“How do you rate our visit?” I asked Godfrey on the way back.
“Good. But the [Emperor] is suspicious of you,” the knight answered.
“How so?”
He leaned forward. His gaze was stern but it hid kindness behind them. “Your Highness, you’re hiding your true strength, aren’t you?”
Time for the Morpheus meme. “What if I told you all my Attribute values are above a hundred, would you believe it? Wouldn’t you want to see it for yourself? And what if the damage I did to that poor knight’s neck reached twenty-six million HP?”
“I would have to say you’re lying about that. Even though my instincts tell me you aren’t. You’re lying, aren’t you?”
I grinned. “Everyone is. Look, I ranked up. Isn’t it a good thing? Who is foolish enough to pin their whole Status Sheet on a notice board at the central square? That would be tantamount to an invitation to come and check if it’s true. It's a given that I’m hiding my true strength. And so are you, and father as well. The only way to be sure is to put one’s life on the line and see what happens. That stupid wizard did that. And now he’s dead. But everyone got a glimpse of my true strength. That will make some people back down, that will make some fools overconfident. Such is the way of life here in the Empire, isn’t it?”
“You’re right, Your Highness. I’m humbled. It’s one of those moments where you sound ancient. Wise.”
I looked out the window and sighed, “I’m afraid I’m going to kill every single fool this Empire bred. Only once the Empire is cleansed of those idiots who think borrowed power is as good as the real thing will I rest. I’ll tell you one thing, Godfrey, and that is the truth. I’m going to die defending this city. Fighting against an enemy who’ll come down to kill the [Emperor]. Such is my fate as it was determined centuries before my birth.”
I could see that my candid confession creeped out the knight. “What enemy is that?” He asked seriously.
“Ask yourself, what kind of enemy could threaten the [Emperor]? I won’t say anything further. This Empire is too engorged in its own prophecies to add more. I won’t hold you in secrecy for what I disclosed here. Do with it as you wish, Godfrey.”
Godfrey said nothing until we returned to our “humble” Palace.
----------------------------------------
It was close to my quarterly visit to Windemere so I went earlier, carrying the souls of the family I murdered with me. They were arrested because the boy stole some stale bread from a baker. It was disgusting. I also took a fifth soul with me. This one would redeem himself by feeding his Exp to the family whose death he caused.
On Sky Island, I transformed into Haru, the common face of the Matriarch. The twenty-three-tailed-kitsune. As I started to grow their bodies from the tissue samples I collected, I noticed my {Flesh Magic Affinity} made the process an order of magnitude easier. I had to spend fewer resources and the process became faster than before. More if I put the corresponding tail out.
Clothed in fine silk, the family came back to life. They immediately knelt before me.
“Your Holiness,” the father mistook the treatment pronoun, “we are eternally thankful.”
“Mommy, is this heaven?” The girl asked. The woman shushed the kid.
“You are in the sky, but this is not heaven,” I replied. “This is my property, the Sky Island above Windemere. I’m the Matriarch, the Goddess of Protection, Crafts, and Wisdom. I ask you to forgive Prince Percival. The young boy was doing my bidding. The wicked mage that tortured you is dead. You’ll be given a new life here in Windemere. I expect you to earn your keep with hard work. The children will have to study and learn a lot of things. They’ll go to school. Should you need help finding a job or a place to live, seek my priests.”
They seemed confused and worried. I didn’t read their minds but I knew what they feared. “The Empire won’t know you’re here. Even they can’t reach this far. I’ll grant minor boons to you. Change the color of your hair, remove your scars, grant a little bit of Strength. To the Children, my blessings. They’ll gain a minor boost to their Attributes and the friendship of the fairies, should they reciprocate.”
With their consent, I trained Flesh magic on them, making some minor changes. The mother wanted a lighter tone on her auburn hair, the father wanted a manly chin. On the kids, I didn’t change anything but I granted them the {Fairy Godchildren} Perk.
