Primal alchemy
When she finally came to, she felt... different, stronger, more aware of her own body, no not the body, the mana coursing through it. She felt it flowing through her veins, aware of it's every movement. It felt strangely pleasant to her. After mulling it over she decided to chalk it up to her new [beastly instincts] skill, it supposedly let her sense mana after all.
After calming down from the sensory overload she sat down in her sigil and pulled up her construct, deciding to go over her new gains.
[name: - ]
[first archetype: primal beast]
[mana: 34/35 (42 allocated) (24 divine gifts)]
* Arcane mana: 9/10 (18 allocated) (4 divine gift)
* Primal mana 4/4 (0 allocated) (4 divine gift)
* Earth mana: 7/7 (9 allocated) (4 divine gift)
* Poison mana: 6/6 (15 allocated) (4 divine gift)
* Nature mana: 4/4 (0 allocated) (4 divine gift)
* Life mana: 4/4 (0 allocated) (4 divine gift)
[stats] (8 allocated) (22 divine gifts)
* Strength 10 (+4)
* Dexterity 4 (+2)
* Agility 8 (+3)
* Vitality 7 (+6)
* Toughness 7 (+4)
* Intelligence 3 (+1)
* Wisdom 4 (+2)
[skills] (21 allocated)
* anger (low) 2 (20% effectiveness)
* primal field (mid)
* beastly instincts 1 (mid)
* stone strength organs 1 (mid)
* fear resistance 2 (low) (10% effect)
* poisonous breath 1 (low)
* refine poison (low)
[perks]
* primal inheritance (high)
[poisons]
* weak endothermic poison (gas) 3 poison mana
* weak poison (gas) 2 poison mana
* weak hallucinetic poison (gas) 2 poison mana
[available skills]
* primal alchemy (mid) (16 arcane mana | 4 primal mana)
* pain resistance (low) (18 mana)
The first thing she noticed was that her contract was dividing divinely gifted mana from regular mana, as well as stats. Actually now that I think about it why is it called divine mana if it came from getting my archetype? Does that mean the construct is connected to the divine? She mused to herself before dismissing the thought as irrelevant, it didn't matter where the power came from, all that mattered is that she had become stronger.
Next up was her mana pool, she had lost her water mana, which she was a bit upset about, but in return she had gotten more types of mana, which she felt quite happy about. She didn't know what primal mana was about, but she assumed it to be the core mana of her class, and as such didn't want to waste it. She had also gotten nature mana, and it's submana: life. She didn't know what to do with either if she was being honest, she debated just keeping them around but eventually decided to allocate life mana to her stats, increasing her strength by 2. It was her most important stat after all.
She had also gained [weak poison], which she felt quite happy about. Perhaps she might finally use her [poisonous breath] skill in the future.
And lastly she took another look at her perk: [primal inheritance]. Honestly it sounded great, with it she could grow stronger significantly faster, as long as she would be able to find a sufficient beast core, and thanks to her [beastly instincts] she knew exactly where to find one. The beast core in the massive rib cage would be sure to do the job. The real issue with that was how was she going to consume that monstrosity? There was no way that thing could fit in her stomach, it was several times larger than her!
With that train of thought her mind wandered to the [primal alchemy skill], considering her progression seemed to stem from eating beast cores, and the construct interpreted it as alchemy, wouldn't she be able to grow even faster? Then again it would cost all of her primal mana, something she wasn't very eager to use up yet.
After mulling it over she obtained the skill, deciding that it was too great a boon to pass it up. When she did so several new skills became available for purchase.
[available skills]
* condense brew (mid): instead of just enhancing the potency of a brew, you may also choose to condense it by inserting water type mana. water type mana may be substituted by it's submana types. - primal alchemy enhancement (4 poison mana)
* crystallize brew (mid): instead of just enhancing the potency of a brew, you may also choose to crystallize it by inserting earth mana, making it easier to carry around. - primal alchemy enhancement (4 earth mana)
* pain resistance (low) (18 mana)
As per usual her faithful construct gave her exactly what she needed, she loathed to spend more poison mana but she had already invested too much to quit now. She purchased the skill before closing the construct. It was time to get to work.
A few hours later she arrived at the massive beast core, being able to avoid the beasts roaming the cavern with the help of [beastly instincts]. She took out a spike, made from worm teeth, and placed it on the side on the core, before striking it with an impromptu hammer, and noticed the cracks appear in the orb. She wedged her spike into one of the cracks and struck again, this time a sizable chunk of the orb broke off.
Success.
She quickly brought the chunk to her camp, making sure to avoid beasts, before returning to the orb for another chunk. After doing this a few times she got startled by a growl, not of a beast, but from her own stomach.
Slightly embarrassed, she quickly located a lone worm, not entirely believing her [stone strength organs] up to the task of nullifying the charger poison on it's own. Just when she was about to attack it she realised something.
I'm not feeling angry? Is my [anger] skill malfunctioning? It seemed odd to her, it had always done its job before. Still, the worms weren't exactly dangerous opponents, so she had confidence she could still take one out without [anger].
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
She started off by throwing one of her hatchets at it, hitting it square on it's wormy middle, before dashing in, brandishing her dagger. The worm jumped up, trying to get to her before she got to it, but she simply pushed her dagger through the bottom of it's head. She knew it wouldn't be a very difficult battle, but this easy?
Stats must have a pretty large effect I guess, I'm a little disappointed it was this easy if I'm being honest. Her own thoughts surprised her, since when did she start to think like this? She quickly berated herself for it, the easier the opponent the better. But if she was being honest she wasn't so sure of those words anymore.
