Mila
Skinwalker Princess had three main effects. First, it increased Mila’s Vitality stat by 100%. Second, it greatly increased the power of disguise category skills. And, third, it allowed Mila to form a facade over her own soul using the soul of someone who’d died in her presence, a facade which kept the used soul’s soul signature, accumulated karmic merit and sin, and even the soul’s karmic bonds, including those based on existing contracts.
In short, using her uniqueness and Trickster’s Guise skill, Mila could kill someone and magically take on their identity with a disguise so strong most gods wouldn’t be able to see through it without a deeper inspection.
The only main difficulty, magically speaking, would be in matching the Laws of the identity she’d taken over.
All in all, of the dozen or so uniqueness lines which were common on Earth, it was probably the one which was most useful for her. And this wasn’t surprising.
From what she’d learned from listening in on Aalam talking with the Alchemist of the Deep Woods, and from talking with Nana Xara herself, uniquenesses tended to match the person who awakened them, very, very rarely not being a match for the build of a cultivator if the cultivator was already E rank or higher.
And this was shown with the uniquenesses of all the commanders of their army as well.
Javier Garcia, who already specialized in Laws, awoke to the Yin Yang Prince uniqueness, increasing his affinity with yin and yang Laws by 500%, while Mila’s grandmother awoke to Four Elements Princess, her affinity for fire, water, earth, and wind Laws all increasing by the same amount.
Mila’s grandfather, being the person who’d taught her how to become the sneaky infiltrator she was, had also awoken to a uniqueness of the skinwalker line, in his case Skinwalker Lord, the Heroic grade version of the line. And Anton Smith, who already had a uniqueness which increased the effectiveness of his Magic stat and boosted the explosiveness of his mana, awoke to a complementary uniqueness which did the same for his Endurance and qi.
Silvia and Francis Davies, who shared a uniqueness which worked like Anton’s but for Spirit and psyforce instead, both awoke to uniquenesses of the skill slot line, increasing their Soul stat effectiveness by 50% and their number of skill slots by 2. And Nitya, whose previous uniqueness raised her effective Attunement stat by 200%, awoke to the skill slot uniqueness line as well, only of a higher grade, increasing her Soul stat effectiveness by 100% and her number of skill slots by 3.
Finally, of the cultivators other than Aalam who originated on Earth, Blessing Ibrahim, the representative of the reborn monster cultivators on Earth whose new form was that of a yang phoenix, awoke to a uniqueness of the skill slot line as well, the skill slot line the most common uniqueness line on Earth due to it being the only one Nana Xara had awoken to in her life.
Then, of those not descended from Nana Xara, Reginald awoke to a uniqueness of the agility line, just purely increasing the effectiveness of his Agility stat; Brom awoke to a uniqueness of the defense line, increasing the effectiveness of his Toughness stat and the power of defensive skills; and Isaiah awoke to an incredibly rare type of uniqueness which didn’t increase the effectiveness of any of his stats or affinities at all, Slaughter Prince.
The slaughter line of uniquenesses had an incredibly useful effect, turning part of the power of anyone personally killed into raw nascent energy which could then be absorbed along with the primal energy from kills. So, if Aalam chose to base the new blessing his lord skill would give out after advancing to D rank on his Nascent/Primal Energy Constructor racial ability, and Isaiah went to participate in some universal wars as part of his training, Isaiah could turn into a source of nascent energy for Aalam instead of the other way around, allowing everyone to raise their stats to the max values of D rank much, much quicker.
“Did you learn anything?” Mila asked after Isaiah left the workshop, having stayed in the room while everyone underwent their awakenings to provide Aalam access to the extra senses granted by her Third Eye Princess uniqueness, something she’d figured out how to do after their bond grew stronger.
“Their bodies appear to be surrounded by an extremely high concentration of natural energy. But then something is done to their souls to cause part of that energy to be absorbed. And I don’t know what that is.” Aalam looked and sounded a bit frustrated.
“Well, I couldn’t even recognize the natural energy part.” Mila patted him lightly on the shoulder. “And we’re only E ranks. Imagine how much better your senses will get once you advance in a few months.”
Aalam took a deep breath and nodded. Then he himself moved to the isolation formation and lay down on the mattress.
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* * *
Aalam
Aalam felt the extremely high concentration of natural energy surround him and, given his Empyrean grade uniqueness Emperor gave him excellent control over the energy type, he felt like he could manipulate the energy at will, like a fish in water.
Then, for the briefest of instances, Aalam felt his soul be put under pressure of a type he still couldn’t recognize, likely because it was somehow induced by divine level law energy, and he somehow knew exactly which uniqueness he was about to awaken, Vitality King, and he could also somehow sense seventeen other possible uniquenesses he could awaken in the future.
Of these seventeen, the one he was most interested in was the one of the third eye line, but it, like most of the others, was somehow hidden inside his soul behind Vitality King and two others.
