My muscles were still sore, so I just laid in bed for a while longer. If I had to guess I was convulsing while experiencing the other me’s memories. The only good thing about the soreness was it distracted me from the existential terror of very nearly being erased.
Of course thinking about the horror only made me want to think about it more. That way lay madness, so I decided to just preoccupy myself with the system notifications I pushed off.
*You have gained the new class Bioshifter Curist [Fire].*
*You gain 4 class skills slots.*
*Level up. Bioshifter Curist level 1. You gain 2 Vitality, 1 Animus, 2 Magic, and 3 Manipulation.*
*You gain the passive main skill Fire Affinity, level 1.*
*You gain the active main skill Bioshift, level 1.*
*You have gained access to the Immuno-boost active class skill.*
*You have gained access to the Enhance Metabolism active class skill.*
*Your skill Medicine may be transferred to your class Bioshifter Curist.*
*Your skill First Aid may advance to the Critical Care active class skill.*
*Level up. Elven Adolescent level 17. You gain 2 free stats, 1 physical stat, and 1 mental stat.*
*Level up. Elven Adolescent level 18. You gain 2 free stats, 1 physical stat, and 1 mental stat.*
*Identify has leveled up several levels, level 18.*
*Training has leveled up several levels, level 18.*
*Noble has leveled up several levels, level 18.*
*Dodging has leveled up several levels, level 18.*
Interesting that I got two levels in Elven Adolescent. Species classes level slowly unless you do something particularly incredible or perform a great feat for your people. Killing a person trying to enslave my people clearly gave me a ton of experience when I was baby. However I guess defending myself from being mind controlled to death counted too.
I decided to check on all the descriptions of the skills, starting with Fire Affinity. It had exactly the same wording as Radiance Affinity except it increased the effectiveness of Fire skills rather than Radiance ones. Nothing too surprising there really. Next up, Bioshift.
*Bioshift
Prerequisite: Have a Bioshifter class
Type: Healing, Fire, Magic
Active
Range: Touch
Skill cost: Any up to Magic for every minute of active use.
Bioshift is a nearly limitless skill that allows you to alter any living creature. Changes created by Bioshift can be permanent or temporary. The process of Bioshifting a creature is slow, taking several minutes for even the most minor changes. As a Curist your ability to affect other creatures will be greatly diminished unless they are actively willing, would be willing if they were conscious, or your Magic vastly overpowers their magic resistance.*
Dang the system was being stingy with that description. I could alter any living creature. Could I cause someone to grow an extra heart? Could I make a finger 3 feet long? I mean all that certainly seemed possible. However, how would that affect someone? If the extra heart wasn’t attached to the cardiovascular system, would it just be a useless lump of muscle? What if it was but it was pushing blood counter to the person’s normal heart? This description gave me very little to work with.
It did however tell me that I could use my magic on any living creature. I could potentially directly alter bacteria. I didn’t know about viruses, whether or not they were alive was… questionable. Also how would it affect a prion disease, could I refold the contaminated proteins so they wouldn’t spread? Was a protein counted as part of a living creature? Suffice to say I had questions. I would need to find some mice or something to start experimenting on. I bet they didn’t have much in the way of Animus or Vitality stats, so my Magic should be able to break through their resistance even with the negative for being a Curist.
Well that skill just gave me more questions than answers. I hope the other new skills aren’t nearly as vague.
*Critical Care
Prerequisite: First Aid at level 20 or higher and have a Healing class.
Type: Healing
Active
Range: Touch
Skill cost: Costs a maximum of 1 mana/level for every minute of active use.
Your First Aid skill has helped you treat serious injuries. This skill enhances all aspects of the First Aid skill and allows you to magically slow bleeding. Lets you know which ailment a patient is suffering from is most critical to life and limb. Reduces the likelihood of a mortal wound from killing a patient while you are treating them. Magically slow or stop bleeding with your touch and cause additional slow natural healing to wounds that would bleed without the skill being channeled. While being channeled on a patient their condition will become more stable. Knowledge, healing speed, bleeding reduction, and ability to stabilize increase with level, likelihood of dying of a patient being actively treated is reduced with level.*
This was just a nice power boost for First Aid. It could even do a bit of magical healing, but only to bleeding injuries. I also wouldn’t need as many medical supplies since it seemed to slow or stop bleeding without needing anything physical. It might still be worth having some bandages with me just in case, especially since a roll didn’t take up too much room in a bag of holding. I suspected I would be upgrading this skill, but I waited to see my other skills first.
*Immuno-boost
Prerequisite: Have a Fire Healing class
Type: Healing, Fire
Active
Range: Touch
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Skill cost: Any up to Magic.
Duration: Up to 1 minute per level. Cancelable by the caster at any time, or by the target if their magic resistance is high enough.
Immuno-boost helps a patient fight back against any disease their natural defenses would combat. Your magic will temporarily enhance a target’s resistance to poison or illness that their body could normally fight against. Using Immuno-boost will nullify an amount of mana regeneration from the target up to the amount of mana used to cast the skill while it is active. Using this skill will also cause a patient to use their energy reverses at an increased rate. Amount of resistance increases with level and target’s mana regeneration is nullified less with level.*
Nice! A way to help people fight illness directly. It wasn’t even remotely as strong as Dark healing when it came to combating disease, but it was still nice. It also lasted a long time once it was high enough level, having to only reapply it once an hour at level 60 meant I could help a lot of people in a plague situation.
The downside was it only helped with what the body could already potentially deal with. That meant things like cancer, heavy metals, prions, and several other illnesses would get missed to a significant degree. It also cost the patient a lot, between my own mana cost, their nullified mana regeneration, and increased consumption of their energy reserves I feared this might be hard to use. I’d have to care for and defend the patient and feed them both before and after treatment.
