Despite his previous experience with another large opponent, it had been way too long since that particular fight in his D-Grade years, and he had maybe…kind of...forgotten about it.

  Justin shook his head as he retracted his tentacles from mauling the eyes that were warily observing him.

  Swimming down to its open-face bed of cilia, he instead wrapped them around the soft flesh there while sighing.

  For all he spited it, Justin’s race gave him unique leverage over his own way of thinking. Thanks to innate racial traits he was able to do what humans were incapable of, and divide his focus into a separate series of thoughts.

  That meant he could send out a single, concise mental burst that was separate from the rest of his thoughts.

  It was a decisively superior method than storming the starfish with a series of rambling half-thoughts, and in fact if he had been a regular human without any kind of psychic defense, Justin would have long fallen prey to having all of his thoughts read at once.

  The exchange went something like this:

  “Are you afraid?”

  To which the starfish sent back a burst of emotions.

  “Fear! Confirmation! Fear! Fear!”

  “...”

  The wrinkled expression on Justin’s face could hardly be described, as it mirrored an unexplainable divide of frustration and a little guilt. If he were to describe it, the first thing that came to mind after hearing the starfish was a sense of immaturity. Almost nearing that of an infant or juvenile.

  ‘Have I been bullying a child this whole time?’

  …

  A few minutes later, Justin had recovered his health while speaking to the creature some more, which hadn’t been productive in the slightest.

  The beast’s manner of conversation was incredibly frustrating and unhelpful, so following the confirmation that it was planning on remaining passive, Justin disconnected their mental link.

  Swimming up to the top of the cenote, he emerged from the surface while gasping. Catching his breath, he looked around the long interior of the cenote. It had been large enough to house the starfish, so it was pretty big by Justin’s standards.

  His mind went back to his fight with the creature below him.

  Was he going to get in trouble for this? He couldn’t get reported on a primitive planet, right?

  No, he couldn’t let himself joke at a time like this. In reality it wasn’t proper to think of it as equal to a child anyway. The starfish had some innate intelligence that made it seem immature like a child, yes. But there were actually many creatures that held some amount of intelligence.

  The starfish’s intellect only seemed more apparent due to its ability to psychically express itself. Which was another thing that turned out to be lackluster after conversing with it further. Like Justin had guessed, its psychic abilities were limited only to telepathy, which was expected without the system’s additive strength.

  Even then, due to its low intelligence, its replies were limited only to basic concepts like emotion, agreement and disagreement, and simple observations.

  Supposition, belief or disbelief, and complex conversation was likely entirely beyond it, so Justin supposed it was some kind of small miracle that it had even understood him at all.

  Actually…now that Justin thought about it, wasn’t the starfish a carbon-based entity?

  It clearly had the potential for sentience as well, if not the complete package already.

  It was important to note that sentience was mostly just self-awareness attached to a few other bells and whistles.

  It didn’t equate directly to intelligence as humans thought of it, but instead had to do with consciousness and a bit of reasoning. If the opposite were really the case then Justin could have named a few members of the Guild Association that assimilation wouldn’t have worked on.

  No, sentience was a separate status, and a quality Justin believed the starfish may be exhibiting based on their conversation.

  He grinned.

  Even though the beast thought their little conflict had passed, Justin was about to prove himself the victor.

  He left a new tentacle for oxygen above the surface before diving back down where the mutant beast was still watching him.

  Like wheat awaiting harvest, it had no idea what was to come

  Justin outstretched a hand in which a ball of flesh rose from the palm before vibrating intensely.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  In an instant, flesh formed around a small skeletal structure and in the next, the seedling parasite formed a primitive sensory catalogue and razor-sharp incisors. That was the critical part.

  He let his arm drift down after the parasite had formed, allowing it to swim toward the starfish on its own. With seemingly more command of the water than Justin, the small ball of flesh quickly found a soft portion of the starfish’s flesh and began digging in.

  ‘With its large body, I doubt it will feel this before it's too late. The brain should be located near the eyes too, so it will be quick.’’

  After the evolution, Justin didn’t want to assimilate any more, but knew regardless of his desires that having the starfish on his side would be an assurance he couldn’t go without. He didn’t want this thing breathing down his neck while he searched for an exit, after all.

  Justin watched the parasite disappear into the soft flesh of the starfish, and just like he had predicted, it didn’t move in response.

  Justin waited in anticipation for the feeling of experience to wash over him.

