《Consume》 1- Arrival John stood cramped and sweating on the downtown bus heading to work. The slightly baggy, crinkled white shirt clung to his slightly pudgy torso as the summer heat turned the driverless tin can into a hellish affair. His dark brown hair brushed the roof as it was clearly not designed with his 6¡±4 frame in mind. A rivulet of sweat ran past his emerald green eyes and down into his 3-day old stubble before being brushed away by the back of a large, calloused hand. As they approached their destination the cab broke off from the train of other automated capsules and headed towards the stop. The automatic doors opened with a soft swish and all of the passengers rushed out trying to desperately search for cooler air. John started walking towards the large office building where he had been working the past few weeks, previously he had gotten by doing various manual labour jobs but the agency he was with got a new suite of specially designed robots and let him go. Now he was stuck doing various odd jobs around an office that was either too old-fashioned or too cheap to pay for a bot to fill that role but he was sure it wouldn¡¯t be long until this job was taken from him too. He so envied those who had been given the chance to educate themselves, those that could afford to spend that time not working but he never did. After finishing high school Johnathon had immediately found work, his mother was desperately ill and they needed the money to try to pay for her treatments. He didn¡¯t regret it mind you, returning home every day and speaking to his smiling mother reminded him why he was doing it, he just knew it would be far easier for someone like them. The day dragged on as it always did, he clocked in at precisely 9 and clocked out at 5. On his way home he picked up some groceries, had a coffee as the work rush died down, picked up his mother¡¯s prescription and hopped back onto a much less stifling bus on his way home. After unlocking the door with one hand while carrying a bag of various foodstuffs from the reduced to clear section of the store in the other, he shimmied through the doorway. ¡°Mooom, I¡¯m home!¡± He shouted into the quiet apartment on the 3rd floor of one of the many high rise buildings in this city. Setting his bag down on the kitchen counter he ventured into his mother¡¯s room. ¡°Hey honey, how was your day?¡± Croaked a small voice from a pale and sickly body sat in the wheelchair reading a book. The empty bag of an IV in the corner of the room. Giving her a kiss on the forehead Johnathon started telling her about his day, despite it,truthfully, being quite dull he started embellishing, regaling her with gossip and stories from around the office. He pushed her into the living room connected to the kitchen and continued his flow of bullshit as he made dinner. He would often do this, pretend he was happy and thriving in his work so that his mother wouldn¡¯t feel bad for the situation she had put him in. He had actually gotten good at putting up this face all the time, so much so that if he were to actually act how he felt he was sure his mother would not recognise him but for the shape of his face and the sound of his voice. As it began to get dark he helped his mother get ready for bed, got ready himself, even shaving as his patchy stubble was starting to get itchy and headed to bed himself. No sooner had his head hit the pillow when a blue message appeared before his eyes.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
System Initialising
Please wait as system initialises
System Initialising
Initialisation complete
Warning
Population in excess of galactic standards, as this is the initialisation of the system excess population will suffer racial change.
Warning
Due to a lack of monsters present on this world, 50% of racial changes will result in a monstrous race, monsters will also spawn in random locations.
Pain. A white-hot inferno of pain overtook Johnathon¡¯s consciousness. A pain so intense he couldn¡¯t hear the popping and snapping of his bones and they shifted into his body. His eyes screwed shut so tightly he could not see the way his skin rippled and shifted. Another series of blue messages crashed into his rapidly fading mind
Notice
Due to overpopulation Race change is underway. race:[Human] is being changed to race:[doppelg?nger]
Warning
Warning you are [ravenous] due to extensive biological changes your body is in need of sustenance, HP and MP regeneration reduced by 100% until hunger satiated
Warning
Due to your monstrous nature, your hunger has driven you wild, conscious thought will be suppressed until hunger is satiated
Then everything went black. 2- Awakening John stirred as streaks of sunlight hit his closed eyelids through the thin curtains. ¡°That was one fucked up dream¡± he murmured to himself rolling onto his side. His mind suddenly sharpened as his hand hit a pool of cold sticky liquid. At the same moment, he realised that beneath his head was not the scratchy linen of his pillow but the cool, hard, wood of the floor. Memories that seemed foreign to him barrelled into his awareness, a sickening scream, begs for mercy and the crunching of bones. Bile rose from his throat and sprayed from his mouth as he remembered the sensation of warm blood hitting his stomach and the distinct sense of satisfaction it brought. As he evacuated his stomach something else dawned on him, as he opened his mouth the entirety of his head split vertically down the centre. Finally daring to open his eyes he felt as 4 sets of eyelids cracked open, two on each side of his grotesque mouth and as he did he saw what remained of his mother. A mask of abject horror painted across her still, pale face as the blood dripped from the stump where her left arm once was. John rushed to her side cradling her in his hands. Three 10 inch long fingers were tipped with sharp, curved claws. His skin a smooth ashen grey that stood stark against her skin. He gently rocked back and forth whispering ¡°I¡¯m sorry... I¡¯m sorry¡±. After about 25 seconds another blue screen appeared in front of him making him aware of several blue flashes in the corner of his eye.
Skill activated [Assimilate]
Prolonged contact with a recently made corpse has activated this skill Your skill [Assimilate] successfully activated. A portion of the targets recent memories and skills have been absorbed. Effect weakened due to deterioration of the target.
The body of his mother turned into a black viscous liquid and flowed into his arms, trying to stand and stop whatever was happening he found that he was unable to move. For long minutes he just sat there blinking as he relived memories for the second time that did not seem to be his own. He remembered clearly the book that his mother was reading as he entered the house, the frown cross his forehead as he looked up at himself and saw a coffee stain on his shirt that he hadn¡¯t noticed, the thoughts as to whether she should tell him that she knew the stories he told her were lies but resolved to just make him feel like he was doing good. The terror she felt as a monstrous creature smashed into her room, the pain as she had her arm torn from her body and the despair and concern for her son as she watched the life drain from her body in bright red spurts. Panic, despair, rage at himself and whatever turned him into this, horror as he relived his unconscious actions filled him as he sat on that bed. He tilted his head down to look at his hands. His pale, wrinkled, sickly hands he saw the mole on the left wrist that his mother always joked was the only way she knew to tell the difference between left and right. His head swam and his consciousness left him once more. Unaware of yet more blue flashes appearing in his vision. ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª He awoke several hours later, lying on his mother¡¯s blood-soaked bed sheets, the emotions he felt before were still there but they felt oddly muted, detached from him. Over the next few minutes, he found that despite what he had done, despite knowing how this should feel he didn¡¯t regret what he had done. He just felt slightly peckish. Bringing his attention to the flashing blue messages in the corner of his eye they flashed up.
Notice
Race change is incomplete:Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! -physical changes [100%] -mental changes [30%] Changes will complete the next time to fall asleep
Notice
Race change is complete: -physical changes [100%] -mental changes [100%] You now have access to racial skills
Racial Skill Gained
NAME: Shift As a doppelg?nger you are able to change your physical appearance to that of any humanoid you have studied for more than 1 minute or from which you have eaten
Effects- change physical appearance to that of another humanoid creature. Additional effects may develop at higher levels. MP cost- 10 Activation Time- 5s Level 1
Achievement- First Blood
You are the first monster to successfully kill another creature on this world. Due to your nature as a doppelg?nger, you have received a unique skill [Assimilate]
Unique Skill Gained
NAME: Assimilate Through prolonged contact with the recently dead you may absorb the essence of another creature. You will receive a portion of the targets recent memories and skills. You will also gain a thorough understanding of the form.
Effects- varies dependent on level of success MP cost- 100 Activation Time- 25s Level 1
Achievement- Matricide
You have killed your own mother, that¡¯s low even for a monster. -5% to social interactions with creatures with children. +10% damage against creatures with children.
Skill Gained
NAME: speed reading You have spent so long reading you can now do it significantly faster
Effects-Increases reading speed by 2%/level MP cost- NA Activation Time- Passive Level 5
Understanding that his newfound lack of guilt must be a result of his new monstrous outlook on life he wasn¡¯t sure what to make of it, he felt that he should be angry that some force has messed with his head, he also felt like he should be more concerned about the fact that there were now blue messages appearing in front of him but he just wasn¡¯t. An unnatural calm permeated his whole being. He had never been much of a gamer as he didn¡¯t really have the funds for it but from what he had played he realised that these messages were very similar to some of the more advanced VR games that had been popular recently. He stood up and walked into the bathroom whilst mulling this over. looking into the mirror he realised he was much shorter now. Peering back at him from his own reflection was the face of his mother. He preceded to wash the blood from himself and his clothes before returning to his mother¡¯s room. At that moment he opened the window to let out some of the smell of the blood and as he did he heard a loud crash come from the door to the apartment followed by voices. ¡°Police! Get on the ground now!¡± Quickly sitting in the wheelchair in the corner of the room that thankfully wasn¡¯t in the pool of blood, John, wearing the face of his mother began rocking back and forth in the chair with a vacant expression muttering. ¡°Monster... it got my son... monster...¡± ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª The three police officers that had been called out to the scene swept through the house, noting the destruction throughout the house and what appeared to be bloody footprints coming from inside a room. Hearing muttering coming from inside they quickly pushed open the door to see a frail, sickly lady that one of them knew as Mrs Simmons rocking back and forth and muttering, blood pooling on and around the bed but with no body to be seen and an open window over the bed. The officer that recognised the woman as their children had gone to school together knelt down next to the woman and gently shook her shoulder. ¡°Mrs Simmons, are you ok? What happened here? Where¡¯s John?¡± She didn¡¯t respond, just kept muttering to herself with that vacant stare. ¡°Monster... it got my son... monster¡± 3- Loose ''Stupid!'' John berated himself internally for not just jumping out of the window onto the fire escape and running instead of trying to fool these people. He continued muttering and doing his best to look vacant and traumatised whilst he furiously tried to think of a way to get away from these cops. He could try just attacking them but he wasn''t particularly confident in his ability to kill them all before getting himself shot. Fortunately one of the other officers spoke up after about a minute or so. "Jacobs, you stay here with Mrs Simmons we''re gonna go check out the rest of the apartment, officer Li you take the bathroom, I''m gonna take the other bedroom" The three officers nodded to each other and John was left alone in the room with who is apparently officer Jacobs. As officer Jacobs turned around to close the door after the other two left John suddenly sprang out of the wheelchair, fortunately, it seemed that he was just as strong in this form as he is in his base form as he reached a pale hand around to cover his nose and mouth, placed his other hand on the back of the officers head and gave a sudden twist. To both, his and the officers surprise the head did a full 180-degree turn and John looked directly into the eyes of the officer as the spark of life left them. Lowering him down to the ground and hoping that the other two officers didn''t hear the snapping of Jacobs'' neck, John started to shift into the form of the officer by his feet. He quietly left the room and went across the hall to the bathroom. He saw officer Li squatting in the shower looking at the drain, he reached forward and pulled a long, blood-soaked clump of greying hair from next to the drain, just as he was about to shout out to alert the others that something might be up with the old lady he felt a hand over his mouth and nose and there was another crackling snap sound as the second officer fell lifeless into the shower. This time, however, John didn''t manage to grab him before he fell and there was a loud THUMP as he crashed into the tiled floor. "Li! What was that?" The fast sound of stomping feet started coming from John''s bedroom and unsure what to do, John reached down and grabbed the stun gun from the waist of the officer. He fired as soon as the other officer appeared in the doorframe. The officer''s body immediately went rigid as she fell to the floor with a yell and John rushed over and for the third time today snapped the neck of a human being. John then dragged all three officers into his bedroom where he proceeded to strip the bodies so their clothes weren''t absorbed with them before trying to use Assimilate on them.
Skill activated [Assimilate]
Prolonged contact with a recently made corpse has activated this skillRoyal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Your skill [Assimilate] failed
Skill activated [Assimilate]
Prolonged contact with a recently made corpse has activated this skill Your skill [Assimilate] successfully activated. A portion of the targets recent memories and skills have been absorbed.
Skill Gained
NAME: Small arms You have gained proficiency in small arms. Ability to use revolvers and self-loading pistols, rifles and carbines, assault rifles, sub-machine guns and light machine guns has increased.
Effects- 1% increased accuracy, range and damage/level from small arms MP cost- NA Activation Time- Passive Level 3
Skill activated [Assimilate]
Prolonged contact with a recently made corpse has activated this skill Your skill [Assimilate] failed
The 3rd officer he killed, whose name was apparently Camila Gomez was generous enough to give John some of her skill in firearms as well as her memories of the past few hours. Apparently there have been a great deal of people that were suddenly turned into monsters in the city, there have been cases of children suddenly turning into what appear to be goblins, fathers suddenly turning into large grey skinned ogres and killing their whole family, even certain animals have reportedly changed though not as frequently, a family dog turning into a wolf with eyes of bright red flames, cats turning into a large tiger with midnight fur that seemed to vanish into shadows. The Police force have been swept off their feet trying to chase down every disturbance but if the reports that she had been getting over the radios were to be believed it seemed like a losing battle and they were waiting on reinforcements from hopefully whatever is left of the army. It also appears that the thorough understanding of the form still worked regardless of whether the skill was a success or failure which might be useful in the future as it seems whenever he just shifts, whilst he appears to be wearing clothes and the clothes even feel real they are part of his body and he cannot remove them. This isn''t the case if he had seen the person without the clothes on in which case he could shift into a naked form of themselves. After this was done, John grabbed a backpack from out of his wardrobe, quickly stuffed their duty belts, some clothes and his laptop and phone into it, shifted into the form of officer Jacobs who was about the same size and build as John was before he was transformed. He grabbed his pack and made his way downstairs, out of the building and went to where Gomez had remembered they parked the cruiser. 4- Learn John''s mother''s bedroom window opened onto a small alley so he hadn''t gotten a look at the city since everything happened. From the street view, he wasn''t able to see much other than the tall buildings around him but the air was heavy with the scent of smoke. Contrary to what he thought the streets were completely empty, there were no crowds rushing to escape the city, it seems like for the most part people have decided to stay in their homes and hunker down to wait for help to arrive. Making his way over to the cruiser he reached into his bag and pulled the keys off of one of the officer''s belts. He decided it would be best if he moved the car off the road, the last thing he wanted was someone thinking he was an actual police officer and coming to ask for help. Fortunately, after an incident a few years ago where the self-driving police cars were hacked in a few of the bigger cities all police cars were now strictly human operated so he could drive it himself. He drove a few blocks down and pulled into an alley so he could take some inventory. From the belts he had; 3 pistols 2 of which he removed the magazines from, 9 spare magazines, 3 small flashlights, 3 stun guns, 9 spare stun gun cartridges, 3 sets of handcuffs, 3 batons and 3 cans of pepper spray. looking around the inside of the car he managed to find the wallets of all 3 officers with about $300 all told, He found Gomez''s card too and decided to head to an ATM soon since she had gone earlier that day and John now knew her pin and you never know when you''ll need some cash. He put it all in his backpack taking only one of the belts with him. He went round to the trunk of the car and popped it open, inside he found a weapons case with a shotgun and a rifle inside, a bunch of ammo for them and the pistols, a couple dozen spare stun gun cartridges, a few collapsable traffic cones, police tape, a much more powerful flashlight, a collapsible shovel, a first aid kit and defib, some alcohol wipes, a spare set of body armour and a bunch of other miscellaneous stuff that might be useful to an on-duty cop. He put all the ammo, the flashlight, first aid kit and the alcohol wipes in his bag and put the shotgun and rifle through the straps on either side of it. He realised he was gonna look dangerous but he figured he probably wasn''t gonna be the only one armed if there were monsters running around. Putting the bag on the passenger seat he then pulled out his phone and started looking up what people had found out about what''s going on. As it turns out, whilst most people were freaking the fuck out there have been a few people who have figured out a bunch of stuff already. Turns out a bunch of gamers had been "dreaming of this day their whole lives" and "can''t wait to finally shine", needless to say the majority of these people had already been ripped to shreds by all kinds of monsters when they thought they could get some XP or something but at least they left behind some useful info before getting themselves killed like idiots. People had figured out that now if you thought the word ''status'' a screen would appear giving you a rundown of your stats and skills. It was also possible to unlock the ''inspect'' skill by closely studying items, though it didn''t work on people it seemed. There was also some kind of inventory system, at level 1 this was a 10x10 grid that you could store items in. Items of the same type would stack up to 99 times and size didn''t seem to be an issue, though larger objects like a sofa or a bed would take up several slots and would not stack. It also seemed like this inventory didn''t fully nullify the weight of stored objects, it reduced weight by about 60% and distributed it across your body in a way to make it easiest to carry, much to the chagrin of one guy who tried to store a truck in his inventory and ended up a red paste on the side of the road. After reading through as much as he can and reading up on some of the monsters that were appearing John decided to start trying some stuff out. "status"
Status Window
Name: Johnathan Simmons Alignment: NE
Level: 1 (80%) Class: NA
Race: Doppelg?nger Gender: Male
Acheivements
First Blood, Matricide
Fame: 0 Infamy: 0
-
Health: 100/ 100 Health Regen: 1.0 / Min
Mana: 150 / 150 Mana Regen: 3 / Min
Stamina: 100 / 100 Stamina Regen: 1.0/ Sec
-
Strength: 15 Agility: 13
Vitality: 10 Endurance: 10
Dexterity: 11 Intelligence: 10
Wisdom: 10 Luck: 10
Physical Resistances
Slashing: 5% Piercing: 5%
Crushing: 5%
Elemental Resistances
Fire: 0% Water: 0%
Wind: 0% Earth: 0%
Lightning: -20% Darkness: 0%
Light: 0%
Skill Name: Skill Rank: Skill Level: Skill Experience:
Assimilate Unique 1 10%
Shift Common 1 10%
Speed Reading Common 5 0%
Small Arms Common 3 0%
Focusing on each of his stats a notification popped up for eachIf you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Strength
Your Strength is a measure of how strong your muscles are. It affects your ability to lift and carry heavy objects as well as how hard you can hit with melee weapons.
Agility
your Agility is a measure of how fast you can move and how flexible you are.
Vitality
Your Vitality is a measure of your physical health and well being. +10 Hp, +0.1 HP regen/min per point of Vitality
Endurance
Your Endurance is a measure of your physical fitness and resolve to keep going through fatigue. +10 stamina, +0.1 stamina regen/sec per point of Endurance
Dexterity
Your Dexterity is a measure of your accuracy, precision and capability when performing physical tasks.
Intelligence
Your Intelligence is a measure of your ability to comprehend, memorise and interprit information. It also increases the strength of your spells. +10 MP, +0.1 MP regen/Min per point of Intelligence
Wisdom
Your Wisdom is a measure of your ability to think creatively, your perceptiveness and your mental fortitude. +5 MP, +0.2 MP regen/Min per point of Wisdom
Luck
Your Luck is the measure of the likelyhood of things going your way.
It also seems that Resistences would reduce the damage taken from each of the respective damage types. Weirdly enough when he focused on his race no window popped up. He would have to look into that at some point. He then brought out each of his items from his bag and began to study them. After about 5 minutes of looking at the shotgun messages appeared.
Skill Gained
NAME: Inspect Your close study of an object allows you to notice details others wouldn''t.
Effects- allows the ability to identify weapons, items of higher rarity may require a higher skill level to inspect. Higher skill levels will reveal more information. MP cost- 5 Activation Time- 10s Level 1
Item Name: Remmington 870
Type: Shotgun (pump-action) Durability: 111/ 120
Quality: Good (mass produced)
A reliable weapon often issued to the police force.
Item Name:Colt AR15A3
Type: Semi-Automatic Rifle Durability: 120 / 135
Quality: Good (mass produced)
A reliable weapon often issued to the police force.
Item Name:Glock 19
Type: Pistol Durability: 45/ 60
Quality: Good (mass produced)
A small and versatile pistol.
Item Name:Glock 19
Type: Pistol Durability: 48/ 60
Quality: Good (mass produced)
A small and versatile pistol.
Item Name:Glock 19
Type: Pistol Durability: 53/ 60
Quality: Good (mass produced)
A small and versatile pistol.
Item Name: TASER x26
Type: ECD Durability: 30/ 30
Quality: Good (mass produced)
A non-lethal, elctrode cartridge based anti-personnel weapon.
Item Name: SABRE Red
Type: Pepper spray Durability: 30/ 30
Quality: Good (mass produced)
A spray containingmajor capsaicinoids causes debilitating irritation and inflamation.
Item Name:Alpha Elite body armour
Type: Body Armour Durability: 300/300
Quality: Great (mass produced)
A body armour vest that provides some protection from piercing and slashing damage.
