by Ivan Kal
Before he started on his clothes, another thought struck him, and he quickly used his sword form. His hand changed and the sword grew out of it. He looked at it, seeing its description come up. He knew that if he wanted to use its ability it would drain his energy, but he had a much better understanding of his body now and so he focused on his internal systems. He noticed it immediately: his body was burning energy at an increased rate. The sword, as a special item, required energy just to be formed. That did make sense, since it had a passive effect; he just hadn’t noticed the drain before, because the passive cost was being supplied by his body, and the active effect by his core. That made him think on what his raiment would require. Would the spatial storage, if in fact his body could replicate the effect, cost him in form of a constant draw of energy? And, if so, would it be from his core, or his body?
The most important thing about his raiment was the set bonus, the two spatial storages that he could easily access. He had gained all the elemental aspects, but he didn’t know what them being at level 0 meant yet. Would it mean that something that was not a part of his two main alignments would require more energy to manifest?
He had no other choice but to try it out. He emptied the two storage pockets and then focused. His body bulged and started consuming the raiment: his leggings, boots, and the chest piece. Once he was done, he sat on the ground naked, and then focused on replicating the clothes as he pulled in the extra mass from his bracelet. The clothes started appearing over his body slowly, growing out of him all over. He could feel a substantial draw of energy as it went on, and a few minutes later he was clothed again…technically. He made the clothes attach to his body only in small areas. For his chest piece, on his shoulders and lower back; for his leggings, on the back of his thighs; and for the boots, on the soles of his feet.
A notification appeared in the corner of his HUD.
Raiment of the Grand Alchemist (Ever-Changing Body of Klyn) LVL 45 (requirements met) — The raiment of an alchemist cursed with too few limbs. The set bonus allows for two spatial pockets that allow for quick retrieval of items without the need to focus on the item that the user wanted retrieved. Because of this, the pockets will retrieve an item from the storage at random. +3 to Nature Alignment, +5 to intelligence and will. (Using the spatial storage requires energy. The contents of the storage are destroyed when the Raiment of the Grand Alchemist form isn’t active.)
It was better than he thought it would be, actually. He would need to pay a price when he wanted to retrieve something, and if he changed into a form without the raiment he would lose items in the storage, but that he had expected. Every time he created a form from an item, he created it from scratch. At least the raiment could be active just on the energy that his body produced.
He took one of the arrows on the floor and put it in the pocket. His energy dipped, and by more than he expected—he figured that he could put maybe a couple dozen items inside and then retrieve them before running out of energy. It wouldn’t be as good as it was before, but at least he could let grow it grow in size with his body. He looked down and saw that blood that had socked into it and the holes and rips had been replicated as well. He focused and destroyed the blood in the fabric, then started repairing the holes. Finally, he looked at his shoulders and the lack of sleeves, and grew them out as well. He had consumed one of them with his old hand, and then he just copied it for the other. He had no sensation on it, of course, since it was mostly made out of wool, and there were no nerves extending into it. He saved that form over his Regeneration Form, updating it. To have the clothes be his default, he then did the same for his Main Form.
With that done, he figured that he was ready to start on building his ultimate form. His energy supply wasn’t great, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to leave his hiding spot today. Another day lost, but at least he was being productive. He shook his head and started thinking on what he wanted to do.
First, he knew that he wanted more stats, and while their power came from the type of muscles and materials that he was using, it also came from size. So he increased his size, starting slow and going with just another 50% of his Main Form. His weight increased by another half, which put it probably somewhere around 300 kg. He didn’t have a measuring scale to know, exactly, but he knew how much he weighed in his original form and he knew how much he scaled upward. He also knew how much mass there was in his bracelet so that he could estimate.
Once he was done with the size, he started thinking about what else he could add. His stats had increased a bit, so he was stronger and tougher. He formed his bow and scaled it up as well—its stats remained the same, but the extra size posed some problems. His arrows were too short for it, and Morgan realized that he hadn’t really thought about that. He pulled out some of his arrows and looked at them. He could grow out his wooden ones, but that would mean a separate supply just for his larger form. Then again, his bow might not even be useful. He wanted a combat form, and his sword should work well enough.
He stood, looking down at the arrows in his hand, and suddenly an idea formed in his mind. Thinking furiously, he remembered every monster that he had ever consumed, trying to remember which ones could work. He really wasn’t a front-line fighter; mobility and range was where he excelled. He would need something pretty powerful if he wanted to do what he imagined. He started shifting, pulling more and more mass from the bracelet, trying out a few different types of body parts.
It was hard to do it in the somewhat small room, but he managed. He couldn’t test things out—he would need to go outside for that, and he wasn’t confident in doing so with as low energy as he had right now. So he would need to leave it for tomorrow, but he did work on it as much as he could.
By the time he was done, almost the entire day had passed, and his energy was depleted. In the end he had no choice but to go back to his Regeneration Form and go to sleep.
