I had a lot to think about after that conversation, but I kind of didn't want to. I was fine with taking care of Charley, Divine Beast or not. He was such a funny guy to watch and I enjoyed watching him eat the food I made for him.

But, I had to address the situation before anything drastic happened.

"Charley, we need to talk a bit," I said while opening my eyes. He was near my side watching me with his head tilted to the side so he could see me better.

"I need you to not get into any trouble. I know you're smart enough to know what is considered trouble so I just want you to be mindful of the community and do anything rash. Can you do that for me?" He did his nod-like bobble with his head to let me know he understood.

"Great! With that out of the way, let's focus on whatever happened to my body. The whole reason I passed out in the first place was because of you."

After half an hour I still hadn't found anything different with me. I was beginning to think I had imagined it all when I decided it was time to make dinner for Charley. I began by pulling out different grain jars and going to the shed to sift through the manure with a scoop to find grubs.

At first, I had some issues with some of the more grotesque-looking insects and larvae as they made my stomach churn when seeing and holding them. But as most of the animals that are relied on for food production require them in one way or another I had to get used to them quickly.

As I assembled them in a bowl and began to use my nutritional boost ability on the food it began to sparkle. And I mean sparkle. My entire preparation room began to shimmer with dozens of light rays.

Charley began banging on the room door in a clear frenzy. It was obvious he was doing it to let me know he wanted it, and not because he was desperately trying to reach it, as I had seen Charley poke a hole through a rock bigger than my head while trying to figure out the differences within myself.

And with that, I opened the door and walked out with the bowl in my hand. Charley was crowing at me in a quiet voice and walking around his eating area. With Charley eating, it was now time to go over my abilities now that I know that's what was affected and not my physique as I originally thought.

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It's been a week since I began to figure out my abilities and there are some good and bad news. More bad than good, unfortunately.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

All of my abilities were now, in a sense, Divine. If this were something not directly related to my job concerning my income all would be well. But I'm the only animal feed producer in town. And I can't tone down my abilities at all.

The main abilities of an Animal Caretaker are a set of five. You get them all after extensive research into a multitude of subjects and species. Without doing so you can't get the Animal Caretaker job at all.

Just as a Veterinarian has a harder time with their studies than a doctor, so too does a caretaker.

Studying the way a sickness will affect different species, the way different foods have effects on an animal, and how to dress wounds in an emergency for an animal. Childbirth and in rare cases, helping people with their abhorrent animal hobbies. Horses are no longer an animal I will take care of, hence the lack of their use in this village.

My food preparation ability, Nutritional Boost, balances the vitamins and will even make some of the ingredients fresher under the right circumstances. Normally that is. Now it makes a single bite enough to cause drastic changes in an animal.

I fed a single grain of wheat to a squirrel and it grew muscle and its fur became glossy and clean. It looked better than I did.

I fed a handful of mulch to a pig and it seemed to grow younger, it grew a horn and became a Uni-Pig. Not a rare species, but the ability to unlock genes inside of itself is terrifying, to say the least. What if I fed a salamander and it became a dragon?

Thankfully it doesn't work on humans. I gave an apple to my neighbor and nothing happened. I'm sorry for testing on you, but thank you. Of course, I never told her anything but I'm sure it's fine.

My nursing ability, Nurse. Normally it would just ease pain and slightly boost select body functions so it could combat a virus with more ease. But now, it would just heal them. Thankfully it doesn't work on dead animals, but it certainly works on animals on their last legs. I used it on a mouse that had been torn into by a cat. It scurried off after having 60% of its organs regenerated in a microsecond. I didn't even have time to register I had used my ability before it was running away.

My animal diagnosis ability, Diagnosis, was now able to tell me the species, age, gender, fertility rate, last food, and so much more. Instead of the general features and illness detection. It was frankly quite worrying to see that much information on an animal. I'm glad it doesn't work on people. But this one is a passive ability. I can't turn it off and now every time I look at an animal I get a spike of pain in my head.

And my last ability, which I haven't gotten a chance to use, and I don't ever want a chance to use it.

The Breeding Boost ability, Breed. It used to boost the chances of fertility in an animal and sometimes, with a rare chance, would allow new species to be born through cross-breeding. It's illegal to sell them if they're more human than animal or reach a certain intelligence threshold. And nowadays we know most hybrid species.

But I don't want to use it. What if it makes someone have too many babies? If they were to be forced to birth 20 instead of 5? What if it makes it so more than 2 species can "work together" to make something brand new?

I don't want to know. And I will never test it. Not if I can help it.

"Hey Derxin! I need you to help me with my dog. I want it and my raccoon to have children and they're clearly into each other."

My face paled and I said, "Oh god no."