Mash chose to reach toward the grey pillar. The feeling of nothingness surrounded him like a cocoon as his hand passed into the pillar. His eyes snapped open, and he looked around the small wooden egg that he had made before starting the advancement. Seeing that there was no blood or gunk, he decided to check his status. This was not something he would delay.
Name: Mash Stellumbra Class: Chimeric Vagabond
Level: 100
Health: 3000 / 3000
Energy: 4070 / 4070
Fortitude: 239 → 300
Endurance: 136 → 186
Strength: 200 → 250
Agility: 200 → 252
Intelligence: 220 → 221
Wisdom: 108 →110
Charisma: 96 → 100
Free Stats: 0
Skills: Hunt, Thunder-wood Creation, Inhuman Hibernation, Monstrous Transformation →Chimeric Transformation, Thunder-wood Imitation, Chimeric Reconstruction, Vagabond’s Path, Draconic Domain →Chimeric Domain, Adaptable Monster Core, Monstrous Humanity →Chimera’s Constitution, Wooden Body, Mimic’s Avarice, A Touch of Nothingness, Golden Body
Hunt: You have gone beyond your limits when fighting enemies and devouring their power. Go beyond your limits. Continue current fight even after depleting energy. Stats improve while at 0 stamina. Continues until either you or your enemies are dead.
Current Bonus: +100% stats
Inhuman Hibernation: You have stolen the techniques of mages and monks to form an artificial technique, your inhuman body morphing it to fit your corrupted nature. Hibernating will increase the rate at which your body recovers, healing most wounds.
Current Rate: +200% recovery
Thunder-wood Creation: You know how deadly sticks can be. Forge your mana into wooden creations. Lightning has tempered your wood, and it thrums with the power of thunder.
Monstrous Transformation → Chimeric Transformation: Transform your body taking on aspects of those which you have consumed. Control which aspects to take and combine them to create the perfect form. Greatly increased energy consumption when combining forms.
Thunder-wood Imitation: Form imitations of creatures you have consumed, imitating some of their bodily functions through your wood.
Chimeric Reconstruction: Consume what you kill for more than just stats. Steal their flesh to repair your own. Their blood becomes yours. Your enemies are nothing more than your medicine.
Vagabond’s Path (unique): Having chosen the path of the vagabond, you have freed yourself from your own world. An explorer at heart, you laugh as you leap between worlds. Open portals to worlds you have already been to. Once per cycle of the moon create a portal to a random world. Create a world of your own, and make a portal to the personal world granted.
Draconic Domain → Chimeric Domain (Passive): Your eyes just weren’t enough. Sense the changes in the mana around you. Connect to the mana and life in your space and inherently understand the nature of the mana and life. Your presence suffuses the space, weakening the magic and strength of enemies beneath you. They cower beneath your might.
Current Range: 23 → 53 feet
Adaptable Monster Core (Passive): An unnatural mana core has fundamentally altered your body, fusion with a monster has given you access to its potential. Stamina and Mana combine to become energy. Your monstrous body is better able to handle the changes to your core.
Current Bonus: +75% efficiency
Wooden Body (Passive): You can connect with the wood that you are touching. By expending your energy, you bring your creations to life as another one of your limbs.
Monstrous Humanity → Chimera’s Constitution (Passive): Giving up your humanity has improved your body, improving your physical control, natural defenses, animalistic intuition, and mana control. No longer a human in any sense, you are no longer bound by that which limits them. You have created your own race, improving your rate of growth.
Mimic’s Avarice (Passive): Devour your enemy in battle to temporarily raise your stats. The fresher the victim the stronger the bonus. Gain full benefits even when consuming through your magic. Absorbs some properties of those you devour alive. Removes the negative effects of things you consume.
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A Touch of Nothingness: Belonging to no race or group, you have embraced the nothingness that is a part of everything. You are free, and automatically resist others' attempts to bind you. Constantly emit the aura of nothingness within your domain. Your allies will gain some of the freedom you possess. Enemies weaker than yourself will slowly lose that which makes them whole.
Golden Body (Passive): Having stolen the techniques of another world, your body evolves beyond its old limitations. However, even this transformation is incomplete. Seek out the next Step and truly make this power your own.
Trial of the True Body: 5 / 100
Mash started laughing uncontrollably. The upgrade had given him a significant number of stats, and many improvements, but he was solely focused on his unique skill, Vagabond’s path. A unique skill was something only one person could possess at a time. If he had the skill no one else could get it, even if they mimicked his path exactly. Arthur had mentioned that people gained a unique skill at level 100, but Mash didn’t realize how incredible it would be. Arthur’s skill had been to summon the legendary blade, so maybe, he should have expected something grand. This was beyond his wildest imaginations for a few reasons.
It wasn’t along the path of the rest of his skills and was instead aligned with his desires more. Even more than that, it implied that he was free from his own world. Assuming that meant the corruption of the class system, Mash activated his earrings. He had to check, to know what had happened.
His consciousness was carried into his soul, and he looked around the space. There were some differences, though his attention was drawn towards the clear skies. The clouds that had been the influence of the class system were gone. The marks the previous creatures had given him, had shrunken even further. He could tell what he was seeing, understand it better now. The blue skies were a representation of his class, and the clouds had been something separate from them. They had been a representation of the corruption of the system, but now he saw that the class system wasn’t inherently corrupt. It was altered to be that way. The fruit from before was larger, and he felt a stronger temptation to eat it.
It took an effort to stop himself, and he quickly returned to his body. The fruit was growing more tempting as it grew larger, but he had a feeling that waiting would be more rewarding. The Trial of the True Body was at five now, and he thought that it was the wyvern that had added to it. After visiting two worlds that drew power from powerful monsters, he guessed that it was progressing through a similar method.