While they had a good meal, I went to the next room and brought the [Wizard] back. Then I killed him over and over, feeding the couple with his Exp. They left Sky Island with the other resurrected souls from this quarter.
I knew I had to automate this process. Should I become incommunicable for some reason for centuries like last time, I couldn’t let souls wait for my return.
I needed to create an Engraved Core so it could do this job for me.
----------------------------------------
But I had three centuries before I had to worry about my fate and other matters that demanded my immediate attention. One of them was the sorry state of my grafted genitals. To fix that I needed help from my mother. Marlowe could only gather so many tomes on Flesh magic, the discipline so obscure and loathed few works explaining how to properly use it circulated in the market.
No luck with the High Elves of Fulgen either. Or the Royal Library of Ackerton. If neither of the three most prominent centers of knowledge in each continent could find it for me, I had no other choice but to bother my mother.
I knocked on Rhiannon’s door and was quickly invited in. She came and hugged me. “My son. I heard about your exploits in the throne room. How are you feeling?”
“I was forced to kill two children, mom. This is not right.”
“They were criminals. Such is the Empire’s law. The [Emperor], your father, decreed their death and nominated you the executioner. Their deaths are on him, not you.”
“It makes things even less right. But I’m not here to talk about that. I’m sure whatever deity took pity on their souls made right by them already,” I said with a smile.
She sensed something in my words. Rhiannon straightened her back and softened her expression, “To what God do you pray, my son?”
“The Matriarch. She’s the only one I truly trust in this twisted world.”
My mom smiled and nodded, “She’s a good goddess. She shelters everyone regardless of species, that’s why she’s not popular here in the Empire.”
Yup. Add human supremacy to the list of Imperial screwed-up truths.
“I need your help, mom. It’s a rather delicate subject.”
She grasped my hand and led me to the couch. Ignoring protocol, I sat next to her. “Speak your mind, my son. You made me proud. A true man among men.”
I sighed and resigned myself to ask her. It was odd that I felt ashamed of what I had to do, “Mom, I have a problem. A serious one. You are probably the only person who can help me.”
“What is it, my son?”
I made sure one last time that we were not being observed through magical means and put some privacy wards around the room.
“It is easier if I show you. Forgive me, mom.”
I stood up and removed my pants. Rhiannon stared at me, frozen in fear. I dropped my undergarments and showed her the grafted male organs.
“They look perfect to me, my SON.” Her voice rose an octave at the last word. She was trembling.
“The mage who delivered me and grafted this on me did a hasty job, mom. He didn’t anchor the penis correctly, and now it dangles even when erect.”
I was blunt to rip off the band-aid with all due haste.
What I said was true. A penis goes deeper into the pelvic cavity, underneath the perineum. That’s what anchors the shaft and allows it to defy gravity when erect. But that place was currently occupied by my female organs. The penis had no support and while it would get stiff with arousal, it remained pointing down. The base was loose and it could bend in any direction freely.
Rhiannon did nothing but lock up. She couldn’t believe what I said. Not that I said, or that I was right, but that I knew about my own circumstances. I placed my clean hand on her shoulder and focused on her mind.
“{Calm Emotions}.”
She sniffled and teared up, “Percival, I’m sorry.”
I resummoned my clothes using {Summon Arms & Armor}, making them reappear on me in the correct spot. Then I knelt next to her.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“it’s not your fault, mom. You and that mage did what you needed to do to keep me and my identical twin sister safe.”
I had inadvertently dropped another bomb. But Rhiannon was still under the effect of my spell. “You know that too. I feared you would do something untoward with your own sister but I couldn’t say anything.”
“I never did. Not to her, not to Madge. I always knew, mom. And now that she’s blooming into a woman, it will be harder to hide the truth. The three of us look like copies of one another.”
“You look like a man,” She pointed out.