  Any moment now.

  Any moment now.

  A few seconds passed.

  Eventually, before minutes began to pass, Justin realized something had happened. Or rather, the issue was that nothing had happened.

  At a slight risk to himself, he swam closer to the starfish’s body, re-wrapping his tentacles around its cilia.

  With the connection reestablished, he saw and felt how the starfish was surprised to speak with him again. It could emit its own feelings well enough, but apparently it was still not used to actually conversing with other beings.

  “Do you, er…”

  Justin stopped emitting to the starfish’s side as soon as he felt its unspoken confusion. Reverting back to the tone he had taken during their first conversation, he continued.

  “Pain?”

  The starfish was able to understand when it was put that way.

  “Denial. Confusion!”

  Okay…he hadn’t expected that.

  Apparently the starfish wasn’t’ feeling anything at all from the assimilation currently going on inside of it. Had the parasite been sent off with its mission properly? Justin believed so, as he had done it himself. After his evolution, the hive should have an easier time following his will than before, so the problem couldn’t be on that front.

  ‘So why isn’t it working?’

  Justin thought aside from their mental link.

  Just to make sure, he thought he’d ask another question.

  “Body…Health? Confirmation?”

  Justin knew he was making a leap by hoping it would make the connection between those concepts, but even with its limited intelligence, its understanding of its own condition would far outstrip any guess of Justin’s. So it was worth a shot.

  However after a few moments, it surprisingly delivered a cogent response.

  “Confirmation. Healthy. Good!”

  ‘Huh. The only explanation is that the starfish is unfit to be assimilated. But in what way?’

  It was obviously alive. In that it was also carbon-based life like almost all species, and Justin firmly believed it had displayed the capacity for sentience in their exchanges as well. So what was the matter?

  Justin looked from end to end, surveying the beast. Still as placid as ever, as it had no idea Justin had just attempted to kill its mind and seize its body.

  ‘Is it a question of anatomy?’

  It now occurred to Justin that such a thing was perhaps a soft requirement of the assimilation skill. The system had its own requirements that it had outlined through the skill’s description, but what if the seedling couldn’t find a brain to begin with? How was it supposed to proceed if there was nothing to control?

  Like being unable to interface with a network that lacked an interface, Justin couldn’t control a nervous system if it didn’t exist alongside a brain. It was the same reason Justin wouldn’t be able to control cellular or plant-based lifeforms despite their possible conformity to the system’s hard requirements.

  The control that [Assimilate] specifically evoked wasn’t the bottle-neck here, but rather the hardware of the seedling itself. He had great code for a virus that would work anywhere, but he had only put it on a flashdrive. The other side still needed to have the right port.

  Perhaps it was an unmentioned byproduct of the skill and couldn’t be improved, but Justin wondered if that was really the case. If the seedling was actually produced from Justin’s own body processes, it may be open to modification in the future.

  All of that was only the case if Justin wanted to keep this game up. He still wasn’t keen on assimilating more after the starfish, after all.

  For now though, what that meant was that the starfish was unable to be assimilated due to its simpler nervous system. Justin debated what to do with it then. Unfortunately, due to his hesitation earlier the starfish had been able to briefly recuperate.

  It hadn’t regenerated nearly anything yet, but the same tricks Justin had used in their fight weren’t likely to work again.

  Could Justin really leave it to its own devices while he looked around for an exit?

  It was a hard reality to swallow, given Justin’s strong preference for safety assurances. That had been half the motivator for why he hadn’t revealed his main body in the encampment until he was sure all of the soldiers had been subdued.

  Yet he couldn’t wait to escape these caves just on the starfish’s account, so he would have to trust it to mind its own business. The important thing was just finding out exactly where those exits were. He hadn’t exactly seen any during their scuffle.

  ‘Actually, isn’t there someone here that would know where the exits are?’

  Justin swallowed his fractured pride from the failed assimilation and swam back to the starfish, reconnecting their minds again to ask it some questions.

  Who would know better the cave layout than the being that had been here likely for years? Or so he thought.

  What actually happened was a few minutes of frustrated exchanges, on his part, that eventually devolved into frantics. He disconnected with agitation before swimming back up.

  Based on what the beast had expressed, Justin’s situation was a lot more complicated than he had thought.

  ‘I can’t believe it. It’s got to be lying!’

  If not, then it was wrong. Or confused! There was no way. No way…