Lots to think about there and even more need to experiment with my skills.
*Enhance Metabolism
Prerequisite: Have a Fire Healing class
Type: Healing, Fire
Active
Range: Touch
Skill cost: Any up to Magic.
Duration: Up to 1 minute per level. Cancelable by the caster at any time, or by the target if their magic resistance is high enough.
Enhance Metabolism heals a target’s wounds by increasing their natural regeneration and bodily functions. Your magic will temporarily enhance the regeneration speed of a target, allowing their wounds to heal many times faster than normal. It also increases the rate at which the body reproduces lost blood. Finally it grants a minor boost to a person’s Agility, Strength, and Vitality. Using Enhance Metabolism will nullify an amount of mana regeneration from the target up to the amount of mana used to cast the skill while it is active. Using this skill will also cause the target to use their energy reverses at a significantly increased rate. Speed of regeneration and boost to stats increases with level and target’s mana regeneration is nullified less with level.*
So I guess using your calorie reserves to increase healing was a theme of Fire healing. Unlike Immuno-boost this was also a stats buff though. I bet it wouldn’t be a massive effect at first, but making someone stronger, faster, and tougher all in one was pretty nice. It would also keep them constantly enhancing their regeneration rate over a fairly long period of time once it was leveled up.
The downside was that it significantly increased the rate a person went through their caloric reserves. I would need to figure out how to make some kind of super dense nutrient paste or something.
Alright so these skills were definitely powerful, but they carried significant risk with them. No wonder Fire healing was so rare. Unlike all the other types of magical healing you needed to be very sure you weren’t harming your patient more than you were helping them. Plus it absolutely required a massive amount of biological knowledge to use effectively and safely, knowledge that did not exist in this world.
Alright, Critical Care was necessary since I could use it without the negatives inherent in Fire healing. I accepted that skill upgrade. I also moved Medicine to Bioshifter Curist, it would be allowed to level much faster than being stuck on my species class. Plus I would get an empty species class skill. Getting access to most of the species class skills was as simple as trying to do something new. Like if I wanted to get the Cooking skill I’d just need to give cooking a try.
I also accepted the two new skills Immuno-boost and Enhanced Metabolism. They might prove to be too costly to use in the long term, but for now at least I needed to learn how they worked.
That left me with two empty skill slots in my species class, and I didn’t immediately know what I wanted to do with them. For now I just left them alone.
I rolled out of bed, I didn’t feel any better, but I needed to at least unlock my door. I stood, still shaky on my feet. I debated casting Enhanced Metabolism on myself, but my growling stomach dissuaded me.
I stumbled forward into my door, unlocked it, then pulled it open. At some point my mother had returned and Penelope had left. Mother was being held by Taele while they sat on the couch. My sudden entrance into the room startled both women. “Alea?” Mother asked in a concerned tone.
I glanced at the window only to see it was night now, how long had I been in my room? “Hey… how long…” Then I fell forward and was passed out before I even hit the floor.
-----------------------
When I awoke, my mother was in a chair next to my bed. There was a bowl of soup and a glass of water on my nightstand. I was still groggy, but at least the constant muscle strain seemed to have faded. Sunlight entered the room from my open door, there weren’t any windows in my room so it was the only way to know it was daytime.
When I stirred mom looked down at me smiling brightly. “Good morning.” She said sweetly as she put her hand to my cheek then moved it to my forehead. “Your fever seems to have passed.”
“What happened?” My voice sounded crackly. I sat up in bed and grabbed the glass of water, taking a short drink.
“We don’t know… you had a fever and were drenched in sweat. Did you get your new class?” Mom looked just as confused as I probably did.
“Yeah, Bioshifter Curist, but I haven’t tried any of the abilities so I don’t think it was that.” My eyes glanced around my room before they landed on the bracelet and the memories came crashing back to me. Right… mind control. Recovering from the curse must have taken way more out of me than I thought. It was almost like I had been hit by a bad seizure.
Mom followed my gaze to the bracelet and her brows furrowed. “Is that the bracelet you always usually wear?”
“It was a gift from Halcroft.” I said with a bit of venom in my voice. “It’s cursed.”
Mom’s eyes went wide. “What?” She scooted away from the offending jewelry a bit. “What did it do?”
“It created an… alternate version of my personality that was more to his liking.” I explained tiredly. “It has been taking control of my body randomly over the last month, I only noticed when it nearly chose my new class for me.”
Mom’s hands went to her eyes in shock. “Then… your fever…”
“Was me recovering from whatever it did to me. At least I think that’s what it was.” I sighed and flopped back down into bed. “The good news is Halcroft thinks it worked, he believes we can’t escape and that the personality he made has probably already taken over my body.”
Mom gave me a strange look. “How…” She trailed off for a long moment. “How do I… know…”
I shrugged. “How do you know it’s me? I don’t even know… but I still feel like me. Also I hate Halcroft and have no inclination to ever be under his control again, so that seems like a good sign.”
“Well that certainly sounds like you. Still way too smart for your own good.” Mom smiled at me. “Why don’t you rest a bit more while I get you something more to eat.”
“Yeah…” I sighed but as mom got up to leave I grabbed her arm. “I… thought… it was so close this time and I didn’t even know.” Tears formed in my eyes as the realization that I had very nearly been replaced, that some little monster created by Halcroft would use my body to do horrible things.
Mom pulled me up a bit and into a fierce hug. “I love you so much.”
I love you too.
“I love you too.” I cried. We stayed like that for a little while until my crying slowed.
“I’ll be right back.” Mom’s warm voice made me feel better all on its own. She got up and left the room, closing the door behind her gently.
I laid there for a minute before I heard it. It came from the back of my mind, and it made my blood chill.
Hey… uhh Alea.