Shapeshifter

Chapter 15: Clothes

Xen shoved his finger into the eye of the wolf that had tried to sneak up on him and fried its brain with Holy Smite. The pleasant burning smell tickled his nose, and he couldn't help but lick his lips—even though he never ate things with his mouth. This body was nothing but a skin suit, a vessel for his slime body to exert its terror on the world.

Terror. Xen snorted as he crouched down. His fingers turned into purple tendrils and began dissolving the wolf's corpse to sate his hunger. The only things terrified of me are these dumb wolves on the first floor of a beginner dungeon. Even this human, as pathetic as he is, outlevels me.

Xen looked at the damaged wall beside the wolf he was feasting on. There were still remnants of crackling purple mana interacting with the dungeon's mana as the wall slowly repaired itself after being struck by the Magic Missile spell.

That was the power of magic. If it had hit him, he would have had to expend a lot of biomass to recover from such a hit. I need to learn that magic shield skill, as I won't always be able to dive to the side to avoid magic attacks.

Xen realized he needed to get stronger—and fast. I should head deeper into the dungeon.

[Devour Complete]

You gained 65 biomass.

"I'm not getting any new skills or memories from devouring wolf corpses," Xen noticed. It had been a while since he got anything besides biomass and experience from the many wolf corpses he devoured while helping Gerald level up. "Is it because I am in my human form? Or have I taken all I can from these low-level wolves?"

Both were possibilities, though he was leaning toward the latter. As a Mind Slime, he had observed the wolves fighting humans many times and hadn't seen any other abilities used that he hadn't already gained from them.

Free Skill Slots:

1. [Devour (S)]
2. [Multilingual (B)]
3. [Appraisal (C)]
4. [Mana Vision (D)]
5. [Shapeshift (E)]
6. [Holy Smite (F)]
7. EMPTY

Xen glanced through his list of known skills and compared it to this list. Very quickly, he realized he was missing all of his wolf skills. Which was a problem. They were some of his best ones, yet he only had one free slot.

Wolf: Level: 5 (E)

+5 Strength, +3 Vitality, +7 Agility, +2 Resistance, +1 Magic per level

"Which one should I pick?" Xen muttered to himself while tuning out Gerald, who grunted in the background. "Pack Call is useless because I don't want to fight wolves right now. Predatory Strike empowers my bite, but humans have quite small mouths, so I guess Blood Scent is the only suitable one?"

Deciding to fill the last slot with Blood Scent, the system drained a surprisingly large amount of his remaining mana after all the fighting from his body, making his head pound with an unpleasant headache.

"Ugh," Xen dismissed the status screens after confirming he now had access to Blood Scent in any form and realized why Gerald had been in such a sorry state—mana deprivation was no joke.

"Oh yeah, Gerald." Having finished his meal, Xen rose to his full height and turned to the meat bag—ahem, human—to check if he was still alive. "Hey, human, are you dead?" Xen asked while lightly kicking him.

"Almost," Gerald groaned loudly as he pushed his body up. The two glared at each other for an awkward moment. "Not going to say sorry?"

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Xen tilted his head, "Sorry? What's that?"

Gerald rolled his eyes, "I used the little bit of mana the system granted me to save you from a wolf that was about to eat your head. What do I get in return? Smited down and left to spasm on the floor while you enjoyed your meal."

"Why didn't you tell me there was a monster behind me? I could have killed it myself." Xen didn't understand this human's logic at all. Gerald had seen him slaughter countless wolves before, so why would he waste his mana on a magic attack when a simple shout would have sufficed?

"It's called teamwork. You saved my backside, so I tried to save yours."

"What does your backside have to do with it, and how did I save it?" Xen wondered as he glanced at Geralds's back pressed against the stone. Was there something special about this human's back?

Gerald blinked a few times before letting out a groan, "Whatever, forget it." He stood up and shook his head, "I somehow forgot you were a monster for a second. That human face is deceiving me. Speaking of..." Gerald's gaze drifted down, "You should really cover that."

Xen looked down and pointed at the appendage, "This?"

Gerald nodded seriously, "How can I explain this so a monster will understand? Errr, it's... dangerous. Yeah, let's go with that. You must hide it from everyone as it's your fatal weakness, okay?"

