This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL

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After walking back home I immediately went to the laboratory, took a few flying squirrels and broke their necks. I took the list given to me by sister and began analyzing it carefully. I had EXP-DNA that wasn't needed for my godly rank up so I could use it as I liked.

I hadn't lost all my skills since I still had my poison immunity which intrigued me but I quickly understood that it was because they had only erased my EXP-DNA which included my mana affinities, body and skills gained via these rank ups. The skills gained outside the rank ups hadn't been touched.

I also compiled all the necessary DNA for my godly rank up and concluded that I could immediately regain some of my lost skills. I still didn't know if I would have to re-grind the mastery of each of them but there was nothing I could do about it now.

Then I pulled out the egg Lucy gave me and placed it on the table in front of me. It was a blue egg with pink dots all over. How do I make this thing hatch now? I looked at it for a while, turning it left and right, even knocking on it.

Then I decided to pour some mana into it and as soon as I did so, the egg began to crack. My baby was finally hatching yayy! ..... When the egg finally opened in half what got out of it wasn't cute at all. It was a ball of fleshy gore with an eye and some hairs, feathers, scales and other gross things.

It didn't even look like anything and was most like a big ball of DNA. Grossed out I backed away as if this thing was some kind of sickness. Looking at it was definitely sickening. Not wasting any time I began punching it.

[table=#800000]

Unarmed Mastery rank up! (D)

[/table]

A few punches later the thing finally died but didn't give me any EXP. Anxious to know if it had worked as it should I proceeded by making a list of the skills I could activate and immediately went back into the chimera forge interface.

“Missed me already nee nee? Hihihi*” (Lucy)

“Errr... Yea sure... I came to activate all the skills not using DNA necessary for the next rank up. Can you activate them for me please?!” (Kneeko)

“Sure can do! So the skills using unnecessary DNA are: Obscuro Poison, Viper Neurotoxin, Deadly Breath, Gardener touch, Poison Spit, TerrorEyes, Vines Hell, and Viper Bite. Want to reactivate all your lost affinities as well? This won't take anything from your next rank up anyway...” (Lucy)

“Please do! It's annoying not being able to use arcane magic anymore.” (Kneeko) She silently nodded before moving her fingers all over the place, visibly browsing the system interface.

“There you go! Anything else?” (Lucy)

“Yea do I have any unnecessary DNA I could use to put some wings on my tadpole body ?” (Kneeko)

“Uhh sorry you don't have enough... GO and kill a few hundred birds and that should do...” (Lucy)

“Noted. Ho! Can you put the skills I had lost at their previous mastery? I grinded so fucking much to get them where they are I'd be pissed to do it all again...” (Kneeko)

“Already did! Hihihi* Want me to put them all at mastery (S) ?” (Lucy)

[...]

“Nha... That would ruin the fun and the hard work I did since the beginning.. Ho! Well maybe just one... Can you put [Gardener touch] to rank S please? Guhuhuhu*” (Kneeko)

“Done! Anything else?” (Lucy)

“Nha I think that's all for now. Thank you sis.” (Kneeko)

“Hihihi* See ya ni-chan! Come as often as you like alright?” (Lucy)

I then left the chimera forge interface and regained consciousness in my lab where I had left. Immediately wanting to confirm I brought out my status window.

[table=#800000]PROFILENAME:KneekoLEVEL:275GENDER:MaleMONEY:58433G 72S 55CRACE:(Chimeric) Newt "Tadpole" (Common)MONSTER RANK:LowHEALTH:7160STAMINA:6090MANA:11650STRENGTH:1758 (+550)(M)INTELLIGENCE:550 (+600)SPEED:1472 (+150)DEXTERITY:73 (+150)(H)VITALITY:1 (+700)CHARM:1 (+415)LUCK:55 (+215)AGILITY:368 (+150)RESISTANCE:224 (+700)(S)ENDURANCE:94 (+500)SKILL POINTS:0FAME/INFAMY:0 (Neutral)CLASS:-------------------TITLES:Spoiler : ☑ Death's Demise

☑ Divinity

☑ Don Juan

☑ Dungeon conqueror

☑ Elemental Master

☐ Grave Digger

☑ King of the pond

☑ Sphinx Slayer

☐ Stone turner

☑ Toxic Powerhouse

☐ Tree puncher

☑ Tycoon

☑ Vindictae Clan MemberPASSIVE SKILLS:Spoiler : Amphibious (-)

Blunt Weapon Mastery (E)

Dual Weapon Mastery (D)

Intimidating Aura (On)

Obscuro Poison (B)

Poison Immunity (-)

Unarmed Mastery (D)

Viper Neurotoxin (A)ACTIVE SKILLS:Spoiler : Deadly Breath ©

Gardener touch (S)

