Back in front of the doors, the pride took a bit of time to relax. They didn’t need to eat, their hunger and thirst already satisfied by the carcasses of the creatures they had been killing. Still, they could do with a rest – it had been one fight after another for who knows how long. That was one thing that remained the same from his previous experience with this dungeon: it might be twilight instead of midday, but without the movement of celestial bodies indicating passage of time, it was very hard to keep track.
The jungle might not have been a lot of fun, but it had been very beneficial in terms of levels. Even the amesheks had gone up at least two levels – Procyon three, following the most recent battle. While Sirius hadn’t changed much physically, Procyon seemed to have concentrated a little on his own defences, his fur slowly matting together more than it already was to show the beginnings of the sleek defensive armour that Nyx had.
Dominic wasn’t sure if that was an Evolution, something created by concentrating on fur, a Transevolution, drawing on another creature from the ameshek’s world, or a Devolution, returning his fur to what it used to be. It seemed to have made a difference in the recent fights, though – deflecting some of the attempted bites and gouges rather than letting them through.
Sekhmet had gone up five levels, and was now a level 19 lion. She had grown a little bit more and her teeth were slightly sharper, but otherwise there wasn’t much obviously different about her. Perhaps she was a little quicker in responses and thought processes, but he couldn’t be sure. Dominic had asked her what she was enhancing, but she’d refused to tell him. The former-human wasn’t sure whether that was because she wanted to surprise him or because she didn’t know whether what she was trying would work.
Fang had obviously put several level-ups into his fangs, and they now obviously stuck out when he closed his mouth. Dominic suspected he’d also been following Leo’s example and had been working on his mane: the previously tufty fluff around his head was starting to darken, thicken, and lengthen.
The thought of having another properly maned lion around made Leo very grumpy. Dominic foresaw problems there, but it wasn’t his place to tell Fang he couldn’t invest in his mane. Though, he might have to have a word with the younger lion about the future. But that was for later. They didn’t even know whether everyone would survive the dungeon at this point.
Lionel hadn’t changed much physically apart from getting slightly faster, and maybe increasing his stamina a bit. Dominic had to guess from evidence that he’d put at least half his enhancements into his magical skills. Probably to increase his mana pool, but possibly also enhancing other aspects – Soul was a strong contender, as was Brain.
As for Dominic, he pulled up his progress with anticipation.
Status of Dominic Martin Cole / Leo
Species: Lion (body) / Human (mind), Two-Souled, Chimera
Level: Evolved Beast Level 23 Tier 2 (Path of Evolution)
Progress to Evolution: 2068/676 PP level up
Each of the snakes, monitors, and slon hadn’t been worth a huge amount – though at levels 8, 9, 10, and 11 for the most recent ones, they would have been decent even in smaller numbers – but the sheer volume had sent his Prey Points skyrocketing up.
He’d chosen not to level up in the jungle out of fear of being vulnerable at the wrong moment. After all, he had several Abilities waiting to be acquired and he wasn’t sure what they would do to him.
Venomous Bite (100% to level 1) level up to acquire Ability
Tail Strike (100% to level 1) level up to acquire Ability
Spatial Awareness (100% to level 1) level up to acquire Ability
Gouge (100% to level 1) level up to acquire Ability
It was unfortunate that there hadn’t been many snakes with the Hypnotise Ability – he’d increased his progress there to 68%, but not to 100%. At least he’d managed to get something good out of the slons – there had been enough of them with Gouge as a secondary Ability for him to succeed in getting that to 100%. Of course, it meant that he’d also managed to get their basic Ability to 100% too: Spatial Awareness.
He wasn’t sure if he’d get much use out of that one, but decided to take it anyway since it wasn’t actively harmful. Apparently it allowed the slons to always know which way was up and which was down. Useful, except for the fact that Dominic was pretty sure he already had something like that. Even recently when he’d accidentally fallen off a branch in the middle of a battle, his body had known exactly what to do to twist in mid air to land on his feet. And cats in general were known for that.
Tail Strike might mean that he actually got some proper use out of his tail armour after all, now that he was going to have an Ability dedicated to attacking with it. The metal construction had been rather languishing in his storage space due to it just not being anywhere near as good as his other attack options. He’d even meant to leave it behind at the Place of Power for someone else to use, but then had forgotten. Fortunately so, given the Ability he’d found here. That, of course, had been from the monitor lizards who had been rather good at using their tails like painful whips.
Finally, there was Venomous Bite, an Ability he was quite excited about, as long as it didn’t combine badly with his Acidic Bite. Then again, perhaps the two would combine like all his roar-related Abilities had. That would be great.
More importantly, though, was the question of which aspects of himself to enhance.
‘It looks like we’re going to have at least two level ups there, maybe three,’ he commented to Leo. ‘You promised that we could dedicate some to our Wings in the near future.’ He felt the lion hesitating. ‘And if we can fly properly, maybe we can check out that other entrance.’
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‘Is there any point now that we’ve got all the keys for this one?’ asked Leo pointedly. Dominic sent him the sense of a mental shrug.
