After recovering from his mini mental breakdown, Endrian decides to disregard anything his mom tells him for now. He loves his mom very dearly but she is not good at guiding him in his cultivation or figuring out how to control his transformation. So he closes his eyes and reviews what he knows. ‘Okay so transforming is like cultivation so let’s work with that. When I cultivate having a strong mental image and a good imagination are key. My mana sense and my consciousness supplement the things that I feel by enhancing my visualization. So if we take all these things to be true then maybe if I can visualize myself transforming from my current appearance back into a human appearance.’ Thinking to there he decided to give it a shot. However after a few minutes of picturing his dragon face changing into a human face he couldn’t tell if anything was happening. Opening his eyes and looking for the copper mirror after picking it up he was briefly astonished at how heavy it was like 2.5 to 3 kilos just for this little hand mirror. Putting aside his distracting thoughts he looked at his face but there was nothing changed.

Okay so that didn’t work. Of course he was just trying to change the face so maybe he should try visualizing the whole body shifting. Placing the mirror back on the table, he closed his eyes again and pictured his whole body or at least tried to. He realized that getting a mental picture of his whole body when he hadn’t seen his whole body was very difficult. So he stopped and grabbed the mirror again and proceeded to hold it at different angles and then crane his neck to see his body from all sides as best he could.

As he examined himself his mother watched him and much to her amusement when he found his tail she watched him chase it first right and then left. It was possibly the cutest thing she had seen. She couldn’t stop from giggling while watching him. Hearing his mom giggle, Endrian stopped and looked at her with eyes widened. “Don’t! Just don’t say it.” But how could she resist with a smile and a gleam in her eyes “You are so cute.” This made Endrian feel vaguely depressed and a little offended. Until he heard what she said next. “I don’t get to enjoy these feelings often with you so let me savor this moment please.”

Endrian smiled and walked over to his mom and gave her a hug. He may be mentally older than her, he may feel more mature than her in many ways, but no matter what she was still his mother. He felt as a father from his previous life that it was only appropriate to show respect to his mother. He could also appreciate the joy a parent takes when they watch their child do something harmless and adorable. After the hug he took a moment to get his emotions in order. Once he was back to the right mentality and a much better mental picture of what he currently looks like he tries again.

Visualizing how he currently looks and imagining it shifting, like how he had seen in all those werewolf movies and tv shows. However, every time he tries to visualize the change it just doesn’t work. He can force the image to change but it feels disconnected from him like it’s fake. So he decides that this approach doesn’t seem to be working for him.

Okay so let’s try this another way. Endrian can remember reading in a fantasy book that they had explained transforming by picturing yourself in both forms and then superimposing them over each other. Then whatever for you want will be the final form. Unfortunately he never really had a good picture of what he looked like as a human in this new life. He had seen his reflection in a bucket of water a couple of times but it was very indistinct. All he could get out of that was the outline of the face and that there was some hair on top of his head. It had never been a priority for him and taking the time to carry a bucket of water around to get the correct position of the sun to create a relatively decent reflection. It was more work than it was worth. Now his lack of care was kind of biting him in the butt.

Well since he didn’t have any other options and being stuck in his room for the rest of his life was not a viable option, as far as he was concerned, he decided to step outside of his comfort zone. He created a blank template of what a human looks like then he added hair and started changing the colors of the hair on this template until something felt right. He worked at this for a few hours with very little success. He adjusted the length shorter and longer and he got a feeling of rightness, he was unsure if that was the correct word but it was as close as he could get, when he set the length to about the middle of his back. This was longer than before but it felt right. However, he never got the color to feel right, nor the look of his facial features. So he could say that there was something to feeling things but it was so imprecise that it was ridiculous. It felt like he was playing with the blocks you give a child that have different shapes and then there is a table that has that shape cut out of it. Now all he had to do is match the shape to the hole. Problem is he’s blindfolded in a room the size of a football stadium and there are thousands of block and not all fit. So while it is theoretically possible he can correctly guess all the combinations correctly but it would take forever.

Feeling frustrated with his lack of progress he thought it might be a good time to get some more food. His mom was currently staying in his room, which was a little awkward to not have any real privacy. That’s when he got a very bad feeling, or more accurately the food digested and it was time to take care of business. “Um. Mom, I need to go to the bathroom.” He said this hoping his problem would be self evident.

