As Duke worked on his project, Ophirian continued to hunt the giants and giant creatures inhabiting the caverns. Only once did he wind up fleeing from a foe. It was a Tier Six, armored creature that ignored his venom. He was sure that he could have eventually overcome the foe, but it was far more efficient to hunt foes that he could more easily defeat. He had set a goal of achieving Tier Four before Duke finished his project. He had no idea how long his bondmate was going to take but his first project had taken months.
Ophirian hunted. Each environment presented a new type of foe and a new challenge. He found that jungle settings were the easiest for him to hunt within. Something about the environment just felt natural to him and they called out heavily to his ancestral memories. The volcanic environment, however, was his true bane. The very ground was too hot for his immense body and the one time the ground gave way, dropping him into bubbling lava was more than enough to get him to TELEPORT away. If he had not switched out RESTORE for REGENERATION at Tier Three, that would have been far more serious.
Duke meanwhile, toiled on his singular project. He was focused on building a core with the runescript for the navigational console imbedded within it. His progress was slow, but now that he had the actual Ability, he could see steady progress in the final miniaturization and embedding project. The most difficult part was embedding the runescript while still allowing the core to function as a Mana Core to still be able to store the Mana necessary for the console to function.
It took hundreds of failures before Duke finally got a functioning prototype. It didn’t function well, but it did the job. Duke could have stopped there, but he continued to push the Ability and finally, broke the RUNESCRIPTING Ability into Practiced rank. That is what allowed him to finally combine it with his Adept DUNGEON CORE CREATION Ability to make a fully functioning console that was powered by its own core structure.
With his new item in his INVENTORY, he TELEPORTED himself to Ophirian’s location. The Serpent was wrapped around the form of a giant armored bull, his fangs buried in the bull’s neck. Duke’s first instinct was to step in and help his bondmate but he held back, knowing that Ophirian had been fighting and hunting on his own for nearly a year now. Instead, he watched.
Ophirian squeezed tighter, using all his two thousand points of Strength the crush down on the bull’s ribcage. The constant pressure made it hard for the bull to breathe, ratcheting the hold tighter with every exhale. At the same time, his venom coursed through the bull’s veins. Somehow, the bull was resisting the venom which annoyed Ophirian to no end. If not for the resistance to his venom, he wouldn’t have had to resort to this tedious constriction attack. He flexed his venom sacs again, shooting more venom into the bull’s veins out of pure annoyance.
When the bull stumbled, its eyes wide with panic and the barest wheeze of air coming out of its nostrils Duke knew it was nearly over. Seconds later, the bull finally collapsed, the last gasp of air having already been forced from its lungs.
Ophirian uncoiled from his prey and turned to face Duke, “Have you finished your work?”
“I finally have. It is time for us to leave this place.”
”At long last. Hunting has been good for my growth, but I need more.”
“Yes, it is quite time for more. Our travels are about to begin. But your size will pose a problem.” Ophirian had continued to grow as he hunted and gained power. He was now nearly one hundred meters long and six meters wide.
“Do not concern yourself with that.” Ophirian began to glow with a bluish-purple light which caused Duke to step back so he could take more of the massive serpent in. As he watched, the serpent began to shrink at a rapidly increasing pace. In just under a minute, Ophirian had shrunk down and transformed into an indistinct curled-up shape.
Duke rushed forward to check on Ophirian as the transformation ended. What he discovered as he reached his bond was a humanoid creature slowly sitting up. Duke reached out a hand to help him up. The hand that met his was covered with very fine black scales and sharp, pointed claws on the tips of its fingers. The scales were flexible but strong and the hand was otherwise human-shaped.
When Duke pulled Ophirian to his feet, he was greeted by a mostly human-looking appearance but there were enough features that were off that he could not pass for human up close. His black skin was covered in fine scales that became more defined in certain areas such as his brow ridges and hands. His hair was another issue. It had the look of dreadlocks, but if you looked close enough you could see the scales that covered each thick strand. Duke was just thankful that they didn’t have snake heads.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Well, what do you think? Will I fit where we need to go? And, yes, I know that I still have work to do to make me look more human, but you have to admit this is pretty close since I only have you to go by, which makes me have to guess on some of it.” When he spoke, his fangs were visible, giving him even more of an intimidating appearance.
“That is an impressive transformation. Pretty fucking amazing, actually,” Duke glanced downward and chuckled. “While I appreciate the ego boost, you have to work on the proportions a bit. No woman is going to let you near her with that trouser snake. Geez, half that size is going to intimidate most women.”
