ALL NOVEL 1.19: Inkjet
Henry’s blood rushed through his larger frame as he swam down. He looked back at the first shark rushing him and his bladed tentacle flashed at its face.
The large predator was winding up to tail-slap him, and he expected his Whipping Tentacle to cut somewhat deeply into its side. Enough to stop it or distract it.
He hadn’t expected the tentacle to meet the gray sharkskin and sink through it as if it was made of jelly. Henry’s tentacle cleanly cut three quarters of the way through the shark’s side, almost decapitating it.
Henry went still for a half a second. “Holy shit.”
He pulled his tentacle out and darted under the bleeding and twitching shark, disappearing into a cloud of ink. Two consecutive cracks resounded behind him and partially dispelled the cloud of ink, but Henry was already gone.
He hit the sand with another Inkjet and rolled out of the ink screen as a rock.
“Didn’t expect them to catch up so fast. Now though… I’m on familiar terrain.”
Two more sharks circled aggressively. Henry gave it a couple of seconds, then froze the closest one and whipped out with another sharp tentacle. This time, he tried putting some extra weight into it.
Henry’s class-empowered tentacle sank deep–but not fully through–and the third shark’s tail caught him from the side on a raised tentacle. The shockwave made his eyes quiver.
“Ugh.”
The sensation was in the top three of worst sensations he ever experienced. Right after getting munched on by a shark and putting on a wetsuit without lubricant.
As for the tail, it barely did 1 or 2% damage. It was annoying more than anything else.
He shot another cloud of ink to keep things hectic, then glanced at his stats to make sure he was safe mana-wise. With that done, he faced the approaching–still uninjured–shark that had just tail-whipped him.
Henry saw it start building momentum to whip him again and surged forward. Right as it faced left, he froze it with telekinesis, coiled a bladed tentacle around its neck, and tightened. The blade sank deep and blood rushed out, filling his mind with the taste of blood. But the method was too slow, so with another tentacle he razor-whipped it through the head to put it out of its misery.
Henry glanced around at the three dead Whipcrack Sharks, then down at his tentacles.
He almost went to collect the Cores, then remembered he didn’t need to anymore. He looked up and saw a few more descending, so he hid into a cloud of ink and disguised himself as a rock near one of the dead sharks.
Henry stared at the dead sharks, remembering how they tried to fight the serpent and even managed to deal damage to it. Compared to those sharks, these almost seemed like low-level Riptides.
“Were they always this weak?”
His bladed tentacle seemed sharper as well. Terrifyingly so. The only reason he hadn’t been able to fully cut through the sharks was Tentacle Whip. He could feel it lagging. On the other hand, Mimicking Tentacles was definitely responding quicker to his will.
He brought up his notifications, and realized he had a couple of stat points he hadn’t assigned yet. “I’ll do that when I get home.”
For now, he had some mana to burn. His health was sitting at a very safe 98% and he felt confident he could get himself away if ever he got into serious danger.
Now that he could take a few hits without being blown to bits, the value of Inkjet was coming to light. Before this day, he hadn’t dared take on more than one enemy at a time. But now that he did, camouflaging and Inkjet were synergizing pretty effectively. And using the Skills intensively was bearing fruits.
3x Whipcrack Shark Cores (E) were collected
Mimicking Tentacles (E) - Level 2 -> 3
Inkjet (F) - Level 8 -> Level 9
“One more level and I get the upgrade for Inkjet.”
He looked up and saw four more sharks approaching. “Should be able to afford the new Skills after this. Alright. Here we go.”
Henry watched the sharks cautiously circling above the bodies and had a thought. “I should definitely carve out of piece of them for dinner. And for their Traits, if they’ve got any.”
“What a day.”
Henry swam into his turtle shell home and immediately slumped against the wall. “I’d kill for a bed. And a hot meal.”
He looked at the shark filet he’d dragged along back home and sighed mentally, bringing it to his beak.
He chewed. And tried swallowing the bits fast without letting them linger too long in his mouth. He’d gotten mouth taste buds recently, thanks to the increases in Perception, but somehow that made things worse. Random raw fish with thick skin did not taste that great. Especially when it was mixed with saltwater. That didn’t bother him too much on its own, but it was most certainly not pleasant.
He pulled up his notifications as he chewed his bland, cold, salty dinner.
4x Whipcrack Shark Cores (E) were collected
Mimicking Tentacles (E) - Level 4 -> 5
Inkjet (F) - Level 9 -> Level 10
“That’s 7 new Cores total.”
Henry glanced down at his limbs. It had been so easy to fight them off. “I guess I could do this again tomorrow. Though now it’s feeling a bit like bullying Riptides.”
On the other hand, getting into extended fights was doing wonders for his Skills. “Even Mimicking Tentacles got another level. Which makes Alter Physique’s limit… 30 Kg. Nice.”
After beating up the four sharks, Henry had called it a day. His mana was low, and it just felt bad.
“Alright, let’s see what Inkjet’s got for me.”
Henry triggered the upgrade of his last Species Skill. His body buzzed with the magic, and his tentacles twitched with excitement.
Inkjet (E) - Level 1
- F-Rank: Shoot a jet of ink to confuse your pursuers and hide yourself.
- E-Rank: Quantity of ink shot is increased. Ink can temporarily have properties of ingested foods.
- Ink Clone: Create short-lived Ink Clone with a simple command. Maximum duration: 5 seconds.
Henry whistled. No noise came out, and it just made the sand under him fan out.
“I know I said it before, but I seriously need to focus more on my own Skills. The gains with every upgrade so far have been amazing… Is it always going to be like this?”
