“So, what’s new with you?” I quietly asked Silva, once my conversation with Luna was finished and she was drifting off to sleep. Given that I was playing pillow for my little moon, I had to be still and quiet, so I wouldn’t disturb her, but I still wanted to know what my canine companion had gained from crossing the first Divide. She had done so in the presence of her deity, so I had high hopes that she got something good, even if I had no idea how that actually worked for those on the Divine Path.

After all, it wasn’t like she was looking for a new focus of her powers, the core of it would always be the connection to Hecate, at least by my understanding, possibly combined with a measure of physical ability. And with that connection in mind, wouldn’t Lady Hecate want Her followers to have the best and greatest powers possible? Wouldn’t that mean that all who walked the Divine Path gained whatever their deity could give them, or was there some sort of limit involved? It was one of those moments when I realised just how much I didn’t know, especially about all matters Divine.

In response to my question, Silva let out a soft growl, before rising from her prone position. Once standing, she let out a deeper, harsh growl and I felt the hairs on my neck rise from the amount of power enveloping her. Clad in a visible aura of pale, silvery light, she started to shift, her bones changing with soft cracks before she rose.

For a moment, I found myself just staring at her, not quite sure what to say, or even think. No longer was Silva on all fours, instead her hindlegs had elongated, bringing them closer to human proportions, her hind paws had grown, giving her stable footing even with only two legs. Her entire torso had changed, too, giving her the hips and shoulders to accommodate the two-legged gait, while also enabling her arms to move much more flexibly than her legs had to. And those arms looked fairly human, if covered in fur and ending in claws that looked far from anything a canine should have. More like hands, only that instead of fingers, she had claws, each almost a foot long and looking wickedly sharp. Amusingly, her head might have changed the least, her maw might have grown a little, getting even larger teeth and a stronger jaw to crush bones and rend flesh, but the changes had clearly been focused on the rest of her body.

“Did you get bitten by a hucanthrope?” I asked, only half joking. If not for the slight wave of her hair, she could easily get a role as a werewolf in some movie, if there were any people left to make those, and that was despite the difference in head shape between wolf and dog.

Looking at her, I realised something else. She wasn’t just standing on two legs, she was standing tall, making me briefly wonder if she was taller of if my Sigmer was. From my position sitting on the ground, I couldn’t easily tell but when I compared her height to the room around her, the distance between the ceiling and her head, and even the nearby doorframe, I had a feeling that Silva was taller, to the point that she might bump her nose at the top of the door if she didn’t watch out.

And she was no slender flower, standing tall made her muscles and mass fairly obvious, adding a certain physicality to the intimidation factor she already rocked, just from her height, maw and claws.

Silva simply let out another wuff, moving about a little, probably to get used to her new form. I simply kept watching, fairly awed by the sheer physical presence of it, while wondering about the conditions and limitations of it. It looked fairly similar to the Avatar state Lenore and I had been able to enter, but that one had been based on adding our powers together, allowing us to reach far higher than we could individually, though there had been a bit of a cost involved. Before long, Silva was shrouded in that same silvery glow again, before landing on her restored paws once more.

“Looking good, Silva. Those claws are wicked, maybe you can get with Lia so both of you can train. I know I’ve been struggling with the physical side of things since getting my height boost after crossing the divide, I’ve got no idea how you deal with walking on two legs all of a sudden, let alone fight in a state you’ve never been in before,” I told Silva, wondering how I would deal with such a change. Likely not as well, even if the transformation likely came with some instincts. But those were only that, instincts, not experience or habit. Those, she would likely have to form anew and by herself, which meant she needed training. Either training from me, or from Lia, or maybe even Mrs Wu, once we were back at the Farm.

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To my amusement, Silva let out another, almost annoyed, chuffing noise, making me wonder just how comfortable she currently was in her new form and how much training she’d need to make the form actually useful. And I had no doubt that it would be incredibly useful, once she mastered it. Maybe I could even create something fancy for her, some sort of shifting or transforming armour, but that would require me to get a great deal more capable at enchanting.

So far, I had only managed to make a few rings that increased Strength by one and a necklace that gave a slight increase in health regeneration, nothing major but still useful. Of those, I had made a necklace and a pair of rings for each of us, as free attribute points were always useful. Sadly, I hadn’t been able to make them for Silva and Alex, which was next on my docket but I wasn’t too hopeful. The enchantment required the ring shape and constant skin contact along the ring, meaning I’d have to either create something entirely new or find a way to wrap a metal band around a part of their body that was only skin, something neither of them had. There was always fur in the way, so I’d either have to find out how that influenced things or shave the two of them. I was tempted to suggest the shaving idea to Silva, simply to see how she reacted but hadn’t been willing, for fear of getting bitten.

On the positive side, while the enchanted rings weren’t too useful for me, making them had increased my Enchanting skill to six, and my Crystal Magic to ten. In addition, Lia got a fair amount of value out of them, while the effect they had on Luna was… comical.

Due to her immature body, the value of her Strength-attribute was limited. One point of strength for her meant a lot less than it meant for me and I had a feeling that, if we had the same strength, Silva would be able to move a lot more mass than I would, simply because of her size. I occasionally wondered just how that worked, how objective the attributes were, but without a great deal of data collection and some maths, I wouldn’t be able to figure anything out. There had been a few traits on the Road to Purgatory Forum, mostly in regards to the extremes of the spectrum, meaning races like Centaurs compared to those with a physique similar to mine, but I hadn’t been too interested, simply because it hadn’t related to me. Even back then, I hadn’t really cared whether a Centaur with my attributes could pick something up I couldn’t or if they could push loads far heavier than I could, because my strength was my magic.

However, I was wondering how that worked with the attribute points people gained while levelling up. If there was an innate component to strength, what did that mean to the balance of the system? If somebody with my innate physique put all their efforts into strength, would they be successful? Or was it just part of life, that the body you were born with determined what you could do in the long run?

It certainly was the case with magic, due to the differences in affinities. I had no idea how those were determined, but they certainly decided whether or not somebody had an easy time walking down the Arcane Path or if they would be doomed to struggle on it.

My affinities, even before gaining the various traits that increased them, both the racial traits and the general ones I had gained recently, played a huge role in my powers and progress. So, wasn’t it fair that somebody without those affinities had an affinity for the physical side of things?

Maybe, once the world had settled down, I could go around and look into that, it certainly was a fascinating question, how did innate characteristics influence somebody’s path and where did those characteristics come from in the first place?

But for now, I would have to simply accept things as they were, and focus on training my companions and myself. There were Withered to kill, something I had procrastinated on for far too long.