Sarah nearly passed out from the immense dizziness she suddenly experienced. But she held on while concentrating on her pain and rage.
She didn’t even have the time to check on the system prompts explaining what her new specializations were and what skills came with them. She just had to trust in the system that it would give her a solution to her problem.
She concentrated all her mental energy on the furry thing chomping down on her and wanted it to suffer. But nothing happened.
With a hollow feeling in her stomach, she realized that nothing had changed. But before she could read the descriptions of her new skills, the bubbling of her muscles died down. She was able to move again.
The furry thing on top of her seemed confused. The sudden change in the seemingly near-dead Sarah it had been sitting on alarmed it.
Not missing her chance, Sarah grabbed the thing with all the strength she could muster and chomped down on the beast.
The furry thing squealed in her grip and bit into her arms. It was so painful, that she wanted to let go, but she held on with an iron will.
She ripped out mouthfuls of fur until she reached soft skin. She sank her teeth deep into the skin and flesh of the thing. This caused it to squeal even louder, and it also started thrashing around in her arms.
Sarah was ripping out the flesh of the thing when she suddenly felt horrible pain in her back. It felt like something exploded in her guts, as something hard pushed itself into her.
A guttural scream left her mouth as she bit even harder into the thing.
Her mind was filled with rage, and the only thought she had was to make this thing suffer and die.
Suddenly, it felt like her mind skipped a beat, and she felt connected to the thing. She felt its pain, fear, confusion, and rage about the incapacitated thing that suddenly started moving again.
She somehow knew that she was connected to it. And that she could use this connection.
While having half her face dug into the grizzly wound of the thing, she mentally willed it to despair. And despairing it did.
It gave up any kind of resistance. It was only screaming and flailing around while Sarah ripped out more and more flesh from the thing.
And as suddenly as it attacked her, it stopped moving. Sarah needed a moment to realize that it was dead. She had either bit into something very essential, or it had a heart attack from the intense fear from Sarah's skill.
But one thing was for sure: it was dead.
With a groan, she shoved the thing to the side and immediately regretted it. Whatever was shoved in her gut was pulled out by the sudden drop of the thing, and with it came pain and blood.
A slight sizzling sound was heard as her blood dropped to the ground while she pressed her hands on the wound in her back. She noticed that her left arm hurt, but it was still functional apart from that. That was at least something.
Breathing heavily, she stood up to inspect what had attacked her. She stumbled for a moment before she could get a good look at the creature.
It was a huge rat. Its body was at least as big as her whole torso, with a weird, bony-looking tail coming out of its back. The tail was sizzling and covered in blood. Which explained what had stabbed her in the back.
Following her initial plan, she spit on the thing a few times. The pain in her back became too intense after a short while and forced her to stop her revenge.
With a grunt, she sat back down while still pressing on the wound in her back. She had already started to feel a bit dizzy from the blood loss. If this went on like this, she would bleed out. The wound didn’t seem to want to close very soon.
It was now time for an emergency mutation. But it was problematic that she had already mutated her muscles. She had no idea which mutation would also involve the muscles and tissue in her lower back.
She frantically looked through all the available mutation options. But she saw nothing that could help her. Grasping her last straw, she looked into the until now empty 'Special mutations' list. And she was surprised to see that it wasn't empty anymore.
