Thalion discovered, to his relief, that both his backpack and the scrolls inside were immune to seawater. That was a great find. To test it properly, he took out one of the very first scrolls he had bought from the system shop, the one about improving evolutions and subrged it. When it erged unhard, Thalion smiled. Knowing this, he had no reservations about bringing the backpack with all his belongings into the lagoon, alongside the shrunken crystal he had stolen from under the Leviathan’s nose.
His progress had been staggering. The Tidecaller Serpent had now reached Ethereal rarity, a breakthrough that thrilled him. Once the great crystal was digested, Thalion was certain it would push him up by another rank, maybe even two. If he managed that, he would only need to nudge Eagly’s power slightly to stand a chance of placing high in the system event. Realistically, now that he understood what chosen were capable of, such hopes were slim, but he would still try. That was his way.
The ti had co to swallow the crystal itself. It was the size of a football, a monstrous chunk of concentrated power that he could barely fit down his throat without looking like a pregnant snake. With the Umbral Predator and the Crippled Eclipsari, he could consu far more than should be possible, without showing the slightest bulge in the belly. He could only pray the sa was true for the Tidecaller Serpent; otherwise, his movents would be terribly hindered.
Dislocating his jaw felt alien and wrong, though he maintained full control of both halves as he slithered forward, nearly crawling over the crystal to devour it. Thankfully, his limited water manipulation helped him avoid inhaling gulps of seawater, which he despised. Nothing compared to the misery of surfacing from a deep dive, lungs burning for air, only for a wave to choke you with liters of saltwater forced through nose and mouth.
The mont he swallowed the crystal, it felt as though he had gulped down radioactive waste. Its aura pressed outward from inside him, mana streams burrowing like molten worms into his flesh. At first, the sensation was almost pleasant, a warmth similar to the smaller crystals. Then it turned savage, burning as if he had swallowed a boulder of molten rock. It took every shred of his self-control not to spit it back out.
In agony, Thalion bit down on his backpack, thrashing through the shallows as he tried to distract himself from the unbearable pressure. He forced himself further from the beach, away from where the elves would soon arrive. Hours dragged on, each mont more brutal than the last. He tried to regulate the absorption, taking in only small threads of mana at a ti, but his body failed him. The power surged uncontrolled, stabbing through his veins.
By the half-day mark, the tornt was so severe that he resolved to spit it out, only to find out that he could not. The crystal was lodged within him, immovable, its aura fused into the serpent’s body. Even worse, he could not shift forms. The risk was too great. That left only one option. Endure. His tidecaller form overflowed with volatile power, threatening to rupture his fra.
Desperate, Thalion burrowed into a reef hollow so fifty ters below the surface. There, in relative stillness, he focused everything on keeping the serpent’s body intact while the crystal’s mana raged like a storm within him. This was not good. Not good at all. He prayed he could stabilize it before the system event began.
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