

>>>

The Collector clicked its mandibles.

A fundamental difference.

There was now an addition of a <<<Magic Status>>> and all that came with it.

Extremely anomalous, and yet, this was not the greatest oddity.

It was the feeling of the evolutionary system.

The Collective Hivemind did not so much have a voice as it did a feeling when the Collector interfaced with it through the psionic shard implanted within its consciousness.

But the feeling of the system was now different.

Vastly different.

This…was not the Hivemind it knew.

And yet, still similar. A feeling of two voices merged.

Where this other voice came from and what it was, the Collector knew nothing of, only that it was not an intrusive one. It even felt similar in feeling to the Hivemind’s voice, not entirely separate and yet still distinct.

A feeling that the Collector could not calculate, only approximate with feeling, and the secondary system voice felt much the same as the Collective’s presence: a deeply ingrained part of the Collector just as intrinsic as its bones and flesh.

An aberration of the highest level.

The Collective Hivemind shard implanted in the Collector could engage in emergency assimilation processes for as a psionic shard, it was susceptible to attack from certain psionic sensitive entities in the known universe.

In response, the psionic shard would assimilate the intruding psionic profile, completely devouring the consciousness of whatever foolish individual decided it was wise to tackle the full processing power of the Hivemind – an entity comprised of billions of minds meshed together.

But never had the shard itself changed at a fundamental level.

Yet pondering this situation further was inefficient to the Collector’s mental resources.

It was not equipped to understand the higher workings of the Collective Hivemind for it was implanted to believe that the system was absolute and rigid in its functioning, unable to change to any degree for the Hivemind was a biological processing system closest to nearing absolute perfection.

That it could even question how the system had changed and how it was wrong was outside the limitations imposed upon it by the Collective.

The Collector clicked its mandibles.

It sensed further movement from behind the clearing.

Approximately fifteen meters away.

The squishing of small and larger feet on mud and the rustling of bodies against foliage.

The Collector devoured the rest of the hobgoblin’s body in hurried movements, tearing off its limbs and shoving them down its detachable jaw. In seconds, the bulky corpse was gone.

Blood spatters remained on the ground.

Messy, but the Collector had a battle to attend to. It devoured also a sample of the lightstones scattered by the goblins before moving on.

>>>

*Biomass gained (+3)*

Biomass Level: 13/100

*Spirit roots gained (+5)*

Root Consumption Limit: 55/100

*Metalloglottic ossifier sample retrieved*

-Lightstone

>>>

For now, it was content with feeling that there were no combat related declines in function associated with the system’s change.

Rather, as it flexed its fingers out, feeling its muscles contract and relax, it was even stronger.

Stronger than it had ever been in this world..

It could finally feel magic flowing through it.

From the twin hearts beating in its chest, it sensed warmth.

Before, it had felt this warmth as one large, smothering sensation of heat, but now, it could feel the details, how the heat trickled and flowed through every little pathway in its body, nourishing it, strengthening it.

Bending to its will.

Now that the Collector could sense the flow of mana within itself, working with it was almost second nature.

After all, fundamentally mana and spirit roots and this core all worked with physical anchors, and these anchors, the blood vessels and nerves and hearts – the Collector had absolute dominion over to such a fine tuned degree that no humanoid body on this world would ever match it.

Just as the Collector would pump blood into its serpentine tail, it willed mana to flow, and a rippling red aura enveloped the carapaced flesh. The fins on the tail retracted to allow for uninhibited movement.

The flesh in the tail screamed and tore as the Collector registered some internal damage to its muscles.

A miscalculation in inputting too much mana, it seemed. It took note, then reassessed its calculations now that it became more familiar in operating its mana.

The Collector withdrew mana from its tail, then pumped it back in with its adjusted calculations.

This time, the mana flowed properly, flowing in the right quantities throughout the blood vessels and nerves, strengthening the tail and wrapping it in a glowing aura of red.

The female daemon trudged up to the Collector, staring at its red wreathed tail. ‘Wow. You…you’re already using reinforcement?

You…didn’t even have to meditate.

Learning how to flow your mana, to perceive and feel the flow of every single one of the countless branches of power in the body, that takes months, years to perfect, but this…this is almost perfect.’

“The mere flow of mana is easily within the boundaries of my processing power,” said the Collector. “It would be obvious that tinkerers such as yourselves with severely stunted mental capabilities would be unable to ascertain the flow of this resource.

Yet, still curious.

The tinkerers that I possess stored memories of would never even begin to have the capacity to direct this resource within their bodies.

That those among you in this world do, even in requiring significant periods of time to develop, is testament in small measure to an elevated level of both mental and physical strength.”

The Collector clicked its mandibles, readying again to face its enemies.

“It seems you are capable of fending for yourself with your sudden regenerative growth,” said the Collector.

It did not look at her, only staring ahead into the darkness, sensing the targets it was to devour. “Agreeable. You now in small measure undo the hideous perversion wrought upon your nature and hunt as a predator should.

There are nine hobgoblin variants approaching, all of them spaced out in intervals of two to three meters. The closest lies fifteen meters away.

There are several movements of lesser variants interspersing this hobgoblin formation. Normal goblins. You will deal with these, for they are beneath me.

You will continue to provide me information. Means to wield this mana. Further direction in utilizing this ability of yours, this ‘Sapia’, and further information of this world.

As you are now, if you oppose me, you will never defeat me, and even one act of defiance will yield only your swift death.”

‘O-okay,’ said the daemon as she trudged behind the Collector. ‘I…I can fight, I promise.’

The Collector clicked its mandibles before doubling up on its charging power, flowing blood into its already magically enhanced tail and activating its coilboosters.

The tail swelled up in size, curling around itself like a spring before all that power, all that pent up muscular force, exploded forwards, this time with a rush of red energy.

The Collector shot forwards, and the shockwave burst of movement knocked the daemon girl on her back, but the Collector paid her no heed. She would recover soon. Instead, it remembered its trigger.

Desire.

And it desired now more so than ever targets to devour.

Their flesh and blood and bones and roots and cores. It would take from them everything.