Henry read everything twice, then he focused on the two options he was most interested in. Arcane and Trickster. He was tempted by Mesmer, but it just wasn’t as good as the other two. And he’d just seen what an Arcane kraken could do. Invisibility, mana stealing, dispelling and who knows what else. It was a good option.
But he didn’t want to lose Magic Mimic. Was that a possibility? Could he lose the Trait?
Henry read the description for Trickster kraken again, and a line in particular attracted his attention. “Maybe the upgrade is the intelligence. But that’s given to me. It doesn’t necessarily mean I would lose Magic Mimic.”
It was also another hint at what was sending clones at him. “The intelligence boost explains the clones’ behavior and speech. High D-rank. Maybe C-rank.”
Henry looked up and around. Maurice was watching over them, and there was no golden shark swimming around. No voice in his head.
“System? Are you around?”
He waited for a few seconds, but no one answered. “Huh. I guess you’re busy?”
A bit saddened, Henry looked down at the descriptions. “At least I got the Arcane Arm. For mana draining, maybe Bite will get a permanent option on upgrades like Mimicking Tentacle. I could have a draining bite then. But I wouldn’t have the dispel.”
That felt like a safer option than risking the loss of Magic Mimic. Then he remembered a detail.
“I got samples from them! And the samples unlocked the upgrade of Magic Mimic. That must mean they have it as well? No?”
Henry considered the options some more. “Arcane must have unlocked its abilities from copying something, like the Stoneskin did with the ants. Probably. Mana Drain can’t be that rare. Same with dispelling. I could just copy the source.”
It just felt too risky. And he was pretty sure that if Magic Mimic disappeared or got weakened somehow, there wouldn’t be take-backs.
Also, the Arcane kraken looked weird. A bit.
“Still about to become a kraken.” Henry breathed in deep, then confirmed his changes.
Class Krakenbane Wanderer (D) was selected.
Species Trickster Kraken was selected.
Aspect consolidation unlocked.
Aspect consolidation
Your species abilities will be re-arranged under their appropriate Aspects. You will have a higher chance of converting class abilities into Aspect abilities. The upgrading process of all abilities will be altered. Evolutionary points will now be used to acquire Aspects.
Warnings: With every delay, this process’ odds of causing irreversible soul damage increases until death becomes a possibility. 3 Class Skill slots and 3 Trait slots will be consumed in this process. 6 Evolutionary points will be consumed to create 2 additional Aspects. Nascent and low-ranked abilities might be temporarily weakened.
Agree | Delay
Henry frowned at the prompt. “This must be what Maurice had been worried about. And it doesn’t sound like a real choice.” He read the prompt. “Those are a lot of slots I’m about to lose. And all that’s most of my Evolutionary points… But then again, it seems like the way things have to be. I just hope it’s worth it.”
Henry exhaled, then agreed to the prompt. It disappeared and was immediately replaced by a wall of notifications.
Skill and Trait merging skipped.
Bite and its subskills will be assimilated under Aspect: Hunger of the Trickster.
Mimicking Tentacles and its subskills will be assimilated under Aspect: Shiftiness of the Trickster.
Inkjet and its subskills will be assimilated under Aspect: Misdirection of the Trickster.
Summon Illusions acquired. Summon Illusions will be assimilated under Aspect: Arcana of the Trickster.
Assistance of the Octominds acquired. Assistance of the Octominds will be assimilated under Aspect: Arms of the Trickster.
…
Henry barely had the time to read a few lines when he started feeling sick.
Not physically.
It felt as if he was being taken apart and rearranged. Something deep within him was being stretched. Cut. Severed and put somewhere else. Peeled then layered. Twisted and melded. All in an instant that was incomprehensibly stretched, same as his senses and perception.
Henry thought he heard himself screaming. His mind was melting. Through the unimaginable madness that tore his soul apart and put it back together, something golden flashed in the corner of his eye, right before the darkness took him.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
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Maurice nervously rubbed his claws together, hoping to stop the tremor that took them over when he’d felt the wave of terror and pain from Henry as the white light wrapped itself around him like a shell.
It had lasted barely for a second, but it shook Maurice. Was that how he’d felt?
He’d almost forgotten about this. His limited cognition back then hadn’t helped, but once he had been past the process, he hadn’t dwelled on it. Like a bad dream, he was content with letting it fade away from his memory. And to be fair, they’d been busy since.
Still, it wasn’t as if he could do anything about it.
“[Hang in there, Henry.]”
He had to keep his friend safe. And keep watch. “Complete focus. No distractions.”
Maurice honed in on his telepathic senses as he watched his surroundings. “He’s going to be okay. Yes. He’s strong. He’ll be okay.”
Maurice tried to push at the boundaries of his mental Trait. It was familiar. It behaved somewhat like Seeker’s Bounty, where it was vague and limited at first, but, like a muscle, got better the more he used it. Unfortunately, he couldn’t feel the krakens, though he expected them to appear at any time.
The crab shuffled around the large globe of light, peering suspiciously at the calm waters surrounding their makeshift camp. “The kraken must need mana as well, and a Skill like that has to be expensive. It probably needs to recover its reserves.”
