Undersea Reincarnation – [Octopus Monster Evolution LitRPG]

 

You have reached your limit of Class Skills. If you wish to replace a Skill, be warned that you will lose all levels and progress made with the replaced Skill permanently.

Replace Telekinesis by Riptide Rush | Cancel

 

“Cancel.”

Henry looked at his remaining 25 Tokens and sighed. “Why can’t I use these for levels?”

Nothing answered him. So Henry loaded his Stats and stared at them.

 

Stats:

Strength: 5

Constitution: 8

Spirit: 6

Perception: 6

Dexterity: 5

 

“Fine. Let’s see… Every stat aside from Constitution and Perception costs 20 Tokens to upgrade. Even Spirit. Which means stats from Cores don’t count against the purchase cap. I wonder if it resets somewhere. Would be odd if only the first few stats are purchasable.”

Henry considered his options. “Strength seems worth it. It helped me keep control of the crab and the eel. And it allows me to hang on to the sharks when they get crazy. On the other hand, some Skills are getting expensive mana wise. Like Telekinesis. Or Razor Tentacle…”

Henry hummed to himself then nodded. “Yeah. I’m getting the last point in Spirit.”

With that purchase made, Henry was left with 5 Tokens.

He wanted to hunt some more sharks, but couldn’t risk being flung into the middle of nowhere along with them. Was there a way he could trap them? Could he immobilize them with Telekinesis enough for them to bleed out?

“Worth a try when my mana refills.”

In the meantime… he could do some fish-watching. And add more charges to Hoarded Vitality. Like a responsible person. Especially if he was going to keep taking risks.

Henry sighed, then got to work.

Henry’s second Riptide Shark floated on its back, blood clouding the water around it.

Telekinesis worked well on them to keep them immobilized. Though in this second fight, his mana’d been brought down to single digits and he walked away with a splitting headache. Whenever the shark had tried to flail or move, Henry had to burn through his mana to keep them still. It seemed that whenever they tried to force their Skill through, it clashed with Henry’s Telekinesis and he paid dearly for it.

It had been perfect to level up Telekinesis. The Skill just hit level 5. Razor Tentacle gained a level as well, but progress there–like most other Skills–had slowed down.

Henry identified the core that gently floated down to his tentacle.

 

[Riptide Shark Core (F) - 33 Consumption Tokens]

 

He retreated to a nearby hidden cave, then tapped the Consume option.

 

Undecided Marine Biologist - Level 14 achieved!

Undecided Marine Biologist - Level 15 achieved! 1x Stat point awarded.

Undecided Marine Biologist - Level 16 achieved!

Riptide Shark Core (F) contained significant Spirit Stats. 1x Spirit Stat point awarded.

 

“Nice. But Spirit again? I guess it makes sense, considering how ungodly expensive their Skill is. And that point goes to Constitution.”

Henry waited an hour or so for his mana to refill while recovering from another use of Hoard. Somewhere along the way, both his health and mana had begun to refill faster. While in the past it had taken something like 25 minutes to refill one percent, now it felt like barely half that.

“Time to explore a bit. But not south.”

South was the deep water where the huge thing lived. West was the kelp forest, east was more shallows and reef, and north… he didn’t know. He hadn’t explored that area much.

“I wonder if I can make myself invisible with Mimicking Tentacles.”

It was a bit dumb that he hadn’t tried much, and to be fair, he wasn’t going to be invisible per se. He’d just do the chameleon thing and take on the color of the surface he was on.

Now that he thought about it though…

“That might mean I have to recast the skill a lot. It’s not expensive, but it’s not free either. Well. Algae ball it is.”

Henry looked around, trying to memorize his surroundings. He didn’t want to lose this spot. And lose his turtle-home.

“Should I start carrying it with me? Like a hermit crab?”

Worth considering, honestly. Though its shine might attract too much attention.

“I’ll stay close. And I’ll keep the kelp forest in sight.”

And with that, Henry went to explore. He had to admit, he was pretty excited.

Henry discovered that he could travel for a while along the kelp forest.

The reef had gone on for close to an hour as Henry made his way north, carefully keeping an eye out for predators and dangers.

