[Shapeshifter] Chapter 23: Newfound Power (Patreon)

[Evolution to Chaos Slime (Rare Variant) is complete]

Xen awoke to a golden system message overlaying a white skull. Some of the letters got lost within its hollow eye sockets, and as Xen tilted his head down slightly, the words moved to the skull's teeth.

Wait... Xen's mind slowly kicked into gear. How can I be looking at myself? Hold on, I made my bones black, not white.

A confused groan came from the skull a mere inch from his face.

"Holy Smite," Xen said, and the undead looked down just in time to see the golden mana arcing between his skeletal fingers before it shot upwards and obliterated its head. The now headless undead folded backward due to the spell's force and collapsed into the black sand.

A horde of undead in the distance slowly turned to look at him. Compared to the undead roaming the upper floor, these had better weapons. The swords weren't as cracked or dented; the shields had rings of metal to reinforce them, and he saw a few with crossbows already loaded with arrows.

"Maybe this wasn't the best spot to evolve," Xen muttered as he stood up under the gazes of his many foes. The magic-resistant cloak he had stolen from the skeletal mage fluttered around him in the wind, and the boots he had looted from Geralds's corpse were filled with sand.

The undead began to shuffle through the darkness toward him, and the ones holding ranged weapons raised them and took aim.

Xen responded in kind by raising both his skeletal arms. His cloak sleeves slid down his arms, revealing his black bones. "Holy Smite," Xen said gruffly as he fanned out his fingers and directed a considerable amount to the spell. Golden mana crackled between all of his fingers before he released the spell. The darkness of the black desert was replaced with a blinding light and a thunderclap, and many streaks of golden lightning sprawled through the air and targeted the incoming undead.

The undead tried to raise their shields to block, but it was hopeless. The once-weak spell that delivered nothing but a spark blasted the shields out of the undead's weak grip and purified their bones to dust.

You have killed a large group of enemies

Experience split between [Chaos Slime] and [Undead Mage] form.

[Undead Mage] has leveled up: 6 -> 7.

Xen lowered his arms to his side as he surveyed the destruction. A pile of weapons, some bones, and ashen sand was all that remained of the undead legion.

"Was I always this powerful?" Xen wondered while crouching down and devouring what was left of them, "Oh wait, I evolved, didn't I?"

[Devour Complete]

You gained 390 biomass.

"Mhm, no new skills from this batch. Must have been weaklings." Xen waved away the system message and stood up. He scanned the area with Mystic Perception and couldn't feel anyone else coming, so picking a random direction, he began walking while summoning his status screens to figure out what the hell had caused such a sharp increase in power.

[Name: Xen]

[Level: 10 (D)]

[Race: Chaos Slime (Rare Variant)]

[Titles: Herald of Chaos] 

[Sponsors: Anarkhos, the Demon of Chaos] 

[Current Form: Undead Mage (Level 7)]

[Biomass: 1311]

He was now D grade, and his race had evolved from Mind Slime to Chaos Slime.

"Looks like the system has acknowledged my contract with Anarkhos, but that shouldn't have resulted in such an explosive increase in power. As far as I remember, the title Herald of Chaos he gave me only affects my mana pool and alters my skills once it's drained and replaced with chaos," Xen checked to see if his stats had changed, and that is where he found his answer.

[Class: Shapeshifter (Unique)]

[Strength: 10 (+14)]

[Vitality: 10 (+7)]

[Agility: 10 (+14)]

[Resistance: 20 (+14)]

[Magic: 30 (+84)]

After killing that white-robed woman who had been with the knight, he doubled the level of his undead form to level 6, and now, after slaughtering the horde, he was at level 7, giving him +84 in magic. However, that wasn't all.

"Why does it say my slime form gives me 30 in magic when it gave 10 before?"

Chaos Slime: Level 10 (D)

+1 Strength, +1 Vitality, +1 Agility, +2 Resistance, +3 Magic per level

< [Devour (S)] - [Appraisal (C)] - [Mystic Perception (C)] - [Shapeshift (E)] >

"The number of stats per level for magic tripled with my evolution." Xen couldn't believe it. After a single kill and evolution, he had over a hundred stats in magic. "Holy Smite is an F-grade skill, yet when used against opponents that it's super effective against, combined with my now really high magical stat, it can produce such a devastating effect despite its low grade."

Xen concluded that while grades of skills mattered. If used correctly, even F-grade skills had their purpose. With that in mind, he brought up his free skill slots, as he still had one empty.

Free Skill Slots:

• [Devour (S)]

• [Multilingual (B)]

• [Appraisal (C)]

• [Mystic Perception (C)]

• [Shapeshift (E)]

• [Holy Smite (F)]

• [Blood Scent (F)]

• EMPTY

The skills he had available to choose from were [Buff of the Berserker (C)], [Pack Call (E)], [Predatory Strike (E)], [Immunity to Poison (A)] and [Corruption Missile (B)].

"I don't have the ability to control the undead, nor do I have any allies after Gerald died to use [Buff of the Berserker (C)], so that will remain as a human form skill for now. [Pack Call (E)] serves little purpose on a floor without any wolves, and [Predatory Strike (E)] would be illogical to take in my current form as this body is terrible at close combat due to its miserably low stats in anything but magic. However, I plan to stay in my undead form until it evolves for now, so I already have access to [Immunity to Poison (A)] and [Corruption Missile (B)]."

As much as taking [Predatory Strike (E)] didn't match the Undead Mage's fighting style, there could be a tense situation where he gets attacked by something before he has a chance to cast a spell, and in that case, [Predatory Strike (E)] could be the skill that saved him.

"Darn, this is harder than I thought to decide," Xen mused as he crested over a black sand dune. He was half distracted as he flicked through the system screens. "It costs mana to switch out and add skills to this list, and with the threat of chaos overtaking me when I expend mana, this has become a more serious decision."

Xen eventually decided to go with [Corruption Missile (B)] for his last empty free skill slot for the sole reason that it was his strongest fighting skill as of now, so he wanted to have access to it if he was forced to switch to his wolf form to run from something.

Dismissing the screens, he returned his focus to the second floor of the Shibuya dungeon. As the human had complained about earlier, it was infested with undead, which made it the perfect place for him to locate an undead variant before he reached the level ten threshold.

His blazing eyes scanned the landscape and soon settled on one of the white stone crypts jutting from the charcoal sand. With the newfound power at his fingertips, he felt relatively confident in wiping out the monsters of this floor.

"All that's left to do is harvest as many undead-related skills as possible from them while hunting for a variant," Xen clenched his skeletal hand. He wouldn't make the same mistake twice.