Henry studied the rest of his Skills. “Inkjet should get a workout whenever the fights last more than a few seconds. Mimicking Tentacles is leveling just fine and might be the first to hit level 10 in E-Rank. That leaves Bite.”
Henry hummed. “A bit tougher to level… but it should be easier if I start using those temporary bites more often. I should also get back to working on venoms and poisons. Or filling up on charges from different monsters. That ought to help level it up. As for the other empowered offensive Skills… they’re better. By a lot. Only the whip is still weak, but that’s probably because of its rank.”
Sleep began to hound him, but he wanted to deal with the new cores. Then he could rest.
“Alright. Erm… ah. Here it is.”
Henry clicked the notification about Cores, and all 7 popped in front of him. The turtle home shone with silvery light, and Henry took it in for a moment before using Identify.
[7x Core (E) - 26,331 Consumption Tokens]
“Damn. That’s a lot of Tokens.”
Henry shook his head. As much as that number was massive compared to everything he’d seen so far, it wasn’t that much compared to his new costs.
“If I get the telepathy Skill and Trait, I’ll be barely left with 10k. Barely enough for a second upgrade for Telekinesis.”
Henry looked at the Tokens for a moment then reached a decision. “Telepathy can work as a lure. And I need something to communicate with intelligent life as long as I have no lips and tongue. Telepathic Sense will be useful for whatever can hide from my regular sense. The rest… Stats. Yes.”
Henry pulled the trigger on the two telepathic purchases, which left him with 10,168 Tokens. He already had two unassigned Stat points, and he put both in Spirit. It had begun lagging, and his recent scuffles had gotten his mana dangerously low. For the remainder of the tokens, he went with two more on Spirit for 3,000 Tokens, three on Constitution for 6,000, and one on Strength for 1,000.
His body buzzed painfully for a few moments as the magic sunk into him. Considering this was pushing Constitution to 20, the effect was more pronounced.
Once the process was over, he stretched his tentacles and felt a well of strength and durability in every limb. Almost as if every inch of his skin had flexible metal plating under the surface.
He felt… good. He glanced down at the rest of his stats.
“Stats are way more expensive now…”
He triggered Alter Physique and pushed it to its maximum. He still glanced around and hummed. The weight difference shouldn’t make him too large for his home… but just in case, he leaned closer to the exit. Then he glanced at his stats after the changes.
“Huh. More points I can buy in Constitution…”
Stats:
Strength: 13 [3 Base][4 Class][6 Purchased] (5 Purchasable)
Constitution: 20 [3 Base][8 Class][1 Consumption][8 Purchased] (9 Purchasable)
Spirit: 16 [6 Base][4 Class][2 Consumption][4 Purchased] (4 Purchasable)
Perception: 12 [4 Base][4 Class][4 Purchased] (6 Purchasable)
Dexterity: 9 [4 Base][1 Consumption][4 Purchased] (0 Purchasable)
Henry nuzzled in his corner as his eyes began to droop. He felt great, but the day had been long, and the process of increasing his stats seemed to have taken something out of him. “Next class rank up might take a while… Things are so… expensive.”
Henry carried his algae wrapped turtle shell above his head as he slowly used the rest of his tentacles as legs. He came to a stop a few yards from the first few stalks of kelp and put the shell down, then took one last glance at the reef.
“So long, sharks. And thanks for all the levels.”
He looked down at the shell, then up at the uneven ground of the kelp forest.
“I wish I could store this thing in Maw.”
He’d gotten a bad surprise after his nap. The increased growth rate of Mimicking Tentacles, coupled with his slightly increased size after his Evolution, made it so that when he woke up, he found himself literally stuffing the turtle-home.
He could now increase his size to around 7 or 8 feet long from head to tip, but at this moment, he was around half that. A more reasonable travel size. Next time, he was going to try and focus his weight in his tentacles.
For now, he wanted to fit into his shell to sleep and hide when he needed to. And it was a lot easier to camouflage and be stealthy when he was smaller. He didn’t feel like he could just grow large without a care. Someday, something impossibly powerful like Deepcaller would target him, and that would be a dumb way to die.
Though the turtle shell was bugging him now that he was moving.
“Either I rank up Mimicking Limb until I get large enough to swallow it, or Maw hopefully gets better and easier to use when Bite upgrades. In either case, I need to work on my own Skills.”
Henry picked up his portable home and went back under it. He began walking and hopping forward, keeping an eye on his surroundings through both eyes and his vague and barely useful Telepathic Sense. He’d yet to feel anything from it other than small pings whenever he scared a nearby fish badly enough.
“That’s going to take some work.”
He could upgrade it with his Evolutionary points… but those seemed limited and precious. Until he figured out a way to get them more regularly, he’d be smart about using them.
Around an hour of careful travel later, Henry found a spot with enough surrounding landmarks to hide his turtle shell. As he settled it down between a couple of rocks, he looked around.
Wherever he turned, he saw green. Tall stalks with reddish bulbs that looked like viscous fruits hung at somewhat regular intervals all throughout the stalks. Fruits of some sort.
“Or the eggs of some very organized fish.”
The water was a bit murkier than the reef, and his landmark was a tall, pointy cliff that reached pretty high. It had been mostly rocky so far–which was really making him think there was land nearby.
“Were the whales wrong?”
Henry wrapped his tentacle around one of the thick stalks of kelp next to him, then morphed his remaining tentacles into similar leaves. He couldn’t shift the shape of his head, but he found he could spread the pigments to at least take the same color.
“I can’t stay in this area for long or I’m gonna lose the shell. And I need to keep an eye out for the serpent. Or serpents. For now, though, let’s take a look at the surface.”