“Yes, because I’ve been treating myself with male hormones,” I noticed she didn’t understand a thing of what I was saying, “I concocted an alchemical medicine that can make me look like a man. But I need to finish the job that mage...”
“Buscalpaun. That’s his name.”
“I need to finish the job Buscalpaun started. I have no tomes on Flesh magic. I hoped you have his grimoire. When the [Emperor] entered the room, he was about to cast a spell to finish my gender change. He never completed it before he died. With his grimoire, I can do it myself. We got lucky that it was Amina, a loyal Roswarian that noticed my girl parts the day I was born, but anyone who looks down there will see it.”
She beamed a faint smile, “So that’s why you made such a fuss with the Imperial Doctor.”
“The grimoire, mom. Do you know where is it?”
“In Buscalpaun’s storage ring. I don’t know where it is, the last time I’ve seen it it was on his finger.”
“The same for me. It was the day he died.”
“The day you were born and a loyal Roswarian gave his life for their Princess,” she receded back into a frown.
“He gave his life for three Roswarian Princesses, mom. You, me, and Mona,” I tried to cheer her up. “You called him an old friend. Would you please share with me some stories of Roswaria? I don’t think they should be forgotten.”
“But the ring...”
“I will find it. Even if it is underneath my father’s pillow, I’ll find it. Now, stories. And I’m sorry for showing you such unsightly things but I had no idea how to explain it to you.”
She shook her head and hugged me. “You can drop your magic now. It’s too strange to not feel anything.”
“Sorry to intrude in your mind, mom.”
“You’re welcome, my son. It was a harmless spell that helped me focus. You deserved to have such a talk. Thank you for being a wonderful son.”
“I love you, mom.”
“I love you too, but I can’t actually love you with this spell dampening everything,” she chuckled.
I did and held her from crashing down as Rhiannon’s emotions flooded back into her like water from a broken dam. Still hugging each other, I made my way back on the couch next to her. I let Rhiannon have her moment and held her as she cried her sorrows. After she was done venting her emotions, she started her tale.
“Roswaria is the land of the most gorgeous dusks. The combination of mostly clean skies and highlands blessed us with a sunset that looked like an oil painting, every single day...”
----------------------------------------
I talked with my mother as she shared the tales of her innocent youth in fair Roswaria until late in the night. I teleported straight to the underground Secret Garden and crashed on a bench.
Nenandil came and landed on my chest. “Are you sure you’re going to remove the lady parts?”
I groaned, “I have to. And it’s not like I have a lack of lady parts, even if I remove the ones I’m with right now. I can always shapeshift my pelvic region and use one of my previous lives’ genitals if I want to have some fun.”
“Okay. How are you going to find that ring?”
“I know how the ring looks like, and I know who took it. All I have to do is ask around. I doubt it is with the Emperor. Most likely, one of the mages that came with father that day has it.”
She bopped my nose and put her tiny face right in front of my right eye, “You should update your Status before you go.”
I laughed. “You see, that’s why every [Hero] worth of his Holy Sword needs a fairy to guide them.”
“Right. I’ll make sure to guide you in your quest to Fix thy Holy Sword, Your Highness,” she broke into fits of giggles.
I opened my Status window and checked.
> You reached Anima Lancer level 20. You gained 30 Attribute Points. Ultimate Surpasser granted you 84 Attribute Points.
> Your Class ranked up to Anima Lancer (Human, 5-fused, ultra-rare++++, 3rd rank). Your upgraded Progression is,
>
> 1 Attribute point at every level.
>
> 1 Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Mind, Willpower, Magic, and Ego at every level.
>
> 1 Dexterity, Magic, Soul, and Luck at every even level.
>
> 1 Willpower and Charisma every odd level.
>
> 28 base HP every level.
>
> 20 base Energy every level.
>
> 1 Perk every even level, plus a bonus perk at levels 10 and 20.
> You reached Anima Lancer level 7.
>
> You gained 10 Attribute Points. Ultimate Surpasser granted you 29 Attribute Points.
