The fire lit the tunnel for only a half-dozen seconds, but it was enough to stop the giant serpent in its tracks. I had to admit, the feeling of power rushing out of my hands was exhilarating. While the serpent thrashed against the tunnel walls, I studied the damage I wrought. Its entire face was a blackened and charred mess. Having received the brunt of the damage, I wasn't surprised that the creature was currently flopping like a fish out of water. The tunnel itself was surprisingly okay, with a few lines of black here and there, but it remained undamaged. Even the mushrooms and lichen lining the walls mainly seemed unharmed. In fact, they were glowing even brighter than before.

A mental prod in my head startled me, but the source was easy to identify. Unlike before, where Zharia could telepathically converse with me, it felt like our connection was both muted and yet deeper simultaneously. I didn't hear words or sentences, but her message's overall feeling and intent were clearer. It honestly felt weird in this new form. It felt like she was both covering me from head to toe while also being a part of me. Whatever Spirit Lord's Invocation was, it merged Zharia and me together into one being.

With a mental nod of understanding, I made my way over to the snake as it tried to bite the air. Raising my clawed hands, I started channeling the new power again, and I saw the colourful feathers growing out of my wrists light up in golden flames. Flexing my hands, I felt a burning heat running through and across my body. Before the snake could bite my head off, I channeled the fire inside me and sent it out in a torrent of fire directly into its mouth. The rumbling hiss died in its throat as the flames torched the monster from the inside out. After making sure the snake was nothing more than charcoal, I turned and saw Áine hovering further back in the air.

With a wave, the little fairy came over and stopped a foot away from my face. Holding my arms akimbo, I watched her turn her head and slowly float around me, inspecting my new transformation. She examined every aspect of the new skill and stayed silent until she was done.

Not being able to hold my excitement, I finally asked her. "So...What do you think?"

She paused but eventually answered back. "Pretty... New form is strong. Not all transformed."

It took a second to parse her words, but I understood what she meant. Looking down at my arms, I saw that the skill had morphed some of my armour into the transformation. My hands still had my gloves on, but the leather was a darker crimson in colour with longer claws. The feathers around my wrist traveled up my forearms before stopping at the elbow. Looking closer, I saw that they grew out from beneath the now crimson vambraces.

The same thing happened to my legs and feet, with the exception that my steel-toe boots now ended in metallic claws. Without a full-sized mirror, I summoned one of the clean cooking pots from my inventory and used its surface as a mirror. The most remarkable changes were around my upper torso and head area.

My cloak was gone, which I had to assume somehow got destroyed in my journey in the void. Outside of a few holes in the leather of my armour, I didn't notice any other damage. Moving on from that minor revelation, I angled the pot so it caught the light better and examined my head. The mask's ink now had a touch of gold, giving off a barely perceptible glow. When I tried to remove the mask to see my face, I found that I wasn't able to. Something about the skill made the mask a permanent feature, so I gave up and moved on to the last remarkable feature.

On top of my head hovered a thin circlet made of golden fire. When I swished my hands through the flames, they glided through them without resistance. I didn't feel any heat from the fire, but I couldn't tell if that was because my form made me fire-resistant or if my skill was unable to damage me. While unexpected, it looked cool, so I let my inner edge shine and accepted the new feature. Deep inside, I was feeling rather badass about the flaming crown.

I summoned Chomperz, who examined me for a hot minute before sucking up the pot and disappearing. With a sigh, I tensed momentarily and released the skill. It felt draining, and when the motes of light reformed into Zharia, I was struck with a sense of loss and incompleteness. The feeling vanished quickly, but it was strong enough to leave a lasting impression.

When I looked at Zharia, I could practically see her buzzing midair. Thinking that she was damaged by the skill somehow, I leaned in closer to inspect if she was okay, only to nearly have my head blasted off by a flaming, feathery bullet.

"That was so weird?! Like wow, I felt bigger, stronger, but also not me! I was you, but not! And I could feel it! Those flames were so huge! We burned that stupid snake into nothing! Mwahahahaha! Let's do it again, Master!" Zharia chirped rapidly.

I shook my head in response. At least I discovered whether my skill would hurt my familiars. As Zharia buzzed around in the air like a crazed hummingbird, I turned to Áine. My question needn't be asked out loud and was met with an affirmative nod in reply. My curiosity peaked, and I began channeling my mana into the skill, only to be met with a new feeling. My mana built up as it connected to my skill in my soul, but I was rebuffed at the last second. Somehow, instinctively I understood that it meant my skill was on cooldown. It was the first time I met a skill with a cooldown. Without any other way to find out answers, I finally brought my status up to look at the description of my new talent and skills.

Child of Mana:

* Few can claim to be one with mana. Your connection to the ethereal realm of energy sets you apart from the rest. Go forth, child, and show why yours is the potential to rival the stars

* You have an extremely higher-than-average mana pool

* Your mana is significantly easier to control

* You have a major increase in mana regeneration

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Etherious Blood:

* Minor increase to all resistances except mental and spiritual

* Resistance increases per every familiar actively summoned

Spirit Lord's Invocation:

* Merge with an actively summoned familiar of your choosing

* While transformed: Gain access to the merged familiar's passive and active abilities

* Reserves a significant amount of your mana pool

* High Initial Mana Cost, Moderate Initial Stamina Cost

First things first, the perk was amazing. As I progress through the tiers, mana would be the most critical thing to me. Any increase was welcomed, but a massive boost, the likes of which the perk gave me, was insane. I chuckled slightly, thinking about the amount of money I'll have saved not needing to chug mana potions like they were beer.

