It had been Alan's belief that once he had the Class Scroll in hand, his anticipation would far outweigh the near-paralysing anxiety that was currently coursing through his veins. He was wrong. No sooner had he laid eyes on the scroll, than his stomach began fluttering nervously.
What exactly was waiting for him within that decrepit piece of rolled up parchment? There was only one way to find out. Only now he was suddenly filled to bursting with reasons why it would make more sense to hold off. Why are you in such a hurry? His mind demanded of him. Slow down, and think this through. Wouldn't it make more sense to get acclimated to your current Skills and abilities, before so casually piling another helping of confusion right on top of the mess that you are already struggling to sift through?
“Quit being a bitch,” Alan shook his head from side to side and stated vehemently in an attempt to dislodge his fears. There were risks, sure, and he was basically clueless as to what was going to happen when he opened the scroll. Most likely the initial Class Skills wouldn't actually do very much good at the early Levels. However, unless he sucked it up and used the scroll, all he could do was continue making uneducated guesses.
“I really should've asked Reggie more about Classes in general…” Alan said wistfully. Everything he knew about Classes was secondhand information at best. One thing he knew for certain was that Su'ong had once mentioned something about Class Skill Points, so all he had was that one little nugget of information to go off of.
As for the Nature Attunement the [Warden of Blight] Class was said to provide? He had no clue what that was about. Nor did he really understand what the difference between an Attunement and an Affinity was.
From what he understood, having an Elemental Affinity meant your body was better able to interact with the stated Element. Affinities gave one better control over that particular Element. Although he had yet to figure out how, they were also supposed to allow him to boost his attacks by applying Elemental damage.
Simultaneously, posessing an Affinity seemed to reduce the energy and casting times required for the listed Element, while increasing those of the remaining Elements.
As for what exactly having an Attunement accomplished, well, that was open to interpretation. It was Alan's belief that if an Affinity was a modification to the body, than an Attunement most likely pertained to altering the body's Energy Pools at a more fundamental level.
Aside from altering the Mana Pool, which seemed to be the most logical conclusion, Alan couldn't even say for sure if the Stamina or HP Pools would be affected by an Attunement. Once again, all he had to go on were guesses. The only factual information he had about Attunements came from Su'ong, and those were all confusing, and somewhat conflicting.
Su'ong was said to possess an innate Attunement to the Water Element, yet due to something the Dungeon did to her Core, her Water Attunement had been sealed away and replaced by a temporary Earth Attunement. It was easy enough to understand at the surface Level, but when Alan put any real thought into the mechanics of how something like that would be accomplished, he just wound up with a shitload of mostly-pointless questions, and the echoes of an oncoming headache.
Only one of those questions stood out as being relevant to his current dilemma. Could Celestial Energy even be Attuned? The more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed. Nature attuned Mana was still Mana after all. And Mana was but a tiny fragment of what constituted Celestial Energy. Alan was sorely lacking on factual information about his unknown energy source, but if he wasn't mistaken, it was made up of every flavor of Mana.
When the System had helped him to Evolve, it insisted that Alan had been chosen by the Fire, Water, and Earth Elements. Which made sense when taking into account that those were his current affinities. However, while those were the Elements that had provided special attention to his Evolution, they weren't the only ones that had shown interest in him.
Upon arriving in that strange, boundless sea of Mana currents, Alan had been touched by countless energy signatures of both known, and unknown origins. And each time one of them had passed through his body, something he was able to feel, yet unable to explain was left behind. Had the hidden gifts they were so eager to provided him with somehow used to help complete his Celestial Energy without him being aware of what was happening?
Again, he had no real way to know. “I'm just procrastinating at this point…” Alan said, focusing on the sound of his own voice. Using the noise as a means of distraction from his thoughts, Alan inhaled a long, slow breath, and shoved his nail under the illusion-inducing seal as gently as was possible with his awkwardly shaped fingers. Making sure not to damage the parchment in the process, Alan separated the stamped wax from the scroll, while avoiding direct eye contact with the deceptively realistic scenery contained within the seal.
Having already opened multiple varieties, Alan was no stranger to the use of Scrolls. Normally, having experience with something would've instilled him with at least a modicum of confidence. But in this case, all it accomplished was needlessly increasing his worries. The only information he had to go off of were the varied effects of the different scrolls he had opened up thus far.
Operating in a similar fashion to the [Healing Fog] Spell Book, only far less painful, the Spell Scrolls had delivered a heavy payload of knowledge in the form of pinpricks of vividly colored light. Each jarring flash had downloaded, and then rapidly unpackaged a deluge of information directly into his mind.
On the other hand, the single Technique Scroll that he had come across was more like being subjected to an illusory display of the Technique it contained. Hovering above the scenery, it had almost felt to Alan like he was watching in real-time as the tiny green woman Azala used [Mirage Step], in conjunction with her massive leaf blade, to to bring about a swift end to the Foxman who she had referred to as 'Bleeding Axe '.
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No flashing lights, no flashing lights, no flashing lights…
It was with those thoughts in mind that Alan performed a silent chant, and unrolled the [Warden of Blight] Class Scroll. Contrary to any of his expectations, the moment he began to unravel it, the ancient, and heartbreakingly brittle scroll was reduced to a worthless plume of grey dust that fell through his fingers
“No, No, No!“ Alan shouted, making a sad, and desperate attempt to catch as many of the dispersing fragments as he could. “What the fuck is going on…” he moaned, staring down in abject horror at the grey, ashy substance that now stained his palms.
