Epic of Caterpillar
chapter-43

DAY 35

I woke up today barely being able to breath, as Brontes and Nesiphae big bodies were squishing me from both sides. If it wasn't for my high Defense stat, I would be minced meat by now.

"I need a bigger bed… Five people sleeping inside is barely the limit for this bed…"

When I woke up I stealthy went to my private bathroom and took a nice and warm bath, while doing this I decided to finally spend my Skill Points on my Class Skill Tree.

When I opened the class menu, I had 35 Skill Points left to use, I remember being around level 24 when I exchanged some points for two passives, which granted me +7 Strength and +15 HP. So when I hit max level (50) I already had 25 more Skill Points, because I get one per level. The question is, where did these 10 extra points came from?

"Perhaps evolution grants me extra Skill Points? It's the only option I can imagine… Ayways, even 35 points is not enough to obtain every skill in the Troll Warrior class… But it's not like I need them, they seem kind of underwhelming…"

I browsed through the High Troll Warrior skills and exchanged the ones I thought were the most interesting ones.

I exchanged the +3 Strength and Defense stat boost for 15 Points.

YOU HAVE EXCHANGED 15 SP

YOU GAINED +3 STRENTH AND DEFENSE PERMANENTLY

Fluosh!

Every time I exchange one of these stat boosting skills, I feel as my whole body is filled with a strange feeling, as if my own cells multiplied multiple times. Something completely different as obtaining skills from eating monsters, which also boost my stats passively, however these aren't shown in the Status Window, only some titles.

With the remaining 20 SP, I exchanged the skill STRENGTH AND DEFENSE ENHANCEMENT , which seemed to be the strongest one. With my 5 remaining points I wasn't able to exchange anything.

YOU HAVE EXCHANGED 15 SP

YOU LEARNED A NEW SKILL: STRENGTH AND DEFENSE ENHANCEMENT

This new buffing skills was nothing like the buffs I obtain from monsters, being almost on par with my strongest buffing skills.

"So, this is the power of the system, skills granted by it are way stronger than the natural monster skills, even when fused, my strongest buff its just a bit stronger than this buff. It also consumes a very low amount of Stamina, only asking for 50 points and lasting an entire hour"

Just by this skill alone, I completely changed my vision over the class skills, wanting to collect them all.

While browsing through the class window, I found a small button at the side of my class name.

SUB CLASS SLOT HAS BEEN UNLOCKED

"Sub class?"

CHOOSE SUBCLASS? THIS WILL REDIRECT YOU TO THE SUBCLASS SELECTION SCREEN

>YES NO

"Yes!"

Ding!

LOADING POSSIBLE SUBCLASS OPTIONS

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NOVICE ALCHEMIST

NOVICE COOK

NOVICE BLACKSMITH

NOVICE TAILOR

ANCIENT TROLL COPPER BLACKSMITH

ANCIENT TROLL WITCH ALCHEMIST

ANCIENT TROLL FLAMING CHEF

ANCIENT MERFOLK AQUARIAN ALCHEMIST

ANCIENT MERFOLK AQUARIAN BLACKSMITH

"Oooh?! These classes are different than the last ones! All these classes are directed towards utility and crafting, not fighting. Interesting…"

While I enjoyed the warm bath, I looked over the class skills.

The cooking classes had unique skills that granted extra bonuses when preparing food, giving them extra bonus stats when eating them, there was also Cooking Affinity and Cooking Proficiency on it. These skills can make anyone a chef, even if it's a complete ignorant on any type of cooking like myself. I barely know how to make a simple soup.

There were also the Alchemist and Blacksmith subclass, which were pretty much like Kusuri and Kajiya, Alchemist granted Synthesis Affinity and Proficiency, while also increasing the max daily amount of Synthesis that you can do every da-

"W-Wait a second! Max amount of Synthesis every day?! With this I can fuse more than 5 skills per day! Not matter what the other classes offer, I will choose Alchemist!"

However, I didn't choose the novice Alchemist. I checked the Troll Witch Alchemist and the Merfolk Aquarian Alchemist.

Troll Witch Alchemist has a better proficiency over making potions of every type, and had up to +20 extra Synthesis fusions per day.

Merfolk Aquarian Alchemist has a better proficiency over crafting beautiful accessories, being closer to a Blacksmith, it has up to +20 extra Synthesis fusions per day too.

"A tough choice, what should I specially in? Potions or Accessories?"

My split minds tried to give me some advice.

