Sean’s POV
Evolution complete!
Congratulations! By absorbing the heart and magical power of a creature not native to Vitae you have evolved beyond the current system and can make use of a higher system. You are now a Demigod!
Demigod levels work different than mortal levels. In order to progress as a Demigod you must discover and progress upon your path as well as spread your story. The paths to power are infinite, but all leave trembling mortals in awe of your power.
Synergy detected!
You have already started upon the path of the Demigod! You have forged a powerful vessel and fused it with your soul, truly linking your existence. Based upon your previous choices, your attributes have been spent to optimize your body and give you as many adaptations as possible. Adaptations have been maxed out.
Chimeric body VI: Allows for perfect shapeshifting and maximum adaptations. Unlocks Chimeric Soul
Chimeric Soul: The soul is immutable. Or is it? While you can’t change yours, you can cloak and alter the energies it emits.
Web of Life V: Allows for perfect mixing between soul and body.
Troll’s regeneration, Divine vessel V, Partitioned mind V, wings, and Divine reconstruction are all unchanged
Locked: Adaptation has been locked. Proceed upon Demigod path to unlock.
I stood up and stretched as what looked like a shattered egg shell dissipated into the air. My body felt. Different. Stronger, sure, but I felt like that was going to be given. No, it was almost like I was more in tune with it. I could feel the blood flowing through my veins, as well as the magic flowing through whatever its equivalent was. It might have to do with Chimeric body getting maxed out, as I just knew that I could store several more shapes in my mind to switch between. I could also redirect the density of my body to make changing my height easier. How did I know that?
Name: Sean O’Carrol
Rank: Demigod Bronze 1
Spirit: 1620/1620
Followers: <50
Path: Undiscovered
Pantheon: Unknown (Elendria)
Pulling up my status sheet, I stared at it in annoyance. It seems like this barebones system is going to hide a lot more.
System message:
Incorrect. Irrelevant data has been removed from the sheet for user ease. The demigod tier system is much simpler and has far less hand holding than your previous system. This is in part due to the rank up, and partly because of the link to the system in use on Beatha. This concludes the tutorial, good luck.
“Seriously?” I growled out, looking to the sky. “You call that little blurb the tutorial?”
Yes. You are on the path to godhood. Put on your big boy pants and deal with it.
“Snarky ass system.” I grumbled as I sat down in a meditative pose. I would give Elendria a few hours before I took off to look for her. It’s a lot easier to find lost party members if one person stays in a spot the other knows they will be in. Like the center of the shattered remnants of a massive battle.
It took a while longer than usual for me to brush off the annoyance I felt with the system as well as tone down what now felt like enhanced magical senses. I could feel a slight breeze blowing in the direction I knew was the portal to Beatha. Not just because I could feel the tethers that I had attached to the creatures that had killed my family, but I could feel that was where I would find Apophis. There was this lingering animosity that was searching for me.
But that didn’t matter for the moment. What did matter was that I could feel something strange beneath my skin, some remnant from the dragon. This new system was hinting to me that it was something to do with my shapeshifting, but it wasn’t taking up one of my preset bodies. I focused on it, willing it to come to the surface.
“Ugh.” I groaned as tension built in all my joints, then suddenly released as they simultaneously popped. I couldn’t help but open my eyes, blinking stupidly as I stared at my hands. I now had dragon scale gauntlets covering my hands, complete with inch long talons extending from my fingertips. The scale was black with gold trim, though it was a much lighter black than what the dragon I had fought had.
“Wha? Whoah!” I cried out as I inadvertently shifted my weight a bit, and the new weight of my wings unbalanced me and sent me toppling over. “What the?” I muttered as I flexed one wing to bring it around. My previous wings were completely ethereal. These new ones had black and gold limbs with ethereal strands flowing off of them. I shivered as I felt several strands catch in the magical breeze, the new sensations confusing my brain for the moment. The wing joints and ends also had a slightly hooked talon that seemed to be a lot sharper than the ones on my fingers. Those could be a very nasty surprise should anything get in melee range while flying.
“Ok, let’s test these wings out then.” I muttered, giving them an experimental flap. I had expected them to work a little better than the previous set, and they did. But I could feel as they shot me much higher than anticipated that they were not only pressing against the air pressure, but they were also catching and sending a pulse of the ambient magic as well to aid in propulsion.
