It took another six days for the entire village to be repaired, but by then the sullen and downtrodden spirits from experiencing a Swarm infestation first-hand had turned into quiet, teeming anticipation in every child—and for the second time in Sparrow’s second month in Immanu, all hundred and eleven children were gathered around the bell tower under bright morning light, sitting cross-legged and barefoot in the thin snow.
Some of the children seated around the garden were rubbing their hands, snoring aloud, or playing with their slinky toys. Of the hundred and eleven, the youngest were seated closest to the bell tower in accordance with their height, while the elders surrounded everyone else in a dome-like perimeter. The eighteen of them carrying bows and quivers on their backs were the only ones standing, crossing their arms as they nagged at the younger kids to look forward and listen. ‘Sparrow is going to tell us all something important, so pay attention,’ they seemed to say. He still couldn’t completely understand the Immanu tongue after all.
But, seated atop a small crate right before the bell tower and in front of the Worm Mages, he couldn’t help but wonder just how, exactly, he was going to teach them anything.
Ninmah standing next to him, but it wasn’t like she could translate anything if he couldn’t say anything.
While Utu and Ninmah shouted especially loud at the kids, telling them to pay attention, he lowered his head and made a big show of tapping the small protrusion on his nape. His status interface popped open with a small buzz, and he willed the borders of the black box to glow brighter than they’d ever been, to be more obnoxious than they’d ever been—and that got everyone’s attention. The children quieted as he pulled down his status interface, then pulled it up again with a tap, then pulled it down again, over and over and over. With Ninmah and the eldest children’s guidance, it only took another minute before everybody had their status interfaces pulled up next to their heads.
He didn’t bother taking a glance at some of the younger children’s attribute levels. He felt he’d only feel pity for himself if he saw how strong they were, so before they could all break off into a chorus of disjointed chatter, he expanded his status interface to three times its original size, flattening it against the wall of the bell tower behind him.
Then he raised a finger, pointed at each of the boxes in every single row, and nodded at Ninmah.
Ninmah shot him a thumbs up, grinning proudly.
[Name: ‘Sparrow’]
[Grade: C-Rank Giant-Class]
[Class: Whiteworm]
The boxes denoting his class was what he really pointed at, and everyone huddled together, whispering amongst themselves. He vaguely heard the word ‘worm’ being thrown around, so he looked at Ninmah and started miming a whole bunch of other bugs. How well she could interpret his gestures and drawings in the snow, and translate it to the Worm Mages was completely up to her.
More specifically, it was up to how much she and the other eldest children already knew about the outside world.
she explained to the children first, no doubt just to remind them of the outside world they’d given up on protecting decades ago.
The children listened intently, and Sparrow blinked incredulously. Even though they’d secluded themselves from the rest of the world for the better part of four decades, they still seemed to know a fair amount about the outside world. Ninmah stuck a tongue out at him, waving at him as though to say ‘go on’.
He obliged, not wanting to make her lose her momentum, and returned to drawing in the snow.
she continued.
He blinked again.
Ninmah watched his gestures carefully, tilting her head.
She trailed off as he pulled out a square chunk of raw bug meat from his cloak—he’d asked to borrow it from her just before they gathered everyone around the bell tower, and thankfully, she still hadn’t eaten her entire share of Boreus meat. It might be a bit of a waste using it for demonstration, but if it’d help them understand the most vital part of what made their classes powerful, he’d gladly sacrifice a dozen points or so.
she started, sounding just as confused as he raised the chunk of bug meat above his head, waving it around so everyone could see it. Then he pointed up at his status interface again, making Ninmah repeat the words out loud for everyone to hear.
[Grade: C-Rank Giant-Class]
[Class: Whiteworm]
[Swarmblood Art: Worm Maw]
[Aura: 942]
[Points: 68]
[Strength: 3, Speed: 5, Toughness: 3, Dexterity: 3, Perception: 3]
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[T1 Mutation | Inorganic Heart Lvl. 10
[T2 Mutations | Vibrational Senses Lvl. 1 Wormic Bones Lvl. 1
[T3 Mutations | Segmented Setae | Rigid Annuli | Sclerite Jaw] 150P
she said, pausing for a moment.
The background noise was starting to pick up as he went through the rest of the five basic attributes, making Ninmah translate the same—five levels in speed meant he had the reaction time and the raw agility of five people, and three levels in toughness meant his skin could probably make icicles bounce off, so on and so forth.
He also gestured several times at Ninmah until she got the message: every point they spent on increasing their attributes, unlocking mutations, and upgrading mutations would increase their aura by one. To level up any of their attributes, it’d cost points equal to that attribute’s current level cubed. So, to increase his strength from three to four, it’d cost three times three times three amount of points, which was twenty-seven. However, to upgrade their mutations, it’d cost points equal to that mutation’s current level cubed multiplied by that tier of mutation. So, to upgrade his tier two ‘Wormic Bones’ to level two, it’d cost one times one times one times two amount of points, which was… two.
