“What’re you thinking?” Rissa stirred and twisted, facing towards Serenity instead of leaning against him.

“Did you have a nice nap?” Serenity smiled at Rissa. He couldn’t believe how lucky he was sometimes that she wanted to be with him. It wasn’t like he was actually able to give her much of his time anymore; instead, he was always pulling her away from whatever she’d have been doing otherwise.

Had she even spent any time with friends in the past few months? He should remember to push her to go spend time with … what was her name? Caroline? The one Rissa went to the movies with.

He at least got to spend time with the friends he’d made in the Tutorial. She didn’t have that benefit.

“I did,” Rissa frowned as she twisted and levered herself to a seated position next to Serenity instead of lying on top of his chest. “At least, until you started feeling worried. Then I started dreaming about a swamp. Why a swamp of all places?”

Serenity shook his head. “No idea.” He was pretty sure that he hadn’t been swamp-level worried.

“You were there, you weren’t alone but I think you were guiding even though you’d never been there … it’s gone.” Rissa shook her head as though trying to knock the memories loose. “Nope, it’s gone. Hopefully it wasn’t something important. Anyway, what were you thinking about?”

“I need a disguise. I mean, I need to be able to disguise myself as a normal Tutorial student for a whole Tutorial. Maybe several of them. So more than one disguise? And not as a melee person either, but as a mage; the Voice says that’s who’s being kidnapped. Mostly, at least. Only…” Serenity tapped one of his horns. They were there in human form, even if they weren’t very obvious. Serenity was pretty sure they were shorter and less obvious than they were in his chimera form, but they were still there.

“Hmm.” Rissa bit her lip while she thought. “I wonder. How much have you been working with your shapeshifting? Because that’s clearly from your shapeshifting. And I know you’ve managed to change how your armor looks.”

Serenity looked down at his armor-self. “I just look like modern body armor. I got tired of people wincing whenever my clothing got damaged.”

“That’s what I mean. You adjusted what it, ah, you look like. So you should be able to do the same for your human shape.” Rissa looked at what she could easily see of Serenity’s body. “I mean, you can turn into a dragon or a sword, why can’t you turn into a disguise?”

“I’ve always been able to adjust the armor. I can fit anyone, you, me, probably even Ita. And I just accommodate when I have wings. It just works. I have horns in my human form because I’m supposed to have horns, it just doesn’t feel right to shift without horns…” Serenity had tried more than once and it simply didn’t work.

“The way it should be? That sounds really specific. What makes it that way?” Rissa frowned, thinking.

Serenity thought for a moment. What pushed him that way? It shouldn’t be his Species; that was one of the things shapeshifting was for, to change species. It didn’t affect his armor or sword forms. He hadn’t shifted to Sterath in quite a while, but he didn’t remember horns in that form, either. “If I saw horns on a human, and I was sure they were actually human and not one of the near-human Species, I’d usually assume some kind of crossbreeding. Maybe an awakened bloodline.”

That was basically what people assumed of his chimera form, after all - that he was half-dragon and half-human. Both Katya and Aki had mentioned that assumption at some point. “It’s theoretically possible to suppress a bloodline, even an awakened bloodline, but it has the potential to be damaging.”

Rissa snorted. “You’re a shapeshifter! And a chimera at that. Surely there’s some way you can… I don’t know. Pretend to have a different heritage or something?”

“You can’t just fake-” Serenity stopped. Heritage. He’d had a section on his Status for heritages for months and still had no real idea what it was for. Unlike what he remembered from Vengeance, there was no section for his bloodline; instead, he had a note that Essence Dragon was one of his Primary Chimeric Heritages.

Come to think of it, what had been his bloodline the first time? It was hard to remember, but he thought it might have been Asura, then later Asura of Death. An excellent bloodline for a DeathKnight-turned-mage, it’d helped immensely with his chosen Affinity. Asura was a relatively rare bloodline, valuable both because it enhanced an Affinity (which was unusual and very useful) and because it wasn’t necessarily specialized; most bloodlines were. You could choose your Path more freely with the downside that you had to push it into your specialty yourself.

If that was his original bloodline, then Heritage probably did mean the same thing.

Where else had he seen Heritage pop up recently?

It took Serenity a moment to think of his new Path Skills. Once he did, he pulled them up and shared the relevant one with Rissa. “The description is pretty vague, which usually means it’s flexible. Maybe it’ll work?”

Level 100 - Realize Potential - Use Potential drawn through the Rift to temporarily gain something from your Heritage. Variable Cost.

Rissa read it, then leaned over and kissed Serenity. “Go for it! Give it a try.”

“I’m not level 100 yet,” Serenity objected. “I can fake it, but I don’t like doing that unless I have to.” There were costs. He’d paid them back on Tzintkra, but there was nothing since then that had been even close to worth the price.

“How far away are you? I know you can level quickly.” Rissa was correct; Serenity did seem to be leveling very quickly.