She quickly put the thought away, instead deciding to focus her thoughts on her meal, which wasn't that difficult considering how hungry she was feeling.
When she arrived at camp prepared and ate her meal with bliss, why did it taste so much better than before? Probably the hunger. she thought to herself as she took another bite from the meat. Surprisingly one slab of meat wasn't enough to fill her stomach, so she started roasting another one. This cycle continued on for a while until she finally felt blissfully full, and decided to call it a day.
If she was being honest with herself she doubted it would feel comfortable moving around with that much meat in her stomach, it was a bit surprising how much she had eaten, but she'd be lying if she said it wasn't enjoyable. Well for surviving in this hellhole I can treat myself every now and then, not like anybody is around to judge. She mused to herself, before sleep took her mind.
----------------------------------------
Over the span of the next few days she systematically broke down the massive beast core and brought the chunks to her camp. During the time she was doing this she also noticed her hunger had increased significantly, she easily ate thrice the amount of food she used to eat, which disturbed her a little bit if she was being honest. But eventually she just decided to accept it, since she couldn't really do much about that.
All in all she believed the hauling process went relatively smoothly, the real problem was the grinding part however. Her new [condense brew] skill certainly did it's work, she could store about 5 bowl's worth of brew in the space of a single bowl, unfortunately that was also her limit.
Currently she was staring at the full bowl of murky green liquid, thinking to herself of a way to store more of the brew without having to make hundreds of bowls. As she was doing to a word, no, a concept appeared within her mind.
[crystallize brew]
While it appeared in her thoughts, it didn't feel like one of her thoughts, it felt alien to her, yet familiar. And after a few minutes of pondering she realised it was the same as the messages her construct showed her! Wait, it never did that before did it? If it did she sure as hell didn't remember.
Still, it was a good idea, so she said a quick "Thank you" to it before purchasing the skill in her sigil.
[Skill [crystallize brew] acquired]
She reached out to her brew before taking a few strokes of rigid mana, hoping it would be earth mana, before pushing it into the brew. Over the span of a minute she watched the brew grow into a more compact crystal, which was now sitting in her hand.
Hmm, I could probably cut this up and make it swallowable, that might be safer than turning it into a brew again. She thought to herself before continuing on her brew.
----------------------------------------
"Finally, I'm done!" echoed her voice through the caverns, she finally finished processing the beast core. It took her the better part of what she assumed to be three weeks, she still found it difficult to keep track of time in a cave, to process the beast core into 72 swallowable chunks.
During those weeks she had more or less gotten used to her new lifestyle, though she could do with a bit more comfort, a place to sleep that wasn't a stone floor would be nice. She even started to enjoy fighting a bit, although [anger] activated less and less.
She sat down in her sigil to take a last look at her progress before she got to the crystals.
[name: - ]
[first archetype: primal beast]
[mana: 9/24 (58 allocated) (24 divine gifts)]
* Arcane mana: 3/10 (18 allocated) (4 divine gift)
* Primal mana 0/0 (4 allocated) (4 divine gift)
* Earth mana: 0/4 (13 allocated) (4 divine gift)
* Poison mana: 2/5 (19 allocated) (4 divine gift)
* Nature mana: 4/4 (0 allocated) (4 divine gift)
* Life mana: 0/0 (4 allocated) (4 divine gift)
[stats] (8 allocated) (22 divine gifts)
* Strength 12 (+4)
* Dexterity 4 (+2)
* Agility 8 (+3)
* Vitality 7 (+6)
* Toughness 7 (+4)
* Intelligence 3 (+1)
* Wisdom 4 (+2)
[skills] (21 allocated)
* anger (low) 2 (20% effectiveness)
* primal field (mid)
* primal alchemist (mid)
* condense brew (mid)
* crystallize brew (mid)
* beastly instincts 2 (mid)
* stone strength organs 1 (mid)
* fear resistance 2 (low) (10% effect)
* poisonous breath 1 (low)
* refine poison (low)
[perks]
* primal inheritance (high)
[poisons]
* weak endothermic poison (gas) 3 poison mana
* weak poison (gas) 2 poison mana
* weak hallucinetic poison (gas) 2 poison mana
[available skills]
* pain resistance (low) (18 mana)
She felt pretty satisfied with how far she had come since she woke up between the corpses and almost died from a worm, she felt rather nostalgic towards it. With a satisfied hum she flicked a beast crystal in her mouth, and as she did so her construct asked her a question.
[Beast core with sufficient energy detected within your body, please consume the rest of the beast core before digestion in order to activate [primal inheritance] perk]
"Well I guess I'm not taking it slow as I hoped, oh well, bottoms up I guess" she said with a shrug, not noticing her new habit of talking to herself, before continuing to ingest the crystals one by one.
As had eaten half of the crystals her stomach started feeling pretty uncomfortable from having all the crystals moving around in it. "Ugh, note to self: copious amounts of crystals in my stomach is not a good time" she said with a groan, before continuing on anyways. What's some stomach pains to becoming strong right?
She swallowed crystal after crystal, becoming more uncomfortable by the second, until she finally swallowed the last one.
[Beast core fully consumed, activating [primal inheritance] perk in 6 hours, hibernation recommended]
"Well you haven't failed me yet construct, guess I'll try and get some shut eye" she said before laying down with a groan, still uncomfortable thanks to all the crystals in her stomach. With some time she eventually did manage to drift asleep.
[Hibernation confirmed, commencing assimilation...]
[Skill [splintermind] inherited]
[Splinter "Nib'thulum" restored]
[Assimilation completed]