Transformation complete!
Congratulations you have successfully changed your race!
"Ugh, my head, I hope I won't make blacking out a habit of mine. It may land me in weird situations, imagine losing a limb or something while I'm out. Speaking of which, I can't feel my legs and my body feels kind of odd. Have I been transported to that weird place again? But I can still see the cavern, the angle and colours are kind of unusual but it's far cry from being suspended in that vacant void."
Kai tried to stand up but his point of view started rolling instead of rising. "What is this, am I tied or something?". After a few minutes of tumbling around, Kai started to get hang of it. The more he tried to move the easier it become. After a while he could sort of move around, at first it was quite hard for him to do anything other than wriggle on the floor but soon moving around, pose no problem for Kai. He still couldn't move his legs or hands, as a matter of fact, Kai couldn't even feel them despite that, going from one wall to other poses no difficulty.
While Kai was learning how to walk again, he noticed that his sense of smell was strange too, it looked like his ability to detect scents improved but it wasn't constant. It appeared and disappeared.
"To sum it up, it seems that while some of my senses improved my mobility got worse, well maybe it's not that bad but my only way of moving around is to use that weird side-way movement. To an outside observer, it has to look bizarre, a grown-ass man slithering around a dark cave like some kind of creepy snake. Wait.."
Suddenly Kai felt an overwhelming sense of foreboding. He vaguely remembers the system message, that he got just after waking up. Was it something about transformation? He paid it no mind because he had more pressing matters at hand. Combine that with current symptoms and you receive a really ugly picture.
"It can't be, right?" There is an easy way to confirm his suspicions. He remembered that on his personal system page, there was a section about his race.
With an uneasy feeling, he uttered: "Status".
Aki Nova lvl [0]
Race:[Garter Snake: TIER 8]
Biomass [0]
Class:[SHADOWMANCER: TIER 5]
Agility: 17
Strength: 3
Perception: 15
Toughness: 2
Intelligence: 9
Mana sense: 15
Mana potency: 19
Skills:
[SHADOW MANIPULATION: TIER 5]
[REINFOCE SHADOW: TIER 6]
[SHADOW ILUSION: TIER 8]
[BASIC APPRAISAL: TIER 9] - 65%
Racial Skills:
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[TOXIC BITE: TIER 8]
"Oh for fuck's sake please no. Garter snake? What have I done to suffer that much."
Kai panicked. How was this possible? What had happened to him? He remembers picking that strange sculpture and now he is a snake? What the actual fuck? Did the system do this to him through that item? And what are those stats? He got this biomass thing and a new skill that is quite self-explanatory but his toughness and strength are so low, he remembers them being close to 10 and now what? What even toughness 2 mean? Will he die from a slap from a cultist if he runs into any?
Sure, he got some things in exchange but he wasn't asking for any change in the first place! He was just fine being a normal human and the system forced him into becoming a snake? And not just any snake but a garter snake, why of all things a garter snake, why not a cobra or some kind of anaconda, anything would be better than this. If we would gone by game terms I would be a starting mob in noob village among slimes. Even the tier of his race reflects how badly the system screwed him up, Tier 8?!?! The fucking Newbie Knight had been a class in Tier 8.
When Kai realized what kind of situation he found himself in, he got more and more worked up. Slowly his fear and frustration turned into anger and anger into unyielding rage.
"Fucking System I will show you, turning me into a noob mob, huh?!?! Just wait until I get my hands, or rather scales, on your stupid subconscious thing. You will regret even coming close to Earth"
With those words, the small snake began aggressively slithering towards the exit from the cave.
----------------------------------------
Kai was slithering through a dense forest outside the cave, trying to make sense of his new form and his new world. "Has the terrain been that rough before?".
Unyielding rage is one thing but he couldn't ignore his basic need, namely hunger. Before rushing out of the cave he looked for his belongings, if he transformed into the smaller form, there should be a bundle of clothes along with his backpack laying somewhere around, right? It turned out, unsurprisingly that there was nothing that could be even remotely useful to him, even this cursed statuette disappeared somewhere. He kind of expected this from a bullshit-like system but it still stung a little.
He lost his emergency rations along with his backpack therefore he is forced to hunt for a meal. While Kai was aware of what that meant to him he wasn't that much troubled by it. He had worse meals. And a while ago he caught the scent of something delicious and it made his stomach growl.
He followed the scent, his senses heightened by his snake body. As Kai turned around a particularly large tree he arrived at a small clearing and in the middle of it sat his future meal.
A small bunny, no larger than his own body, was nibbling on a pile of berries. But this was no ordinary bunny. It had small, sharp horns on its head, and its teeth were worryingly long and razor-sharp looking. Kai realized with a jolt that this bunny wasn't limiting itself only to berries, it was a carnivorous bunny, a predator in its own right.
"What is this abomination?" He thought to himself. "Let's try using that one skill first, Appraisal!"
[Horned Bunny lvl: 2]
"Oh! It worked, but it's not that useful yet, maybe if I raise the Tier of this skill I will get more information? I saw that next to the name of the skill there was some number with a percentage. If I would take a guess it probably means my progress towards the next Tier." Kai muttered to himself. "Now, how to deal with this. I don't think frontal assault would work and with those large ears it would probably hear me long before I get close enough to launch a sneak attack and I can't risk getting into a brawl with my 2 Toughness".
"Let's try other skills Shadow Manipulation!" At first, nothing happened, and Kai began to worry that he had done something wrong. But then he felt a tug on something in himself that he wasn't even aware of. Something that until just now laid dormant and now transformed into a gushing torrent, rushed out of him. But it was still aimless, he could see wildly dancing shadows around himself but it was far from what he wanted to do. Yes, it looked pretty but he has a meal to hunt.
And he felt that, while this energy flowing within him wasn't close to exhaustion it still wasn't limitless so he has to do something with it. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, feeling the magic begin to flow through his body. Kai focused his mind, reaching out to the energy that flowed around him and began to shape shadows to his will, forming them into a long, pointed spear. The shadows seemed to respond to his will, bending and twisting into a weapon that he desired.
But it was still only a shadow, meaning, it pose no real threat to a bunny. Kai has to spice it up.
"Reinforce shadow".
The shadow seemed to suddenly gain weight, transforming itself into a powerful weapon as solid and deadly as any made of metal. With a little jolt of his inner energy, Kai hurled a heavy spear at the bunny. The bunny was still grazing, unaware of the danger that approached it at rapid speed.
At the last moment, just before the weapon impacted the long-eared creature, it looked up and tried to dodge, but the spear moved too fast, striking the creature with a sickening thud.
[You have slain a lvl 2 Horned Bunny!]
You have gained a level!