Chapter 23

Magic Makes Things Easier

I search the bodies as quick as I can and discover a few things. First off is my suspicion is correct, they are a lower level culture. The weapons they have are crude, but I guess anything is better than nothing. So no reason to keep any of those. Next really obvious thing is that must have some sort of trade with others or within their own tribe as each goblin as a little pouch of what could be called money. It seems to be a mix of shiny stones, actual metal coins, and anything else they liked. Hmm, better make sure. Observe.

Shiny Stone Type: Jasper

Uncut Alexandrite Gem

Copper Coin Kingdom: Unknown

Large Copper Coin Kingdom: Unknown

Iron Coin Kingdom Unknown

So I have currency of an unknown kingdom and a small uncut gem of unknown value. I place all of them in my inventory, they might prove useful later. Nothing else of interest except for their extremely bad hygiene stands out as noteworthy. The hygiene thing might actually be useful as an early detection method. I quickly move further south and leave the scene of battle behind me. I do not want to have to deal with scavengers. As I travel I start to think about several ideas regarding the encounter.

Whether or not those goblins were dumb, which they seemed to be, their level should have made that battle more difficult. Why was it so easy? Maybe magic is not as prevalent as I think in this new world. If that is true than possessing it and my spells could easily make me be able to deal with creatures above my normal fighting zone. Come to think of it, every time I have used magic, the battle has been relatively simple and has not resulted in any injury to me. The only time I have really struggled is when I got into melee range and had to fight it out hand to hand. If I had to go against those five goblins without magic the situation may have been completely different. I would have been outnumbered, surrounded, and definitely had a hard time.

So magic seems to be my big advantage here. Perhaps in some of the more civilized races magic is more well known, but it seems that in the wild, only animals with magic characteristics use it. Even then it is more of a better version of what they would normally have, just making them harder to kill. I wonder if that means I should hide my magic when and if I ever meet a race that I can communicate with. Speaking of communication, how in the heck am I going to learn the language or languages of all the races? I mean I can basically hide amongst them with my chimera magic virus transformation, but that does no good if I cannot speak the lingo.

I wonder if that would actually fix the problem? Oh I have got to try this. I realize that I have not even come close to my travel goal for the day, but this idea is too good to pass up. I know, I can just start here later I have teleportation. I use elemental shaping to create an artificial hill around 5 meters high with nothing on top, just bare earth and stone. I quickly climb up it and memorize how it looks. Now to be on the safe side, I picture my tree house back in the pond clearing and invoke teleportation. The world seems to shimmer with heat waves and the location I am in fades out and the familiar surroundings of my tree house greet me.

Man I should have thought about this earlier. I do not have to create a new lair to stay in if I don’t want to. I can just teleport back each night. Eventually setting up multiple bases is going to be the best thing, but for now when I am traveling, I can just do what I did and pop back each night and stay here in my treehouse which is safe and teleport back to where I left off my exploration the next morning. Now that I have decided on my new travel arrangements I want to experiment with my earlier idea.

I had realized that I did not have to learn how to use this body when I created it. Sure there was a brief adjustment period, but I basically could move around, climb and do other things straight off. It was like it came with preset instructions or instincts to help out. I am wondering if the same thing will happen if I choose a sapient talking species. Will I instinctively know or learn the language or will I just have a new body? I am going to switch to a virus in another infected animal, using my almost forgotten switch spell, and then create a new body of a grass goblin and see what happens. I am extremely curious as to what will happen to my current body as well. Will it just shut down and die, or possibly just disappear? Too many unanswered questions for me not to experiment with this immediately.

I focus my mana on the switch spell and soon enough find myself in familiar surroundings. Yep, I am a virus again and I am floating in somethings circulatory system. Alright time to see if this works. I choose to transform into a Grass Goblin.

The by now familiar sensation of everything getting pulled toward me and then expanding. I stretch and realize that I see different hands then I did before. I quickly look at my body and see scrawny arms, knobby knees, and other indicators that this worked. Now I should try talking. I try and say the sentence, Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die. However, as soon as I think about speaking the first word I get a notification that stops me.

You have taken on a form that has a spoken language for the first time. You are granted access to the common language of Planet Braxis. You may select a further 4 languages from the following list due to your high intelligence. You can learn another language for every ten points of intelligence. Please select now.

