Green grass. Blue skies.

Emptiness.

In the City Dungeon, there had never been a clear space for more than a few feet. Everything was penned in by enormous cinderblock slumhouses. Even the sky was full of streets and buildings, following the antigravity wells up, filling the air with upside-down views of rooftops and paved, concrete bleakness.

Now Nicolas looked up, and up was all he saw.

A blue abyss spiralling on infinitely. Clouds the size of castles drifting in the expanse.

Wrenching his eyes away, Nicolas stared down at his own hands. They were a strange bluish color with three digits, the fingers broad and wet and slimy like a frog’s.

“System? What am I?”

Genus:

Salamandrian

Phenotype:

Newt-Folk (Axolotl Variant)

Salamander. Axolotl. They were both types of small, unscaled lizards that dwelt in water. This was apparently some variant of lizard-folk that resembled them. All the lizard-folk Nic had ever known were stone cold sociopaths, but that just meant he’d had plenty of chances to see the damage they could do. A few steps up evolutionary ladder and he’d be armored in scales and muscular enough to break a human in two.

At the moment he was at most four feet tall, and his skin was soft. He needed to move up.

As for how he got there-

Nic didn’t know. The most education he’d gotten was a few tries practicing combat in a dream realm before taking the Marchesa's Test. A test he’d scored higher on than anyone he’d known, and still failed by miles. Only one in a million joined the Marchesa’s Legion. He was one in ten-thousand.

The dream realms had simulated taking part in an invasion, but always as a footsoldier with human capabilities. Now…

He was on his own. And he was food, both for other monsters and for the invaded planet’s denizens. They’d need to kill hundreds like him on their way to discovering cultivation.

Quickly taking stock of his surroundings, Nic took the first hiding place he could see. He was in a lightly forested glade alongside a river, the waters moving fast and clear over bright red stones. Huge fish the size of humans moved in the stream, snapping up smaller fish and rock-shelled turtles with enormous, bone-covered beaks.

The trees were full of apes with sting-tipped tails and heads covered by insect armor, making them look like they had the faces of spiders. Nic felt immediately jealous of anyone who spawned with so many allies. As best he could tell he was alone.

Several of the apes were watching him, but none had attacked yet. Hopefully that meant he was poisonous to them.

Moving towards the rock, Nicolas found that his new body came with new instincts. He knew how to move and how to slither through the grass on all fours. That was good, because the alternative was relearning everything like an infant trying to walk for the first time- only surrounded by enemies. An infant in a scorpion pit.

He wriggled under the rock, wedging his oddly smooth and slippery body down into the dark earth. The space underneath was cool and comfortable. Whatever claustrophobia he had as a human was overridden by his new instincts.

A beetle moved in the dark and Nic’s tongue flicked out before he could stop himself. The beetle tasted delicious, crunching into soft, sweet goo. He just hoped it wasn’t another transmigrator.

“System, show me how to evolve.”

Requirements to open the Path of the Great Chain are as follows:

+ Hold a Dominus Node for three days (0/3)

+ Consume three foreign shards from Peak F-Class (0/3)

+ Channel 10,000 Essence into your Cultivation Base (0/10,000)

+ Consume an F-Class Cultivation Treasure. (0/1)

Three of the four must be completed before the Path is opened.

Interesting. Locations of power and foreign shards. Cultivation. Treasures.

It was the first one that bothered him, actually. Picking off enemies to take their shard could be done by patience and dirty tactics. Cultivation he had some understanding of from his work Essence-Scribing. Holding a location? Difficult. It would mean straight up fights, and giving the initiative on when and how those fights started to someone else.

He’d have to be strong enough to win head-on. Unless he could find a Node so distant that no other creatures could even contest him. But that would likely be harder than finding a F-Class treasure.

“System. Show me my cultivation map.”

Essence 23.2 / 5,000

+ 4.24 per Minute

(1.062 Base)

300% Local Modifier

+ Devoured an F-Class enemy (200%)

+ Consumed a G-Class treasure (100%)

+ Rested in toxic environment (100%)

Cultivation Base (Unranked)

Physical Strength (0/1,000)

Mental Acuity (0/500)

Spiritual Clarity (0/500)

Poison Mist Shard (F)

Creates and controls poisonous mist from Aura.

