[Your Race has changed!]
"Again?" The wolf exclaims as the last fire was extinguished. The last time 'it' heard this message, 'it' changed from a Mutated Wolf to a Wolf Spirit. 'It' wonder what could be worse? "Status." 'It' has never been so wrong...
Name: GluttonAge: 0Level: 10 (Transcended)Race: Cerberus(2) SpiritHP: 144/144MP: 1/41STR: 8SPI: 12VIT: 2AGI: 6DEX: 2LUK: 2
"I'm going to kill him." Glutton says.
"Really?" Glutton says.
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Atrament silently floats there along with his nymph. He is still trying to understand the situation. Whenever he tries to ask, the wolf would barks at him. Twice. One from the left head and one from the right head. They keep grumbling about something he couldn't hear.
Although he could easily overpower the wolf, he feels like he should leave them be. He knew that threatening power has nothing to do with the stats but rather the soul. Of course a stronger spirit could easily threaten a weaker one, but that is only the case of a stronger soul threatens a weaker one. And just now when he was barked at, he felt that Glutton's soul has changed. The change wasn't enough to threaten him, but it affirms his role as a subordinate...
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Manifold. Soul Realm.
Vitae looks at the flickering red and brown soul. Because the Soul Realm has a special rule of space, Agaric's soul didn't have to travel at all to merge with Glutton's.
Normally the soul would haunt the killer's until it runs out of energy and get absorbed. But this time a huge amount of Mana flown out from Origin Realm and forced the red soul to 'merge' with the brown one.
The red soul was a bit stronger, but it's meaningless in this process. Though it made the scene looked like the bigger red was devouring the smaller brown. Soon the brown soul grew to twice its formed size to accommodate the new guest.
Vitae rarely comes to Soul Realm, while her brother see this kind of scene all the time. People with too many souls stick to them would come to Temple of the Death to dispel those souls. Most of them usually get really small and merely stick there, while the stronger souls would do the haunting. She doubts he has seen a weaker soul absorb a stronger one though.
That's the first problem. It has never happened. Even Soul Eaters have to strip their prey's power first. In Origo's case, after countless incarnations, his mental is REALLY POWERFUL. If not, the deities couldn't secretly run the entire world in the back of his mind. He acts weak most of the time, but that's the 'Fun' part. If he uses too much mental power, he would become emotionless, and he hates that. Vitae shudders as she remembers the strange wave to pressure...
The merging happened without any accident. The massive amount of Mana did the job well, and the exceed Mana dissipates in a wave. She has always thought Origo use magic too inefficiently. But he, who has a lemniscate for MP, had that leisure.
Vitae looks at the soul "decorated" with swirling red and brown color. The red soul has been completely assimilated; but the two clashing elements is eliminating each other, something that would never happen if the soul is absorbed naturally.
"This stupid.. ah, I shouldn't say that."
When they stabilizes, Origo wouldn't like it. From her calculation, the wolf would become a non-elemental Spirit. If a physical beings has no elemental aptitude, they are pure Rawn and can't cast any elemental magic. (Origo is NOT pure Rawn). But for Spirit, it would become pure Mana and can be absorbed by even weaker Spirits.
Fearing the consequence, she decides to help the wolf. As the governor of Life, she can forcibly change other's Race. While Race Changing by Elemental magic would occur naturally and result a suitable race; Race Change by Primal Life power has no limit. However if she turns a dog into a cat, it would become a completely different being. Fortunately, a creature with two clashing element that is similar to a wolf: a multiple-headed canine, dubbed Cerberus from her Creator's memory.
Vitae is oblivious to one thing: Glutton is a Spirit, and Origo just use a ridiculous amount of Mana.
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"My.. our stats are doubled." Brown mumbles.
"Yeah." Red indifferently says.
It gained 1 SPI for each level they got from Origo's Mana (which was weird because the nymphs said Mana wouldn't give any stat); nothing for the three spirits it ate earlier; 2 STR and 2 AGI for the red spirit. It was happy after knowing that the red spirit gives them its favorite stats. But the happy was cut short by the head-splitting pain turning 'it' into 'them'.
"Except for my HP and MP. I don't know how Cerberus grow."
"Yeah." Nothing changed.
"These SPI are wasting my Stat Limit!"
"Yeah" Indifferent as ever.
"If you don't stop that, I'm going to bite you off."
"Are you bullying the new guy?" Red retaliates.
"That darn dragon told you to come and torment me?" Brown assumes.
"How dare you say that to master?" Red growls.
"Master? I'm going to chew his fat face off!" Brown says without thinking.
"I know you call him 'master' in your mind!" It's super effective!
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The two wolf-heads barking back and forth make Atrament chuckles. Glancing at the ball of dark tendrils, he feels lucky that he didn't turn into a two-headed snake, if that was even possible. Still, turning from Holy to Dark was a life-changing event for him.
The nymphs have been chased away to do random chore, but the snake has nothing to do. In fact, before Glutton appeared, Atrament slept all the time, sometimes went out to hunt for newly formed spirit in his domain.
