Emery uncorked the potion and drank the liquid in one gulp. The liquid was tasteless, it felt similar to colored water when it went through his throat.
After consuming the vial, he noticed the three people in the room staring at him in anticipation.
The awkward silence continued for several seconds, before Emery felt a slight tingle all around his body. The tingling was followed by a warmth radiating from his core. His body temperature kept increasing by the second, making Emery feel like someone shoved a hot coal into his insides.
The heat quickly became too much and his vision started to blur. Out of the corner of his sight, he saw the room darken even though nothing was happening. The darkness started to emit smoke and the smoke gathered together into one, forming an odd shape he could not identify. The only thing Emery managed to see was a pair of two large eyes glowing in greenish color staring at him.
The gaze of the mysterious creature evoked a huge pressure and mixed feeling of fear and respect within Emery. Before he could identify any feature relating to the creature, the smoke started to dissipate and he found himself back in the room. Sweat covered his skin and dampened his clothing, exhaustion racked through his body. However, Emery was far too focused on the notification in his mind to care.
[Bloodline Gene – Fey Wolf]
[Gene Classification – Legendary Bloodline]
[Bloodline Limit : Rank 6]
[Current Rank]
[Rank 3 -The Fey Warden ]
[Calculating ancestor blood essence percentage…]
[16% fey wolf essence found]
[Your bloodline just went through purifying process]
[Genes purified]
[Fey Wolf gene essence percentage increased to 20%]
[Weakened state removed]
[All wolf bloodline abilities increased]
[Sense sharpness increased]
[Stamina increased]
[Regenerative abilities increased]
[Fey wolf innate skill gene imprint found]
[New innate skill – Shapeshifting]
Emery stared at all the notifications, reading them one by one to make sure he absorbed each bit of information correctly. However, Tatyana called him and snapped him out of his concentration.
"You just had your first awakening, right? Hey, did your rank go up? What skills did you get? Tell me!"
"Rank? Skill?" Emery didn't have time to read all the information he saw and the barrage of questions from the girl only left him even more confused.
"Hey, Tatja, cool down a bit with the questions. He's new, and all your questions will just confuse him." Brutus patted the girl's right shoulder and said. "Emery, I saw your genes in the institute. You're a rank 6, right? What is your wolf gene called?"
"It's called… Fey wolf."
"Fey wolf… I've never heard of that particular type of wolf gene. But still, it's rank limitation is one rank higher than mine. I have a Dire Wolf gene."
"Meanwhile, Andrei here," Brutus gestured at the tall man standing next to him. "He may be huge, but his bloodline limit is rank 5 Wing Wolf gene. For Tatjana… She's also a legendary rank 6 just like you, but she's not really a wolf."
"Yeah, I have a six-tailed fox gene, Emery." Tatjana added with a smile. "My gene still classified as a wolf family, though not too close… To make it easier for you, just consider my bloodline as something like a cousin to the wolf family bloodline."
Brutus nodded and explained. "As for what you just received… It's a elixir for bloodline awakening. From consuming it, we each would get a glimpse of our ancestors and from the brief vision we would receive a decent boost in our stats and sometimes a special skill."
Upon hearing the word 'special skill', Andrei gazed at Emery with excitement twinkling in his eyes.
"Hey, brother Emery, what skill did you get? Tell me… Tell me…"
Emery concentrated his mind and tried to read the notification again. When he saw the name of the skill, he furrowed his brows.
Detecting his confusion, the symbol on his hand glowed and another notification appeared in his mind.
[Shapeshifting]
[Fey Wolf innate skills, enables the caster to change their body into the likeness of any living being.]
[Level 1 – Change limited to facial features and skin]
"Give it a try brother!"
Emery closed his eyes and concentrated, urging his bloodline to try and perform the skill while he focused on picturing Brutus' facial features. Slowly, his face changed and he became a smaller version of Brutus, with similar face, hair and skin but still looks different enough for the others to tell that it was Emery.
The skill was surely unique and could be useful in certain situations. However, the magus final match was definitely not one of those kinds of situations.
The three saw Emery perform his newly acquired skill and they all gave a loud laugh.
"Hahahahaha! I'll be honest, Emery, that skill was probably the worst bloodline skill I ever saw… Or even, will ever see!" Brutus closed his mouth and tried to stifle his giggles.
Despite their joking about the skill, Emery still thinks this skill could be very useful for him, especially back home in Briton with him being a wanted man.
"But Emery don't fret about it too much. I hope you'll get better skills in your next upgrade."
"Next upgrade?" Emery asked.
"Hmm... Basically, we half-bloods can increase our strength with bloodline advancements. We all start with a certain percentage of ancestor essence and the bigger the percentage, the more power we would acquire. The closer we are to our bloodline limit, the stronger we will be." Brutus explained. "So, in your case, if you reach 99% gene essence, your transformation into a full rank 6 fey wolf would be complete."
"Each bloodline has different percentage requirements and even those within the wolf family have different rank limits. But usually, for rank 6 bloodlines, the requirement goes like… 5% for rank 2, 15% for rank 3, 30% for rank 4, 60% for rank 5, and 99% for rank 6"
"The essence purity would mature during age, sometimes emotion could stimulate them but for later stage we half blood really depends on those precious elixir you just drank"
Emery decided to remember all the information Brutus provided to him. The explanation answered a lot of the questions that bothered him, but while he was glad to put a rest to a part of his curiosity, he still had tomorrow's match to worry about.
"So uh… That aside, do you guys have any pointers to help me win tomorrow's match?"