Base Enhancement (0/5,000)

Poison Devouring (0/10,000)

Mist Armor (0/50,000)

Secondary Slot (0/50,000)

Adhesive Touch (G)

Creates adhesive threads of pure Aura.

Base Enhancement (0/1,000)

Secondary Slot (0/10,000)

Permanency (0/10,000)

Toxic Binding (0/50,000)

Hunter-Gatherer Petroglyphs (G)

Creates crude tools from bone, rock, and wood, using Essence to bind them.

Base Enhancement (0/1,000)

Secondary Slot (0/10,000)

Metallurgy (0/100,000)

It was a small blow to lose all the cultivation he’d done in his old body. He’d barely been able to invest a few dozen, with the Essence so thin and his work trying to Scribe taking up so much. But it felt oddly meaningful to see that he had been set back to absolute zero.

But his passive cultivation number was absolutely monstrous. Before, it had easily been two levels of magnitude lower. Maybe 0.02 at best, weighed down by pollution, bad food, and other ‘toxins’ that had accumulated in his system.

Now he would cultivate at immense speed just from living, and faster by devouring enemies and treasures. The local modifier represented the thickness of Essence in the air, and the plus signs below represented the different ways his body could absorb Essence faster. For a human, the only modifier available was linked to life-or-death danger, but it was high.

The newt had three, all of them relatively low. The first two were slashed out.

Currently, toxic environment was active, meaning he’d missed something. The world outside his hiding hole had seemed normal.

But-

Ignoring that for the moment.

Three shards. Three.

Each of them had the ability to accept a Secondary, a half-formed shard, once they were fully cultivated. Attaching a Secondary Shard would alter the ability and allow it to grow again, following a new path.

These were things Nic knew. Things he’d been taught by the Beldam and in dry educational simulations. Not things he’d expected to experience. Things that would happen to him.

Mentally selecting Poison Mist, he pushed twenty of his Essence in to get a feel for the process. The immediate sensation was akin to ice-water running through his veins, then igniting into fire as it reached the base of his throat. It should’ve been unbearably painful.

Instead, it felt amazing. Like the burn in his muscles after a long run.

He wanted more. More of the blue skies and open fields. More power running in his veins. And the only way to get them was to keep moving, to keep exploring.

To conquer the new world.

---

Every few seconds Nic’s tongue would slither from his mouth and taste the air. It was as involuntary to his new form as breathing was. Each time, he received a burst of information. The taste of nearby water, of the countless monkey creatures in the trees. Sour older tastes from monsters passing by. Blood and rot and fresh growth.

He paused at the stream’s edge to get a look at himself. His newt-folk body was slippery and smooth with a flat, slimy head. His ‘face’ had almost no features beyond a wide, rubbery smile and two beady eyes. Thick antenna shaped almost like feathers extended from the gills on his throat. Turning around, he could just see his three Shards implanted in a constellation of glowing tattoo lines along his back.

“Well, I’m ugly. But I’m rich? Seems fair. Verrrry fair.”

Experimentally, he opened his mouth and shot out a bubble of aura, converting it easily into a pearl of poisonous mist that slowly dissolved into the air. Aura was basically the secondary form of Essence - learning to cultivate caused Essence to ‘stick’ to your body and form an outer layer, which you could use to fuel techniques and Shards.

The grassy field was full of dead things. Bones littered the moss, and from their hollow eyes grew pale yellow flowers that filled the air with glowing pollen spore. The air was thick with drifting spots of light. That was where the ‘toxic environment’ came from.

The monkeys survived by staying high up - they only came down out of the trees when they were far from the sporing fields, and used the poison clouds below as a defense while they slept. That meant the lower ground was basically unoccupied. A few bright-orange snails with spiny shells, and large, fist-sized beetles roamed the fields of slimy algae that grew on the dead bodies.

It was a good home territory, and Nic could thank Logos for giving him solid ground to stand on.

