"We'll be having a session before I wake up the rest of the commune. You should join us, the others will want to see you as well," Lucius said.
This session would only have Alpha and Hannibal since Pagan was too close to evolving to have on. And also because he wanted to maximize the amount of helios he would get, so non-leaflings would not be part.
"Ah, sure," Ghost replied, caressing the arachnid one last time before heading with Lucius to the 'Photosynthesis Dome'.
Lucius had ordered that all the kid shrooms temporarily go back to the pillars since he didn't want them seeing Ghost. He also did this, because he wanted to explain to the others what had changed around the camp before allowing them to interact with each other.
"Ghost, it's been a while," Alpha said with a smile.
"You guys have grown," she replied, gently punching Alpha's armor.
"And you're... different," Hannibal replied.
"Yeah," she replied, showing her tail, before shooting poison at the roof.
"I could totally take all of you on in this form," she joked. Oddly enough, nobody challenged that. They just stared at her for a moment, a little confused as she looked nothing like the Ghost they remembered.
"Ah, guys, maybe don't stare at me so much," she said, subconsciously shuffling behind Lucius.
"Speaking of which, you guys should look for beasts with suitable genes. Something that will give you an edge in your line of work," Lucius said. "And stop looking at her like that," he added, and the two snapped out of their daze.
"You look...strong," Alpha said apologetically.
"Yeah, very... combat efficient," Hannibal added.
~Evolution really has brought them a long way,~ Lucius thought to himself. He still couldn't get over the change in the interaction between them from when they were still leaflings. Right now it felt more... human.
~I wonder what they'll be like at the higher tiers,~ he thought before beginning the session.
*
The session lasted a total of 3 hours and 15 minutes. With Lucius being the only one to make it to the end. He had absorbed about 24.2 million helios, which had totally encumbered his mind.
Ghost, having just come out of a state of coma, lasted only 30 minutes.
Her spider limbs had grown quite a bit and had solidified a little towards the tips. Her skin turned at least two shades darker, giving her a dark purple color overall. Where she was the size of a shroom before, she was now the size of a small rodent, and with her spider legs fully extended she stood at a height of 30 centimeters.
Hannibal had lasted a total of 2 hours. He had grown to about the size of a large boar, and was about the same size as Pagan, at 1 meter tall. His skin had become light brown, and his overall body weight had also gone up a bit. Lucius could tell that he would soon evolve.
Alpha had lasted 2 hours and 15 minutes and was currently lying on the floor passed out. If he had gone the full 3 hours, Lucius was sure he would've evolved.
Alpha was now 1.1 meters tall and was about the same body weight as Lucius. His body had turned to a darker shade of brown than Hannibal's, with his woody armor now as hard as wood.
┏━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┓
─────⋅☾System Shop☽⋅─────•
[Evo points] -100 Helios
[Solis fragments] - 1000 Helios
[Sobriquet] - 1,000,000 Helios
[Language Encyclopedia] - 10,000,000
(Current Helios: 33,671,160)
┗━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┛
"This should be enough," Lucius thought to himself as he looked over his system shop.
"You guys want to welcome the rest of the commune?" Lucius asked, to which the others replied with excited nods.
*
The process took a total of 2 hours to complete since Lucius needed to take a few rest sessions in between.
All 35 leaf beings came out without issue. And among them, he bought sobriquets for the six who were part of the first watch.
Pagan had arrived somewhere during the process and helped the others continuously heal Lucius so that he could finish things up faster.
"Welcome back everyone," Lucius announced, once everything was done. The new leaf beings were currently chatting amongst each other excitedly. There were quite a number of variations, however, Lucius decided he would get to that later.
"I know it may be difficult to get used to your new bodies during the first few days, but as time goes on you'll be alright," he said after.
"Now, you may have noticed that you guys are in a strange structure you have never seen before," he said, using Elmando to create a platform so that everyone could see him.
"While you were away we gained a number of skills, and among them is a skill that allows us to build structures. Of course, we'll get into more detail on that later, but for now, I want you to be aware that the camp has changed quite a bit overall.
"Another thing is that we have invited... a few new members into the commune. We will be holding a vote on whether they will be allowed to integrate into the main camp or not. For now, if you face any problems with them, report it to the Premiers and they will deal with it," he announced, gesturing towards Hannibal, Alpha, and Pagan.
The leaflings weren't aware that the shrooms were the ones who had attacked their first camp, so there shouldn't be any friction between the two groups. And now that they were a hunter species as well, the natural inclination for the shrooms to hunt them would basically be nonexistent.
"Speaking of Premiers, I hope you all remember which departments you were a part of, as we will begin work right away," he said, to which a few of the leaf-beings replied with groans.
"Can the members of the First Watch please see me and Alpha after this? We have to discuss a few security concerns," he said, looking toward the others.
"For now I'll allow the rest of you to rest before going to beginning work."
