Fenrir

We both just stare at the status screen floating in our vision for several silent seconds before I eventually focus on the new menu, which immediately has my mind entering the same area that it goes for my monster pattern designing. But instead of a monster there, it looks to be a pattern of Fenrir.

AVATAR SYSTEM

PLEASE ADJUST YOUR AVATAR AS NECE-

ERROR. USER DOES NOT HAVE ENOUGH POWER TO FORM AN AVATAR.

SEARCHING FOR A SOLUTION…

SOLUTION FOUND.

POWERFUL CRYSTAL CORE DETECTED WITHIN USER’S CORE WILL NOW SUPLEMENT THE ENERGY NEEDED TO MANIFEST USER’S AVATAR.

PLEASE ADJUST YOUR AVATAR AS NECESSARY.

I stare at the message box for several seconds before realizing that Dawn isn’t here.

Then again, Dawn was never able to join me when I was designing a pattern. She was only able to talk to me.

Guess it was more that she couldn’t do it, not that she didn’t want to?

Anyways…

I focus on the design of Fenrir in front of me. It is that of a three-meter-long wolf with pitch black eyes letting out an ethereal glow, equally black claws, and fur billowing in the nonexistent wind that glows with a faint black glow makes me – a dungeon core of the void element – feel as if I’ll be sucked in just from looking at it too long.

What catches my attention even more than the black fur though is something I couldn’t see before, the last time I saw him. It’s several very thin streaks of scarlet running through the fur as if it were moving. Incredibly dark scarlet.

Kind of like coagulated blood.

Why does a creature of the void have red in its fur? And why couldn’t I see it when I was last with him?

I study the pattern from every angle for several minutes before eventually looking at the abilities it has and realizing that it doesn’t actually have abilities. It’s just like me instead. Able to directly manipulate void energy.

Meaning that I won’t just get some powerful ability from having the same pattern as him. And since someone’s power isn’t linked directly to their body, and is instead from their cultivation, I won’t get his physical strength either.

After studying the pattern for a bit longer, I finally confirm for the System that this is what I want as an avatar.

Then everything goes dark for the first time in my life.

But right before that, I barely manage to read one last notification.

AVATAR SYSTEM

AVATAR PATTERN HAS BEEN CREATED.

LINKING THE AVATAR TO THE DUNGEON CORE…

SUCCESSFUL.

THE PROCESS OF SPLITTING THE CORE’S CONSCIOUSNESS WILL NOW COMMENCE.

Fenrir

Two days later

The first thing I notice when my consciousness returns is how everything feels… different. I blink my eyes for a few seconds, letting them adjust to being open for the first time.

Only to realize that I have eyes.

I try to jump to my feet, only to trip over myself and end up falling on my belly. And only then do I remember that I had just finished my avatar.

“Fenrir! You’re awake!!!” I hear Dawn practically scream before something flies into my side without much effect. “It’s been two whole days you idiot!”

When I turn my head to look at her, I find her making sobbing sounds with little droplets of flame dripping out of her wisp body.

Is she… crying? I didn’t even realize that was possible.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I tell her, only for my eyes to widen in surprise as I actually hear my voice. Not just through telepathy.

I look down my snout to find my snout open with a faint black haze escaping through it. So I snap it shut with a clacking sound of my fangs hitting together.

This… might take some getting used to.

I turn to look at Dawn again, only to find her having regained her composure already as she says, “Good. How does it feel to have a physical body?”

My ear twitches lightly at that and I turn back over onto my stomach before trying to get up again. But just like the first time, I fail rather miserably.

“It’ll take some getting used to,” I answer her, my mouth opening and somehow my words resonating throughout the area without telepathy or coming from my mouth itself. “A lot of getting used to.”

Also, my voice sounds rather sinister. I wonder if that has something to do with my being of the void element?

“Putting aside the matter of my new body for the moment,” I tell Dawn, changing the subject as I turn my head to look at my core which is floating next to me. “How do I control my dungeon fro-” I cut off as I feel my consciousness link with my core. “Oh.”

Dawn bobs up and down at that and explains, “Yep! You can feel it, right? The System split off a tiny portion of your consciousness and kept it in your core, so you can either switch between main consciousness whenever you want, or you could just simply give orders to the minor consciousness in your core to have it do something.”

Interesting. And I can tell just by feeling the consciousness that if I swapped the main consciousness then I would be back in my core, and the avatar I’m in would basically just be like another monster. Just one with intelligence that can’t speak.

Also…

I close my eyes, and suddenly I am able to see the entirety of my dungeon as if I were still in my core. But I can’t directly control anything right now. At least, not very well.

It looks like my control of the void element needs to be trained a little in this form, unlike in my core where I have perfect control of it.

Okay. I can definitely work with this.

“What happens when my avatar dies though?” I ask out of curiosity to Dawn, who just looks at me and says, “You will go unconscious for a time if your main consciousness is currently in it. Until your core finishes respawning your avatar.”

That’s not bad then.

Now I just need to work on practicing moving while in this form. Which might take a while.