‘Maybe. We don’t know what’s behind these doors, after all,’ Dominic reminded him.
‘True, and I suppose we also don’t know what is in that hole,’ admitted Leo. ‘Though, you did say you wanted to improve our defences a bit, and I think that we should enhance our Brain and Nervous System again – we’re still not fully using our speed as much as we could, though Sure Feet does help a bit with that.”
Dominic hesitated. Leo made a good point there.
‘Maybe we don’t need to worry about our defences,’ he decided thoughtfully. ‘I mean, it’s definitely not pleasant to be bitten and cut and all that, but it’s not like we were in much danger there. The gouges were uncomfortable, but it would have taken a lot more than that to eat through our health pool with Enhanced Regeneration bolstering it.’
‘Then perhaps we should put another enhancement each into Regeneration and Carnivore Constitution,’ Leo countered. ‘I agree that would have better all-round effects than putting an enhancement into our fur, since I can’t imagine you were considering Skin.’
‘No,’ agreed Dominic. ‘We don’t want to risk stiffening up and losing our reactivity. But I’m surprised you don’t want to put something into Fur. Weren’t you arguing for that a while ago?’
There was a slightly embarrassed silence.
‘Leo?’ Dominic asked, amusement filling him. ‘Are you embarrassed?’
‘Fine, you were right about your warnings. I don’t want to be Shaggy the lion,’ Leo replied quickly as if to get past it as soon as possible. ‘So,’ he said before Dominic could start laughing at him. ‘We are going to put one each into Regeneration, Carnivore Constitution, Nervous System, and Brain?’
‘I didn’t agree to the last two,’ Dominic interjected, his attention diverted by the lion sneakily trying to slip his suggestions through. ‘What about Wings?’
‘Well, which do you think is more urgent?’ Leo demanded, his embarrassment gone. If Dominic could see him, he bet the lion would be lying back down, his hackles lowering to his back again. Dominic struggled with himself. He really wanted to fly properly – the taste of it he’d got so far was far too tempting. But Leo had a point – annoyingly – perhaps the wings were to Dominic what the mane was to Leo.
‘Alright, fine. But if we get three level ups, the third will be dedicated to Wings, OK?’
‘Fine,’ the lion agreed.
The matter settled, Dominic got on with the level up.
For the first level up, he chose to increase his Brain and Nervous System, deciding to leave the other two to his second level up.
Spatial Awareness was accepted with no more boxes flashing up. Tail Strike required some minor physical changes, but Dominic was rather expecting that: from his experience wielding the tail mace, he knew that the muscles he had in his tail weren’t suitable for the attack the lizards had demonstrated. The other two were a different question.
[You have chosen to acquire Venomous Bite. You have an Ability which has adequate synergy with Venomous Bite: Acidic Bite. Would you like to combine these Abilities? Note: features of these Abilities may be changed or maintained. Note: the final product may be better, worse, or equivalent to the Abilities singularly.]
It didn’t take much time for them to decide to go for it. When they’d combined Sonic Howl and Vibrating Body with their Roar, the Ability which came out at the end was more flexible and suited them better. Dominic definitely suspected that the System was designed to make earned Abilities more suitable for the body, regardless of what the description warned. Anyway, he’d been hoping that the System might offer to combine them: that seemed like the best way to be sure that they would work well together.
[You have chosen to acquire Gouge. You have an Ability which has adequate synergy with Gouge: Powerful Swipe. Would you like to combine these Abilities? Note: features of these Abilities may be changed or maintained. Note: the final product may be better, worse, or equivalent to the Abilities singularly.]
This one was a little trickier to consider.
‘Powerful Swipe is already a pretty good Ability,’ mused Dominic. ‘Maybe adding Gouge to it would just add more damage?’
‘Possibly,’ Leo agreed. ‘Though a swipe and a gouge aren’t exactly the same thing. If it means we lose functionality on one or the other, it would be better to have separate Abilities to use in the appropriate situation.’
‘Yeah, but remember what it said in the description we saw earlier? It adds extra slicing damage and possibly adding a bleeding effect. A bit like Sharp Nip. Powerful Swipe is just about using stamina to increase the force of my attack. They don’t clash in any way, so I suspect they’ll play well enough together.’
The lion hesitated.
‘That’s true,’ he admitted. ‘And it did work out fine with the combination of Abilities which made up Majestic Sonic Roar, even though one of those Abilities was called ‘Vibrating Body’.
‘So you think we should combine them?’
The lion hesitated again.
‘I think it may be worth it,’ he replied carefully.
‘I agree,’ said Dominic in reply, accepting the System’s offer without allowing any more time to second-guess himself. Interestingly, neither of the new combined Abilities required him to choose whether to accept physical changes or not.
Expected pain shot through his tail, his front paws, and his teeth. The pain in his ears wasn’t quite so anticipated, and he growled a little under his breath as it felt like ice-picks were stabbed through his inner ears. It shifted to his eyes and from there into his brain.
With nothing else he could do, Dominic just waited for the uncomfortable process to finish. Oh for the times when levelling up actually felt good.