Apocalypse Architect: A Tower Defense LitRPG

Chapter 192: Mind Catcher

A sense of satisfaction washed over Jax as the upgrade completed.

Finally, he thought. But no new skills this time. A flicker of disappointment. He wondered when the next one would come.

His gaze fell upon his storage warehouse, where a single Active Skill Gacha Card lay waiting. He pulled it up and checked the draw probabilities for a Senior Architect.

Current Skill Draw Probability: 30% D-Grade, 35% C-Grade, 20% B-Grade, 3% A-Grade, 2% S-Grade, 0% SS-Grade, 0% SSS-Grade

SS and SSS-tier skills are still locked, he noted. Not that I need that kind of firepower yet. An A-rank would be more than enough for now.

Taking a deep breath, Jax activated the Active Skill Gacha Card.

Ding! Obtained B-Grade Skill: Mind Catcher!

Mind Catcher: Allows for mental control over Zerg. Higher skill levels allow for control of higher-tier Zerg. Currently able to control Tier 1 Zerg. (Proficiency 0/500)

Jax stared at the description, momentarily stunned.

“Control bugs? What a waste of a draw.”

But after a moment’s thought, the implications hit him. A slow, predatory grin spread across his face. Waste? No. This changes the game entirely. I can scout their nests, learn their numbers, map their defenses… all without risking a single man. This isn’t just a skill; it’s a god-damned skeleton key.

His heart began to pound with a fervent energy. He wanted to test it. Now.

The convoy was still on the move, however, and they weren’t far from Iron Mountain. He’d have to wait. As if on cue, the convoy ground to a halt. They needed to perform maintenance; prolonged desert travel was hell on fuel lines and filters, clogging them with sand that could shred an engine over time.

This was his chance. Jax eagerly slipped away from the group and headed toward a nearby stretch of wasteland.

A greasy haze of heat and dust shimmered over the barren expanse, distorting the horizon into a watery mirage. In the distance, he heard a faint rustling. He moved toward the sound.

Cresting a small dune, he spotted it: a chitinous leg, segmented like a stalk of bamboo, twitching from beneath the sand.

“A Dune Stalker,” he murmured, a flush of excitement coloring his cheeks. “Tier 1.”

He stopped, positioning himself a good hundred meters away.

“Mind Catcher.”

He focused his will on the exposed leg. A split second later, a new stream of sensory data flooded his mind. He wasn’t just seeing images; he was experiencing the world through the Dune Stalker’s compound eyes. He could feel its state, issue commands, and sense its condition.

This one’s weak, he observed. Energy reserves are critically low. Prolonged exposure has leached the moisture from its body. He could also sense a faint chemical signal of rejection from the nearby hive. An outcast.

Jax found the sensation fascinating. He focused his will, issuing his first command.

“Climb out of the sand.”

The Dune Stalker’s body convulsed. Its natural instinct was to burrow deeper, to escape the punishing sun, but his command overrode it completely. Its long legs scrabbled at the sand, slowly dragging its body out of the dune and into the open.

Under the brutal sun, Jax could feel the creature’s fluids boiling away, its exoskeleton starting to shrink and crack.

“Interesting,” he murmured, a cruel smirk playing on his lips. “Now, back into the sand.”

The Dune Stalker immediately obeyed, its long legs digging frantically until it was once again buried, safe from the scorching rays. Its condition stabilized.

Next, Jax tried probing its memories. It was different from a human’s. There was no narrative, only a series of instinctual imperatives.

Nest location. Obey alpha. Patrol route. Day/Night cycle. Food source.

This is invaluable, Jax thought. Raw intelligence, straight from the source. I can identify the chain of command in any hive. With careful manipulation… I could orchestrate chaos on a massive scale.

He delved deeper, examining the hive’s command structure. It was disturbingly sophisticated. Low-tier drones like this one patrolled the perimeter, their main job to reinforce the tunnels. Higher-tier bugs stayed deeper, acting as officers, relaying orders from the core.

It’s a damn military hierarchy, he realized. Complete with divisions for combat, communication, and organization. A tiny, terrifying insectoid society.

He commanded the Dune Stalker to crawl deeper into the nest. The creature dug through the sand until it reached the entrance of a tunnel. The passage was pitch-black, but through the Mind Catcher, Jax could interpret the scent information the bug collected, painting a clear picture of the number and location of other Dune Stalkers nearby. He wanted to find the nest’s leader, the Boss.

But as the Dune Stalker tried to enter the main tunnel, its body froze. Jax felt the resistance—an invisible barrier. Its tier was too low; it was forbidden from entering the core of the nest. The Boss was protected by an inner circle of elite guards, who were responsible for both its safety and the dissemination of its orders.

Since he couldn’t advance, Jax decided to run a few more tests. He had the Dune Stalker retreat and began backing away himself to test the skill’s maximum range.

He was currently about a hundred meters away. At one hundred fifty meters, his control began to feel tenuous. By the time he reached two hundred meters, the connection had vanished completely.

Maximum effective range is two hundred meters. Beyond that, control is lost. Understood.

Just then, a voice cut through the silence from behind him.

“You taking a dump over there or what?” Elena shouted. “The convoy’s moving out! Let’s go!”

Jax’s face darkened. He turned to look back toward the convoy on the other side of the dune.

“You’re a woman, you know. Could you try for a little class? Do I look like I’m taking a dump?”

Elena shrugged, walking over. “Whatever. All I could see was the top of your head. Figured you ran out of paper. So, what’s so interesting?”

A grin returned to Jax’s face as he pointed toward the distant Dune Stalker.

“Heh. I got a new ability. From now on, I can use the bugs to gather intel for us. No more walking into an ambush blind.”

Elena’s eyes went wide with shock. “Another new skill? Seriously? Are you going to leave any for the rest of us?”

Jax could see the undisguised envy in her eyes.

“Heh, don’t worry,” he said with a chuckle. “You’ll get new skills too when you hit level thirty.”

“Level thirty? What am I now?”

“Seventeen. You’re getting there fast.”

A flicker of excitement finally broke through her envy. “Well, that’s not bad. At least all this hard work is paying off.”

The two of them started back toward the convoy. But just before leaving, Jax decided to cause a little trouble for the local nest.

As they walked away, he sent one last series of commands. The desiccated Dune Stalker, seemingly driven mad by the sun, scrambled to the very top of its own nest. It began to dig frantically, a lone revolutionary protesting the tyranny of its leader.

A moment later, Jax felt a satisfying tremor through his link.

Rumble.

The roof of the main chamber collapsed. The last sensation he received from the Dune Stalker before breaking the connection was the image of a massive support stone crushing the leg of the hive’s Boss.