Alistair inspected his face in the mirror; the most immediately noticeable change was that he now had a short, full beard again, though it was slightly more dense and uniform in color and lacked the usual isolated gray and off-color hairs he had before the initiation. He touched it with his hand, running his fingers through it as he inspected himself more closely. Using polymorphing to change the length of his hair and beard was something he had practiced before, and the beard slowly diminished, but Riseth interrupted him, protesting the intended change.
"Leave it a bit. It looks great on you." She said as she touched his beard with some fascination.
"Alright," he acquiesced, turning his attention back to his reflection in the mirror. Aside from a slight adjustment in proportion to match his transformed physique, his facial features hadn't altered much besides his ears being slightly pointy. Yet, the most striking change was the silvery glow that now emanated from his irises.
Riseth's transformation was less intense; now, her horns had this slick obsidian vibe to them, unlike their bony look before. Her cat-like irises had made a comeback. All the other changes she had experienced through her evolution, like her skin and hair, she had changed back with her inherent polymorphic ability as a succubus. However, he had noticed that she had slightly increased her own size to match his. He was pretty sure his wish not to change too much had prevented some of the more drastic visual changes from taking effect, but it had not prevented all of them.
"I should probably shrink back to normal size. I'm way too big," Alistair mused, eyeing himself in the mirror.
"Don't you dare," Riseth warned, her tone tinged with a hint of desire. Her predatory gaze was intensified by her now cat-like magenta irises.
"But I look like a wall of muscle," Alistair teased, looking down at her.
Riseth bit her lower lip and looked up at him. "A wall I want to climb," she quipped.
"We do need to check how these changes affect Dual Cultivation," Alistair said innocently as he casually picked up Riseth, who wrapped her legs around him and let out a giggle, her clothes disappearing.
In the following two weeks, they refined their cultivation and adapted to their new bodies, as Alistair had felt a bit awkward about his new height. He had managed to decrease his size so he wouldn't have to bend down for most doorways, but he was still taller than before, which was a compromise for Riseth, who was quite fond of his larger size. They had already held a small clan meeting in anticipation of their expedition laying out requirements and training regiments. This was to ensure nobody would die from stepping on a mine or being killed by one of the snipers.
The most painful part of upgrading his rank had been that most of his skills had lost a rank. All his legendary skills had been downgraded to Supreme. His Blastmaster had, however, remained at Supreme, and many of the skills he had considered on the edge of advancement, like his Chrono Seizing Hand and Bloodcurdling Presence, had also remained in their respective tier. Particularly, his Blink and Improved Flight skills stood out as they were now at common tier. He had worked to improve them and other skills, managing to upgrade them by removing the requirement of line of sight when teleporting at least at moderate ranges. His flight skill had improved by increasing the amount of acceleration and deceleration possible and adding the option of using Qi.
Skills: Tier: Name: Description: [Uncommon] Blink
Teleport distances within range of any of the users [Senses] at the cost of a tiny amount of [MP] for each activation. This cost increases to moderate when teleporting through walls. [Uncommon]
Improved Flight Enables the user to fly at a small cost of [MP] over time, taps into the concepts of acceleration and deceleration as well as control, allowing for great aerial maneuverability and Rapid bursts of speed and quick halts at a minimal additional [MP] cost. May infuse [MP] or [Qi] to accelerate and decelerate at extreme speeds.
His family's and friends' reactions to his evolution were less extreme than he had expected. They had grown more accustomed to the weirdness of the new reality they found themselves in, especially since many of them were already preparing to evolve themselves.
Alistair had gained two levels from killing the spider nest with Riseth's help in the slayer world. They had found that Alistair gained 35 stat points per level, whereas Riseth gained 31 per level, which meant he had overtaken her in stat gain per level. He had also hunted some cave wendigos with Simon, who absolutely hated the horrifying-looking monsters. Their goal was to extract a large quantity of mithril ore at James's request. James had not finished his projects in the requested time frame, which had not surprised Alistair as it was typical for James to get sidetracked or intentionally understate the time required for his projects, a tactic that often helped him secure permission to start work that his former employer might have otherwise denied. It was somewhat amusing to Alistair that his brother had used the same technique on him and Nessyra. He marked it down as a habit but would call him out on it next time.
During the last few weeks, they had a breakthrough in creating storage items. Alistair was still waiting for the specialized ring that would let him store his Ginkgo tree. But he had gotten a handful of high-capacity rings, so he wouldn't need to worry about storing larger-sized treasures or corpses he came across anymore.
James and Alistair had occasionally entered the Autometa Trial World. James had released a small swarm of scouting drones to properly map a large chunk of the local continent and spot points of interest. His work had been impressive, as Alistair could only sense the drones in relatively close proximity, and their camouflage made them incredibly hard to spot. Alistair had quickly lost track of them as they flew into the distance. The drones would independently scout and share collected data in irregular intervals of encrypted messages.
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James had somehow melded the Nyuvwira's skin with mithril, which he called Stealthrim. Alistair had initially frowned upon hearing the name, but it was now growing on him. The alloy offered extraordinarily intricate visual camouflage that affected even magical senses and also retained the unique properties of mithril, known for its light weight and exceptional magic conductivity. Alistair only had a surface understanding of the exact process of integrating monster parts and cores into metals beyond the magical melting down and mixing them into alloys. He just marked it down as magic on his brother's recommendation, as he did not plan to become a craftsman. He would not waste his brother's time by asking him for the details, at least not during the trials.
They had taken a quick trip to the moon on Riseth's trial world. The Artemis roared to life as he felt the reactor burn through material to lift off the planet. The Artemis had no windows but had holographic displays on its walls showing the outside. Alistair could see the ship leaving the ground as it soared into the sky. A taste of ozone radiated from the reactor, and he felt the energy being contained by the ship's hull and reabsorbed as they left the atmosphere.
