A four-legged creature sprinted on the ground at insane speeds, evading any tree or obstacle in its path. It had golden fur, with two eyes that looked like meticulously cut rubies. Its mouth occasionally opened up into a snarl, as spittle flew out. Growls escaped the creature’s mouth at regular intervals. Prometheus stopped in his tracks and opened the book to make sure he was going in the right direction. It’s hard running while keeping this thing open.

He closed it and continued running in the direction of the anomaly, waiting for nothing and no one. Now that he had no real objective in life, he was much more free to follow other goals. Was it worth it..? Shaking his head to clear away the unwanted thoughts, the golden cheetah kept its impressive pace, just below the speed of sound. Theo predicted that the anomaly was situated somewhere on the mountain he could see in the distance, based on some calculations he had made. From his current position, he could see that a peak rose into the air, as if shouting at the sky, enraged. The peak wasn’t straight, but slightly crooked to the side. A massive cloud of ‘Anima’, the Influence of the world, hung around the mountain peak.

It’s exactly three hours away. I don’t have that much time. I need to go faster.

“Why are you in such a rush, dumbass? Enjoy the scenery around you. This vegetation looks like it’s made of mustard!” His soul added. Theo didn’t reply and instead pumped Influence into his legs to speed up, reaching impressive speeds. After less than an hour, he reached the base of the mountain, and the book told him the anomaly was on the top of the mountain, so he shifted into an eagle and flew straight up into the air, reaching the top very quickly. The yellow vegetation began thinning, but it didn’t disappear completely.

From the air, he could see something resembling a walking path, but given how steep the mountain wall was, it was unlikely to be one. Another confusing detail was the many green torches that lined the sides of the path. It continued towards the top of the mountain, eventually continuing into a hidden entrance at the side that he didn’t spot at first. Without another thought, the large eagle flew at the entrance, flapping its mighty wings in a cacophony of beats, moving swathes of air with each one. A couple dozen meters before he could enter the small entrance, a humanoid figure emerged from the shadows, and sent a mental communication, “Do you not proceed a step further, monster,”

Why would a monster even listen to threats?

Theo stopped and hovered in the air, focusing on the man crossing his arms on the ground. He was of average height for a human and had snow-white skin and long hair. The man was wearing simple, tribal clothes that covered his torso and legs, and tattoos adorned his forearms and face. He didn’t have any weapons but was still a tier six, so he wasn’t defenseless.

“I’m not here to cause harm. I am looking for a… relic. Or maybe a creature, I don’t really know.”

The tribal raised an eyebrow and continued, “A relic, you say? We have no such thing. Turn back the way you came from before I eliminate you,”

So aggressive, Theo thought.

“Listen, I just need to take the relic that I’m looking for, and I’ll be on my way. I know for a fact that it is somewhere in there.”

A vein bulged on the man’s forehead, and Theo could see his jaw muscles tighten. The man uncrossed his arms, and the Influence around his Soul swirled in anticipation. Prometheus sighed and landed on the ground, ready for a violent confrontation with the tribal. Before either of them could begin, though, an older man with a walking stick walked up to the guarding man, and tapped him on the shoulder. He was dressed similarly but lacked the impressive physique. The two tribals exchanged a mental connection, so Theo could translate what they were saying based on the fluctuations of the Influence. It was a neat trick he had recently learned.

“What are you doing?” Asked the old man.

“I’m guarding the entrance, father, as it is my duty.”

“Not that, you knucklehead! That’s a talking monster,”

The younger man kept his eyes on Prometheus but narrowed his eyes in confusion and nodded. “What about it?”

The older man, his father, sighed and facepalmed. “They’re very rare, Monu. We encounter them once every hundred cycles,”

Theo tilted his head in confusion, thinking to himself, Haven’t I met tons of monsters that could communicate? I don’t think they’re rare at all. His Soul interjected and said, “It’s probably because most of the monsters you’ve seen were through the Monster Army. Maybe they only recruited self-aware monsters?” Theo nodded, recognizing that it was likely.

The son scratched his neck and replied, “Why does that matter, father? Monsters are monsters.”

The old man hit Monu’s knee with his stick and grumbled, “It means we can communicate and possibly avoid casualties. Let me handle it,”

The father walked up, reaching four meters away from the shapeshifter. Monu seemed to strain his face at each step the old man took toward Theo. Prometheus simply pruned his feathers and waited for the old man to speak.

“Greetings, majestic creature of the skies, my name is Onu, the Bold Breeze. To what can we attribute the honor of your visit?” The old man asked. Theo was impressed with the old man’s diplomacy skills. He also didn’t have any motivation to get into a senseless fight. Not anymore.

“Hey, my name is Theo. I need a relic that I believe is in your territory. I did not come here for trouble. Once I get what I need, I’ll go away,” Theo replied, noticing how the old man’s Soul was completely hidden. He couldn’t get any information on his tier. That’s worrying.

Onu scratched his chin while humming, nodding eventually, “We do have a relic that we use for spiritual guidance. Unfortunately, our tribe relies heavily on it, so we believe we cannot simply give it away.” The man’s eyes focused on Theo with a glint on them, as if waiting for Theo’s response.