Notice
Skill [Inspect} has reached level 2
The first aid kit and other items also had similar descriptions but didn''t contain much information of note. He also emptied what appeared to be mini first aid kits which Gomez''s memory let him know were belt worn trauma kits, into the box of first aid equipment. After placing all of his stuff from his backpack and the whatever ammo he couldn''t fit in before into his inventory he felt a pressure on his shoulders and back but it wasn''t too bad. It took a couple of seconds to move something in or out of his inventory, definitely possible in combat but might put him in a bad spot so kept a pistol strapped to his waist and swung the shotgun over his back. He then changed into normal street clothes but kept the armour on underneath. He decided to go on foot from here so as to not draw attention to himself, well as little attention as an armed man walking through a monster infested city can draw. 5- Enemy The newly created Doppelg?nger walked down the street a few blocks, hopefully far enough away from his apartment that any other cops that whoever, if anyone, came to check on the cops who went to his apartment they wouldn''t find anybody. He headed to a nearby ATM and withdrew the $2500 which was the daily allowance for officer Gomes''s card, could be useful if things stabilise enough that stores start opening again. Walking down the street he started wondering what it was he should do, he was pretty sure he was gonna need to eat something pretty soon so he should start thinking about where to find someone to snack on. Lost in his thoughts as he was, he was completely oblivious to the two saucer size yellow eyes gazing at him from the shadows of the alleyway, therefore it came as a great surprise when an alley cat the size of a tiger leapt at him, tackling him to the ground. One of its claws dug into the body armour covering his torso whilst another scored a large scratch down the bicep of his left arm.
WARNING
Damage taken -17HP HP- 83/100
"Fuuuuuck!" he exclaimed, clenching his new teeth in pain as he swung the shotgun around his body and fired it into the chest of the roided out kitty squirming on top of him.
WARNING
Damage dealt- 25HP
He definitely felt like a shotgun blast at point blank range should have done much more damage than that, something was seriously wrong here. Both he and the big cat scrambled to his feet, John could see that whilst the blast had definitely injured the cat, the bullets had become lodged in the thick muscle of the cat''s chest and not penetrated much further. The two eyed each other carefully for a second, the cat clearly unhappy about the turn of events, then as John steadied his aim the cat pounced, performing a feat of agility that only cats are able to, it squirmed out the way of the blast and sailed towards John. With more than a little panic John, swung the shotgun with all his might to try and intercept. Not expecting the shotgun to become an impromptu club the cat suddenly felt the impact of heavy metal against the side of its head.
WARNING
Damage Dealt -11HP
Unfortunately for him, it seems that wasn''t nearly enough to send 400lbs of claws and fur off course as the cat still barrelled straight at him. It did, however, manage to knock it aside enough that it hit him in the shoulder rather than the chest, sending him spinning as they both once again returned to the ground.
WARNING
Damage taken -13HP HP 70/100
This time the Cat was the one to get to its feet first and swatted at the scrambling john, sending him rolling a few feet to the side.
WARNING
Damage taken -20HP HP 50/100
He kept rolling until he passed underneath a car trying to put something between him and the cat before it tore him apart, seconds later a large head and sharp claw followed him trying to scratch at him under the car, another loud BANG and it took a shot to the head
WARNING
Critical hit in a vital area for 2X damage Damage dealt- 45HP
Much to his disappointment, however, the slug was again stopped by the cat''s abnormally thick skull, failing to kill it. He rolled out of the other side and pumped the chamber of his shotgun again just as the cat jumped on top of the car. Another blast echoed down the empty street, this time taking the cat in it''s left paw as it wound up to smack himThis story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
WARNING
Damage dealt -13HP
Though it wasn''t as damaging as if he had hit it centre mass or in the head, this shot took one of its paws out of commision and caused the cat to spin around and fall off the car. Running around he levelled the shotgun at the cat, only to have a claw bat it away, cutting through the sash holding it to his body. Quickly backing away from his wounded foe John pulled out his pistol and unloaded into the cat''s chest
WARNING
Damage dealt- 8HP Damage dealt- 6HP Damage dealt- 10HP Damage dealt- 8HP
Barely keeping itself together, the cat once more pounced onto what it thought would be easy pray which clearly had teeth of its own. Collapsing to the ground with a huge weight on his chest John lost hold of the handgun. The cat wasted little time, attempting to bite down on his head only to find an arm lodged between its teeth. It bit down.
WARNING
Damage taken -30HP HP 20/100
With no other weapons and his HP quickly evapourating John reverted back to his Doppelg?nger form, the abrupt change in weight and shape caused the cat to lose grip of his arm and with reckless abandon, John started slashing at the cat with both of its claws
WARNING
Damage dealt -7HP Damage dealt -6HP Damage dealt -7HP Damage dealt -9HP Saber Tooth Tabby (lvl 3) has been slain
Notice
Level Up! You have 5 undistributed stat points
Panting and not quite believing that he survived, John squeezed out from underneath the dead cat. looking down at his wounds he found that he wasn''t bleeding, instead what came out of his chew toy of an arm was a viscous black goo that filled up the wound. It did nothing for his HP but he would at least not bleed out. Looking at the level up notification he decided to wait to spend his points for a while until he knew a bit more about what was going on. There isn''t much point in putting points in a stat he won''t use after all. He then turned back to the corpse beside him, he didn''t think that he could carry it comfortably around in his inventory so he dragged it into the alley that it pounced at him from. Once there he knelt down, opened his obscenely large mouth and began to crunch down on the hind leg of the cat, it was big enough that he could only eat one of the legs before feeling rather full. Using his sharp claws to slice away most of the flesh and a strong, two-handed yank, he separated the other leg from its body and put it in his inventory, then he used Assimilate on it.
Skill activated [Assimilate]
Prolonged contact with a recently made corpse has activated this skill Your skill [Assimilate] failed
Shrugging at his bad luck he began surveying the damage to his equipment. His clothes were ruined so they were quickly put into a nearby dumpster and changed for a fresh set from his inventory. Luckily it seemed his inventory stored everything separately and they were not in fact covered in cat blood and viscera. The shotgun, from a combination of being used as a club and then being swatted hard into the concrete, had had its durability reduced to 1 and no longer fired. This also got tossed in the dumpster though he kept the ammo just in case, the pistol seemed to be fine and though it didn''t do a whole lot it was still a ranged weapon he didn''t normally have. He put it back into the holster and also decided to put one of the batons on his waste to check out how it compared to his claws, at the very least it would be good if something needed some blunt force trauma applied to it. He then pulled out the rifle, swung it over his shoulder and with a glance at his HP telling him he was at 30HP shifted back into the form of officer Jacobs and walked into a nearby apartment building to hold up and maybe find someone new to feed his assimilate skill. 6- Eat Deciding that this would be easier if he actually looked like an officer, John inventoried the clothes he had just put on and shifted his form to that of officer Jacobs as he was in his apartment. He pushed the buzzers for several of the apartments with no answer, so he levelled his pistol at where the lock on the door was fired several times and put his full weight into a shoulder check on the door. It flew open, sending wood splintering off in all directions as he stepped into a small atrium with a set of stairs and an elevator. Decidedly not wanting to be stuck in one of those things if the power went off he set off up the stairs. Picking the second floor because he figured if something attacked he''d get some warning from the screams coming from the first floor. He approached one of the rooms. *BANG* *BANG* *BANG* "This is the police open up!" *BANG* *BANG* *BANG* He saw a shadow pass across the peephole. "I know you''re in there, you aren''t in trouble we just need to talk to you about what''s happening" *BANG* *BANG* *BANG* This time, the door cracked open, still on the chain and a man, maybe about 25 with short brown hair, light olive skin and a pair of thick glasses stood behind it. "H-how can I help you o-officer?" the guy squeaked out clearly nervous about having a police officer banging on his door. "Hello sir, my name is Officer Jacobs," John said indicating his badge "and I''m the officer that has been attached to this building, we''re going building to building trying to explain the situation and get some insight from people if they''ve managed to figure anything out we haven''t. Would it be ok if I come in? Do you live here by yourself?" "s-sure gimme a sec and no, I live here with my roommate Austin, I''m Steve by the way" The door closed and there was the sound of metal clinking as he took the chain off the latch. Reopening the door Steve gestured for him to come inside. Walking into the apartment he looked around, empty takeout containers littered the small kitchen they walked past and the living room was pretty sparse but a small dog lay on the couch. "My roomate is just in his room, he took this whole thing pretty hard and hasn''t left it since it happened, give me a sec and I''ll just go grab him." As the guy turned around John lunged, once more in his tried and true method he covered his mouth and nose with one hand and jerked his neck to the side, catching him he dragged his body over to the couch and lay him there. The dog let out a slight growl as he approached but clearly didn''t really understand what was going on. He walked over in the direction that Steve had started walking and heard a voice coming from inside, whoever was in there, presumably Austin was talking to someone but it must have been on the phone because there was no-one replying. John waited for a while to see if the conversation would end. He needed to wait for his HP to come back anyway so he saw no reason to rush in and potentially alert whoever was on the other end of the call. It seems whatever he was doing he was also playing the newest World of Witchcraft expansion, which was exceedingly dull to listen to. After about 45 minutes his HP was up to about 80 and the guy seemingly ended the call and he heard him get up from his chair. He stood outside the door and waited for him to come out. The door suddenly flew open and all he saw was a blur as he dashed across the hall into what appeared to be the bathroom not even seeming to notice John''s presence. Another 10 minutes later the door opened again, however, John had already slipped inside the room. The guy entered the room and closed the door absently behind him and John got a good look at him. 6''3 and covered in a layer of grey fur. Whoever this was, was not human. A long, canine head protruded from between two wide shoulders, though somehow his speech from earlier had seemed very human if a bit like he had a cold. His body was not muscular, he appeared to be rather underweight which could be seen clearly as he was not wearing any clothes, though his fur did a good job of hiding everything. A meter long grey bushy tail protruded from the base of his spine and was gently swishing from side to side.
Skill Gained
NAME: Stealth You have shown you are capable of hiding from the sight of others
Effects- you will be 1% more difficult to detect and will move 1% quieter/skill level MP cost- NA Activation Time- Passive Level 1
John needed a second to register what he was looking at, this person had clearly also been turned into a monster, perhaps werewolf of some sort so was probably fairly tough. It, fortunately, didn''t have any claws so although he wasn''t sure if his neck snap technique would work he figured he probably wouldn''t be in danger if he could avoid those teeth. Jumping out from behind the door he snaked his arm around the throat of the beast, squeezed with all his might and threw himself backwards, to the floor, putting the wolfman on top of him so he could put as much of his body weight into the act as he possibly could, expecting heavy resistance. Oddly the resistance coming from the man seemed rather more feeble than he had thought would come from a werewolf and he was easily able to maintain that position for several minutes after he had past out, waiting until he felt the heartbeat of the wolf stop. He then went over to the computer and found that the guy had been streaming on Twinge.tv, not exactly what John would have been doing after all the shit that had gone down but each to their own, people probably wanted some form of normalcy to help them deal with the crazy. Closing down all the windows and making sure none of that had been streamed John returned to the corpse.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Deciding to try something John tried using inspect on the body.
Item Name: Beastkin- Wolf varient (lvl 1)
Type: Corpse Durability: 60 / 65
Quality: Normal
The body of a Beastkin
"huh, neat" John mumbled to himself, seems the reason they had been so weak was that it was not, in fact, a wearwolf but a beastkin. Whatever that was. John used Assimilate on both bodies and the dog, which had tried to bite him when he tried to approach the body on the couch and was quickly silenced.
Skill activated [Assimilate]
Prolonged contact with a recently made corpse has activated this skill Your skill [Assimilate] successfully activated. A portion of the targets recent memories and skills have been absorbed. Effect weakened due to deterioration of the target.
Skill Gained
NAME: Growl You growl at your enemy causing them to become afraid
Effects- target has a 5% chance to become afraid of you for 5s. Duration, the chance of success and strength of this skil rises with skill level MP cost- 15 Activation Time- 1s Level 1
Skill activated [Assimilate]
Prolonged contact with a recently made corpse has activated this skill Your skill [Assimilate] successfully activated. A portion of the targets recent memories and skills have been absorbed. Effect weakened due to deterioration of the target.
Skill Gained
NAME: Bite You use your teeth to deal damage to your target
Effects- Perform a bite attack that does 1% more damage than a regular bite/ skill level MP cost- 5 Activation Time- 1s Level 1
Skill activated [Assimilate]
Prolonged contact with a recently made corpse has activated this skill Your skill [Assimilate] failed.
The skill activated for both the dog and the beastkin. The memories of the dog mainly consisted of sleeping in the living room all day, it was not able to read the words on the blue screens so after barking and growling at them it went back to sleep. The beastkin didn''t teach it anything particularly useful other than the skill, though it now knew way more than it ever needed to about that game and was now aware of the light grey wolf suit in a box under the bed. It seemed that whatever this system was, it didn''t just change people into monsters. Apparently, a section of a community had changed into their "fursonas" when the system arrived and was rather pleased, if a little freaked out, by the new development. John wasn''t sure what this meant about his own situation. Had the system determined he was somehow suited to being a doppleganger and that was why it changed him? He didn''t really know but at least now he had somewhere he could rest for a little while whilst he figures things out. He still had a cat leg in his inventory and if he ran out of food he could just rinse and repeat what he had just done on a few more appartments. Hopefully, they wouldn''t catch on too quick. Crawling onto the couch, for some reason sleeping in someone else''s bed felt uncomfortable, even if they were dead now, he closed his eyes and passed out. 7- xenophillia John''s eyes shot open and he jumped to his feet as the world shook. Messages flew across his vision but were instantly dismissed as dust poured down from the ceiling, scooping up his rifle and belt from beside him and he sprinted out of the door, down the stairs, passing a few dozen scared and panicing people and out onto the street. The ground seemed to vibrate and the appartment buildings around him began tilting dangerously. Decidedly not wanting to be crushed to death by falling debris, John bolted over to a manhole cover, somehow in his adrenaline fueled state causing his fingers to elongate as they found their way into holes in the cover and yanked with all his might. It flew open and he quickly climbed down the ladder, replacing the cover quickly. Several seconds later he heard a series of loud crashes above him as he stood in total darkness, the world still shaking aroud him. 5 minutes. That''s how long the quake lasted, he didn''t even know what caused it as they were nowhere near any kind of fault line. He climbed up and tried to push open the cover to find it was being weighed down by something extremely heavy on the other side, He could only assume that rubble had burried him in here. He waited another 5 minutes and listened, trying to hear if there was any sound indicating he was in any immediate danger and to his relief he was not. Pulling one of the smaller police flashlights out of his inventory he clicked it on and checked out his immediate surroundings. He was in a small concrete room, verticle tunnel, about halfway down a ladder. Below him was a shallow flow that he really did not want to think about right now. At the very least the sludge below him seemed to be thinning out, presumably due to a blockage further upstream. Trying to figure out how he was gonna get out of this he decided to look through some of his messages.
Notice
Due to recent events, your luck has increased by 1 point
Notice
You have gained proficiency in your skill [Shift] Due to a special action, a new effect has been unlocked
Racial Skill Gained
NAME: Shift As a doppelg?nger you are able to change your physical appearance to that of any humanoid you have studied for more than 1 minute or from which you have eaten
Effects- change physical appearance to that of another humanoid creature. You can change the appearence of this form to a limited degree. Additional effects may develop at higher levels. MP cost- 10 Activation Time- 5s Level 2
Notice
24 hours since system arrival have passed, in order to promote co-operation in newly Integrated worlds, portions of each world, including their residents will be exchanged.
WARNING
Displacement may cause some turbulence
Notice
You have been transported to Utoria
''Well fuck. Not only have I just had a building dropped on me, turns out the reason was turbulence as I was transported to ANOTHER FUCKING WORLD'' A mixture of panic, rage and concern filled his mind. He was convinced whatever had done this was doing it to fuck with him in particular. Either way, he had to get out of this shitty situation somehow, it just wasn''t sure how yet. Returning to the cover he placed both hands on it and pushed with all his strength. Like last time there was no movement. Figuring that the stat points would be no use to him if he was dead he put all the points from his level up into strength. Once more Returning to pushing he felt a slight give as it moved up ever so slightly. Whatever it was that was on top of the cover was not an entire apartment building at least. After about an hour of pushing the air had started to get rather thin, however, he had managed to push the manhole cover to the side and crawl out of the hole. He was still under rubble but was in a small pocket between a couple of larger bits of rubble. He could see without the use of his flashlight now from the sunlight that streamed in from small cracks, it didn''t seem to be too far from the surface so he desperately started pushing aside smaller rocks and pieces of debris. He was still going at it when his head swam and his vision went dark.
Tilly Sparklecraft was a member of one of the large Gnomish clans on Utoria, she was a notoriously skilled geomancer and her ability had drastically increased when the system arrived. Gnomes were extremely adaptable by nature and they had developed their magic a great deal in all areas. So when the system arrived, whilst still being in a time of upheaval they had people on hand who could deal with most of the threats that they faced from the arrival of monsters. Within the first 6 hours of the arrival of the system almost every clan had put together teams of their more talented mages to combat monsters as and when they were reported. By the time 12 hours had gone by most of the cities and a good deal of the surrounding villages had been successfully pushing back any and all threats. By the time 24 hours had elapsed they were starting to feel like they had started getting things under control, at least in the area she was in.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. That was of course until cities started vanishing and in their place, strange alien cities had appeared in their place. Most of them had been badly damaged and the streets were filled with rubble and as a geomancer, he had decided to search through the one that had appeared where the city closest to her once was. Merely 2 hours after it appeared she had been picking through the ruins.W talking down a street she could feel the presence of dozens of bodies under the rubble but there was nothing that indicated they were alive. After unearthing several of them and finding that the strange creatures that looked like gnomes but with weird, short rounded ears, long gangly limbs and large bodies, tiny beady eyes and short stubby noses. They really seemed freakish but if the messages were to be believed these were people just like her in the same boat so she kept going. Eventually, she came across a body that seemed to be breathing shallowly. Excited she moved the rubble around the creature and brought it up to the surface, she examined it, not seeing any injuries, it appeared to have just passed out from asphyxiation under that rubble. Laying it off to one side so it could recover she spent the next few hours looking over the rubble. Eventually dedicated rescue teams arrived on the scene and took over, tired, hungry and magically drained she had found no other survivers, though many others had been found elsewhere it seemed this area had been hit hard and whoever this was was extremely lucky to have survived. Returning to find it''s rescuee still unconscious, Tilly decided that she would be able to be a much better host than whatever the clans had decided to do with the survivers. Especially since she had rescued this... man? Definitely a man. Creating a floating makeshift stretcher out of rock, placed the unconscious Doppelg?nger onto it and took off for her home.
Status Window
Name: Johnathan Simmons Alignment: NE
Level: 2 (40%) Class: NA
Race: Doppelg?nger Gender: Male
Acheivements
First Blood, Matricide
Fame: 0 Infamy: 0
-
Health: 23/ 100 Health Regen: 1.0 / Min
Mana: 150 / 150 Mana Regen: 3 / Min
Stamina: 100 / 100 Stamina Regen: 1.0/ Sec
-
Strength: 20 Agility: 13
Vitality: 10 Endurance: 10
Dexterity: 11 Intelligence: 10
Wisdom: 10 Luck: 11
Undistributed stat points: 0
Physical Resistances
Slashing: 5% Piercing: 5%
Crushing: 5%
Elemental Resistances
Fire: 0% Water: 0%
Wind: 0% Earth: 0%
Lightning: -20% Darkness: 0%
Light: 0%
Skill Name: Skill Rank: Skill Level: Skill Experience:
Assimilate Unique 1 75%
Shift Common 2 30%
Speed Reading Common 5 0%
Small Arms Common 3 30%
Inspect Common 2 35%
8- Harvest
WARNING
Due to the lack of oxygen, you have fallen unconscious
Groggily John awoke, lying on a pile of blankets and soft furs. His eyes scanning the room he was in he discovered it was fairly bare with only a child-sized bed, desk and chair decorating it. A small window afforded him a glimpse into the world outside and he found himself gazing into a cloudless purple sky with a large red sun hanging lazily high above. That last tidbit shocked his sluggish brain back into gear as he remembered that he was no longer on his world. His eyes drifted to the doorway his feet were pointing toward just as a little girl with bright pink bunches sauntered past. Immediately trying to get her attention he called; "Hey! little girl, do you know what''s going on here?" She jumped at his unexpected voice but upon realising what had happened she immediately dashed into the room. At this point, John realised his assessment had been a bit off, whilst she did have bright pink hair, she was definitely not a little girl. Her childlike frame carried a pair of grapefruit-sized breasts that pushed up against what appeared to be some kind of light brown robe that ran down to just above her ankles, her large head taken up by abnormally large sparkling blue eyes and large cheerful grin. Immediately she started talking in a squeaky, quick, bubbly voice; "Lle naa kuile! amin nae dele lle nae goien gurth-, manke naa amin manners. Amin naa Tilly Mani naa essa en lle?" John just stared blankly at her and she tilted her head to the side in confusion. Then a light seemed to flash in her eyes and she hurried out of the room. Several minutes later she returned with what appeared to be a bag of some kind of powder. Taking some out into her hand she blew it into his face.
