Ex-Human Morphus [A Mutant Evolution Apocalypse LitRPG]
Chapter 295

Chapter 295

Apparently, the Hive Nexus could create three basic creatures: a roach, a fly, and a spider. According to the description of this structure, these three creatures served as blanks for evolution experiments. He didn’t expect any of them to be of much use in their initial forms. Nevertheless, he decided to create one of each type to see what they looked like and what their initial abilities were.

Each of the three creature types required 30 Biomass, 1,000 MP, and 1 larva, which would come from storage rather than from him. He had a little over 450 Biomass stored in the Biomass Processor, so he could start the process right away. He decided to create a roach first and instructed the Hive Nexus to do so.

Immediately, one of the three larvae crawling on the Corruption began to move toward the structure. When it reached the base of the egg-shaped structure, a hole appeared at the base, just wide enough to let the larva slip inside. Once the larva crawled through, the hole sealed shut, leaving no sign it had ever existed.

Jake stared through the front transparent section of the Hive Nexus into the liquid-filled chamber within. For several seconds, nothing happened. Then, another hole opened in the top surface of the chamber, and the larva slipped out. It drifted to the middle of the chamber, where it floated motionlessly.

Roach (Creation in Progress) 

Current Status: 1% Complete

Estimated Time Remaining: 9 minutes, 58 seconds

For the next several minutes, Jake watched as the larva gradually transformed into something else. The small creature was changing, becoming somewhat larger and altering its overall form. Six segmented legs gradually sprouted from its body. The larva had two faces, but one of them slowly vanished while the other developed two fangs.

Once the process was complete, the fully developed creature drifted up to the top surface of the chamber, where the hole opened once more. The roach was drawn in, disappearing from sight, and the hole sealed shut again. Although he currently couldn’t see the creature, he knew it was somewhere inside the structure, moving from the top to the bottom. 

Jake took a step backward, looking down. A moment later, at the base of the Hive Nexus a hole opened, and the creature crawled out.

Name: Roach

Rank: I

The creature had an elongated body, six legs, and two fangs, without any other notable features. Like Jake and everything else in his lair, it was pitch-black and textured. The roach remained in place for a second or two before shifting to a seemingly random spot and then going still again.

For the next several seconds, Jake simply watched the roach move around aimlessly. He couldn’t help but notice it always stayed within the Corruption, just like his larvae. He wondered if it could break beyond those boundaries. It certainly should be able to.

He focused on the roach and gave it a mental command to move beyond the patch of Corruption, indicating the spot with his eyes. The roach immediately obeyed, scuttling toward the edge of the Corruption. Upon reaching it, it crawled onto the plank floor. Once it reached the indicated spot, it stopped moving, waiting for his next command. 

So unlike his larvae, the creatures developed in the Hive Nexus weren’t confined to the boundaries of the Corruption. It made sense. After all, his larvae were merely drones, and their only purpose was to maintain his lair. In contrast, the creatures developed in the Hive Nexus were meant to be his combat forces, allowing them the freedom to roam wherever they wanted or wherever he sent them.

Jake attempted to issue his roach a sequence of commands, like move to one spot, pause for a few seconds, then move to another. Unfortunately, it didn't work. At Rank I, the roach was only capable of following one simple command at a time without the ability to process sequences.

He then gave the roach one more command: to climb up one wall. However, the roach refused to do so. Apparently, it wasn’t able to scale vertical surfaces—not yet, anyway. He was confident that, at some point, it would acquire such an ability, though.

After commanding the roach to return to the patch of Corruption, where all his creatures were clustered together, Jake redirected his gaze to the Hive Nexus.

He then remembered that when he was choosing a subclass, he saw the Corruptor use an ability to watch through the eyes of his creations. Jake tried to do the same, giving a mental command to see through the roach’s eyes. However, nothing happened. Well, it looked like this ability wasn’t available to him just yet. 

It was time to create the other two types of creatures: a fly and a spider. He decided to create a fly first and instructed the structure to start developing one. When he created the roach, one of the larvae was chosen automatically. It was the same this time as well. As one of the two remaining larvae began to crawl toward the Hive Nexus, Jake wondered if he could manually pick a larva for this purpose. 

He decided to give it a try. He focused on the larva and commanded it to stop moving. It complied. He then turned his attention to the other one and directed it to the Hive Nexus. The little creature began to crawl toward the structure and soon disappeared inside.

So he could manually pick which of his larvae to turn into another creature. It was good. Sure, at the moment, it didn’t really matter which of his two larvae to transform into a fly and which into a spider, but the ability to manually select a larva for further transformation might have a practical use at some point.

Ten minutes later, the fully developed creature crawled out of the Hive Hexus.

Name: Fly

Rank: I

The creature looked pretty much like the roach, with only one difference: it had wings. It remained in the same spot for a moment before suddenly taking to the air. It flew six or so feet up and hovered motionlessly in the same position. Apparently, its wings allowed it to hover like a dragonfly.

For a minute or so, Jake directed the fly to move from one spot to another. The speed of its movement wasn’t all that impressive at the moment, but Jake was confident that further evolutions would improve it.

After that, Jake instructed the final larva to crawl to the Hive Nexus and transform into a spider. He then released the three larvae from the Larvae Chamber and instructed it to produce three more. The Biomass Processor allocated some Biomass, transferring it to the Larvae Chamber, and the process of creating three new larvae began.

Ten minutes later, three more larvae joined the other two inside the liquid-filled chamber. The three larvae that were free aimlessly crawled around on the Corruption. The spider had just finished developing as well, crawling out. Its body was smaller than that of a roach and round in shape, rather than elongated. The creature had two fangs and eight long, segmented legs.

For a minute, he commanded the spider to scuttle from one spot to another. It moved surprisingly fast, especially compared to the roach and the fly. Like the roach, it couldn’t scale vertical surfaces at this stage of development.

So while the roach was slower and more robust, the spider was clearly weaker but faster and more agile. As for the fly, it obviously could fly. These three simple creatures didn’t look like much, and Jake was aware that they wouldn’t be of any help to him in their current forms at all. They were merely blanks, intended for further evolution into more dangerous beings.

Jake shifted his gaze to the Mana Core and checked the current GP. It remained the same as it had been the last time. The fact that these new creations hadn’t increased the GP made sense. When he created larvae through the Mana Core, some of his own flesh was allocated. Since it wasn’t part of the Corruption, it resulted in an increase in GP. In contrast, the creation of the three beings utilized resources from storage, so the GP hadn’t gone up.

Having reviewed the functionality of the two newly grown structures, Jake decided it was time to evolve each of the three structures in his lair to the next rank and see what changes it would bring.