Allyce smiled and then pointed to a bucket in the corner. Endrian looked at where she was pointing, and then back to her, and then back to the bucket. Each iteration of him looking back and forth his eyes got wider. Dropping a deuce in a bucket while your mom watched. Oh HELL no. He then thought ‘Well, let’s just take a piss. That will reduce the pressure on my colon and I can hold it until I figure out this changing form thing.’ Even though they had a public open bathroom Endrian would often hold it until the last second so that he could get in and out quickly. He would often not go in if there were others in there. So while he is aware that most people here didn’t have a problem with doing their business in front of others it still made him uncomfortable. Not to mention his mom watching him just felt wrong.

“Can you at least turn around or close your eyes or something?” he asked her. She smiled and shook her head in amusement at his request but she at least left the room. So he walked over to the bucket and opened his pants so he could take a piss, and that’s when he found a problem. He reached between his legs but didn’t feel anything. Thinking that he was just imagining things he looked down to get a better visual so he grab and aim. When he looked though all he saw was the interlocking scales. His johnson, his beloved little derrick, was nowhere to be seen.

His mouth dropped open. His eyes bulged. Mentally he was screaming ‘No. NO. NOOO!!!!!’ He started to hyperventilate a little. He knows it wasn’t that spectacular of an appendage but he was 7 years old, it still had time to grow. But even if he could only please himself with it, it was still his. Now though it was gone. Then all of a sudden the fear and despair turned into anger. If he were just back to how he was before this wouldn’t be a problem. ‘Fuck this change. Fuck this world.’ That was when something clicked. He wasn’t sure what it was but it felt right like this is what he had to do to go back to how he was before. Without thinking, without fear he acted on his impulse or instinct. In the next second there was a brief flash of pain that was gone before he had even fully registered it was there. After the brief flash he could see his beloved family jewels again. Hell he didn’t even need to go to the bathroom anymore he was just so happy to see little derrick again. After a few moment of rejoicing and taking in the beautiful and disgusting look of his junk he decided that he was going to go to the bathroom now. His emotions had settled and biological functions reasserted themselves. Buttoning up his pants and throwing on a shirt he walked to the door of his room. When he started to open the door his mom moved in a flash to stand in front of him and block him so that no one would see him. When she saw him though she was stunned by him yet again.

“What I have to go to the bathroom and I really don’t want to use a bucket.” He said when he saw the way his mother looked at him. He slid around his stunned mother and headed to the bathroom. On his way there and even while he was taking care of business he was still trying to understand what happened. He knows intellectually that he successfully transformed or shifted forms, but how it happened and was it duplicatable. That was a question he didn’t have an answer for at this time. However, this did lead him to the conclusion that there was more to this feeling stuff, that his mom talked about, than he really wanted to admit. After finishing up without any interruptions from others he realized that it was late enough that night had fallen. He went back to his room to ask his mom if it would be okay to talk to his dad even though it was so late. However, when he got back his mom was not there. So he went to where she normally slept but she was not there either. He decided to just go knock on his dad’s door and see if he was still available to talk with or not.

Walking out into the inner courtyard for the first time since his awakening he was surprised to see that there were some things that were glowing which weren’t usually there. As he examined them he realized that these items were actually always here but he had never seen them glow before. It’s looks like someone is shining a blacklight on them. He wasn’t in his transformed state so he felt it was odd that he could still see things that he couldn’t before. Once again another thing that scratches his curiosity and no way to test it. However, from his knowledge of his previous world he makes the assumption that he is seeing is some sort of bioluminescence where the plants are releasing photons in the ultraviolet spectrum. Shaking his head from the distraction he laughs if he let this world he would spend the rest of his life just studying all the little things and developing technology just to allow him to study it, but that wasn’t what he wanted to do with his life.