WARNING
You have been infected with Babel spores. Effects; MP regen -1/Min You gain the Achievement Babelfish
Achievement- Babelfish
You have been granted the gift of tongues, you can now understand all written and spoken languages you encounter
"Did it work?" Still staring at the strange little woman John just nodded his head "*phew* I wasn''t quite sure how you would react to that stuff, you know with you being from another world and all, there was a chance it might have killed you! haha isn''t it lucky it didn''t? Anywhos, I''m glad you aren''t dead, my name is Tilly what''s yours?" It took a second for John to comprehend everything she had just blurted out of he mouth and he felt the sudden desire to tear off her head. Still, before that he figured he should probably try to figure out how strong she is, it wouldn''t be very smart to immediately die because he picked a fight with an alien that was way above him. Figuring that there was zero chance this woman knew the face he was wearing he decided to just give her his real name.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. "John, I''m also pretty glad I''m not dead. Would you be willing to tell me what''s going on?" She then proceeded to explain in a lot of detail, with several tangents along the way about where and how she had found him. Clearly thinking nothing of the casual mention of using magic, she got a little red-faced when she said how she had checked if he was a man or a lady and asked him to confirm that he was a man and that those things were the same here as they were back on earth, to which he nodded. After about 15 minutes of exhaustively explaining how she had found him and brought him back to her home she asked if he was hungry, to which he nodded again, he had yet to speak since asking his question as he was being barraged with information. She had then dissolved the cuffs on his wrists and led him through the house to a small dining room. He had to sit cross-legged on the floor to sit at the table and she had used a large cutting board as a plate for him so that it was an appropriate size. She cooked a selection of cooked meats and various pastries that were finished in a way shorter time than he expected and he insisted he clean the dishes. As he did so he slipped one of the larger and sharpest knives into his inventory. She then spent the rest of the evening telling him all about how the system had hit their world and how the monsters had arrived. He also managed to pick up a few bits of extra information. As it turns out this world had a much smaller population that earth, despite being much larger. Large clans ran their own areas of land and the only places where multiple clans would be found in the same area would be the larger cities which usually existed on the borders of clan territories and were ruled by a council of each of the surrounding clan members. This world was also significantly less technologically advanced here. There were no firearms and the main weapons were either swords, spears, bows, crossbows etc or magic. Magic was everywhere though and had solved very many problems that Earth had been struggling with technology alone. From miracle healing to autonomous flying vehicles to single farms that could sustain a small town it was used in everything. So much so that the currency around here wasn''t gold or silver but was small crystals that could be charged with differing amounts of mana and mana was traded in return for goods and services. Eventually, she had talked herself into exhaustion and, telling John that he could sleep in the room he woke up in retired for the night. John waited for a couple of hours after he heard the faint snoring coming from her room before sneaking in. Pulling out the knife from earlier he stabbed it straight down into her through, immediately cutting through her windpipe and cutting into arteries. Her eyes flew wide open as gurgling sounds followed the pumping of blood through her neck. and the light dimmed slowly from her eyes. Immediately John used Assimilate
Skill activated [Assimilate]
Prolonged contact with a recently made corpse has activated this skill Your skill [Assimilate] successfully activated. A portion of the targets recent memories and skills have been absorbed. Effect weakened due to deterioration of the target.
Skill Gained
NAME: Earth Manipulation You impose your will upon the very earth itself, manipulating it
Effects- Allows you to control the shape and movement of the earth, proficiency and efficiency increases with skill level MP cost- Variable Activation Time- 3s Level 7
Skill Gained
NAME: Earth Magic You gain the ability to cast earth based spells
Effects- Earth based spells are 1% less expensive to cast and 1% more powerful/ skill level MP cost- Na Activation Time- Passive Level 9
9- Home Tilly''s memories were... erratic, thoughts barely stood still for a second so he had to sit down for a while to get them in order. As it turns out that was a very efficient way of gathering information, everything she had said over dinner was accompanied by a whole host of other information that she didn''t say. As it turns out there has been quite the power struggle between the bigger clans as of late, since the system arrived a lot of people had a big boost in power and that threw things off, a fair number of the big shots had been killed by the first monsters and a lot of the most powerful mages were busy holding back the monsters which left a gap in the leadership of some of the clans. The lack of communication technology too was holding a lot of this back as the only people capable of sending long-distance communication were air mages, all of which that were capable were high up on the clan leadership and as you can expect clans didn''t want to tell each other about their weaknesses so a lot of the general public didn''t know about it. The only reason Tilly knew about it was that although she was a pretty strong geomancer, she was quite quirky. Even more so than usual for gnomes, which led to her being only brought in when the clan needed extra help with the monsters and it had been explained to her why she was needed and considering it hadn''t been overpowered yet it was safe to assume that the situation was similar elsewhere. She had found out about the city as apparently some of the farmers and travellers that were far enough away hadn''t been taken with the city and a lot had passed by her on their way to another town to tell them about it. He had managed to piece together approximately what this world was like, there were 3 large land masses, The smallest being the size of Afro-Eurasia, the next largest was about 20% larger than the smallest and the largest was about twice the size of the smallest. The population of Gnomes was approximately 4 billion with the majority of them being on the smallest landmass and predominantly in extremely large cities, most of which had between 60-80 million gnomes and the larger ones having 100-200 million gnomes, with the use of magic the issue of feeding this many people was practically non-existent and construction was a simple affair between earth and metal mages. This meant that when the monsters arrived the areas that needed to be protected was much much smaller than on earth so they were able to hold them off. There were usually small towns springing up around cities, usually as places for gnomes that were either unusually anti-social or needed places to perform more dangerous magical experiments. After sifting through those memories John decided to try out this new magic, it was an odd feeling, almost like having an arm that you''ve always had but had never noticed. He gestured with one of his hands whilst flexing this new invisible muscle and tried lifting as much rock as he could out of the floor, a ball about the size of a small car lifted out of the floor, leaving a sizeable hole but his mana was drained prodigiously, he managed to hold it in the air for about 10 seconds before his mana was almost completely drained and he filled the whole back in. In those 10 seconds, he had felt that the rock was almost like a ball of cold gum. He could have stretched and moulded it, split pieces off etc but it would take a fair amount of concentration and effort. His next skill, however, was different, he didn''t actually know any spells nor did he know how to figure out spells. His memories from Tilly also didn''t help much as she didn''t actually think about spells in the time he had gotten memories from and she had only used earth manipulation. He decided to search the house but it didn''t appear that she had any books. From a few scraps of her memories he learns from her cursing about them internally mid-sentence, it seems that books on magic were for the most part controlled by the clans and it was rare for an individual to have any, he had been hopeful there might be one somewhere but unfortunately not. Deciding that he could figure this out at a later date he was pretty happy that earth manipulation was didn''t need that.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Deciding to take inventory, John looked through what he had. He no longer had his rifle or shotgun, he had lost one of the flashlights but had found the baton and body armour in his room, the only food he had was the cat leg, he still had a bunch of police equipment and plenty of clothes though they would probably make him stand out more. He decided to shift into the form of Tilly as this house was clearly designed with someone of her stature in mind and it made it much more comfortable and while he figured to try out his ability to change his form. Looking into a full-length mirror in Tilly''s room he found that he could change her hair colour to be slightly varied shades of pink, he could change his height and weight by a small amount and was capable of growing claws similar to in his Doppelg?nger form but much shorter and not quite as sharp.
Notice
Skill [Shift] has reached level 3
After the skill had reached level 3 he found that he could change things slightly more, he spent a while in front of the mirror shifting between forms and changing as much as he could about them.
Notice
Skill [Shift] has reached level 4
Notice
Skill [Shift] has reached level 5
Notice
Skill [Shift] has reached level 6
He then proceeded to loot the house, he found a pouch that seemed to be full of inert crystals as well as a second one that was about half filled with full ones, both of which he put in his inventory. Inspect told him that each crystal held about 50 mana but he had no idea what that was worth in terms of trading goods, at the least he had about 500 mana in crystals if he was in a pinch, he put all of the softest furs into his inventory as well as a bunch of gnome sized clothes and since the sun was just starting to peak above the horizon and he still felt pretty rested he decided to look around outside. By the time he had reached level 6 his progression from this had grown to a crawl but he had managed to get to a point where he could change Tilly''s hair from a bright pink to a more subdued red-brown colour and could subtly shift her features enough that whilst she looked like a relative of Tilly''s any close inspection would uncover that she certainly wasn''t the same gnome. Figuring this was good enough for the day as his stomach began to growl he made his way into the kitchen and gorged rooted through her food stores. The pickings were definitely not rich and his appetite had grown significantly since becoming a Doppelg?nger so he pretty much demolished the entirety of the food that was in her stores including the leftovers from yesterday''s meal. Still, he wasn''t quite full but he figured it would do, for now. He didn''t want to be completely without food. so he hadn''t eaten the cat leg. 10- Ogre The small door opened without a noise and immediately John was attacked by the slight smell of blueberries? A small cobbled path flanked by bushes stretched out before him, leading to a large smooth stone road. Brightly coloured flowers dotted the deep rich brown soil of the garden. A garden which was contained within a low stone wall, beyond which was a field of rippling purple thigh-high grass, eventually these fields bled into thick forests of huge silvery trees, easily 5/6 stories high, with trunks as thick as small cars. Large, hairy buffalo-like creatures wandered the field of grass, each one had a tag on one ear so they were clearly someone''s cattle, presumably the only other neighbour that TIlly had as a small, stone shack was off to one side of the field, much smaller than Tilly''s house but still probably a comfortable size for a gnome. John stepped out onto the path and looked up and down the road, way off in the distance he could make out the few remaining apartment buildings that had survived the teleporting, the other direction was just fields and forests as far as the eye could see. For a moment John just stood there, not sure what to do. For the first time since the system arrived, he had no immediate threats, no urgent tasks and he had to figure out what he was going to do. He spent a little while looking around the garden and the surrounding fields to get as much of a lay of the land as he could then went inside and sat down at the dining room table. He should likely return to the city, he wasn''t going to grow or learn anything by just holding up here and there would probably be more mages running around that he could maybe pick off and try to get their magic, not to mention he could at least eat a few of the bodies of people that didn''t make it. For a moment his mind rebelled at the idea, something inside him stirred at the idea of eating a human being, it felt wrong, shoving that feeling back down John decided that was enough planning, he would figure out more once he''d gotten to the city and assessed his situation. He already had everything he needed from the house, he was as rested as he needed to be and the sun was still low in the sky, so he set forth towards the city without another moment of delay. About half an hour of walking later the trees came much closed in around the road, the world grew dark and the thin reddish light that played down through the tangled canopy gave a rather foreboding air. John found himself moving down the road with haste, his gaze trained on the trees to both sides, which is probably why he almost missed the enormous club that swung down in front of him, only a last-minute hop back had saved him from meeting a grisly end as a red smear on the stone. The earth shook and the stone cracked when the club landed, vibrations up his new small frame and causing him to fall backwards. Looking up at the giant that had swung this monstrous weapon at him he froze for a moment to take it in. A huge creature, easily 2 stories high loomed over him, wide, muscled shoulders descended into limbs that were as long as it was tall and as thick as barrels which held a gnarled looking tree as a club. Its torso was heavy with layers of muscle and fat that bulged and swayed as it''s moved and it''s relatively short, squat legs were powerful and heavy. Thick, warty, stone coloured skin moved and stretched stiffly across its body. John was unable to move until the club once more started to descend towards him and he rolled to the side, barely avoiding the blow and being rattled by vibrations once more. This time, however, he managed to shake himself from his shock and quickly manipulated the rock around the club and its hands to engulf them and hold it fast. For a moment the creature was unable to budge the club, a moment that John used to scramble to his feet and start dashing away, then with a bone-shattering roar the monster planted it''s feet and yanked, shattering rock and freeing its weapon and it turns to chase after John. Meanwhile, John had shifted to his original form, hoping the longer legs would allow him to outrun the giant but to no prevail. Though his legs were now longer and its movements were slow and clumsy it still beat John many times over in the long-legged department and it was clear it would start to catch up. Pulling a pistol from his inventory John fired behind him into the beast but the bullets just bounced off its thick skin. Without and bigger firepower and definitely unwilling to get into melee range John tried to use his magic again. A smooth spear of stone flaked away from the road and sailed toward his assailant, it struck and found purchase, sticking into its thigh. He then Manipulated the rock so that it flowed into the tip, ripping open the wound and causing a bellow of pain to erupt from its mouth. Still, it ran at him, barely slowing as he continued to dig the rock into its leg. Another spear flew, this one going wide over the creature''s shoulder and causing John to let out a curse. Forming another spear, John sent it sailing towards the giant, sticking into its stomach and clearly doing some damage but John''s stamina was fast approaching 0 and it did not seem to be tiring. Stopping, John turned and caused a small wall to raise from the ground, which the creature smashed through with its gigantic foot, but the combination of the heavy club and unexpected resistance caused it to trip and fall, snapping the spear but also causing the head to push deeper into its belly. At the same time, John caused tendrils of rock to rise up, wrapping the hands and eyes of the giant, leaving it blind and stuck to the club. Unable to pull its hands from the club whilst trying to pull the stone from its face, the dumb creature smashed itself in the head with the club leaving it slightly dazed but also chipping and cracking the stone covering its eyes. As it raised the club to hit itself once more, John directs the stone already on the club from earlier to form wicked spikes from the side that would impact its head. Unable to see a new danger and too dumb to care about the shifting weight of the club, it once more smashed itself in the face. However, this time driving 6 foot long stone spikes into its eyes, through the suddenly malleable stone covering them, and the cavities of its nose with a loud squelch. Using the last of his mana he caused the stone spikes to grow outwards and stab into the rest of its head. Its body spasmed for several seconds before going limp, leaving a physically and mentally exhausted John and an exceptionally large corpse.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Walking over to the body he decided to first get some more food. His claws, after a little sawing, were able to get through the tough hide and cut off several slabs of meat. He filled his inventory with as much as he could comfortably carry, which was a decent amount with his increased strength and then ate until he was uncomfortably full. He then used inspect on the corpse, activated assimilate and read through his messages. It turns out the creature was called a forest ogre and it was level 15, John hoped that there wasn''t else anything like this nearby or he would be taken out easily.
Skill activated [Assimilate]
Prolonged contact with a recently made corpse has activated this skill Your skill [Assimilate] failed.
Notice
Skill [Assimilate] has reached level 2
Notice
Level Up! You have 5 undistributed stat points
Notice
Level Up! You have 10 undistributed stat points
Notice
Level Up! You have 15 undistributed stat points
Notice
You have reached level 5, inventory size and weight reduction increased. As a monster, you may now obtain a class. Classes available; -Mage -Geomancer -Infantry -Brawler Your class will provide bonuses when you level.
Achievement- David
You have defeated a foe much larger than you without aid from another party. +10% damage against Giants, +10% chance of intimidation against Giants
Achievement- It''s about how you use it
You have defeated an opponent 10+ levels above you without aid from another party. +5% damage against targets that are higher level than you
11- Offerings
Class
NAME: Mage A mage is a general magic specialist, only those with natural affinities in multiple fields of magic, though they may not be the most powerful in any given field, their diversity cannot be matched.
Attribute bonuses +2 INT, +2 Wis Effects- Mages get a 10% increase in learning speed for all magical skills Rank- Rare
Class
NAME: Geomancer A geomancer wields the power of earth and stone to a degree unachievable by any other class, only available to those who have unlocked their earth affinity. Locks access to other affinity magic
Attribute bonuses +2 INT, +1 WIS Effects- Mages get a 15% increase in learning speed for all magical skills related to the earth affinity Rank- Uncommon
Class
NAME: Infantry A basic soldier, proficient in firearms and explosives, tough and hardy they are the backbone of a modern fighting force.
Attribute bonuses +1 VIT, +1 STR Effects- Infantry get a 10% increase in learning speed for firearm and explosive skills Rank- common
Class
NAME: Brawler A close range fighter, exceptional at dealing and taking damage, especially on individual targets
Attribute bonuses +2 VIT, +1 STR Effects- 10% boost to melee damage, 10% increased learning speed for unarmed combat Rank- Uncommon
John thought it over for several minutes while he was catching his breath, Infantry was out, he didn''t know if he''d have much access to guns and he didn''t really want to pick a common class, of the others he then ruled out brawler, whilst being able to fight up close would be exceptionally useful at times, he didn''t particularly want to be that close to his opponent, that seemed like a good way to get killed. His natural abilities would make that easier anyway and he had a feeling melee skills would be easier to come by than magical skills. That left mage and geomancer, it was tough because he had seen how effective the earth magic was against the ogre and he wasn''t sure if the other affinities would be more useful, however, in the end, he decided to choose mage. Not only was it a Rare class and the attribute bonuses better but if he ever needed to masquerade as someone with a certain type of magic, it would be much easier if he didn''t only have earth magic to do it with. Selecting his choice mentally he clicked.
Notice
Class gained [Mage] Attributes gained +10 INT. +10 WIS
Skill Gained
NAME: Spellcraft As a mage you may dabble in the arts of all affinities, this allows you to merge affinity spells to create new spells.
Effects- May create runic spells with spells of multiple affinities. Maximum number of affinities per spell will increase as this skill levels MP cost- NA Activation Time- Passive Level 1
Skill Gained
NAME: Mana Manipulation You are able to directly manipulate mana, allowing it to materialize in the world
Effects- Improved control of the manipulation of mana MP cost- varies Activation Time- 1s Level 1
Notice
Runes learned:Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. Fire- Burn Wind- Gust Lightning- Spark Darkness- Consume
Knowledge flooded John''s mind causing him to blackout. When he awoke he was no longer on the road, He was tied and gagged on a patch of rough dirt, in a small tent, around him were; several other unconscious and bound prisoners; sacks of food; trinkets of multiple varieties and other assorted goods one might find valuable. A loud ruckus was going on outside and he could see the flickering light of a large fire. Silhouettes danced across the walls of the tent, squat figures with pointed ears, a little bigger than gnomes but that was all John could see. He was still in his Doppelg?nger form so he used shift to take the form of Tilly. The bonds instantly became loose and John was able to free himself. Peeking beneath the tent flaps, John saw dozens of short green figures dashing around a small campsite, a large bonfire filled the centre of the camp and several of the things, lazed around next to it, however the majority of them seemed to be dashing around, what they were doing John had no idea but he sat there and watched one of the goblins by the fire, doing his best to observe its form so that he could copy it. After a minute had passed John was suddenly filled with the knowledge of the form of the goblin, for he was pretty certain that was what they were, and shifted into it, he spent several minutes adjusting the features of his new body. After a little while, he went towards the entrance of the tent but he could see that there were two guards by the door so he quickly turned around, instead, he went to the back of the tent, peeked under it and when he was sure that there was no-one there he scrambled underneath the tent wall. Around him was a collection of small, dusty brown tents that were haphazardly thrown up. Some looked like they were about to fall apart whilst one stood out. It was the largest besides the one he had just excited and it was decorated with the skull of some kind of horned creature, it was sturdy and just by the entrance was a goblin wearing weird clothes. He wore a black feathered headdress and was adorned with tiny bones on strings that clattered as he walking, his ears were stretched with large wooden disks and he walked around with a wooden staff, topped with the head of a raven-like creature that was about 2 feet long. Deciding to stay away from that tent he dashed around the camp, making it look like he was busy whilst listening to as many of the goblins mutterings as he could. Apparently, there was to be some kind of ritual tonight and the tent he was in was full of the sacrifices for some great spirit and fill the tribe with strength. John wasn''t entirely sure if that would actually happen or not, magic was real in this world but it very well might have just been mystical Mumbo Jumbo to make them all fear and respect their shaman/chief. What he did know was that he didn''t know where he was, he was in some kind of clearing in the forest but that was all he could figure out. He also knew that there would be quite the commotion when they figured out he was not in the tent. It was probably best to just go along with it, for now, these creatures did not look strong but looks could be deceiving especially with levels. Also at least one of them knew magic and he wasn''t confident in taking on the whole tribe. They also weren''t very smart and didn''t seem to notice that they suddenly had an extra member that they didn''t remember, or maybe they were just used to new goblins spawning? He hadn''t noticed any extra appear but it wouldn''t be too surprising that they would spawn near a camp. Hours passed as John continued to work with the goblins to do whatever it is they were doing, not actually helping but making it look like he was, though it seemed that was fairly normal for a lot of the goblins, some of them seemed to make tasks much more difficult when they joined in.