Etherious Blood was less impressive, but I could see how it would snowball down the line. I was curious as to why spiritual and mental damage were excluded. Combined with my resistance boost from being a Scion of Calstrax, I'll hopefully be much harder to kill.

The Spirit Lord's Invocation was precisely what I thought it was. However, I didn't feel much of a limiter on my mana pool. The boost from the Child of Mana perk helped offset the cost. Strangely enough, I didn't see a cooldown or time limit on the skills description. None of my summon abilities had a cooldown, and not even Sam's Tidal Fist had a limiter on how quickly she could dish out her attack. Still, I had to wait about an hour before I could use the skill again, even if the system didn't mention it.

"Sorry Áine, looks like we're going to have to wait a bit before we can try using the skill on you," I apologized.

"It's fine... Safety first," she replied before booping me on the nose.

Grabbing Zharia, I set her on my shoulder before reaching out to Áine and sat her on my other shoulder. Dusting myself off, I turned toward the direction of the snake's body but stopped. The snake was gone; not even a pile of ash remained. The hairs on the back of my neck raised as I pulled out the dagger behind my back and backed away until I had my back to a wall. The girls already knew why I was on high alert and helped watch both ends of the tunnel.

Ten minutes went by, and nothing happened. Looking back at where the snake used to be, I frowned. Either something took the body while I wasn't looking, or it disappeared on its own. The former implied something had an insane ability to be stealthy since somehow whisking away a mini-bus-sized snake from beneath my nose was nothing short of impressive.

With no other option other than waiting around to find out, I slowly made my way down the tunnel in the direction where the snake emerged. When we turned the tunnel bend, I was met with more tunnel. On and on, I walked with my familiars on my shoulders, gripping the dagger in my hand, ready for anything to try and ambush us.

Half an hour later, I finally found another sign of life other than vegetation. It was a singular giant spider sitting motionless in a web of thorns. Rather than white sticky webbing, it looked like it was made of a dark green vine with finger-sized thorns adorning its length. I backed up slowly till I was far enough away that I felt comfortable it couldn't hear us.

"Alright, girls, it's showtime. I have no idea why that thing is sitting on a web of vines instead of actual webbing, but hey, that means it'll be easier to burn," I said.

"I'll turn that stupid bug to ash! Dumb bug should learn not to be so big," Zharia chirped, her feathers ruffled up and blazing.

I had forgotten about her dislike of giant insects. Áine didn't say anything, so I took her silence as her being ready. I stalked closer to the spider and examined the surroundings. But, I wasn't able to see beyond the mass of vines. There was no way of knowing if there were more spiders behind this one, so I was taking a risk. The sense of danger didn't stop my blood from riling up and the adrenaline to start coursing through my veins. I did feel almost naked without my spear, but like my cloak, it was lost to the void. And to be fair, approaching a giant spider with nothing but a knife was daunting.

As I got close enough to throw the knife, Áine took off from my shoulder and hung back while Zharia flew in front of me, ready to set the creature ablaze. On the count of three, the tunnel was lit by a golden cone of fire aimed directly at the monster. It happened within a blink of an eye, but I saw the vines around the spider detach from the walls and shoot out toward the flames before they could hit. The vines that intercepted the fire dropped to the ground limply. I heard a snipping sound and saw the spider had cut the vines before the flames could spread.

"Zharia, don't hold back!!"

Zharia became a living flamethrower as golden fire kept sputtering out. Each time the flames neared, the vines would play defense and block the attack. On the fourth try, a ball of vines shot out and blocked again, only for another ball to shoot underneath it, using the first ball as bait. I tried to roll to my right, but the ball hit the wall near me, and a strand of vines blasted out and wrapped around my ankle. As I was in mid-motion of a roll, the strand was pulled taunt, and the thorns pressed into my skin.

Áine was there in an instant and started healing the injury as I cut myself free with a few chops of the dagger. I grabbed the vines around my ankle and tore it out in one swift motion. Not wanting to risk being caught again, I jumped away from the wall and moved closer to Zharia. By now, I could feel the drain on my mana, Zharia having already used up hers in an attempt to breach the spider's defense.

The battle continued, and it became a war of attrition. The spider's vines were lessening with each sputtering of flames. The increase in my mana pool played a major part as Zharia siphoned it off. When the spider's vines became little more than a few strands, the web detached completely and wound around the spider's body. The grey-green spider snapped its mandibles in a threatening hiss and skittered up the tunnel walls.

I instructed Zharia to hold and fire only when it got so close it couldn't dodge. We stood our ground as the monster charged at us.

"NOW!"

The monster pushed itself off the roof and threw itself at Zharia with the vines lashing wildly in the air. The flames shot out, and the vines on the spider's body blasted out to create a wall that tanked the hit. Using the creature's tactics against it, another ball of fire was launched that landed on the thing's face. As the monster went down in a smoking mess, the limbs sliced wildly in the air. Really regretting not buying backup spears, I stepped in carefully and plunged my dagger into its brain. Two of the eight limbs sliced into my arms, but I ignored the damage and twisted the blade deeper.

I pulled my blade out with a wet plop and stepped back from the corpse. On the creature's death, all the vines around the tunnel drooped and visibly withered into dust. Zharia celebrated her victory by hopping up and down the spider's body. As Áine healed me, I noticed the slashes were not as deep as I expected and silently thanked my new passive.

We waited on high alert with our eyes unblinking at the corpse. Soon enough, the mystery of the disappearing snake was answered. It wasn't some sneaky creature dragging the body away, nor was it some form of magical teleportation. No, instead, the body was eaten. The spider turned into a rainbowy goop and melted into the floor.

"Master? Does this mean what I think?" Zharia asked.

"Yes, it does, Zharia. We're in a damn dungeon."