In the distance, apartment towers stuck crookedly out of the earth. Moss clung to the sides like the towers had already been abandoned for thousands of years, even though the Integration was only weeks old. Huge red windmill blades had been grafted to the upper level, not just one set but dozens, interlocked like the wheels of a gear and slowly turning in the wind.

Nicolas would be avoiding the towers. Human buildings would draw human attention.

On his side of the river was a rolling, open plain full of white flowers that spun like pinwheels in the wind. The sight was whimsical and joyful, but every so often an enormous winged shadow would drift across the green grass.

Predators high above. Searching for small, soft-skinned prey like Nic.

The far side of the river seemed more promising, with tall golden grass in an enormous sea that promised to hide him away. The only problem was reaching it without being snapped up by one of the enormous fish.

Finally: Following the course of the river led him towards a deep, dark forest. Huge tendrils of fleshy blue curled around the trees and pulsed with luminous power. Glowing, star-shaped flowers burst from the bark like parasites.

It was definitely alluring. If all went well, he hoped to explore it thoroughly.

But first he’d thoroughly search out his own surroundings. The poisonous yellow flowers and their spores were a protective blanket, but they didn’t just hide him. In a matter of minutes Nic began to find shy, sky-blue berries hidden in little crevices of the earth. Each time he plucked a handful from their thorny beds he was rewarded with a deliciously tart flavor and the sensation of Essence sparks drifting outwards from his belly into his web of meridians.

Rotating his cultivation base like he’d practiced fruitlessly on d23, Nic delighted in the feeling of the sparks of Essence being dragged in and consumed. Four hours. In four hours he’d have over a thousand Essence stored - enough to fully develop one of his shards.

The thought made him giddy.

Soon enough, his berry-hunting gathered fruit. As he plucked cautiously at the thorny undergrowth, something gleamed below. A shattered flint arrowhead lay among the tangles. Grasping it carefully, Nic pushed through the brush and deeper within.

One of the hills was hollow. A hidden entrance just big enough for a crawling human lead into the dark and damp, full of bones turned grey and dark by age. Venomous bugs crawled through the eyesockets of skulls.

In the center of the cave, a single intact corpse clutched a brilliant red feather. Nic instantly smelled a trap, but as he cautiously grasped a centipede from the walls and flung the squirming thing forward as a test, nothing happened. He’d almost expected the dead to come alive.

But no. Nothing.

Step by step, Nicolas began to realize it was just his nerves. As he advanced into the dark of the cave his wide yellow eyes blinked and the shadows retreated. A secret membrane had closed over his gaze and given him nightvision.

This place was hidden, but not especially dangerous. A prize waiting to be found.

His hand reached out for the feather-

And a pearly barrier snapped into place around it.

This treasure has been Sealed.

Monstrous-class beings must wait 47:59:59 before they can claim their prize.

Yelping and jumping back, Nicolas only processed the message once his heart had stopped racing. The dead men grinned at him. The treasure was sealed…

Meaning the locals and the invading troops would have two days to find it before some lowly monster was allowed to steal their prize. It was blatant favoritism, but Nic wasn’t surprised. In fact he was overjoyed. The hiding place was untouched, the whole poison meadow seemed like it was safe from invaders, and the monkeys clearly didn’t know about this place even if they had a way of coming down from the trees.

In short, in two days this prize was his.

Nic was careful to shift the bushes to hide the entrance as he left. His heart racing, he began to look high and low for other treasures. To his surprise there were plenty that he’d missed on his first scouting trips through the area. Flowers and plants that had seemed normal were marked as medicines by the presence of a faint, pearly bubble that hovered around them, almost impossible to see. When he reached out to seize them that bubble became solid and opaque, starting a timer.

What was worrying was how many of the timers had already been started. Either the monkeys or some other creature had managed to brave the poison field just under a day ago.

Following the trail, Nicolas found himself heading deeper and deeper into the territory of the monkeys. They followed him along the tree-branches above, trying to scare him off by howling and tossing pinecones.

He proceed undaunted.

At the core of their grove was a single dead tree, and from the instant Nicolas saw it he knew. There. That was where Logos would hide the treasure. That was the right place.

