Endless Evolution as a Centipede in a Game-Like World

"My shift will be over at 1 p.m. Would you be free today? I want to talk to you about something," Amelia said as she fixed her hair in front of the mirror.

She was currently wearing her work uniform as she got ready to leave. With the amount of money I was bringing in, she didn’t need to work, but she seemed to be making friends at the restaurant, which seemed healthy for her. It’s better than her staying home worrying about me.

"I should be free by then. I’m heading to the university today."

"Sounds good," she responded as she tied her hair into a bun.

Lily stood beside her with a serious expression on her cute round face as she handed Amelia the items she needed. She then knelt down so she was on the same eye level as Lily.

"As for you, I won’t forget to bring that pie I promised."

A bright smile appeared on Lily’s face as she bobbed her head up and down. This caused Amelia to smile and ruffle her hair before picking up her handbag.

"Don’t forget, 1 p.m. I’ll text you the location we’ll meet," Amelia reminded as she left.

"OK, see ya."

I waved her goodbye.

A few minutes later, I stood over Lily with my hand raised above her head.

[200 biomass has been spent to evolve your forest Nymph.]

[Photosynthesis has reached Level 2. User now gains 1 biomass for every 8 minutes in the sun.]

[Strength 9->10]

[Speed 12->17]

[Defense 8->13]

Immediately as the evolution was made, Lily grew a whopping 1 additional foot in height.

[Requirement for next evolution: 300 biomass and a bloodline purity of at least 1%]

Before I sold the monster cores to Alfred, I had a total of 108. I sold half of them, which left me with 54 cores in total, plus the 8 I got from spiders last night, brings this total up to 62 cores that I could spend to improve my and Lily’s bloodline purity.

And most importantly, all these cores were D-ranked cores.

I quickly took out one of these cores and directed Lily through the process of absorbing it.

"Monster cores naturally give off energy. Just allow that energy to flow through you and into your core."

[Nymph Bloodline Purity 0.01%->0.16%]

Hmm... so a single D-ranked core increases her bloodline purity by 0.15%.

With that in mind, I gave her 6 more cores, which boosted her bloodline purity to 1.06%.

-New Spell Acquired-

[Lv. 1 Soul of Gaia: A nature spell that helps build the foundation of life. The activation requires the use of biomass.]

[300 biomass has been spent to evolve your forest Nymph.]

[Photosynthesis has reached Level 3. User now gains 1 biomass for every 6 minutes in the sun.]

[Strength 10->15]

[Speed 17->22]

[Defense 13->18]

[Requirement for next evolution: 500 biomass and a bloodline purity of at least 3%]

Once again, Lily grew in size but only by a few inches.

-New Skill Acquired-

[Lv. 1 Living Armor: When in danger, allows user to cover their skin with thick tree bark for protection.]

That should be enough. Now with the remainder of the cores, I decided to increase my own bloodline purity.

After spending 7 of them on Lily, I now had 55 cores remaining.

With a brilliant golden light, a smooth spherical core appeared in the palm of my hand.

[Obsidian Dragon Bloodline Purity 1.37%->1.47%]

Absorbing a D-ranked core increased my bloodline purity by 0.10%, which was less than what it did for Lily. Maybe my bloodline requires more mana than Lily’s. That seems like the best explanation.

I spent the next half hour absorbing the cores. In total, from all 55 cores, my bloodline purity increased by 5.5%, bringing it to 6.87%.

[Earth Control has increased from level 4 to level 7!]

[Magma Creation has increased from level 3 to level 5!]

[Magma Absorption has increased from level 3 to level 6!]

[Firebolt has increased from level 1 to level 3]

-New Spells Acquired-

[Lv. 1 Eruption: Causes a magma eruption beneath foe’s feet once they are in a 10-meter radius. The eruption will also spray magma so any foe within the 10-meter radius will be burnt.]

[Lv. 1 Quicksand: Allows user to turn any surface they touch into quick sand.]

[+5 increase in all stats]

So I gained 1 class-based spell and 1 affinity-based spell. The quicksand spell seemed similar to something I had used before during the battle with the orcs. I changed the terrain so the ground was softer, allowing their huge bodies to sink. But it wasn’t truly quicksand, and something like that would be much harder to do on harder surfaces.

Hence, why this spell was much more efficient and could me used more effectively.

When I learn a new spell, the consciousness in charge of learning spells analyzes it so I don’t have to practice it for multiple hours just to learn how to use the spell.

After absorbing the cores, I quickly went to take a shower before heading to the university. For the most part, the player university was self-study, and you would only meet with your professor a few times a week. They gave you free reign over their resources and high tech training facilities.

I decided to head for the library. I walked past the sections about history, politics, and monsters until I finally came to a stop at the section of the library about magic. There were many books. Too much to read.

"It’s a bit suspicious that we’ve gathered all this information after only 1 year in Vesperia."

I glossed over the different books before stopping at a shelf about the different categories of magic. There were many books about common magic, but there was only 1 about the one I wanted.

’Specialized Magic: A guide to the rarest magic category.’