Mash could see far beyond the wooden shell he had made from himself and could see that Daniel was speaking with two people. They had been standing at the edge of his old domain, so, he hadn't noticed them until the advancement. Now, he could see them clearly through. Both people were wearing armor that matched Daniel’s own. Mash was certain he was reading more than just their mana now and had a better picture of their strength. While they weren’t weak, he didn’t think they had a chance against him now. His body felt different, though he didn’t not exactly why.
[You have lost many of your wasteful processes. It is strange, but a definite strength.]
Priscilla’s message bounced around his head, and he wondered exactly what she meant by that. She told him of some of the changes that she already noticed. His body was efficient enough that it absorbed everything from what he had consumed. From the information, he could guess what would happen. He probably wouldn’t need to use the bathroom anymore. Although he felt hungrier than he did before. He definitely wasn’t human anymore.
He looked human, but he could tell that it was a conscious choice. It felt like his current body was just another form. His real body would be some kind of amalgamation of every form. The thought surprised him, but he found it easy to accept what he had become. He wasn’t human, he had created his own race. His skill had said as much.
There was one thing he wanted to test before leaving. Looking down at his arms, he turned one into a draconic claw, and the other into a wooden limb. The rest of his body was unchanged, and he grinned as he realized the freedom of his abilities. Despite not gaining many abilities or changes, the ones he did had given him a lot more freedom in general. Satisfied with the experiment, he returned to normal and opened the wooden shell that he had made.\
Daniel and the two who were beside him, looked at Mash as he came from the wooden cocoon. Grinning at them, Mash waved toward the trio.
“Hey, Daniel and his friends?”
Phrasing it more as a question, Mash started walking to them. Even if they could feel his domain, it wasn’t like they could get out of it easily. His domain had increased by a lot. The two beside Daniel looked to be around the same age as the man. They wore the same armor too. One was a man with a squarish jaw, and the other was probably his sister. They looked alike, possessing the same brown eyes and blond hair. Within his domain, he realized he could feel how strong they were, or rather how much life they had in them. They were healthy, but he was surprised at how weak they felt. Even Daniel didn’t feel like he had a lot of life.
“This is Sarah, and her brother Brady. Also, what happened to you? You feel way stronger, not to mention that your eyes are slightly different, and your domain grew.”
Hearing his words, Mash grabbed a mirror from his storage space. He spoke while checking his eyes. They were a little different now. The pupil had become like a thin white diamond, and it was surrounded by total darkness. And it was definitely glowing a little.
“Wait, you could see my domain?”
Daniel shook his head, in the negative.
“Nothing so grand. My master probably could, but I cannot. All people of my sect can feel a person’s presence. It’s how I knew I could trust you, and why I can tell when I’m out of your domain.”
The answer made sense to Mash. He had been wondering why Daniel had been so trusting and assumed he had some method of identifying enemies. Remembering how fast Daniel had been before, Mash wondered why he felt so frail within his domain.
“Are you sick or something? You feel kind of… frail. I might have some medicine that-“
“No, I’m fine but why would you think that?”
Mash explained how he was comparing their fortitude with his own and felt like it was significantly lower. With the speed and skills, he had demonstrated earlier, Mash had expected him to be a lot sturdier.
“You have a method for evaluating your physical attributes?”
“Magical ones too.”
The conversation was wrapping up. The other two seemed satisfied just listening, and Mash could tell that they were deferring to Daniel somewhat.
“Let me show you something.”
As he spoke, he pulled out what looked like a glass bead. A second later test appeared, floating in the air in front of them. At first, Mash was going to say that he wouldn’t be able to read it but froze as he realized he could. It was a representation of his attributes, much like how he received the information within his mind. The item from Aifell was doing far more than it was intended to. Mash looked at the screen carefully, looking over Daniel’s information.
Daniel Artim
Age: 19
Ki-Realm: Early-Transcendent Realm
Body-Realm: Saint Realm
Path: Path of The Guiding Torch
Vitality: 105
Strength: 126
Dexterity: 211
Mind: 201
Ki: 431
The information wasn’t as comprehensive as Mash’s own, and he couldn’t help but frown upon reading it. It was by far the most imbalanced allocation he had ever seen. He was fast and smart, but it was obvious that almost everything had been put into Ki, whatever that was. Plus, Daniel did not look like he was nineteen. He didn’t look much older than Mash, then an idea popped into his mind.
“Why is your vitality so low? Isn’t that risky? Also, how long are your years because you don’t look like you're five years older than me?”
Before Daniel could reply, one of the people from behind spoke up first. It was Brady, and Mash was surprised to hear him speak.
“Wait, you're only 14! Why are you- “
His words got cut short as his sister smacked the back of his head. Daniel just ignored it and answered Mash’s questions.
“Most progressors have low vitality. Almost every path has skills designed to use Ki for protection, so our vitality isn’t really at risk so long as we have Ki. As for our years, they are 365 days long. A full revolution around our sun.”
Daniel spoke informatively, speaking as if to someone younger than himself now. Mash wanted to laugh as he realized the problem. His world’s years were determined by a much more arbitrary understanding of the moon cycles. For him, a year closer to 500 days, comprised of 16 months of 28 days each. If he was doing the math correctly, he would be 18, almost19, in this world. That was much nicer than back home. Mash started explaining his realization as they walked. The information seemed to appease Brady and earned him another smack on the back of his head from his sister. Turning back to an earlier matter, Mash asked Daniel to explain how their abilities worked. He figured that if he could learn it, he would.