The pain built, growing until Dominic was clenching his teeth hard enough to crack them. Hopefully the level up would fix that before it finished. It felt like the worst growing pains he’d ever felt as a teenager times ten.
He remembered one period where he’d been growing an inch every couple of weeks – he’d woken up each morning feeling like he’d been beaten in his sleep. This was like that but the pains over the whole period were concentrated into just a few minutes.
His shoulders and forelegs swelled before his eyes, the muscles growing and tightening, his shoulders bulking up. It was oddly uncomfortable to watch, his body changing before his eyes. He’d only really started thinking of a lion’s body as ‘his’ not that long ago, and suddenly it was changing. Dominic was abruptly glad that he hadn’t chosen to take the original ability: if these were ‘minor’ changes, he’d hate to know what constituted ‘major’. Though, he thought to himself, some changes would potentially be worth it.
Once the changes from the addition of the new Ability were over, the energy rush of levelling up swept through him and Leo. The pain of a moment earlier was wiped away with the pleasure of levelling up. He felt his skin tighten and then abruptly release – the consequence of both thickening it and making it more flexible, he guessed.
Curious about the new Ability, Dominic dived into that section as soon as he could, looking at the new description which had appeared in the list under Acquired Abilities.
Powerful Swipe level 1 (0% to level 2) – Use stamina to enhance the damage of your swipe. +5% - +50% damage increase for 5-75 stamina per second.
‘Pretty identical to Crushing Bite,’ Dominic remarked to Leo.
‘Higher stamina requirements for less gain, though,’ Leo pointed out.
‘True,’ Dominic admitted. At level 1 Crushing Bite had offered a similar increase to damage, but the maximum stamina commitment had been 60 SP per second rather than 75 SP. ‘On the other hand, if I’m reading this right, the increase will be to all damage types rather than just Crushing damage, which makes it a potentially much more powerful enhancement,’ Leo sent across a sense of agreement. Curious to see if anything else had changed about his body from the increase in muscle mass to his shoulders and forelegs, Dominic pulled up his other stats.
Defensive abilities:
- Fur level 3 (12-16 Slicing damage reduction, 2-4 Piercing damage reduction, 6-8 Crushing damage reduction, 2-4 Tearing damage reduction)
- Skin level 5 (4-6 –> 6-8 Slicing damage reduction, 2-4 –> 4-8 Piercing damage reduction) Flexibility +2% –> +5%
- Mane level 2 (4-6 Slicing damage reduction, 2-4 Crushing damage reduction, 2-4 Piercing damage reduction (attacks to the relevant area)) +30% charisma (for members of the same species)
Offensive abilities:
- Claws level 2 (12-22 Slicing damage, 13-17 –> 15-25 Tearing damage, 6-10 Piercing damage)
- Bite level 3 (54-82 Crushing damage, 72-100 Tearing damage, 55-76 Piercing damage)
- Strike level 1 (+10 to Crushing or Blunt damage, +5 to all other physical damage types)
- Roar level 1 (+10% chance of intimidating the listener. +20% - +50% if listener is already intimidated by you.)
General abilities:
- Muscular Body level 6 (max speed 35 –> 34 mps; max speed duration 14s –> 13s) (170 SP)
- Carnivore Constitution level 2 (500 HP) +40% health regeneration
- Brain level 2 (Cognition speed standard measurement 5.5)
- Mana heart level 1 (15 MP) - 75% penalty
- Soul level 1 (Resilience to mental attacks standard measurement 7) +2% mana regeneration (-80% reduction to mana regeneration)
- Bones level 2 (growth +20%)
- Flesh level 1 (growth +10%) +5% resistance to basic magical attacks.
- Nervous System level 1 (reaction speed +10%)
- Sinuses level 2 +10% range; +5% intensity
It was interesting to see that bulking up his shoulders and forelegs had had two main consequences – the Tearing damage potential of his claws had increased a few points, and he’d lost both stamina and speed. Why did I lose speed? Dominic wondered to himself.
‘We are less streamlined now,’ Leo answered him. ‘The muscles we had before the Ability were all perfectly formed for maximum speed at minimum weight. Now, we have more bulky muscle in our front two legs which is designed to make our claw strike more powerful, but which is not optimised for our body.’ Dominic raised an impressed mental eyebrow at his companion.
‘I can tell you’ve been studying my memories. Been looking at my school days, have you?’ Leo made a disgusted grunt.
‘Mostly a waste of my time,’ he complained. ‘And yours, from the looks of it.’ Dominic had to admit that he had a point. He’d neither been the best of students, nor had the most interesting education. Since leaving school, he probably hadn’t even used half of what he’d reluctantly memorised for exams. And now that the apocalypse had come and he was suddenly a lion, he’d probably use even less. Still, if it helped Leo become an ‘educated’ lion, then at least it was having some use.
Anyway, Leo’s reasoning made sense, and was probably the reason for the reduction in speed. Similar reasoning was probably why his endurance had dropped too, the duration at which he could maintain his top speed falling by a second.
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As for the changes to his skin, those were basically as expected. An increase which was small for now, but which would hopefully become greater as time went on. Curious about what his greater flexibility would mean in practical terms, Dominic started twisting around.
Starting with the various positions for cleaning himself, he found that they were easier than ever to adopt. Next, he pushed himself back to his feet and twisted so that his nose touched his tail tip. Working his way upwards, he found that he was able to actually get halfway up his back before he started feeling tension.
If this was what it was like when he’d only increased his flexibility by 5%, what would it mean if he got to 50%? He’d be able to twist himself into knots? Or become like Mr Fantastic with extendable limbs?
