Taxation was even more annoying. He didn’t know what to set it to, so he simply set it to the lowest possible tax level that was available. When he did, he noticed that his personal Etherium number appeared in the Planetary management system instead of his own, but he could still draw on it. He supposed it was telling him that his personal net worth was now connected to the planet, instead of simply himself. As long as he could access it offplanet, he didn’t care, and the Voice assured him that he could.

Strangely enough, there was no option to unlock Tax Management for individual cities. Instead, they received a portion of all the dungeon taxes collected.

Serenity shrugged to himself. He knew there was some way to do that because of what he’d seen in the Necropolis on Tzintkra, so it was probably something about the way each City’s rules were written. Or perhaps it was simply something the Voice hadn’t opened up yet. It wasn’t important at this point; the economy didn’t run on Etherium anyway. It was just another commodity.

He left Aki’s interface and went to go find Rissa; it was time to look into the shapeshifting thing and he wanted her there when he did it. He told himself that it was because he needed another set of eyes to see how well he’d done, but he knew that wasn’t the only reason.

He simply didn’t want to look too hard at what other reasons he might have.

----------------------------------------

Realize Potential

Use Potential drawn through the Rift to temporarily gain something from your Heritage. Variable Cost.

“You’re right, that’s awfully vague.” Rissa leaned back against the pillows supporting her back. She’d insisted that he try it out outside (or as outside as anything in a dungeon was, at least).

Serenity thought she just wanted to spend more time in the sunlight, and how could he blame her for that? At least she wasn’t hiding from it.

Once she was settled in comfortably, Rissa continued. “This still looks like the way to get your shapeshifting to work. I’m not sure how you should start?”

“Probably with shapeshifting,” Serenity mused out loud. Unlike Rissa, he was standing near the blanket; if he was going to experiment, he didn’t want to be too close. Just in case. “Or, hm. Maybe I need to start with pulling Potential through the Rift, so with Rift Control, then feed it through this and into a Heritage, then shapeshift.”

That sounded more like what the Skill said, so it was likely to be the right order. There was only one other thing he needed to do first. “What Heritage should I try first? I don’t know if it’ll have permanent or temporary effects, so there are some I don’t want to try.”

Serenity pulled the list and shared it with Rissa.

Heritages

Chimeric

Pure (Innate)

Essence Dragon (Primary)

Asura

Child of Time, Unbound

Dhampir, Essence/Mana

Draugr, Sage

Elemental, Essence

Elemental, Mana

Godling

Human, Earth

Lich, Paramount (Primary)

Vampire, Daywalker

Potential, Sovereign

Wraith, Nightmare

Other Known Heritages

Azata, Lightning

Curse Witch

Healing Light

Hexen

Heavens’ Fire

Jiang-Shi

Knight of Blood

Malevolent Spark

Mote of Decay

Mote of Stasis

Mummy

Remnant Wisp of Life

Revenant, Star

Sea Lion, Earth

Rissa grinned and winked. “All of the death and undead ones, right?”

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“Mostly just the undead ones,” Serenity agreed. “Not that I have much Death-related that isn’t also undead.”

“There are a bunch of these we can just wipe off the list,” Rissa agreed. “I assume you want to start with the Chimeric ones? Why don’t you just try Human? Won’t that be the best for the disguise?”

Serenity stared at the choice. “Probably. I’m not sure if it’s the one to try first, though, it’s not that different and I already have a supposedly human form.”

“Hmm.” Rissa seemed to think for a moment. Serenity did the same, limiting the list. He had no idea what Pure meant but it could go; it probably wouldn’t do anything since it was “innate” which made it a bad choice to start with. He also discarded all of the options he already had as forms. There was a good chance he might be able to gain some of these as forms, after all. He’d definitely want to try something with Human later, but not as his first trial.

That left Asura, Child of Time, Dhampir, two elemental options, Godling, Vampire, and Wraith. Vampire and Wraith were disqualified for being undead, but Serenity left Dhampir on the list for now. It wasn’t exactly undead, after all, even if it sort of was. His version was really more of an elemental. Just as importantly, it hid what it was naturally.

“If you want something really different and not undead, I think your only real options are Asura, Godling, or an elemental. Or heading down to the second list, there are a few on there that might work.” Rissa’s comments followed Serenity’s thoughts; she’d skipped Child of Time and Dhampir, but otherwise the list was the same.

Serenity wasn’t so certain he wanted to discard Child of Time, yet at the same time he knew it was the reason his chimera form was technically blind for quite a while. It was definitely nonhuman, but did he really want to blind himself again?

Asura and Godling were both extremely vague, as well as being similar to each other. All they really meant was “powerful being”, after all. So they’d probably look essentially human unless there was something Serenity didn’t know. That was always possible; he didn’t know where they’d come from, and Asura at least predated his return through Time.