Aww come on Reggie! What kind of cheap-ass bullshit is this? All of that build-up for a handful of dirt!? You've gotta be fucking kidding me man!.. While it was an unanticipated, and bewildering turn of events, truth be told, he wasn't all that upset about it.
Right as he began to rationalize away the loss of his potential Class, Alan sighted the slightest hint of movement from out of the corner of his eye. It was hard to be certain, but if he wasn't mistaken, those tiny dust particles were beginning to move towards one another.
What do we have here?
At first, Alan thought it must've been a trick of his imagination. However, a few seconds of close study was all that it took to realize that in fact, that very same substance seemed to be gathering together and transforming in very subtle ways. In the span of a breath, what started off as a casual smear had already grown into a spread out cluster of what looked to be tiny grey blisters lining the surface of his hand.
They were ballooning outwards at a shocking pace.
Alan leaned his head in to get a better view of what exactly was transpiring when, stretched beyond capacity, the first of the unsightly blisters popped. One by one, the rest followed suit, coating his face and neck in a blinding grey haze.
“Gross! What the fuck?!“ Face pinched with disgust, Alan shouted out in surprise and began to cough. Realizing that he probably should've kept his mouth closed, Alan grimaced and shut his trap. Whatever this shit was, it had the overpowering stench of mildew and decay. As bad as it smelled, Alan was beginning to understand that it tasted much, much worse.
The painless blisters were now forming over every inch of his exposed scales, and to make matters even more concerning, he was beginning to see strange black vein-like tendrils spreading out from blister to blister. Painting his body in a grotesque network of interconnected lines that soon formed archaic patterns that shifted and wriggled in a dizzying manner if he tried to focus on them.
Although the unsightly markings appeared slowly at first, each new blister that was added to the system sped up the process at an alarming rate. Beginning to panic, and acting before fully considering the consequences, Alan tried to interrupt the spread of the veins by brushing them off of his body. Attempting to rub the markings away was proven to be a mistake. One that ended with Alans hands fixed to his chest as if by an otherworldly glue.
Fearing that he was about to be completely overtaken by some unknown plague, Alan's thoughts turned to the lake. If he could make it into the water, perhaps he could attract the Chub's into helping him out. While it wasn't much of a plan, it was the best idea he could come up with on such short notice.
Unfortunately, when he tried to stand, Alan realized that while he was distracted by the spread of the blisters, he had failed to notice they were also sprouting from the ground all around him. Everywhere that a single particle of the rank grey dust had landed was now covered in the strange patterns of sticky, black veins.
Pulsing and writhing, they had already spread out to encompass his entire body, leaving him effectively glued to the floor. Locked in place, the only upside to the situation Alan could find was that while his mouth certainly tasted like someone fed him a shit-sandwich, nothing seemed to be growing in his mouth. At least not yet.
The realization of what was happening to him hit Alan like a ton of bricks. He was completely immobilized, and at the mercy of an unknown substance that was quickly overgrowing his body. For a moment, he considered trying to contact Su'ong. Yet with how easily Alan had been overcome, he feared what would happen if she were to try to intervene.
The blisters continued to swell. Ballooning until they inevitably popped, but it was plain to see that they were slowing down. Now that Alan was fully covered, and unable to move, the process abruptly changed directions. Unable to do anything but watch through eyes that were now forcibly held open, Alan saw the countless blisters on, and around him shrivel up and flake away.
At the same time, as if having consumed the organism that allowed it to come into existence, the vein-like lines started to swell. In less time than Alan would've thought possible, they were bigger around than his wrist, and pulsing in tune with his heartbeat. It was as if he had been bound in place by the sickly roots of an ancient, and dying tree.
The bindings were unmistakably rotten, and teeming with a layer of bacteria so thick as to be visible with the naked eye. Alan couldn't be sure if it was the roots, the bacteria, or both, but something smelled like a pungent mixture of soil and shit. Added to the lingering scent of decay, it was overwhelming.
Alan gagged uncontrollably, struggling without success to break free. It was nearly impossible to breathe without coughing, and Alan was growing lightheaded from dry heaving.
Antenna-like stalks with glowing golden tips soon began to break through the surface of the roots. Writhing like the royal class of tiny white worms that had been forced to flee their blighted palace due to a heavy rain, they straightened out, and began to grow.
Had his eyes not been glued open, Alan would've narrowed his brows with concern. His vision was blurred, but he could still see that the once-tiny growths were swiftly sprouting into golden capped mushrooms. Before Alan could get a better idea of what he was dealing with, all at once, as if synchronized with one another, the underside of the mushroom caps tore, deploying a cloud of grey spores that blocked his sight of anything further than a foot in front of his face.
Although nearly blinded, and now completely unable to safely draw a breath, Alan watched as the mushrooms dispersed their payload, and almost immediately started to shrivel up and die. Instead of being the end of the line, the process only intensified as the fresh spores clung to the failing mushrooms, and used them as a source of nourishment. Due to the sacrifice of their predecessors it took less than a minute for the next round of mushrooms to finish growing.
What the fuck is going on here? Alan wondered. Had some kind of a self defense mechanism been triggered when the Scroll disintegrated? Or was this how Class Scrolls normally functioned? Both were relevant questions, equally worthy of further study.
If he wasn't in the midst of being eaten by what he could only assume to be some kind of a fungal plant monster, he might've considered doing just that.