For the next half hour or so I put the wings through their paces, seeing just what I was capable of with them. I seemed to be about twice as fast as I was before, though I was starting to feel a bit of muscle strain since they were now partly physical. Holding them extended while hovering allowed me to use ambient mana to negate gravity, but the strangest thing that I noticed were my feet. Before I would need to get quite a bit of momentum built up before I could lay flat like a certain superhero who had a giant S on his chest, but the new wings changed that. The magic pulse they released also worked to negate some of the gravity from the waist down, so my legs streamlined behind me a lot faster.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
And while all these improvements were amazing, I did notice a few drawbacks. Cornering at high speed was a lot more difficult. Not just because of the increased speed, but also the drag of the wings through the air. I could feel it pulling between my shoulder blades, and it wasn’t a pleasant feeling.
“Ok, wings done. Let’s check the magic.” I muttered, looking at a large shard of rock sticking out of the ground. “That looks like a great target.” Pointing my finger at it, I fired off a mana bullet.
KaBoom!
I flinched at the blast. Pre transformation I could have easily shattered the rock, but this blasted a hole the size of my torso through the rock, absolutely obliterating anything in the path.
“That was unexpected.” I muttered to myself as I tried to think back on the spell. Unfortunately it had activated too fast for me to really notice anything. “Ok. Let’s go a lot lower power, but continuous.” Nodding to myself, I cast a simple flamethrower spell.
I was expecting a blast of orange-red flame that would shoot out about ten feet, billowing out as it moved. I got a jet of blue-white flame that shot out for easily double that range. Frowning, I let the spell channel to see what was going on. I spent nearly two minutes channeling the spell before things started making sense.
My first bit of confusion came because I wasn’t using mana. Instead I was taking in ambient mana, changing it, and sending it out quickly enough that wasn’t interrupting the spell. “Huh. I knew I had insane regeneration before, but this is ridiculous.” I muttered as I mentally searched through my body. “What?” I cried out as I realized the strangest bit. I no longer had mana or a mana pool. Instead it seemed like every single cell was simply drinking in the ambient mana and changing it as needed. In addition, I could feel a very slight drain of spirit.
“Well, that makes it easy to find you.” I heard, and I stopped the flamethrower spell to see a vision of beauty descending from the sky.
“You’ve changed a bit, Elendria.” I said. Previously she was a deep purple with what looked like blue rents in her skin. Now she had added a white outline to the blue, and a dusting of white freckles across her nose.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, just a bit of white here and there. I take it you found a dragon?”
“Yep. Probably something like a blizzard dragon. Our ice was mostly useless against each other.”
“Did you turn into a demigod as well?” I asked.
“No.” She shook her head. “I’m a hybrid, but since I was originally an elf the system did something strange. I have an upgraded system, and my fate is tied to yours. I’ll always be weaker than you, but I do have my path.”
“Oh? What’s your path?” I asked, hoping to figure out mine as well.
“Follow and support the locked.” She shrugged. “I’m assuming it’s you, and when you figure it out then it will unlock.”
“Of course.” I muttered as she laughed.
“Oh don’t be like that.” She said as she gave me a slight backhand to my arm. “The best things in life come from struggle and strife. What could be better or harder than becoming gods?”
“Raising a teenage daughter.” I immediately answered, getting a lovely laugh from her.
“Fair enough, fair enough. Come, we need to get this rolling.”
“Sounds good.” I said, taking to the air after her. “Wait, where are your wings?” I asked, confused.
“Oh, my dragon was different than yours. She flew without wings. Not really sure how I’m doing it, probably a combination of air and gravity.” She shrugged. “So what can you tell me about our magics? I noticed you playing around as I came in.”
“We use spirit instead of mana.” I shrugged. “Even basic spells are superpowered. We draw in ambient mana. Not sure what’ll happen if the ambient runs out, but our cells are practically bursting with mana anyhow. Probably a natural backup.”
“Good to know.” She said. “How much spirit does it cost and how much do you have? It says I have 750.”
“I’ve got just above 1,500. That flamethrower spell looks like it took one spirit per minute to keep active. I haven’t recovered any yet, so I don’t know what the rates are based on. If I were a betting man, I would assume it has something to do with followers.”