1. Elvish

2. Aviana

3. Braxish (Human)

4. Orkish

5. Goblinoid

6. Beastkin

7. Draconic Low (Kobold and Saurians)

8. Draconic High (Dragons and Wyrvens)

9. Insectoid (Formican and Thri-Keen)

10. Dwarvish

11. Planar (Common for Angels and Demons)

12. Elemental

Well I would never had expected this. I just assumed I would immediately know goblinoid because I became a goblin. I forgot that the elemental mantis form is not an advanced species, but rather an unevolved form of Thri-Keen. So until I became a speaking species, I could not speak. I just assumed the sounds I made were speaking when it was just my thoughts projected onto mantis sounds. These bonus languages are nice also, but I am going to have to be careful which ones I pick. I know I will get others as I level up, but it would be a lot easier to blend in with a community if I know the local lingo. For my four languages I pick, Braxish, Goblinoid, Dwarvish, and Elvish.

Selection logged. Mark Stefanopolis has learned Common, Braxish, Goblinoid, Dwarvish, and Elvish.

Well that takes care of one problem. In my mantis form I may not be able to respond, but I definitely will be able to listen and learn. I chose these languages for a specific reason. I have the most experience being human, so knowing the language will allow me to blend in the easiest of all of the sapient species I know of. Goblinoid was chosen, because I just ran into them, and if I know anything from years of fantasy novels and movie it is that where you find 1 goblin, expect to find 10 others. In other words it will be immediately useful. Finally, I picked Dwarvisha and Elvish also due to my fantasy knowledge. From what I can remember, elves and dwarves have very insular societies. I might be able to get away using common disguised as some of the other races, but Dwarves and Elves would be immediately suspicious if someone looking like them did not speak the language.

Since I am already in this body I may as well teleport back to the tree house to see what became of my elemental mantis body. Teleport. I appear in a different room than before, just for safety reasons. I do not know what would happen if I teleported into a space that was occupied by something else, but I do not feel like exploring the possibility of explosion or death right now. I quickly make my way to the back room and am surprised to see my mantis body just standing there. I wave my grass goblin hand back in forth in front of the Elemental Mantis bodies eyes, but there is no reaction.

This is not what I expected. I thought it would disappear or be dead, or anything but catatonic just waiting and staring off into space creepily. Would it just stay here and do nothing until it starved to death? This is really unsettling. Hey, I wonder if I can switch between bodies? Switch to Elemental Mantis Body.

Unable to comply. Host is not in contact with Elemental Mantis Body.

So I need to be in contact. Alright, I place my goblin hand on the shoulder area of the Elemental Mantis and repeat. Switch to Elemental Mantis Body. Suddenly I find myself looking at a goblin right in front of me. I scream and jump back. What the heck, every other transition has been slower with hints that something was going on. This was instantaneous and quite frankly pants wetting scary. One second I am in the goblin looking at the mantis and before I can even register it I have switched positions and am looking at the other body. Really disturbing.

I guess I could have several bodies stashed away somewhere just in case, but it seems kind of pointless since I have teleportation. I can just form a new body of any type that I need and then teleport to the location that I want. It also seems rather useless as I have to actually touch the other body before I can switch, and I am not going to carry around a set of zombie staring bodies with me. The thought of that is just wrong. I am kind of curious about how long a body will last while it is not occupied. I can leave my mantis body here while I go and search for the source of the goblins I suppose.

Since I will be teleporting back each night I could just switch and feed my mantis body at that time and then continue on with the goblin body until I finish. Finish what you might ask. Well higher level easy to kill goblins just seem to scream to me farm me and level up. This will be a nice opportunity to try infiltration and language also. Finally, I don’t have any real experience with killing in a humanoid body. Basically I need to see if I can pick up or learn how to use some weapons, even if they are crude goblin weapons. Maybe I should have kept some of those weapons from earlier instead of tossing them to the side.

I cannot start second guessing myself. What is done is done. Instead I can just use plant shaping and form a really good wooden spear to take with me. First though I need to switch back into the grass goblin. Switch to Grass Goblin Body. My view instantly changes again. That was not any less creepy a second time. In fact, if I did that enough I think I would become nauseous with the changing views. Now to create the best wooden spear I can with plant shaping and then teleport back to my stopping point on the plains.