Shifter - Infinite Transformation-Chapter 74: Targeting Tier-2

Clove and Fern had to rein in their presence for my sake. If not, we’d never encounter any monsters weak enough for me to fight.

Alas, even when they retracted their presence, few monsters approached us.

I found a group of Skaborn Salamanders, a few Esar Boars, and a lone Onyx Panther all day. And except for the Onyx Panther, everything else was too weak to experiment with. Still, we managed...somehow.

First, we used a few Skaborn Salamanders to test out if I had to fight them alone or if others were allowed to participate in the hunt to trigger Shift. The result was fairly straightforward; it didn’t matter how many people participated in the fight. That was in line with my expectations. After all, I gained many new Accessible Shifts – Hnolls – when I fought with the Empire’s soldiers against the Hnoll army.

However, what I did not realize then was that my contribution to the fight actually mattered. Clove accidentally snapped a salamander’s back when he struck out. He only wanted to injure it a little but nearly killed it instantly. I finished the job with a quick blow but was only granted some Essence. Shift did not update.

The experiments extended further to answer a simple question: How much did I have to contribute to a fight to trigger Shift? Unfortunately, the answer was not nearly as simple as the question.

I had no idea. All I could say with relative certainty was that my contribution had to be higher than Fern and Clove’s. It didn’t matter what happened or how it happened; the important thing was that my contribution was higher than theirs.

Also, and that was probably the most important part, I had to land the killing blow. Even if my contribution was the highest by a large margin, the moment Clove killed the monster, Shift no longer triggered.

We figured that out while fighting the Onyx Panther. It was not particularly strong in Clove or Fern’s books, but it was a Tier-1 monster with a strong Core.

Clove warned me about the Onyx Panther and that it had been pursuing us by the time the first sun descended. It had been behind us and was only waiting for us to lower our guard. I disappeared in a bush, seemingly to take a piss, and transformed into a Herculean Ant to move around and away. Next up, I transformed into an Airborne Archaeopteryx, flew high into the air, and struck the Onyx Panther in the back with two Sonic Booms in quick succession. From above, of course.

The Onyx Panther’s head shot upward, blood dripping from its ears, and attacked. But by the time it attacked, I was already a Lesser Wisp and attached to it, draining it rapidly.

My opponent stood no chance. I was in full control of the battle, from the start up to the point where it weakened enough to fall from the branch it had been hiding on.

Alas, my fight with the Onyx Panther would not have ended in failure if everything had been that simple.

What I did not expect was for the Onyx Panther’s claws to rip through my body. Neither Fern nor Clove warned me about the Onyx Panther’s magical fangs – or whatever they were. Regardless of their properties, the fangs tore through me, nearly killing me in the process. If Clove hadn’t sensed something amiss, I would have died. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Clove appeared just in time. The energy I felt from him in the Lesser Wisp form was formidable, to say the least, and so was the way he ripped the monster apart. All I could see in my form at that time was that the Onyx Panther was being shredded. The true terror unraveled before my eyes when I turned back into my main form.

The surrounding flora was covered in blood, bits and pieces of internal organs, and bone fragments. Yeah, Clove did not stop with the panther’s fur and meat. He even shredded the monster’s bones.

I shuddered at that time, telling myself once again to stay on Clove’s good side.

One way or another, the fight with the Onyx Panther taught me a lot. That I had to be the one killing my prey to trigger Shift, but also to never underestimate my opponents.

Up until now, I had been lucky. Very lucky. There was no way to downplay the ungodly amount of luck I’d been given.

That however didn’t mean I would always be this lucky. Growing complacent was a sure way ticket to an untimely death. And that was something I wanted to avoid, if possible.

It was necessary to tone down the confidence I’d built up in the last few weeks. Being confident was good. It was necessary, especially in combat, but there had to be a limit. It had to be reasonable, or that too would lead to an early death.

Thus, I spent the next few days fighting alone. Days turned into weeks, and it wasn’t long before we’d been traveling through the Eserian for close to three weeks. An encounter with a Tier-3 Behemoth and a Forest Troll, who’d been fighting each other to expand their territories, forced us to take a four-day-long detour, but we were making progress.

We avoided the Eserian’s heart, the core region as well as the inner and most of the middle ring. If we didn’t have to do that, crossing the Eserian wouldn’t have taken longer than a week. For Fern. She could travel through roots and was ridiculously fast at times.

Clove wouldn’t have been much slower if he relied heavily on his Inugami bloodline to turn ethereal and avoid obstacles. That left me... I could shift, and if we had been in a desperate time-crunch, we would have pushed to cross the Eserian as quickly as possible, but that was not the case.

Time was of the essence, but that did not justify us rushing through the Eserian like suicidal morons. We were fond enough of our lives to take it slow.

Except that Fern had started to lure Tier-2 monsters for me to fight.

It was almost like she was more eager to see me grow than I was. And I...who was I kidding – I loved it!