That night in front of the raging fire a small wooden platform was built and on it were 3 bound prisoners and all of the random clutter from the tent earlier, all of the goblins crowded around watching intently as their shaman chanted and prepared to sacrifice the offerings. There had been a lot of searching after one of the captives escaped but no matter how hard they searched they were unable to find them. Regardless the ritual would still work so they eventually called off the hunt and started, even the guards had come into the circle around them. At this point John decided it was best he didn''t stick around, he figured whatever was about to happen had a reasonably high chance to not work for him and then he would potentially be stuck, uncovered amongst a small horde of buffed up goblins. Sneaking between tents he broke line of sight between him and the fire and fled away into the forest.
Notice
Skill [Stealth] has reached level 2
Several minutes later there was a loud explosive sound and a wave of force washed over John, causing him to stumble. Looking back he could just barely see hints of smoke through the canopy of the forest and what looked to be a small mushroom cloud coming from the direction of the camp.
Notice
Due to recent events, your luck has increased by 1 point
12- Wandering John just stood there for several minutes trying to process what just happened. He was pretty sure that something had gone wrong, what it was he didn''t know but something definitely did. Either way, it was probably best if he didn''t go see what just happened. He dusted off his clothes that had been hit by a wall of dust along with that shockwave and turned in the opposite direction and ran like his life depended on it. If there were any after effects due to that explosion, he was not sticking around to figure them out. As he ran he ran his mind cast back to what had happened, he had chosen a class knowledge had flooded him, similarly to how Assimilate gave knowledge and memories of those he used it on, it felt like it was his but also not at the same time, it was foreign but he knew it nonetheless. Magical manipulation was an intuitive process, those who had an affinity for an element could connect with it and the element would be malleable to that person''s will. The degree to which this manipulation could occur was dependant upon how strong the person''s affinity with an element was as well as how familiar they were with manipulating that magic. This became quantified and amplified by the system and skill levels but it was still the case before, like training muscles it would grow with their use. Magic, on the other hand, used spells. These were not intuitive, they had to be learned or created, they were a mixture of a symbol and intent. The symbol belonged to the magical language called runic and would act as a conduit for the mana and the intent, allowing it to be merged, controlled and aimed. Runes were typically engraved onto objects to perform enchantments, however, mages could use mana manipulation to draw them using mana and cast spells, these could vary and they were unique to an individual as the intent of one person would never be perfectly replicated by another. John thought he could probably reproduce the effects of a spell if he absorbed the memories through Assimilate but that was something that needed testing. John also gained the knowledge of what his affinities were all even and all at 50%. He wasn''t sure if this was because he was a monster or if it just happened to be the case but he was leaning toward the former as this didn''t seem to be common. He also knew that if he cast a runic spell enough it would eventually become a formal spell which would decrease the time that it took for him to cast the spell as the system would take over some of the complexities of drawing the runes freeform. The runes that John had gained from his class seemed to be random, Burn would as one would assume caused something to set on fire, Gust would emit a gust of wind, Spark would cause a jolt of electricity to travel through the target, Devour was different though, on its own it wouldn''t do anything, however, when paired with another rune it would cause an effect dependant on that rune. He wasn''t sure exactly what Devour would do but he could test it later. It was at this point his stamina hit 0 and he fell to his knees huffing and puffing to catch his breath. John could no longer see the mushroom cloud but he didn''t know if that was because of how far he''d run or because night had arrived but he suddenly became aware of just how dark it had really gotten, he had been stumbling on rocks and roots more and more as he ran but he had been so caught up in his thoughts he had stupidly not been paying attention to his surroundings, The trees here had much more tightly interwoven canopies that meant that the little star and moonlight wasn''t really able to come through. He pulled the flashlight out of his inventory as he clicked it on, the beam of light pierced into the trees, showing an empty and quiet woodland, then the flashlight started to heat up in his hand, the light shut off and it started to smoke. Maybe the high mana concentrations of this world meant that electricity was more difficult to control without magic? That would explain why the gnomes here seemed less technologically advanced, even if they relied on magic most gnomes couldn''t cast it so there should be some form of technology going alongside it.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Not willing to waste another flashlight or risk his phone, John decided to try out his new skill, Mana Manipulation. He concentrated on the where his mana came from, a ball that seemed to be just behind and above his navel, and pulled. He felt the energy flow along some kind of pathway and out of the palm of his hand, forming a shifting blue ball which gave off a dim glow. It took significantly more mana than Earth Manipulation to form the ball but it was incredibly easy and rather cheap to maintain it, unlike the earth this was his mana and he had a much deeper connection to it. The glow was only enough to light about 5/6 feet around him to the point where he could see, but it was enough that he could move around at least somewhat safely. HIs mana was regenerating, it was so slow it was practically non-existent but it seemed he would not be drained of mana just from having this light. He started to walk around, picking up sticks and a few decent sized rocks to make a fire pit out of, and eventually settled into a reasonably clear section of the forest. He accidentally discovered that the ball of mana would burn through wood fairly easily but would decrease in size as it did so, so he drew part of it out into a thin line and used it to cut up some branches into appropriately sized logs, he had to supply more mana to it a few times before he had enough for the night but eventually he has built himself a small fire pit. Rather than trying to rub sticks together, which he had absolutely no idea how to do, John tried to use his runes. He drew the rune for Gust and Burn onto two rocks using Earth Manipulation, picturing one giving off a very light breeze whilst the other would produce a small, candle sized flame. As he fed mana into the Burn rune, immediately a flame, a little larger than intended sprang into existence, he used it to ignite the kindling and then fed mana into the Gust rune, the wind fed and fanned the flames, causing them to spread and grow and in no time he had a campfire going. Sitting back he saw he had a couple of notifications.
Skill Gained
NAME: Fire Magic You gain the ability to cast Fire based spells
Effects- Fire based spells are 1% less expensive to cast and 1% more powerful/ skill level MP cost- Na Activation Time- Passive Level 1
Skill Gained
NAME: Wind Magic You gain the ability to cast Wind based spells
Effects- Wind based spells are 1% less expensive to cast and 1% more powerful/ skill level MP cost- Na Activation Time- Passive Level 1
Skill Gained
NAME: Enchanting You gain the ability to imbue magical properties into objects through runic engraving
Effects- Enchantments are 1% less expensive to produce and 1% more powerful/ skill level MP cost- Na Activation Time- Passive Level 1
John just had one last thing to do. He decided to put 5 points into Endurance, he had nearly run out of stamina in his fights and that would be a big problem if it happened again. He also decided to put the remaining 10 points into Wisdom, whilst having large reserves of mana would be useful he didn''t want to have to wait for hours to fill it up between fights, being able to recover quickly would keep him alive. With this done he pulled out his leg of cat and started to rest. Being alone wasn''t ideal he would need to sleep soon and he didn''t want to be killed in his sleep by errant monsters. instead he decided to entomb himself in a large sphere of rock, it used all of his mana to do so but he was pretty sure nothing was going to kill him now, he made sure to leave a grid of smallish holes in the top for the smoke to leave through and a bunch of small holes around the bottom to let air in and then settled back to relax and go to sleep. Johns status
Status Window
Name: Johnathan Simmons Alignment: NE
Level: 5 (14%) Class: Mage
Race: Doppelg?nger Gender: Male
Acheivements
First Blood, Matricide, David, It''s about how you use it
Fame: 0 Infamy: 0
-
Health: 100/ 100 Health Regen: 1.0 / Min
Mana: 350 / 350 Mana Regen: 7.0 / Min
Stamina: 150 / 150 Stamina Regen: 1.5/ Sec
-
Strength: 20 Agility: 13
Vitality: 10 Endurance: 15
Dexterity: 11 Intelligence: 20
Wisdom: 30 Luck: 12
Undistributed stat points: 0
Physical Resistances
Slashing: 5% Piercing: 5%
Crushing: 5%
Elemental Resistances
Fire: 0% Water: 0%
Wind: 0% Earth: 0%
Lightning: -20% Darkness: 0%
Light: 0%
Skill Name: Skill Rank: Skill Level: Skill Experience:
Assimilate Unique 2 0%
Spellcraft Rare 1 0%
Enchanting Uncommon 1 15%
Mana Manipulation Uncommon 1 0%
Earth Magic Uncommon 9 7%
Earth Manipulation Uncommon 7 45%
Fire Magic Uncommon 1 8%
Wind Magic Uncommon 1 6%
Bite Common 1 0%
Growl Common 1 0%
Inspect Common 2 35%
Shift Common 6 1%
Small Arms Common 3 30%
Speed Reading Common 5 0%
Stealth Common 2 3%
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.
Fire Water Earth Wind Lightning Darkness Light Misc
Burn ? Gust ? Spark ? Consume (Un)
13- Welcome John awoke peacefully, his stomach announcing his hunger with a loud growl. He stood and stretched, gathered up his belongings and retracted a doorway from the side of the pod he placed himself in. The forest was still dark, however the shafts of light that broke through the canopy illuminated enough to safely travel. He set off walking in the same direction he had before, there was no way to know which way he should be heading, he had run so far from the camp and paid so little attention that he didn''t think he''d be able to find his way back so forward was as good a direction as any. After an hour of walking his stomach began growling louder than it had before and John started to worry, he had no desire to lose his mind once more. After another half hour, he was getting more and more worried when he stumbled out into a clearing. A group of 3 deer like creatures the size of horses were eating something towards the centre of the clearing so John activated stealth and started to creep in their direction, he slowly made his way behind them and as he grew closer he was able to see what they were eating. They were tearing into the carcass of a rabbit about the size of a large dog. John had a moment of pause at the unexpected scene of huge carnivorous deer before he directed stone spikes to erupt from the ground into their chests and skewering their hearts and lungs. A surprised bleet came from each of them as they struggled weakly before eventually going still. He immediately sprang on one of the corpses as soon as it went still, devouring its flesh and gulping down as much of its blood as it could. The clearing was filled with the squelching smacks and sickening snaps of flesh and bone being stripped and chewed. By the time he had completely devoured the first deer he was so full he felt sick but a grotesque smile spread up his face in satisfaction. He moved onto the next deer and rather than just taking a leg this time, John took the time to carve choice pieces of meat from it and placed them in his inventory. When he had filled it with as much meat as he could comfortably carry he proceeded to use assimilate on the corpses. The rabbit and the one he had eaten were so damaged it would not even activate and the skill failed on both of the others. John let out a satisfied burping sound as he used the crass to wipe the worst of the blood from himself. Looking around the clearing once more to make sure nothing had been attracted by the sounds and smells coming from him, he left the corpses and headed off back through the forest. It took 3 days for John to find a road, he had managed to hunt for food and there wasn''t anything that gave him much trouble with magic at his disposal, he was surprised that he didn''t run into anything big but wasn''t about to complain about his good fortune. Surprisingly the trecking through the wilderness had earned him 2 points in endurance and 1 in strength. His Earth Manipulation was halfway through level 9 but he hadn''t really messed around with runes. He didn''t want to risk experimenting out in the wilds in case something had gone wrong and left him injured and vulnerable but he intended to try it our when he could. He managed to wash off the worst of the blood covering him in a nearby brook and assumed his gnomish form, then set off down the road, hopefully towards civilisation. It was a full 2 days before he met anyone else, a vehicle was headed down the road towards him so putting on his best impression of a scared young lady he flagged down the vehicle. It was a large, iron metal box, more akin to a carriage than a car and was hovering about a foot off of the ground. It was sparsely decorated with odd filigree made of copper around the doors and the front. The front had a green tinted glass windshield that he could not see into. Finally, a soft blue glow emitted from the underside of the carriage, presumably from the mana that powered it. As it drew closer it slowed to a stop and one of the doors opened, inside was a couple of old wiry gnomes, one male, one female. The old man had a rather long grey beard, silvery white hair that went past his elbows and he was wearing some kind of deep blue robe. The woman was similarly attired but had shorter, curly grey hair and a lack of facial hair that revealed a weathered face full of laughter lines. John immediately started talking.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. "Oh thank goodness you stopped, I''ve been lost out here for days, I was kidnapped from the road by a group of goblins and after I escaped I had no idea where I was so I just kept running and... please... please help me" The couple shared a glance between each other and there seemed to be some kind of silent conversation between them, he wasn''t sure if magic was being used and they were actually talking or if they were just communicating with looks but eventually the old woman turned back to John. "Of course, child please, get in we''re rather full so you''ll have to squeeze in though" Nodding and thanking the woman she approached the back of the vehicle and climbed in once the door popped open. It was a little awkward climbing up since he was so short but he managed and managed to sit on a cushioned seat that was in the back, true to what she had said the back was full of luggage and he had to shuffle in past some things but still managed. As soon as he was settled they were off again, the ride extremely smooth, the only way he knew they were moving was by looking outside of the windshield and the brief acceleration as they got up to speed. "Are you injured at all? Where is it you were headed when you were kidnapped? Why was it that you were walking rather than travelling by mana-cart?" The old lady rattled off questions to John, clearly a little excitable but also showing some concern as well. Presumably, a mana-cart was what they called the thing they were riding in. "No, I managed to escape before they did anything to me but there was a big explosion after I got out so I think I''m pretty lucky to have gotten out of there. I was outside of Tinkerton before it vanished, along with pretty much all of my belongings, including my mana-cart, I was just going to head down the road until I found somebody when they got me...." John trailed off and made sure to sound timid towards the end, giving the impression that he was scared and didn''t really want to go into detail about the event. The couple just had another silent conversation again, several minutes later the old man nodded and the lady turned back to John. "We''re heading home to Yarrin, you''re welcome to stay with us in the city for a little while if you''d like? Just until you get yourself back on your feet, this whole thing has hit a lot of people hard and we''d be happy to help, we have room to spare anyway since our kids left so you''d be no bother. I''m Mary Drizzletek and this is my husband Jax. What''s your name?" "I''m Kelly Steambink and if you''re sure I wouldn''t be a problem I''d really appreciate that." That was the name that he had decided on whilst walking down the road, it wasn''t weird as far as he could tell from Tilly''s memories and the couple didn''t seem to pause at all. They simply nodded and the carried on driving down the road. They made idle chatter as they went, John slowly learning how best to interact with gnomes as they talked. Jax didn''t speak a word the entire time but seemed content to just listen. John learned that they were both water mages but they were nowhere near as strong as they were when they were younger but even then they were barely above average, however, their ability to manipulate mana had made them reasonably wealthy as most mages were. As they talked a city began to grow from the horizon and John saw for the first time what gnomish civilisation looked like. 14- Excitement The city was much shorter than he was used to but it was unimaginably wide. There were no great towers of metal and stone but fields of buildings as far as the eye could see, from horizon to horizon there was only the city. Where his city had been transported, it seems was only a small town but this was a true gnomish city. From this far away it seemed like the ground shifted and wriggled but that must have been the number of gnomes walking the streets. As they drew closer still he could see magical balls of light hanging above the road, lighting the streets, most of the buildings seemed to be homes and each was remarkably different from the last, some were made of stone, others made of plants, others metal and as different as the materials used to make them were, the decorations were vastly more varied. A house that was made to resemble a giant dogs head, stood next to a house of smooth marble that had intricate scenes of dancing figures weaved across and around it, which in turn stood next to a house of interwoven tree trunks twisted into the bust of a beautiful woman with green vines for hair. It seemed that since there was such an abundance of space an resources and enough mages around to make most things easy gnomish culture revolved more around creativity for the general populous, it did make Tilly''s rather barren house seem out of place, however. After 4 hours of driving through the city, John was a little overwhelmed by the sheer variety of buildings around him and the number of people walking around the streets but they finally pulled up to a house. It was larger than most of the other houses he had seen and was made of a deep royal blue stone that was shaped to resemble a crashing wave. As they approached a portion of the wall slid into the ground revealing a small garage only slightly larger than the cart. "Welcome to our home! If you would help us unload the cart we''d be happy to show you around and to find you a room." Nodding and still a little dumbfounded from the city John helped the couple unload their belongings, they seemed rather surprised at how strong he was and even more so when he told them that his strength was since he put quite a few points into it 21, apparently gnomes only had 5-8 points in strength usually due to their small stature, it was more than he would have thought but thinking about it, whilst he hadn''t realised before since his strength had doubled when he got here, the items in his inventory seemed much heavier than they should be. Gravity must be stronger on this world, which explains why they are so small and proportionately stronger than they should be. The home was spacious and lavishly decorated, they had a kitchen that wasn''t dissimilar to a modern kitchen back on earth, even down to a refrigerator and plumbing, though it was all decorated in a much more abstract way and everything had an underlying theme of water. There was nothing like a TV or a radio but the couple did have a small library and a games room with a variety of board games.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. After showing him around the house, pointing out their bedroom and study but not allowing them in, they brought him to a room at the front of the house. "This was our youngest daughters room, but she moved out Tinkerton..." her voiced hitched a little before she shook herself and stood up straighter "you can stay in here, for now, there''s a bathroom through that door and you''re welcome to read what you want in the library, just don''t take any books out of the room and put them back when you''re done, they''re quite expensive so please be careful with them. We''re going to have some dinner in a couple of hours, once we''ve unpacked and settled in if you''d like to join us but we''re rather tired from travelling all day so we probably won''t be up much longer, I''d suggest getting some rest too, take what time you need." Without waiting for a reply she closed the door, leaving him alone in the room, and he could hear her walking down the hall. John glanced around his new room. A three-quarter bed lay in one corner of the room opposite both doors. The walls were styles to give an underwater appearance and the floor looked like a pale white sand, despite being smooth stone. A cushioned chair sat next to a set of mother of pearl drawers and wardrobe. The bathroom was tiled and had a large bathtub as well as a toilet and sink. John immediately started running the bath, it had been years since he had had one and there was no experience like it. There was a small shower next to the bath which he used to wash off most of the grime from his body, this was the first time he had been naked whilst in the form of a woman and it was a little weird. Parts of him were more sensitive than they were before and it took a while for him to get used to that, he didn''t find his own body attractive sexually either which a part of him was both disconcerted by but also relieved. Settling into the bath John started to appreciate that maybe not just killing everyone you meet for their skills had some advantages. However, it had some downsides too, whilst staying in this house seemed like a good way to learn more about gnomish culture before going at it alone, he was going to have to find some kind of employment if he wanted to be able to learn more about magic, since he wanted to save his mana for performing some experiments. Mary had pointed out the mages colleges around the city and he was going to have to see how much tuition was. He was also going to have to figure out how much each of his mana crystals was worth before he got ripped off. Looking over his status sheet to see if anything jumped out at him for potential employment opportunities, he noticed that he had gotten more experience from that car ride with Jax and Mary than he had from the last several days of hunting for his food. It made sense in a way that he would gain experience from it, that is after all what his race was designed to do. It seemed he would have to try and stick around, maybe pay rent so that they''d let him stay here? They were about to become his own personal experience farm. After relaxing in the bath for an hour, John managed to drag himself out, got dressed into one of the dresses he had taken from Tilly and left his room. He could hear Mary chattering away to Jax in their room down the hall, he still didn''t seem to speak back to her. Shrugging again at the unusual man, he was probably mute or something. John made his way into the library, he was very grateful to Tilly for the Babelfish trait and was about to put it to good use. You could learn about a culture from their stories. Grabbing a few books, John settled into a soft armchair and started levelling up his speed reading skill. 15- Education Dinner was a quiet affair, Mary was quite tired and not her usual chatty self and Jax was as silent as ever. Almost as soon as it was over they had retired to bed and John had returned to the library. The books themselves were rather short, and he made it through 3 in just a few hours. Then he stumbled across a diamond, a book on water manipulation, he had scoured it for information and then run to his bathroom. He sat in front of his full bathtub for quite some time. He sank his mana and his awareness into the water, this wasn''t necessary for earth since he had started at a higher level but it was necessary to learn the manipulation. Water was a fickle thing, unlike earth it was easy to mould and shape, but it was also happy to keep still and maintain the shape. Its nature was to flow and change and it was not easy to force it to obey. Instead, the book had suggested encouraging the water to flow, directing it to bend and swirl how you needed it to rather than forcing it. Nothing happened as he sat in front of the tub, trying to will the water inside to move. John awoke on the tiled floor of his bathroom to Mary calling him down for breakfast. He stumbled to his feet and made his way downstairs. The couple explained that they were intending to head to the market to buy some groceries and other necessities and asked what he intended to do that day. John explained how he had stumbled across the book and had spent the night trying to learn water manipulation. He explained he had an affinity for water but had never learned how to use it. The two gnomes shared a surprised look and then had another one of their silent conversations. Maybe this was a sign language that used eye movements? Mind reading? After a minute or so Mary turned to John. "We have some experience with water magic and if you''d like we could try to help you some with your learning once we''re back from the market? Why don''t you come with us and we can show you some of the city along the way? It''s always nice to have someone to help us carry out bags" she said with a laugh and a wink. "Really!? that would be amazing thank you so much, of course, I''d be more than happy to help with your bags!" John rushed to answer, affecting the same excitable tone that Mary and Tilly had used. He was not going to turn down extra help with magic and considering their house, John had a feeling these people were better water mages than they let on. After clearing up breakfast the three of them hopped in the manna-cart and headed towards the market. The two of them were surprisingly spritely despite their age. On the way, Mary pointed out all the best stores. A blacksmith, jeweller, enchanter, alchemist, tailor, all sorts of mundane and fantastical stores were littered throughout the streets. As they grew nearer to the market, the buildings began to think out and instead there were stalls filled with all sorts of good, furs, clothes, reagents, fruits, swords, armours the variety was enormous, peddlers were hawking their wares and great crowds of people were surging through the place. They parked in a space a few blocks away and walked into the crowd.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. John managed to get a good idea of what the local currency was like throughout the trip. One of the inert mana crystals he had would be the equivalent of about $10. When filled with mana they were worth about $50. There were both smaller and larger crystals that were worth varying amounts but he had about $700 worth of crystals on his right now, $1500 if he filled them. That was good to know for the future. When they returned, they unpacked and Mary filled up a bowl with water. "If you read that book, you will know not to try to force change upon water but to guide it, however, the way you guide it is not as simple as many would think, you do not push or pull upon the water but you must picture a gradual slope beneath it, allow it to flow down that slope and make it spiral downwards." Putting his hands on either side of the table John sank his mana and awareness into the bowl. The feeling of flowing water and rushing rivers returned to him and this time he did as she said, he pictured the bowl as a mountain with a lake atop it. He pictured the water flowing from the lake into a river, a winding river that spiralled its way down the sides of the mountain. "Good, Good. Now take that flowing water and from the bottom of that spiral form another, this time going upwards, keeping his focus on the image of the falling water, let it flow down the spiral up into the sky." That confused him a little, how could something fall upwards? He tried anyway, he pictured the mouth of the river at the bottom of the mountain. It reached the foot of another and began to spiral up it, the water flowed up the spiral, just as it had down and came to a rest in a lake upon the top, like a mirror of the one it had come down. "Excellent, now, open your eyes." In front of him the bowl of water was moving, around the edges of the bowl, the water whirled, coming down to a point in the centre of the bowl, from which the water spouted upwards, forming a tornado of water that rose from the bowl. a screen popped up in his vision.
