As Lucas turned from the obelisk, he noticed something strange. A normal person may not realize anything was wrong, but with a perception skill of over 30, Lucas could sense he was being watched. His skill was screaming at him that there were multiple mutations all around him.

After the message, Sim contacted Lucas directly.

“Lucas, I have just notified Mike of your concerns, and he will be sending two people to assist. Please inform me of any updates to the situation. As I am creating the system, my ability to recognize anomalies is hindered. There is no current need to speak at an obelisk until the issue has been dealt with. You may speak with me directly."

A few moments later, both Jeff and Chris appeared. As soon as they arrived, Lucas went wild with details.

"Fair dinkum, come on ya drongo! This new sheila I got, this 'genetic mutation detector' or some such, has gone all wonky. Bloody reckons there's over 30 muties within a klick of here the minute I flicked the switch on the thing!"

Both Alec and Chris looked at each other before Chris started talking.

“Okay, calm down. Does your skill tell you where the nearest one is?”

Lucas closed his eyes and tried to focus.

"Nah, ain't strong enough yet. Just tells ya how many buggers are around."

“Crap,” Alec responded. He turned to look at Chris. “Well, let’s just go looking.”

Alec started to turn back to Lucas when he had a thought.

“Does your skill give you any other details? Are there specific animals, or could it possibly be humans it’s detecting?”

This is the point that Sim intervened. “Alec, his skill is able to detect anomalous mutations due to mana. It is not species-specific nor is it limited. It may be a spider, or it may be a human; you will have to find out. Mike has, however, authorized an upgrade to his skill to include anomalies detected in his virtual map to help with locations. This would have become available at level 10. Due to the current circumstances, I will auto-level his skill to include this function. This will also increase its range to 10 miles.”

As soon as the skill upgrade was available, Lucas closed his eyes and focused on the skill again.

“Fair suck of the sav, mate!" he exclaimed. "Got more than 200 bleedin' anomalies pingin' now, and all lookin' like they're hotfootin' it straight for us! What the bloody hell’d ya do?"

“It’s a good thing Sim just upgraded that. We wouldn’t have known there were more coming,” said Chris.

All of a sudden, they heard a massive roar. As they all turned around, a monstrous kangaroo, easily ten feet tall, lumbered out from behind the building. Its head was grotesquely enlarged, supported by two spindly appendages that looked more like arms ripped from a horror movie than anything natural. That wasn’t even the weirdest part. The pouch had four little Joey heads poking out—not out of the top like a normal Joey would, but through the front. It looked like they were attached to the front of the pouch. Each head opened its mouth and started glowing green from inside.

All three guys got into a ready stance. They had no idea what to expect, but glowing green in a monster's mouth couldn’t be a good sign.

Chris decided to start and explained a quick plan. “I’ll take out the little heads. Alec, you do whatever you need to do to kick on your bloodline power crap. Lucas, I have no idea what your capabilities are, but you should probably start by watching for all the others rushing towards us. If they’re all this big, we may need to call for help.”

“Sim,” Alec said, “get whatever data you need from these so you can start detecting them.”

Chris charged up his mana bolts. He really appreciated the frog training he had just gone through now. It had allowed him to level up his skill enough to send four overpowered bolts at the same time while simultaneously dodging. The heads attached to the pouch started to release acid pellets. They came out fast—about four per second from each head. Chris managed to dodge them all, and Lucas had already moved to the side of the creature.

Alec, on the other hand, just stood still. He started to channel energy into his core. As his core sped up, he started to emit a reddish glow all over his body. Six acid pellets hit him center mass. As his skin started to sizzle, he erupted in crimson energy, and his body instantly healed. As each wound healed, gold flakes appeared inside of the red glow. Chris landed two shots directly into the mouth of one of the heads. The large head of the beast roared with unrivaled fury. The small head slumped over, and the light died in the other three.

Lucas had made his way behind the creature and grabbed its tail. He activated one of his new skills, channeling calming energy through the tail.

"Easy there, big fella. We don't wanna hurt ya, but we will if we have to," Lucas said as he channeled more and more energy.