He took a step towards the tree and the monkeys above screamed in fury. The sound was overwhelming, a physical wave of bone-shaking shouts and high-pitched, ear-rending squeals. From all sides pinecones, stones, and fecal matter came rattling down, pelting Nicolas and the earth around him.

Staggering back, he lifted a hand to his face and took two more steps forward.

The oak tree was split open down the middle, and within the hollow, rotten center, a golden flower bloomed. It was tall and elegant like an angel’s trumpet, radiating a sense of holy power. The pearlescent shield sphere was so large it encapsulated the entire tree.

That was as far as he got.

Unable to stop him from above, the monkeys threw one of their own out of the tree. The unfortunate creature crashed down beside him and rolled over, dazed for a moment, struggling to stand on its long, lanky limbs covered in white fur.

Then its eyes went wide as it realized where it was - what had happened.

With an insane shriek it flung itself at Nic, trying to claw him, gouge at him with its nails. The sting-tipped scorpion tail shot for Nic’s throat.

He threw himself out of the way and retreated on all fours, shooting across the ground in a slither. For a moment the enraged monkey grasped hold of his tail - and the whole thing ripped away, letting Nicolas escape forward across the poisoned ground.

It took three more steps, each more clumsy than the last. On the fourth it simply slumped over dead. Foam ran from its mouth, and its body twitched violently with poison.

Nic approached cautiously, flint arrowhead clutched in both hands. The beast’s eyes looked up and it reached for him weakly.

He brought the arrowhead down across its throat. A merciful kill, when the poison was already eating it from within.

Slinging the corpse over his shoulders as compensation for his stolen tail, Nicolas departed the monkey’s grove.

But he’d be back.

In four days, when the barrier dropped on their precious treasure, he’d be back.

---

Monkeys followed him through the trees. With so many eyes watching, Nicolas didn’t dare return to the hidden cave, so instead he propped himself against a rotten stump.

The dead monkey stared up at him.

He put the thought of eating another sentient out of his mind for the moment, and considered what he’d learned.

The monkeys couldn’t easily get to him on the ground, but they had to have some way of reaching the golden flower when the shield dropped. That meant they could travel to the ground, even if it was difficult, and thus he wouldn’t be safe sleeping unguarded.

Moreover…

He wasn’t convinced the entity that had started the timers on so many plants was them. Was there another monster, roaming through here as it pleased?

Nicolas would need to grow quickly if he wanted to survive. Even this poisoned earth wouldn’t protect him for too long.

Closing his eyes he began to circulate his Essence. The day’s gains drifted through his veins like liquid fire, moving sluggishly at first, then faster and faster. A resonating pulse began to flow through his entire body.

As the Essence in his core swirled, he pushed it all towards the Petroglyph Shard and felt something slide into place. The Shard between his eyes began to glow through his skin, the light taking the shape of three golden runes. The more Essence he fed them the hungrier they became, guiding the flow of power to take a new and complicated shape, like a snowflake or a spider’s web.

Lifting the flint arrowhead in one hand, he crushed a sky-blue berry in the other. As he dabbed the makeshift paint across the surface Nicolas used the skills he had honed in his room, trying fruitlessly to become a Scribe. With each stroke, he filled his hand with intention. Each dash of paint became a reservoir for his Inner Essence to carry that intent into the material.

It was exactly like his practice- but far, far easier. Where before he’d been fighting a resisting force, now moving his hand was like water flowing down a dry riverbed. There was a natural suggestion of how to move that guided his motions. A calm in his mind that let his thoughts run clear and true.

As he carved the last stroke of the symbol onto the arrowhead, Nic wedged it into the top of a moss-covered branch. The bottom of the flint arrow split open like a seed, and green vines coiled down to connect it to the spear’s haft.

The pulse settled. The essence in his veins became slow and peaceful again.

In his hand he held a weapon of his own creation.

Spear of Moss and Stone (G)

Symbol of the Earth-Fury

(100% Charged)

This humble spear made from driftwood and ancient stone can strike two-fold, summoning a duplicate from the earth.

He was ready to set out.