* Mutated tail (acquired, 5LF): A long and flexible tail with an exoskeleton made out of spine-like bone segments. Can be stretched over its original length, but will leave the vulnerable muscle and sinew under the exoskeleton exposed. (not recommended) For more options, ingest the genetic material of other beings infused with magic power.> "Well, that is new," she said in a raspy voice while having a hard time concentrating on what was happening right now. This was her only chance. All the other mutations did nothing with her lower back. And the tail would most likely extend from her lower back. So there was a high possibility that it would mutate the whole lower section of her back. Hopefully, at least. With no other choice, she mentally affirmed the mutation choice. Then she waited with clenched teeth for it to start. "Are you kidding me?" she screamed at the system, not caring for the pain in her back. "Why the hell do you never tell me about these things in advance?!" The system was as heartless as ever and didn’t answer Sarah's outburst. Sarah frantically scrambled to the nearest source of dense biomass in her vicinity. The dead mutated rat. Just as the timer went down to zero, she was able to take her first bite of the disgusting meat and gorge on it. The mutation was horrible. While feeling like her lower body was melting down and forming new tissue, she had to constantly eat bloody, stinking meat. All the while nearly falling unconscious from the blood loss and the pain in her back. It felt like an eternity until the mutation suddenly stopped, like always. She turned away from the now mangled corpse of the rat thing and started vomiting. But barely anything came out. The system used up every last bit of biomass inside her body. When she finally stopped heaving, she crawled away from the scene as far as she could. She didn’t dare stand up because her legs felt so funny. And she tried very hard to ignore that something new was coming out of her lower back. "Ohhh this was horrible." She mumbled to herself while lying in the soft moss. For a while, she just lay there on the ground, taking deep breaths and trying to get accustomed to the new thing in her lower back. After a while, she summoned up enough courage and turned her head until she could see behind her. The wound on her back closed up, which was really good. But right above her buttocks, where her spine had ended before, a bony and long tail came out of her. "Oh, this is so fucking disgusting." She said while closing her eyes for a moment. "I have a freaking tail now. Am I now a monster or something?" After some more deep breathing, she opened her eyes again and looked at the tail. It was really disturbing, that it was just there. What was even more disturbing was that it felt like it had always been there. Like a mixture between leg and arm or something. She quietly swayed it around in the air with some kind of weird curiosity. The longer she looked at the tail, the less disturbing it felt. "Who’s a good tail." She mumbled while slightly touching the tail with her right hand. It took quite some time, but she started to feel accustomed to her new appendage. Even if it was still kind of gross to have the same tail as a mutated rat. "Alight." She said to herself, taking a deep breath. "Time to see if my race changed to rat-woman or something." Details: Level: 9 Name: Sarah Anna Fischer Class: None Race: Mutant Status: Normal HP: 10/90 SP: 10/60 MP: 5/110 Achievements: * How the hell are you still sane? * Poison gorger * More than a human: Higher success rate on special mutations. Affinities: Mind (Mid) Body (Mid) Energy (Low) Specialisations: Mind (2/2) Invasion Nerve Control Body (2/2) Adaptation Mutation Energy (0/1) Basic Stats: Strength: 4 Dexterity: 11 Endurance: 5 Resistance: 4 Intelligence: 20 Force: 1 Special Stats: Magic Power: 9 Life Force: 9 Mental Power: 2 Active Skills: Mind infiltration (Invasion) Passive Skills: Poison Body (Adaption) * Poison and acid resistance * Walking hazard Metamorphosis (Mutation) * Skin: * Dense skin (1 LF) * Bone structure: None * Muscles: * Strengthened fibers (1LF): Strengthened muscle fibers. Slightly tougher and stronger. * Brain, nerve system and sensory organs (not recommended): * Predators eyes (1LF) * Organs and processes (not recommended): None * Special mutations (not recommended): * Mutated tail (acquired, 5LF) Suppression (Nerve Control) Struggle (Conditional passive) Slightly crazy Mean eye Sarah just blankly stared at the status screen. Especially the line describing her race. "I just hate you." She said to the system while shaking her head. "Well, at least you were nice enough to call me mutant instead of rat-woman. So you are just a half-asshole." She spoke to the system and sighed loudly. Her only friend and helper in this crazy world had to be an ass. Trying not to think about being a mutant now, she read the description of the delicious new skills she got with her new specializations. Active Skills: Mind infiltration (Invasion): While using Magic Power, you are able to invade the mind of another being. Invasion is facilitated if the being has been poisoned by you. Direct contact is needed. Passive Skills: Suppression (Nerve Control): Your emotions will influence your nerves less. Warning: Instinctual behavior is also suppressed. She wasn’t quite sure about the second one. Was this good? She guessed that it would probably help her to hold her shit together if something horrible was happening to her. But it could be a problem that she wouldn’t really run away anymore out of instinct. On the other hand, the first skill was really nice. It didn’t really explain in detail what was possible, but Sarah saw it as a good sign. It probably meant, that there were a lot of possibilities for how to use this skill. She now had some weapons to defend herself. A weird tail with a sharp and hard tip, and also had the ability to inflict severe mental pain on other beings. And last but not least, she is herself a walking hazard full of poison and acid. She swore to herself that she would never let anything like this happen again. She became complacent because the biggest thing she had seen until now was a tall and skinny bird. It came over now and then to look for food in the shallow water. She didn’t even know that such big and dangerous animals existed in this swamp. It probably jumped at her because it thought she was dying or something. Becoming limp all of a sudden and falling to the ground was not something a healthy person would do. "Never again." She said it to herself loudly and clenched her fist. "And for that, I guess I have to find out what I can do with my new abilities." Sarah grinned widely with mad flames burning inside her eyes, the dried blood on her face crumbling slightly. "Time to experiment."