Ugh. My heads pounding. Is this what it feels like to level up and evolve? I thought it would be a great feeling becoming stronger and all that. Instead it feels like someone took a mallet and hit me over the head a dozen times. Is this what people with a bad hangover feel like after a night of drinking? Terrible. Why would they subject themselves to such torture? Never mind the insanity. Let's check out my stats!

[Level: 2

XP: 00/20

Species: Monster cave rose

Perks: Messy eater

Intelligence: 47

Will: 15

Strength: 10

Toughness: 6

Agility: 5

Perception: 8

Endurance: 15

Charisma: 7

HP: 20/20

MP: 10/10]

I knew what to expect when I opened this but actually seeing it is a bit depressing. The only notable increase in my fighting capabilities would be the five extra HP and the messy eater perk. Chin up Joe! It may be depressing now but its all for more bang for my buck later on in life! But its nice to know that level ups will heal me up back to full HP. Very convenient. And best of all I wasn't eaten in my sleep! Speaking of which how long did I sleep? I should eventually try getting a clock or something to measure the time later on.

Now that I finished looking at my stat board, I closed it and started digging my way out of the tunnel I barricaded myself in. When I looked around, I spotted a strange bright slug slithering along the floor in front of me.

Tiny slow slug… Bright colors… Probably poisonous. I'll choose to avoid the rookie mistake and eat that. I'm not interested in getting killed from eating a slug.

I then began making my way onto the ceiling and searching for some prey to hunt. Surprisingly enough I didn't need to go very far before I encountered something. In the tunnel there were several dozen of the pebble mites all gathered. If one might could shave off 5 HP with one attack, then I'd have to be suicidal to attack that many mites. Which I wasn't. The only reason I didn't start running the opposite direction was because they were busy fighting another opponent just as numerous as them.

Ants. Dozens of them. They were easily two times as large as the mites with some being as large as three times their size. Even the smallest of the ants had mandibles large enough to cleave me in half. These ants were a fiery red and many of them had their own individual features. Not enough to allow for one to notice individual differences but enough to realize there were differences present. Some had larger meaner mandibles than others, some had deadly looking claws, while others had larger antennas than their brethren. Further confirmation that the other monsters had access to the same leveling system as him.

The mites were fighting the ants fiercely as they used groups of three or four to swarm and tear apart individual ants within moments showcasing their formidable attack capabilities. Some of the mites had deadly spikes and larger mandibles which allowed them to deal out much more damage than normal allowing for some battles to be ended swifter than others. However, in the face of the larger stronger and more numerous ants their struggle was all for naught. The ants kept attacking in complete eerie silence as opposed to the mites vigorous chirping and would shatter the carapaces of the mites with a single bite. While the ants and mites were busy attacking them, I took advantage of m stealth skill to close in on the mites from behind. So, distracted they were with the war against the ants that I was able to grab and tore apart one of the mites that were lagging behind without the others noticing me.

[Pebble mite slain. 2 XP gained. 1 skill point rewarded. 1 MP absorbed. 1 mutation point absorbed.]

I continued to run along the edge of the mites attacking them killing three more mites in the process before the others noticed me and began to attack me. Instead of letting them land any bites on me however I let go of my grip on the ceiling dropping down onto the floor with a light thump. The mites frustrated at my escape chirped aggressively before returning to fight their battle against the ants. When I checked my HP, I was relieved to see that it didn't drop. Seems just like regular flowers I'm not hugely affected by short falls because of my light weight.

Just as I was stood myself up, I was greeted by a pair of mandibles opening up in my face. Bending myself backwards till the petals of my face(?) touched the ground I narrowly avoided the powerful mandibles that slammed closed at the spot I was just at a moment ago. Righting myself I jumped backwards and put a bit of distance between me and my attacker. It was one of the red ants that were fighting the mites. It seemed the bug was alone but even one of these things had a high enough damage output to end me in one bite.

The red ant clacked its mandibles threateningly as it took a step forward. Both of us stood still staring each other down as we waited for each other to make the first move. After a full five seconds of staring each other down the ant's patience finally wore thin and it threw itself forward mandibles splayed open to tear me into veggie pulp. Taking advantage of my thinner and more flexible body I bent my stem again to the right just barely avoiding the ants attack as it flew over me.

As soon as it passed, I turned and twisted my body and slammed my fang filled mouth onto its thorax tearing dozens of small gouges that began to bleed profusely. The ant swerved around chomping its mandibles angrily as it attempted to ward me off. I backed up and opened up my mouth and waved my petals around attempting to intimidate the ant into retreating. Unfortunately, the ant was unaffected by my display and instead started to viciously snap its mandibles at my roots shearing several of them off causing pain to light up like a light bulb in those roots. I used two of my larger roots to wrap around the jaw of the ant and attempt to hold the mandibles open and engulfed the top of its head with my petals and started shredding its head. Almost immediately the wounds on the ant started gushing as its blood flowed free covering me and it in the clear liquids.

[Young Scarlet ant (Tier-0 creature) slain. Scarlet ant basic entry unlocked. 2 skill point earned. 5 XP collected. 2 mutation points. 2 MP absorbed. Additional skill point earned for new creature kill.]

