Tales Of A Killer Flower 16 A Look At "Average" Monsters

Mutations. What they are is a fascinating thing. The first sightings of this was when hunters began to notice that older monsters had different unique features from stronger teeth to entire extra sets of limbs. This was even more p.r.o.nounced in older specimens. This for a short period of time caused a panic even amongst the gargantuan empires of the world as they all thought that the monsters were evolving.
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Not exactly wrong but they more of mistook it as a sign of every monster becoming even more powerful as a whole than they already were. Nonetheless through the hard work of monster's researchers like myself of that age, they managed to discover they in fact only grew stronger on an individual level through killing others. This discovery calmed the nations and people in general and solidified the foundation for all future monster researchers as nations across the world discovered their importance.

That's why I think of mutations as a positive thing instead of something negative, unlike most people. While it means they have yet another thing to give them an advantage over us it means that it will promote conflict amongst their ranks forever keeping them divided and weakened as a whole. And it helped my own current job in the long run so that's a nice bonus!

But back to the main topic. As I have stated previously mutations allows a monster to strengthen themselves through making their existing biology stronger in some way. But it is not limited to just that. You may have noticed me mentioning some monsters having whole extra sets of arms. It has been found that through mutations they can add entire new organs to their biology to strengthen their strongpoints further or cover their weak points. Truly an envious capability the monsters have.

-Excerpt from the monster encyclopedia by Xander freerider

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I shall use this sucker as bait! Or so I had planned until it all went awry and instead of an army of frogs coming for the corpse a pack of three wolves came to chow down. And not ordinary wolves. They were easily twice as large as normal wolves and had a pair of fangs extending down from their upper jaws like sabers! They were way too big, and fierce-looking for me to comfortably take on. Not only that but there were three of them! Even if there was only one, I still wouldn't attack but three is pus.h.i.+ng it way too far.

Thankfully I was in a bush with my stealth skill activated and managed to avoid their attention. Too busy stuffing themselves with my hard-earned kill!

[Stealth level 2 has reached level 3]

There a testament to my ability to hide from the darned things! Anyways I suppose I'll try killing more frogs and maybe a few rabbits before heading back to the grove and handing over some live prey to Amelia. Maybe chat with one of the other dryads while I'm at it considering my boosted charisma skill.

Just in case the wolves were still wary of their surroundings I made sure to keep my body low to the ground and sneak away from their area. After a few minutes of sneaking, I was pretty sure I was enough to be able to walk about normally. Now I needed to start hunting me some wabbit!

I decided to try something new for my hunting strategy. Something more Tarzan styled. Rabbits are very fast animals and ground dwellers so what if I was hunting it from above like a hawk? Wouldn't that give me an advantage over it? Especially with the use of stealth. With this idea in mind, I climbed up into a tree and went out on its branches and jumped off. When I did that, I fired off three vines that buried themselves into the tough wood of a branch not that far away and swung to the next and repeated this. With each thorn stabbed into the wood a dull thunk sounded out reducing my stealth capabilities, but hopefully with my new vantage point and my rapidly building up speed from the swings I'd be able to balance that out.

Actually, this is pretty fun! Is this what ziplines feel like? The wind rus.h.i.+ng through my petals and leaves making them dance in the wind. The wind whistling in my- Oh I don't have ears. Just mana sense. d.a.m.n it!

In the midst of enjoying the feeling of swinging through the tree's like a man spider, I spotted a jackalope looking rabbit a couple dozen meters ahead. Dinner time! On my next swing instead of using two or three vines, I used a total of eight of them and used them to stop my swinging. Once done with that I used those along with eight more vines to grab hold of various branches and used two vines to pull me backwards to stretch my other vines. Yes, I was going to do the famed living slingshot attack! Let's see how you deal with this rabbit!