>
> You gained 7 Strength, 10 Dexterity, 7 Endurance, 7 Mind, 11 Willpower, 4 Charisma, 10 Magic, 7 Ego, 3 Luck, and 3 Soul.
Now, the Perks. I had 12 2nd rank Perks and 3 3rd rank ones to buy.
* Blood Infusion (very rare): Sacrifice twice the Energy cost in HP to empower a non-blood spell by 100%.
* Blood Cabal (very rare): Willing creatures can sacrifice HP to empower your spells. Each creature level adds 1% to the spell power, up to (Magic/10) creatures.
A no-brainer. It was basically a free boost to my magic. {Blood Cabal} had a Perk chain that allowed one to use blood from unwilling restrained creatures, but I simply didn’t acquire it.
> * Vampiric Might (very rare): Drain fresh blood from wounded creatures to recover HP and Energy.
> * Blood Potency (very rare): When you drain blood from a creature, you temporarily gain Extra HP and MP, enlarging your pools.
> * Steal Flesh (ultra-rare): You can drain the flesh of a creature you touch, dealing [(Magic/10)d10 + (Willpower/5)] base damage. The flesh you steal becomes it yours, recovers a tenth of the damage dealt as HP as it mends your wounds. Resisted by [(Endurance + Willpower)/10]%.
>
> Drain Magic Core, Vampiric Might, Eldritch Body, Great Longevity, Blood Potency, Steal Flesh, Eat Anything, Monstrous Gourmet, Deep Sustenance, Eat Magic, Magic Gourmet, Drain Longevity, Extreme Metabolic Efficiency, Water Breathing, Hold Breath, Breathe Rocks, Cetacean Sleep fused into Omni-Sustenance:
>
> * Omni-Sustenance (combined): You can draw sustenance from anything physical, magical, or spiritual. You need only 1% of the food, water, and sleep a normal member of your species requires. After puberty, you age at a tenth of the normal rate. You no longer need to breathe unless you are in a region with no magic and then require only 1% of the normal air. When resting, you remain conscious and lose only 20% of your Perception score. You don't age or need food, air, or water in places of high ambient magic. Hostile magical effects are reduced by 25% after absorptions, restoring 2% of the avoided damage as Energy. Each time you eat a new species, you have a (20*[1+(Luck/100)])% chance to gain one of their species Perks. When reduced to 0 HP, all damage is halved and applied to Energy instead.
I lost some abilities, most notably the lifespan-draining powers of the Banshee or it was assumed to be part of the “spiritual” portion of the new Perk. I also lost Steal Flesh’s totally kickass touch attack (It would deal 21d10+40 base damage) moments after acquiring it but I believe it went to reinforce the other Perks’ effects. For example, my daily need for shut-eye was reduced by a quarter of the previous amount, only less than five minutes now. I could do that during a boring conversation or while eating. Regarding the no breathing part, I could hold my breath for more than eighteen hours before the fusion and could breathe in almost any environment, and suffocated 125 times slower than a normal person. The System just decided it would do away with the bothersome math altogether.
* Perfect Senses (ultra rare): All your senses are three times as sensitive, without any detrimental effects.
That triggered another Perk fusion.
> Agile Reactions, Threat Sense, Feral Instincts, Perfect Senses, Sand Sense, Explorer’s Sight, Elven Senses, Dark Sight, Soul Sight, Heat Sight, Ethereal Senses, Beast-kin olfaction, Stench Suppression, Dolphin Speech, Dolphin Hearing, Sonar and a portion of Titan Body combined into Perfect Awareness
>
> * Perfect Awareness (combined): You have the equivalent of normal sight from any point of your integument. Increase all your other senses' precision, range, and accuracy by 10. Your sense of vision does not require light and is not blocked by fine particulate in suspension. Water does not hinder your senses. You can detect infrared and a portion of the ultraviolet spectrum. You can hear any sound frequency up to 100,000 Hertz. Strong sources of stimulation do not hinder or bother you. You are immune to scent-based attacks. You resist 50% of all sonic attacks. You can perceive incorporeal entities. Your senses extend into the Ethereal world at their normal range. You add (Dexterity+20) to your Perception tests.