However, the barren moonscape was much less exciting, but at least they found moonstones quite easily protruding from the surface. Being able to portal to different worlds and the introduction of magic had taken some of the novelty out of the experience. But neither his nor James's excitement had been dampened by the prospect of exploring proper unknown planets not copied or created by the system, as both of them were looking forward to that.
His sister, Melissa, had obtained all the other materials needed for the rituals. Simons's father, Thomas, had gotten a lot of practice dismantling monsters from the mountain of high-tier bodies Alistair and the rest of the clan brought in. With his help, they had managed to gather the materials needed for multiple rituals besides Melissa's. They made a tidy profit by processing and selling some of the less interesting materials, such as monster hides and generic cores. Melissa was currently busy setting up the magic circles needed for the ritual. Alistair found that magic circles and arrays were essentially the same, the only difference being the style of runes. They planned to perform the ritual after today's clan meeting.
Alistair and Riseth were the last to arrive at Nessyra's place. Her office had undergone serious changes, and the rework of the privacy screen had some serious reinforcement to prevent even a determined god from spying on their meetings. Which was necessary as the longer the trial went on, the more involved and numerous the gods became. James had provided Nessyra with a holoprojector that sat in the center of the room and would project any images and recordings perfectly for anyone looking at it, no matter the angle and distance. Nessyra had expanded the size of the room and placed a circular couch around the projector so people could sit comfortably around it.
After exchanging pleasantries, Alistair and Riseth sat down on the couch next to his mother as Nessyra started the projector, which displayed an image of multiple unknown human women in white and golden robes.
"Good; now that everyone has arrived, let's start the clan meeting. We have multiple topics to go over today," Nessyra announced as she stood beside the projector.
The room got quiet, and Alistair looked at her with rapt attention. Nessyra had been employing spies more and more to investigate the gods that had interacted with or shown interest in their clan. Alistair presumed these women were related to that. He still wondered how she had gotten in touch with spies from Earth. His best guess was they had sought her out because of the money and her contract magic, which gave her a good reputation as a discreet employer. As said, contracts prevented her from divulging anything even to him.
"The women you see here are some of Sol's brides. Sol had been spreading his seed for a long time now, but it has only recently been confirmed. Apparently, any children conceived this way would become Godkin." Nessyra explained that the view changed from a window to a window showing genealogy entries and explanations.
Nessyra glanced at Melissa, who hesitantly rose from her seat and positioned herself beside her. "Melissa has helped me put this together. As she has a better understanding, she will be the one presenting the information," Nessyra explained.
Melissa looked around nervously before she started. "In Sol's case, these children would look mostly human but obtain both his heritage records and most of the trial benefits young children receive," Melissa explained as she highlighted some sections of their research into the topic.
"Do we know why he does this? These children won't be grown up by the time the first waves of outsiders arrive," Simon queried, his brow furrowed.
Alistair noticed that Simon had adopted the term outsider, one of the many names given to people from the other multiverses. Some of the most common ones were invaders and outsiders.
Melissa glanced at Nessyra, and then spoke up. "We presume, like most things Sol does, this was more for practical than indulgent reasons," Melissa suggested. "It might be his inner Zeus showing."
Nessyra nodded in agreement. "But we doubt it. He was most likely seeking to create promising seedlings loyal to him. His children just might grow powerful enough before the bridges open for the higher-grade waves of outsiders to arrive. But yes, they won't be ready for the first few waves. So he is planning for the long game."
Simon scratched his chin before giving an approving nod and leaning back onto the couch. Melissa picked up where she had left off, talking about the number of women and that all of them had seemingly willingly agreed to have his children. Alistair frowned a little. Like most things about Sol, they had to work on presumptions. Ever since Alistair had seen the golden mask Sol had initially worn, he had been wary of the god. He seemed quite practical in his approaches, which was the only thing that was consistent with the deity.
They had learned that Sol's approachable and casual demeanor was reserved for his elite followers. He generally preferred a detached and imposing figure, a beacon to his people, leading the masses but giving preferential treatment to those he perceived as valuable. One could usually spot those favored by Sol not just from their rank but also visually, as they were given more leeway when it came to things like dress code. The only thing he strictly enforced was the display of his sigil, marking them as his followers.
Melissa concluded her section of the presentation and hurried back to her seat, visibly relaxing as she sunk into the comfortable couch. Nessyra cleared her throat as she moved on to the next topic.
"Sol has greatly expanded his following, as he continuously reaches out to new rising stars from earth. However, he is not that well-received, broadly speaking. He has a slightly tyrannical disposition and has rejected cooperating with groups seeking to reestablish countries from before the initiation. "He has officially claimed Earth as his domain," Nessyra explained, as revamped country flags and familiar-looking sigils and logos appeared on the projector. "He does not tolerate independent factions outside his control but offers them positions and some recognition if they were to join him, with mixed results."
Next to the banners were their names, estimated wealth, numbers, and note-worthy individuals associated with them. Two slightly altered American flags and starkly altered European Union banners were most prominent among them. The European Union banner had undergone some changes, with stars replaced by different sigils and separated by subtle dividers, giving each sigil its own space. Most of the other flags had undergone slight additions in the form of sigils and color changes. Still, they kept some of the more recognizable aspects of their flags or had them replaced with recognizable iconography like the Eiffel Tower for France. Considering the emergence of so many factions, they were currently working under the presumption that Sol was no enemy and had most likely lost interest in the Ryser Clan, content to leave the status quo as he had bigger issues to worry about.
"Any reason why there is no Chinese banner in there? Also, why are there two American banners?" Alistair asked, his gaze fixed on the projector, though he suspected he knew the answer.