The beast stopped roaring. As it looked at Lucas, it tilted its head to the side and had a confused look on its face. Then it roared even louder. The same green glow started inside the largest head. Lucas let go of the tail and took off running, knowing that a huge acidic glob was probably on its way. Chris shot more mana bolts to take out the smaller heads while they were slowly starting to glow again. Two more went down.

Alec had to focus. The stronger his bloodline became, the more the power was trying to overtake his conscious mind. As he stabilized his thoughts, he saw the acid about to spew out of the giant head. He jumped into action, moving so fast it was almost too much for Chris to follow. He was able to increase his size and match the 10-foot-tall frame of the monster. He clamped both hands around the mouth and squeezed. He could hear teeth shatter under the force. The green light was shining through. All of a sudden, he heard a gurgling noise. As he held tight, he could see the acid start to eat away at the entire structure of the beast. The final small head screamed before the entire beast fell over, half melted away.

Lucas came running over and informed them of the situation.

“Just spotted another eight of those buggers hotfootin' it our way! And guess what? They've got a pack of bloody massive scorpions with four pincers and two stingas for company! Moving like greased weasels too, no way we can fight 'em one at a time!"

Alec looked at both of them and, in a deep rumble, far deeper than his normal voice, told them to stay back.

“I’ve got this. Let me handle the big guys.”

Alec pushed his core to its limit. Its production of red mana increased tenfold. His size grew again. He was now approaching 25 feet tall. He roared with a deep guttural bellow unlike anything a natural human was capable of. He instantly disappeared. Chris thought he had teleported away, but Lucas, with his extremely high perception, saw him take off running for the oncoming storm of beasts. Chris teleported himself 50 feet into the air to get a better view of what they were facing and could not believe what he saw. There were hundreds of beasts, and they were falling one by one. No noise, no movement, it just looked like they were crushed in an instant. Each scorpion was maybe 3 feet tall, but they were crushed as if a giant boulder had landed on them. In less than 10 seconds, every single creature was dead. Alec was a whirlwind of fury and left nothing alive. As the last creature fell, Alec appeared next to Lucas, slowly shrinking as the light from his body began fading.

“Crikey! What the flaming galah was that?! How strong are ya anyway?” Lucas asked.

As Alec reached his normal height, Chris teleported back down next to them both.

Alec just stood there for a few seconds with his eyes closed. As he opened them, he spoke. “Honestly, I’m not sure of my limits. I felt I had still only utilized about half of the mana my core produced. I’m still learning the true extent of my bloodline.”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Makes sense now why the admin chucked you my way,” Lucas said.

As Lucas finished his sentence, he still had the strange feeling of being watched. He checked his map, and there was still one dot left. He looked back to a house about 500 feet up the road.

"One more in that house there, reckon it's our last stop."

Alec and Chris both looked back to the house. As they all stared at the house, a younger girl walked out and started speaking. Her voice seemed like it had a strange otherworldly echo to it.

"Ugh, sorry my floofies went feral first, but did you REALLY have to go full Thanos on 'em?"

Lucas looked closer and didn’t recognize the girl.

“Who are ya? And why were ya snoopin' around Sheila Fudnuck's place, eh?"

"Been vibin' with Nana in this suss, tiny town. Momma made me come. They have a wicked cold bubbly spring, so obvs I had to take a dip. Now I've got this wack growth on the back of my head, and it's not even my fault that roo got all buggy after I pet it."

All three guys shared a glance. “Did you get that?” Chris asked Alec.

“Why would you look at me?” asked Alec.

Chris started a little chuckle as he responded. “Dude, you’re like 12. I don’t understand how you guys talk, BRUH.”

Alec gave Chris an exasperated look. “You realize I could probably throw you through this entire row of houses, right?”

Chris put his hands up in mock surrender. “Alright, alright, simmer down, turbo.”

Lucas looked at both of them like they were crazy. While shaking his head, he asked,

"Strewth, you galahs are dumber than a bag of hammers! You gotta have a hubbub now?"

