Becoming a Monster
Chapter 242: Conspiracies

Chapter 242: Chapter 242: Conspiracies

Demented Reckoning(Lvl1)-You encompass the true nature of your very being, causing you to tap into the raw uncontrollable state of your monstrous form. Your body will warp, intensifying your genetic traits. Either fully exhibiting your power of one of three forms:

Dreadbeast: increasing your strength and stamina by 30% while also temporarily enhancing your regeneration at the expense.

Dreadweaver: Increasing your agility and spirit by 30% while also converting 30% of your constitution to the strengths of your webs.

Abyssalith: Increasing your magic and constitution by 30% while also increasing the movement speed of your tentacles by 30% of your strength.

Due to the nature of your genetics, either trait that is chosen will further boost the potential of that genetic trait by 30%, from the duration of the skills, to the power and efficiency. However, the potential of your other traits will be decreased by 30%.

Unlike when Noah shares his abilities with his creatures, where their skills mirror his original ability and even share the same level as the original; the skill acquired with the crystal essentially made the ability his own, even adapting to fit his criteria.

Noah wasn’t concerned about the differences in treatment of his skills at the moment. For now, he was absentmindedly observing his own changes, inside and out. Because of the fact that his zombie skills had more upgraded skills than any other of his traits, his body was more inclined to his zombie side than any other, causing himself to subconsciously activate his Dreadbeast form during the process.

The fur that enveloped his figure became more extreme, growing out from every piece of space that his exoskeleton didn’t cover, even his face wasn’t exempted from the full covering of fur. His face elongated slightly into a snout that further sharpened and extended his face, his main pupils dilated, becoming more predominant in his eyes, curving into an even more extreme vertical pupil that reacted to any and all sense of movement. His hair grew wilder in its appearance, its bristled edges becoming sharper and harder than steel. And lastly, his massive gauntlet-like claw became even deadlier, the ends were claws that could even breach his own hide.

Noah could feel it, power and an overabundance of energy within his very essence. Curiously, he couldn’t help it as he took the tip of one of his bladed claws, cutting the depths of his fur, mistaking its sharpness, drawing out a stream of blood that turned into droplets within seconds.

Unlike Fenrir’s changes, the power Noah wielded in his form was more potent than the wolf could achieve. In his hands, spirit had become the most predominant attribute. Just a 30% percent increase became 67% in his hands, but that also means that his skills pertaining to his other traits would also massively suffer since the side effect was created from his own skill. So not only would the duration of his other skills be lowered, but also the potency of those abilities.

And it was only after Noah was done taking in the sights of his new changes that he started to wonder why only he was experiencing negative effects from the skill in not Fenrir.

"Fenrir, do yo-Can you back up a bit?" Noah found himself unable to hold back his serious demeanor. The terrible smell of Fenrir’s dinner was overwhelming his space, the sound of heavy sniffing became his only source of noise, and the heat coming from every breath caused Noah to become smothered in ashen fumes from Fenrir’s flames that he was still properly acclimating himself too.

Fenrir couldn’t help himself, the scent Noah carried now was even more potent as himself than ever was before. Just a sniff filled Fenrir with a sense of peace and belonging that he wasn’t aware of.

But sadly for Noah, the more he tried to shove the towering beast away, the more determined Fenrir became to stick to him, as if it was a game, nuzzling into Noah with an almost childlike insistence.

"Fenrir! Enough!" Noah exclaimed, though his tone held more exasperation than actual anger.

Fenrir paused for a moment, his ears flicking back slightly at Noah’s sharp words. But within seconds, he was back at it, nudging his head against Noah’s chest with a low, rumbling growl of satisfaction.

Noah sighed, his hands lifted again, wanting to grasp Fenrir’s face to get his sole attention but hesitantly brought them to his side. He was too nervous of his new claws, not wanting to hurt Fenrir because he wasn’t used to his new features. Instead, his body slowly began to change, his fur receding, his deadly beast features going back to what they originally were.

Within half a minute he was back to his original appearance, a change that devastated the once appeased wolf.

"Turn back!" Fenrir roared, aggrieved that Noah would betray him. In response, Noah slyly grinned and rubbed his hand across Fenrir’s snout, leaving him with parting words as he no longer needed Fenrir’s help. "That’s what happens when you don’t listen the first time."

Although Noah could still confirm some things with Fenrir, just the time he spent within the form had already helped him come up with answers on his own, as to why Fenrir didn’t have any negative impacts with his ability when he did. While he was in the form wrestling with Fenrir, he could slightly feel it. There was a small pressure on his body that was almost negligible. And ever so slightly he could feel his body tiring.

Instantly his thoughts came to one conclusion, the transformation was taxing on the body, mainly, it was taxing on their stamina. And when it came to both him and Fenrir, their stamina was extreme, making it possible for their transformation to last for a vast amount of time, seemingly making it appear as if the transformation didn’t have a drawback at all.

"But that still doesn’t explain why my skills are being affected...." He mused to himself as he retraced his steps back into their home, allowing others to make their own plans for when they leave. Even Fenrir was dragged into the discussion, quickly losing his brief obsession with Noah’s scent when hearing they were going out to fight.

Noah glanced back to his companions, his thoughts drifting to how he obtained their abilities. Out of his three traits, each one was from different genetics, and each trait corresponded to a distinct transformation. This made him believe that it wasn’t a fault with the system at all, but the skill truly became what it was because of ’what’ he was.

"I guess it makes sense, considering that Fenrir’s abilities, despite him having multiple genetics within him, all of his abilities are considered to be part of his one sole race now. That means that I’ll have to be more selective about what I use, but the benefits will be worth it. The more side effects the negatives have, the more powerful the skill, right?" Noah thoughtfully concluded, his hand now holding the ascension stone.

"My strength will continue to grow as long as everyone else continues to get stronger..." He mumbled, squeezing onto the stone that burst within his grip, knowledge of the upgraded skill being ingrained into his very being. The process of upgrading his skill was different this time around, instead of just focusing on the changes within the skill, Noah, for the first time attempted to focus on how the skill changed. How did the upgrade take place? What fueled it? These were questions he hadn’t considered before, but now they lingered, gnawing at the edges of his thoughts.

And because of these thoughts, overtime he began to ask himself a certain question..."why did humans need to upgrade stones when creatures didn’t?" It was a conundrum that he couldn’t understand, it defied logic, or at least the logic the system had imposed on them so far. His thoughts on the issue only began to see clarity as he began to experiment with skills already gained through the system and then he finally came with an answer the moment he witnessed Ailetta created a transformation of her own.

He began to feed into a conspiracy created by himself, that the "God" that gifted humans the system to grow their strengths, also used the system as a limiter, one that didn’t allow their "souls" to grow without the catalyst provided by the system. His conspiracy wasn’t just from baseless thoughts, he felt it was a reason why his body was still unable to go through an evolution just like his creature and he was only able to advance his class.

If he was right, then that would mean he would have to not only exert himself to upgrade his skills without the systems aid, but he will also have to bypass the system’s limitations if he wanted to evolve, and to do that, he believed that he would need the aid of the entity inside him, a creature that continued to grow stronger as he continued to strengthen his chimera skill.

It begged the question, why not increase his chimera skill instead? Allowing himself to obtain more chances to obtain another set of genetics, strengthening the entity, and even gaining more skills? It was a thought that Noah originally had in mind.

However, he came to understand that it wasn’t necessarily the quantity of genes that affected the being’s strength, but the quality and potential of said genes. And the skill he plans to upgrade affects just that.