I’m a werewolf! Well… a weredeath-dog. Jason was examining himself in the mirror. He looked exactly like the werewolf he saw on Baghric’s team with only three differences. One was that instead of the grey fur the werewolf had he had jet black fur like the death dog’s. The second difference was that instead of the yellow irises that the werewolf had Jason had a black iris in his remaining eye. I guess I won’t be getting that left eye back in hybrid form. The third difference was that just like in his human form his skin was also runic although in most places the dense fur covered up the runes leaving only the runes in places with less fur visible.

Jason moved his body and found that he felt stronger and at the same time lighter. As if he was packed full of even more muscles but also levitating slightly so that he could run even faster. What the hell? This is amazing! Jason’s maw grinned as best it could. Jason spun around a little and inspected his entire body front and back.

Long claws on my hands and feet just like a typical werewolf. The feet are elongated with the heel naturally coming way off of the ground. No part of my body isn’t covered in fur and only my general frame is humanoid. I really am like the typical looking werewolf. I even have a mouth full of extremely sharp canines, sharp pointed ears, and a pretty sensitive nose. Although frankly the increase to the senses isn’t as good as I thought it would be. Jason shook his head. I can’t ask for everything. I’m very very happy with what I have right now. I finally feel like a therianthrope.

Jason got down on all four and tried running for a bit. He immediately collapsed face first and bit the dust. Pushing himself off of the ground he tried to find what he did wrong. Jason almost immediately realized that he had stupidly tried to run like a human. I even got on all fours. I was fully prepared to run like a wolf and then I ran like a damn human. Of course I collapsed in an instant. Jason got down again on all fours and this time sprinted with loping motions. Pressing down with both hands in quick succession and then pulling himself forward. His body bending more than he thought it could to bring both of his feet underneath and a slight bit ahead of himself to push off once more propelling his body forward.

There wasn’t a lot of room so Jason just ended up doing this back and forth a few times before getting up and laughing. The laughter sounded horrendous coming from his maw. Looking at his claws he went to a wall and scratched it as hard as he could. His claws digging a quarter of an inch or so into the material. Hmm. Me likey. I wonder what my stats are. Jason pulled up his stat page.

Stats

Fortitude:

10 (10)

140 / 140 hp | 70 Phys Attack

Vitality:

10

6 hp / hour

Endurance:

10 (10)

140 / 140 sp | 56 Defense

Vigor:

40

100 sp / hour

Essence of Ferality:

(Fortitude + Endurance) / 2

140 / 140 e | 63 Mgc Attack

EoF Regen:

NA

5 e / hour

Charisma:

10 (9)

4 bf

Luck:

100

680% (1,564%) | 68% (156%)

Stat Points Available: 10

Skills and Talents

Active:

Offense:

T1 {Breath of Corrosion [I], Breath of the Damned [I]}

Defense: None

Utility:

T1 {Death Dog Transformation [I] (0 / 200), Hybrid Transformation [I] (3 / 200)}

Passive:

Offense:

T1 {Wooden Fists [X]} T2 {Stone Fists [X]} T3 {Iron Fists [X]}

Defense:

T1 {Wooden Bones [X], Wooden Muscles [X], Wooden Skin [X], Fast-Twitch Nerves [X], Primitive Runic Skin [X]} T2 {Stone Bones [X], Stone Muscles [X], Stone Skin [X], Instant-Twitch Nerves [X]} T3 {Iron Bones [X], Iron Muscles [X], Iron Skin [X], Automatic-Reflex Nerves [X]}

Utility:

T1 {Lodenstone of Chance [X], Well of Fortune [X], Unnatural Endurance [X], Unnatural Speed [X], Unnatural Flexibility [X], Unnatural Awareness [X], Unnatural Leap [X], Unnatural Grip [X], Eyes of Inspection [X], Necrotic Saliva [I]} T2 {Aura of Misfortune [X]} T3 {Luck of the Draw I [X]} T4 {Luck Would Have It I [II] (0 / 3200)}

Talents: Touch of a Gambler, Mark of Fortune, Gift of the Leprechaun

Skill Points Available: 0

My stats didn’t change. My charisma went down, but nothing else changed. Wait… the system only really shows whole numbers in the stats column and it uses those whole numbers for the numbers in the effect column. So… the five and two percent increase are too small to actually change anything. At least with my pitiful stats. Jason sat down on his haunches and started drawing circles with his claws. Damn it. He whined in his mind. Whatever. It just means I’ll have to invest more there in the future. OH! Speaking of which I have stat points left.

Jason was about to push all ten into Vigor bringing it up to the desired fifty but he stopped himself. If I do that I maybe won’t get ten next round. My luck stat isn’t that high after all. So maybe I should just… push it all into luck again? Yea that sounds like a good idea… alright I guess. A little disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to increase his combat abilities Jason pushed all ten points into Luck which increased his natural luck and good fortune to 748% and 74% respectively with his actual luck and good fortune at 1,720% and 172% respectively.

This means that for Luck of the Draw I there’s a 124% chance I get another skill point and for Luck Would Have It I there’s a 22.5% chance. That doesn’t seem right… ah! I forgot the Leprechaun. There’s a 142.5% chance for Luck of the Draw I and for Luck Would Have It I there’s a 27% chance. Not great but much better than the first chance. I might actually get ten next level as well.