Skill Gained
NAME: Water Manipulation You use your will to guide the flow of water, directing it into the states you wish
Effects- Allows you to control the shape and movement of the Water, proficiency and efficiency increases with skill level MP cost- Variable Activation Time- 3s Level 1
The window made him break his conversation, splashing water all over the counter. Mary was smiling and clapping before and Jax raised his hand and all of the water flowed from the floor and counter back into the bowl. Over the next few hours and with their help John managed to get his water manipulation up to level 4. They also taught him a couple of new runes. A common Water rune called Spray and a common miscellaneous rune called Bolt. Spray could be used to make a create a spray of water and Bolt would allow him to form a condensed ball of an element that could be fired at a target. Apparently, miscellaneous runes could be used by any mage, even the ones who were focused on an element like geomancers or hydromancers. They were also willing to sign a letter of recommendation and the necessary paperwork for him to visit the mages college so that he could register for classes. He just needed to come up with the necessary 300 mana worth of mana crystals for each class he wanted to take. It was expensive but apparently, the tuition was worth it and he could take the class up to 5 times for no extra charge if he needed to go through it again. Happy and full of anticipation for the following day where he would be able to learn more about magic he slept early that night. 16- Enrolment After a hastily eaten breakfast, John was barreling down the street towards the college. Whilst he hadn''t been able to play many games, he was always fascinated by the idea of a mages college in fantasy, a place where magic was developed and wonders were performed. The thought of going to one filled him with an incredible amount of excitement. John froze in his tracks, much to the annoyance of the couple walking behind him. This was the first time he had experienced this level of emotion since becoming a monster, the first time he felt anything more than a vague sense of satisfaction, fear or anger. A part of his brain that had been suppressed until now suddenly coiled its head and was warring to get free. John quickly tamped down on it, putting those feelings back into the box they were meant to be in. Emotions made you hesitate and that would get you killed. He returned to his journey at a much more reserved speed and after several more minutes walked through the doors of the college. It was the tallest building around, they all were. A stone tower made of twisting, interwoven colours that collided into a large glass orb at the top that emitted a bright white glow. The entrance hall was much less grand than he had anticipated. The walls were covered by reliefs of men and women performing amazing feats of strength in their respective elements but that was all the decoration there was. Cushioned seats lined the room and a worn purple carpet led to a large circular reception desk in the middle of the room with several receptionists sat in the middle. John approached the only free receptionist. "Hello miss, how may we help you this day?" The Gnome greeted him with a polite smile. "Hi, I was hoping that I could sign up for a couple of classes? I have my documentation all here." John lay the bundle of papers that he had gone through with Mary last night. After several minutes of reading and stamping the receptionist nodded and pulled out a silver box. "All that seems to be in order, all I need from you now is for us to test your class and affinities. These are both for staff use only and will not be available to any students or outside agencies. You can of course decline, however, you will be unable to access any of the classes past the beginner classes. You will also be given one month of free access to our library, you will still be charged if you wish to borrow a book and you will not be allowed into the areas where the more advanced literature is, however, you will be able to read in the library and access the beginner books for free." The receptionist was a little red-faced after the long spiel but was looking at her expectantly. "Ok, this only reads class and affinities right?" "I assure you, ma''am, that it reads only that, no more." He said, opening up the box to reveal a glass sphere on a soft silk cushion. The very centre of the ball swirled with a grey mist.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Nodding, John placed his hand on the silver ball and immediately multicoloured lightning shot from the middle, a different colour in every direction, reaching halfway through the glass orb before stopping abruptly. In the centre, a shifting runic script could be seen. "Please hold miss one moment I think there must be something wrong with our managraph, I''ll be back in a second." The receptionist then immediately turned and walked down a set of stairs in the middle of the reception desk that he had missed earlier. A few seconds later, an old man returned with the receptionist, who was carrying a second silver box. He was older than either Mary or Jax, covered in liver spots and wearing an ashen grey robe that dangled loosely from his wiry frame. "You must be confused Cecil, I made these myself there is no way one of them is faulty!" The old man was grumbling at the receptionist, who was just walking passively back over to John. "Sorry for the wait miss, here place your hand on this orb." John frowned, had this been a mistake? Well, it was kind of too late to back out now, he placed his small hand on the second orb and exactly the same thing happened. Both the receptionist and the old man just stared at the orb for a second before turning to John. "Ma''am if it''s alright with you, I believe you may be a rather special case. If you would, I think it would be better for someone higher up to handle this." The old man spoke this time before grabbing a crystal and speaking into it in hushed tones. John was uncomfortably aware of how many people were staring at him right now, he could make a break for the exit but that would just rouse more suspicions and he sincerely doubted that the mages college didn''t have something in place to stop a fleeing person if they wanted to. John decided to just wait and see what was going on. Some of his apprehension must have shown on his face, however, as the receptionist smiled at her and said. "Don''t worry Ma''am it''s just that we don''t get a lot of mages here, they are pretty rare but even then they only have affinities in 2 or 3 elements. We have never seen anyone with as many affinities as you, especially at these high levels." John nodded, a little of the apprehension leaving him as he was probably not just discovered as a monster, though still a little worried about how much attention this would bring. Ten minutes later, a man and a woman in a blue and red robe respectively walked in from a side door and made their way over to where John was standing. Over the course of the following hour, John discovered that they were the heads of the Hydromancer and Pyromancer departments and they were there to offer Kelly a special scholarship that the college reserved for only the students with the highest potential in their affinities and class. He was offered free access to the library and whichever classes he wanted and in return and he would be taught how to make spell scrolls and spell books. The college would then be willing to buy any books or scrolls he makes with spells of mixed elements. Apparently, having a mage with so many affinities would be able to propel the research and potential of the college months, if not years, ahead. John sprang on the offer in a heartbeat and was given a list of all of the classes and their schedules and that he could start them the following day. Apparently, it would take that long to inform the staff of his circumstances and to go through the documentation. John was simultaneously disappointed at the fact he would not be starting today but excited about the opportunities in front of him. The next little while was going to be a blast. 17- Manipulation John quickly realised that whilst in theory learning magic was cool, it wasn''t all nearly as fun as he''d expected. The first class he took was magical theory which was compulsory even for him. It was essentially just 45 minutes of an old gnomish woman explaining methods to aid in visualisation and the application of intent. It also gave John a new skill.
Skill Gained
NAME: Meditation You are able to place yourself in a trance, promoting recovery and improving focus and mental acuity
Effects-Increases the effectiveness of the INT and WIS attributes by 1% per skill level whilst actively meditating. MP cost- 10 Activation Time- 5 Minutes Level 1
Not only would it allow his mana to regenerate faster but it would also aid him in creating and learning new spells. Boring but useful, basically summarised the entirety of that class. The weird thing was that he seemed to be the only one who was getting bored in the class, all the other students seemed to be just as bubbly as ever. He noticed he was getting more than a few funny looks when he let his attitude slip but just pretended he didn''t notice them. He then went immediately from that class into a light manipulation class. This class was much smaller than the previous class that had been in a room with nearly two thousand other students, this one was in a small, well-lit classroom with maybe 2 dozen seats. There were already 4 other students present, who were sat next to each other at the front of class just chatting. John waved to them in greeting and took a seat towards the back of the class. The other students gave her really weird looks again and the other students that came in gave her the same look before sitting towards the front of the class and striking up a conversation with the others. He wasn¡¯t really sure what he was doing wrong but clearly something. Eventually, the class filled up, leaving only 3 empty chairs on the back row with him and the teacher walked in. This time it was a man, much younger than the previous teacher. He was wearing a brilliantly white robe with bronze trimmings, his hair a striking blonde and as he stepped into the centre of the room a brilliant smile blossomed on his face. "Hello, students! I''m professor Nightshade, lovely to meet you all and as you could probably have figured out I''ll be your teacher for beginners light manipulation." He scanned the room, his gaze crossing the empty seats and lingering on John for a moment before he turned his focus to the light in the magical light hanging from the ceiling. "This class is all about teaching you how to manipulate light, rather than what to do with it once you have. Now, since you have already been through magical theory I won''t explain what intent is but dealing with light is different than most elements, it is fast and it behaves strangely. First, I want each of you to saturate an area above your desk with your mana." John pushed his mana into an area just in front of him and sent his let his consciousness fall into it. He immediately felt the dirt particles in the air and droplets of water in the air that he felt he could control. "Good it seems you''ve all managed that, next comes the hard part, light is hard to locate, it fills the space completely, to the point where it''s hard to distinguish what''s there. Picture a spiders web, so tightly wound together that despite being incredibly thin they completely saturate the space. Let your mana guide you how you should arrange these webs. Once you''ve done that try to scrunch the threads up into a tight ball"This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. John sat there for long minutes, along with the other students, trying to imagine what was being described to him. That much was relatively easy, however, allowing his mana to guide him was hard. He understood what the professor was saying, he could feel that there was something when he focused on the threads but it took nearly 25 minutes to align them as he felt they should be, in that time most of the other students had already managed to form a ball of shining light in front of them. When he finally managed to screw up the threads a window popped up for him.
Skill Gained
NAME: Light Manipulation You use your will to direct the direction, reflection and refraction of light.
Effects- Allows you to control the shape, movement and intensity of light, proficiency and efficiency increases with skill level MP cost- Variable Activation Time- 3s Level 1
As he gained the skill, he was able to sense the rays of light filling the space of his mana, however, with this he was able to discern something new, a void that seemed to dance between the different rays of light, a moving shadow that filled the gaps where the light wasn''t. Picturing this cloud of shadow, John pulled it from his mana space, squeezing and condensing it into a ball.
Skill Gained
NAME: Darkness Manipulation You can will the darkness of the world to conform to the shapes of your thoughts
Effects- Allows you to control the shape and movement of Darkness, proficiency and efficiency increases with skill level MP cost- Variable Activation Time- 3s Level 1
John sat, his left hand holding a glowing orb of light, the other a shifting sphere of blackness. Looking around he saw that a few of the other students were staring at him. "Very good miss, but if you would refrain from using your other skills in this class and just focus on the task it would be appreciated." "B-but..." before he could explain that he had just learned the skill the professor had already walked off and was talking to one of the other students who didn''t yet have a light ball in front of them. Noticing that the other students that had created their light orbs were already leaving, he stood up and left the room. There was only a few minutes before the end of class anyway. For the next few days, this was all he did before he managed to get all of the other elements on offer.
Skill Gained
NAME: Fire Manipulation You control the intensity and movement of heat with your will
Effects- Allows you to control the shape, movement and intensity of fire, proficiency and efficiency increases with skill level MP cost- Variable Activation Time- 3s Level 1
Skill Gained
NAME: Wind Manipulation You use your will to guide the flow of wind, directing it into the states you wish
Effects- Allows you to control the shape and movement of Wind, proficiency and efficiency increases with skill level MP cost- Variable Activation Time- 3s Level 1
Skill Gained
NAME: Lightning Manipulation You can direct the flow of electricity with your will
Effects- Allows you to control the shape and movement of Lightning, proficiency and efficiency increases with skill level MP cost- Variable Activation Time- 3s Level 1
Next step, runes and magic. 18- Runes and Magic Learning runes was just a series of classes where the teacher would draw the symbol in the air whilst explaining the intent behind it. It took nearly two weeks but he had gotten a few runes in each element.
Fire Water Earth Wind Lightning Darkness Light Misc
Burn ? Spray ? Harden ? Gust ? Spark ? Dark ? Glow ? Bolt ?
Heat ? Freeze ? Growth ? Accuracy ? Attract/Repel ? Negate (Un) Sight (Un) Self ?
Combustion (Un) Condense (Un) Strength (Un) Haste (Un) Shock (Un) Consume (Un) Enhance (Un) Cone (Un)
Slow (Un) Death ? Life ?
He had needed special permission to learn the life and death runes since students didn''t usually have access to them. They had each taken a full day to memorise, even with meditation. He had then used each rune engraved onto a smooth stone to get each magic.
Skill Gained
NAME: Water Magic You gain the ability to cast Water based spells
Effects- Water based spells are 1% less expensive to cast and 1% more powerful/ skill level MP cost- Na Activation Time- Passive Level 1
Skill Gained
NAME: Darkness Magic You gain the ability to cast Darkness based spells
Effects- Darkness based spells are 1% less expensive to cast and 1% more powerful/ skill level MP cost- Na Activation Time- Passive Level 1
Skill Gained
NAME: Light Magic You gain the ability to cast Light based spells
Effects- Light based spells are 1% less expensive to cast and 1% more powerful/ skill level MP cost- Na Activation Time- Passive Level 1
Skill Gained
NAME: Lightning Magic You gain the ability to cast Lightning based spells
Effects- Lightning based spells are 1% less expensive to cast and 1% more powerful/ skill level MP cost- Na Activation Time- Passive Level 1
After getting all of the Magics a notification popped up.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Notice
Due to gaining proficiency in all Elemental Magic and all Elemental Manipulations the skills have been merged
Skill Gained
NAME: Elemental Magic You gain the ability to cast Elemental spells
Effects- Elemental spells are 2% less expensive to cast and 2% more powerful/ skill level MP cost- Na Activation Time- Passive Level 2
Skill Gained
NAME: Elemental Manipulation The elements answer to yourbeckon call, your will is their form.
Effects- Allows you to control the elements. Proficiency and efficiency increases with skill level MP cost- Variable Activation Time- 3s Level 2
Achievement- Elemental Mage
You are the first monster to successfully master the 7 basic elements on this world. Class bonus upgraded. 10% increase in learning speed for all magical skills >15% increase in learning speed for all magical skills
This time John did not have a rush of information, instead, it was as if he could suddenly see the links between all of the elements that he had already learned to control, how they were different and how they differed. It was like staring at a puzzle for weeks and suddenly it just clicking and bringing a wave of clarity and enlightenment with it. The effect was the same though. He blacked out. Fortunately, he had been in his room when this happened, just in case something like this happened he had saved light magic to cast at home. He had learned his lesson for doing big things in an unsafe place.
When he woke up it was early morning and he was starting to get hungry. Eating normal food was filling but it just lacked something that eating something that he had caught had, so every few days he would go out lurking in the early hours of the morning, making sure to travel decently far away and picking off the few people here and there that were also walking around. He had hunted yesterday but he felt like he deserved this one. He quietly dropped down out of a window and shifted into the form of a random gnome man that he''d eaten and messed with the appearance of and set off down the road. These hunting trips had already gotten him 2/3rds of the way to level 6. This was probably because he was picking off the weakest people he could find. Not willing to risk going up against someone who could draw attention to the area he was hunting. He had also managed 2 levels in Shift and 3 in stealth from these excursions. After about half an hour he had found a target, a young man who had just dipped into an alley nearby, he quickly and quietly came up behind the man. He had taken to using his claws on these trips, snapping necks was efficient but there was just something incredibly satisfying about dragging his claws through the neck of a person. Listening to the gurgles and splutters as they fell grasping at their necks and watching the life dim from behind their eyes. He was already licking his lips in eagerness. He shifted into his base form and grabbed the mans hair, pulling it back. He let out a squeak of surprise before a bloody smile opened up across his throat. A squirt of blood splattered across the stone floor as the man choked on his own life. It was nearly 2 minutes that it took for him to stop moving completely. He had tried to use some kind of magic but was unable to focus enough to do so. Ten minutes later there was nothing left but a bloody puddle on the ground. John typically used water magic to wash away the blood but he had a thought. Blood was just water with a bunch of other earth elements mixed in, why shouldn''t he be able to control it now? Focusing he imbued his mana into the blood. There was resistance as the man''s mana was still present but it was eventually converted into his own since it''s owner was dead. When he felt he was ready, he willed the blood to move, imagining it as a thick tar that would seep into the shape of a container. It took much longer than he expected to but eventually, he managed to gather it all into a ball.
Skill Gained
NAME: Blood Manipulation You control blood with your will. The power of blood is at your fingertips
Effects- Allows you to control the shape, movement and blood, proficiency and efficiency increases with skill level MP cost- Variable Activation Time- 6s Level 1
John smiled, he was not expecting it to be a new skill. This brought up some questions though, it seemed there were skills for things other than the basic elements, he had never even heard of this at the college, perhaps it was another thing they had kept from the students? John decided it would be best not to mention his new skills. At least not for now. With his will, he squeezed down on the blood and drew out the moisture, a technique he had gained from the skill and was left with a clear red crystal.
Item Name: Blood Crystal
Type: Reagent Durability: 10 / 10
Quality: Poor
A small gem of crystalline blood can be used as a reagent in rituals and alchemy.
John decided to take the day off college, he had a lot of things to figure out. Making his way back home, he used earth manipulation to get back into the window and replace the ground. Not 20 minutes later, Mary knocked on his door, calling him for breakfast 19- Experiments The atmosphere at meals was slowly shifting and John could tell he was likely overstaying his welcome, in fairness he had been living in their house for the better part of a month and he hadn''t even offered to pay anything. He should probably work on getting to a point where he could develop his magic and produce scrolls and books as he had agreed to. The agreement he had with the college made sure that they would be his exclusive customer, though they would buy them at a fair price. The exclusivity meant they weren''t particularly concerned about how long he took but they would likely get impatient if he started pushing it. Still, he was going to take the day to work on figuring out some cool spells. Thinking about it, it would likely be better to go to a training room in the college rather than doing this in his room like he originally planned. He approached the reception and explained what he was wanting to do and was quickly lead to a room. It was almost entirely empty, except for some desks and chairs at one end. It was maybe the size of a football field and about 20" high. He had the room for the day, another perk of his arrangement with the college. Getting to it, he started drawing runes with mana manipulation.
