“How’s that?” I asked, holding a pair of stone knives in my hand.
New Title: [Novice Stonesmith]
“Eh? They’re pretty shit. The blade’s lumpy, the handle isn’t straight, and the point isn’t a point,” Tilde said, criticizing . “But that’s good for soone totally new to it. Keep practicing, but don’t forget to register it with the arsenal.” I did what she said, but I wasn’t angry. I knew the first attempts would turn out like shit. After registering both knives, I placed them in [Storage] and smiled because it felt good to make sothing. I was actually being productive with my ti. But I knew I couldn’t beco complacent and rely on this sparse success to impart false confidence.
My sharp ears picked up the ugly buzzing of maggots disgustingly feasting on my first prey, which broke from my thoughts. A boar was snooping around, and I ordered Sekh to restrain this sacrifice because I wanted to experint.
The lowly lesser porcine was no match for her grip. She slamd into the beast from behind and used her strength to break its hind legs. Next ca the front, and I slowly approached the trembling thing as my hand morphed into the head of its kin. The mouth opened wide, saliva falling in anticipation of devouring my prey as the powerful jaws bit down on the squirming boar’s head.
It desperately cried out as I increased the biting force. The skull cracked, removing any resistance I was facing. It didn’t take long after to completely chop through a quarter of the animal’s face, and I smoothly started to assimilate it.
“I’m glad you’re taking to your abilities quite rapidly. It’s a good on,” Sekh said. She simply watched as I ate, the smile on her face as bright as the sun until it suddenly resembled a wilted flower.
“MASTER!!!” Sekh and Tilde cried out at the sa ti. Right when her voices left their lips, sothing ramd into from behind, piercing my wooden chainmail and goring through my lower abdon. I was thrust forward, barely missing Sekh’s head as I tumbled through the grassy plain. A stream of thick, dark blood trailed behind as Tilde and I scread until our throats were raw. I slowly ca to a stop; my blood sared all over.
What?! GAAAHH!!! It… It burns!!!! What? Tilde? Fuck! It hurts so goddamn bad… Is she feeling this?!
“RRRAAAHHHHH!!!” I heard Sekh shout as a series of loud, dull thuds rang filtered in my ears. It was like soone was punching a mattress filled with flesh. In a painful daze, I tried to push off the ground and turn around, but my hand was still transfigured. In this panicked state of mind, it wouldn’t revert to normal.
New Title: [Boar Slayer – Protector (I)]
Is it dead?
A set of hands soon grabbed my back as the erald grass was replaced by a sky of blue. Sekh’s bloody face stared into my eyes, commanding to use biomass to heal myself.
“GODDAMN IT! DO IT ALREADY!!! IT FUCKING HURTS!!!!!” exclaid Tilde.
It...hurts?
My thoughts were strangely slow and calm. My eyes closed since it hurt to open them, but Sekh shook my shoulders as a pair of small, weak hands touched my cheeks. “Master! Think of your body as viewing it from an outside perspective. Focus on the area where you feel the pain! Please, hurry! Your HP is dropping fast! It’s almost gone!!!!” she shouted, shaking even more. Her voice was dull. Very dull. And quiet, like the whispers of a dying mouse.
My...HP? That...green bar? It’s empty... No, almost... I... I don’t want to die...
But… I had to do what she said. Keeping my eyes open, I did my best to view myself from above. There was the long honey-blond hair… The set of nearly lifeless eyes blankly staring up at an emotional Lionfolk… The hole in—
Hole? No, that’s not right. Fill it with biomass.
Sothing warm bubbled up. Then sothing snapped into place, extending out…
Muscle? Sinew? Fat? Blood? Stomach? Abdon?
“Eh?!” Sekh exclaid. Her gaze moved from my face to my stomach and stared hard at a startling sight. I couldn’t see it, but I felt my stomach repair itself like magic. The yellow bar drained faster than the green one filled up.
“The pain’s disappearing… Keep it up, Master,” Tilde said, her voice far less coarse.
The organs were fixed first. The skin regenerated second and enclosed the wound. As I felt that happen, the color, clarity, and audible noise returned to my eyes and ears. I transford my hand back to normal, then sat up and touched the healed wound, but my hands encountered Sekh’s head.
She kissed my stomach and rubbed her cheeks, endlessly apologizing for forgetting to ntion the protectors. “What attacked you,” she whimpered. “It was the Protector of Forest Boars. Wildlife monsters have a system to prevent overhunting. It suddenly spawned behind you... I’m sorry!” Sekh cried and wiped her eyes on my bare flesh, but I grabbed her shoulders and pulled her up for a hug.
“It’s fine,” I told her. My hands went to her back and softly rubbed. “I was going to be hurt eventually, so I was going to have to learn how to heal myself. Sekh, look at .” Her tearful eyes glanced up, eting my own as a pair of hands caressed her cheeks. We touched our foreheads together, and that was enough to calm her down. I took the lead in standing up, and together, we walked back to the protector as Tilde berated harshly for not keeping an eye on my map.
Yeah, I had no excuse, and I apologized. She lifted her dress to show her healed stomach, and she said it was no big deal since this was literally my first day on the job. I asked if she realized she just flashed , and she smugly grinned and said if I wanted to see more, I had to pay for it. I just groaned and looked at the dead animal Sekh had killed.
Her viciousness was on display. The large beast’s stomach was brutally carved open, and the sll of singed at perated the air. “Lv. 3?”