Moving on to his dad’s office and still thinking about all of the interesting things that he has experienced here. Kind of makes him feel like the dog in the movie UP only it wasn’t a squirrel that distracted him but things that were outside his experiences. Stepping up to the door he gets ready to knock and his attention is brought back to the present. However he freezes with his hand mid way to knocking on the door. He turns around and covers his ears to block the sounds of flesh slapping together coupled with soft moans. ‘SO! Glad I didn’t open the door. Okay next inventions, door locks and soundproof walls.’ He starts thinking about how to properly soundproof walls and how to create better doors with locks so he doesn’t accidentally traumatize himself. It has nothing to do with trying to keep his imagination from picturing what is going on behind the door. Nothing at all. His 10 year dry spell not helping him very much. The last 7 years weren’t that much of a problem focused on training he was never really prone to wandering around late at night. Not like he is going to be getting any for the foreseeable future either.

Making it back to his room he proceeded to cultivate by only drawing in mana that resonated with him. He did this for an hour or so before getting tired and going to sleep.

Getting up the next day he realized that he had overslept, though it wasn’t too surprising considering the change to his routine. The table was still in his room when he woke up and so was the copper mirror. Seeing these things he decided to take a close look at himself. He still had to figure out how to control the change back and forth properly. So he spent the next few minutes examining himself.

He had longer hair that was down to the middle of his back. He couldn’t tell the color of his hair from the mirror but fortunately it was long enough that he could see it quite easily. It was a midnight blue color that had purple highlights. He couldn’t tell what color his eyes were but he could easily ask. His facial features were boyish which came as no surprise. His face had a good symmetry to it. He had a straight nose that was a little flat. He had good straight teeth. Fortunately they have a concept of dental hygiene here so he gets a toothbrush that’s made from some type of tree root. Not quite the same as his electric toothbrush but he’ll take what he can get.

Getting a good concept of how he looks he creates the pictures in his head again. This time he gets and accurate representation of each form. It even feels correct. Apparently eye color doesn’t matter that much. As he overlays one image on the other he starts to make the human image fade out so that there is only his beast form. Still this results in a failure. No change not even a twitch.

Finally at a loss of how to transform he starts to analyze the memory of when he successfully changed. There was not a whole lot of thought involved with that memory, but there was a lot of emotions and instinct, or doing without thinking. Also called stupidity. However, stupid apparently works where thought does not. While frustrating for him he knows that you can switch back and forth and that it is a key element of this society not to mention that he was internally geeking out of the cool factor. So he spends some time breaking down the memory. There was a distinct feeling of human for lack of a better way to describe it. There was also an act of willing himself to be that which he knows. So this should be duplicatable. He can remember the feeling of his body when he was in his fighting form. So all he should have to do is lock this feeling and will himself to that. When he says will himself it’s more than just thinking ‘be that’ it’s more like how you move your arm. You know what you want to do and you just do it. For example when you walk you don’t tell each muscle in your leg what to do when you pick it up and swing it forward. You just do it. That being said he put his thoughts into action. Once again he felt a brief flash of pain and then he heard a ripping sound, and his shirt fell to the floor in pieces. ‘Okay. Mental note. When changing remove shirt.’

Fortunately the pants buttoned in the back and had a hole where his tail would be. He had often thought this was weird but not it made perfect sense instead of being someone’s twisted way to look at peoples butt cracks. Thinking of this he wondered if they had special shirts for beastkin that had wings. Transforming back and getting his last workout shirt to put on he went out to start his morning workout. Halfway through his Tai Chi, Ethese came out and was very excited to see him. Running up and hugging him and badgering him with questions about how he was feeling and if there was anything she could do. Endrian smiled at her enthusiasm and thanked her for her care. Even saying that it was very helpful and that he was sure that she would be able to take good care of her man some day. This of course made her beam a bright smile at him. He then got back to his usual routine. After he had finished his morning workout his mom came out of his dad’s office. Yawning with her hair a mess.

When she saw Endrian was out in the courtyard she came over to him and said “Your father wants you to speak with him as soon as possible.” When she came over he got a strong whiff of her. Apparently the enhanced senses carried over in this area as well. When he realized what he was smelling he decided to just stop breathing because it was awkward thinking of your mom like that. Hence the ridiculous mental barriers he had placed around the memory of his first day in this world.

As she looked at him expectantly. He smiled and nodded but made no move to go to his dad’s office. After a second or so she said “Well what are you waiting for?”