"Really?" Xen didn't believe him. But if it's really such a big weak point of the human form, I can just fix it with my shapeshifting powers.

[1 Biomass Returned]

The appendage retreated into his body. Xen inspected the area and was happy with the result.

"Better?" He asked Gerald.

Gerald looked on in absolute horror. "Nope, nope, not at all. You somehow made it even worse," Gerald said, taking off his bloodstained robe and throwing it at him. "Wear that, please."

Xen caught the robe but held it at arm's length while scrunching his nose at the nasty smell. Maybe taking Blood Scent was a bad idea. A moment ago, I was rather enjoying the human's dulled sense of smell.

"Just put it on, seriously. If you are going to take on a human body, you must wear clothes," Gerald said. "Also, you need to find a way to cover those eyes of yours. They are beyond creepy."

Oh, this is good advice! Xen eagerly put on the damp robe that stuck to his skin. If this was what it took to appear more human to blend in with them, he would do it. The better I blend in, the easier it will be to kill them. When else will I get a chance to learn about humans other than from Gerald right now?

"Great, you look like one of those cult leaders that popped up after the system's arrival," Gerald chuckled as he rummaged through a sack that had been hidden under his loose robes.

"How can I cover my eyes?"

"Sunglasses or a mask," Gerald said, "I was just looking to see if I packed either, but I seem to have forgotten my shades. Well, not that they would have been useful in a dungeon, so I guess that makes sense."

Xen added those two human items to his mental list. "What do you have in there?"

"In here?" Gerald glanced up at him, "Mostly food, a few bottles of water, and a map of the dungeon's layout. I should be good to keep going for another few days at most. However, I must return to the surface after that. I can't eat monster meat, remember? And shit all grows down here."

"You... want to come with me?" Xen couldn't make sense of this human at all. Wasn't he dying and begging to be carried to the surface a few hours ago?

Gerald slung the pack over his important backside and grinned, "Sure, why not? We make a great team, and I came here to level up and harvest monster parts to make money. If I return now, I will be empty-handed. But if I can level up with you, I can quit the Iron Legion guild and join a better one."

"A better one?" Xen thought back to the memories he got from Johnathan. He had been using Sarah to climb the ranks of a guild called the Stormbringers or something.

"Yeah, the Iron Legion is mostly filled with newbies. There are better ones, like the Stormbringers guild, which accepts anyone C-grade and up. There are also the Ether Technocrats, run by wealthy businessmen and corporations that focus on developing technologies with mana and monster parts. Their stock is crazy high right now, only rivaled by the Titanborn guild," Gerald shook his head, "But getting in there is a pipe dream. It's only for the absolute elites. You know, the type of Hunters that command countries."

Xen licked his lips. These Titanborn guild people sounded tasty.

Gerald noticed his action and laughed, "No, you can't eat them. If just one of them died, it would cause an international incident—you know what, never mind. Are we going? I'm on a bit of a time crunch here."

Xen didn't see a reason to say no, so he nodded. If Gerald had to leave to the surface, he could decide whether to eat him or not in a few days. For now, Gerald was his human friend who gifted him foul-smelling clothes and told him about the surface.

"Great," Gerald said, unraveling a map and asking, "Which area should we explore? There are just Black Fur Wolves, Slimes, and Undead on this floor. Going to the next floor, we could see goblins. Meanwhile, there are orcs on the lower levels, but I don't think I have enough food to last until floor five; I only packed for a day-long excursion."

Xen had killed enough wolves, but he still needed to kill some unique slime variants to boost his evolution options for when his Mind Slime form hit level 10, and he also hadn't gotten an Undead form yet.

"Let's check out the Undead," Xen said. Since they didn't have blood, Blood Scent would be useless in locating them, so having Gerald guide him would make things easier.

"Then let's head deeper—they gather around the stairwell to the next floor," Gerald stowed away the map and took the lead. "Follow me."

"Hold on," Xen said, making the human pause. "How are you planning to fight? I thought you were out of mana."

Gerald frowned, "Good point."

Xen shook his head and took the lead, "Just follow me." He couldn't be bothered to wait around and talk anymore. Speaking as a human exhausted his jaw, and Undead magic awaited him!

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