He knew that part of that was his access to the Tutorial; he’d spent literally decades worth of time in it, which made his leveling speed far more reasonable. It was fast, but not as insane as Tier Three in only five months. That was truly ridiculous.

Actually, Serenity thought there were other Earth humans who were outdoing him. There were quite a few that he’d consider true Tier Twos, including Rissa, and that was more impressive than his own gains. They didn’t have nearly two hundred Tutorials to train and practice; they’d done it with only a single three-month Tutorial (and the Voice’s help during that time) and five months on the outside. To be what he’d call a true Tier Two, they had to have completed at least four Paths; he’d only finished six.

Admittedly, his were generally harder since he also had to feed his Core, but he’d had decades more time to do it in. He needed to keep his head on straight; there was nothing to be proud of in his leveling. He had advantages others didn’t, that was all.

Not that that was unusual off Earth, either. Life was not fair.

Serenity shook himself and checked to see where he stood. “Level 73. Which really means I’m just past halfway; by one of the ways to count it, halfway is about level 71. It slows down a lot there, both because of the increased XP required to level and the increased difficulty of getting that XP.”

“Well, maybe you can go to the Tutorial and rush it? How does this path move up, anyway?”

Serenity grinned. Rissa had clearly been listening to him talking about how Paths worked; she’d even caught that this wasn’t primarily a combat Path.

He hadn’t really been paying much attention to how it leveled; it’d been doing just fine on its own, with his normal practice. He preferred to practice what he needed and only push Path levels when he had to; it led to a better-rounded set of capabilities.

This did seem like the right time to push.

Serenity glanced over the Path’s skill list and groaned. That explained why his levels seemed to pause whenever he went into a Tutorial. “It’s all about my Rift. Moving stuff, pulling stuff out. I haven’t really even played with the Summoning skill.” Serenity frowned. He didn’t have much experience with Summoning. Perhaps he could treat it like controlling undead?

“That’s definitely the unifying theme. Other than that, it’s an eclectic set; a storage skill, a summoning skill, a healing skill, or maybe that’s cleansing? And I’m not sure what to think of the Level 25 skill.” Had he even used it? He didn’t really think he had.

Rift Control

You may control the Potential that leaks from your Rift to the Origin as long as it is within your aura, including increasing or decreasing the amount that leaks.

“I can’t practice them in the Tutorial. Reaching into the Rift from the Tutorial is awful.” Awful was a mild way of putting it. Serenity actively avoided it, even though it meant he had to use his backpack to keep track of everything. “Not only does it knock me on my ass, it doesn’t even really work.”

Rissa swatted Serenity’s chest to scold him for his language. She didn’t even have to say anything; he knew what she meant. “Then can you train it up quickly outside?”

“I think so. The trick is going to be figuring out that Rift Control Skill, probably. And practicing the summoning one. Each one should give me some serious progress. And either will unlock the healing Skill; I should try it out, too. See if it will help Rube; I don’t have anyone else to try it on. Huh. I wonder if that’s why Rift Control is there, to give control that’s necessary for proper healing?” Not that Serenity would ever be any good at healing, but he could manage to flood an area with Affined mana.

He’d once had a Mana Control skill, come to think of it. Was this the same thing, just for another sort of energy?

For that matter, he was controlling mana without his Mana Control Skill, just as well as he ever had. Did that mean that a Control skill was like training wheels? He’d always worked to get better; had he stopped leaning on the Skill at some point and simply not realized it?

His Essence Control didn’t have a Skill either. Such a Skill had to exist, but Serenity was suddenly unsure if he wanted it. He was managing to control Essence already; not particularly well, but well enough that he knew he could improve with practice. Did he even need a Skill?

Rissa leaned over one more time and kissed Serenity. “Why don’t you head outside and give it a try? I know you have limited time.”

As Serenity headed out the door, he remembered what he’d meant to say to Rissa earlier. “Have you managed to spend any time with your friends since we got back? I don’t want to monopolize you.”

“I have a coffee date with Christine tomorrow afternoon, while her kids are at school. Don’t worry about me, I know how to entertain myself.” Rissa grinned and made a shooing gesture with her hands.

Christine! That was her name, not Caroline. Serenity was just glad he’d remembered it was a C name.

The next two weeks passed in a blur. Learning Rift Control seemed immensely difficult, but when Serenity compared it to actually learning Mana Control, he knew that he had it easy and fast. Two days to be able to ‘feel’ and move the Potential? Another day and a half to be able to thread it and shape it, pushing it where he wanted it? Insanely fast compared to Mana Control.

Serenity suspected that was because he already knew what he was doing. Potential didn’t move like mana or essence and wasn’t controlled like either, but there was still a lot of similarity. It was like it used the same part of his mind even though it felt very different. He knew that he was doing the equivalent of a baby flailing his limbs to move, but that was the first step. It was enough to push him well past gaining Revivify.