"I think that Merfolk Aquarian Alchemist is better, you can always rely on Kusuri for potions, while accessories are trickier to make, and they could also grant you extra skills that you may not have"

"I agree, Merfolk is the way to go, Master! Imagine a whole book of recipes for any skill you want, and it only needs some materials to create? Isn't that kind of broken? Hehehe!"

"GAAH! I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU CHOOSE! LET'S FIGHT INSTEAD! WHERE IS THAT UNDEAD ARMY?!"

"I will pretend that Angry Mind also said Merfolk"

Thanks to the convincing advice from my split minds, I choose the Merfolk Aquarian Alchemist.

YOUR SUBCLASS HAS BEEN SET TO: MERFOLK AQUARIAN ALCHEMIST

YOU HAVE GAINED 10 SUBCLASS SKILL POINTS (SSP)

"Subclass Skill Points?"

It seems like Subclass get a different and separate skill points to use, which is good, so I don't have to decide between so many skills to choose from.

Merfolk Aquarian Alchemist had the following skills:

ALCHEMY AFFINITY (10 SSP), ALCHEMY PROFICIENCY (10 SSP), MERFOLK AQUARIAN ACCESORY RECIPE BOOK (10 SSP), EXTRA DAILY SYNTHESIS +4 (10 SSP), EXTRA DAILY SYNTHESIS +6 (12 SSP), EXTRA DAILY SYNTHESIS +10 (18 SSP), AUTOMATIC SYNTHESIS (15 SSP)

"Ooh! There they are! Extra daily Synthesis! Wait… Automatic Synthesis?"

AUTOMATIC SYNTHESIS: Grants the ability to automatically synthetize any item or skill. Items will be automatically synthetized the moment you touch them. New skills obtained will be synthetized automatically the moment you obtain them. The order of which items and skills synthetize which each other can be adjusted on this skill command button.

"An impressive skill! With this I can mass synthetize any item as if I were a factory! And also, automatically synthetize skills too! With this I won't have to bother over doing it every day… But it cost quite a lot of SSP, it will have to wait for now"

Using my 10 SSP, I exchanged the bonus "Extra Daily Synthesis +4".

YOU EXCHANGED 10 SSP

YOU GAINED THE ABILITY TO SYNTHETIZE ITEMS OR SKILLS UP TO 9 TIMES PER DAY

"Phew, this is finally done… Huh? My bats are here…"

I sensed that my body division bats that I sent outside during the Bloody Sacrifice Dungeon exploration came back to me with some good news.

I quickly finished taking my bath and put on some clothes, and immediately went to my room window.

When I opened the window, more than 10 small bats made of red flesh entered the room and started to fly around me.

"Activate skill: Colony Formation!"

Fluosh!

Suddenly, all the small bats fused with my flesh, increasing my pass by a small amount.

YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY REGAINED YOUR FLESH

"Ah!"

When the last bat fused with my body, I felt an incredible amount of picture-like information flowing through my mind.

The shock of information made me a little dizzy and forced me to rest on a nearby chair.

"Ugh…"

After relaxing for a bit, I was finally able to browse through this new information.

I previously sent these flesh minions on a mission to scout the entire forest, and if possible, scout the outside are too.

According to what my bats inspected and explored, they were able to get outside this vast forest, after traveling countless kilometers. The Grand Forest seems to be separated in "layers" of denser forest; the forest gets denser the more you go outside of it.

I could resume it like this. The forest has around 5 layers, I was born at layer 1, in the total center of this place, with a very low danger level, compared to the reports of my bats. I have successfully explored up to the third layer, which was reaching the Blood Forest and the Merfolk Lake. There is still two enormous layers to explore yet. And according to my bats, these two layers are infested with strong monsters, the weakest being of High King class. There are also countless small ruins which I suspect are dungeons.

On the last layer my bats were able to Appraise a ridiculously strong monster, it seemed like a giant turtle, however, this one was just resting and didn't seemed to have an aggressive aura. I suspect this turtle to have Overlord level at the very least. What is this turtle even doing there? I don't have a clue. And why it is not helping us? I don't have a clue either!

There was another interesting thing about the outside layer monsters, most of them had a basic animal intelligence and lacked any type of complex language. This leads to the conclusion that intelligent monsters are only born inside the first and second layer. There is further evidence as none of the Blood Monsters encountered on the Blood Forest, which is in the third layer, had any intelligence at all. I wonder what really makes the monsters inside the layer one and two so weak but yet so impressively intelligent. To the point of creating their own cultures and languages and being able to abuse the system to their advantage, like the Hairy Spider Empress, who tricked the Alligator and Squirrel Emperors and ended up absorbing their powers, abusing the system with her skills.