Maurice paused. “If it’s a higher rank, though, it would recover faster than us. It could be already here.”
He looked down at his Skills and Traits, and his eyes lingered on Chimeric Assimilation. It was still working on his new shell, and it was barely a tenth of the way through.
“I wonder what I’ll get.”
It was interesting how the Skill had worked instantaneously on Henry's shapeshifted shells, while it was taking this long for the turtle shell. “Probably because it’s an old shell?” Maurice vaguely remembered that the ones he’d found would take some time for his Skill to process.
Maurice eyed another of his Skills, then glanced around before approaching the ball of light. He gingerly tapped it.
It was solid.
“Okay. I can at least get a good spot.” He looked up, and sighed. He readied his arms, dreading what was about to happen. Something he loathed above all else.
“Swimming. My one weakness.”
Maurice beat his arms frantically, rising slowly and awkwardly above the giant ball of light. He almost missed the top when he let himself fall back down, but he was able to stabilize. Slowly, he took position at the apex of Henry’s evolutionary bubble, and activated Bissal Anchoring.
He felt his shell stick to the ball like an old barnacle to a rock. Nothing should be able to pull him off other than himself.
“Okay. Now we wait.”
The crab slowly watched his surroundings. He couldn’t see behind him very well, but he could activate his best Skill at any time. At a moment’s notice.
It was perfect for protecting a small area. Though to be fair, the bottom half of Henry wasn’t protected… But hopefully the clones wouldn’t know that… Right?
Maurice looked down at the opaque ball of light he was sitting on. Most of his class slots were full, thanks to Henry. The crab didn’t remember much from before, but he knew he hadn’t been as active as he was now. He’d been content to follow the whims of Seeker’s Bounty, traveling around to find shells and hiding within them. One fateful day, he’d sensed it. It was one of the few memories he still had from back then.
“A world-traveling turtle.”
Of course, he didn’t know that, back then. Only that his Trait had blared at him to go toward it.
If he got anything like that ability, he’d have to make sure Henry got it. That’d be the least he could do, after all the abilities he’d gotten for free.
“Next time I hope I'll get the mana hoarding one.”
A small shoal of fish swam by, and a Riptide shark came close to the ball, circling it once before swimming away.
Maurice still felt a bit bad about that debt. Henry had cut off his limbs dozens of times, while the hermit crab had only given him one pincer.
The crab scuffed at the smooth light below him. “I don’t like feeling this.”
True, he didn’t have that many Skills, but there were still a couple he could give Henry. Like–
Hate.
Maurice’s eyes jerked to the left as he activated Hermit’s Domain.
The clone was swimming close. It’s eye on him.
“[fOoD.]”
Maurice twitched but didn’t hide. He waited for it to approach. When it was within reach of his domain, Maurice pointed at the space between its eyes and snapped his pincer.
Its eye and brain were crushed with the invisible implosion, and the clone turned to dark-blue ink.
Maurice immediately deactivated his Skill, gasping at the mana it ate up, and listened to Telepathic Sense.
Ten minutes later, two new clones appeared.
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Henry’s eyes fluttered open, and the first thing he felt was how… sensitive his innards felt. Not his physical ones. His soul? “Was that what just happened? Soul surgery?”
Henry slowly pulled his arms under him. His muscles obeyed like usual. He felt off, but he seemed healthy. Mostly.
Then something came through Telepathic Sense. A low thrum of fear mixed with resolve that made his stomach knot as he shot up.
Henry looked up and then flipped upward. Hanging above him on a suspended white disk was Maurice, reaching out from within his shell to snip at a black-and-yellow striped kraken as it tried to dig through the back of his shell.
Maurice was in a bad shape. One eye-stalk was missing. One pincer was crushed, along with a few of his legs. His second pincer seemed smaller and scarred, but was still desperately trying to reach the clone.
Henry flew upward. He prepared to use his Skills and braced for the pain he suspected was about to assail him, but it didn’t. Two bladed tentacles whipped upward and sheared through the clone like scissors through cloth.
It had been easy. The Skills felt as responsive and part of him as his own limbs.
Maurice’s single eye looked down, and his claw lowered. “[Are you… okay?]”
His voice was weak. Slow.
Henry slowly extended an arm around Maurice to pick the crab up. Maurice put a claw on his tentacle. “[I’m okay, Maurice. You can rest. Do you have mana to regenerate?]”
Maurice took a second to respond. His eye swiveled down, then the disk began to fade and the crab fell into Henry’s arm. “[I…think. I did… good. I can also… protect. See? I sleep.. now. A little…]”
Henry cradled the shell. He tried to use Regenerate on it, but the Skill refused to leave his skin. “Work, damn you.”
Thankfully, after a few tries, he saw the familiar hue of Regenerate come from within Maurice’s shell. It’d stay on for a few seconds, then turn off. Again and again as the hermit crab slowly healed himself.
Henry breathed slowly. He looked around, but there were no clones to be seen. He bundled the crab between his arms, safely hidden under his massive frame, and waited for Maurice to recover.
He would recover. Henry was sure of it. Henry had recovered from worse and had been weaker. So Maurice would be okay. Once he was, they’ll settle the score.
The stalking kraken would be dead before the week was out. It was only a matter of time.