"That took less convincing than I believed was necessary."

I thought to myself as I was tying Aston up. After my last command, he shut up and did as I said. He didn't even try to resist, he just turned his back to me and gave me his arms. He must really had valued Chris very highly to willingly risk his own life for him. Chris did the same a few years back for Aston too; I discovered that by accessing Chris's memory.

With how cooperative the dwarf was, I doubt that tying him up was necessary. He wasn't going to escape until he freed Chris from my grasp. Having him bounded had merits to it made it easier for me to carry out my experimentations.

After making sure that he couldn't escape from his bonds, I added a collar and tied him to a tree. Next, I used a cloth storage bag as a makeshift blindfold.

With that done, I walked over to the lake and looked at my reflection through the water. In my current body of an elf, I'm not lacking in the least for my attractiveness. There aren't any visible wrinkles on my skin at all. That would likely change when I used [Spores Emission].

I went ahead to test my theory. It was just like I had speculated. Cracks started forming across my head, splitting it into four sections. Soon after, I could see mist-like particles escaping from the top part of the head. I toggled off [Spores Emission] and the horror that I witnessed disappeared within the second.

"That's good, I don't need to worry about not being able to use my own skills while in a different body. There isn’t any visible harm to the body as far as I can see."

With the first experiment concluded, I untied Aston from the tree. I lead him back to where my previous body was while carrying his equipment with me. I tied him to another tree as soon as I got there.

The second experiment deals with finding out if I could still use my previous body.

I examined the wounds on the head. Just as I believed, it was cleanly cut into half. I couldn't use [Spores Identification] on it as it wasn't alive. The only thing I could think of was to use spores in concentrated amounts. By increasing the density of spores, I was hoping that it would rejuvenate the spores within the body, making it workable again. It didn't work as the spores had long withered.

I was desperate. There was less than 2 hours of possession remaining and I was still unable to return to my previous body. I was left with one last experiment. If it failed, I might lose my existence as a whole. I towered over the dwarf, whom by then had already grown anxious. I had left him alone for around an hour while blindfolded without making a sound. He could have known what I had been up to nor what I had planned for him. When I started speaking, his body language expressed a mixture of relief and fear.

"Aston, now I'll need you to answer all my questions. Where is the nearest town from here?"

I started probing him with questions that I already knew the answer to, making it possible for me to see through his lies. He answered truthfully to all the previous questions. That made me believe that he was trustworthy enough to ask the questions that I was unsure of.

"What about the creature that you killed? Do you have any idea what it was?"

"That was the first time we saw something like that. We haven't explored much outside of this forest so I don't know if it exists elsewhere."

"Oh, that's fine. For answering so honestly, let me give you a clue; I am the creature killed by you."

His face immediately went pale. He couldn't have known that the person he surrendered to was the creature he killed. Things that died stayed dead, unless necromancy was involved; Though they were technically still considered dead.

"Now, I'll be taking over your body like what I did with your elf friend!"

With that said, he finally tried to struggle. Although he had higher strength than the elf, with the aid of the bonds, he couldn't escape from me. I turned on [Spores Emission] again and tried to direct the spores to invade the insides of the dwarf through his mouth, which I forced wide open. Desperateness showed on his face. He started to gag on the concentrated spores. It had gotten so bad that his health started dropping due to asphyxiation. That didn't stop me as this was my last-ditch effort.

As I continued my contamination, I soon noticed that more effects had appeared on his status screen.

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StatusName:Aston RedhillTitle:NoneRace:DwarfGender:MaleLevel:7Experience:41.2%Class:BerserkerHealth:117/240Rage:0/100Health regen:2.4/sRage decay:1/sStrength:28Intelligence:11Dexterity:11Wisdom:10Vitality:16Willpower:14Attack:8-33Defence:20

Skills

Class Trees

Berserk[Level 15]

-Rage Control[Passive]

-Rage Cleave[Active]

-Pure Rage[Active]

Racial Skills

Iron Heart[Passive]

Effects

Asphyxiation(Indefinite)

Infected(Indefinite)

I opened up the pop up window for the effect {Infected}, hoping that it was what I had in mind.

Infected(Indefinite)

The target had been infected due to exposure to high concentration of spores. This allows the [Spores Master] to have the ability to freely possess the target until the status was removed.

"Oh right! That worked better than I had intended. Now I just need to secure more bodies with this effect."

Once I dropped him onto the ground, he started having coughing fits and wasn't able to breathe properly for a couple of minutes. During that time, I contaminated my own body. That lasted until the effect appeared. During the process I didn't feel suffocated but my health was decreasing constantly.

I tried to spread my influence soon after to other creatures around us; But it didn't work. They all died before being able to become infected. It left me quite disappointed that I wasn’t able to control  an army of critters to do as I command. I would be able to contaminate and command an actual army if given the time and opportunity to do so.

Deciding that I had already accomplished what I had in mind, I removed the bonds on Aston. He wasn't able to react properly as he laid weak on the ground, trying to regain his breath. I whispered a line into his ears, before releasing my possession of the elf.

"You may think that your nightmare is over... but actually it has only just begun."

-----

Author’s Note: For the time being, I haven’t started on editing of chapter 6 yet. I’ll do that tomorrow. On a side note, I’ll try to go back to previous chapters and rewrite them(due to the suggestion of the friend proofreading for me). I’ll still release new chapters regularly(-ish?) like what I’ve been doing. I don’t know how much changes will be made though, mostly grammatical and maybe more description? Do help to comment on the changes when I do make them though. Thanks for reading like always. :D