Today we all had breakfast together, before Nora went off to her own training. We didn’t get a chance to talk much. She looks tired, but happy. I imagine we will both get a great attribute boost when we next level up. Krell takes me down a corridor under the store today rather than teleporting us to the cavern. We end up in front of a door with a hand print outlined beside it that matches Krell’s hand. He places his right hand on the outline, which glows blue and after a loud thunk of bolts the door opens inward with hardly a push. The room we enter is twenty feet on a side and ten feet high. There are several statues done up in flesh tones around the room. All are human in various poses.

Krell invites me to look at the statues, which puts me on guard right away. My gut reaction is to blast them with a spell. After the way he has been training me that would probably be the safest thing to do.

“They are very detailed statues.” I say as I walk over to join him in front of a table set on the side of the room. There is a large piece of paper upside down. I can make out that there is writing on the other side. Krell indicates I should flip the paper over and after I do so I stand there in shock. It is a wanted poster with my picture and name. I am wanted for the kidnapping of Princess Sandra. The reward is for 5000 gold, wanted alive for questioning, no reward if dead, unless bound to a respawn object.

Krell says. “We will be working on concealing your identity today or you will be lucky to even make it out of the Capital.”

I frown. “So, illusion or some other skill like Veil to conceal my features and name?”

“No, we will be using your shaper ability. Since your Veil was upgraded by the Deck of Fate it would be impossible to teach you something that could top that. Instead we need to change how you look and show you how Veil can show a different name or stats.”

I look over at the statues. “You want me to use them as models?”

“Something like that.” Krell says smiling and leads me over to stand in front of male human statue about my height in his early thirties. “Touch the statue’s face.”

Well, this set off alarm bells. I tentatively reach out and touch the statue on the cheek and almost jerk back. The statue is firm like stone, but also warm to the touch. Krell is smiling and I say. “These are real people, aren’t they?”

Krell laughs. “Excellent guess. These are people who down the years have crossed me and now I use them for training, though this will be the easiest training I have done using them. At least from their perspective.”

“Are they aware of us?”

“Not at all, the series of spells on them have suspended their life functions and time is not passing for them in this state. In fact, the warmth you felt touching them is generated by the spell, not their body heat. Now let’s get to it. I am going to release the one in front of you and then use a spell to make him unconscious. You will then infuse your mana into his body and use it to sense everything about him. Skin, muscles, tendons, bones, everything. Then we will start with one of your fingers. You are going to try to shape your finger to exactly match his.”

Somehow, I don’t think it will be as easy as Krell is making it out to be. Krell gestures and a bracelet on his arm glows a warm yellow, which matches the aura that appears around the man. The man’s eyes start to flutter open when Krell touches him temple and he starts to collapse. Krell catches him and lowers him to lay on the stone floor. “Now have a seat and hold his left hand in yours. Start infusing mana as slowly as you can into his hand.”

I picked up his hand in mine and started to infuse mana into it, but ran into a problem right away. The man’s body is rejecting the mana I was trying to force into his body. I try pushing a little harder, but just met more resistance.

I hear Krell sigh. “You are thinking you are going to hurt him by forcing your mana into him, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I don’t want to apply to much force.”

“By thinking your mana will harm him you are flavoring your mana with your intent and his body is picking up on that. That causes him to resist. Relax and don’t worry about hurting him. Just try surrounding his hand with a cloud of mana and don’t try to force it into him. Just allow it to naturally seep into his hand.”

This turns out to be easier said than done. It takes almost an hour before I feel some of my mana slip into the man’s hand. I then try to use it to sense the shape and form of his hand. I can feel the separate layers of skin, muscle, tendons, and bones. I begin to feel the flow of blood through his hand and as I concentrate on it, I feel my mana slowing flowing up his arm. I feel the longer bones and tendons in his arm connected to his wrist. I was never interested in anatomy, but it is totally different when you can feel the body and what it is composed of directly. I don’t even feel the passage of time until suddenly my concentration snaps and I feel light headed. I just ran out of mana. I look at the man’s body and feel almost half of the body is heavily infused with my mana. It is slowly being absorbed by his body, but I should regenerate my mana before even a small part is absorbed.

