Everything was red and twisted. It looked like someone had poured red water over my eyes and left it, leaving me to try and read the world as if was through the eyes of a dead man. I raised my hand to my face, but I could only lift it a third of the way there, my hand trembling in the air.

Looking down, my half-seated position appeared to leave me at the same height as when I was standing up before I was cut to pieces. Looking at my arms and chest, they seemed to be the same, with no new markings on them, only larger by about three times. It was alarming to grow so much, especially since I could still remember the pain of being cut apart and forced to grow and could barely muster any feelings other than a cold numbness. When I looked at my legs, they were odd. I still had the furry legs and hooves I'd had before, but there were odd patterns I could barely make out in the fur now. On the left leg was a flame like design in a bright golden color, mirroring my right eye. On the other leg I had a pattern of angular lines wrapping it in the same purple color of my left eye.

I tried to wipe my eyes again, this time getting my arm about three inches from my face before it slapped down on the ground, twitching slightly with the exertion of underdeveloped muscles.

"Here," said my father's voice from behind me, as a cloth wiped at my eyes, cleaning the red liquid from them. "I expected your body to change with the level, but nowhere near this much."

"What do you mean you expected this?" I asked, with all the incredulity I could manage in my voice, which seemed far deeper than before, if quite a bit hoarse. "You mean that you expected me to be cut into pieces after slapping a few lumps of rock while you stabbed them?"

My father chuckled nervously for a moment before he spoke. "There's a trait that all races have that can't be measured by attributes. That trait is mental maturity. When you reach your first level before reaching physical maturity, your body is changed to match your mental maturity, while also reaching the baselines of physical maturity if your mind isn't there already. Sometimes, this makes a person's mind change to match their maturity, but this throws off development, making them unstable or unfit for society in some rare cases. But for you to change so much, you must be more mature than some of our prodigies." He paused here, catching his breath, as he handed me a wrapped object. "Before I continue, eat this."

I obeyed, still too shocked from the pain to do much else and opened the package. Inside I found a neatly made sandwich, that seemed nearly to be glowing. As I grabbed it, a shock raced through my arm, snapping me out of my stupor. I raised it to my mouth, somewhat curious as to what it would feel like if I ate it. When I bit down, it felt like I had eaten a lightning bolt. The sandwich tasted like a mix of smoked ham and a hamburger, with a sweet sauce in it. My eyes widened as a rush of energy hit me, causing my arms to spasm, before it settled into my solar plexus.

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It was then that I realized that I had been able to move my arm after touching the small meal. Deciding to experiment, I tried to lift my arm up to my face. When it moved easier than it ever had in my smaller body, I tried to stand and got on my feet easily but fell in a few seconds. I had a higher center of gravity compared to before, so I had to stand differently, with a different angle to my body.

After another five minutes of trying to stand, I finally managed it, with my legs barely shaking under the new weight. As I started taking my first step I stumbled and planted my right leg down harder than I'd meant to stabilize. Immediately, I felt a burning sensation in my leg and the opposing eye, before I lifted my leg again, causing the burning to fade. Feeling at my eye, it felt the same as it had before, although when I closed my right eye, everything seemed kind of golden around me, and I could see a slight pattern flowing through the air.

I turned to my father, expecting him to exclaim at whatever just happened, but his eyes seemed to have glazed over, as he stared out over the bloody patch where I had been lying. The blood was surrounding where I had been, leaving the outline of my new body, with dozens of lines covering it and a smaller outline, nearly filled with blood within. Then the blood started to move, collecting into a small puddle, before rising into an orb, with lines forming the same patterns as on my legs surrounding it, each on one side. Then the orb split, forming into two carved balls of blood, before flying towards me, slamming into my claws, changing them to a deep red color, before the blood soaked in, leaving me with red lines mirroring my legs.

I turned to my father and, before I could persuade myself otherwise, spoke. "All of this stuff with the massive changes to my body, and the blood lines on my arms, and whatever these things on my legs are seems really coincidental right, or is it just me?"

Suddenly, my father laughed and rose off the ground where he was sitting. He walked over and slapped me on the back, almost making me fall before he spoke. "You're right about that, but it's probably just a side effect of such a massive change physically. Now, before we get further of track, back to what I was saying about maturity. If you managed to mature your body so far, then evolving at the racial threshold would likely make you on a level equal with me, even with years more to strengthen. You are possibly the strongest of our current generation, but I can't be sure. Anyways, there was one more reason I wanted to get you to this level right now." He smiled at me, then threw me over his shoulder and began running towards a small mountain of rocks and metal. "It's time for you to try out some magic."