“[Can we go on an adventure now?]”

Henry stored the sixth giant tooth in his Maw. He rolled his sore arms and looked down appreciatively at the four joints he’d used in their efforts to crack the teeth out of the monster’s jaw. With the simple joint memorized, it allowed him to focus more on the joint’s strength and stability instead of worrying about its functionality.

Henry lowered his arms then slowly turned to face the crab.

Maurice, all four feet of him, had his arms crossed and was leaning backward to give Henry the stink-eye. He was growing larger, though he was still comparatively tiny. Henry reached over to pick him up, but not the usual way.

Henry picked Maurice by the top of his shell and held him upside down.

Maurice flailed his pointy feet and claws. “[Wh–put me down!]

Henry brought the crab closer until he was at eye level. Maurice clacked a claw at him, but Henry mostly sensed amusement from the crab. “[Beating me in chess does not mean you get to talk like that, you little gremlin. I will get a rope and tie you behind me while we travel. We’ll see how you like that.]”

Maurice froze up. They stared at each other for a second before both spoke up at once.

“[Yes! Fun!]” The crab threw both arms up, but in this scenario, they both pointed down to the cave floor..

“[Yeah, that’s too fun to be a punishment.]” Henry let Maurice float back down. “[I know you’re mostly joking, but remember what we said about being polite. Especially when we meet others.]”

Maurice fluttered his claws and swam up to his usual perch. Henry sensed the sharp legs landing on his head.“[I know. I was exaggerating. Wait, no. I was acting. And I want to see new places, but I know the teeth are good. They’re so tough! Do you have enough for your plan?]”

Henry nodded. “[Yes. We’re good to go. For real this time.]”

While they’d been resting the previous night and enjoying a peaceful–Trickster-free–evening Henry had been thinking about the buried monster and how tough its teeth were. He started imagining potential designs and weaponized limbs he could create with his current Skill, and they would only get better when he’d upgrade to Partial Shapeshift.

It was too good of a resource to pass up. Especially considering he had no access to metals or any other durable material, aside from what he could create himself.

Henry didn’t think he could integrate the teeth into his body, and he didn’t intend to, but he could most certainly create claw-like appendages. And the better he got with the Skill, the more complex limbs he’d be able to recreate.

Well, he’d try to work on it as they traveled. Along with everything else.

***

“[Henry?]”

“[Hmm?]”

It hadn’t been long since they'd left the cave and island behind. Barely a couple of hours, in fact.

The clear, shallow waters stretched endlessly below. Henry had enjoyed the sights for a while, but within a handful of minutes, he’d left the swimming to a pool of six Octominds that continued to beat his arms rhythmically while he focused on his training.

The daylight fell around him, helping his camouflage as he cut through the calm morning sea. He couldn’t be invisible, but a whitish-gray was really difficult to see from below. Henry had opted to swim high, while Maurice kept an eye on what happened below them. Now, Henry was working on his mana control, which he stopped to look at Maurice. The crab who was stuck to the side of his face and was now tapping Henry with his claw.

“[Henry. When are we taking a break? I want to work on my Clawminds as well. I can’t keep watch and use my shapeshifting at the same time.]”

Henry continued swimming quietly for a few seconds. Eyeing the topography down below, he noticed the seabed was a bit more raised than it had been ten minutes or so ago. He decided to break the surface and take a look around. Henry’s eyes landed on what looked like a mountainous archipelago a bit to the west. “[I see islands, around 20 minutes away. We’ll stop then, and in the future we’ll do shifts. Alright?]”

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“[Okay!]”

Henry adjusted the direction in which the Octominds were taking them, then focused back on his mana.

He imagined it as a ball of light somewhere around the center of his stomach. Picturing the glowing blue mist, he willed it to drift down his frontal arm as he held it in front of him.

A shiver trickled out of his stomach and began snaking down the arm. It felt like he had to push and wheedle the mana down his limb, but it was obeying his will. A soft, barely visible blue shimmer enveloped his arm–but the further down it traveled, the harder it became to keep it stable. To his mana vision the shimmer was much more visible, and it wafted off his arm like steam.

A handful of seconds later, his hold destabilized, and the mana evaporated like a puff of smoke.