Releasing the back two vines my body shot forward and released the other vines as I accelerated forward towards the rabbit. As one could expect of a rabbit the twinge of my vines as I fired myself forward was detected but by the time it noticed it was too late and I was right on top of it thorn filled mouth wide open to swallow its head whole. I can only imagine how terrifying its last moments were only seeing a maw filled with teeth in its last moments. I crashed into it with my mouth engulfing its head and getting to work at tearing it up into more manageable shredded bits.

[Jackalope slain. Basic monster entry unlocked. 1 skill point earned. Additional skill points added. 1 mutation point earned. 5 total XP earned.]

….

Wow. Just wow. I guess the slingshot attack was super effective! I wonder if I could have one shot killed the deer with this strategy… But now its time to catch a few frogs and kill a few others then return to base and level up! Maybe I can increase my intelligence stat further? I can't wait!

A lengthy amount of time later after eating the rabbit, catching frogs, killing 13 other frogs and giving a wide birth to the wolves I saw earlier, and I finally made it back to the grove. As usual, I went to Amelia and offered her the frogs before going to my hut to level up. I had no idea if those frogs were actually giving a worthwhile amount of XP and such, but free kills are free kills.

[Level up Y/N]

Yes!

[Level: 3

XP: 70/70

Species: Monster cave rose

Perks: Messy eater

Intelligence: 50

Will: 15

Strength: 20

Toughness: 21

Agility: 25

Perception: 18

Endurance: 15

Charisma: 17

HP: 30/30

MP: 65/65]

[10 stat points available for use. 25 additional stat points available for usage. 5 points of HP will be added to your health pool. Intelligence cap reached until level 10.]

Wait I reached the maximum intelligence? Are you kidding me!? My extra points! Whatever I'll just pump points into other things. 20 into agility will help me a lot with my slingshot and attacking enemies faster than they can react so let's go with that. 10 into endurance should be able to help me handle myself better if I ever get stuck in any long fights. Something I'd rather avoid but there's no telling what type of fights I could end up in. 3 into charisma means I'll be able to smooth talk people and finally 2 into perception. That way everything balanced and even. I have to say though mana has really reached a high level. Maybe I have some magic-related skills now? Open skill/mutation menu.

[Current skills: Universal plant language (Common) level 2; Th.o.r.n.y defense (Common) level 1; Photosynthesis (Common) level 3; basic mana sense (Uncommon) level 3; Stealth (Common) level 3; Climbing (Common) level 2; drowsy pollen (Common) level 3; Feather fall (Common) level 1; Tunnel sense (Common) level 1; Czech translation skill (Common) level 1

Available skills: MP to HP convertor (Common. Every 5 MP converts into 1 HP. Every level up lowers MP cost by one.)

Available skill points: 38

Current mutations: Petals level 1; Stem level 1; Thorn's level 1; leaf level 1; th.o.r.n.y teeth level 3; Enhanced root strength level 3; Toxic thorns (Common weak) level 1; Serrated thorns (Common) level 1; Thorn vines (Uncommon) level 1; Chainsaw teeth(Common) level 1

Available mutations: No available mutations.

Available mutation points: 38]

Wait a skill to convert MP to HP!? That would basically be regeneration to me! Sure, with my current mana that would only be 13 HP but that's an entire chunk of my health pool healed then! Automatic yes to that! Next, let's upgrade some stuff. First, I'll upgrade the convertor from level 1 to level 3 Which would increase the amount I can regenerate even more health! Then next to upgrade must be the Czech skill so 5 points gone and it's level 3! 27 points to go. Photosynthesis to level 5 then!

[Skill reached level 5. Upgrade available.

Enhanced photosynthesis is available. All of the previous benefits remain with the addition of 0.5% HP healed every second. Each level increases it by 0.5% but the costs are now doubled.]

Well, this is interesting. Black-hearted way of selling me skill points but still interesting. I only have 18 more skill points, so I'll choose it then save the rest to fully upgrade something else another time. But now that I know skills can be upgraded can my biology? Now I wonder what upgrades I can get… You know what let's use this as a chance to experiment a bit. 14 points will go to my leaves to see what I can get for upgrading it all the way.

