Chapter 7: New Paint Job

I think about what I have to do as I lounge around in the living room. Okay... so first thing on the list is to find out what my accelerate does. Status!

Name: Castiel Newton

Race: D'varf / Efir’esh

Titles: None(Shown)

Otherworlder

Bearer of Blessings

[email protected]$##$! Eater

Classes: None(Shown)

Status: Healthy

Physical: 71F

Endurance: 44F

Mind: 7E

Magic: 47F

Traits

Semi-earthen Physiology Lv 21

[Material Transmutation]

Aetherial Manipulation Lv 12

Sensory Enhancement(Ocular, Intuition) Lv 1

[Ocular - Status | Intuition - Magic]

Skills(Active)

Accelerate Lv 3

Minor Telepathy Lv 7

Hmmm let's see.. skill descri- wait... what the f$ck? I was about to call up the skill description window for but I noticed something new in my status screen. I have a new unreadable title, my stats have gone up massively, and my levelled up by a lot.

What the... why is... huh?? Was it because of that mirror dude from my dream!? Breathe Cas... think. The title is called [email protected]$##$! Eater>, did I eat something weird?? Hmmm... Pork rocks... potato rocks... AH! SAMMY'S GIFT! What the hell was that? Is that why I had that dream? I should've asked first ugh! I facepalm at my own carelessness towards food. There might be a poison rock out there, you don't know Cas! *sigh*

No use thinking about what it is I guess, let's check what happened... skill description.

Semi-earthen Physiology Lv 21 Increases your durability. Armour plates are regenerated through consumption of material. Skill level increased through the consumption of material.

[Material Transmutation]

Change the material of your skin and plates into one of the materials ingested or absorbed. Energy spent per second is based on material quantity ingested and material rating.

Holy [email protected]#t what the hell was that rock? sounds awesome! So how do I do this... I close my eyes and focus on my skin and my rocks, picturing them in my minds eye. It feels like... I have a limb I never knew was there. I control the ability to change my skin to iron.

*crack crack crack* I hear the sound of stone cracking and I feel myself sink deeper in the sofa. I look at the rock plates on the back of my arm... they're not stone anymore. They're smooth and metallic, similar to armour that's been shined and buffed.

"Woah! I am Iron Man!" I scoff at my own joke before inspecting the changes closer.

*clink* I tap my finger on my skin and it seems like it's also changed into metal, not just my rock plates. I better show mom and dad, this might be something normal or something dangerous tho.

I ran to the backyard where they were relaxing, my steps thudding like metal hitting stone, and shouted towards them, "Mom! Dad! Look!"

"What is it, son?" Dad asks, before looking a bit anxious after seeing my new skin, "What happened to you? What's that?". We walks closer to inspect them.

"I turned them into metal!"

He turns paler and suddenly shouts at me "Get inside!" I stiffen up, unsure of what to do. I look at mom and she looks worried as well. "NOW!" I turn and run inside, mom and dad trailing behind me. "What happened? Why is your skin like that? Answer NOW!"

"I wa-" I try to answer but my knees wobble and I fall. I feel very faint and tired all of a sudden. As I succumb to unconsciousness I can hear them shouting my name. Why does this always happen to me?

[POV Phenea]

"CAS!" I run towards Cas and hold him in my arms. I can hear him unintelligibly murmuring something. "Cas! Are you okay?!" I try to ask him only to get no response. I look towards my husband who's now checking his pulse. Suddenly we hear a cracking sound.

*crack crack crack*

His metallic skin is cracking and crawling. It looked like the metal was shrinking and retreating back under the stone pieces on his skin. I've never seen Julius do this, what is happening?

"He's just fainted dear don't worry."

"Don't worry? YOU SCARED HIM TILL HE FAINTED! WHAT THE HELL JULIUS?" I shout at him. Even though I know why he was shouting, it's still not fair to my Cas. I hug him tighter and carry him towards the living room. Placing him on the sofa and caressing his head I ask Julius, "Why was his skin like that? You can't do that can you?"

"...No, I can't. You know our skin slowly gets denser and metallic as we age and get stronger, but it's not like Cas'. No one I know can do anything like that, even after the rites." He pauses for a few seconds before continuing, "That's very dangerous for him, he needs to get a class quickly."

"We need to ask Robert for help. Go ge-" I was interrupted by a groaning sound from Cas.

"Ughhh" "Cas! Are you okay?"

[POV Cas]

"Ughhhh" My head... what happened?

"Cas! Are you okay?" I hear mom asking me with concern. I sit up and she hugs me, leaning my head on her bosom. "What happened?" I asked dad as I hugged mom back.

"You fell and fainted earlier. Then your skin and stones went back to being stone, it looked like you exhausted yourself with that skill." Dad answers, then he pauses seeming like he's hesitating. "What... was that skill Cas?"

"It was under . It's called , it lets me change the material of my skin with something I've already eaten." I bring up the description window as I answered. "I tried it earlier and changed my skin to iron and it worked. But I guess I fainted because I used it for too long..." I feel a bit sorry for making them worry.

"But that's impossible..." He looks incredulously at me, then he sighs and leans his forehead against mine, "I'm sorry son, I didn't mean to scare you I was just... scared. I guess you should know how dangerous the world is for us D'varfs." He breathes deeply as if the next things he has to say are too hard to be said.

"Honey..." Mom reaches out and holds his hand. She smiles at him lovingly, like she's telling him it's going to be okay. "Son the D'varfs have been hunted for centuries due to our unique skin. Some of the best weapons that existed back then are made from the skin of dead and hunted D'varfs. You see as we grow stronger and older, our skin naturally turns to a harder and more resistant metal." He then removes his wristwatch. As he does so, his skin turns a shade blacker and shinier and his stone plates turn into a black platinum kind of metal. It looks like armour shards. That looks so cool.

