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Chapter 1685 - Well Designed
🕑 Added 2025-09-29 03:24:52 +0000 UTC[I’m sure you’ll be able to work something out,] Granin grumbles, clearly irritated. [Can you worry about this later? There are more important–]
[More important? More important?! What are you even saying? There is NOTHING more important than tickle time!]
The golgari shaper rolls his eyes then sighs heavily.
[Anthony, you’ve been asleep for six months. Can you shut up about grubs for five minutes so we can talk about what happened when you evolved?]
[I can’t help but feel like you’re dismissing my suffering, Granin.]
[You poked me like I was an infant a moment ago. You owe me.]
[... Fine. You have five minutes. After that I want to launch into an in-depth analysis of all the ways I can be made smaller/gentler using multi-dimensional mana techniques. I’m telling you, this is going to be a major feature of the next evolution. Make sure you don’t forget! Grub tickling is what I live for, dammit.]
[Yes, yes, fine. Now shut up. We monitored you as best we could throughout the process, and as far as we can tell, every trace of the toxin was absorbed by your new organs. How are you feeling? Can you sense any traces of contamination?]
Corun and Torrina have joined the conversation, and they look equally concerned, staring up at me with worried faces. Tiny, tiny little faces.
Focus, Anthony. This is serious-ish business.
I perform a thorough internal check, but just as I suspected, there’s nothing there.
[Not a speck of corruption to be found,] I inform the three shapers. [In fact, my organs aren’t anything like what I expected. They’re all ‘purity’ this, and ‘cleansed’ that. What the heck happened?]
[I can still hardly believe what happened myself. Just after the evolution started, the snails appeared and cleansed the corruption right out of you.]
[Uh… what?]
[The chal. They sang at you for a day until the taint of Theorazzn was completely removed.]
I stare at Granin. He stares back at me.
We hold that stance for a moment as I try to determine whether this rock head is pulling on my legs.
[You’re telling me… that baby snails sang the poison of an Ancient out of my body?]
[Actually no,] Granin says, and I relax. He had me going there. [They didn’t take it out of you, they cleansed it. Which is much more difficult.]
[That’s insane! Have you lost your mind? Torrina, there’s no way this is true, right?]
She raises her hands in a helpless gesture.
[I’m sorry, Anthony, I saw it happen with my own eyes,] she says. [I can only say it was a miracle.]
Baby snails singing at me might have saved my life? I… really don’t know how to react to this.
[These snails…] I muse, rubbing my antennae together as I think. [Do they look… ticklish?]
Granin scowls.
[Can you focus? This is important. We have to go over all of your new organs and discuss the changes we made. If you know what we did, then you’ll have a much better time adapting to your new body.]
He pointedly stares at the massive crack in the wall.
[Ahem. Well, yes. There might be some… teething issues. Can you perhaps explain why it feels so weird when I walk around? It’s like my muscles are in different places, pulling in new directions.]
[Because they are,] Granin replies bluntly.
[Oh.]
[We didn’t have as much time as we would have liked, but we’ve made an extensive study of ant physiology. I know you don’t want me to get into all the details…]
[I really don’t.]
[... so I’ll just say that the default configuration you were born with isn’t optimal. The System’s designs change over time, and those changes aren’t always for the best. We worked hard to find a more efficient arrangement for an ant’s musculature and implemented it as best we could in the time we had. It will feel a little strange at first, but it will be better.]
[Better how?]
[More strength and speed from the same amount of muscle. Not an absurd amount. We estimate around seven percent.]
That’s… way more than I thought.
[We did a lot of work on your brains as well. It would have been ideal if we could reset them all as a package, but it would have cost a fortune. As it is, you should notice improved performance from the mutations and adjustments we made.]
I haven’t had much chance to play with mana yet, I haven’t even spun up my mind constructs, but I’m looking forward to it now. If Granin says they’ll be much improved, then I’m sure they will be.
Doors fling open and a steady procession of ants begins to march in carrying heaps of Biomass that they proceed to dump on the floor in front of me. All of a sudden I’m ravenous.
[Do you mind?] I ask the triad.
[Not at all,] Granin replies. [Just answer my questions while you eat.]
[Fine.]
They ask me about my new organs and I tell them what I can, going through system prompts as I stuff myself full on the seemingly endless flow of food. Even more shocked than I am, the golgari discuss amongst themselves just what this is all going to mean as I munch away.
[What about the Call?] Granin asks me suddenly. [How does that feel?]
I freeze for a moment. Man, it would have been nice if he hadn’t reminded me. It’s there. It’s always there.
[Hurts like heck,] I tell him.
[Even here on the fifth?] he asks, surprised.
[Yep. Which worries me, because I have some business on the fourth…]
Comments
KopiCAT
Then it comes down to controlling the strength. With precision control, even the strength to crush a planet can be gentle enough to caress someone.
Jon Wolfman
No. Dark Anthony shall always be cast back down no matter how he climbs. Even the corruption could not bring him forth, thank chal.
Brenda Mendoza
Heyyy! I have an idea. Make the crazy priest slaves for the sake of grubbing.
Shakyamunie
Anthony is the goofy big brother that lives to play with his youngster siblings, and that makes him a great guy.
alt31415
Nope, doesn't work like that. He'd still have the same mass.
ManguKing
Dang! I was hoping that the whole cleansing thing would have rid him of the call
Slapjack
If only there was a type of mana Anthony could use to make himself less heavy/more gentle...
Slapjack
That sounds stupid
Tyrunex
Quick thougt: if anthony goes the size compression route wouldn't he get many times more powerful? If so he wouldn't have a size problem anymore but a strengh one. He wants to tickle and the grubs get beat up
TheLostGolem
I think he's more likely to launch a black hole at them to be honest.
Shimelton
Ticklish snails… 😂
Cylar
YES!!! Dark Anthony will rise again against the horrid enemies of the Colony. For The Colony!
BelligerentGnu
Drat, I thought the Chal had killed the call when he woke up feeling so good.
Crimson wolf
Personally im hoping that Anthony will brilliant to make something to spread his voice to everyone across the fourth floor and he tells everyone how elixirs are made and threatens to do it to people if they dont ban them altogether
Danish Perera
Yeah ngl these past few chapters have been pretty short lol
Wensber
Thanks for the chapter!
Buck
Green Mountain and the Church of the Path, brace yourself for meeting Mythic Tier 8 Anthony!
Ruwa
Oh he's got business on the fourth all right and green mountain will be collapsing soon
Soren
Can we please see a full status? I want to know what he actually is right now dammit.
Tsunami
At this point, I'll be happy for Anthony just to leave this room.
Dan K
My guess is we will have to wait till he mutates to see it.
Ether's Blessed One
'[These snails…] I muse, rubbing my antennae together as I think. [Do they look… ticklish?]'. Yorokobe, Chals. The Eldest has decided that you shall receive the tickle. And F*ck Those Green Mountain dwellers and Path priests.
Huy Ngo
I seriously need to save or reread these chapter because These chapter are not helping solving my addiction. Most of the time there a peak moment before it fall off but this didn’t event reach the peak and fall midway 😭.
NyxWell
Tftc. Can’t wait for Anthony to go bite some priest *ss
Shaitan
Can he see what his current mutation/species name is right now? I think they only talked about the core.
BallsDeep69
Waiting to see his full status. I really want to know what his species is called now
KooZnack
Thanks for the chapter!