“That relic is very dangerous. I need to inspect it to make sure it doesn’t annihilate everyone,”

“Mhm, well, the problem is that our tribe has used it for generations without any troubles. What you say conflicts with what we know.”

“Still, I wish to take a look at it. I can pay you if that could convince you,”

Onu shook his head and replied, “We don’t need any money. We will allow you to visit the relic, but from a distance. Additionally, you will be accompanied by me and four other tribe members. Is that acceptable?”

Prometheus nodded, “Alright. Take the lead, then.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The old man and Prometheus walked down the entrance into the cavern, which was wide enough to allow just one human-sized creature to pass through at the same time. Theo shifted into a humanoid form, which slightly surprised the tribal man, who didn’t speak of it, however. Smooth walls showed that the tribe had worked quite a bit to make the entrance easier to the eye, and regular downward steps allowed for easy travel. After ten minutes, the narrow tunnels opened up into a larger room, with a handful of tunnels going in different directions. The old man took the one on the right, and before Theo could follow, Onu said, “Please wait here, I will take the men that will accompany us.”

Two minutes later, he returned with four tall and angry-looking tribesmen with the same clothing and tattoos. He couldn’t gauge any of their Soul tiers. They then began walking towards another tunnel, which Theo noticed was completely identical to the other ones in structure. Is it to confuse possible invaders?

Torches that emitted green fire began to brighten up the walls, which were completely dark before that. Many entrances on the side allowed Theo to see many living spaces, mostly comprised of couples and their kids. One of those living spaces was much bigger than the rest, and a heavily decorated man wielding a scepter was kneeling in front of a pedestal holding a small object. A radio which looked similar to the ones used on Earth in the forties. Another weird coincidence. It is definitely NOT from Earth. Ridiculous.

The man had clothes made of insectoid chitin covering most of his body, and green paint formed a drawing of a skull on his face. Onu stepped up and hit the ground with his stick strong enough to cause tremors, which caught the kneeling tribesman’s attention.

“Chief Bold Breeze. Who is that creature that is following you? Its Soul is something I’ve never seen.”

Onu turned his hand to Theo and replied, “Shaman Green, he is Theo, a majestic creature looking to witness our relic. I decided to let him do that, on the condition that he is highly monitored.”

Shaman Green’s nose scrunched up, and he crossed his arms, looking at Theo, “Theo, may you wait outside for a moment while I discuss an important matter with the chief?”

Theo nodded, as he didn’t have any reason to refuse, and walked out of the room, into the hallways, and waited. Since he could still sense the Influence of the two men, he easily translated what they were saying, “Chief, I don’t want to offend you in any way, but I don’t believe sharing critical information on such an important treasure to an unknown monster was the brightest idea. What if he’s a spy from the Confederacy trying to take it?”

Onu chuckled, “Do you believe me to be that slow, friend? Of course, I’m not just gonna allow him. We are going to capture him and sell him to the Kingdom. I’ve got contacts that told me about a very special bounty, regarding this specific monster. The unique Soul shape can’t be a coincidence. We will capture it, but not kill it. The bounty specifically requests the monster to be delivered alive. Unfortunately, we don’t know what it can do, but since he’s a Fourth Circle beast, it should be easy to take care of it. While he’s distracted with the relic, we’ll make our move.”

Prometheus sighed. I have no intention of killing these people. I’ll just steal the relic and escape. Theo then shifted a membrane above his skin on the back of his neck with space inside, creating a sort of closed pocket, and he conjured the subspace USB inside of it, ready to insert it when necessary. Onu then walked up to him and gestured for him to proceed forward. The shapeshifter walked toward the anomalous radio and studied it. A sleek and curved design made it look elegant and luxurious. Any collector of vintage items would love it. Two simple handles allowed anyone to change frequency, at least that’s how it was for normal radios.

As soon as he was in front of the pedestal, he felt a voice speak in his head. It wasn’t through a mental connection technique. It came out of nowhere. A memory surfaced of something similar when he had encountered that table anomaly.

“Subject ‘Shaman Green’, do you receive us?” It asked. It resembled Theo’s own voice, sounding robotic and emotionless.

“Nope. My name’s Theo. Who are you?”

Silence ensued before the voice continued, “Synthetic lifeform detected, initializing protocol 17B.”

Another moment of silence happened before the voice continued once again, “Greetings, fellow inorganic. We are the Zero-One Collective, and you’re talking to Science Unit 6. Please introduce yourself.”

“Sure, sure, give me a moment, I’m in the middle of something. Oh, by the way, do you mind if I take you away from these tribals? I kind of need to…borrow the radio.”

Unit 6 went silent for another second and replied, “Negative, we do not mind. You may proceed.”

Theo nodded and looked around. The tribesmen looked ready to jump at him, based on how ecstatic their Influence looked. He had learned that Souls revealed more than body language, so he always kept an eye on those. He pretended to be intrigued by the radio, so he walked closer and scratched his chin, letting his Acting skill do the rest.