“For him to take a bath.” He said it before he even had a chance to think it through. ‘Great there goes my filter.’ Giving his mom an awkward smile he took a couple of steps back and took a breath. At the same time Ethese came over to see what was going on and she looked at Allyce and said “You smell funny.” Taking a step closer she started to sniff Endrian’s mom. At this point Allyce realized what Endrian was talking about. Endrian came over to distract Ethese while his mom stuttered out a “Um, yes, well we’ll get right on that.” She said this as she blushed very deeply. Especially when she saw the helpless and somewhat weird look in Endrian’s eyes. Then she promptly ran away back to Davian’s office.

To distract Ethese, Endrian had asked her if she wanted to practice with him this morning. So he wound up teaching her eight different forms from Tai Chi to get her started. After that he went back to his room cleaned up and changed into his last set of clean clothes. He then washed his workout clothes and headed to breakfast. After breakfast with everyone Endrian headed to his dad’s office so he could sit down and have a chat about various things.

Davia started off with “So son, we need to talk about a few things.” Hearing this Endrian nodded. “So what happened last night…”

“Aaand that’s not one of them” Endrian said cutting his dad off. Continuing to guide the conversation into cleaner waters he started asking about absorbing different types of mana. He also asked about how his mom knew that he was at the first level of the Gathering stage and how he could tell the different levels. What he got was that some people had tried absorbing other types of mana and that there were no real dangers. It would typically slow down cultivation for those people because it was more difficult to gather and when absorbing there was a greater loss. Also knowing someone else's cultivation level required that you are at that level or higher and when you sense the mana around them you can get a feel for their cultivation by comparing it to yours. He also learned that when you are baptized with an affinity you are generally immune to that type of element, and that using your mana directly against someone will not work. His dad explained this as something like a natural law but when someone uses mana like in Endrian’s case to create a lightning bolt to attack someone, the most likely result is that it would redirect or fizzle. Now if he applied the lightning to his sword or spear and struck them with it the discharge would have an effect on an enemy. However, he would also have to maintain a conscious effort to not let it discharge before he struck his opponent. There were also special materials that could be found to enhance different affinities and these materials could be used to make weapons or armor. Finally he explained that body strengthening was actually converting free mana into personal or controlled power. At higher stages this could be used to directly attack other opponents but this would only at the Core Formation stage of cultivation, there was however, a caveat to this in that there was a finite amount of power or Qi that could be expended and if fully depleted either temporary debilitating weakness or passing out would occur.

With all of the information that he had gathered from his father on cultivation, mana, and Qi he had a lot to think about. Well he really didn’t have to worry about Qi at this point so there was that. However, absorbing mana would be what he needed to work on and experiment with the most. He needed to determine the loss ratio for mana that didn’t have an affinity associated with it. Just doing the math if he gained more than ten percent it would be worth it. In a roughly 27 cubic meter room there was only about 1 cubic meter of mana that had affinities of those affinities less than ten percent of them resonate with Endrian. So just from a volume standpoint if he could use just ten percent of the remaining mana and successfully absorb that he would already be receiving double the amount of mana for his training.

Over the course of the next week he spent his time practicing cultivation using his visualization technique. He had reached a bottleneck a day ago when he asked he was told that there was a bottleneck from the third level of a stage to the fourth level and there was another from the sixth to the seventh. So he gathered that he was at the peak of the third level and had to break through to the fourth to continue with his cultivation properly. He could still cultivate but it wasn’t absorbed properly by his body and would often dissipate making his effort a waste of time. On top of this he found that he could absorb a number of different affinities outside the ones that he was baptized in. However the losses for these were always high to the point where he would only get one tenth of one percent on some. He was able to absorb a small amount of what he assumed to be water mana based on the coloration and feeling he got from the mana absorbed. However when he tried to utilize it to condense water from the moisture in the air he didn’t see any results other than some sweat from his forehead which he was pretty sure didn’t count. He was also able to successfully absorb some fire mana. The amount he was able to absorb was much more than the water element but even with this he could barely create a spark.

After getting the fire mana he figured he would test to see if he gained the immunity of it as well since he hadn’t been baptized by this mana. So when he was helping with cooking with his sisters he stuck his hand over the cooking fire. The first degree burns on his hand attested to the fact that he did not gain any immunities. Okay so sticking his hand in the fire wasn’t the most brilliant of ways to determine immunity but it was effective and easy to determine the results.