However, the difference in strength is too wide, yes, you can be born with intelligence here, but compared to the layer three to five monsters, we would be mere ants. Of course, this does not apply to my servants, who can grow incredibly fast thanks to my blessing.

After crossing through the entire of the Grand Forest, my bats discovered that there are incredibly vast plains, looking like a sea made of grass. They explored around these massive grassy plains but after some time they ended giving up, as they did not find anything in kilometers, outside of stronger monsters who lacked complex intelligence.

"I will have to send more bats to explore these grassy plains, but according to their mind pictures, they are extremely wide, surrounding most of this forest. I will call them Vast Plains"

However, these grassy plains did not surround the entirety of this forest. As I said before, most, but not all of it.

Thanks to my bats, I was able to get a better picture of the Snowy Mountain Walls and the Spiky Mountains. It seems that the Grand Forest is directly stuck to them, this is why we weren't able to see these plains when we went to the Snowy Mountain Walls. There are even some brave trees growing on the feet of these mountains.

My bats were able to discover where the Dark Nation was. Yes, I finally get to know where is this damned necromancer. The Vast Plains surrounds around 3/5 of the entire Grand Forest, however, the other 2/5 are covered by a "dead zone" a strange place composed of a floor made of spiky black colored rocks, this entire place barely holds any vegetation and does not have any other monster or animal life at all. In the middle of this "dead zone" there are the gigantic ruins of the fallen Kingdom of Ollathir. My bats were able to see some hundreds of Undead moving around this place, and on the very center of these ruins there was a gigantic castle. This castle aura was incredibly deadly, making my bats cower in fear.

The bad news is that these ruins were being protected by a massive solidified magic dome, which nullified most magic and put countless debuffs on whoever steps inside. Two of my bats who dared to enter this magic dome exploded into pieces right at the moment they touched this area.

"This is bad… How will I even confront this bastard if he got this powerful magic dome surrounding him? Will I have to sit around as he showers me with thousands of armies until I die or run away? Sigh…"

"No… This is my new task, make a spell able to crack his defenses, and then, strike right through his castle! What will happen first? Will I be able to destroy his magic dome or will he come personally for my head?"

I need to send more bats to carefully inspect the components of this powerful magic barrier and be able to find a spell that can crack it.

"Alright, Activate skill: Flesh Minion Creation!"

Fluosh!

Using all my MP and Stamina, I managed to create around 20 new flesh minion bats. Before sending them away, I casted my Spiritual Blood Magic Shield on each one, which costed me several MP Potions, thankfully, I got a lot yesterday from the hands of Kusuri.

I sent 10 bats towards the Dark Nation and 10 towards the Vast Plains.

"That should be it"

Rushing things won't give me any favors, neither will be slacking around and wait for a miracle to happen. I must use every tool I have at my disposition to secure my victory. When the fighting time finally comes, I won't back down.

When my bats finally flew until I couldn't see them anymore, I decided to sit for a moment and opened my Item Box.

I took two big Reward Gift boxes that I obtained from the Bloody Sacrifice Dungeon and decided to open them.

"Let's see what this gacha has to offer"

The first one I opened was the smallest one, that was rewarded to me after beating the dungeon boss. The biggest one was rewarded after clearing the dungeon.

The small box glowed on a shiny light and slowly dissipated, leaving a different item on place.

"Ah paper?"

HUNDRED CURSED EYES ARTS SCROLL: A scroll containing the knowledge and the basics of the forbidden Hundred Cursed Eyes Arts. Consume this item to obtain 3 Hundred Cursed Eyes Arts skills at random

"Random? Geez…"

CONSUME ITEM: HUNDRED CURSED EYES ARTS SCROLL?

>YES NO

"Yes!"

Fluosh!

I didn't even need to read the scroll as it glowed on a shiny light. This light slowly gathered on my palm and was absorbed by my body. And then, I felt as if unknown knowledge entered my mind, similar to how the bats gave me their memories.

Ding!

