"Now just follow my lead, and let the energy flow through you," said my father, as he led me through several circular motions, drawing what felt like molasses through my chest and arms. As it neared the tips of my claws, I felt a prickling feeling in them and they began to vibrate.
The molasses in my veins began to speed through, tearing into my claws with the force of a bull. As the claws shattered into dust, half of the world turned golden, and the dust formed into a swirling black and gold cloud, shimmering around my hands with their oddly jointed fingers twitching as the powder rammed into them from all sides. After a moment of swirling, the dust cloud split in two, half forming into a row of gilded horns floating over my head and down my back, and the other half into a small single edged sword in my hands.
The horns were black stone with cracks of a deep golden color running through them, and a flame burning on their tips. The horns followed the track of my spine, before ending in a larger horn moving and swaying like a tail at my hips. The sword in my hands was a solid black blade, with a groove along the spine filled with a solid golden light that burned into a second edge of flames along the back, with small cracks sliding into the blade. The handle was filled with empty grooves forming geometric patterns, before curving like a saber into a vicious barb.
I turned to my father to ask if this was unusual, but he just stared directly at the blade in my hands with a blank expression and slack jaw. He turned to me, looking as though he were about to say something important, before he broke into a grin and started walking closer.
"Well, this is turning out to be quite a day of -"
Ding! New Trait Subskill discovered. Congratulations for discovering the skill Physics Manipulation: Compressed Blade, Tier 1. Description: Compress your unique energies along with materials unique to your race into a blade sharper and stronger than any metal. Depending on the energies used in crafting the blade it will have different effects.
Using Goldflame in the creation of the blade will apply an infernal effect to the blade, giving it an affinity against celestial beings, and the ability to burn through most natural materials.
Using Helvenical Stardust will apply a Makor effect on the blade, giving an affinity against void beasts, and the ability to create a solid blade path in its wake.
Instead of listening to my father speak, I had the longest message I'd seen yet flash across my vision, with a sound loud enough to deafen me for a moment.
"-which is why we should go stab some rock monsters!" My father had a giddy look on his face, with his claws shaking and briefly taking the shapes of daggers.
I turned to him blankly, not having heard anything but an excited chattering about surprise, and an invitation to stab lumps of rock.
"I'm sorry, I got something called a subskill after making this, what did you say?"
My father sighed, before brightening immediately. "I said that I've never seen someone produce a weapon with their first attempt at manipulating the physical laws holding their claws, and that we should test that sword, but that's not important right now. We should still test it, but you said you got a subskill?" he paused here, waiting until I nodded before continuing. "A subskill of our racial magic is very rare, as generally all laws are controlled, or at least a grouping of them. If only one is used, or a certain combination, it can form a subskill which will make the manipulation of those laws stronger. If anything, this makes the need to experiment even greater."
Before I could say a word edgewise, my father grabbed my arm and took a single step, dragging both of us the full three quarters of a mile to the center of the crater, barely an inch from the gravity well's field of effect, before spinning me around to face outwards towards the crater. Immediately, a half dozen of the stone and metal beasts appeared around us, with the holes in their heads directed towards us, the spinning orbs of energy within churning and stretching.
[Unnamed Gravity Elemental, Level 3.71]
[Unnamed Gravity Elemental, Level 2.13]
[Unnamed Gravity Elemental, Level 1.80]
[Unnamed Gravity Elemental, Level 4.63]
[Unnamed Gravity Elemental, Level 2.40]
[Unnamed Gravity Elemental, Level 1.12]
And then from directly in the middle of the gravity well behind us erupted one massive monstrosity, made of pitch-black stone and a white metal, surrounded by a cloud of metal blades pulsing in and out from it. When it turned its massive head towards us, three holes of a deep golden color stared at us, pushing out a field of energy that moved everything away from it into a sphere of dust and dirt.
[Hazzath, Greater Gravity Elemental, Level 15.74]
I turned to my father, expecting him to laugh whatever he was doing off and kill all the monsters like he had before, but all he did was give me a small smile, and gesture towards the weakest of the beasts, as though telling me to attack it. Sighing, I decided it would be better to fight these than have my father just watch as I was surrounded and force him to act. During the time I was taken over by that false soul I had discovered that my father didn't enjoy being disappointed and would often remain quiet with a small and unsettling frown when he was.
Stepping forward, I took a jab at the smallest monster, barely scratching it with the tip of my blade.
Immediately a massive amount of the flame on the spine of my sword separated and ran down to the tip, following one of the cracks already in place. Upon contact with the creature the flame surrounded the rock it had touched completely, igniting it into a ball of pearlescent gold flame that spread to the rest of its body, turning it all to a pile of ash.
I felt completely drained, almost like I had run a full lap around my home in the infant body I had had before, with barely enough energy to stumble away from the smoldering ashes and back towards my father.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Ding! You have gained 0.10 level progression.
I tried to mentally push the message away from my vision as I continued stumbling towards my father and got another message overlaying it instead.
Interpreting request...
...
Interpretation complete. Would you like to disable system messages during combat?
Yes. No.
Mentally I clicked on the yes button, and immediately the message vanished, replaced with a small box of notifications in the corner of my vision labeled as a "message log".
Then I got smacked in the back of the head.
Turning towards my father, I exclaimed in protest, before I realize there was a liquid running down my neck, and that I could suddenly move easily again. Still annoyed, I turned to my father and tried to ask him to call off the elementals, but he spoke first.
