In the end, the choice to remove the Eye-Biter was easy. Mesmeric attacks could be incredibly potent, but they were the only thing the Eye-Biter brought to the table, not backed up with any significant speed or power. Worse, a mesmer could fail completely- the trapdoor spider that had ambushed Nic had tried such an attack on him and lost its life when the attack failed to phase his reinforced mind.

In the end, mesmers were a gimmick that either opened the way for a single fatal strike or failed to impact the battle entirely, and Nic already had more than proven his ability to take enemies by surprise, ambush them, and open them up to killing blows from tricky angles.

That left the Lindwurm and the Earthseeker.

Both had significantly more power than the Eye-Biter, with the Earthshaker in particular standing out as deadly. It could simply crush through most armor and flesh, ripping enemies to shreds once it had them in its jaws, and its tongues gave it a versatile path towards victory, able to strike quickly and efficiently from a distance and then reel stunned enemies in.

Its great weakness was the speed of its main body. Above ground, it was almost immobile. Most enemies would simply be able to outpace it if they chose to retreat.

The Lindwurm was overall faster, and especially fast when it delved underwater. Its mix of slug, dragon, and centipede was bizarre, but its slithy form gave it immense survivability. The slime-coating scales could turn aside swords and the lingering poisons of its breath could hold enemies back. It was strong through sheer resilience, without the stunning power of the Earthseeker’s crushing jaws but able to hold its own with deadly bites and its powerful foreleg claws.

Nic hesitated.

Beneath the Bloodline Sea the distant suns glowed brilliantly, like different worlds, different timelines he could go down. Redjaw was coiled around him, waiting for his decision. Obedient as a puppy.

“The Lindwurm…”

It was simply better adapted for what Nic needed. Not as deadly, but tougher, able to hold up longer in a fight and absorb pressure from Nic. The ability to tunnel was something he’d desperately miss, but Redjaw’s overwhelming strength was in his venomous bite- which could now be extended into Poison Mist and augmented by the Lindwurm’s deadly natural breath. Nic could even add the Frostbind Shard to augment that same single trick further.

A single breath wiping out the enemy’s ability to fight back and sowing their veins with deadly rot.

Together they swam for the Bloodline Spark, which seemed to shrink the closer they came. While from a distance it was the size of a burning sun, with each moment they moved forward it was reduced, until it was no bigger than a fingernail shard of blazing fire.

Redjaw’s mandibles closed over it. The glow burned within his throat, moving down towards his belly.

And the Bloodline Sea began to shake. The other suns blinked out as the waters began to churn, a roar filling the drowned sea of blood as a maelstrom formed and Redjaw was consumed from within by the light. His spiritual body dissolved, expanding into a shapeless black blot.

The light was beginning to leave him. Sparks broke away, fleeing into the spinning waters.

With each one that left his form would be more limited.

Nic slammed his hands down against the cloud of shadows and the lights that flickered within like runaway fireflies. Redjaw was desperately circulating his cultivation, trying to draw in the escaping bloodline powers and break down the glowing core of the Spark, but his mastery of cultivation was weak at best. His Essence flowed sluggishly and without focus.

But Nic could help him now.

His own power flowed into Redjaw, helping to harness the strength washing through his meridians and push it to rush forward, clear, straight, and powerful; Nic’s spirit formed ached with the pressure backwash of holding on to two cultivation bases at once, but he gave his all to helping Redjaw mount an assault against the Bloodline Spark, sending wave after wave of focused might to break down the blazing point of energy and sweep the resulting sparks down into the centipede’s core.

Slowly, the dark mass of Redjaw’s spirit began to take a new form.

The Bloodline Sea was fading, losing its red color and turning black. They only had moments more left in the cultivation dream, and Nic pushed harder, actually burning some of his Essence through the Concept of Sacrifice to fuel the final push.

More and more of the Bloodline Spark shattered, but the innermost core held a final vivid shard of power that refused to broken down and absorbed.

The dream faded…

---

Nic awoke with Redjaw wrapped around him. Sweat and even blood clung to his flesh, but the centipede was massively bigger than it had been, longer than his arm and able to wrap around his entire body. A terrible pattern had appeared on the final plate in its armor, the one that sat over Redjaw’s namesake mandibles and long antenna. It resembled the glare of a draconic set of eyes, with spikes that carried down the whole of Redjaw’s spine.

Clearly, achieving ‘just’ a Warform still had some benefits to the original shape as well.

Nylea was watching from a distance, softly clapping her hands. Inkspur was sitting on the rim of the Saturnalia’s cauldron, refusing to look at his brother-in-arms’ achievement. Nic just grinned, pulling out a cloth to wipe away the black blood summoned by using Sacrifice.