He learned a few things quickly. First that certain runes counteracted others. Life and death, Negate and anything other than the shape runes, Heat and Freeze, Haste and Slow. He also learned that he could currently only use 2 elements and 3 runes per spell with his current level in spellcraft. Those were the boring things though. Freeze and Burn formed a cold burning fire that would freeze what it touched rather than burn it. Similarly with combustion but instead the frostfire (as he dubbed it) would explode out. Spray paired with anything that created an element would create a fire-hose effect, shooting water, flames, wind, shadow that would stick to things and linger, or a low powered laser with light that used up a ridiculous amount of mana. Condense would increase the density/intensity of an element, Darkness became thick enough to slow movement, light would be brighter, fire would be hotter and denser, water and wind denser. Enhance was similar to condense, however, instead of creating a more dense version of something, it just made it better. Flames would burn hotter but look the same, ice would be colder, darkness would linger longer and stick to things better, light would just be brighter though. He was not willing to practice on himself and there was nothing living to test on so he could not see the effects of life and death. Strength would increase the impact of anything it was coupled with. Harden would increase the physical characteristics of whatever it was paired with and was almost indistinguishable from Condense except it didn''t increase weight, similar to enhance. Growth would cause things to grow more rapidly, flames spread faster etc Accuracy would add a small amount of homing to a spellThis story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it Haste would increase the velocity of a spell Spark would give whatever it was paired with electrical effects, lightning shooting through the ice, fire, cloud of darkness etc. Shock did the same but was stronger. Attract would pull things towards a spell, sort of like a homing but on the target, repel would do the opposite. Glow would cause spells to cast light Sight would give a new kind of vision, infrared, darkvision, tremor sense, much-improved vision underwater. With gust became came an enhanced version of the base rune, a form of far-sight that gave a sort of zoom. Consume was interesting when paired with something it would reverse the effect of a spell. Consume and enhance/condense/strength would weaken the spell. With gust it formed a sort of vacuum, pulling air towards it. Burn and heat would act as freeze, Combustion would cause an implosion, growth would cause decay etc. In learning all of this, his spellcraft increased to 7, his meditation to 9, his mana manipulation to 6 and his elemental magic to 4. He had spent the whole day in there, he still could only use 3 runes and 2 elements. He knew there were more combinations to try out but he was exhausted. Tomorrow he would learn to make scrolls and books and start earning some money.
The next day he approached the receptionist again. The techniques for creating books and scrolls was something else the college didn''t teach students, only researchers that needed to know it so he needed special permission. This time he was taken behind the receptionist and down the stairs to where the old man was. "Ah miss Steambink, I was wondering how long you were going to make me wait." He said grumpily but with a look in his eye that made it clear he wasn''t actually upset "Yes sorry sir, I kind of got carried away and couldn''t wait to learn everything I could" John did his best to look sheepish and sound meek as he said it "You''re a weird one lass," The old man said with a slight frown "Anyhows you can just call me Aldred, no need for any titles, now sit down and let me teach you something about books John was confused about what he did that made the man think he was weird but just shrugged and listened. The process was very similar to enchanting, however rather than writing runes you instead wrote in words, infusing mana and intent into the book. It could take days, weeks or longer to create a full spellbook depending on the number and rarity of the runes, so they stopped once he got the skill. They then went on to do the same with the scrolls, he was however able to make one scroll of frostfire bolt before he got the skill.
Skill Gained
NAME: Scribe You can scribe books with your mana and intent to teach the reader a spell if they have appropriate skills and affinities.
Effects- spellbooks are 1% less expensive and 1% faster to make / skill level MP cost- Varies Activation Time- Passive Level 1
Skill Gained
NAME: Scroll-craft You can inscribe a parchment with a spell and mana to produce a spell scroll
Effects- spell scrolls are 1% less expensive and 1% more powerful/ skill level MP cost- Varies Activation Time- Passive Level 1
"There you go, the college will buy any multi-element spell you make, how much you get will vary based on the number of the elements, the number of runes and the rarity of the runes used. I can give you 300 Mana in crystals for this one, it''s a simple spell a lot of mages have made in the past but scrolls of this sort are always handy to have around. You will have to buy materials, I can sell you some suitable parchment for 50 mana a sheet and a book capable of holding up to 5 rune spells for 500 mana." John''s eyes bulged at the cost of just the blank book, for now he just bought 10 sheets of parchment and went home to rest. 20- Business John stared at the 10 pieces of parchment, wondering what spells he should put on them. The rarer the spell the better it would seem, too bad his two rare runes nullified each other. On that note, he really needed to find something to practice those on, they were undoubtedly powerful but how much so he had no idea. He decided to try something. Leaving some food by the side of the house he set up a few small traps to hopefully catch something that he could test on in the morning and with that went to bed.
John woke to the sunlight squirming through the curtains and got out of bed. He went downstairs to find Mary sipping some tea and told her he wouldn''t be staying for breakfast and checked his traps. 5 of them contained some kind of rodent that looked halfway between a rat and a rabbit. It had a long nose snout and large hind legs. It clearly hopped around and used its rat-like tail for balance. Lifting the 5 full traps with his earth manipulation, he made his way to the college. Again, getting the training room. He carefully shaped the cages around the creatures so that it made a stone harness and suspended them into the air. Cutting off the leg of one of them, he used the life rune and the wound healed over. Repeated casts didn''t grow the leg back. He thought for a second and then tried pairing the life rune with the growth rune. This caused the leg to grow a very slowly back. After it grew back he repeated the process. This time adding in the strength and enhance runes to the spell. Enhance won out here and grew the leg back 20% faster than strength did, making it nearly twice as fast. He then tried casting the death rune on the rat rabbit. A blackness started to spread from the point he cast the spell and 5 seconds after the blackness reached a point, it would liquify and turn to mush. The spell ended up killing it after 30 seconds. John was rather impressed, it was clearly a very painful death going by the screams it made in the process. He was tempted to try the goo and see how it tasted but decided it was a bad idea, after seeing what the spell just did. moving onto the next subject he tried it with strength and then enhance. This time it was reversed and strength was better, killing it in just over 10 seconds. He tried other combinations with death but none were particularly good, spray caused droplets of a thick black goo to hit things that would trigger the spell and cone would just cause the entire rat to be hit at the same time. The goo was cooler but weaker since condense wasn''t as good as enhance or strength in this case. He decided to go see the old man and see which one would be best to sell.
10 minutes later he was in the training room with 3 more of the rabbit rats and the old man, John demonstrated each of the death spells and the life one. He seemed unsurprised by the death combinations but his eyebrows nearly left his head upon seeing the regeneration spell. Apparently, people with both earth and light affinities were pretty rare so it was a rather uncommon effect. The man offered John 1000 mana per scroll he could make. He also said that the death goo spell would fetch about 500 mana and the cone would get him about 600. Deciding that the money was worth the lack of variety, John spent the next few hours making regeneration scrolls.
Over the next few weeks, John made and sold scrolls. He managed to get his scrollcraft up to 7, his elemental magic to 5 and his spellcraft up to 9. He had now very clearly overstayed his welcome and Mary was starting to very stuffy with him. He had made nearly 50 000 manna from his scrolls and decided that it was enough for now. He had attended more classes, they hadn''t gained him any new skills but he learned how to better utilise different elements as attacks, how to use his manipulation to map see where he could not and how to manipulate his mana more efficiently.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. Unfortunately, contrary to his idea of a college, the mages college was less a place of learning and more a place of research, there weren''t that many classes he could take without access he wasn''t allowed. He did, however, manage to buy a book on runes, it contained a few dozen runes and had examples of intent infused in with them so he could learn how to use them. With that, there wasn''t much more he needed from the college. He bought a 100 sheets of parchment and 10 blank books to stockpile what he might need. If he needed more than that he could always find somewhere to buy them or learn to make his own. He waited until it was fairly late into the evening and entered Jax and Mary''s bedroom. It was locked with a metal bolt but he was easily able to move it aside. Standing over them and looking at their sleeping bodies he felt a pang of remorse for what he was going to do but quickly shoved it back down. There was no room for silly emotions. He then sliced each of their throats with his claws. For a second he was worried, Jax had apparently put some points into endurance and he had to put some effort in to slice through his neck but his strength and claws won out in the end. He used blood manipulation to form 3 blood crystals from the blood and then used assimilate on each of them.
Skill activated [Assimilate]
Prolonged contact with a recently made corpse has activated this skill Your skill [Assimilate] failed
Skill activated [Assimilate]
Prolonged contact with a recently made corpse has activated this skill Your skill [Assimilate] successfully activated. A portion of the targets recent memories and skills have been absorbed. Effect weakened due to deterioration of the target.
Skill Gained
NAME: Cooking You are able to make ingredients into something worth more than the sum of its parts
Effects- Food tastes 1% better and food buffs created by you are 1% more powerful every skill level. MP cost- NA Activation Time- Passive Level 6
Mary was worth a new skill, 2 levels in Elemental Manipulation and 1 in Elemental Magic. He was also right about her patience beginning to grow thin with him but it wasn''t so much him overstaying his welcome but that she thought Kelly was rather rude and kind of dull. He couldn''t figure out why though, he had tried to make polite conversation when he could and tried to be helpful. He also got some memories of ''relations'' with Jax. Apparently, the room was pretty soundproof. He would rather forget those. He went around the house taking what he could. He soon had an inventory full of jewellery, he was nearly 100 000 mana crystals richer (Apparently, these people were much more wealth than he thought they were he supposed the size of the house should have given it away) and he had a series of the most interesting books he could find in the library. Fortunately, he had been eating the meat whilst working on scrolls so the extra weight wasn''t more than he could comfortably handle. He then left the house, deciding against taking the mana-cart as it might be able to be used to track him and he had no idea how to drive one. He ducking into an alley and changed forms into a random looking gnome, a little pudgy and kind of ugly version of a male gnome he killed and learned blood manipulation from. He then took off into the night, heading deeper into the city and trying to get as far away as he could from the house. 21- Training After travelling for over around two days, John found himself in an inn towards the outskirts of the city. He had filled out all the documents he needed for his new persona to be granted citizenship in this city. He was going to sign up with the guard since it would give him the opportunity to get some training in his close combat skills, gain some experience fighting the monsters and would give him an excuse to patrol the streets looking for new meals. So, with his inventory full of all of his belongings he made his way over to the guard station. The guard was actually more of a militia than an actual guard and they were there mainly to provide close-up protection of the mages that would be doing most of the damage and to walk the streets to try to combat crime. Any citizen was allowed to sign up with the guard but would have to pay for basic training if they hadn''t been through it already or work off the debt, so he went in, deposited his paperwork and left. Three days later he was standing in a small, sand-filled training yard with 20 other gnomes mostly in their late teens but there was one gnome who appeared to be at the tail end of middle-aged. An exceptionally tall gnome in full plate-mail was standing in attention looking at them. "Ok, listen up, you''re here for basic training and that''s what you''re gonna get. For the next two weeks, you will eat, sleep and breath training. Those monsters out there are not friendly and if any one of you is weak then you put the rest of us at risk. With that said you will listen to my orders and obey them without question. Every day you will be alert at the foot of your bed by 8:15 and you will be taken here. You will work your asses off and your fingers to the bone and you will return to the barracks every night exhausted and bloodied. If you can''t do that then I suggest you leave now because I ''m not gonna waste my time on worthless students." One of the youngest gnomes shifted his gaze back and forth looking at the rest of us, shook his head while looking at the ground and walked out. The gnome in plate didn''t say a word, just nodded and then looked back at us with hardened eyes. "Good, now first things first. You will do laps of this training yard, anyone who falls behind the group will be punished, anyone who pulls ahead of the group will be punished. You will go until you collapse and then you will get back up and go some more, I don''t care if you have to carry each other but you do not stop until I say you stop, understand?" No-one said anything, they just stared back at the gnome in incredulity. "I SAID DO YOU UNDERSTAND!" "Aye sir aye!" "Sir Yes Sir!" Everyone turned to look at John after that but the gnome didn''t give them chance to question his weird phrase and sent them all running. An hour and a half later, John was staggering on his feet, sweat pouring down his face and half supporting and being supported by two others who were staggering around the yard with him. "That''s enough"Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. The whole group fell to the ground as one, panting and wiping sweat from their eyes. "That was pathetic, if this were a battle you would have died 5 times over, you better do better next time or I swear any god who is listening that I will personally feed you to an ogre, feet first. DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR!" "Aye Sir Aye" was the mumbled groans of an exhausted group laying in the sand.
Notice
Due to recent events, your Endurance has increased by 1 point
Notice
Due to recent events, your Endurance has increased by 1 point
Notice
Due to recent events, your Vitality has increased by 1 point
John was already making plans to murder the gnome in his sleep and regretting his choice to do this. The fact that the training was clearly effective didn''t even flash across his exhausted mind. "Now, get yourselves up and take yourselves to the barracks, I expect you clean, bright eyed and ready when I come for you tomorrow. Dismissed!" No-one even tried to get up. It was 15 minutes before John managed to climb his way to his feet and stagger over to the barracks building. He immediately got into the shower, basking in the pain of the hot water hitting is skin as it was a welcome distraction for his aching muscles. After cleaning himself with as little movement as he could manage he made his way over to the closest cot and collapsed onto it before falling asleep.
The next day, John was awakened to clatering and smashing and bolted out of bed. In the middle of the room was the plate gnome bashing a metal baton against a shield. "Get up you lazy bastards, we don''t have all day!" A chorus of groans spread across the room as people got to their feet and got ready. They were fed a meal of eggs and bread and then found themselves back in the training yard. 20 padded vests and wooden swords were in the middle of the yard. "Today we teach you how to use a sword. Now since these bastard screens arrived, how we do this is a little different. You see, now, the more you swing the better you get so what we''re going to do today is put those vest on and you''re gonna start wacking on each other. Same deal as yesterday, you do not stop until I tell you to!" They all managed to stagger over to the yard and silently put on the suits and picked up a sword. The next two hours were neither fun, nor painless.
Notice
Due to recent events, your Vitality has increased by 1 point
Notice
Due to recent events, your Vitality has increased by 1 point
Notice
Due to recent events, your Vitality has increased by 1 point
Notice
Due to recent events, your Endurance has increased by 1 point
Skill Gained
NAME: Swordsmanship You know how to dispatch your enemies through the use of a blade. Skilled swordsmen are unparrelled in close combat
Effects- Effectiveness of STR and DEX are increased by 1%/skill level when weilding a sword MP cost- NA Activation Time- Passive Level 3
22- Tough Over the cause of the next two weeks he had been beaten, burned, frozen, electrocuted (fortunately not enough to cause permanent damage despite his negative resistance. He had had to fight tooth and nail internally not to revert to his base form), had acid dropped into his skin. It was fruitful as John had received another 11 points in VIT, 4 in STR and 13 in END. He had also gotten up to level 7 in swordsmanship, level 2 in blood manipulation and level 5 in Elemental magic from having to clean and heal himself so much. He¡¯d also gained various increases in resistances and had ensured no-one could see that he could cast magic. He also received the skills shieldwork and spearman that worked the same as swordsmanship but shields increased endurance and vitality. John was willing to kill the instructor but he had learned over the course of the training that he was a much higher level than John and had a hell of a lot of vitality and endurance, so it was set aside for a future opportunity. The upside was that he had gained a lot of skill levels and stat points in the two weeks. More than he thought was possible but he had been pushed to exhaustion every day. They were going to be stationed at the edge of a woodland on the very edge of the city along with a few dozen others and some of the clans lower mages, the area had been relatively quiet with monsters recently and the monsters that did show up weren''t high levelled so it was a pretty safe assignment. He had heard from some of the guards that there was a bit of an uproar further in the city, apparently, some girl had ripped off the mages guild and her and her supposed sponsors had vanished overnight. The city guard had been despatched in force to try to find her and was combing the city, though since she was a reasonably powerful mage only the higher levelled guards were out, not greenies like them. He had been relieved that they were still looking for Kelly and hadn''t figured out anything about him but he felt he should try to keep his head down as much as possible and try his damnedest not to get caught casting magic.
A week into the assignment something happened. There had been small attacks by weak monsters all week but not really anything worth getting worried over, however, this was different. The ground was trembling as something very large and very heavy was heading towards them. Everyone rushed into formation, getting ready to hold back whatever it was. Not long after they had formed up, the trees started bending and several were knocked over. An enormous Hippo with tusks as long as spears lumbered out of the forest towards them, it was walking but as soon as it saw them it stopped and let out a fierce roar that tore through the air and vibrated their chests. Several people wet themselves, other baulked and ran. The movement from the running guards seemed to anger the Hippo and it put it''s head down, pawing the ground, getting ready to charge. When it finally started running it was unreasonably fast, it was like being charged by a freight train. Those that tried to hold their ground were immediately impaled on the horns or flattened underfoot. nearly a third of their ranks were killed in the first charge, however, the Hippo was struggling to stop its momentum and rand straight into earth spikes that had been raised by some of the mages.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. The spikes caused some minor wounds but it''s hide was so tough the rock shattered before it could do any real damage. Not even slowed, the hippo turned and was ready to charge once more. This time, nearly everyone managed to but some were too slow and now they had nearly half their number. Recognising that this was a losing battle, the mages changed plans. They created pits slightly larger than it''s feet between them and the Hippo. This time when it charge, one of its feet was caught in a hole and it tripped with a loud cracking sound, sliding up to the guards who started hacking at it with wild abandon. The hippo thrashed and rolled and managed to crush another dozen guard. John had killed another 4 guards in the confusion. When it finally stopped moving there was barely a third of the force left. Two dozen guards and 2 mages. Everyone slumped to the ground.
Notice
Skill [Swordsmanship] has reached level 8
Notice
Skill [Swordsmanship] has reached level 9
Notice
Level Up! You have 5 undistributed stat points +2 INT +2WIS
Notice
Level Up! You have 10 undistributed stat points +2 INT +2WIS
He put the 10 points into INT, bringing it to level with WIS and about the same as END. The single mage that could heal was going around the battlefield, trying to reduce casualties but most of the people who had been injured had died almost immediately. The dead were gathered and prepared to be returned to their loved ones, the Hippo was taken off into the forest and left for the animals to deal with. Later that night, after he had been relieved from the watch, he snuck off into the woods.
Skill activated [Assimilate]
Prolonged contact with a recently made corpse has activated this skill Your skill [Assimilate] successfully activated. A portion of the targets recent memories and skills have been absorbed. Effect weakened due to deterioration of the target.
Skill Gained
NAME: Thick skin You have abnormally thick skin, capable of withstanding the hardest blows.
Effects- incoming damage is reduced by 1 for every 2 skill levels MP cost- NA Activation Time- Passive Level 6
John felt himself becoming significantly heavier. He didn''t change outwardly but he could feel the skill take hold. It was a little awkward, making his movements very slightly slower and more awkward. This was the first time he had felt a downside from a skill but it seemed decently strong enough to make up for it. Turning away from the spot that the HIppo monster had been, a glint caught his eye. Immediately turning towards it he saw a couple of piercing blue eyes and the white face of a young male gnome, one of the other guards. As soon as John noticed him he sprinted away back towards the barracks. "Fuck" 23- Hunt John took off, sprinting after the nosey guard. They were headed towards the barracks and he could not let the man reach them. He used shift to lengthen his stride as much as possible and started gaining ground. They were barely a meter apart, John reaching his hand out to grasp at the man''s clothes. ''Idiot, you have magic.'' he thought to himself. He willed the earth beneath the guard to move to trip him but as he did, they burst through the treeline and into the cleared area. The man then started screaming at the top of his lungs as he tripped. "NECROMANCER. HE''S A NECROMANCER!" the proclamation stunned John enough to allow the man to regain his feet and start running. He took off running after him again, returning his form to the usual gnome shape, being considered a necromancer was probably better than being a monster. With his shortened gait the guard was faster than John and quickly made up the ground to the barracks. When he got there he was greeted by a crowd of angry looking sword points and spear tips wielded by confused looking guards. Unable to run and more confident in his ability to escape capture than to make it away from that many blades alive, he allowed himself to be cuffed and taken to a cell.