The calculations were a bit difficult to get through to all the Worm Mages, but basically, the higher level their attributes and mutations—
Ninmah finished, and by the end of it she was slightly out of breath, too. The children laughed and clapped their hands, looking as though they were watching a puppet show. For all intents and purposes, it kind of one.
A more than satisfactory interpretation. With that, he split the chunk of meat unevenly in half, popping the larger chunk into his mouth. The youngest of the young immediately squealed and squirmed and reeled away at the sight of him chewing on raw bug meat—he wasn’t really sure what they were so disgusted about, considering most soldiers ate them raw anyways—but very quickly they were distracted by the numbers changing on his status interface, their eyes utterly enthralled at the spinning lights.
[Points: 18 → 24]
He didn’t let her finish. For the remaining smaller chunk, he took out a flat piece of crystal he’d picked up from the mouth of the Barrows just ten minutes ago, hovered it over the chunk in his hand, and adjusted the angle until sunlight started sizzling the meat through the crystal.
Ninmah waited.
The children waited.
He waited.
In hindsight, he should’ve just set up a campfire to make the process quicker.
But the meat was darker, crustier, and steaming hot when he chucked it into his mouth, working his jaw as he struggled to chew through the whole thing.
[Points: 24 → 42]
Ninmah finished, and everyone started cheering and clapping; it really was a show to them.
The eldest children murmured around the edges of the crowd as they studied their own status interfaces, taking note of their attribute levels and unlocked mutations. Sparrow stole a glance at Ninmah’s interface from the side as well, and once again came face to face with it—a mutation tree so far unlocked he still couldn’t quite believe his eyes.
[T1 Mutation | Inorganic Heart Lvl. 10
[T2 Mutations | Vibrational Senses Lvl. 6Wormic Bones Lvl. 5
[T3 Mutations | Segmented Setae Lvl. 3Rigid Annuli Lvl. 3Sclerite Jaw Lvl. 2
[T4 Mutations | Proliferating Septa Lvl. 1Salt Epidermis Lvl. 1Permeating Mantle Lvl. 1Omnidirectional Ocelli Lvl. 1
[T5 Mutations | Peristaltic Vibration Lvl. 1
He’d worried they wouldn’t be able to understand how the mutation tree worked, but thankfully, Ninmah herself already seemed to realise that since she’d already unlocked all of her tier four mutations, each tier five mutation was going to cost her a thousand five hundred points. Some of their lower tier mutations were also a few levels higher than one, so upgrading those would cost a hefty amount of points as well.
In simpler terms, they were going to need a of points just to make themselves stronger.
Slowly but surely, he saw the looks of understanding and knowing in everyone’s eyes; the ‘path’ to growing stronger with their Whiteworm Class had become all but apparent to them. He could go into more detail about tier mutations, the reason why points could be obtained via eating bug meat, and the cooking optimization of making bug meat yield more points per pound of meat consumed, but frankly, he didn’t think they were all too important.
At the end of the day, the ‘path’ to strength was simple: they’d have to obtain a large amount of points from consuming bug meat, distribute them across their physical attributes, and once increasing attribute levels become inefficient due to how little points they were getting, they’d have to unlock or upgrade a mutation to obtain a massive ‘jump’ in their overall power. With said jump in power, they could start hunting stronger and higher-rank bugs whose meat would yield more points—and while there were also such things as 'Class Mutation Selections', allowing the user to upgrade their class and evolve their Swarmblood Art after unlocking all of their tier three mutations, there were certain classes that didn't have Class Mutation Selections. The Whiteworm Class seemed to be one of those, given how most of the children were already up to their tier fours and were still sporting the generic 'Whiteworm Class', so he didn't bother explaining that to Ninmah.
He himself—like all other Ant Class Soldiers—had started with a generic Ant Class system, but after he'd unlocked all his tier three mutations, the system had deemed he had the aptitude for the 'Bullet Ant Class', so that was the one he picked during his Class Mutation Selection. Most likely, though, he wouldn't have to deal with any Class Mutation Selection for the Whiteworm Class; a class already specific enough that there could be no further upgrades to its Swarmblood Art.
And Utu, standing at the very far back of the crowd, was the first to raise his hand and ask a question in his shouting, warping voice. This once, Sparrow felt as though he understood what the Worm Mage was saying .
Utu said.
Sparrow nodded firmly, pulling his bayonet rifle forward and gripping it tight in his hands.
Even though they were already far stronger than him in terms of raw attributes and unlocked mutations, he was going to pull all of them onto higher levels alongside him.
Ninmah whispered, clapping her hands as she smiled at him.