They both started laughing before Chris began speaking again. “It sounds like the same thing as the river.”

“Can you show us where the bubbling cold spring is?” Alec asked.

She looked at us for a few seconds before responding. “Well, yeah, as long as you don’t like hulk out and smash me too. Let’s go already.”

She started walking towards the back of her grandma's house. As she turned around, they could finally see the growth she was talking about. It looked just like the Kuato from Total Recall. A tiny head and arms growing right out of the back of her head. As she was walking away, the little face smiled and waved.

Involuntarily, all three men got the shivers, and Chris almost threw up. Chris whispered to Alec, “What the hell, dude, do you see that?”

Alec looked at Chris with a shocked look. “Of course I see it, you idiot. Now shut up and just follow her.”

As they finally caught up, they both moved up walking alongside her. They didn’t want to look at her little head anymore; it kept trying to smile and wave at them.

After about 500 feet, they saw the little bubbling pool she was talking about. It couldn’t have been more than 3 feet deep and maybe 3 feet in circumference.

“Hey Sim," Chris said, “What do you want to do about this? It looks like a pool of mana.”

There was silence for about 10 seconds, and then Peaches appeared next to the pool. She was in her normal 250-pound form with her wings tucked in. All six tails were sloshing around in a beautiful display.

The girl's eyes went wide as she fell to the ground, trying to scoot as far away as possible. She had never seen such a beast. Chris, Alec, and Lucas just looked at her and laughed. They knew exactly how she was feeling about Peaches. They were all just glad she showed up in a somewhat normal size.

“Hi, big brother. Daddy sent me to eat the pool. Oh look, it’s just a tiny one. I like these pools. They make my tummy feel funny. I’m gonna eat it now. Daddy said I could.”

Peaches activated her mana absorption skill, and they all watched in amazement as the mana became brighter and streamed directly into her core.

As soon as the process was complete, Peaches started sniffing around where the pool used to be.

“Okay, gotta go. It’s all gone now. I’m hunting that stupid bird. Daddy said if I catch it, I can eat it and all of its friends too. They tried to ambush Daddy, so they’re all gonna get it. Okay, bye.”

The next thing they knew, Peaches was gone. They turned and looked at the girl. Chris started speaking to see if they could possibly help with her… problem.

“Hey Sim, can you detect the anomaly in her head now?”

“Yes, Chris,” she replied.

“Is there anything we can do to help her? I don’t think she would choose to have that in her head if she had a choice.”

“If I give her mana channels and revert her back to her original genetic code, I can remove the mana alterations. This would require admin approval as this is something I will normally not involve myself with,” Sim said.

Chris, in a somewhat irritated tone, said, “Okay… So get him over here. I’m sure he would agree.”

As they started walking over to help the girl up, they noticed a weird glow from behind her head.

“What’s your name?” Alec asked.

“Mylanta,” she said.

Then they heard another almost echo of a voice. It was all mumbled, but it sounded like it was mocking her. “Myyyyyylaaannnnnttta.”

Mylanta got a disgusted look on her face. “Shut it, you freak. Gosh, you’re so cringe.”

Alec turned to look at what was causing the glow, and all of a sudden she started floating up. She looked like her body had become as stiff as a board. Alec was staring at the back of her head with huge eyes.

As Chris turned a little, trying to see what Alec was looking at, he almost fell in surprise. “Damn it, Mike, stop doing that.”

……

As I was standing in the basement watching the progress of Mia’s bloodline activation, I couldn’t help but notice the joy on her face. This is when Sim contacted me.

“Mike, they have found the anomalies and another pool with liquid mana bubbling up. Should I notify Peaches so she can absorb it to help with her evolution?”

“Sure, go ahead,” I replied mentally. I didn’t want to disturb Jeff and Mia. “Just have her absorb it and then leave them to the rest of it. I want them to have some experience taking care of things without help.”

A couple of minutes went by, and Sim contacted me again. “Alec and Chris have identified a girl with an anomalous growth and are requesting that we revert her back to a previously stored genetic sequence. Chris would like you to come and see the issue for yourself.”

