“Hell, it's about time.”

Viers said a line from one of his favorite games as he stood naked on a big bucket filled with water.

“Henshin!”

The next thing he did, made the pose of a certain old Japanese show before the hero transformed into their insectoid battle form.

Oh, my chuunibyou impulses… If anyone saw this, I would crawl to a hole in shame. But everyone has a childish side somewhere in their heart even after they grow into adulthood, I just let them loose every once in a while… privately.

Viers’s body slowly transformed and became smaller. No light show for effect, his body felt strange and uncomfortable while transforming just like the last time. Then, Human-Viers was gone, Tomalica-Viers substituted him.

Viers chose his humble TC dorm room rather than his hotel like cult room to conduct testing of his unique ability because he didn't feel it was safe there.

About thirty seconds to transform, somewhat faster than before. More familiarity with this may cut the time further. I’m a bit worried I could only transform once per core but it seems this isn't the case.

Viers re-familiarized with his fish body and examined himself. A red Tomalica splashing around in a bucket, very fishy like.

Mu? My fin… only one? Fish momma ripped it out in the past. The wound is closed but the fin didn’t grow back? Time to test if my healing factor could grow limbs.

Viers tried to start his healing factor in active mode… he failed.

What's this? In the human body, I could feel my life energy but I felt nothing now… So, when I transform into a monster, my healing factor is disabled. Hm, quite a drawback. But many monsters tend to have regeneration ability anyway, I only need to find suitable ones in the future.

It's good I know this weakness now, I could prepare contingencies. It seems I must learn some healing Arte for myself in the future. I could still cast Arte even while being monstrous after all.

Viers moved on to his experiment. His fish body became still, he wanted to close his eyes but he had no eyelids, nothing can be done. He learned from Nakala Path-seekers could gain ‘inspiration’ by consuming a core. So he tried to uncover his inspiration from his own fish brain… unsuccessfully.

Nothing. I got… fish instinct, I suppose, but no fish memory. I know how to glow, I know how to swim -although it felt awkward at first because of the unfamiliar body- but no inspiration.

I still have my human mind and can think normally, Arte is also available to cast. I still have my Intio and Victa... Well, it is what it is. Time to eat the main dish.

Convinced with his test run, Viers transformed back to his human form. He took the red core first and tried to absorb it… but he couldn't.

“...What?”

Viers was perplexed, he didn't have this problem last time. He tried again a few times to make sure. Feeling a bit panicked, Viers changed the core to the blue one. And this time, it was absorbed into his body after turning the core into green liquid.

One can be absorbed but one can’t? Why? Because of the element? Red core is fire and blue core is water. I could only absorb water element cores? Because my own element is water? Another limitation…

Shelving his disappointment of being unable to turn into every monster there was. Viers tried to transform into the blue frog with poison… but once again he couldn't. There was an obstruction during his transformation process.

What is it this time!? Grgh… okay, control your temper. Now, this is a water monster, I could absorb the core but couldn't turn… because it has poison element in it? Or because it is level 1 core? Am I only able to transform into a water monster with the same level as me? Certainly, this is a common limitation in games… haaaahhh.

Viers thought he would test his new lizard and frog forms today. Instead, he wasn't capable of transforming into both. He felt salty.

***

Viers now had the body of a dark brown mud crab, with the size of a cat. Viers tried to speak but bubbles came out instead of words from his mouth. Still, one could discern the sounds he made were like laughter. The click-clacks from his pincers were like music in his crab-ears -although crab didn't have any ears-.

The next day after his failed transformations, Viers purchased a level 0 core of a water element monster from the cult. He bought it to test his theory and added another variety to his ‘monsters in his pocket’.

Jagjag Crab, its specialties are the hard shell and hurtful pincers… Heh, every crab has those traits. Still, it would take a few Artes to break open my shell and my pincers could break stones, sooo, yeah. You don't want your children to have me as a pet.

Crab-Viers moved around sideways in a circle and bubbling from his mouth. In his own locked room, the crab was in deep thought.

My ‘cheat’ comes from the mysterious flower, which consists of four abilities. Healing factor, super-senses, life-force gain by eating, and monster transformation.

Unless I want to be dissected by other people like a lab frog, I cannot use monster transformation in front of other people. So I cannot abandon honing my combat skills in human form, but here’s the rub. Monster could evolve here, does that mean ‘I’ could too? I must test it by eating cores in monster form in the future, huhuhu.

With these new revelations, Viers was considering visiting a low-level monster-infested area and conducting a massacre. He could eat the monster's bodies for life-force and their cores for monster evolution. He even considered dropping out from school and focused all of his effort to train, at the cult or at the wilds. But he realized the risk was too high and did not proceed forward with the idea. Temporarily.

Viers didn't think of using cores for inspiration for the time being. As far as he was concerned, any Arte he could get from the core would be inferior from what he created because he had the Spring of Wisdom. He had better uses for any cores that fell on his lap.

He wanted to ponder on his most dire trouble so he came to his realm of consciousness. A black realm with only his octahedron Intio, droplets of Victa below that. His Victa looked like water on outer space, floating and almost stationary. The last thing in this godforsaken realm was his crab-shaped astral projection.

He zoomed in on his astral thingy to look at his red tumors… which weren't there.

Um? No tumors? How curious… is it gone because I’m a monster now?

Viers conducted some searching but the tumors were indeed gone from his monster body.

Interesting…

Shelving a crazy idea in his head, he tried to do another thing that had been bugging him.

I made my own astral projection before. Now I want to make some kind of mark for my transformations.

To his understanding, this is his realm of consciousness. He could observe what was going on his body and mind from here if he gave shape and know what that something was.

From his astral projection, he could see ‘layers’ of various things in his body. He had Intio and Victa, these three things weren't all of his being so why his consciousness only had these three?

Because he wasn't aware of them and didn't give them shape. At least, that was his theory.

What I want to make is just a visual representation of the monsters I could change into, not something as complicated as the astral projection. Just decor, so to speak…

And so created stars for his dark and void realm of consciousness. Constellations more specifically, although he added his personal touch.

Since his time on Earth, Viers couldn't make heads or tails how a few stars could be perceived as a bird or a bull or a lion. Fortunately, he played a video game about assassins in ancient Egypt. The constellations there had ‘shape’, more than just stars.

He copied that here. A chain of stars made the ‘phantom’ of a fish, a frog, and a crab hanging in the sky. The fish and crab phantoms shined with deep blue lights but the frog constellation was dim.

This represents I couldn't transform into that yet.

Satisfied with his star paintings, Viers logged out from his inner consciousness. A bit startled because his surroundings were gigantic in nature, he forgot he was a crab. Slowly, he returned to being human and rested for a bit.

I want to become level 1 ASAP but I need to digest the Mana inside me first before I could consume more crystals. That means meditating or any kind of Mana-mastery that adds Mana to my body is useless at the moment. I should train my non-Mana but necessary crafts for the time being while preserving my Victa as much as possible before the next crucial pivot in my life’s story explodes… I bet it will involve the boars. I hope I’m already level 1 when that time comes.

Viers looked to the sky from his window. He felt he just reached the shore after sailing through a storm and yet there would be another sailing and another storm. He planned on being ready.