Henry hummed. “It’s getting easier… but it doesn’t feel very useful yet. I guess I just need to keep practicing. And explore the other Skills in depth.”

He exhaled, then narrowed his focus on his mana reserve before casting Arcane Arm. It felt like that would be one of the easiest Skills to observe, and to be fair, it didn’t cost that much compared to most of his other Skills.

Henry poured all of his attention onto it and pulled in all inactive Octominds to observe the process.

Immediately, he noticed the draw of mana. It was fast and decisive. As if it was coming out of a fire hydrant compared to his own attempt, which felt as if he was pulling the mana with a kinked swirly straw.

By the time he finished registering that difference, the magic had formed a ghostly and familiar blue shape. So Henry dismissed it, and cast it again. And again.

He sensed the mana leave the ‘reservoir’ and move within him in that fraction of a second before the magical arm appeared. It happened extremely fast, but the sensation was unmistakable.

It was very reminiscent of the sensations he experienced after the last evolution. After what he labeled soul surgery. The large chunk of mana disappeared in there, as if sucked out of his body and into that layer, and then the arm would appear.

That’s where the Skill was taking place. That’s where mana was becoming magic.

With every try, he got a better feel for the process. So he kept dismissing the Arm and re-casting it over and over, until Maurice tapped him on the head again.

“[You’re swimming past the island, Henry! Also, something’s coming. What is that? Oh, it looks mad.]”

Henry deactivated the swimming Octominds and looked down just in time to see a lizard-like thing rush up toward him, its large tail swaying as it left a cloud of sand and stone from the sudden launch.

It opened its jaw, sharp and needle-thin teeth shining unnaturally red. Henry cracked it across the face with an arm hard enough to break some of the lizard’s teeth and send the reptile careening to the side. Then he took a moment to Identify it.

[Young Sea Drake (D) - Level 54]

“[Drake?]”

Henry thought of an oversized monitor lizard at first, but the more he looked at it, the less that name fit.

The deep-blue scales were larger and shinier. Its maw was wider and longer, with a forked tongue that seemed to be tasting the water as it recovered from the impact. A pair of reptilian eyes warily watched Henry from a distance while he studied it. Its forelegs were thick and muscular, with flexible joints, while the hindlegs seemed simpler but larger, ideal for pouncing. It reminded him of lions and panthers, especially the long claws at the end of its webbed feet as it paddled.

Yeah, this wasn’t a normal lizard.

“[Are we fighting it?]”

Henry noticed how the drake kept pulling away. “[I don’t think there’s a fight here.]”

The drake eyed Henry, then swam up. Henry continued observing the new specimen while his mind buzzed with questions. What kind of being was this? Would it be friendly? And if not, what kind of ability did it have and what did it look like when it was fully grown?

Henry… kept thinking of dragons. It kinda looked like one. Were drakes a lower form of dragons? Was he going to meet something like that?

Also, now that he watched it, he remembered the whales mentioning claws, and he was traveling in the direction they’d advised him to go.

The drake’s head broke out of the water–and it screeched loud enough for Henry and Maurice to hear.

“Ah… dammit.”

“[It called for help,]” confidently said Maurice.

Henry sighed. He’d just been in the middle of something. He tried to send a telepathic message to the drake, but that only seemed to agitate it, making its screeches more frantic and sharp.

“[Let me fight.]”

Henry paused, then reached over and plucked Maurice off the side of his face to look at him for a moment. Sensing the resolve of the crab, Henry looked up. “[Alright. But there might be a lot of them. ]”

Maurice eyed the drake. In the distance, shapes began diving in from the island, but that didn’t seem to deter the crab.

“[I’ll keep an eye out. Let me know if you need help.]”

Maurice turned his eye stalks to look at Henry. “[Even if a weak C-rank shows up, let me try first.]”

“[Sure. Let’s go lower. I’ll camouflage near you.]”

With that, Henry dove and quickly mimicked a large boulder, while Maurice readied himself by making two large Arcane Claws appear above him.

Within seconds, nine D-Rank drakes were circling Maurice, all between level 40 and 70. Then the first one took a sharp turn toward Maurice and opened his mouth.

Henry watched the fight, using half his Octominds to keep an eye out for danger, and worked on his mana manipulation while the sea around him was filled with churned sand and blood.