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The brown, now red and brown, wolf has brought some liveliness to Atrament's life and also gave him a hope to reach out for the Mana Dragon.. Hmm, did the brown head just turn red?
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A few hours ago.
Manifold. Material Realm. Northern Kingdom's Capital - Aurora.
The crowd whispers between each other. The Origin Dragon's anger was brief, he even said a word of farewell to the dead old man. However the dragon seems to be in pain. He closes his eyes, his body is quivering.
The knights worriedly keep checking on the bloody claw of the dragon, but they find nothing wrong. The last time Origo felt like this, they didn't notice. Only Vitae knows about his Conscience.
The priest frowns. He casts a few spell, but none of them work. The HP is full, no status effect. There wasn't even a scratch, then what is going wrong? He keeps asking himself. If Origo was like this elsewhere, he would have time to think. But in front of the crowd, if they know the Origin Dragon is in pain yet the Origin High Priest couldn't do a thing, he could only kill himself...
Suddenly the dragon starts chanting under his breath. Red particles appear from his squeezed right claws, but then he pauses to charge it. After a minute of charging the Fire Elemental Energy; anyone who is sensitive to Mana could start feeling the suffocating density of Mana linger in the air.
The magic users couldn't feel any power in the spell, making them feel confused. SPI increases Max MP; anyone who has this much MP should also have a ridiculous high SPI. But this degree of power is even worse than a magic apprentice.
Although everyone know the Origin Dragon must be protected, no one could imagine he would be this weak.. No, no one dares to even have that thought in their dream. The power in this spell is like an ant to them, but what makes them suffocate is trillions of ant.
Origo keeps staying in silence. Prolonging the chant would draw out more Mana, until the caster's MP is drained to Zero and the spell would fail; though no enemy would allow that in battle. Here, Origo has all the time he needs, all the MP he wants to expense, and no one dares to disrupt his spell. In fact, if the spell is disrupted, this sheer amount of Mana will go out of control and wreaking havoc.
"Is he casting Fire Blast?" The magic users who could withstand this Mana density starts talking to each other.
"He said 'converge', so it's Fire Nova! Scary, a Lv6 cast Fire Nova.."
"Are you dumb? This sheer amount of Mana.. It's Solar Nova!"
"Why is he casting such destructive spell, in the middle of the city?"
"Do you have problem with that? The old man wanted to be his Exp, so he probably thought all of us want it too."
"Of course we want a ticket to Heaven.. but just like this?"
"Yeah.. I has a lot of thing I want to do. If only we can save the ticket for later..."
Except for those with high MP, the crowd starts feeling headache. The Mana is being controlled and contains no intention to harm them, so they would be okay. However some starts hallucinating, swearing that they see Rawn condenses in mid air.
On that day, some people get a new treasure: An undying red particle - A piece of Rawn so small that it could float in the air, yet contains Fire Energy charged by thousands MP worth of Mana.
"... converges and reunites with your son!" Origo suddenly continues his chant, something that confuses the crowd. Then he shouts the spell name that also confuses the magic users. "Spirit Offering!"
The red particles near Origo's claw and the old man's corpse collapse on themselves, carrying the suffocating amount of Mana and disappears without a trace. The other red particles that didn't stick into any Rawn quickly dissipate.
"Was that an illusion? Where is all the Mana?"
"Didn't you hear his spell's name? It's a Spirit magic, so the Mana went into spirit's realm."
"What is Spirit Offering?"
"I think that old man's son became a Spirit."
"That make sense."
"Ah, I thought I could get to Heaven."
"You are shameless!"
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I open my eyes. It feels much better after I help the old man "reunite" with his son.. Though I hope Glutton would be nice to them, so my Conscience would hate me. Hmm, why am I feeling even better than before?
Looking around, I could notice the crowd arguing over something. Oh right, I made a commotion in the lake-town whenever I cast a spell. Am I that amazing? Or they are just mindlessly praising me?
I look at the ground. The old man is gone, leaving no trace of blood. On the ground is his clothes and the mushrooms. The wrapping paper probably flew away.
As I reach my claws over, the high priest suddenly runs over, grabbing my finger.
"Wait!" The high priest bluntly says. The crowd gasp at that.
I hate how stats work in this world, I couldn't even make his arm shake if I try to break free. This is in front of the crowd, the priest wouldn't dare doing something like that. He quickly removes his hand as he hears the gasp.
"Your Holiness, these mushrooms are dirtied, you shouldn't eat them." The priest hurriedly says. Am I that fragile that he has to protect me like a child?
As I reach my claws further, the priest glares at me; but because I am big, I can effortlessly ignore his glare. I'm not picking the fallen mushrooms anyway.
I pick up the old man's clothes. I don't know whether he would need clothes in the spirit's plane, so I'll keep them for awhile. I hope that gluttonous wolf spared the old man because I want him to be my chief and roast more mushrooms for me...