''of course, they would have cuffs that stopped magic'' John berated himself. He could still use shift to slip out of them but that would out him as a shapeshifter and he wanted to at least learn what a necromancer was first. Images of an undead horde barreling down on a town filling his head. After an hour the eldest of the mages entered the room, a sour look on his face. "So a necromancer, never seen one of you sick fucks before and especially never one that could send a corpse that size to their storage. You better tell me why you felt bold enough to take a corpse this close to barracks." "I...I I didn''t want t-the other monsters to eat it and get stronger sir" John stammered, better to appear meek and terrified, he would only be underestimated that way. "Don''t try that with me, it''s bullshit and we both know it. And quit that snivelling, you''re a shitty actor." The mage sneered. John realised he should definitely try to learn how to act better if this was the life he was living. "Ok, ok. I never would have been able to take something that big alone, I got too excited." The man''s eyes thinned, clearly not believing it to be the whole truth but not finding issue with the statement itself.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. "how did you fit that thing into your storage?" "I didn''t, I tried to but the skill failed and it turned to goop." The man''s eyes thinned again but just nodded his head slowly. "I knew there was something off about you as soon as we met, it''s gonna be even better hanging you knowing you''re a necro freak." The mage''s hand reached down to grab him by the cuffs. At the same time, John used shift to make his teeth longer, sharper and more dangerous in general. Then, as the man''s neck drew into range he used bite. A deliciously warm spurt of blood shot into his mouth and his mouth was filled with meat. \\wasting no time, he bit down time after time into the mage''s neck. After a short while, the mage was dead and John shifted himself out of the cuffs and used blood manipulation and an assimilate that failed, to clean up the room. He was going to have to kill everyone here, news of a necromancer would travel quickly and whatever that storage skill is might be enough to link him to the murders and disappearances in the city and they might be able to track him down. He shifted into the form of the mage and exited the room. The two guards outside nodded to the mage as he closed the door. Then a spike of earth went through the base of their skulls. As they slumped to the floor, he repeated his earlier actions, another two failures but Assimilate reached level 3. Another guard came down the corridor and was similarly dealt with. This time it was successful and he gained some proficiency in his weapons and cooking skill. Several similar encounters later, all failed skill activations, and he was left with the barracks, the mage and the guards on watch. He decided to start with the mage. They would be the least tough and could easily kill him if they snuck up on him whilst distracted. The other mage was waiting in a small study for news on the necromancer, John knew from the memories he had stolen. He made his way over there. The mage stood as he entered. "So? Is he really a necro? what the college wouldn''t pay for one of them to experiment on. We''re gonna be rich from this!" John nodded and the man grew more excited. "But there''s something wrong. you have to come see for yourself." The mage looked askance at him for a moment before walking over to the door. John followed behind, After a few steps, the enhanced cone of death hit the mage and he was almost immediately liquified. John tried to use Assimilate on the puddle but it wouldn''t activate. Good to know. The barracks was quiet, all the guards inside currently sleeping. Easy pickings for a rogue monster. As he approached the first bed, he shifted into his base form to have better access to his claws. As he sliced the neck of the first guard open, the mans face widened and he drew a dagger from beneath the pillow but lost his strength halfway and it clattered to the floor. The noise startled the other 7 guards awake and they all looked at John, wide eyes full of hate, anger and fear. 24- Fight There was a brief moment of stillness and silence as the guards stood, weapons raised but armourless at the also unarmoured John. This was broken by the blue light of mana as he began writing the runes for a cone of death. Just as he finished the rune for death, a sword passed through it and bit into his arm. John staggered back from his attacker, using earth manipulation to create a small buckler shield from the stone floor. Where the rune had been bisected by the sword, a black smog burst out, pitting and corroding the blade, forcing the attacker to drop it and pick up the dropped dagger from the floor. The others began to rush around John, flanking him, sending the occasional jab towards him that he caught on his makeshift shield or by creating earth barriers. He tried to impale them with earth spikes but having seen his earth manipulation they were too wary, fatal injuries turned into grazes and glancing blows and John was accumulating wounds of his own. There was a large slash across his back that was making it difficult to bend and dodge. He was going to be killed if nothing changed, so he started manipulating the shadows around the room. This wouldn''t have been able to manipulate both at the same time if not for the merging of his manipulation skills and even now it was mentally taxing, he dodged fewer blades and his health was already below the halfway point. Just as a sword cut across his thigh, making it difficult to move, a wave of darkness crashed into the battling group. All of their movements slowed as the almost suffocating shadows descended upon them and they were each robbed of their sight. This included John as he was too injured to focus enough on manipulating the shadows so that they avoided him. His earth shield clattered to the floor as he dropped to one knee and began using the life rune to heal himself. He barely got his health back up past half when he heard the footsteps of the guards encircling him draw closer as they tightened the circle on him. Staggering back to his feet in the pitch black, John used the static on all of the cloth in the room and amplified it, creating a ball of lightning that he sent out in front of him. He felt the direction of the lightning shift as it was drawn towards their blades and the smell of burnt hair and charred meat filled the room. He knew it wasn''t enough to do more than stun the two guards it hit but it was enough for him to rush to them and use earth spikes to finish them off. His mana was down to about half and he hadn''t even taken out a third of them. Keeping the darkness in place was also draining his mana quickly and he didn''t want to risk using a death spell as they are expensive and might not get all of them. He began to draw runes in the air, a combustion spell empowered by growth and strength. He could feel the white-hot flames in front of him but could not see them and willed it to fly in the direction he had run from. The ball struck something and there was a massive explosion of fire that flung John across the room and into a wall.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. After a few seconds of laying on the floor battered and dazed, he pushed himself to his feet. The explosion had severed his concentration and dissipated the darkness. Two of the guards had died, leaving charred corpses, one was on the floor bleeding from a stab wound that must have been inflicted in the dark and the other 4 had likewise been flung around the room. Checking on his health, John barely had 10% left and he could feel it. Much of the furniture had caught fire and was filling the room with smoke, making breathing and sight more difficult. He manipulated the wind so that the smoke condensed around the guards who were just getting to their feet and began to manipulate the fire and fling it towards them. Unable to see and already injured, two of them went down but in his haste to finish them he had used all of the fire in the room. The other two guards started staggering in his direction and his mana was dangerously low so he stopped manipulating the smoke and started forming a rune. One of the guards daggers struck him in the arm before he could even finish the first rune, having been flung by one of the guards, not doing much damage but interrupting the spell. John picked up two swords from the corpses of the guards and flung one towards the one approaching him on the left. With a careful manipulation of wind, the blade stuck deep into his side, causing him to fall to a knee just as the other closed the distance. Their blades met with a clang and they both winced from their injuries. Gritting his teeth John flexed and used his superior strength the send the man clamouring backwards. He quickly recovered and they rushed to meet one another once more. John was stronger but this man was clearly faster and more agile, Johns blade was turned instead of blocked and the two were fighting to land the smallest cut on the other. Their swords met and clanged dozens of times, their injured bodies struggling to cope with the strain as they both stumbled away from each clash. After regaining some mana and a lot of quick movement, enough static had built up in their clothing that John was able to pull it into his blade. The jolt of electricity was enough to open a hole in the guards'' guard and John leapt on the opportunity, driving his sword up through the ribs of the gnome. John looked him in the face and saw the contortion of pain disappear from it as his muscles relaxed and his life left him. Breathing heavily John looked at the corpses of the guards around the room. As he was about to sit, a searing pain went through his leg and he looked down to see the guard he had thrown the sword at, at the start of the fight, had crawled over and drove it through Johns'' knee. The guard had his head removed for his trouble but John''s vision was full of spots and he crashed to the ground. With 2 health remaining and barely enough mana for a single cast, John drew the life rune and then blacked out. 25- Struggle When he came to the room had filled with smoke and one the beds between himself and the door was a blazing inferno, apparently, he had not used up all of the fire in the room. A notification swam in front of his face but he was too hazy to concentrate. Looking down he could still see the sword skewering his leg. After several seconds he managed to pull himself together enough to read the notification.
WARNING
You have suffered a massive injury. All recovery rates reduced to 10% until healed. You have an ongoing injury HP regeneration disabled Your left leg has been crippled, the effectiveness of the agility attribute reduced by 50%
He took a look at his HP and found that it was at 20, his healing spell should have brought him much higher than that. John tried to sit up but when he moved his left leg a burning pain jolted through his body and reduced his HP by 2 points. He had regained some of his mana and was able to keep the smoke away from him but he had nowhere near enough to manage those flames. He was either going to fix this or he was going burn to death. He tried to use shift to push the sword out but the skill failed as soon as the pain hit. Instead, he tried something else. Pushing his mana into the sword he felt the orderly lines and layers of the metal, the sharp edges and the sturdiness of it. He could feel the fire and the earth within it and willed the metal to move out of his leg.
Skill Gained
NAME: Metal Manipulation Metal conforms to your will, it''s tempered nature begs for use.
Effects- Allows you to control the shape and movement of Metal, proficiency and efficiency increases with skill level MP cost- Variable Activation Time- 3s Level 1
The blade dulled and split in the middle, both sides removing themselves from his leg. The pain was unbearable and he fainted before he could finish. One side had been removed the handle and base of the blade still embedded in his knee. When he awoke the flames were getting dangerously close and he could feel his skin beginning to blister.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! Using shift, he elongated his arm just enough to grab the handle of the blade and yanked it out. A loud scream emerged from his mouth and he nearly blacked out again, the heat of the flame the only thing keeping him awake. He could feel the moment his HP regeneration took into effect. By this point, his mana had regenerated enough to heal once more, closing the wound on his knee but his regens were still 10% of normal. The pain subsided enough from that that he was able to roll away from the flames enough, smashing into the wall beneath a window. Grasping the window ledge he pulled himself to his feet. His head light and his only working leg shaking he pulled a baton from his inventory and smashed the window. He cleared as much of it as he could and then threw himself through. He was able to use earth manipulation enough to bury the glass so he didn''t impale himself and he lay there in the grass.
The other guards had been late relieving them from their shift so those on watch had come back to give them a kick up the arse and send them out. Inside the barracks was completely silent and completely empty. There was no-one patroling, no guards, the mages were not in their study and the necromancer was nowhere to be found. "What the fuck is going on here" "I dunno but I don''t like it, you think that necromancer got out?" "How? He was in cuffs and there were guards everywhere..." After that last statement, the whole group fell into silence and stayed on alert. The silence reigned for long moments as they stalked through the halls but was suddenly broken by the shouts and clangs of battle. By the time they reached the barracks the hallway was flooded with flames, it looked like the room had been set ablaze and they could just about make out the shape of the bodies of the guards and a horrifying monster on the floor with half a blade sticking out of its leg. "What the fuck happened here? Is that a monster? how did it get passed us?" "Have you seen that thing? It''d blend in way too well in the night how are we meant to spot stuff like that?" "The better question is how did it kill everyone and where are the bodies? do you think it''s working with that necro?" "No way, monsters don''t work with pe...." At this point the thing moved, it''s arm stretched and it ripped the broken shaft of the sword out of its knee and rolled. There it cast a spell, produced a stick from thin air and broke the window before flopping out of it. "Since when do monsters have inventories?" "Who cares? How was that thing even alive? It was cut to shreds?" "Did it use magic? Again that last question gave them pause, so much that it took the flames licking up next to them to break them out of it. "We should go finish it off, it looked pretty hurt, I doubt it can put up too much fight." The rest looked unsure but went along too, making their way outside and round towards the window. That was when they heard the loud bang and the first gnome collapsed with a hole in the middle of his head. 26- Recovery John lay in the grass, lost in the pains from his injured body. He wasn''t sure how much time had passed but he was snapped out of it by the sounds of boots hitting earth and the rattling of metal. Unable to stand, with barely a few points of mana and heavily injured John drew the only weapon he had that would give him a chance. As they rounded the corner he fired the pistol, using his a half of his meagre mana to push the bullet to go faster and be stronger. It hit the first guard between the eyes and exited the back of his skull with a splatter of brains and blood. The other guards all immediately raised their shields and drew closer together. An unenhanced bullet hit the knee of another, not going through but still piercing and causing his knee to buckle. The three guards that remained standing had halved the distance between himself and them. Two were collapsed, bullets lodged in their knees and the final one stood above him. The final bullet in the magazine was sent through the eye socket of the gnome standing above him. He was still for a moment before his knees buckled and he collapsed on top of John. He could hear the pained moans of the other guards who were scattered around the ground with similar injuries to his own. He collected himself, rolled over to the wall and managed to haul himself up onto his good leg. He reloaded the gun and began firing on the downed guards.Their rolling around made him miss more often than he hit and he went through over two dozen bullets before they were all finally still. With that, he promptly collapsed back onto the ground and started meditating, lying on his back looking up at the dark sky above.
Hours later he had managed to heal himself all the way to full health, his debuffs had gone and he no longer felt any pain from his knee. He tried and failed to assimilate the corpses, they had apparently been dead too long for the skill to work so instead he ate his fill of them. It was only then that he looked through some of his notifications. He was now level 9 and put the 10 stat points into his VIT because he never wanted to be that close to death again. His small arms skill had reached level 4, his elemental manipulation reached 5, his shield workhad reached level 6 and thick skin level 8. Whilst that was a fairly large amount of growth in a short time he definitely did not feel like it was worth it. By now the whole barracks was ablaze and the guards had nothing but basic equipment. Still, he took a set of armour put a sword, shield and spear in his inventory and set off back towards the city.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
He had resumed his previous form, this time with the addition of a series of new scars including a deep one across his ear and the side of his face thanks to a quick use of shift. He approached the nearest outpost, doing his best to look haggard and covered in dirt. It didn''t take long for a group of guards to approach him, he recognised some of them from whilst they were training and they clearly recognisedhim eyeing his new scars and the dirt covering his clothes. "HOLD!" The gnome at the front said to the group, she appeared to be a mage of some sort, probably a pyromancer going by her crimson robes. Both John and the guards with her stopped as soon as given the command. The woman looked him up and down, obviously she didn''t have children as the immediate look of disgust didn''t cross her face until she saw his scars. "What happened to you?" "Ma''am we were hit heavily, a large monster attacked us, killing most of our company in the process and later that night a different monster managed to get into the barracks, there''s no one else left ma''am." A frown creased he forehead at his words and her eyes simultaneously hardened and softened when she looked at him. He could see that some of the guards behind her did not entirely believe what he was saying but dismissed that for the time being. "Henrick, go put together a small platoon we''re going to go investigate this, everyone else we''re going to escort this man to a cell where he will remain in custody for questioning." She approached him and went to place him in cuffs "You''ll have to forgive this, until we know exactly what is going on we have to tread carefully, I assure you we merely wish to ask questions." John nodded and he was escorted towards the outpost, as he went inside he saw a human, dressed in leathers and with a sword and shield exercising in the training yard. John inspected the man closely, making sure he could copy his form but also so that he would not forget his face and resolved to ask more about that later.
Henrick was marching with the rest of the group of guards. He was fairly convinced that the man had been a deserter who was just making things up to try and get out of his duties, he had that look about him that only the most weasely people have. Then he saw the what remained of the barracks, ash and rubble were everywhere and parts of the structure had collapsed in on itself. Outside were the bodies of several gnomes, clearly, the monsters around here had already taken what they wanted from them as there was very little left but bones. They spent the next few hours searching, there were bodies in the barracks but nowhere else that they could find and even those were horribly charred. Unfortunately, they weren''t able to find much that would give them a clue about what happened here. Hopefully, that guard would be able to shed some light on it. 27- Questions John was placed in a room made of smooth metal, the door was filled with a slab of stone 4 feet thick and the only furniture was two chairs and a desk. He assumed that there was magic at play stopping him from suffocating as he stood there, admiring his efforts at making himself look injured and dishevelled in the shiny metal. He was in there for nearly an hour before the mage from earlier came into the room holding a box. "Sorry to keep you waiting. Now I''m going to start straight away if you''re willing so we don''t waste any more time" she said as she sat down in the chair across from him. John nodded. "Good, " She flipped open the lid of the box, revealing what looked like a clear quartz crystal the size of her forearm. "as you may know this is a seeing crystal, it will glow red if you speak a lie in its presence. Observe. This room is made of wood." The crystal filled with a deep red mist before returning to clear in the few seconds. "see, now don''t worry there are very strict rules about the kinds of questions we can ask in this interview, I don''t intend to pry into your life just find out what has happened. "Now, if you would be so kind would you please tell me what happened to fort rahsnil and the company station there." "Yes ma''am, the day before yesterday we were attacked by a large monster and lost the majority of our company, it was strong and tough and it was a great struggle to bring it down. Those of us that survived collected the dead and returned to the fort to lick our wounds after the fight. Later that evening a monster that had gotten inside the fort killed all of the soldiers that were not on watch or in the barracks, including the mages. It then made its way into the barracks where it was discovered in the process of killing one of the guards. The guard managed to accidentally alert all of those asleep in the barracks before his death. I was in the barracks at the time. In a brutal fight, all of the other guards were killed and I was left severely injured. The barracks had set on fire by this point in time. It left through the window where it was attacked by the guards that had been on watch, it then proceeded to kill them all using a weapon that was most certainly not made by gnomes. I saw the bodies being eaten by it, it was definitely a monster. I left through the window and then made my way here after taking some weapons and armour for me to use and wear from one of the dead guards. These scars are the monster''s work." The crystal had not filled with red the entire time-he was talking. "Could you describe the monster for me? Did it seem to have any special abilities? Did you see which direction it went in When it left."Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. "It was tall, bigger than a human, had 2 sets of eyes, it''s mouth spit the entirety of its head down the centre when it opened it. It had dark, grey Skin, it''s body was vaguely gnomish but big and with no definition to its muscle just entirely smooth. It appeared to be able to cast magic" He eyes bulged at this revelation" and I think it came this way, which is why I''m here." Panic crashed on to her face as she looked down and saw a completely clear crystal. "What are you, an idiot? Why wouldn''t you say that earlier?" She cussed as she pulled a blue crystal from her pocket and started screaming into it to have the whole outpost on lockdown and to have squads of guards comb the entire barracks. The crystal was a bright red from all of the insults and threats she was shouting into the crystal and John took the opportunity. "I didn''t hurt anyone and I don''t know anything else about it or what it wants. I didn''t see it on my way here and I don''t know if it would attack somewhere so soon. It was really hurt. Can I please get out of this room?" The woman looked at him and relaxed a little but still ordered everyone on high alert and to ensure it was no-where around. She then walked over and placed the crystal back into the box and uncuffed him before ordering that the door is opened. "I''m gonna need you to stay in the fort for a while if you remember anything else useful find me. If it attacks, you''re the only person who will have fought it before so we will need you. I''m gonna leave you with Jack, he''ll get you settled in." She then led him out of the room down towards the barracks. This place was like scaled up version of the fort he had been in before, the layout was almost exactly the same there were just many more guards, he assumed that meant there were more attacks over this way. The turned off before the barracks and into the quatermasters room where an elderly gnome was sat behind the counter and the human from earlier was busy sorting things into bins and onto shelves. "Jack, this is Henry. He''s the one from rahsnil. Get him a bed and tell him how things work around here." With that, she turned and left, not even glancing at John. "Bloody hell lad you''re an ugly bastard." The gnome said with a gleeful grin that then slid off his face "Shame what happened at the for though, monster bastards. Anyhow, I''m Jack and I know, I know you''ve never seen a face more pretty heard it all my life. The guy behind me is Sean Graye, silly name if I ever heard one that, not something strong like Glitterknight or goldweaver." He let out a sigh as he shook his head. "Anyways, he''s one of them humans, doesn''t speak a lick of Gnomish and babel spored have gotten rather expensive since they turned up, they''re strong bastards though and tough as an old boot so we''ve been happy to have him fighting with us. You can help him out for a couple days whilst you recover a bit from the shit you''ve been through, even if we heal quick as hell now it still takes somethin'' outta ya. These are yours" he pulled out a bunch of folded sheets, clothes and pillows from a box to one side. "There''s only the one bed left and it''s the one on your right as you go in, it can get a bit noisy if people are walkin'' about but you''ll be fine I''m sure. Right lad, go get your stuff sorted and some food in ya and come back here." John hadn''t even said a word since he entered the room and was already being ushered out by this guy. He mumbled a thank you and placed his new things on his bed and headed over towards the mess room, he was getting a bit peckish. 28- Rest After a simple meal alone in the mess hall, John went back to his bed and fell asleep immediately. Healing might fix your injuries but there is always something left over that can only be fixed by rest and after what he''s just been through he felt he deserved it. Upon waking he got dressed and went back to the mess hall, this time it was full of other guards and the human he had seen earlier was sat on his own in the corner of the room. John recalled his name was Sean and since they were going to be working together he figured he might as well start now. He walked over and sat on the bench opposite from Sean. "Hey, friend, Sean right? I''m Henry." He spoke in English and extended a small hand towards him. A look of surprise flashed across his face which then shifted to a slight smile and he accepted the hand. "Yeah, Sean. Got teleported over and they let me into the guards for my integration placement, you guys train hard for such little people. I went through basic training back home but christ it''s nothing like that" "Integration placement? I''ve kind of been out of the loop for a while so I don''t really know what happened when you guys arrived." Sean cocked his head "For real? I thought you guys were like super social or something?" John winced slightly at that and sean just looked apologetic and raised his hands. "Whatever none of my business... Yeah so everything just started shaking and we ended up here. It wasn''t long before some of the local clans arrived and started helping out. Dug some people out of rubble and stuff. Weirdest experience of my life being rescued by a bunch of midgets that can shoot fire out of their asses." He seemed to realize what he just said and rushed to apologize "No offense meant, it''s all still a bit odd to me you know? Anyway so for the most part whatever political leaders we had met up with the clans and managed to work something out, a couple of the clans are giving us a hand in rebuilding the city and we some of us would join the clan cities and gnomes would join ours you know? we''d teach you guys what we know and you teach us what you know kinda thing.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. So me and some of the other lads from the army back home signed up for the guards to fight monsters and stuff and turns out compared to you guys we''re strong as hell. Comes with being twice as big or something I guess but means we''re great for this job. Now fighting with swords instead of a gun is weird but with this system thing you pick stuff up pretty quick. Got no knack for magic but honestly, I was always the hit it with a sword until it dies kinda guy anyway so I ain''t complaining. But yeah that''s about it, been out here fighting stuff just like you after basic training, gotta say it''s pretty awesome. " "Oh well, I''m glad you''re enjoying it here, I don''t know if I''d describe being attacked by giant monsters awesome but that''s the difference between you and me I guess" John gave a bit of a self-depreciating laugh and Sean gave a small smile. "You said you signed up with some friends? Are they here too?" Sean looked a bit crestfallen at that "No, we got split up, the other guys took better to swords than me it seems so they ended up in one of the hotter bases and I got assigned over here, still pretty cool though." John nodded and had just about finished his meal. "I''m working with you with Jack it seems for a few days, you heading over there? You can tell me how you ended up stuck working there whilst we walk over if you want?" "Sure, it''s a funny story actually." They both stood up and made their way over to the quartermasters'' room "So I got put out here like 2 or 3 weeks ago, the first week went pretty well, not everyone has those spore things and they cost a lot now so I couldn''t buy some for myself. So I tried to pick up a bit of gnomish so I could talk to people, you know? So I talked to one of the gnomes that had those spores and got them to teach me some phrases that''d come in handy with the higher ups you know? To show I''m trying to integrate and all that. Anyways I get called up to see the boss lady to see how things are going and I say one of the phrases I was taught. About 15 minutes later she stops yelling at me and my beard is singed off. Turns out I had just told her that her magic sucked so bad she''d be better off using her staff as a pole and dancing for tips. The guy who taught me to say that is still recovering from the burns and I got stuck with the quartermaster as a tax for being such an idiot." John let out a somewhat undignified snort when he heard the story and it seemed that Sean had managed to see the humor in it since he was laughing too. The two of them spent the rest of the day idly chatting and ribbing one another as they did odd jobs and sorted things for Jack. It was weird talking to a human and he found that as nice as chatty as gnomes were, they were inherently different from humans and he had missed the way a human conversation usually went. A smile crept onto his face as he went to sleep. 29- Shock The void was absolute and chilling. All around him was darkness and he could feel himself fading, the echo that he had become. It would be so easy to just lay down and allow it to happen but he could not. He would not. He had no body but threw himself against the edge of the void, each time recalling in terror and excruciating agony but he would go on. Time escaped him, his memories vacant and yet he threw himself at it over and over. Suddenly the smallest streak of light flooded the darkness, insignificant but blinding in that space. He could not see where it came from but it gave him hope. Invigorated he returned to his task.
