The sssnake sssect grows ssstronger with every day. It might have been only seven days since our founding, but behold, our first sacred art!

While it might seem lackluster, do you know how hard it was to find a way to improve on the basic snake skillset? I mean look at this- it’s another world and yet, they have snakes! No matter the environment, they are already perfect killing machines. You bite an enemy, you run away, and eat it when it succumbs. Alternatively, you asphyxiate it using your overpowered muscles.

Training does indeed pay off. And just in time, as I’m about to finish digesting my meal.

Over the past week, I’ve been obsessively following my status page, hoping to see how well I’m doing. It was less useful than expected however. First, I hoped I could calculate how effective each exercise is, and then drop those that weren’t as useful, or make adjustments to maximize my gainz. Increases in strength however, do not start showing up until a few hours pass, and do not finish growing for a day or so. It’s also hard to judge what’s a result of me working out, and what is due to being a freshly born snakeling, naturally growing in sstrengtsh and size.

Another thing that I realised, is just how much the scope skill hides. I didn’t notice it before, but many new stats and attributes appeared since the first reveal. Close inspection also revealed that all those values have subvalues, like how might can be split into each muscle. 

This generalisation and categorisation seems to be the real power of this skill. After all, how does it help to know your back muscle has strength rank D, if it’s not used in coordination with the rest of the body?  In a way, this total information is more “truthful” than hundreds of separate tidbits of information. 

What’s more, it seems to hide things, without you noticing, if you forgot about them, or subconsciously feel they are unimportant. If I try very hard I can see for example some information about how good i am at breathing, but since most people have pretty much the same baseline, it gets filtered out. Things that seem obvious to me, but vary greatly among people sometimes show up, and sometimes don’t - like my mathematics skill. Same about most skills in the minus one - plus one range.

The final newcomer is a mixed bag, only time will tell if it helps or hurts more.

Meditation grew greatly. I’ve been practicing it as much as I could, both to block out outside thoughts, as well as simply calming down. I’m finding it harder and harder to fall asleep recently, partially due to the fear resistance skill.  It seems that many skills get stuck at values like N.9, requiring some kind of new idea before advancement. Because of that, each jump is quite noticeable. I’m really not excited to see how the evolution of my mind defence skill ends up.

And while we are talking about the fear resistance… Well here is a catch - Negative fear resistance makes me AFRAID TO TRY IMPROVING IT! Well, more precisely it amplifies fear that is there, but by the definition, you fear things you find scary. And the only way to practice resisting fear is to… Yeah. I know I have to do something about that… but until now, all attempts to start only ended up with me succumbing, or delaying it, which made it even stronger. I’m afraid if it increases too much I will end up too scared to do my mental training, so for now I try my best to just ignore it.

I slithered through the tall grass. Together with the rest of family, we went to hunt. We followed the trail left by mother, traveling in single file, trying to reduce any chances of us being noticed by our pray.

First her, then my siblings. All of them so big. So strong. Experienced hunting by themselves. Then there was me. Small. Weak. Always had to be helped. But that’s why I’m here! To improve! This time I will do my job!

Finally, we reached our target. A group of black rat like creatures was eating berries from a tree. They seemed so weak, so easy to hunt! And there were enough for all of us!

We slithered around them, blocking any path of escape. I could already feel their taste. THWACK!, I bumped into a bush in front of me! The noise startled rats. They tried to run, but it was futile. My family was strong and fast, and  they caught all of them nearly immediately. 

Except for me. I couldn’t catch a single one. Even though they were so slow. So weak.

I saw the anger in their eyes. The disappointment. Mother slithered to me. I looked at her, scared, unmoving. She opened her jaw. 

A gentle boop woke me up, yet I jumped startled. The warm emotions coming from outside a stark contrast to the dream I just saw, and what I felt. It was “awake?” mother. “awake”. And it seems “Hunt time”  she brought “learn fight!” the new challenger.

Reisinling

No spoilers but you know how it goes in life, if things are going too well, that usually means they will soon go…  A bit conflicted on continuing the noodle joke. It is funny, but the tone of the story is going to be quite serious in many places. But then, occasional levity does make the dark parts pop more.

Also, American hours are a bust. Man, if you release a chapter during their peak hours it goes down from the first page of new releases list within like 10 min (compared to usual 60-90). You are too creative, stop that! 

Also x2 - small cover refresh! This one temporary, while I'm working on others, will create a poll around chapter 10 most likely