“Followers?” She asked.
“You don’t have that?”
“Nope. All I have is my name, spirit, path, and patron. You are my patron, demigod rank bronze zero.”
“Huh. Well.” I was kinda stumped. “Maybe you’ll get a set rate based on my own spirit, or it’ll filter down to you.” I said. The rest of the trip was spent in silence, though I could feel a sense of pressure. Not urgency, just that I needed to head in a specific direction. After about a half hour of flying, we came to the rip.
“HALT!” Came a call, and we looked down and finally noticed the ranks of demons that were paying attention to the portal. Diving down, we stopped in front of the officer that had given us the order. I was studiously ignoring the ranks of soldiers that were holding heavy crossbows in our direction. “State your business here, elves?” He asked, a bit confused at us.
“Close enough.” I said before Elendria could correct the guy. He was likely having a strange enough day with people flying in to the middle of a desert anyway. “Name’s Sean, this is Elendria. I’m the champion of Ariana, and I’m heading through that portal there to take the fight to Apophis.”
Silence descended for about three seconds before the first chuckles started coming out. That started a chain reaction, and soon enough the entire squad was laughing. A simple touch to her wrist calmed Elendria. I couldn’t see her as she was slightly behind me, but I could literally feel her fury as the ambient temperature dropped.
“Oh gods, I haven’t laughed that hard since I was a little girl.” The captain said as he fought to stop laughing enough to catch his breath. “Seriously though, why are two mages who are high enough level to fly out here?”
“Look Captain.” I said, getting fed up a bit. “I already told you. I’m. Sorry. We’re going through that portal.”
“Nothing goes through that portal.” Captain shook his head. “At least, nothing from this side. It’ll shred you to bits. Things come out though.”
“Then what do you have to worry about?” I asked with a smile. “We’ll just stroll up there and head through. If I’m right, we aren’t in this world anymore. If I’m wrong, we’re dead.”
“Whatever.” He shrugged. “They pay me to keep things from coming through from the other side. Not to keep suicidal people from killing themselves.” He turned to his squad. “Go ahead and let ‘em through boys.” He did have the decency to lead us through himself.
“’Scuse me.” I felt a light tug on my arm, and I turned to see a very sheepish looking soldier holding it. “Sorry sir, but. Well, it don’t seem right to not give a memorial if you don’t make it. Can I get your names? Your full names.”
“Scott and Elendria O’Carrol.” I said, hearing a small gasp from Elendria. I hadn’t really planned it, and I had already forgotten her previous name. However, it seemed right, especially since she had given up the throne of her people.
“O’Carrol?” She asked, her voice full of hope.
“Seemed right.” I answered. “You said you were tethered to me. Might as well make it official. Danielle and Isabelle seemed to like you as well.” The surrounding demons were looking at us strangely, but we didn’t care. Instead we walked forward, leaving the captain behind with the rest as we entered what was obviously a no man’s land and getting closer to the rip.
Calling it just a rip was like calling a pyramid a stack of rocks. Yeah, technically it was correct but it was so far off from reality that it didn’t do it justice. To ordinary eyes, the rip looked like a jagged doorway framed by a drunken carpenter and filled with white light. And no matter what direction you looked at it from, you saw the same two-dimensional picture. It hurt your head the longer you looked at it.
“Elendria.” I said, stopping her as she reached out a hand. “We’re most likely going to be in battle immediately when we go through. Best to be ready with a battle form and take evasive action as soon as possible.”
“Battle form?”
“Yeah.” I said, pulling forward my own form.
“Oh my.” She muttered as she looked me up and down. “That’s. Mmmhmmm.”
“You didn’t get a dragon form?”
“No. Must be a shapeshifting thing.” She said.
“Could be.” I nodded. “Either that, or I just got a stronger dragon.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“True.” I nodded. “Still, you ready to leave Vitae behind? There’s no guarantee we’ll come back.”
“This isn’t my world any longer.” She said, sadness tinging her voice. “My place is with you.” With that, we both shot forward as fast as we could, ignoring the final system prompt.
Portal detected!
You are leaving Vitae for a world with a different system! The portal creator has determined that only creatures from the origin point may pass!