"That water should be enough to keep you going for at least an hour, even with how drained using that sword seems to make you. Now go stab some stuff." He slapped me again, this time on the back and suddenly I was less than a foot from the nearest of the monsters, a lupine beast, my hand with the sword swinging wildly and stabbing it by accident. It immediately burnt into a pile of ash, and I could feel the same emptiness I had before, only this time it vanished nearly immediately, and I felt as good as I had when I first tried to manipulate the stone of my claws. When the next monster came towards me, one of the level twos, I stabbed out at it wildly and caught it in the hole in its head, causing the entirety of the flame on the back of the blade to rush inwards, changing the energy from a swirling ball of light to a rolling flame that spread over the entire creature. When the flame passed, it wasn't turned to ash like I had expected, but had a golden coat of fur, with two silver horns curling over its wolflike heads, and four pairs of deep indigo eyes staring at me.
The creature bowed its head towards me, closing all of its eyes, and I heard a voice in my head. Hello there, master. Our name is Regis, and we are the heads of the Infernal Fire Sect, and your new servant.
Surprised by the sudden voice in my head, I shouted in a pitch far higher than I had ever made, as a baby or in my current body. I tried to run away from the two headed wolf, but it kept up with me easily, matching me step for step until I reached the next of the monsters, slashing it with my sword lazily in my attempt to escape.
When the cut didn't immediately burn the stone monster to ash, the wolf jumped at it with a howl of pleasure, tearing into the energy within with both of its heads, devouring it like a bread roll given to a starving child.
We understand master, sounded the voice in my head again. You wish for us to tear into these beasts by your side. We will do our utmost to please. A moment later, the elemental the wolf was mauling crumbled into stone, and it moved onto the next, tearing into it again.
Afraid and confused, I looked away from the two headed beast and ran towards the next of the monsters. As I neared it, it sent out a golden blast towards me, moving faster than a horse, that tore through the air all around me, leaving empty pockets of nothing in its wake, pulling the ground around inwards, growing in size the whole time. As it was getting closer to my head, I moved out my arm as though to block the whirling sphere with my bare skin, but the spikes along my back moved forwards over my arm, creating a shield that stopped the golden air in front of me.
A moment after being stopped, the ball of energy condensed, before exploding in a wave of air, earth, and pure gravity. All around me the dust was kicked up and obliterated by the wind and debris, before being pulled through the air with a loud boom by the wave of pure attractive force.
I could feel the silver hair on my head flowing wildly around me, moving at a speed and angle far beyond the normal wave like movements they showed. The shield that had come from my horns was missing, but I was completely uninjured, and the tail of black and gold spikes I had before returned.
When I looked over the area that had been caught in the blast, I saw a crater the size of a small fishing boat, with a small perfect ball of stone lying in the center. Across the hole in the ground the remaining beast not occupied with the odd creature that came from the gold fire came charging towards me.
The beast was similar in shape to a boar, with an extra pair of legs and a single horn of metal scraps extending over its snout, which began to glow with a swirling gold color, before an orb much like the one shot at me formed at the tip. After seeing the force the previous explosion contained, I knew I didn't want to be hit directly by the one forming now, and so I shot towards the creature, running across the crater, kicking up small clouds of dust within until I crossed halfway, when the orb fired from the beast's horn.
The orb shot towards me at that point, tearing through the air and ground in a straight line towards me. As it neared, I started to run faster, until I was a quarter of the way from the beast, nearly out of the crater. One step later, and the orb exploded just beyond the halfway point of the crater, pushing me forwards on a curtain of air and dust, before a loud sucking sound could be heard behind me, and then the clash of stone on stone.
As I lay on my back, stunned, I heard a repeating thumping sound, and realized that the boar monster was running towards me, crossing the remaining few yards until it hit me. I tried to scramble up to my feet, but still couldn't move from the explosion knocking the wind from my lungs. Desperately, I scraped my hands along the ground, pulling myself a few feet to the side, towards the black sword in the ground.
When my hand brushed the handle, a trail of the fire on the spine rushed onto my finger, jolting my body into a spasm, pulling me a solid three feet towards it, just out of the charging boar's path.
As I stumbled up from my crouched position holding my sword, I turned slightly and saw the boar with its single horn stuck in a rock nearby, stuck.
Running over, having regained my senses, I plunged my knife into its back, burning the stones into a bright metallic flame that left a plain ash on the ground. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the horned wolf calling itself Regis finish ripping the core of the beast it fought in two, swallowing quickly before running towards me.
Still afraid of the wolf, I started running towards my father, still standing as he had been throughout the entire fight, a small smile on his face as he watched me. The wolf still caught up with me, paws pounding into the ground beside my hooves as we neared the safety shown by the center of the Crater. A moment before reaching my father, the system deemed that I was no longer in combat.
Message Log:
Ding! You have gained 0.10 level progression.
Ding! New effect of Goldflame discovered. When imbued into an attack that directly strikes the core of an inorganic monster, the beast begins to change into a demonic servant of the wielder of the Goldflame while it is being channeled. Maximum two servants.
Ding! You have gained 0.15 level progression.
Ding! You have gained 0.17 level progression.
Ding! You have gained 0.20 level progression.
After reading through the messages, I realized what the wolf, Regis I corrected myself, was. If I could have two servants like the wolf, I would be much safer in a fight. It was a shame I hadn't realized sooner, but the past couldn't be changed.
I turned towards my father, about to ask if I had done enough experimenting for him, when the big beast reminded us of its presence.