“But that is my manhood. As a Great Serpent, my manhood should reflect my greatness!”
“That’s all well and good, but it’s going to make walking difficult with it hanging down past your knee like that. Like I said, tone it down by half and it will still frighten the ladies. Well, not all the ladies, I guess. But, yeah, tone it down a bit.”
Duke pulled clothes out of his INVENTORY and helped Ophirian get dressed. The bulge in his pantleg was rather pronounced and Ophirian stumbled when he took his first step. He hissed, “This was never a problem before pants!”
“Would you rather wear a dress?”
“Would it give me more freedom?”
“It would, but it could confuse others about your gender.”
“My comfort is more important than what lesser races feel about me.”
“Hmm, I have an idea.” Duke created a kilt that was longer than proper and a shirt that went along with it. “Here, change into these.”
When Ophirian had finished changing, Duke had finished the outfit with appropriate socks and shoes. The socks and shoes required a few adjustments as Ophirian’s toe claws tore through most simple fabrics and leathers. Finally, Duke just made socks that allowed the toes to pass through them and shoes that had enough space for the claws. It gave him the appearance of having excessively large feet, and Duke chuckled at the reality of the joke about big feet in this case.
“Well, it looks like you are ready to go. No one is going to mistake you for human, which is fine for now. There may be a time that you will need to be more human in appearance, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Is there anything you need to collect before we go? It’s not likely that we will be coming back here anytime soon, if ever.”
“I have all I need.”
“Then let’s be on our way. I have to check in on the kingdom before we go, but that should not take long. A few stops and then,” Duke held up his navigation core, “we go truly hunting.”
“You have two weeks at most. Do not delay.”
Ophirian spun, his jaws opening unnaturally wide as he was stopped from striking by Duke’s outstretched arm. “Why do you stop me from attacking this foe who snuck up on us?”
“Ophirian, let me introduce you to the Avatar of the Overmind. He is not our enemy. He is an ally, a sponsor, if you will.”
“Yes, you could very well call me a sponsor. That’s a good way to look at it. The second wave of arrivals for the Contest have already started. They are gathering loot, prizes, and power quickly. Are you sure you do not want to enter earlier?”
“I am sure. I am about to go give the Syndicate a lesson in humility they won’t soon forget.”
The Overmind gave a contemplative nod before shrugging, “I did leave the decision up to you. But, judging from what has happened already, you will have to start killing Contestants the moment you arrive.”
“I pretty much thought that was the plan.”
“We are going hunting?”
“We ARE going hunting but must make a few stops first. Like I said.”
“Boring.”
“Your companion seems a bit hungry for fighting. Shame he won’t be able to join you in the Contest.”
“What?”
“You aren’t a beast tamer or similar Class where he would be an essential part of you. For the purposes of the Contest, he’s the same as a hireling, a mercenary.”
“I want to hunt. I want to fight. I will kill!”
“Don’t worry, I’ll put you somewhere that you’ll have plenty to hunt. But you really should learn more than just how to kill. You’ll be the most boring companion otherwise.”
Ophirian just stared at the avatar with a low hiss while Duke fully stepped between the two. The avatar chuckled and waved, “It’s not like he could hurt me, Duke. But my point is that even with all you have done so far, you are behind the curve. Most everyone below Tier Five has already been killed. You will be facing multiple Tier Sevens and Eights when you get there. Alliances will have already been made and you will be the lone fighter. If all the Tier Fives fall, I will have no choice but to send you in earlier than you wanted.”
Duke listened as the Overmind explained the situation. Should I go now and give myself a better chance against those who are already there? Fuck if I really know. I have to check-in on the kingdom and everyone before I leave anyway so I guess I’ll re-assess after that.
“OK, so I may have to go in soon then. But I do have a few things to do beforehand.”
“Do them quickly. I will pull you if it gets critical.”
“Right.”
With that, the avatar faded, leaving the pair to themselves. Duke prepared to take them to the castle but was interrupted by Ophirian, “I don’t like him.”
“Because he won’t let you come to the big fight?”
“Yes.”
“He didn’t make the rules, but I understand how you feel. If he says he has a place for you to go hunt, he has a place for you to go hunt. But he also has a good point about your life experience. There is more to life than just hunting and killing. Coming with me on this excursion to check in with everyone will be good for you. You’ll meet some new people and maybe learn a bit about how to act in society.”
Ophirian glared back in response. Duke smirked as he TELEPORTED them both outside the mayor’s office in Havenreach.