I couldn’t maintain the Arok Serpent shift for more than a few seconds. It would require so thorough testing to determine exactly how long I could sustain it, but it was annoying either way.
The Arok Serpent was powerful. Certainly stronger than my Blue Sli shift, or even my original form–once I figured out how to use it properly.
Unable to shift back into the Arok Serpent right away, I looked around instead and took in the ss I’d fallen into.
The forest was everywhere. No matter where I looked, there were trees, densely grown undergrowth, and plants I’d never seen before. Most of them resembled ordinary flora, yet a particular few appeared far too exotic to be real. Pink flowers blood amid a bush adorned with finger-sized thorns to my left, a blue stalk as thick as my thigh stood up ahead, and vines twisted along the ground that couldn’t look more nefarious even if they tried.
"Are they bleeding?" I wondered, my hair standing on end as I instinctively pulled back. As curious as I was, my quota for death-like events was already used up. For the rest of the month. Or so I hoped, knowing damn well I’d be lucky just to survive the night.
The forest wasn’t particularly loud, which only made it more suspicious. Chirping birds and the usual commotion of woodland life would have eased my tension. Sothing familiar to ground .
Silence, on the other hand, spelled trouble.
One more problem to add to a never-ending list, I grunted.
Water. Food. Shelter. Surviving in an eerily silent forest.
Then there was the matter of figuring out where I was. The soldiers had ntioned arriving at the destination in a few days. Taking that into account, I was either already in the earl’s territory or sowhere close to it.
They wouldn’t force young Chosen into an Oath... not openly, I reminded myself. That ant we wouldn’t be dropped directly into the earl’s ho, let alone a city or town. Even sending us to a village would have been risky. The flying ship had to be headed sowhere else.
A secret place.
Be that as it may, I highly doubted the earl would travel far and wide to collect his new "recruits." He would have brought us sowhere close to his lands.
"The Forea Alliance?" I mused quietly, my voice carrying farther than I intended.
No matter where I was exactly, one thing was certain: it was an endless forest. And if the other monsters lurking here were anything like the Arok Serpent, I needed to be careful.
Falling into an endless forest was not how I had imagined my journey beginning. Still, it didn’t change the facts. This was an adventure. It checked all the boxes I’d dread of–exploration, danger, excitent.
But as important as danger was to a real adventure, I hadn’t accounted for this much danger. Getting kidnapped right after the Choosing hadn’t been on my checklist.
Originally, I’d planned to travel the realm for a while, returning ho now and then to spend ti with my family. Now... I doubted that was feasible. Father’s face flashed before my eyes, drawing a grimace from .
Even if I were to ignore that part, which wouldn’t be easy, it’d be impossible to ignore the townspeople. They knew . They knew what had happened. If they saw , if they recognized , they would surely alert the authorities. Returning ho would put my family in danger.
"Fuck that shit."
The realization hit like a charging bull. I would never be able to return ho if I wanted to keep my family safe.
What if I shift into soone else? The thought ca out of nowhere. Could I use my Power to transform into another human and visit my family while looking like a different man–or woman? I had no idea, and I wasn’t about to kill anyone just to see whether Shift would update to allow that.
Instead, I could transform into a monster and sneak into my family’s ho as Xavier. As long as I stayed inside the house, nobody would notice anything.
The plan was rough and needed refinent a thousand tis over to ensure my family’s safety, but it was possible. Maybe... I could return to them soday. I wouldn’t be able to stay, but visiting them from ti to ti was better than never seeing them again.
Thinking about my family made worry gnaw at .
"I hope you’re fine," I sighed, squinting up at the canopy as the suns’ light pierced through the leaves.
Tilting my head and shifting my stance, I caught a glimpse of the first sun. It had already passed its zenith. If I wanted to survive the night, and have even the faintest chance of seeing my family again, I had to move.
But before charging off in a random direction and hoping for the best, I got to work.
First, I needed answers.
Activating Shift, I morphed several tis over the next few minutes. The Status updated with every transformation, confirming my suspicion. While my Core could accumulate Essence, my individual transformations could not. The Essence the Blue Sli should have earned for killing the Arok Serpent had been forwarded to my main form instead.
Another observation concerned the Blue Sli’s size. It had grown after feasting on the Arok Serpent’s insides. However, once I shifted into another form and then back into the Blue Sli, that additional mass no longer existed. The Blue Sli reverted to its original size. The sa size as the Blue Sli I had killed during the Choosing.
The Arok Serpent form was also an exact replica of the one I’d slain before, with one exception: all internal damage had been restored. Otherwise, I’d probably be in excruciating pain from scorched gullets and a windpipe scrubbed clean by sli acid.
Next, I managed to transform into the Arok Serpent again. This ti, the shift ended even faster. My senses barely registered the distortion before Shift forced back into my main form, clothes intact and all.
"Did I use up my ti already?" I tilted my head. "But I could shift again. That wasn’t possible earlier."
Right. Earlier, it had felt like I couldn’t transform back into the Arok Serpent at all. A few minutes later, I could. Albeit briefly.
"Is there a cooldown for the Arok Serpent?"
That didn’t seem to be the case with the Blue Sli. I was fairly certain I could maintain that form almost indefinitely.
How curious.
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