Krell is happy and says I should regain my mana and then continue until the man’s whole body is saturated with mana. After resting up I do exactly that. After completely filling the man’s body with mana it’s like a window opens and I can close my eyes and see his entire body before me. Krell now wants me to focus on one of his fingers and the same finger on my hand. “Compare them and focus on the differences and the parts that are the same.”

Sometime later he directs me to try to shift my finger to match the man’s. I can easily see the differences now, but I don’t have a clue how to start changing my shape. After struggling I try something different. My mana in the man’s hand knows his form. I try to duplicate the pattern of the man’s mana in my finger. The mana squirms through my grasp resisting the shift to match his form. I apply more pressure and feel a sharp pain. When looking at my hand my finger in shredded and has a bleeding status. I cast minor heal and it feels strange. After it heals, I see my finger is longer and holding it next to the man I see it now matches.

“That was an unusual way to shape change. I wouldn’t suggest trying that for your whole body. I don’t think you would survive it. Now what did you do wrong?”

“I applied to much force.”

“Not exactly, you should not apply any force. You need to just will the change to occur. I bet you didn’t even envision your finger changing to match his.” Krell says gesturing to the man’s hand.

I blush and admit. “I didn’t think of that. I just tried to get my finger to match his mana signature.”

“Yes, I guessed as much. That is very much like grabbing a stone bowl and trying to crush it into the shape of a plate. Now you need to fill your finger with mana and shift the signature to match his finger. Do it again.”

“But it already matches his finger.”

“You do have nine more fingers, don’t you?”

“Of course.” I blush even deeper.

I try to calm myself and being infusing mana into another finger. After the density matches the man’s finger, I shift the mana to match his finger or at least I try to. I takes a long time before I succeed and I have another finger that matches the man and a serious headache. This isn’t a mana headache. I think it is the strain of having to apply so much mental focus to tune my mana to match this man’s body.

Krell says. “Rest until you regenerate your mana and then replenish the mana in his body and continue doing your remaining fingers, then the toes, hands, and feet. We should then be ready for some lunch.”

I sigh, this is going to be much more mentally challenging than the previous training. The time goes by slowly and I can feel sweat start to drip down the sides of my head and shirt by the time Krell tells me to break for lunch. I have managed to completely change my hands and feet. I stood to walk over to the table Krell is setting lunch up on when I fall. I curse. When I fell, I tried to catch myself fumbling with unfamiliar hands. Krell chuckles. He knew that was going to happen. I thought it strange he would setup lunch on the table, when the last several days he just handed me some food and tea. After staggering over to the table Krell watches me slowly try to pick up my food.

“It is just as important to get familiar with the new limbs you shape or you will draw just as much attention to yourself as if you maintained your original form.”

He has me walk around while I am eating my sandwich and drinking my tea. By the time lunch is done I am starting to feel familiar with my new limbs. After lunch he has me start on my legs and arms. These are large areas to change and the wrist and ankles both give me a serious challenge with all the bones. After that Krell doesn’t give me a break instead we get right into my chest. The organs are a nightmare. I must do them one at a time and the feeling of them moving around inside my body makes me nauseous. It is starting to get late when he has me work on my head. This makes me nervous. The eyes were disturbing when I get to them. I feel like they may pop out, since the man’s eyes are apparently bigger than mine.

I am exhausted as Krell pulls me to my feet and slowly walks me around the room in my new body. After I can stand on my own, he summons a full-length mirror and I must admit I have done a good job. Except for the clothes I look just like the man on the floor. One of the biggest benefits is that I look human now instead of harrow, which was a dead giveaway. I skip my XP notifications for now and look at my skill notifications.

Skill: Flesh Sense, Beginner Level 4 (31% progress to next level)

This skill allows the user to sense the body structure of another humanoid creature within one foot per skill level. This skill also enhances the skill Flesh Shaping.

Skill: Flesh Shaping, Beginner Level 2 (7% progress to next level)

This skill allows the user to shape their body to match the body of another humanoid creature. Mass of target creature must be within plus or minus 10% of the user’s body per skill tier. Target must have the same number of limbs as the user.

Range: Touch or within range of Flesh Sense.

Cost: 500 mana

Duration: Until Flesh Shaping is used to reverse the changes

Time: 10 minutes minus one minute per skill tier past Basic