As he set up his bedding, he wondered what the others were doing. What Ves was doing? I hope she’s okay. His heart hurt every time he thought about her. He had no way of letting her know that he was still alive, and he was yet to see any signs of the rest of the raid group. Even with everything that he had been doing, the time he was taking to experiment, his ultimate goal was to find his way to them. He knew that there were enemies in the city, however—these Rzan, perhaps, or monsters like the Mature Demi Behemoth. He needed to be stronger if he was to make sure to find his way back to Ves and the others.
Finally, he sighed and lay down, going to sleep. Tomorrow would be both exciting and terrifying.
INTERLUDE IV
Kerek approached the throne of the Herald of Chaos, he bowed his head and spoke.
“Lord Herald, we have found the energy source. I believe the link to the base world will be found there,” Kerek said.
“Are you certain of it, Kerek? We only have one shot at this,” the Herald asked.
“Our scans indicated that the bulk of the energy is being siphoned off world. The most likely destination is the base world,” Kerek answered.
The Herald hummed, and then tilted his head. “There is more.”
Kerek shivered under the Herald’s gaze. The pools of ever-shifting darkness were the mark of his connection to Chaos itself, a being far beyond any god. “There is, Lord Herald. We’ve lost one of our patrols in the city. And…the other has reported sightings of what appear to be…spirit artists.”
At that the Herald straightened, his eyes narrowing. “Are you certain?”
“Not fully, Lord Herald, but this is what has been reported to me. And I trust my men to know how to tell,” Kerek said. The Rzan had been the part of that particular battlefront; they had faced the spirit artists before.
“Is the rift between the adversary and the Lifebringer mended?” the Herald asked.
“There had been no indication of such a thing, Lord Herald, but…”
“We should proceed carefully,” the Herald said as he scratched his chin. “Have your people
managed to tell what step the spirit artists were on?”
“The report said ranging from the fourth to the sixth, Lord Herald,” Kerek said, and saw the Herald relax visibly.
“Then they are of no consequence,” he replied. “I trust your people can deal with them?”
Kerek nodded his head. Fighting spirit artists was always dangerous, but he knew that there were ways to neutralize them, and his people had fought them before. Too, Kerek himself was much more powerful than any spirit artist of such a low step. The problems came after they advanced to the seventh, but even that wouldn’t be more than an annoyance. The issue was what their presence here meant. The rift between the Lifebringer and the adversary had stood for a long time, but if they were now acting together… That would be worrisome.
The Herald stood and met Kerek’s eyes. “Assemble the full force. We are going to the source. I trust that you can keep the spirit artists off my back while I finish my work.”
“Of course, Lord Herald.” Kerek inclined his head. “The city and the source itself is being guarded by strong monsters. We will have enough material to work with. The advanced team has already begun gathering corpses.”
“Good,” the Herald said, and then he walked out of the throne room, Kerek following close behind.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Morgan spent the next morning stealthily moving around the streets, heading for a large building nearby. It was a domed temple of some kind, with extremely high ceilings of at least one hundred and fifty meters—and unfortunately infested with a pack of lammergeier. Starting the morning by nearly getting ripped to pieces wasn’t enjoyable, but he pulled through. His new Main Form proved to be incredibly effective. He was faster, stronger, and more durable, and in the end he prevailed and the lammergeiers ended up dead and harvested.
He took another two hours to secure the temple, making sure it was empty of any other nasty thing that could jump out and try to eat his face, and to bar all entrances so that he wouldn’t be disturbed. Then, once he was certain that he could experiment, he activated his combat form. His body shifted as he started drawing in mass from his bracelet, and he grew in size. His muscles moved around as new ones grew on his back and the already present shoulder and chest muscles changed. Two new limbs grew out of his back through long slits that appeared in his raiment. They appeared as thick and powerful arms, extended and far longer than ordinary ones, in order to be powerful enough to handle his weight. The wrist twisted and a wicked, clawed hook grew out of the side where a thumb should be. Another four finger-like parts extended downward at a strange angle, like very durable twigs; leathery skin grew in between them, connecting to the elbow and further up the length of the limb until it reached close to his back.
The first time, it had taken him almost an hour to replicate the body part from a young drake that he had killed on the third floor. It took him another two hours to adjust the muscles on his back, shoulder and chest so that he could move them. The wings were massive and powerful looking, as they had to be in order to be able to handle his larger size and weight.
They looked in some way like the wings of a bat, and in others they were almost completely different. The skin of the drake had been the color of sand, but Morgan could change the pigment easily enough, so his were greenish in tint. The limb itself had tiny scales covering it, from shoulder to wrist, protecting the wing further.