Low-rank Acting leveled up to lvl 3!

In an instant, he snatched the radio, which was cold to the touch, and immediately deposited it into his inventory. Its ‘anomalousness’ greatly decreased once inside, similar to the brick. He hoped he hadn’t broken it that way. Before the tribesmen attacked him all at once, he inserted the USB stick into his neck, activating the subspace ability. Onu’s eyes opened wide, and he began screaming and ordering the others around. He shifted into a shark and swam out of the cave, which took around three minutes. He still had three more left on the ability, so he didn’t worry too much. That was until he saw half a dozen massive insectoid monsters emerge from the other side of the mountain. They were as big as elephants and resembled a mix of a wasp, a horned beetle, and a butterfly with their colorful wings. All of them were tier eight. Each of them had a crude saddle made of fabric and chitin on their back. A moment later, Onu and the others ran outside the cave and whistled, causing the monsters to fly closer to them.

What?

Each of the tribesmen jumped on top of the monsters. There was exactly one for each of them. With that, they began flying around the mountain, probably looking for him. I won’t be able to beat them. I need to move. Theo used [Enhancement] on his fins and tail to be more hydrodynamic and fast, even though he wasn’t sure the subspace was made of water, per se. When his ability ran out, he shifted into a large eagle with exhausts on its wings and began accelerating as much as possible away from the mountain. He used Elemental Shapeshifting to eject fire through the exhausts, further speeding him up. Looking back, he was grateful that they weren’t able to follow him. He turned his head forward, and before he could react, he slammed through something, and he came out on the other side, still going quite fast.

A semi-transparent floating tree with spinning roots began falling to the ground, with a large hole in its trunk. That’s where Theo had gone through.

What the fuck?! How did I not see it?! Or even sense it!

He went down to the ground, where the weird tree-looking thing had crashed, noticing how its highest leaves were undulating in the air, almost as if grasping for air. An unusual twinge of guilt went through Theo’s mind, so he walked closer. It was a tier four creature, the same as Theo, and a quick study of its DNA showed that its cells were mostly plant-based, but had some traces of animal DNA. It could also allow light to pass through its cells without any absorption, somehow, which let it become invisible without any Soul technique or ability.

That’s.. revolutionizing. In theory, I could replicate that effect and become invisible without using any influence.

Theo sealed the massive wound on the tree’s trunk and changed its DNA to have much faster regeneration, and he also created a highly nutritious organic slurry and deposited it on the tree’s roots, hoping it could use it to heal up. He turned to leave, but before he did so, he also left some Cores for the plant, hoping it could help.

Medium-rank Genetic Manipulation leveled up to lvl 4!

“Sorry, hope you get better,” He said through a mental connection to the camouflaging, flying tree and flew into the air, moving to return to his base. He turned his head back and noticed how the tree was absorbing the cores and tiering up. Good.

“Why did you do that?” Saul asked.

“Do what?”

“Help that random tree. It was cool and unique, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t understand why you gave it the Cores.”

“I felt bad for wounding it like I did. There’s no way it could have survived otherwise.”

“Why do you care so much? It’s not like you to be so empathetic.”

“I just… I don’t know. It felt like the right thing to do. I can’t explain it.”

Saul hummed and nodded, “Alright. At least you got its genome, so I can’t complain,”

- - -

When he returned to the base, he saw Giuseppe and Zilch building pieces of furniture out of the yellow logs. Sayuri was cutting the trees with her katana. They had discussed if settling on a permanent base was better than being nomads and being constantly on the move. They decided in the end that since they had been found so easily by those elves, hiding around the continent wasn’t that useful. Bunkering down and fortifying their position would probably be safer, so they decided on that. The cave systems were also complex and labyrinthine, and since they were on the bottom of a chasm, their base was somewhat safe. Theo then sat down in his Golden Ant form and took out the anomalous radio, waiting for the voice to return. Thankfully, it did.

“We have encountered a momentary disruption of the transdimensional signal, but it has now returned. Was it your doing, subject ‘Theo’?” It asked.

“I don’t know about ‘transdimensional signals’ or whatever, but it was probably me, yeah. Anyway, I’m Prometheus, nice to meet you. I’m a shapeshifter.”

The radio went silent for a minute before the voice returned, “Elaborate further on ‘shapeshifter’,”

“Well, that’s not something I can just tell anyone. You might be part of the Kingdom, which is apparently hunting me down. How can I know I can trust you?”

He heard static from the radio before the voice, possibly Unit 6, returned, “If by ‘Kingdom’ you’re referring to the ‘Iulan Kingdom’ situated on the ‘Eutrania’ continent, then we are not part of the ‘Kingdom’. We are on a separate planetary system, possibly another universe. We do not involve ourselves in the politics of the civilizations we study.”

Theo clicked his mandibles and made grooves in the dirt, replying, “On another system, interesting. How did you get the radio here, then? Did you use a Soul ability? Also, what do you know about ‘anomalies’? Your radio is one of them.”

This time, the silence lasted longer. “We do not know what ‘anomalies’ are. We used experimental Wormhole technologies to send our probe to your planet.”