John awoke the next morning and frowned. He couldn''t let himself get emotional and attached to people, that would get him killed. He needed to get stronger and to keep himself safe, that''s all that mattered. With that, he stood from his bed and went into the bathroom. Inside he used shift the change forms multiple times, pushing his ability to modify the forms he knew to train it. He then left the stall and went to get some food from the mess hall, there were a couple of other guards in there but he was early and most were still asleep. As he ate he practised his meditation, regaining some of the mana he used on his shifting. This would become his morning routine, he had neglected training his shift skill and it was without a doubt the most useful tool in his arsenal. Once people started to enter the mess room he headed over to the quartermaster''s room where he proceeded to start his tasks for the day. A half hour passed and Sean entered the room. The day passed once more, full of idle conversation and dull work. The evening came and the two found themselves eating together in the mess hall. They had barely sat down when a warning went through the garrison, warning of attack. They both immediately left their food and jogged out of the room towards the yard where they formed ranks and made their way out of the compound in groups of 10. The mage attached to Johns group caught them up on what was going on. "Listen up, we have a small horde of monsters heading this way, appear to be large and feline, powers unknown but they''re fast. We''re to hold the left flank. Move!" They all began jogging off in the direction he directed them, as he was going John felt a hand on his shoulder. The mage pulled him towards the back of the group and whispered quietly to him. "You''re to stay back with me, you''re not going to put yourself in more danger than you absolutely must. Not only are you still supposed to be recovering but you''re going to be useful if whatever attacked you before attacks here. Understood?" John nodded and he jogged alongside the mage. This wasn''t ideal, he wouldn''t get any experience if he wasn''t fighting and no experience meant no levels which means he''s not getting stronger. Still, he played the part of a good soldier and stayed where he was meant to.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. The groups formed a line facing the treeline, a couple of groups off to the side to make sure none flanked them. They waited in silence for a minute, straining their ears for sounds of activity when they appeared. What appeared to be bright blue panthers padded out of the trees, nearly a hundred of them. There was a breif moment where both sides looked at one another. 150 gnomes and a human staring into the eyes of hungry predators. The mages broke the stalemate, sending projectiles of earth, ice, fire and lightning towards them. Where they struck a panther or two would be injured except for the lightning. As the bolts of lightning streaked towards the cats they seemed to be sucked into them, sparks scattering across their fur and those that were hit seemed more energised after that. They charged towards the mages, each protected by their group. The projectiles continued to fire and the guards readied themselves to receive them. A dozen panthers died before they reached the lines. Claws the size of kitchen knives scraped against shields, leaving deep grooves and causing the arms of the bearers to tremble. Spears from those behind them flashed out, mostly being turned away by the fur and hide but some finding purchase, puncturing the skin and leaving holes of gushing blood. Again and again, they traded blows another dozen panthers died before the shields began to fail. The onslaught of the claws weakened the shields and the pressure placed on them began to snap them. Those that lost their sheilds pulled their swords and began to frantically parry at swiping paws. More and more shields were taken out of play. Gnomish blood began to spill along with the blood of beasts. Those in Johns group began to be pressed back, the pressure and missing a man leaving them weaker. John used his spear to strike where he could but more often than not his attacks would be a hindrance than an aid. Their first man fell quickly. A spark from the fur of the cat jumped to the sword of the causing a spasm to go through their body and a razor sharp claw cut through his wrist, severing the hand and leaving a bloodied stump being. The gnome, in their agony flailed their stump, spraying those around him with his blood. They blanched at the site and the shock was enough that they were too late stop the jaws that clamped around their neck. The screams quickly died away. The other guards recovered enough to use its distraction to plunge their spears into the panthers body, ending it''s life. John inspected the body and found that these monsters were called thundercats. He was barely able to shake his head at the name when another cat took a leap over their entire group, attacking John and the mage. John switched to his sword and began batting away the claws. The mage sent a spike of ice into it, piercing it''s side and giving John the opporunity to strike. He plunged his sword into it''s chest, killing it but stiffened at the smell of ozone. A jolt of electricity ran through his body, causing him to spasm and unable to let go of the sword he continued to be electrocuted. His health dropped rapidly and he lost concentration. He grew rapidly in size, his features melting away as his shift failed him. He continued to spasm and smoke rose from him for several seconds, his health dropping to single digits when it abruptly ended. Dropping to his knees he continued to shake and keeled over onto his side before blacking out. 30- Facility Miles below the surface of the city in a compound known as ''the facility'' a room was being prepared. Word had come down that a new monster had been discovered and special requirements were to be met. No creature had been found that was capable of changing form up to this point, there had been theories that they exist and screening methods were being developed but until now since they had yet to find one it was purely based on guesswork. There was a buzz amongst many of the researchers. The facility was one of the greatest secrets of the Crystalshard clan and had been around much longer than the system, information was supposed to be compartmentalised and everything was need to know but as was always the case interesting news always seemed to get around that. Dozens of researchers were brainstorming experiments as mages and engineers worked to try to create a room capable of holding a shapeshifter of unknown capabilities. A large triple doored hatch system was created to ensure that nothing would get in or out that wasn''t supposed to. Earth mages created a cube-shaped room made entirely of extremely dense glass. Runes were inscribed across the entirety of the outside of the glass, leaving barely an inch uncovered. The floor was covered in runes designed to drain the mana from everything within the room extremely quickly. The entire thing was floated into the air so that there was no connection to the ground. Every safety precaution they could come up with was incorporated, they did not want to lost this specimen. Eventually, it was brought in, placed inside the prison and the entire thing was sealed.
John woke up hungry, a notification he had only seen once before entered his vision before he once again had no control of his body.
Warning
Warning you are [ravenous] due to extensive biological changes your body is in need of sustenance, HP and MP regeneration reduced by 100% until hunger satiated
Warning
Due to your monstrous nature, your hunger has driven you wild, conscious thought will be suppressed until hunger is satiated.
The specimen had been kept unconscious for several days and this was a common occurrence, as such it had been prepared for. The corpse of one of the large buffalo-like creatures John had seen once before lay on one side of the room. The inside of the cage was lit brightly and the outside was dark so the creature was unaware of the many gnomes around his prison watching with notepads prepared. The creature first looked around and saw its own reflection and it attacked it with wild abandon, raking at the glass. After several seconds it seemed to realise the problem and looked around he room. It was a testament to the earth mages that there wasn''t even a scratch on the glass after the onslaught. The creature noticed the corpse of the cattle and pounced on it, letting out a very canine growl as it did so which was unexpected and disconcerting to the researches. The sound of bones snapping and the sickening gurgle of a happy monster slurping up the meat and blood of the cattle was all that could be heard. Skin, organs, meat and hair were devoured with little care and the minimal amount of chewing. It took only 5 minutes for the entire thing to be eaten, the researchers in that time took note of the extreme strength of the jaws and sharpness of the claws of the creature. They were also perplexed at how the sheer volume of food the creature seemed to eat, devouring more than its own body weight in several minutes was something that would have to be looked into.
John''s conscious thought returned to him soon after and he looked around the room he was in. It was made entirely of glass but all he could see were reflections of himself and the now blood stain that was beside him. He stared into his own 4 eyes for several seconds, covered in gore and in his monstrous form a part of his mind trembled.
Status Window
Name: Johnathan Simmons Alignment: NE
Level: 9 (15%) Class: Mage
Race: Doppelg?nger Gender: Male
Acheivements
First Blood, Matricide, Babelfish, David, It''s about how you use it, Elemental Mage
Fame: 0 Infamy: 0
-
Health: 350/ 350 Health Regen: 3.5/ Min
Mana: 0 / 510 Mana Regen: 9.2/ Min
Stamina: 300 / 330 Stamina Regen: 3.3/ Sec
-
Strength: 25 Agility: 13
Vitality: 35 Endurance: 33
Dexterity: 11 Intelligence: 34
Wisdom: 34 Luck: 12
Undistributed stat points: 0
Physical Resistances
Slashing: 5% Piercing: 5%
Crushing: 5%
Elemental Resistances
Fire: 5% Water: 3%
Wind: 2% Earth: 6%
Lightning: -17% Darkness: 4%
Light: 0%
After feasting the creature seemed to calm down, it stared at the glass for several seconds, staring directly into the eyes of one of the researchers. Everyone began to stir as it just looked at him but abruptly it sat down, legs crossed and eyes closed and did not move again. Everyone was confused as to the nature of the event. Could it see through the glass? Could it sense someone was there? They did not know and it was decided that perhaps today was not the say to conduct any more experiments. John eventually fell asleep on the cold glass, only to be awoken by the opening of a door in the wall, another of the cattle slid in and before he could even move the door closed, leaving a seamless wall in its place. John waited to eat, he did not expect to be poisoned, if he was going to be killed so quickly he would be dead, he was just not hungry. 31- Pain A roar erupted from John''s throat as the flames engulfed him. The air was suddenly too hot to breathe, his skin blistered and charred, and all the moisture on his body evaporated leaving him half blind. John crumpled to the ground, unable to support himself and in a vague hope of escaping the flames but there was no reprieve. Then it ended. John continued screaming into the air as he lay there on the ground, curls of smoke rising from his body. He was so delirious he didn''t even register the wave of mana passing through him. He did notice when the warm glow of healing magic filled the cell and the injuries across his body sealed shut. His skin, though still blackened and covered in soot, regrew, he once more regained the gift of sight and his screaming came to an end. There was a deafening silence for a second before John leapt to his feet and bodily threw himself at the wall towards the demon that had done this to him. The gnome has a slight jump as John was rebuffed by the barrier between them and then said "Minor resistance to fire, slightly higher than expected from basic training but not too much outside the norm." John was just picking himself up for another attempt at getting at the gnome when the air in his cell seemed to freeze. The chill touched his skin like the reaper himself had embraced him and he felt pinpricks of pain as blood vessels popped from crystalising blood within them. His fingers began to harder and as he fell to the floor shivering the skin tore from his feet as it was stuck to the ground and any part of his exposed body immediately adhered as it came into contact with the frozen floor. As the shadows began to creep into his vision he felt the wave of mana pass through him this time, followed by the wave of healing magic the fixed his rapidly freezing body. John remained curled into a ball in the vague hope that it would stop them from hurting him further. "Minor resistance to water, in line with expectations from basic training this time." unfortunately for him, it would not be so easy.
In the void, as he continued to throw himself at the edges, the streak of light had become larger, not by much and he was unable to see through it but with it, memories resurfaced. The face of a loving mother, images of a child playing, a time of great sadness but determination. These pushed him through his agony and he continued in his endless task. Suddenly something new came through the hole, it was not light and it was not physical. It appeared in frontof him, a blob of energy that resolveditself into a rectangle covered in symbols.
Skill Gained
NAME:Mental Fortitude You have repeatedly battled forces of the mind and find yourself better able to defend yourself against them.
Effects-Increases resistance to mental effects and increases the strength of mental attacks. MP cost- NA Activation Time- Passive Level 1
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. He knew the symbols to be words but he could unfortunately not remember how to read them so he returned to his task, though the pain was slightly more manageable and he felt like each time he struck the edge it was with a greater force than before.
John lay on the floor, the closest thing to a whimper possible finding itself out of his mouth as the voice once more spoke. "Major vulnerability to lightning, racial weakness maybe? Would explain a lot, that''s everything for today anyway looks like we found what we need if it misbehaves." This was a different voice than before, the first had been replaced when this one had arrived, it clearly belonged to someone much less timid and more authoritative than the last. Likely the person in charge. John had not seen there face though, he was too busy staring at the ceiling of his cell, occasional phantom twitches occurring in his body as he tried to recuperate from the last test. There were no more voices for the rest of the day or the next. He didn''t move at all, not until his hunger took over and his body devoured the next creature they gave him for food. When he snapped back to reality he just sat in the centre of the room and stared at where the gnome had stood before.
It was two days later that they returned. This time it was a gnome he had never seen but a voice he clearly recognised, it was the one who had been there at the end of there last session. He involuntarily flinched as soon as they spoke. "I didn''t get to say before but allow me to now. Welcome to the facility, this will be your new home for the rest of your miserable existence. I usually feel a little bad about what we do here but I know what you''ve done and I know that you''re smart enough to think and understand me. You''re going to help us, whether you want to or not and I suggest you be co-operative because there is a lot worse we can do to you than what you went through last time I was here. Now, I''m going to go through some rules. Rule 1. You do whatever I tell you to over anything else. Rule 2. You obey anything anyone else tells you to do unless it contradicts me. Rule 3. You will not attack any Gnome unless instructed. Rule 4. You will not try to escape, not that you''d have much luck anyway. and finally, Rule 5. You will not harm yourself, I assure you we will not let you die. Break any of these rules or any we give you in the future and I assure you we will show you pain like you have never experienced. I''m gonna give you the day for those rules to sink in and then we''re going to start what you''re really here for." With that she turned and left, the space she had occupied returned to its mirrored appearance and John slipped to the floor again and shook gently. 32- Fractured John could not tell how much time passed, not really. He was basing his guesses around when his food was delivered and when the gnome had reappeared he was grateful for the change in the environment, he had been descending deeper into his own mind as he sat there, staring at his own reflections. He did not want to move, to try to entertain himself or distract himself from fear of giving them something they could use to hurt him, so at her words, his spirit was crushed, he would not be getting out of this easily and he was sure things would only get more painful. Rocking gently back and forth he allowed himself to retreat back inside of his head.
Notice
Skill [Mental Fortitude] has reached level 2
Notice
Skill [Mental Fortitude] has reached level 3
Notice
Skill [Mental Fortitude] has reached level 4
The void grew brighter as new holes formed, none were large enough to escape through but with them came more memories and more blobs. He could read the blobs now, even if he didn''t really understand what they meant but he understood that with each one his task became easier and easier. He had yet to remember his name, that filled him with an odd sense of loss now that he knew he had one. It felt important but it eluded him still, so he continued to throw himself at the void and each time, it trembled.
As John drifted into his mind, his thoughts swirled. He was having trouble keeping track of what he was thinking. He could hear a faint pounding, was that outside of his cell? Was it his imagination? He couldn''t tell. He was so focused on that sound that he missed it when the gnome returned, clipboard in hand. "I''m told you can speak, is that right?" The question snapped him from his focus and he turned his eyes to meet hers, his fear before somehow lost in his confusion. He did not speak. The smellof ozone brought him to a panic and he had enough time to remember why he held fear for this woman before arcs of lightning leaptfrom the walls and entered his body. Wild convulsions racked his body and his muscles, which given his odd anatomy was most of his body, screamed in agony.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. He fell to the floor, twitching when they stopped. "I''m told you can speak, so you will answer when you are asked a question. Do you understand?" John had been too distracted by the pain coursing through his body to register the question so was unable to answer before another round of lightning struck him.
When he next struck the void something was different, it was as though something hit it with him but from the other side. The power of the two combined hits caused a shake that was unlike any other and a crack erupted through the void, still not large enough to escape through but it was clear progress. It did not happen every time he hit the void but 7 more times something struck back with him and cracks began to spiderweb around him.
After being shocked again, John was unable to recover fast enough to answer and it wasn''t until 6 more times that she finally decided to stop. "You will speak, I''ll be back tomorrow." John had long since lost conscious thought and had lost consciousness as soon as the last lightning had hit him so he never heard those words.
"I was thinking, clearly we''ve been doing something wrong if you weren''t talking before, you probably aren''t going to talk now. I''ll be back in an hour." She nodded to someone John could not see and the warm feeling of healing energy filled him, he was confused by it as he had been anticipating pain but as soon as he was no longer tense the first bolt of lightning hit him, accompanied by gouts of flame. The pain was excruciating, his muscles screamed from exertion as the electricity flowed through him, his skin was burnt and cracked and all the damage was healed immediately, leaving only the pain. No hope of death, just pain.
The void began to shake and crack, he had not even hit it for fear of stopping what was happening. He was sure whatever was on the other side was attacking with wild fury, the cracks had covered every surface of it and were widening. Suddenly it shattered, and all he could see was a blinding light but he remembered. He knew his name, what he had done, who he had been and reading those first screens. He was John, but he wasn''t because as his vision cleared he saw a creature, collapsed on the floor and shivering. Large and amorphous with dark grey skin, long clawed hands, two sets of eyes and a mouth that split its head. That was the new John. but what happened now?
Achievement-Fractured
Great trauma has left your mind fractured and left you with multiple personalities The current controller of the mind is: Doppelg?nger The current known number of selves: 2
His perspective shifted suddenly and he found himself in a room full of fire and lightning and pain.