“I choose Auric spiritual Ice-cream!” With 2 seconds remaining on the clock, he just barely picked a bloodline in time.

With his choice spoken, the Nexus did not wait to compress his body further and further into a tight ball. As the wafer scales formed a tough egg once more, it was time for the process to begin… And he still wasn’t prepared for the sensations.

It just kept getting worse!

The stream of nausea just kept on coming, throwing him about the egg without end and making the metamorphosis so much harder than it had to be. But that didn’t at all compare to the suffocating pressure that was in his body, like every individual cell became squeezed between two powerful pistons. The compression choked him, and for several moments, his incoherent form grew breathless.

Fortunately, it passed after a few seconds, allowing the feeling of breathing to return right after. Air might not be necessary during an evolution, but that doesn’t mean the mind can suddenly stop breathing and think everything is alright.

The nausea couldn’t have been easier after that crushing pressure, and he waited out the last bits of the evolution in a light sickness but little more. And then another hard part began.

Touching the shell, its stretchiness clearly increased since his last evolution. Before trying anything obvious, he had a small thought.

If he limited Pronounced telekinesis to just a small knife, he should be able to cut through the shell with ease. It was an excellent test to see if evolution increased his mental defences, not to mention a test of precision and power using this psychic spell.

Casting it took a few tries, being 23 words long is evident of that, but the resultant mana reaction showed this was a whole different matter. Not just in a rapid consumption of mana, but the range of use grew too large, and far too fast. If anything knocked him out, it would be this part…

Before it reached the limit, he picked up a nearby knife used for cooking and first tried smashing the shell with its blunt side. The wafer scales simply bounced back and forth, absorbing the force while retaining their full durability.

The spell began wearing down on him, just not enough to impact his movements. As for range, he could freely control anything in a twenty-metre range, more than sufficient in normal combat. It did come with the caveat of requiring some way to ‘see’ the items though, which his mana sense performed quite aptly.

Flipping the blade over, he gently ran it along the top of the egg, realising it needed a lot more strength than just cutting. With careful positioning, he placed the very top of the knife against his shell and pushed. A single forceful thrust got through easily.

But he could feel the blade’s back touching him, and gently pulling it away, he got to work cutting the shell. Although, not doing much, since the pressure doubled in the last second with no warning. He pulled out the knife and suddenly collapsed.

Just moments too slow to cut out the spell himself.

Breaking through the shell was never really a problem, he wanted to test out the usability of Pronounced telekinesis. While effective for a while, his mind clearly couldn’t utilise it once the spell completely expanded, it indicated that some mental training was a high necessity.

Obviously, if he picked the other bloodline this wouldn’t have been a problem. But why cry over spilt milk? That saying really only made sense to humans, as he soon realised. But now unconscious, he really couldn’t do anything until coming to again. And far off the mountain, even beyond the borders of Remelo, matters in a large palace reached criticality.

* * *

“How could you take such a risk with my daughter! Of all the times, that was not acceptable!”

The bald headed man he spoke to turned away from a strange crystal in his hand to say, “But she’s fine, and she had a great time!” Although he knew that sort of argument never once worked on his brother of all people.

“Not when master tier beasts turn up five minutes after you leave! And you’re lucky that demigod felt merciful, if mother was still around-”

“I know, she’d have me caned by every other servant. You think I forgot those beatings? I got blind-sided by finally finding it… Can you blame me?” The room’s atmosphere took a strange turn, neither side being mad or happy with the other, instead simply revealing the desperation on the bald man’s face.

“Is it real? Will you reach it soon?” The other man, previously oozing with distress over his daughter’s situation, even if she was rather safe all things considered, felt his throat dry out.

The bald man threw over the crystal, allowing his brother to take a look at what just days of research gathered. The small hexagonal prism was unpolished and even grey at some points, but the purple innards entrapped a small golden line.

If one possessed amazing eyesight, like the two, they’d notice the line being a set of characters, however not a single letter remained constant. Instead switching symbols without any warning… And for some reason, even seemed to transform into different languages entirely.

“Don’t worry, the empire will soon stand at the top, as it has deserved for centuries.” Pulling the strange, purple crystal back, the line of golden characters pushed away from the bald man in an action so minute it was near-impossible to see.

As though they feared him.

* * *

A few hours after knocking himself out, he remembered his position. Still inside this wafer egg… At least nothing ached from the uncomfortable position.

With a hole in the shell, it only took a bit of manoeuvring to create a large crack and break free. Moments after completely unravelling, a new set of wafer scales formed, although he felt a strange, new attachment to these ones.

While still delicate on an individual level, and sporting their light brown appearance of wafers… each scale seemed linked together by an impressive web of mana and some other sort of power. Going by the bloodline’s name, this had to be some sort of condensed aura.

In fact, seeing aura in anything besides formless pressure is rather rare. It’s generally fiddly to make use of, which is why even the Sage only used it to suppress and scare everything nearby rather than directly attack them.

This web of aura wasn’t actually tied to his scales though, he found it… asleep. Like a baby still needing his protection, he would have to nurture and direct its growth before forming the auric spirit. Its spirit’s potential couldn’t be any lower than his, especially as his future evolutions allowed him to augment it in certain ways.

As for that innate ability he received, its effects were not beyond expectation.

[Auric imbuement: Your aura may be modified with mana to attach it onto body parts. As well as being used to help develop and grow the Auric spirit, it may be used for general defence and offence. As aura takes on elements associated with your mind, it cannot be attached to things of the opposing element]

The ability to attach it into other things naturally enticed him, from the implication he’d be able to empower spells though it! And obviously it was the primary way of feeding the spirit, why else would the bloodline include it?

While he would have liked to get stuck into it straight away, that hope didn’t last long as the reverberating cries and roars echoed through his home. Considering his depth underground, no normal creature could possibly do this…

Unless those beasts returned.

He left his home, using Instant shift to leave and avoid leaving an entrance open, and only had to look out to the sky for the sight of several large wingspans flying towards the mountain. They appeared to be communicating something as further sounds came out, but what he more so noticed were the smaller creatures following right behind each one.

One big, one small.

And as they flew closer, those hidden by mountains or snow became visible… revealing at least 10 such pairs already. And without even landing, they hovered over points on the mountain range.

Some final words were said, and the 10 smaller beasts dropped down. It only took a few minutes until the larger ones all began flying away, but he didn’t feel safe in any way after seeing this. One of them dropped near the node tree, and he’d rather avoid being found by whatever beast it was.

An Instant shift teleported him back inside and he began to wonder what was even going on.

Was this some test on their young to see if they could dominate the mountain, or perhaps they already divided land amongst themselves and simply sent some promising blood to control each territory.

No matter what, things wouldn’t be getting any easier from here on. And he welcomed them to try and take him down; survival hadn’t exactly been any easier.

Today, the War of Beasts began!