“How long was I out?”

“Oh, three and a half hours. A relatively brief evolution…”

Nic nodded and swallowed. So he could expect an even more intense experience when it came time for him to go through the Bloodline Sea and seek his destiny.

He sighed and opened his cultivation map.

Burning through the Essence had put him back, but he was still on-track to advance his cultivation in time to assist with evolution. His only hindrance now was finding an appropriate Secondary Shard to fuse, now that he’d given away the Wasteland Shard to Tarquin.

Sighing, Nic dropped back onto the cultivation mat, waved to Nylea, and flopped onto his back. It was time for a well earned rest…

---

Nic awoke to the feeling of his cultivation base overflowing, a brilliant star burning in his chest waiting to be harnessed. He sat up, wiped his eyes groggily, and yawned before repeating the familiar process of pushing it towards the nodes of the Poison Mist Shard clustered around his throat.

It was a second before his half-sleeping brain processed what he’d forgotten to do.

He hadn’t used the cultivation map at all. He’d simply pushed the Essence by his own will down into the nodes, using it to slowly expand and hollow out the reservoirs of each darkened space within his meridian lines. By now they were faintly glowing, like half-born stars.

“Huh.”

Nic had always known that it was possible to cultivate without the System. After all, many of the worlds the System integrated already had cultivators, who had been practicing for years without maps or techniques provided by the System.

And countless worlds still practiced their own arts, far beyond the System’s ever-expanding reach.

But being a cultivator on his own merits - a true cultivator - was something Nic had never really expected. Even in the days of practicing desperately for the Marchesa’s Legion, he’d simply imagined himself as a soldier and a fighter.

This new world was changing him.

It was demanding that he become more.

And a faint smile hung on Nic’s face as he reached for his mystic bag. Opening his bag, he began to take out several treasures he’d accumulated. All of them had been marked by the System’s Archive Recall with the same descriptor- ‘Astral’.

As best he could figure out that meant they were creations of the System itself.

The first he’d gotten was the plastic capsule Matteos had given him. Contained within was a plastic diorama of a bee tending a garden of sunflowers. It was some kind of contained, miniaturized space intended to attach to a Settlement and expand it.

The next was the crystal palace that contained his System Adjunct, who would apparently act as a miniature Tutelary Statue and allow him to gain rewards for killing enemies, as well as buy services like messages to other worlds.

The third was the most recent. It was the jade seal that summoned the Wreckrunner, a System approved merchant from a world of endless water.

But the last group were the most interesting. They were the crystals Nic had taken from Azmin Hale’s tent, each containing a training simulation the System had sent to help guide the young prodigy as she learned to cultivate.

Of course, there was also the pearl. Nic didn’t even like touching it- the pain was too intense, reminding him of the soul-numbing agony he’d suffered when struck by the Guardian’s scythe. Sadly, while Sula and the System Adjunct both might have been able to help him decipher its secrets and learn how it had helped Azmin grow so powerful, in the end he simply didn’t trust either of them.

And as for sticking it in his head to find out what it did, that was right out.

He thought he might ask Nylea about it once they sealed the deal and formed a Settlement together, but he wasn’t sure she’d be able to help. The pearl seemed even more mysterious than her cursed bloodline and ancient family roots.

Sighing, he left it in the bag and picked up the Seal of the Wreckrunner. Infusing a tinge of aura into the squared seal he saw the characters written along the front light up, and the stone began to resonate, but nothing more happened.

Something was missing, and Nic could guess what.

Sweeping his treasures back into his bag he crossed to the small fountain within the temple, and tossed the seal down into the shallow waters. Instantly, they began to foam as a pitch blackness opened beneath, as if the mouth an enormous abyssal trench had replaced the ground. The seal sank out of sight, its glow dimming and dimming as it fell into infinite green-black depths.

“Are you going to show, or what?” Nic called.

Then a hand thrust out of the water. It was grey-black and sleek-skinned, with rough scales and humanoid fingers. Broken iron shackles clung to the thick wrist behind it. A huge creature hauled itself up, a blue-skinned mer-kin with the broad anvil-shaped face of a hammerhead shark and curling green tattoos over the entirety of his skin. He was broad and powerfully built, with a fishing net cast over one shoulder and a loose belt of rope. Blackened golden coins with holes pierced in them to make rings hung from his ears.

“Called and answered, boyo.” The Wreckrunner declared, opening his arms wide. “And I must say, I’m pleased as hell to make land on your fine world.”