“Wait, what?” I blurted out. Jeff just started shaking his head with a disappointed look on his face.

“Crap, sorry! I’ll leave,” I said and teleported away. After my little outburst, I figured I should leave them alone until all of this was taken care of so I didn’t disrupt them again.

As I arrived behind Chris, I noticed a strange glow coming from the back of the girl's head. She was attempting to stand up, but it looked like energy was building in the hands of a… little… person… growing out of her head?

I instantly raised my hand and froze her where she was. I lifted her up using telekinesis and spun her a little so I could see exactly what she was doing. I activated divine sight and, to my surprise, the little head had been siphoning all the mana the little girl had absorbed. The energy buildup appeared to be an attack of some kind. I quickly squashed the mana and absorbed it myself, leaving her with nothing.

This was the point where it looked like Chris was going to crap himself. I really loved making him jump.

I just stared at him, still chuckling from his jump scare. “You’re lucky I came when I did. That was enough mana to make your head explode. You have to be careful with stuff we don’t understand.”

“Sim, can you get all the data possible from this anomaly and then revert her back to her normal form, please?”

“Of course, Mike.” A few seconds later, she continued. “The analysis of the mutation shows that her body was trying to create a cloning skill, a utilization of her DNA to attempt a duplication process. The process failed, and she ended up with a partial clone with many of her deep-seated desires as the only emotional and mental capacity. After analyzing the other mutations, I have concluded that her actual skill had the capability to alter others' DNA as well. This is how the monsters that Alec, Lucas, and Chris just took care of were created.”

I looked over at all three of them with an excited look on my face. “You guys fought mutants? How did it go?”

“We really didn’t have to do much,” Chris said. “Alec went all red Hulk on everything, and it was over before I even knew what was happening.”

"Fair dinkum, that bloke's a right ripper! Is this the sort of wacky powers I’ll get at Master rank?" asked Lucas.

“He’s a little special due to his bloodline, but you’ll have some abilities you can’t even fathom yet,” I responded.

“Okay, Sim, go ahead and remove the anomaly if you’ve gotten all the info you can and set her back to default. Can you wipe her memory of all this?”

“Yes, she will wake up not remembering any of this. It appears her grandmother saw the mutation and has been hiding in her room this whole time. Should I wipe hers as well?” Sim asked.

I thought about it for a second before responding. “Yes, wipe everything back to just before she got affected by the mana.”

All of a sudden, everyone was staring at Mylanta. She started to glow in a pale blue light. It kept getting brighter and brighter until finally everyone had to look away. I, however, kicked on my divine sight and watched as Sim isolated the mutation, removed it, and set her genetic code back to normal. She then kicked in a healing effect and watched as Mylanta’s body was completely healed.

“There will be some side effects,” Sim told me through our connection.

“I know,” I responded. “She’s going to age quicker until she reaches her ideal physical state because of the mana channels, isn’t she?”

“I can block them,” Sim replied. “However, her body has already started the process, so even if I block her channels now, she will still experience accelerated growth.”

“Everyone knows the system is coming, so her aging to her optimal age is fine.” I told Sim

Alright guys, I’m gonna head back so I can watch Jeff’s skill at work. Now that Sim has a little data on these types of mutations, I’m gonna have her just send you guys out to take care of anything like this in the future. Does that sound good?”

Both Alec and Chris just stood there smiling at me. Lucas agreed and looked at them with a confused look.

“What are you guys smiling at?” I asked.

“Just to go watch Jeff’s work, huh? So you’re not going back to be close to Mia?” Just as Chris asked, both he and Alec busted up laughing.

I squinted my eyes, and as soon as I spoke, Chris’s face showed absolute horror. “Shut it frog boy!”

“No, no, I’m sorry. I believe you. Don’t do that again. Please! Sim, send me home,” he pleaded.

I just laughed and mentally spoke to Sim before teleporting myself back to the house.

”When do you think he’s going to figure out I did that so he would be prepared for dealing with hordes of little monsters?”