YOU LEARNED THE FOLLOWING SKILLS:

HUNDRED CURSED EYES ARTS: DEATH PACT

HUNDRED CURSED EYES ARTS: REVERSE DEBUFF

HUNDRED CURSED EYES ARTS: REVERSE BUFF

"Ooh! That was too easy! These sound pretty good…"

HUNDRED CURSED EYE ARTS: DEATH PACT: Using the forbidden knowledge of the Hundred Cursed Eye Arts, you can do a pact with the death (Undead monsters). This pact is not an enslavement pact and both parties must agree on their respective conditions. This skill can be used to both make a pact with someone you are close to or with a random Undead monster who is willing to do a pact with you around the entirety of the Realm of Vida. Cost 400 MP. Cooldown 1 Month

"Ah! With this I can pretty much summon an Undead who would do a pact with me… But that cooldown and MP cost really scare me… Maybe I could do a pact with some strong Undead on the upcoming wave? But both parties have to agree, it's not entirely an enslavement pact… It would be extremely hard. Didn't Zehe had someone dear to her who was a Lich? Will that guy agree to this pact? Ugh… I can already imagine an Undead teacher being a strict and stoic men, probably would remain loyal to its master until its death…"

These other two skills were self-explanatory, one being able to reverse debuffs and the other being able to reverse buffs. It is extremely useful considering my new knowledge of this necromancer magic dome. This skill will become an important ingredient on my recipe towards a spell able to crack this shield.

After checking on these two new skills, I took the second Reward Gift and opened it.

Fluosh!

This time, unlike the other Reward Gifts, this one glowed on a bigger and blinding light, forcing me to close my eyes. When this light finally dissipated, there was a big item on my hand.

This item was by far the strangest I've ever gotten in these Reward Gifts. It looked like a giant sphere made of steel. Inside of it there was a big red gem and countless markings around its spherical shape, depicting a strange language.

"The heck is this?"

BLOODY SACRIFICE DUNGEON CORE: A core of the Blood Sacrifice Dungeon, it contains the power to revive this dungeon over your command. To activate this function. Implant this core on the Final Boss room. You will be able to use Dungeon Points earned through Dungeon Management to produce monsters. Monster can reproduce between themselves and increase its population. Monster can be harvested for their meat, magic cores and EXP

"W-What… T-This is crazy! With this I would be able to send my servants to train here! We would also be able to harvest these monster meats, EXP and magic cores… Wait, what is a magic core?"

Suddenly, the System itself answered my question.

MAGIC CORE: A magic core is a stone containing a strong concentration of magic, which makes the monsters made by the dungeon master able to move on their own, normal monsters does not possess this core. This core has thousands of variants and can be used for different purposes, from medicine to even crafting.

"T-Thanks System… Since when did it become so attentive…? Anyways, I will have to move this to the dungeon, better to do it today after breakfast… I wonder how this dungeon system works"

"Sigh… Very well, time to o check on the rest of my Kingdom, I don't even have time to get worried… Hahaha… Huh?"

While I was laughing, I unintentionally woke my wives up.

They all looked beautiful and adorable when waking up, warming my tired heart.

"H-Honey? You were already up? Hmm? What's wrong?"

"Master… Your face seems kind of tired, are you feeling fine?"

"Mastaa… Are you okay, guuu?"

"Big sister…"

It seems that my face looked quite tired.

"Ah! I'm fine… I was just processing some things… We should talk about this later. But for let's go eat breakfast!"

"I want to bathe first, guuuuu! Master come with me guuuu!"

"But I already took a bath…"

"Honey, No buts!"

"Hehehe, come on, bathe with us!"

"Big sis, come!"

Brontes suddenly took her clothes off and carried me with her arms to the bathroom.

"Uuaagh! B-Brontes you don't have to do this! Uuaah, why I am so blushed right now? What is this strange feeling over being carried like a princess?!"

And so, I had a nice bath with my wives, which relieved my worries and cleaned my mind. Although they were being quite lewd.

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When we arrived to the Castle Dining Room, a small Spider Maid guided us to a big and long table. It seems that in my absence, my servants crafted a special and beautiful table for me and my wives to eat, it was extremely wide with many seats, so I ended up inviting almost everyone who was eating here. Now that the meals are paid, they valued even more my invitation to eat everything they wanted.

This time the people eating in the Castle Dining Room were mostly members of the "Royal Knights" as normal citizens would eat mostly at their new homes or in restaurants on the main town.

"Hahaha, I remember when we had our whole Kingdom eating here"

Wagyu laughed.

"Hahaha! Indeed, or when this place was once just made of rocks? No one would believe that now, Master!"

Brontes looked at us with curiosity.

"Big sis, how was this place before?"

"Well, all of this was once just a cave…"

I had a nice breakfast, explaining Brontes and the newer members of the Royal Knights the origins of this castle.

