The season Queens had no other choice but to obey Sariandi. Our little theater at the throne room cemented the Tripartite Alliance and made it clear that ignoring an order from either Sariandi or me was seen as an invitation to disaster.
Worse, they couldn't get rid of me. Assassinating me was a ridiculously difficult endeavor and would only delay the retaliation by however long the System took to bring me back.
I went to my room (the same as before) and dismissed Ikeshia and Lixiss, my ladies-in-waiting (the same as before), and jumped on the bed as I transformed into a fluffy white rabbit (the same as before). I nudged my face in the bedding and felt something hard poke the fabric. I reached with a paw. I had a horn (the same as before). Afraid, I went to the dresser to look in a mirror.
I'd just found the origin of the al-Mi'raj. Because I looked exactly like one, but smaller. I transformed into a dire rabbit and bam! Perfect copy. I couldn't believe that the vicious little critters were descendants of the Unicorn King.
Outrage apart, this presented some trouble. Would I have a horn on every compatible shape? I transformed into an elk. Unicorn horn. Rhinoceros. Unicorn horn. Gorilla. Unicorn horn. "Angie" the pet flying angelfish. No horn. A slug. Ant. No horn for either. A beetle. Insect-sized unicorn horn.
I had to find a way to transform without the horn. I tried humanoid forms. Rosewise didn't have a horn. Silverstreak did. Alloralla, yes. Lily and Apricot, no. Lakerta and Arista did. I transformed back to my normal form. Then I used {Chimeric Transformation} to swap my forehead with Apricot's. No horn.
Finally, I swallowed my pride and transformed into a horse. No horn. What the hell?
That gave me a base to work with. I transformed into a gorilla, with a horse forehead only where the horn grew and used {Chameleon} to dye the fur the same color. Done. Beetle with an ant's forehead, ditto. No horn. The same worked on reverse. I transformed into a white horse and swapped the forehead to a gorilla's, and BAM! instant unicorn.
Then I dyed my fur in all the colors of the rainbow, making Lisa Frank proud. That's when Ikeshia entered the room with my meal. She screamed and dropped the tray.
** CLANG **
I looked at the gasping maid. "What's wrong?" I asked her in Fulgen Elvish.
"It's just you!" She sighed in relief when she recognized my voice. "I thought I've seen a real unicorn."
"Hey!" I protested. "I'm the next best thing."
My gaze drifted to the splattered soup on the floor. She looked down and then remembered her job. I didn't blame her. The shock at seeing a unicorn after all these thousands of years... I don't think she was even born at the time. I shapeshifted back.
"I'm sorry for my blunder."
"It's fine. I can clean it. I used to be a brownie, don't you know?"
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Getting the Queens to their destinations with their massive entourage was a challenging task. The best way to go would be fairy gates, but I didn't have a fairy ring in Laconia or in the plains. So I did the heavy lifting and flew to these locations...
Through the Ethereal. Why wouldn't I make use of the speed boost combined with the fastest means of transportation? The only reason was if I didn't know where I was going and needed to see. Because things got really blurry in the Ethereal.
Another reason was the horror at the site of the ruined city. The local magic was warped. The best and fastest explanation was this: The world had a sore pustule, inflamed and with gangrene. What could've damaged the world this much? What kind of dreaded magic did I release here? Was this the reason I had gaps in my memory?
Bloody hell. If I remembered how I caused it, I would like to forget it. Maybe that's why everyone is both pissed at and afraid of me.
I landed in the center of the massive crater. The water had no substance in the Ethereal. Then I activated {Purifying Manastorm} at full power. There was nothing here to damage but I knew what would happen if I left this to fester.
The same thing happened to the blood-soaked land where the Black Dragon King died. Another open-air Dungeon. While this could be a valuable resource, I felt I shouldn't let the monsters that this place could spawn come into being. Call it a hunch.
Since nobody knew how fast I could move, I laid down at the bottom of the crater and took a rest, meditating and letting the manastorm do its job. I used this time to check my Perks.
* Berserker Rage VI (combined): When raging, the Attribute bonus is +12
* Extend Rage III (uncommon): 4x rage duration.
* Rage Charges III (uncommon): 4x daily rage.
* Enraged Mobility (rare): When raging, increase movement speed by 50%.
* Barrier Basher (very rare): When raging, you deal 100% more damage if you strike magical barriers or shields.
* Overrun (very rare): When you trample, you attack with all four legs.
* Vital Overrun (very rare): When you trample, your critical chance increases by 20%.
* Wild buck (rare): If you are surrounded by 4 or more enemies, deal 100% extra damage if you attack more than one of them.
* Marauder's Agility (rare): When raging, add the rage bonus to Agility.
* Menacing Aura (very rare): When raging, lower the fear resistance of all enemies in (Endurace/2) meters by (Charisma + Strength/2)%
* Magic-Devouring Rage (very rare): When rage, each enemy spell that hits you adds 1 minute. You can spend (50*N^2) MP, where N is the number of times this ability was used in such a way, to add another minute.
* Myrmidon School (very rare): You can pick the restricted proficiency "War Maneuvers". This counts as either a weapon or physical proficiency, whichever is better for you.
* Myrmidon Training (very rare): You gain proficiency in "War Maneuvers" 25% faster.
* Heirloom Clairvoyance (ultra-Rare): You can see through your soulbound heirloom item, regardless of distance.
* Heirloom Synesthesia (ultra-Rare): You can use any sense through your soulbound heirloom item, regardless of distance.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
That finished my allotment of Class and Rank 1 species Perks. The list for Unicorn Heritor had a lot of stuff I didn't need, like resistance to poison and disease, as well as ways to cure these. The System, regardless, allowed me to bypass these entry-level Perks on the Perk tree to get the ones that needed them as a requirement.
