Rae inspected Karl for changes, as she could feel that he had new skills active on the team. freeweɓnovel.cѳm
“You know, you’re getting wider instead of taller.” She noted.
“I’m still not fully grown. Humans aren’t fully grown until like twenty years old. The men get all their height early, then they fill out with muscle.” Karl explained.
“Yeah, but look at you, and then the other human men. They’re all so skinny. Hardly thicker than the women, just bigger. Male Bloodbath Spiders are much smaller, they don’t usually get much larger than Cara. But the more beard you get, the wider you are.”
Karl smiled, “Are you suspecting that I’m not human?”
Rae shrugged, then admired the way her modified body moved and did it again for effect.
“Nobody would mistake you for one in the dark. You don’t smell like a human. You just smell like Karl.”
Karl thought about it for a few seconds, then shrugged, mimicking Rae’s movement.
“That’s just how people from my town are shaped. I’m taller than almost all the men in my home town, but most of them are almost as wide as they are tall. It’s an advantage in the mines, so all the tall people must have moved away years ago.”
Rae gave a twirl, then turned back to Karl. “Humans come in so many varieties, but I kind of like this body. I need to learn this skill before the token wears out. With [Ghost Beast] and these lovely black robes, I can sneak up and terrify people at will. They are much less likely to notice a small woman than a glorious Bloodbath Spider, no matter how good my hiding skills are.”
Karl chuckled, as Rae’s human form was a hundred and ninety centimetres tall, but incredibly slender with a nearly flat chest and just enough of a curve to the figure to make it undeniably feminine.
Her skin was also as impossibly black as the shell of her chitin in spider form, a colour he had never seen on a human before. But with the glowing red eyes that her human form had, it looked good on her.
“Well, I must say, you had a much easier time with it than Hawk did.”
Rae smiled at him, a row of sharp teeth with serrated edges, and flexed her fingers, which looked to have polished nails, until you realized the red was the same metallic chitin as Rae’s spider legs.
When you added it all up, she was clearly not human, but a humanoid monster.
Hawk came out to explore, now that the magic was stabilized. He raced off into the distance with a streak of blue and red fire, twirling in joy at being able to spread his wings again.
Since everyone else was coming out, Remi also came out to explore.
There weren’t much in the area except broken rocks, but there might be good rocks with them. Cara and Thor were resting in their spaces, waiting for a reason to be doing stuff. Unlike some of the others, Cara didn’t really collect rocks, and she had already scanned the area for cool stuff, but found nothing.
It shouldn’t take long before the others started to come back out, and by then Hawk should have a good scouting report for them, so they could move on safely.
The first one out was Corbin, who had a beaming smile on his face, which turned to confusion as he realized he was the first one to finish the process.
“The others are likely taking their time, or they’re incompatible with the System, and they are watching a historical video. I spent a lot of time choosing because I had many options.” Karl explained.
“Ah, that makes sense. I had one option, ironically named the Spellblade class. I took a while to examine it, then check myself for changes to the System afterwards. I have more features active now, and even an inventory option. I don’t suppose that you have access to that same function and simply never mentioned it.” Corbin replied.
Karl nodded. “Mine is different from others, as according to the Bronze Dragon Orthos, I am actually more akin to a crafting class. So I get the option for bulk storage boxes. Most people get some sort of slot system to put their items in.”
Corbin smiled back at him, and Karl noticed that some of the hairs in his blonde beard were turning grey. Not from age, but at a visible rate as his beard grew from carefully groomed to chest length.
That was a new one. Karl hadn’t heard of a class option having a physical effect on appearance before. But Prince Corbin, despite being in his mid-twenties, was well on his way to having a very scholarly long white beard.
The next one out was Dana, who winked at Karl, and then gently flipped into the air at a slow and elegant speed that defied gravity and physics, before sending a kick at the sky that sent out an attack very similar to Rend.
“The System called the class a Murim Battlemage. I gained a whole set of martial arts that combine with sword skills, and a cool new ability.” Dana explained.
The sort of flexibility that it took for the moves she had already shown was already impressive to Karl, but then she summoned a whole array of blades over her head that attacked a stone that she tossed to them.
The rock was sliced and swatted in an intricate dance that had the stone suspended in the air, leaving even Corbin startled at the intricacy of the movements.
“That’s a fantastic skill. With the combined skills of those blades, they should be able to completely control the movement of a target. But against large groups, they will be a deadly distraction as well.” Corbin noted.
Then, Ophelia came out, looking somewhat disappointed.
“No suitable options?” Karl asked.
“Options? I was hoping for something awesome, but it only gave me two options. The first was a Feral Berserker, which looked like a slight upgrade to the Bear Totem Berserker. The second was a Titanic Berserker, which seemed like just another Berserker but bigger.
It had better base skills, so I went for that one. I probably shouldn’t feel let down, but I guess I got my hopes too high.” She sighed.
“Why not show us anyhow? Now that you have it, how is the Skill tree?” Karl suggested.
“It’s very berserker. Lots of blunt weapon and sword attacks, defensive buffs and strength buffs.
The base skills are passive strength increase of thirty percent per Rank and [Titanic Growth] that increases my size, strength and durability by twenty percent per Rank.”
“Well, how about raging and getting all buffed up in Werebear form, then test the new buff to see what you’re working with?” Karl requested, intrigued to see if the bonuses stacked or multiplied the growth.
Ophelia activated [Berserk Terror] which brought her Werebear form to close to four metres tall. Then she activated [Titanic Growth] and suddenly Karl was looking at the knee armour of the single largest beastkin he had ever seen.
“That’s definitely a multiplication effect.” He noted.
“So that’s what a seven-metre tall Werebear looks like. Forget being hit on by the Orcs, you’ll have to fend off Hill Giant suitors at this rate.” Rae laughed, startling everyone with the hauntingly musical tone of her human voice.
Ophelia’s rumbling growl shook the air, and Rae’s laugh turned hysterical. She hadn’t expected such a great chance to pick on the others during her first attempt to interact as a human.