[Mutation reached level 5. Upgrades available.

Razor leaf makes leaves as sharp as a sharpened iron blade.

Iron leaf allows for leaves to become as strong as iron for increased defense.]

Now, this is a pickle! I like the increased number of attacks with the razor leaves, but I'd like something to defend myself with more than yet another thing to attack with. My thorns have proven to be more than enough with the enemies I'm already taking on and there's no guarantee I won't meet something faster than me. In which case, something to defend myself with would be nice. Not that I wouldn't lose HP from blunt force attacks, but I have to have some defense. Next another 14 shall be spent upgrading my thorns to level 5 for another upgrade.

[Mutation has reached level 5. Upgrade available.

Iron thorns. Absorbs a high amount of iron into the thorns effectively making them as strong as iron.]

Totally worthwhile for fighting opponents with tough defenses. So far, the only things I have fought so far that actually had some worthwhile armor were the mites and ants. Both of which didn't seem to have as good of defenses against something like say the giant scorpion I saw in the tunnels. I have no idea if there is something like that up here on the surface world but I'm not taking any chances. With that, I have only 10 mutation points. I'll go ahead and save those for later. I want to upgrade my vines all the way next time to see what's available for them. Now cue the pai-

BLAAAAGAGAAAA!! THE NEEDLES ARE KNIVES AND THERE FIRE ARE ANTS NOW!! WHY DID IT CHANGE!?

A few moments of flopping around with vines flailing around later and I went unconscious. Whether it was from the pain of skill/mutation upgrades or the level up even I cannot say.

(A few minutes earlier Amelia's point of view)

The amusing flower was back. Like all the other times he brought back fanged frogs. But this time he brought over 8 of them. Only 16 points worth of XP, skill points, and mutation points. Only a drop in the bucket in the amount I needed these days. But still, it was nice having him getting them on an almost daily bases.

Sadly, he didn't choose to talk with me. I have my sisters to talk to, but this little flower is much more amusing to chat with. He did strange things like build the same things as humans and say funny things to himself without noticing. That was the very reason I didn't allow one of my sisters to kill him when he was approaching the grove. He said odd but amusing things. I brought the frogs down towards where my roots were and let them drag the frogs beneath the ground to be consumed by me.

[Fanged frog slain. 16 XP earned. 8 skill points earned. 8 mutation points earned.]

Drawn by the crazed flailing of the flower I noticed he now had thorn-tipped vines flailing all around him as his body quivered in pain. I was sure he didn't have those last time I saw him do this. He must have gotten a mutation for that. I haven't seen many flowers with those vines so it must be an uncommon one. Still, the fact that he felt pain whenever he leveled up was strange, but it was just another quirk of his she found amus.e.m.e.nt. Living with the same people for years without a break from them did get tiring after all and he was a refres.h.i.+ng change of pace. Speaking of levels though I have not checked my own for quite a while. I suppose I'll do that now.

[Level: 50 (Tier 2)

XP: 12,360/12,760

Species: Oak hamadryad.

Intelligence: 280

Will: 155

Strength: 325

Toughness: 515

Agility: 33

Perception: 214

Endurance: 468

Charisma: 127

HP: 250/250

MP: 1250/1250]

I was one bit closer to a level up at least. Then once I get to level 100, I'll finally be stronger than the average hamadryad. And at level 150 I'll finally be able to unlock my ability to create a secondary body. Then I will finally be able to overpower the humans on my own. Looking over to the flower who had now gone still I couldn't help but think about how he like the tier 0-1 monsters were below average but yet here he was on a daily bases getting a bit stronger as he tried to claw his way past the strength barrier between him and what monsters consider "average". Whether he knew it or not. Despite knowing better, I inwardly hoped he would be able to breakthrough. He was a funny flower. Far funnier than any monster she had met other than the fairies.