When everything was finished, I met again with the revitalized Rin sisters, who had a nice sleep yesterday until today in the morning.

"Fueeh! That nap was so good! I want to keep sleeping! Let me sleep more!"

"Hmmm… I feel revitalized…"

"No time to sleep! Even if Master is back to the Kingdom, we must still help her in everything we can and manage this Kingdom as much as we can, this is the reason of us existing in the first place"

"Eeeeeh? But I wanted to explore the world, not being stuck here being some receptionist…"

Rin comments really made me laugh, I guess I also missed my old Split Minds.

"Hahaha! I guess you are right Rin, if you want, you can join the Royal Knights and train very hard to become strong enough. Then you can travel the world as much as you want!"

It seemed that my intentions on trying to help her made her angrier.

"Eeeh? What are you even talking about, you idiot?! Training?! What a pain! I prefer to be here then…"

Ran and Ren updated me on the news of my Kingdom. It seems that the Undead have already finished a new block of houses. These will be given to loads of new families waiting for their own house.

"H-How many houses we need to have all our people?"

"Hmm…"

Ran looked over System Window.

"Around 120 more"

"Eh?!"

"Population is increasing at a rapid speed, and because of the fast growth of the monster babies, most who were born last week are already looking for their own houses"

"I see, for now just let them stay on the Castle, we got plenty of empty rooms now"

"If that's what our Empress desires, we shall do as you command"

"Don't be that cordial with me, you girls were once my split minds, you always threated me like someone very close to me, there is no need for cordialities between family!"

"L-Lady Kireina… I understand"

"Very well then… Kireina"

"Hahaha! Not like I would call you by any other name than idiot, idiot! Hahaha!"

Ran raised her arm and hit Rin right into her head.

TUMP!

"Uggeh!"

"Don't go overboard!"

"Ooow… You are so mean sometimes! Ueehh!"

Rin started to do a tantrum on the floor, like a small child.

"Big sister is so mean! Why are you so mean! Ueeeeeh!"

"…"

"…"

"…"

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I sent the Rin sister to summon Demonic Beings on the training grounds for everyone to train.

In my absence the skill reached max level multiple times, evolving two times. These new Demonic Beings were named "Lower Demon Slime" and had quite some intelligence, but still remained in place to let themselves get killed.

Kizuato and Yukan were the ones who instructed most of the monkeys on their training, there were loads of new faces. Most were the baby monkeys I once gave a name; it was a colorful bunch.

There was also Celica and Truhan, who were assigned the roles of training the Trolls and Goblins who wanted to be part of the main army. They were quite happy to met again with their brethren, and there were some faces that they recognized.

On the other side, was Kekensha accompanied by Yuki, Chikyu and Iwa. These four were assigned on training the rookie wolves on their own fighting styles, as wolves need a different training than humanoids.

There was also Abellona and his brothers, Ran told me that Abellona offered himself to be a trainer of the rest of the slaves, and so the whole Wyvern family will take care of the slaves and other creatures like Flame Salamanders, Gale Birds and some of Meiji spirits.

I noticed that Vulcanus, Meiji's Fire Spirit became quite popular with the Flame Salamanders, as he is a big Salamander himself. He got his own club of fangirls, who praise him as the "Legendary Flame Salamander".

"There is so many new people here, its hard to spot some specific people… I'm glad Celica and Truhan got a new job as instructors and also as official Royal Knights!"

Celica and Truhan who were close noticed my praising and greeted me.

"Aaah! Master! We can finally see you without so many people around you! Hahahaha!"

"Indeed, Master is very popular, we wanted to greet you yesterday but there were floods of people around you"

"I'm sorry guys… I don't even know when did this become like this… I was surprised too"

"Hmm! I'm amazed that so many Trolls and Goblins survived the latest battles, Celica was almost tearing up after seeing so many known faces that managed to survive"

"Aah! T-Truahn don't say that in front of Master, you embarrass me!"

"Hahahaha! Celica is very cute when she gets embarrassed!"

"Geez…"

"I was also as surprised as you two, I'm glad that they joined on their own will, they will become important assets to our Kingdom. Very well then, I have important things to do now. See ya!"

The couple waved their hands saying their good byes.

"We wish you good luck Master!"

Seeing how the Training Grounds were handling things, I told my wives about my flesh bat minion information and the Dungeon Core, and its importance on making everyone stronger.

They all decided to come with me, as they don't even want to leave me alone on the bathroom.

We quickly flew outside the castle for a quick trip back to the Bloody Sacrifice Dungeon.

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