"Our skin is unique to each D'varf, it grows with you. D'varfs with a fire-based class and skills will develop a skin that will improve their affinity with the class. Those that use stealth will have their skin improve their camouflage abilities. There are other ways to 'evolve' our skin."

He looks up in melancholy as if remembering something from the past before continuing, "Even in death, our skin will retain its properties, and that's why they hunted us down. They could make weapons that are unique and powerful, almost equal to some of the strongest enchanted weapons in our time." He breathes in deeply and looks back at me. I can feel his sadness, anger, disappointment, and a plethora of other emotions just by his actions. "Be thrifty with your trust son, people are darker and more evil than you can imagine."

I can see mom tightening her grip on his hand, reminding him that she's there. She brushes my hair and kisses me on the forehead. "Don't worry Cas, we'll protect you no matter what you don't have to be afraid. We'll ask your uncle Robert to make you a wristwatch, like your dad's. He's the one that made that you know." She pauses smiling assuredly, "We can trust them don't worry, they're good people."

Phew... I was thinking about how to hide it... holy s#it, I never thought dad would have such a history. People are f#@ked up no matter what universe. Society looked so advanced I thought such barbarism would've been outlawed...

"Isn't anyone doing something about this?"

"Of course the councils have banned such things, but weapons and armour made from D'varf skin still circulate in the black market. There are still bad people out there that are hunting us, so you have to be careful son."

Councils? Well, that's another one on the list I have to research. " I will dad. So..." Should I ask? Now's as good a time as any I guess. "Is my skin unique now? Or can all D'varf change their skin like mine?"

"That's what I'm thinking about too, son, you shouldn't have developed enough yet to form a subskill. What happened?"

"Well.. uh..." He looks at me with an eyebrow raised. "I kinda ate the rock Sammy gave to me yesterday when I woke up the skill levelled up to 21..."

"Castiel!" Mom suddenly exclaimed. "Don't just eat random stones! Did you at least wash it beforehand? Who knows where it's been in!"

Dad looked surprised before suddenly laughing. It's... the first time I saw dad laugh this hard... that's odd. "Hahahahahaaha! Don't worry Phen, D'varf men hardly get sick eating stone or metal! Haha!" He laughs for a bit more and asks me, "What was that rock son?"

"I don't know... maybe I can ask Sammy? He told me he found it while we were playing."

"Hmm, well rarely do we get bad effects from eating stones that taste good." He looks sternly at me. "Try not to use that skill until we get an illusion gadget to hide it okay? Also, don't go out too much for now." I nod and he leans his forehead on mine again, it's how he shows affection. He gets up and heads towards the door. "I'll talk to Robert about it, and I'll also have him ask his son about the rock."

He leaves and mom and I go to the backyard again. She goes back to gardening and I postpone my endeavours to test out any of my skills without that illusion gadget dad had. I really don't want to get kidnapped and skinned alive...

I just lounge around, occasionally helping mom with the gardening and asking questions about stuff I wanted to know. "Mom, why's our skill called ? Isn't it just controlling and making things float?" I ask while planting a bunch of seeds she gave me.

"It's more than that silly, it's not just about making things float. But it's the easiest and most used technique in it." She goes on to teacher mode and I pay attention. "You see our race has a connection with the Aether dimension. No one knows why exactly, but the most common theory is that our ancient ancestors were denizens of that dimension and they could freely go to and fro that place.

Anyway, the Aether dimension is like another page in the book of our world. Imagine the world you see, touch, hear, smell, and taste is the page we are in. The other page, the Aether, is a place filled with things and forces you can't interact with normally. What our imprint does is that it allows us to sync up with that other page and have some of its contents bleed into our own page and obey our will."

She pusher her imaginary glasses up, but her gloved hands are smothered with dirt so all she did was put a smudge of dirt between her eyes. " *ahem* What we do when we control stuff is borrow the forces from the Aether page. However our connection can do more than just that, given knowledge and time you'll be able to do this."

Closing her eyes, she mutters something under her breath and her invisible tattoos glow brighter. A sudden loud thud beside us startles me and I fall backwards. I look to where the sound came from and there's nothing there. Looking at her with confusion I ask "What happened? What was that mom? I don't see anything."

"Silly, I told you we can't see that page remember? But you have already awakened, use those skills to find what I did." Oh yeah... let's see.

Since I can't see it, the ocular enhancement is of no help so I close my eyes hoping to get my intuition enhancement to sense it. And I did. I can feel a loss of magic on the spot where the loud thud came from. It's like there's an object that rejects the influence of magic. I focus more to see if I can sense what it is exactly, but I only just got the skill yesterday so it's in vain.

"I can sense there's something there. Actually, what I can sense is the lack of magic in that spot there, it's like they're scared of coming close to that place. What is it, mom?"

"Interesting." she looks at me happily. "That's an aetherial summon Cas, we can request the help of creatures from that world for some time. And as you said, they're magic resistant to an extent." She waves her hand and the blank space of magic is gone. "That's just one of the things you can do with our skill Cas."

"Cool!! When can I do that mom? And can you see it yourself?"

"Practice using your skill Cas, you'll get there eventually." She smiles then continues gardening. So it's not as simple as I thought, the skill description isn't too accurate then? skill description

Aetherial Manipulation Lv 12 [Force]

Control aethereal forces to physically affect objects around you. Power and radius slightly increase as skill increases.

Force? Huh.. so I was using a subskill all this time? The status can be deceiving...

There was nothing much to do so I just surfed the internet forums trying to find information about the skills and traits I have. I was too scared to find out and practice my because of what happened earlier. I have to be more careful.

And like that, a week has passed since my awakening, the day of the decision draws nearer.