Shifter - Infinite Transformation-Chapter 94: Replicated

With my new form, pathways were no longer a dream. However, I did not try to impart pathways from other human forms onto the Chimera right away. Not knowing how dangerous creating pathways where there had been none could be, I studied them first.

That, followed by many other experiments regarding partial shifts, learning the differences of every Accessible Shift’s pathways as well as how they affected the pathways themselves, I spent the next month doing little more than experimenting. Sure, I trained occasionally with Clove and Fern to test the Chimera form’s limits, and I made it a priority to never neglect Fern, but the experiments used up most of my waking hours.

My Core’s saturation improved over that month. Essence surged into the Core with every breakthrough, which was weird in its own right. After all, it was almost like the Chimera form’s growth determined how much Essence I could gain outside of combat.

It was a nuisance, but the Essence influx usually told me that I did something correctly. That, if nothing else, was a positive turn of events. Studying the Essence influx to a fault, I was fully aware of what actions the System considered ’worthy’ of Essence, but it was not until the end of the month that I gained the greatest of all boons.

Xavier Halur

Core: Tier-1 (91%)

Insignia: Dominance(1)

Bond - Trickster Demon (Juvenile - Lesser)

Primary Power: Shift

Replicated Powers: Conjure Bread, Blade of Astor

First of all, my Core gained a lot. One month was all it took to earn almost triple the amount of Essence I had earned since the Choosing. A lot more Essence was needed to fully saturate the Core, but a perfectly saturated Core was no more than a myth either way. I was not yet sure if I wanted to push the Core to 95% before suffusing Essence into the Core, advancing it to the next Tier, or if I wanted to push it further.

But considering my current growth, it was fair to assume that I could push the Core’s saturation beyond 95%, which would help greatly, especially when it came to using Shift and my other Powers.

At this point, I could smoothly transition to just about any monster at Tier 1. The Gale Wolf was not all that problematic either. It was no monstrosity, just a monster that barely met the physical requirements to be considered a Tier-2 monster in the first place. Galea was different, but even by using the racial trait, I could maintain the Tier-2 monster’s form for almost two minutes now.

That was huge, no matter how much Clove tried to say otherwise. He was just joking and trying to annoy me, but that did not work. He was failing miserably at that. Fern, on the other hand, was openly happy for me. The Chimera form did confuse her considerably since the frequency of both monsters and other humans had been added to Xavier Halur’s base form, but it was workable.

All Fern had to do was spread more musk all over me. She has drenched me ever since I started integrating pathways into my body. That did not change my frequency, but my mate was happy with the result. Clearly, Fern could sense more about the changes pertaining to my smell, frequency, and whatnot, so I let her do what she deemed necessary.

As long as my mate was happy, I could be too. But I was in ecstasy. How could I not? Working with pathways was a nuisance, but human pathways were a lot more troublesome than those of monsters. First things first, monster pathways were several times more durable. They were also thicker and endured more pressure.

Of course, I used the toughest of all pathways from the strongest accessible Tier-1 form for that, after working with the weakest and most malleable pathways first. Using monster pathways was not all that difficult, fortunately. Since the Chimera form allowed me to maintain partial shifts permanently, everything was a lot easier.

But it was no less complicated to integrate monster pathways into a human base. My only advantage had been that I did not have any pathways to disrupt. My body was like a blank sheet with a single dot in its center. The dot was the Core, and the sheet was... well, it was inside me. That was yet another issue. Everything I had to alter was within me. Shifting veins, bones, muscles, or even organs may not be necessary, but working precisely inside my own body was not all that easy.

The precision required to change something I couldn’t see properly was part of the reason I spent weeks making things work. Then I learned more about Power. Precisely, I finally grasped why monsters were generally stronger than humans. It was the pathways.

A human’s pathways were thinner but also more numerous. At first, it felt like they wove randomly through the body. Only one-third of the human body’s pathways were the same in every body. Those pathways were also thicker than the rest. I labeled them main pathways since the smaller, more brittle pathways branched from them.

From the main pathways, only half were the same as in some of the monster forms I had. Some had less common parts, others had more. The Bloodfist Gorilla, for example, was relatively similar, yet it was the Silverback Elephant form that showed the most similarities. Thus, I picked the Silverback Elephant’s pathways as my new pathways.

Integrating them and connecting them to the Core was...interesting. It hurt like hell, and I nearly stopped more than a dozen times, but it worked. And once connected, the monster pathways consumed Essence. Not a lot, but they used some of the Core’s Essence to circulate through my body, empowering it constantly. The enhancement cost Essence, but the amount was negligible, especially because the Core recovered the Essence used.

Recovery was slower, meaning I’d have to stop the empowerment to refill my Core at some point, but that was fairly easy with Shift.

After I gained the pathways, I deactivated the powers of my other human forms. More precisely, I learned which pathways formed them so that I could replicate them.

Shift was somehow etched into the Core itself, but the same could not be said with certain powers like Conjure Bread and Blade of Astor. Ignite was similar, but Ignite’s pathways were simply too complicated.

Creating a weave of pathways was problematic. I wanted to add more powers to the Chimera form, but already the simplest of them was difficult. Conjure Bread did not require many pathways. Only a few dozen branches, which flowed outward from the main pathways, were required to replicate the power. It was weaker than the original, and I could clearly feel that some other aspects were missing as well, but it was...something. And something was better than nothing.

The same could be said about Blade of Astor. It’s just that it was a lot more complicated. Adding the pathways to the power allowed me to replicate the effect. It drained more Essence to conjure the Blade of Astor, and I could not modify it as much as I could in Loverboy Two’s form, but it was possible nonetheless.

Part of his power is etched on his Core. If I can replicate that as well, Blade of Astor should be upgraded and labelled as a Primary or Secondary Power. That...should work.

But even if it ’should’ work, it wasn’t something I was capable of. I did not have the strength needed to use Shift on the Core itself. If I did, I would have added several Cores to the Chimera form to gain access to more Essence and thus power. Alas, I was not strong enough to do that just yet.

Then again, I did not even have enough space to create several layers of pathways. That too could have come in handy, no matter how much more it would have irritated my body–or complicated things. It would have come in handy...probably.

Instead, I had to splice the pathways and use one network of pathways to create replicas of powers. Conjure Bread was not even that useful, but it had been my first success. It was worth something, even if it was going to be replaced shortly.

***

"Shortly" turned out to mean another month. The pathway network collapsed as soon as I tried to remove Conjure Bread’s pathways. The pathways had somehow stabilized the rest of the network, resulting in several near-death experiences over the last few weeks. It was a nuisance, but I could consider myself lucky to be alive.

Fern never found out about those near-death experiences. If she had, she wouldn’t have stopped at lecturing me. She’d have beheaded me–probably not, but my mate scared me enough to avoid talking about my deadliest mistakes.

Weeks in which I learned from my mistakes passed, and I managed to add yet another power to the Chimera’s arsenal. After removing Conjure Bread and stabilizing the network of pathways, I experimented for hundreds of hours until the answer came to me: Burst.

As dangerous as the power was, my pathways were powerful enough to endure the strain. First, I had to figure out which pathways belonged to Burst, then I copied them. Once that was done, I replaced the pathways with the Silverback Elephant’s pathways. That resulted in a lot of cramped pathways in my lower body, but the effect was feasible. Burst, even if replicated and not as powerful as the original had been, was added to my status.

Following that, more Essence flowed into my body, pushing my Core yet another inch closer to perfect saturation.