He started with short movements, making sure that all the muscles were working properly. It was a bit weird and he had to test things out in order to be able to make precise movements, but he quickly got a hang of it. Making sure that he could move them had been the most important part. His Body Manipulation skill had seen a lot of use. He had to change most of his back muscles drastically—humans and drakes were very different, but he had taken the basic muscle layout from the monster. He had been forced to extend the back of his neck slightly and extend his trapezius muscle up the neck and further down his back while narrowing it down a bit. His deltoid had to be extended in the gap and widened both on his back and on his chest, and he had to slope it down in order to provide more wing-arm rotation. The deltoid was attached directly to the new limb’s shoulder, so he needed it to be powerful. His pectoral muscle, as a result, was slightly smaller, which impacted his regular arm movement slightly, but not enough to matter. But he also had a new wing pectoral over the other, growing over his shoulders and to the front, stretching downward almost to his abs in order to have enough strength to move the wings.
And in order to fit all of it, he had been forced to extend his sternum. In the end, he hadn’t really changed much of his outward appearance. He was bulkier in the upper body and wider, but most of it was beneath his raiment, which was also a part of him and he could use it to hide what was beneath. His latissimus dorsi had to be stretched as well, and lowered further down his lower back so that he had better purchase. Around his collar bone he grew a new muscle that he knew about from his Skinning and Harvesting skills: the supracoracoideus, which he had copied from the drake, since he had never consumed that muscle from a more powerful monster. The purpose of this new muscle was to pull the wings up.
As he got used to the wing movements, he started moving around, walking as he gently swung them around. Finally, he felt confident enough in his movements to try using them for flight.
He started simply, by walking over to one side of the room and then beginning to run. He jumped high into the air and then spread his wings, using them to glide back to the ground. He couldn’t help but grin as he started moving them and banking in circles around the temple before landing. The feeling of power was amazing.
After a few dozen glides, he started beating the wings once he jumped. He would move up and down in the air, before gliding back down. It took him another half an hour before he tried not to touch the ground for as long as he could. The wings beat at the air, and powerful motions and loud beating of the wings could be heard echoing everywhere in the temple. He started gaining altitude, and he laughed. His legs dangled below him, almost too hard to control and keep straight which felt weird, but he could fix that later.
For now, he was flying.
This is so awesome! Morgan said to himself—just as he missed a beat with his right wing and spun out of control, then smashed into a wall and tumbled down to the ground.
“Ouch,” Morgan groaned. A quick check told him that he hadn't been hurt anywhere but in his pride. I guess picking up flying isn’t that easy.
He adjusted the muscles around the wing and on the limb that held the wind again, and then he even adjusted his gluteus maximus. He had to extend it upward and to the side, higher on his back as well as stretched them down a bit over the back of his thigh so that he could lock his legs and not have them dangle all over the place as he was flying. His clothes adjusted neatly to hide the fact that he now had a longer butt.
He experimented a bit more, running up and down, making sure that he hadn’t messed up anything else when he adjusted the other muscles. His body was burning a lot of energy by flying, so he knew that this form wasn’t something that he could keep on for a long time without feeding his body. He estimated two hours at most from his body reserves being full to empty with moderate use, and then his body would start to feed on the energy in his core. In combat situations, that duration would probably be cut down by at least half, perhaps more depending on the intensity of combat. That was fine, though, as he didn’t need this form to run for a longer time. It was only an ace up his sleeve.
He had the corpses of lammergeier on hand to consume and convert into energy every time his body was close to running out, so he managed to practice for as long as he wanted. Finally, he felt like he had a good grasp on flight, and was able to hover in the air. He practiced swooping down, then banking up when near the ground. He used his sword form to stab at improvised targets as he flew by, and other such practice maneuvers. Then he tried his bow—he would hover in the air and then, using one of his, for now, very few lar
ger arrows, he would fire down at the targets. He still had mass in his bracelet, so he could even use his Phased Shot with Mass Exchange. Somehow, by the time he’d finished he gained a new skill: Flight. That was great, as suddenly all the things that he had learned up until that point were firmly solidified in his mind.
Several of his other skills leveled up from his training, too, like Lightning Reflexes, Body Manipulation, and Energy Manipulation. It was a very productive day, by its end. Lastly, he needed to train for the ground combat. His sword form grew out of his left hand, and he stood in front of an improvised target made out of the corpse of a lammergeier. His wings folded up, the elbows bending behind his back. The wrists loomed over his shoulders, and wicked claws copied from the claws of the behemoth, one on each wing-wrist, were ready. He dashed forward and snapped out with one of his wings. The hooked claws stabbed into the corpse and ripped into the side, opening up a massive gash in the target as he stabbed with his sword.
He experimented a bit more, and in the end he felt like he could use the wings in ordinary combat as well. The last thing that he had left was to test out his abilities with this form. His Phased Dash had no issues, but his Iron Skin was a bit more difficult. It covered the top layer of his skin, made it tougher, but also him heavier. He could still fly, but he lost on maneuverability. He didn’t really worry much about needing that ability, though—his skin in this combat form wasn’t his ordinary human skin, but rather something akin to the hide of the behemoth: tough and thick, only with altered texture and pigmentation. It made him, sadly, much less expressive, as his facial muscles had trouble moving the thicker skin.
Finally satisfied with the new form, he saved it as the Combat Form, then checked his stats for that form.