During this time he also would go out with one of his moms and go shopping for various supplies like food or supplies for clothing or other things. He noticed that they weren’t buying as many supplies. The demand for the recurve bow had been met so the orders weren’t as plentiful as before. Though their family had made a nice profit on this. On a few of the trips out during this week of practice, experimentation and testing. He had heard to city bell sound a few times. He was even out once when the bell went off and he saw the people, who he assumed were the village guards, running across the rooftops again. He got to see the village protective shield go up often as well. All of this was interesting but he was very focused on his various experiments in cultivation. He took breaks to help out because he felt it was appropriate to help where he could with his family and he had also found that stepping away from what you are focused on often led to breakthroughs in understanding.

He was brought back to reality towards the end of the week. He was sitting at breakfast and he heard his mothers discussing the problems with animal attacks and how they had increased dramatically from what they usually were. They were also having a tough time justifying the dangers of going into the forest to forage versus spending money and being safe. Finally there was a strange reddish glow that would appear every now and again in the south west sky. They were discussing leaving for Ampleforth sooner than planned as they weren’t making as much on the bows and the cost of living would increase if they couldn’t supplement their supplies with good foraged from the forest.

The supply ship would be arriving from Ampleforth today and they would be sending a shipment of their recurved bows back. What they were debating was whether it was time to book passage. The household funds would allow for them to purchase birthings for the entire family and they had enough to get started in Ampleforth to setup their business. It’s just it would be tight and they would have to make trips into the uncultivated forest outside of Ampleforth to find the wood for the bows.

As they were discussing this Endrian said that if they were worried about securing proper materials for the bows that it would be possible to supplement metals for wooden portions or entirely. In many ways a combat bow would be much better if it were made out of metal. The construction would be much more complicated though, Endrian explained. What he was talking about was the designs for a compound bow. When his mothers heard his idea they were sceptical. However, if it was anything like the recurve bow then it would be a very worthwhile addition to their bow products. They discussed this back and forth for a while and ultimately came up with once they were firmly established in Ampleforth they would start this line of bows after of course verifying the efficacy of said bows. If it came down to it and they couldn’t get the materials for their current bows then they could switch to this new bow and sell it.

After a long breakfast and a lot of discussion about what to do everyone decided that they would see what the cost of buying passage would be. So Endrian and Vanya went to meet the flying ship and it’s captain. Vanya went as the head wife to perform the negotiations and see what they could get. She was also considered beautiful by society standards so they figured sending her would be for the best. Endrian went along because he understood the household finances, and after getting there and negotiating he was there to distract the female captain with his cuteness. Valid tactic if a little demeaning. After successfully securing birthings for the family they returned back. The cost was less in general for everyone except Ethese. Transporting underage children that had yet to go through their awakening was dangerous since there were sometimes battles that had to be fought. Vanya also had to agree not to hold the captain or the company she worked for responsible if Ethese has a problem during the trip and awakens early. Endrian could tell that it wasn’t unheard of for people to transport children before the awakening but it was not done very often. In this case the only reason for it was that the household was breaking even with the current expenses and they were planning on moving anyway. With the increased attacks from the wild animals their expenses would increase as well as the danger. So it was justified to be for the good of the family. Vanya was not very happy about this and had fought hard to wait for another two years. But the realities of increasing costs and reduced income as well as planning on moving anyway coupled finally with the increased danger of the forest and the uncertain safety of the village she was overruled. Though mainly with the argument that if Vanya died to a wild beast in the jungle then what would happen to Ethese.

The transportation of Ethese and the fact that she hadn’t awakened had Endrian wondering how they handled these things. He was wondering how they were going to sell their house as well. However, he found that it was simpler than all of that. The house was left open for any family that decided to move here. There would be houses in Ampleforth that were empty waiting for others to move in as well. So that reduced a lot of problems that Endrian was worried about. When he was helping with the food for dinner he noticed that Vanya had put something in Ethese’s food. He could only assume it was something to put her to sleep. Though he had no idea how they got the measurements correct. Honestly he didn’t even want to think about them just putting in stuff until it felt right. That was just terrifying.

After they got to the table to start eating the village warning bell started ringing. Only this time it didn’t stop. Usually it would ring three times to warn the village guards. This time it kept on ringing. Being confused by this Endrian looked around at his family. He could see most of the children, even Elva, looked confused like him. However, the adults had all gone pale.