I could “see” from my hair or pseudopods now. But the funny thing was that I was becoming the Daredevil. I could tell different colors by touch just from their heat conductivity. My sense of touch could tell the details in a texture and even sense imperfections on a metallic surface like micro-dents. It was not that they were ten times better, they were ten times better in every aspect.
Keep shopping or die!
> * Imbued Flesh (ultra-rare): You gain 10 + 2 base Energy / level.
> * Blood Control (ultra-rare): Reduce all bleeding duration and amount by a third.
> * Flesh Control (ultra-rare): Reduce all damage done to your flesh by 25%.
> * Flesh Potency (ultra-rare): You gain 10 base HP and 2 HP/level.
> * Bone Perfection (very rare): Your bones are 50% stronger and less likely to break. Reduce all crushing damage by 25%.
> * Muscular Control (very rare): +3 Strength and Dexterity. Your muscles tense when you take damage, reducing slashing and piercing damage by 25%.
>
> Blood Control, Enhanced Attributes X, Flesh Potency, Extra Resources, Limb Regrowth, Improved Regeneration, Shapeless Moonbound Regeneration, Period Control, and part of Fire Heart, Flesh Control, Bone Perfection, Muscular Control, and Stone Flesh merged into Titan Body.
>
> * Titan Body (combined): Absolute Damage Reduction 93%. Your integument is always impeccable and can be colored at will. Bonus to stealth equal to the amount of exposed skin. Divide HP recovery tick by 24. Add a quarter of your base HP to determine HP regeneration. Missing body parts regrow in the time needed to regenerate 2% of your maximum HP. Add a tenth of your maximum HP to your maximum Energy. Immune to Bleeding and cramps. You are immune to integument afflictions including damage from fine particulate at normal speeds. No Attributes are locked to you. You gain 50 HP, 10 Energy, +32 HP/level, +22 Energy/level, +10 to all Attributes, +3 Strength and Dexterity.
>
> How many perks can you cram into a single combined one? System: Yes.
That combine frenzy reduced my Perk list by forty-six entries, already taking into account the two new combined ones.
Onto the third rank.
> You gained the Perks,
>
> * Body Elongation (very rare): You can stretch body parts across one dimension up to three times their normal size. You do not lose balance, accuracy, coordination, or strength by elongating your body.
>
> Yoga… I’ve become Dhalsim. Minus the baldness and creepy shrunk skulls. But this Perk alone tripled my wingspan, the reach of my kitsune tails and pseudopods. The latter was a constraint I’ve fought with for centuries.
>
> * Blood Sheath (ultra-rare): Sacrifice 1% of your maximum HP to sheathe your weapons with your blood, Increasing base damage by (Endurance/5).
>
> Basically free damage.
>
> * Mental Commune (ultra-rare): You pick the slightest psychic social cues, increasing all sentient creatures’ reactions toward you by two steps.
>
> Gotta keep piling up those reaction bonuses. I think some Mind-benders went the hive mind path. Not me, thank you.
----------------------------------------
“There, I spent all my points, bought all my Perks,” I told the sleeping fairy on my chest. Apparently, I took so long to do my System shopping that she dozed off.
“Oh. Congratulations. Here’s a kiss to cheer you up. I heard boys like it.”
We laughed. I stood up and put the fairy on my shoulder.
“C’mon, we have a storage ring lost a decade ago to find.”
She snickered, “The things boys are wont to do to fix their erectile problems...”
i shook my head ruefully as I made it to the tree to teleport out, "That's extremely sexist, my Lady. In my Defense, that is a Real Life or Death Problem!"