“I must have been at the edge of the territory…”

Which had been a good thing. Because Henry was noticing more and larger sharks. Riptides and others. Eels, rays, larger crabs and more aggressive fish.

He’d had to ditch the algae disguise after the third butterfly fish came to nibble on him and then got mad when it turned out he wasn't edible.

He was now a rock. 

Henry finally reached the edge of the reef and his breath caught.

A field of golden stalks stretched endlessly ahead of him. It was the same odd glowing algae he’d been encountering for the last few minutes, but he never expected to see so much of it all at once.

It was a whole plateau of the things. The ground seemed to slope downward, going on until the glow was overpowered by the briny sea.

Then he saw movement.

High, high above the field of golden algae, there was a whale.

“Whales…?”

There was more than one, and when a familiar call reached his ears Henry decided this trip was well worth it.

He wanted to get close, but he eyed the field of stalks with suspicion. It was a prime venue for ambushes, and he didn’t know what lived there. He could see fish hiding in the field, popping out from time to time. But if there were fish, then there must be predators.

“Also, I’m not really guaranteed that they’re friendly whales.”

Henry sat on the edge of the reef, as a rock, staring at the vista ahead, and time passed.

He saw what he believed to be some variants of tuna, too far away to identify. He saw a terrifyingly large shark that immediately turned heel when the whales noticed it and blared an aggressive tune.

At some point the whales had gotten closer, and Henry saw calves.

“This is their calving ground…”

Henry watched silently, occasionally listening to their sing-song calls, and decided that things weren’t as awful as they seemed.

He would have never experienced something like this, back on Earth. He would have needed to find the site. Worn scuba gear, made all sorts of other preparations, but now?

He could just wrap tentacles around the ridge of a stone and watch. He still had to be careful, of course. He was in an environment infested by predators and other dangers he knew nothing about… but he was growing in strength.

On his second or third day, the eel would have absolutely killed him. But barely a week later, he was able to dispatch it with minimal injuries. And the punctures healed within the hour.

He was killing sharks. As a 20-inch–or maybe 30-inch–long octopus. He couldn’t measure himself very well. His whole perspective was messed up.

“It’s odd how most creatures have a single Skill so far, if they even had one to begin with. The starfish did have two though… Does it have to do with how the System does things? Or is this why the System said I was lucky?”

He guessed he’d find out eventually. Maybe because everything was lower level? Or F-ranked? His neighboring monster had a question mark instead of the letter next to its name, which probably meant there were higher options than F.

In any case. There was hope. Maybe he’d eventually find a way out of the ocean and–

Henry’s thoughts slowed.

One of the whales was swimming in a wide circle which should soon put it within Identity distance.

Henry excitedly primed himself to see what he could glean from this interaction. 

The whale was growing larger. More defined as it approached.

“Blue whale? No… larger. Sorta resembles a gray whale in shape though. Are those horns?!”

The whale swam closer, and Henry triggered Identify again. This time, it worked.

[? (?) -  Lvl ??]

That… was concerning. That was the same output he’d gotten from the monster in his backyard.

Henry suddenly felt that maybe he should keep his whale-watching from a distance.

“Yeah… wait for it to move on, then leave. That’s enough for today. I have a trek home anyway.”

The whale’s movement slowed. Henry shivered. 

“It’s just a coincidence, it’s just–” The thought came to halt as he saw the large eye trained on him as the whale kept moving.

“I’m disguised… It can’t see me. It’s a coincidence.”

Then, to his relief, it fluked its tail then picked up speed. Henry watched it move away, and his limbs relaxed. He hadn’t noticed how tense he was.

“Damn. That was scary. What–”

“[What… are… you?]”

The voice rang his head, overpowering all thoughts.

Henry froze. He slowly tilted his head upward, and came eye-to-eye with another whale. 

It was closer to the surface. But close enough that he could see its eye. No, eyes, as there was a smaller eye above the large one, and it was looking at him as well.

A mountain was hovering above him. Seeing through his disguise. 

And it had asked him a question. 

And the output of Identify changed.

 

[Whale (?) -  Lvl ??]