Then again, it was probably an increase to his base flexibility, something which, as a feline, was already pretty good. My skin shouldn’t be the only thing determining flexibility, though, he thought to himself. After all, a snake was only as flexible as it was because of its skeletal structure, not just because of its skin.
Checking his status screen had told him something else important.
Status of Dominic Martin Cole / Leo
Species: Lion (body) / Human (mind), Two-Souled
Level: Evolved Beast Level 16 Tier 2 (Path of Evolution)
Progress to Evolution: 392/347 PP level up
He could level up again! Attracting large numbers of weaker enemies is definitely the most productive in the sense of Prey Points, Dominic remarked to himself. And for getting Abilities too, he added thoughtfully.
‘I know we were talking about enhancing our fur, but maybe we need to increase our stamina this time,’ he said to Leo.
‘Can’t we do both?’ Leo questioned him.
‘Well, yes, arguably, but I was thinking that the other enhancement this time should be to our health pool. After all, it’s likely that our enemies are going to have more and more powerful attacks as we go on. Enhancing our defensive abilities is important, but so is having a health pool to be able to weather them. And if we can increase our health regeneration enough, we’ll swiftly be able to repair whatever damage is caused.’
‘You make good points,’ Leo accepted after a moment of thought. ‘Very well. I agree. Stamina and health this time.’
With his partner’s agreement, Dominic quickly activated the next level up. Without any new Abilities to incorporate, the process was quick and easy. Checking his new stats, Dominic was satisfied.
- Muscular Body level 7 (max speed 34 mps; max speed duration 13s –> 15s) (170 –> 210 SP)
- Carnivore Constitution level 3 (500 –> 600 HP) +40% –> +60% health regeneration
While his max speed hadn’t returned to what it was before his previous level-up, his maximum speed duration had increased more than it had been, and his stamina points had increased nicely.
As for his health, another hundred health points and 20% more health regeneration had to improve his survivability. Not that he knew what the base rate of regeneration that was being acted on was, unfortunately. He tried to get his status screen to show him, but to no avail.
With his level-ups done, Dominic proceeded to Consume the rest of the veten bodies and their Cores. Well, almost all of the bodies. Following his mental questioning earlier, he popped a couple of the veten bodies into his storage space, wondering what would happen to them over time.
By the end, his new ability was actually more than halfway towards level 3, having levelled up once already. The level up had offered more damage but hadn’t actually reduced its stamina cost. Still, Dominic was looking forward to trying it out.
‘Are we going to patrol now?’ Leo asked impatiently.
‘Worried some other lion is going to sneak in and mate with your females while you’re not watching?’ Dominic teased the lion.
‘Yes, precisely,’ Leo told him completely seriously. ‘Two of our females are in heat and we’ve worked too hard for this to not have the next lot of cubs be of our blood.’ While Dominic didn’t really want to think too hard on the mating and having children thing, he got what Leo was saying, and could feel just how important it was for the lion. And from what Leo had said before, he couldn’t trust the lionesses themselves to show any sort of loyalty.
‘Alright, I’m going,’ he said, matching action to words. Yawning, he stretched luxuriously, his new flexibility meaning that his back was even more of an arch than was possible before.
‘You know what to look for more than I do, so you’d better let me know if you see anything you’d like to investigate,’ Dominic thought to his companion. Maybe they’d be better served by Leo taking over control of their shared body, but Dominic reasoned that he needed to learn these kinds of things anyway. Besides, he simply didn’t want to, and felt Leo had had plenty of time in control recently with the whole mating thing.
Setting off, he moved at an easy trot which served to cover ground quicker than a walk but without using much more stamina than walking would. He kept his head turning from side to side, both watching himself and letting his passenger watch through his eyes, potentially picking up things which he hadn’t spotted.
Every so often, he paused to breathe through his mouth, scenting the air. Leo helped him identify some of the odours he didn’t recognise, offering memories of encountering the origins of the scents. However, there were still a large number which even Leo didn’t recognise – either creatures from elsewhere on Earth or creatures which weren’t from Earth at all.
He didn’t meet much opposition. A lion padding boldly through the grass made most prey animals retreat as quickly as they could. Even if they weren’t used to lions in general, perhaps they recognised his threat level. Among other predators, Dominic didn’t encounter any keen on taking him on either, though he did see a couple bare their teeth at him as they slunk away.
In fact, it was boring enough that he was almost itching for a fight. Without much weaker lionesses to take care of and with a number of new enhancements that he wanted to try out, he was keen to meet a challenge to test them out.
‘What’s that?’ asked Leo urgently, shoving an image at Dominic. It took him a couple of moments to work out what the lion was trying to point out, but Dominic succeeded in identifying where the image was from. Trotting over to the tree on which there were some gashes, Dominic was now able to identify them as claw marks. Fresh claw marks.
‘Another lion?’ Dominic asked Leo eagerly.
‘Maybe,’ Leo replied uncertainly. ‘It does not smell like a lion, but the claw marks are very similar.’ Dominic sniffed at the tree, realising that Leo was correct. Though each lion had its own scent, they all had something that made them lions. This didn’t have that. Nor did it smell like the tiger they had killed. This was something else.
‘Should we follow it, do you think?’ Dominic asked. He knew what he wanted to do, but was aware that sometimes he put them into unnecessary danger.
‘It could be a threat to the pride,’ Leo said decisively. ‘We must investigate.’ Well, if Leo agreed, then it sounded like the hunt was on!