With the ant now dead I tore off its head and started running back down the tunnel in the direction I arrived from munching the head down as I went.

That was dangerous. Really dangerous! But I won! I killed an ant and won! Sure, ants are more of a cannon fodder type species and I lost a significant chunk of my HP (Probably around 8 or 10) but I still won and got a healthy sum of XP in the process! And it was a tier-0 monster! Take that damn higher tiers! Looks like being a flower has its benefits with all the ways that I could bend myself to avoid my enemies' attacks.

Once I got far enough from the insect battle, I climbed up onto the ceiling and planted myself to open up my skills and mutations to select some new stuff and start upgrading others.

[Current skills: Universal plant language (Common) level 1; Thorny defense (Common) level 1; Photosynthesis (Common) level 1; basic mana sense (Uncommon) level 1; Stealth (Common) level 2; Climbing (Common) level 2

Available skills: Drowsy pollen (Common); Tunnel sense (Common); Feather fall (New common)

Available skill points: 11

Current mutations: Petals level 1; Stem level 1; Thorns level 1; leaf level 1; thorny teeth level 1; Enhanced root strength level 1

Available mutations: Toxic thorn (Common weak); Serrated thorns (Common)

Available mutation points: 10]

Hmmm. Only two new things. But I have 10 points for both things. Looks like I can finally splurge a bit and use these points to toughen myself up. I'll take the drowsy pollen, tunnel sense, and feather fall skills. I can somewhat guess their purposes and if they are what I think they are they'll be useful to have. Next I'll spend my mutation points to get toxic thorns and serrated thorns. That way I'll have the beginnings of a good defense against my enemies. Man, if only messy eater worked for my thorns. Then I'd be able to do massive damage with them. Now let's see here. Alfred can you tell me how many points it costs to level up an existing skill and mutations?

[To level up a skill/mutation from level 1 costs 2 skill/mutation points. From level 2 to 3 it will cost 3 points. Then from 3 to 4 it will cost 4 points. Maximum is level 5, and the skill can be upgraded for 5 points. Then the cost of the skill upgrade price will be doubled.]

Seriously? Then that means to get to level 5 for a single skill or mutation it will cost me 14 points. How ruthless. Let's see here. Should I minimax into one attribute or start generalizing? For my mutations I think I'll speck into my thorny teeth and enhanced roots so that I can keep mobile and dish out damage like a speedy glass cannon. So, level 3 for the both of them. As for skills I'll go with 5 points to drowsy pollen and 5 points to basic mana sense. The mana sense has served me rather well allowing me to vaguely see my surroundings. Maybe not in the high definition detail of a human but good enough to dodge attacks and such. As for drowsy pollen who doesn't like putting their enemies to sleep and attacking them while they're helpless? I'll save the extra skill point for something nice later.

GUUUUAGAGAGA!!

When I confirmed my selection, my brain was immediately bombarded by the pins and needle feeling bearing down on my mind as it learned new skills and the agonizing burn of my body mutating. Alone either of these things but both of these two combined had my body trembling and randomly spasming and I began to repeatedly slam my face into the cave ceiling above in my muddled minded desperate attempt to clear my head of this torture.

By the time it faded away I was left with a dull throbbing pain in my petals from my earlier outburst of bashing my head. Whoever made this system I swear I'm going to give you a piece of my mind for this. Now that I was done upgrading myself though I can test out my new features.

Using my roots, I began to climb across the ceiling by impaling my roots into the soft spots and cracks of the ceiling and found my roots slid into them with relative ease. Before it was a rather difficult process which ended up making my roots sore after prolonged usage. Now though it was practically a painless process! However, I still couldn't climb on the parts that had more solid stone. A pity but I suppose as a simple rose I wouldn't be able to break stone after only two-level ups to my roots.

Next I opened up my petal jaws to take a look at my teeth. I have to admit its still disturbing how this mana sense skill lets me look into my mouth without me even needing my eyes. No idea how it works but still handy. What I saw nearly gave me a heart attack as it looked like some messed up eldritch horror like monster was trying to eat me.

Calm down Joey boy. That's only your mouth! Nothing to be afraid of!

…..

The fact that this disturbing messed up mouth was my own only made it worse. Anyways with the upgraded mana sense skill I could actually see things (Like my mouth…) in much better quality. There were now two more inner petals along with the previous four petals who had teeth on them. They were a bright red color and had perhaps hundreds of small serrated thorns covered in a clear goo and bits of flesh and chitin from the bugs I killed.

Brutal. But on the Brightside, it seemed my thorn upgrades applied to the ones in my mouth. Which sort of makes sense as they were just thorns serving the same purpose as teeth, but with the insect gore that covered them they looked disturbing. I could only shiver at what it would look like if it had been a person I had eaten instead. I wonder how much XP I'd get for a person…

Get ahold of yourself Joe! Don't let the monster body affect your mind! You are still human and should not consider what it would be like if you had eaten a person. This entire monster thing was getting to me. I should just distract myself with some exploring. Yeah that's what we'll do next. Test out the tunnel sense skill with some exploration!