Chapter 16 - The long trek north
When I awoke I felt a lot better. I wasn’t really ‘fine’ emotionally, but our views on mental health back then were pretty backwards, so I thought better equals fixed. Anyway, I was ready to start on the next leg of my journey, in my opinion.
I woke up, before Val, for once, so I decided to blow off some steam. Blowing off steam meant killing everything bigger than an insect in a two kilometre radius. I used my wolf form and I must say the hunting spree worked wonders. Nothing here posed a threat to me, in fact between my Stats and my sharpened senses from my Companion-Bond, nothing could hide or run from me either. I hunted on autopilot, letting my mind wander a bit. Obviously I didn’t allow myself to think about any of the heavy topics that were weighing me down. Repression was the name of the game, so I thought about Shapeshifting stuff.
I settled on the topic of how to integrate blades in a quadrupedal form. If I let them come out straight, I would just be stabbing the ground. There wasn’t really a way to do this properly, but I did think of a workaround. The main weapon of a wolf is its head, well teeth, so why not enhance that? I started by making blades along my spine and channels up to the sides of my head, ending just before the jaw starts. I was essentially designing tusks. Wolf-tusks. To be honest I didn’t really think of any practical application for this. Maybe some kind of full frontal charge? But even then a bite would probably be superior. Welp. That’s why it’s called experimentation.
Also the whole process occupied my mind wonderfully. After a few hours of playing death incarnate, I returned to the pyre. Val and Skadi were awake now and already packing. Well … Val was, Skadi was standing around, observing Val. Without looking away from her packing, Val greeted me: “Got your head clear?”
“Somewhat. Anyway, I am ready to head north. How long will that take us?” I replied, after changing back into a furry human. I was down to two minutes. I mean, I could do it in an instant, but that was excruciating. Not that the normal way was pleasant.
“Somewhere around two weeks. It depends really, there are a few things I want us to do during the trip.”
“Like what?” I asked while handing Skadi a rabbit I kept for her. She happily dug into the carcass.
“Well for one I think you should start to get some poison in your repertoire, I know a place en route that is teeming with venomous snakes, so that would be the perfect place for that. Especially since you are immune to poison. The other thing would just be to take things slowly, when we start to get into the more dangerous areas. I would advise only leaving an area, if nothing can challenge you in it. Especially since that should be really to your classes liking.”
She was probably onto something there, since…
Congratulations! For having established absolute dominance over an area, you have gained a level in [Aspiring Apex](lvl 13).
Stats have been distributed
“Hey speaking of. How should I distribute my free points?” I asked, since I now had twelve of the buggers.
“Keep ten in reserve for an emergency, or if you NEED to break through some threshold. The rest should go to your lowest stats. Make sure you aren’t too unbalanced. Every stat is important for everyone.”
That advice was easy enough to follow.
Statistics:
Strength+5=>
66
Agility+5=>
84
Constitution+6=>
87
Endurance+5=>
85
Intelligence+3=>
50
Willpower+6=>
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77
Wisdom+4=>
63
Charisma+3+2=>
50
Free Points+4-2=>
10
Now I was officially five times the man I was two months ago. I chuckled at the situation for a bit, then I started helping Val with the packing. At the end Val made all the luggage disappear into her whatever-it-is. She wouldn’t tell me.
It took about three days to reach the snake area, obviously it wasn’t an area full of snakes, that is not how an ecological system works, but there were venomous snakes here. Snakes aren’t particularly fast and venom was of no matter to me, so the only challenging thing was actually finding the things. My [Perception] got quite the workout.
In any case the outcome was inevitable. After two days and 30-something dead snakes I finally managed to replicate the Venom, or rather the Venom gland. The positioning for them was somewhat difficult, since arms don’t have a lot of space for organs, so I decided to put them in my shoulders and connect them to my claws via my blades. Essentially I flooded the resting place of my blades with venom, and then connected that sheath with my claws further down. Venom I create is just as susceptible to my mana manipulation as my blood is, so I didn’t lose anything by not shooting my blood everywhere.
I had the following realisation only when I had been back on the road for a few days, but I am going to share it now. Blood has one advantage over Venome. Namely that blood isn’t venomous. Yeah, I know. Great revelation over here. But seriously, if I wanted to not kill my target, I would need to go back to blood somehow. For simplicity’s sake I just had my left hand remain the blood hand, while the claws on my right got the new venom.
In my wolf form I simply pumped venom in my mouth. I was immune to it, and if I bit something it would definitely get into the wound.
Of course I got the perfect help for this cause, just as I was clearing out the last nest, I wanted to hit for the day.
Congratulations! For proving your dominance to an entire species, you have gained a level in [Aspiring Apex](lvl 14). You have gained the Class Perk [Hunger of the Apex].
Stats have been distributed
[Hunger of the Apex]
The Apex grows more versatile with each consumed foe. You gain knowledge of the internal workings of a creature whenever you consume it. Once you have sufficient knowledge, there is a small chance to absorb a racial Perk of your target.
Statistics:
Strength+5=>
71
Agility+5=>
89
Constitution+6=>
93
Endurance+5=>
90
Intelligence+3+3=>
55
Willpower+6=>
83
Wisdom+4=>
67
Charisma+3+2=>
55
Free Points+4-4=>
10
As I said that would have been useful, but no sense in crying over spilt milk.
[Perception]+8=>
25
[Serpentine Anatomy]+15=>
15
[Stealth]+4=>
25
[Tracking]+5=>
16
This Perk did change the plan a bit. Val agreed to postpone our departure, until I was able to assume a new form. The threshold for the goblin form was somewhere in the 30s. On the other hand, my wolf form took almost nothing, thanks to my class. That was all useless speculation, so I decided to hunt for one more day and attempt the new form in the evening.
[Serpentine Anatomy]+6=>
21
That would have to be enough. I tried to turn into a snake, and sure enough it worked. I took my time and spread the transformation out over 30 minutes that way the pain was not that bad. Once I was finished I noticed that I had more biomass than before. The [Biomass] Perk did indeed make it so that mass is no longer lost upon changing into something lighter. I spent the next three hours changing back and forth between human and snake. The conversion wasn’t perfect, after the third transformation I noticed that my reserves were dwindling over all. Dwindling faster than the usual upkeep that is. Still I was elated. I had unlocked a new form, I had a new design for fangs, and I now had confirmation that I didn’t necessarily have to keep in the same weight category thanks to [Biomass]. Say what you want, about eldritch beings, their power sure was handy.
It is a shame I didn’t get a racial perk from the Snakes, but we couldn’t stall forever.
We set off the next day, the first half of which I spent riding on Skadi’s head as the great Snek-Lord Wolfrider. Until Skadi became annoyed with me and I turned back into a human.
The next interesting thing happened on day nine of our journey. A bear attacked me.