Humanoid shift (-)

ID Hide (-)

Luminar (E)

Poison Spit (D)

Sad puppy eyes (B)

Tail Whip (B)

TerrorEyes (B)

Vindic Flames (B)

Vindic Wave (B)

Vines Hell ©

Viper Bite ©ARCANE LIBRARY:Spoiler : Arcane ClayBolt

Arcane EarthBolt

Arcane LightningBolt

Arcane MagmaBolt

Arcane FireBolt

Arcane FrostBolt

Arcane WaterBolt

Arcane WindBolt

Arcane Gatling

Immovable MountainCHIMERA FORGE[/table]

Guhuhu....HUhuHuHUhuhUhuh* PURRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrFect! Haaaaa *long sigh* I feel so damn better now. I quickly need to go out grocery shopping now. Then I noticed my money. Woaaa... Looks like some of the auctions are over. After putting some of my monetarily valuable treasures up for auction a week back I was now loaded with cash.

Ready to move I woke up the hungover Vindictae members for an urgent meeting. In fact, only one of the people present wasn't from the clan. This person was the stoic PorkFace who had ranked up during yesterday's hunt. It was obvious who was forming him since he had ranked up to something very similar to PigFace and now was a 'Butler Half-Lord'.

Even if he had ranked up I couldn't bring him since he wasn't a Vindictae clan member and couldn't take human shape. You can imagine the immediate chaos if I brought a monster with us. Back when we did the ceremony he was still a hobgoblin and there was also no way I would allow a simple hobgoblin to undergo our clan ceremony.

During the emergency meeting I ordered Anastaria to select the most promising hobgoblins and teach them with Irya at our little school, hoping to make them rank up into spell casters. Since I was leaving the Phenacite Mana Stone here I gave my medium ring of holding to Anastaria in case something happened.

If our hideout was to be found I told her to gather all our treasures into this ring, destroy the cave and bury our clan ceremony circle under the rubble before running away. We couldn't afford to let anyone steal our treasures from us. I was leaving the phenacite stone here for them to fill back up during my absence and get the help of all the future spell casting hobgoblins to do so.

Anastaria was sniffing and looking at me with a curious expression as if she knew I wasn't a dranix anymore. I gave her a look that meant don't worry about it and she immediately did. Next I gave each member of the Vindictae a small mana stone that I had filled with my mana and linked it to a magic compass. That way I would always be able to find them wherever they are.

They could attach these stones to rings, necklaces or even earrings. I had a legendary item able to do the same thing and even teleport the person back to me if their life were to be endangered but I had already given this treasure to someone else.

“That's all I had to say for today's meeting. Nargaroth and Mendy will be coming with me to get some supplies from the neighbouring elven land. We will depart in a few hours so get ready!” (Kneeko)

“Uhh? Can't I come?” (Irya)

“I need you here to teach the new hobgoblins students and I also need you to do something for me.” (Kneeko)

I pulled out my invaluable demon armour, pitch black with menacing spikes all over and gave it to her. Seeing this treasure Irya's eyes went so big I thought her eyeballs would pop out.

“I want you to see if you can remove the race restriction on this. If you can't, see what you can do to allow me to wear it.” (Kneeko)

“Where did y-... Alright, I'll see what I can do.” (Irya) She said with excitement in her voice. Of course she was exited to get to work on such a unique treasure.

“Asta, mind coming with me outside for a sec please?!” (Kneeko)

“Of course, lead the way.” (Anastaria)

“Is it related to your change of smell?“ (Anastaria)

She discretely asked in her mind. I answered by slightly nodding and made my way out of the cave with her following close behind. Once outside we walked a bit until we were in a private area.

“I will go on a quest to become more powerful than ever, but as of now I had to regress to make it possible. So I will need a proper body to fight with and a dragon's body would be the best. I never used Identify on you before out of respect but may I identify you while in your dragon form?” (Kneeko)

She looked at me with a surprised expression. She must had assumed I had already used identify on her out of curiosity so she showed me a warm smile, happy with my delicateness.

“Of course honey, you can identify me all you want.” (Anastaria) She then answered in a tone that seemed more sexual than formal. She then transformed into her majestic red dragon form, casting a giant shadow all around us. [Identify]

[table=#800000]Anastaria (NPC)Race/Species:Dragon EcarlateLevel:712Class:----Title:-Mother of Dragon

-Millennial

-Divine Mistress

»Show more«[/table]

Only-... Dragon Ecarlate? Ain't that poetic french for red? Never heard of that subspecies before but level 712? Really? Holy crap indeed... No wonder she fucked up that octopus thingy and fought for so long alone against those 4 dragons. Title “Divine mistress” ?