“I think I’ll try an Elemental. Mana, maybe? I’m better with mana than I am with Essence, so that seems to make sense. With Chimera as the base Form, I think; that way if there are any issues it shouldn’t cause problems.” After all, he knew his Chimera form was going to change; that was what it did.

Serenity waited for Rissa’s nod, then opened the Rift and started pulling Potential through the Rift.

It was an odd process. The area around them didn’t change at all, but at the same time everything felt more vivid and real. Serenity felt like this was how the place was supposed to be, yet at the same time he knew it was unsustainable. It was right, but it didn’t belong here.

Serenity idly wondered where it did belong, but he couldn’t spend long thinking about it. Instead, he used Rift Control to direct the Potential towards himself.

Triggering an active Skill for the first time was usually simple, but the vaguer they were the harder it was, and this one was very vague. Serenity also had no idea what his Heritages really did, so it would be hard to even trigger Multiform. Normally all he had to do for that was activate it and concentrate - visualize - what he wanted to become. Both Forms.

In a moment of worry, Serenity realized he hadn’t picked his second Form. He’d been using it as armor so much lately that he hadn’t even considered it. Well, there was an easy option: the Crystal Hilt. Unlike armor, he didn’t have to make any decisions or concentrate on what it should look like, it just was.

So a Crystal Hilt and a Mana-Elemental Chimera.

The shift was strange. Not the armor-to-sword shift; he’d gotten used to that. Instead, it was the shift from his normal Chimera self to one “taking characteristics from” a Mana Elemental. Serenity had the very strong feeling that he could have guided it more than he did, but he didn’t know what direction to guide it in. He didn’t even know what the options were.

Instead, he simply accepted what he was given. It wasn’t everything possible; that was immediately clear, even though how it was obvious wasn’t clear. Serenity suspected that someone else would have seen it as a vision, but he’d long since taught himself to see magic as spellforms.

This was an intricate spellform.

He was an intricate spellform. At the same time, he knew he was a spellform only because of the influence of the Heritage of the Mana Elemental.

At the same time, Serenity had a seemingly physical form; it was wispy and insubstantial, but it was there. It was clearly created by the spellform that was him in response to his thoughts. He tried to speak, but he heard nothing.

He really hoped this worked. :Rissa, can you hear me?:

:Yes. Can’t you hear me? Out loud, I mean? Is that why you’re sending?: There was a feeling of concern in Rissa’s mental voice. He still didn’t know how she did that, but it had to be his lack rather than something unusual she did. Aki did something very similar, after all.

Serenity shook his head. :No, I can’t hear anything. I think I’m not solid. Maybe not even as solid as air. So I can’t hear anything because I’m not there to hear it.:

:Huh. Well, at least we know it works.: Rissa visibly separated her arms in an exaggerated shrug towards Serenity. :I think the next step is to see how long you can hold it, but probably not this shape. This shape … no, the next step is to see if you can undo it. If you can’t, we need to know.:

Serenity closed his eyes as he nodded. He was sure there was all sorts of potential present in the Mana Elemental Heritage, but this wasn’t the time to try to explore it. He needed a disguise, and it wasn’t going to give him that.

He reached for Multiform, knowing he didn’t need to shift his Hilt form, but he definitely wanted to shift back to his normal Chimera form.

It was difficult. The Potential he had humming through himself was very stable, enhancing his Mana Elemental Heritage. He had to yank at it with Rift Control before Multiform would even recognize that this wasn’t his normal Chimera form. Once it did, the shift was fast and Serenity was left standing surrounded in a cloud of Potential with an oddly Mana-like feeling.

“Can you hear now?” Rissa spoke softly and calmly, as though she’d said it several times before.

Serenity shook himself. He didn’t feel like any of his muscles were tight, but at the same time it felt like they should be even though they weren’t. “Yeah, I can hear again. That was something else.”

Serenity frowned while he took stock of his body as best he could. “As far as I can tell, it didn’t affect anything permanently. There’s just this cloud to deal with.”

“Cloud?” Rissa looked at the area he’d indicated, but it was obvious she couldn’t see the haze of Potential.

Serenity shared his vision; it was the only way he could think of to show her. While she watched, he started pulling the remnant Potential together, packing it into a small area he could handle all at once. He intended to send it back through the Rift, but before he got there it suddenly shimmered, seemed to solidify, and started falling instead of floating.

Serenity caught it with his hand. He more than half expected it to go right through his hand, since Potential wasn’t actually solid, but it was still reflex to catch things that suddenly fall.

It splashed in his hand like a drop of liquid.

“What’s that?” Rissa’s question perfectly matched Serenity’s thoughts, and Identify was clearly the next step.

Drop of Mana

Also known as the blood of a Mana Elemental, this liquid can be harvested from a Mana Elemental under the correct conditions. While rare and highly pure, its value is limited by the sheer quantity of monster cores, which are often used for similar purposes in crafting. The one known unique use of the “blood” is to awaken the extremely rare dormant bloodline of the mana elemental. Without proper preparation, this awakening is temporary and may cause damage to the user.