* Purity Aura (very rare): This aura has a Magic/2 meters radius. Friendly creatures in range receive 50% resistance to poison and disease effects and damage.
* Purity Aura II (very rare): The bonus from your aura is now 75% and reduces such debuffs' duration by 50%.
* Purification Sacrifice (ultra-rare): After the target spends 30 seconds in your purity aura, you can take their debuffs onto yourself.
* Speedy Purification (ultra-rare): Absorb debuffs after only 2 seconds. Your aura's range is now Magic meters.
Yeah. Poison and disease removal aura for only four Perks. The next one was {Instant Purification}, did what it said on the label. But the drop from 2 seconds to an instant didn't seem worth a Perk.
I found a curious tidbit about unicorns. Like the pronghorn antelope (even though it was from an entirely different ungulate animal family), our horns shed the sheath once a year, in winter. As we were approaching the season, the base of my horn felt itchy. And there were Perks to help with that.
* Faster Shedding (uncommon): Your horn sheds and regrows 10 times faster. Reduce the discomfort by 75%.
* Voluntary Shedding (very rare): You can strip the sheath of your horn voluntarily. Doing so reduces its potency by 50% and deals you 20% of your maximum HP as damage. This damage can only be healed when the sheath regrows.
* Potency Preserving (very rare): Your horn sheddings keep 75% more of their potency, but decay at the same rate.
Huzzah! "Free" unicorn horn keratin sheaths. At least now I know the one in my spear is the real deal. The sheath is fingernail-thin.
The itch became barely perceptible after I picked the Perk. Now I knew why it was rated [Uncommon] by the system. Creatures that had to deal with it would surely go for the soothing Perk. Just like several human and Eleon women picked the self-explanatory {Bloodless Period} and {Colic Resistance} as their species Perks.
The last five Perks I spent on another requisite tree that led to another aura-like Perk.
* Glowing Horn (rare): Your horn emits dim light to a range of Magic/2 meters, allowing you to see.
* Bright Horn (rare): Your horn now emits a strong light. You gain +2 Magic.
* Light Horn (very rare): Your horn emits strong light to a range of Magic meters.
* Searing Horn (Very rare): Your horn grants you +2 Magic. Its light is distasteful for Demons, Undead, and Shadow creatures.
* Shining Horn (ultra-rare): Demons, Undead, and Shadow creatures take a penalty of [100*(Your Soul)/4*(Their Magic)] to all Attributes.
That finished my allotment of Class and Species perks. Just to be sure, I checked.
> You have 1 Unique Perk pick.
"What the hell?" I cursed out loud. When did I get a Unique pick? Weren't the Gods angry at me? Was this related to the gaps in my memory? What kind of shit happened to make me willingly agree to erase part of my mind?
"System, next time I am about to get some of my memory erased, add a message that reads, open quote, You dumbass idiot, remember Pekothas' Capital, exclamation mark, signed, comma, Snowdrop the Unicorn Heritor, period mark, end quote."
> ACKNOWLEDGED. The message will play as follows:
>
> "You dumbass idiot, remember Pekothas' Capital! Signed, Snowdrop the Unicorn Heritor."
I made a few back-and-forth changes to the message. The end result was as follows.
> "Hello, I'm your past self from the Age of Eclipse. You are about to erase a portion of your memory. You already did that, and you didn't like the end result. I suggest you don't do it, seriously. I did, and have mixed feelings. I know something happened, a city got destroyed, there was infanticide galore, I think lost a friend. I wasn't at the top of my game and did it anyway. I sort of regret it. So, my advice is to not do it. Seriously. They can't force you to do it anyway, so take a step back and use some time to think about it. But whatever you decide to do, don't give up your memories from Earth. Signed, Snowdrop the Unicorn Queen, A.K.A. yourself, dumbass."
Once the message was done, I thought that I could use this unique Perk to make sure I would never lose my memories again. But as I said in the message, I couldn't get them wiped out if I didn't voluntarily agree to it as the only entity that could mess with me was the System and it had safeguards against doing so without my consent.
I would like to meet the guy that created this System. It has so much in common with modern Earth computer science paradigms that I know he's a human from Earth just like me. Well, if wishes were unicorns, I wouldn't be the heir to the King.
I had no idea what to pick for the Unique Perk. With the way Wyxnos talked to me, I knew this might be the last one for a long time.
A quick check of things I had to spend. I spent my Attribute Points, maxing out Charisma and Ego. I had abilities for my proficiencies, but they were too much. I needed a clear mind to pick them and there wasn't much they would change. A few Status points here and there wouldn't make my task easier.
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Level 120
Strength: 21+81 (102) [2] / 64 - Dexterity: 19+24 (43) / 64 - Endurance: 26+54 (80) / 64 [3]
Mind: 19+34 (53) / 64 - Willpower: 27+41 (68) / 64 - Charisma: 64+12 (76)
Magic: 18+33 (51) / 64
Ego: 64+32 (96) - Luck: 19+22 (41) / 64 - Soul: 33+22 (55) / 64
HP 77.949.375 (268.333 HP/s) [1]
Energy 28.412.677 (22.172 E/min) [1]
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[1] My apologies. HP and Energy calculations still use the old formula. I didn't change my spreadsheet to calculate using the proficiencies.
[2] Attribute bonuses from Class (that are not 5-fused) do not count for the {Pinnacle of...} Perks for reaching 100 in an Attribute.
[3] "Endurance: 26+54 (80) / 64" reads as Atrribute name: Base value +Bonus (sum of the previous two) / Cap. if the base value is already at the cap, the slash is omitted. And yes, I have a lot of Concat/IF nested functions that generate the Statistic block for me. I just cut/paste it from there.