Ok well with that taken care of maybe I should test my two new abilities. Hehehehehehe. Giggling to himself like a child Jason stood in the large room and aimed at the wall. Readying himself he activated the Breath of the Damned.

He felt a furious and rabid energy rush out of his muscles and towards his mouth. The feeling didn’t exactly feel like stamina; it felt more… primal. The energy felt as if it was a hundred wild beasts rushing through his body in a stampede. In the front of his mouth the beasts all rushed together and created a clump of feral energy which after half a second exploded outward in a cone. Jason stood there and watched the fire that burnt his body black and the skeletons that dragged him to that fate. He felt the energy continuously seep from his muscles and charge forward into the breath attack. It seems as though this is a channeling ability. I can keep it active as long as I have essence. Jason canceled the ability by simply closing his mouth and tried using his will to shove some energy strands back into his muscles.

It felt like he was trying to reign in all those beasts using dog leashes. He also noticed that the energy that he wasn’t controlling was just naturally going back to his muscles. So he stopped trying to control the energy strands that he had grasped a hold of. They too just went back to his muscles. Jason’s first idea had been to try out both breath attacks, but he changed that once he felt his essence. I guess my energy isn’t in my inner world or anything like that. It’s in my muscles. That actually makes sense as it’s determined by Fortitude. Although that doesn’t make sense. According to Selene mana and the soul are almost interchangeable. So wouldn’t that mean my soul and my body are the same? Well Selene also got the wrong information about the breakthroughs so maybe I shouldn’t just trust her on everything.

As Jason contemplated whether to treat Selene as all knowing he was also trying to find where exactly the energy was in his muscles. He focused his mind on his right bicep and tried to find the essence within. He at first couldn’t feel anything. Not even stamina. Although to Jason that made sense as he had only ever taken stamina for lactic acid buildup. Improving Endurance simply raised the lactic acid buildup threshold and improving Vigor increased the speed at which the buildup disappeared. It took Jason a few minutes of just sitting on his haunches completely still to feel his essence.

His essence felt to him exactly like what it represented. It was something wild. It felt like a beast that had been chained up and made docile for centuries only to finally be free of its imprisonment. It was excited and wanted to cause wanton destruction wherever it went in its joy. It was the purest feeling he had ever felt. It was pure ferality. It was beastial, but at the same time it was even more crazy than that, more destructive than that. It was a beastial attribute that was so drunk on its freedom that it went insane. Yea controlling this is impossible. I can probably only stimulate it and calm it down. Nothing more right now. Maybe in the future, but right now… no.

Jason in his ‘wisdom’ did something that no person in their right mind would do. He gave up on controlling his essence. It can do what it wants. I’ll just stimulate it if I need to. Jason doubted he could even stimulate it if he didn’t need to outside of skills. Jason felt like his essence was a beast and if he knew anything about beasts is that they would only go all out during a fight. They wouldn’t waste energy when they didn’t need to. After all that was a quick way to be weakened during a time when they actually needed that energy and subsequently eaten.

So instead of doing that Jason tried out his Breath of Corrosion on a different wall and nodded in satisfaction when he managed to melt half a foot of the wall after he completely drained his essence supply. Not as good as the actual death dog’s breath, but this is just the beginning. I’m happy with this much right now. Jason was still in his hybrid form and he decided that he would always be in his hybrid form until his friends woke up. He was sure that while they might be surprised by his appearance as long as he was sleeping next to Little Cub they wouldn’t attack him outright.

Jason didn’t know this, but he was dead wrong about this. Both Caleb and Selene would’ve attacked and probably killed him outright if they had seen him sleeping in the boss room. They would’ve realized soon after that it was a mistake, but the deed would’ve already been done. Luckily though Jason was completely awake when the two of them broke through. An entire month later.

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New Skills:

Breath of Corrosion [Rank equal to Transformation rank] Unleash a breath of darkness which will corrode anything it touches at a rate of 15 hp / second (or 30 hp / second) If it’s a structure the rate it corrodes will be dependent on the material Increases its corrosion rate by 15 hp / second (or 30 hp / second) per rank Costs 10 Essence of Ferality initially and 2 Essence of Ferality every second thereafter The damage values in the () are the values for if the user is in full death-dog form and the damage values outside of the () are the values if the user is in hybrid form Breath of the Damned [Rank equal to Transformation rank] Unleash a breath of fire with skeletal apparitions within that does damage at a rate of 15 hp / second (or 30 hp / second) Increases its damage rate by 15 hp / second (or 30 hp / second) per rank Cost 10 Essence of Ferality initially and 2 Essence of Ferality every second thereafter The damage values in the () are the values for if the user is in full death-dog form and the damage values outside of the () are the values if the user is in hybrid form Necrotic Saliva [Rank equal to Transformation rank] The saliva of the user will kill any living thing it comes into contact with The time it takes until complete death is determined by the rank of the skill, level of the user, level of the victim, and Endurance of the victim along with any skills on either side that boost or reduce necrotic damage or any other related damage type Base time of death if the victim had the exact same attributes as the user is 1 day