“Say, the title Divine mistress when did you get that?” (Kneeko) She immediately began to blush.

“That time when you came into my room. Brrrr* I still have goosebumps at how surreal it was.” (Anastaria)

Now that I think about it, it was mostly due to my “Divinity” title that I had surprisingly kept after my rank down. So titles weren't related to EXP-DNA after all. Now that I had identified her dragon body I immediately added the dragon form to my ring by overwriting my owl form.

[table=#800000]Morph RingMinimum level:N/ADurability:100/100Rank:SSRarity:Extremely RareAllows the wearer to quickly shape-shift between 5 pre-programmed species/races. You can only use species/races you have encountered and identified before.

Note that you won't get the species'/races' abilities but only their appearances, and people will be able to see what is your true species/race with the identify command.

[/table]

Perfect! I walked up to Asta who had regained her human appearance and I gave her a gentle kiss.

“I will be gone for a little while but I promise to come back soon with supplies for our army. I will need to leave again to get what I need to become a powerful monster again but one thing at a time. I will miss you babe.” (Kneeko)

“I will always wait for you, no matter how long it takes.“ (Anastaria)

She gave me a strong hug then we walked back together to the cave where our minions had gathered. I made a small speech to them and ordered them to obey Asta and Irya as if they were me which they immediately agreed with. It's not like they could mess with Asta anyway at her level.

Mendy and Nargaroth had their cheap leather backpacks and seemed ready to travel so I bid farewell to my dragonesses and little sister before leaving for my secret tunnel. After walking for a few minutes we finally arrived at a stone wall.

“Uhh? Thought tunnel here...” (Nargaroth)

“Guhuhuhu* It is here. Follow me.” (Kneeko)

I nonchalantly walked right through the stone as if I was a ghost of something. This was a simple illusion that I had created using an arcane circle fuelled by a mana stone buried under it. These circles were not using a lot of mana so these stones should be able to fuel the illusion for a few years.

I say “these” since I had placed another one on the other side of the tunnel. The exits were well hidden and probably wouldn't have needed all these precautions but better safe than sorry. The 5 kilometres long tunnel was filled with poison and traps of all kinds just in case.

After a short while we finally emerged on the other side of the tunnel. The scenery all around us was that of a beautifully dense and healthy forest. The 3 of us were pumped and ready for adventure.

“Elven lands... Guhuhuhu* I heard you were beautiful. Let's create some chaos in this beautiful paradise shall we? GUhWahahHahHAhAhaha!*” (Kneeko)

“KhuAhAhahahahah Can't wait... good looking women. KuahahaAHha!” (Nargaroth)

“............................. Hungry.” (Mendy)

+++

STATUS

[table=#800000]PROFILENAME:KneekoLEVEL:275GENDER:MaleMONEY:58433G 72S 55CRACE:(Chimeric) Newt "Tadpole" (Common)MONSTER RANK:LowHEALTH:7160STAMINA:6090MANA:11650STRENGTH:1758 (+550)(M)INTELLIGENCE:550 (+600)SPEED:1472 (+150)DEXTERITY:73 (+150)(H)VITALITY:1 (+700)CHARM:1 (+415)LUCK:55 (+215)AGILITY:368 (+150)RESISTANCE:224 (+700)(S)ENDURANCE:94 (+500)SKILL POINTS:0FAME/INFAMY:0 (Neutral)CLASS:-------------------TITLES:Spoiler : ☑ Death's Demise

☑ Divinity

☑ Don Juan

☑ Dungeon conqueror

☑ Elemental Master

☐ Grave Digger

☑ King of the pond

☑ Sphinx Slayer

☐ Stone turner

☑ Toxic Powerhouse

☐ Tree puncher

☑ Tycoon

☑ Vindictae Clan MemberPASSIVE SKILLS:Spoiler : Amphibious (-)

Dual Weapon Mastery (D)

Intimidating Aura (On)

Obscuro Poison (B)

Poison Immunity (-)

Unarmed Mastery (D)

Viper Neurotoxin (A)ACTIVE SKILLS:Spoiler : Deadly Breath ©

Gardener touch (S)

Humanoid shift (-)

ID Hide (-)

Luminar (E)

Poison Spit (D)

Sad puppy eyes (B)

Tail Whip (B)

TerrorEyes (B)

Vindic Flames (B)

Vindic Wave (B)

Vines Hell ©

Viper Bite ©ARCANE LIBRARY:Spoiler : Arcane ClayBolt

Arcane EarthBolt

Arcane LightningBolt

Arcane MagmaBolt

Arcane FireBolt

Arcane FrostBolt

Arcane WaterBolt

Arcane WindBolt

Arcane Gatling

Immovable MountainCHIMERA FORGE[/table]