“It was,” Sekh said, her voice back to its normal tone. She wiped her runny nose and spoke about fighting things above your level. The difference wasn’t as extre at lower levels, where you could fight without much risk. But a Lv. 99 dragon against a Lv. 80? Not a chance. But fifty Lv. 80s against that sa dragon? That was more of a fair fight.
After assimilating most of the boar and filling my biomass from 17% to 100%, I refrained from eating the tusks because I had plans for them. I also realized the protector and its wards were considered different species.
New Skill: [Piercing Thrust (Lv. 1)]
I wanted to test out the skill the big pig used to gore , but my torn clothes ca first. Since we were near the temple ruins, we walked over there. After gathering so vines and a large handful of crispy leaves, I began to poke a small hole in each to weave the vine through until I made a patch. I stripped down to my leafy bra, retrieved so sticky sap, and did the repairs. The knowledge gained from [Nature’s Workshop] worked wonders, but the overall result was amateurish and sloppy because I didn’t have any supporting skills to draw knowledge from. To make up for my inexperience, I created about four more patches to assure the hole was fixed. While I did that, Sekh took so water from my canteen and washed away the dried blood on my skin and pants.
The chainmail was fucked, but that was fine. I used my stone knife from [Artificer’s Arsenal] to cut off long, thin strips of wood, then sliced those down to size while using the sap to keep the repairs in place. The problem was that the other links were round, and I was using straight pieces to fix it.
But I didn't care. If it looked a little weird, it didn’t bother .
After getting dressed, I looked at my map and found two boars not too far away. They looked to be crossing the road, and I figured they would be the perfect test subjects for my next experints.
Upon transfiguring my hand into the protector’s head, I was ready to try out my first skill. Mastery nu finally had sothing populating it, and [Piercing Thrust] had a small bar that asured my progress. As we walked to the boars, Tilde told sothing interesting. As a chira, I was a monster, and they had the innate ability to use skills wordlessly without chanting.
For so reason, sothing told to take aim with Reina’s gun. When I did, I was alerted to sothing very interesting.
New Skill: [Chiric Armatization]
Reina’s pistol shimred a glowing silver, changing its appearance to suit the color sche of a simple iron spear. The front sight went from a silver rectangle to the pointy tip of a lance, and the cherry wood grip beca a deeper shade of brown. Power resided within the barrel when the trigger was pulled, draining of mana and biomass while blasting a bloody hole through my closest target’s side.
Rushing forward, I stored my pistol within my mana and used [Piercing Thrust] with my transfigured hand.
The tusks glowed white, and I brought my arm back and punched forward, lodging them into the second pig’s head to puncture the skull and destroy the brain. I hastily transitioned into devouring them in a smooth movent.
Sekh asked about my gun changing forms, and I really didn’t know what happened. I just had that new skill to go on, so I told her about it. Tilde was drawing a blank, so I opened the Skill nu.
Chiric Armatization
When the user uses a skill while wielding the sa type of weapon that is their Soul Weapon, it will change form to empower and enhance the skill. [Chiric Armatization] requires biomass in addition to mana. If the weapon uses ammunition, the user must provide it if {Mana Link} is not available.
Tilde dove into another lecture, citing that Soul Warriors had protections preventing them from turning into a chira when the conditions were t. Since I was a 0-Star soul, I had nothing like that. It was extrely rare, but [Chiric Mastery] must’ve done sothing to my Mastery nu and [Soul Armatization] to produce [Chiric Armatization], a Divine Armant. Sure, it was nice to have, but if I used Reina’s gun, mana and biomass would be drained from . If I had a regular gun that used ammo, both would still be used, the forr at a lesser rate, until the skill was mastered. At that point, mana was the only resource if I used real ammo, not biomass. At least, I thought it worked like that.
That’s just another thing I’m going to have to think about. It’s no use trying to dive right in when I’m clearly wading through the deep end. Just take it one step at a ti.
“And with that, I’ve tested everything out,” I said, swallowing the last mouthful of boar at. We walked back towards the main road while setting off towards Ria. Tilde led the way as she sat on my shoulder.
We spoke about my new skill and how best to use it. Until I had [Piercing Thrust] mastered, I had to transfigure into the boar to have its mana flow through . Eventually, I believed I could remain in my current form and channel [Piercing Thrust] through my gun without needing to transfigure. But transfiguring made the skill more powerful because the mana from the monster the skill ca from flowed through . The question was this: was the additional biomass worth the added damage? Sekh said figuring that out would be the key to reaching my full potential.
Along the way, I stopped to cut off a branch and started to whittle it into a general spear shape with my stone knives. Sekh and Tilde silently observed as I stored that in my storage and retrieved a tusk. With Yaekira’s daggers, I straightened it out and sharpened it as best as I could before I used so leftover vine to tie the tusk to the spear. I was having trouble, so I hollowed out the bottom innards of the tusk and thinned out the top of the spear to make the two pieces fit better, and I tied it all up. Once done, a display appeared, and I nad my new creation.
Boar Tusk Spear (0/0)
I handed the makeshift, shoddy weapon to Sekh, and she took it with a smile. I knew she would rather have a mace, but I didn’t have the skills to do that. Still, she appreciated the gift and kissed on the cheek as she stored it on her backpack. After picking up a few more rocks, we walked the rest of the way in idle conversation as I tried to craft a better version of my stone knives.
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