Kain decided to summarize the pros and cons of each evolution to make things easier for himself:
Psyche Guardian will improve Bea’s ability to control many splits. However, it’d virtually eliminate all of her offensive capabilities. Instead, she’d become the ultimate contract for those involved in selling information, able to seamlessly integrate into multiple targets minds for prolonged periods of time and feed the detailed information back to Kain.
The Illusionbane evolution has increased Bea’s concealment abilities from beyond just water to any location. Additionally, it has upgraded Bea’s hallucination inducing abilities into vivid illusions that she can control and also can affect those of a higher level. However, this evolution has no real ability to harm others aside from causing emotional distress.
Another con is that it appears that the stronger effects on the mind were traded in for the ability to infect multiple individuals at once. Therefore, Bea will lose her ability to produce many splits.
The Nightmare Weaver evolution has offensive capabilities, and can affect multiple individuals at once. However, the targets would all need to be asleep already. It was probably the most restrictive evolution.
The Subjugator evolution will allow Kain to best retain Bea’s ability to control multiple splits while also maintaining a lot of her concealment ability. However, similar to the Psyche Guardian, and Illusionbane evolutions, it has no offensive capabilities. Unless, since he can control the targets’ actions, he directs them to kill themselves. But that is not always feasible.
Thinking of the Desolaphid infestation, Kain wondered how he’d be able to make such small and simple insects injure themselves. He’d probably need to direct them away from the plants and have Addison burn them all. Therefore, his ability to kill mass amounts of creatures alone would weaken in return for greater control abilities.
Finally, the Memory Devourer evolution was able to affect multiple individuals not through splits, but through the use of psychic tendrils. It’d also be a huge boost to Kain’s information collection abilities, able to extract vivid memories from the targets.
It even has the incredible ability to implant memories into targets, a skill Kain knows is virtually unheard of in Gold-quality spiritual creatures. It also has the ability to kill multiple targets at once. However, it has lost Bea’s concealment abilities, and Kain was unsure the number and range of these so-called psychic tendrils.
After weighing all of the pros and cons, Kain felt like his best chance of obtaining a evolutionary form with offensive abilities, concealment abilities, and the ability to target multiple individuals would be to combine the Memory Devourer with either the Subjugator or Illusionbane evolutions.
Using his remaining two chances to try both combinations, Kain examined the two results and finally settled on Bea’s evolution:
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Species: Sovereign Mindshard Amoeba
An advanced evolution utilizing both the Subliminal Orb and the Mindleech Vine. It is an ultimate sovereign of the mind, capable of reading, altering, and deleting memories, while also exerting a potent psychological influence over the actions of those infected.
Quality: White-Gold
Type: Microorganism (Amoeba)
Attribute: Mental
Skills:
SS-Mindshard Manipulation: The Sovereign Mindshard Amoeba can fragment a target’s mind into separate cognitive shards, each containing different memories and aspects of their identity. It can then permanently manipulate, erase, or reassemble these shards to alter the victim’s perception of its present and past reality. Erasure of all mind shards will lead to death.
Erasures of mind shards are only possible for targets with spiritual power equal to or lower than the Phantasmic Amoeba. Manipulation and reassembly of mind shards are possible temporarily for those up to one grade higher.
S-Imperceptible Control: It can exert nearly undetectable control over the thoughts and actions of its targets, subtly guiding their behaviour while remaining hidden from psychic detection. Victims with spiritual power equal to or lower than the Sovereign Mindshard Amoeba are fully under its control, while those with up to one grade higher experience less complete but still significant influence.
A-Subjugation Progeny: The Sovereign Mindshard Amoeba can produce subjugation progeny that are capable of infecting and influencing targets with all of the skills possessed by the original body. These progeny act as extensions of its will, spreading its influence and control further.
A-Memory Siphon: This ability allows the Sovereign Mindshard to siphon and store the most crucial memories from its victims, transforming them into a reservoir of knowledge and power. There is a very small chance of it developing new skills based off of these siphoned memories.
A-Mindveil Network: By creating a network of mental veils, the Sovereign Mindshard Amoeba protects itself from being detected by creatures with spiritual power up to one grade higher. These veils also aid in maintaining control over its victims by preventing external mental interference.
B-Psychic Assimilation: By consuming extracted memories, the Dominion of Oblivion Amoeba enhances its spiritual power and cognitive abilities.
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Although the other evolution was quite strong as well, Kain was certain that this was Bea’ ideal evolution. It maintains her concealment and multi-infection abilities, while also not eliminating her lethality.
Additionally, Bea’s utility, and the ability to use different tactics has also been enhanced with her ability to now manipulate the actions of those she infects.
Not to mention this was the only result so far to have a SS-level skill.
Additionally, Bea’s quality rating is also interesting.
“System, what is white-gold quality? Is it inferior or superior to a standard gold quality?”
*White-gold is simply an additional subclassification used to separate Gold-quality spiritual beasts that are much higher in quality than the typical Gold-quality beast, and have a slightly higher chance of upgrading to Green-grade without dying. However, there is still a gap in quality between them and true Platinum-quality spiritual creatures.*
*It is not a term typically used, with most individuals choosing to still refer to them as Gold-quality spiritual creatures.*
*A White-gold quality evolution is likely the highest jump in quality the Host can hope to achieve directly from a Bronze-quality contract. Even if a better Spiritual Power orb, catalyst, or material is substituted, a higher quality will not be achieved.*
“Understood. It looks like Bea’s evolution has been decided.”