How he knew this, and how uniquenesses actually worked, it was hard to say. The extremely high concentration of natural energy around him had placed him in a weird state—maybe what was called sudden enlightenment—and Aalam could tell his mind was somehow interpreting things he couldn’t normally sense.
All he knew was, if he awakened to Vitality King, he would be aligning his soul to be even more like his mother’s than his father’s—something he’d already done given two of his three uniquenesses, Emperor and Soul King, had primarily been inherited from her—and this would make awakening to a third eye line uniqueness in the future far more difficult.
So, without really thinking about it, Aalam somehow moved the natural energy toward awakening one of the other two uniquenesses which weren’t blocked, and then he passed out.
* * *
Mila
The energy which surrounded Aalam rippled slightly, something which hadn’t happened when anyone else had started the process of awakening to a new uniqueness, but then, right before Aalam fell unconscious, something else happened which made Mila’s eyes widen. The notifications only occurred after Aalam was already asleep, but, in practically an instant, he’d somehow raised his high grade Law Pupae of Plasma, Gas, Liquid, Solid, Matter, Anti-Matter, and Vacuum all up to peak grade, giving him quite a lot of extra nascent energy to play with after his advance to D rank.
“Well, that looks like a bout of sudden enlightenment.” Nana Xara sounded excited. “Maybe he really will learn how to awaken uniquenesses in himself and others in the future.”
Uniquenesses were the part of paths to power the universe’s gods seemed to control the most closely and, while it wasn’t said explicitly in the Divine Compendium, Mila was starting to suspect this was because awakening to uniquenesses strengthened the foundation of a soul in a similar way to oaths, making achieving divinity in the future much easier. So, if Aalam gained the ability to help awaken uniquenesses in others, this would be a game changer in their ability to recruit in the future, way beyond Aalam’s ability to raise the affinities of his subordinates.
Still, if such a capability never appeared, it wouldn’t be much of a loss, so Mila wouldn’t plan around it.
Knowing she’d have to wait a while, Mila continued to read up on information about the strongest forces in the universe on the universal soul net for the next day and then, after 27 hours, Aalam woke up, Mila’s bond with him allowing her to know he had awakened to the Law Wings King uniqueness.
“So, did you figure anything out?” Mila, who was sitting down next to the isolation formation, smiled down at Aalam.
“I think so. Maybe.” Aalam looked and sounded confused. “No. I had something for a second there, but then I lost it.”
“That’s often how sudden enlightenment works.” Nana Xara sounded slightly disappointed but still quite cheerful. “Tell him he’ll probably remember parts of what he realized in the future and that he shouldn’t try to rush things as it would likely have a detrimental effect.”
Mila did so and Aalam nodded, still looking like he was in a bit of a daze.
“Are you sure you’re okay, Aalam?”
Aalam shook his arms and jumped up and down a few times, literally bounding off the ceiling and then back down. “Yeah. More than fine. While I can’t remember much, I wish I could be in states like that more often.
“Go awaken to your fourth uniqueness. I want to see if I can sense anything new.”
Shaking her head slightly, Mila moved to the isolation formation and started the process for a second time, gaining no new information herself, but, when she woke up, she’d awakened to the same new uniqueness as Nitya, Soul Slot Princess, and her effective Soul stat had risen by 100% while her second class, Essence Chamberlain, now had three extra skill slots for a total of nine.
“Did you gain anything?” she asked Aalam as she stood up. But, from his frustrated expression, she already knew his answer.
“No.”
“Well, don’t sweat it.” Mila decided the best thing she could do was to leave Aalam alone, so she started walking out of the workshop. “Just merge your Ruler’s Domain skill with your cultivation technique and then advance.
“Higher rank, higher Perception.”
“Yeah.” Aalam smiled as he used his eyes to watch her leave. “And you should work on merging Trickster’s Guise with yours.”
Mila turned back to him and nodded. Then she left so as to stop distracting him.
They, along with the other commanders of the Earth army in the War of the Chosen, had held back choosing what skills to merge with their cultivation techniques to see if the new information they gained or the uniquenesses they awakened would change their choices, and, while it hadn’t for any of the commanders, Aalam included, it had for Mila.
According to the information she’d gained, Trickster’s Guise had an advancement path which would boost the amount of faith energy she could store in her soul and enhance all her other skills with a powerful passive effect, which would have made it the best choice if not for her Third Eye Princess uniqueness and the effects it had on her eye skills, so, even with her uniquenesses as they’d been, she’d already been considering merging it with her cultivation technique instead of her original choice, Evil Eyes - Lust, Greed, Wrath. So, when she awoke to the Skinwalker Princess uniqueness, which would enhance Trickster’s Guise’s effects, it sealed the deal.
Now it would just be a few months before she and Aalam could advance and, after decades, she could finally stop being a succubus.