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Chapter 285 Brothers
🕑 Added 2022-10-28 20:51:11 +0000 UTCAuthor's note:
Here it is, another chapter!
Lessons have started up and I'm a little exhausted. Getting up early and all that... But it's at least partially interesting. I'll try to get a first chapter done for the backlog over the weekend. I'm optimistic.
This time, we're getting back into the LitRPG. Can you imagine that it's been 25 chapters since the last time I showed Fio's Status? And not much has changed. It's been a two and a half weeks, so... Lots of other stuff going on.
For now, enjoy the chapter!
Cheers!
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I took off before the sun was down. The journey to Greypeak village would take half a day so I could get there sometime after midnight. I was curious if my little brothers were already sapient. They were going to be adults, soon.
The flight was relaxing, especially once it got dark. I had not been out at night for quite some time, now. At least not to just fly. As the landscape rushed by below me, Catori spoke up.
“Hey, Fio.”
“What’s up?”, I asked.
“Do you think… I could get a body to evolve?”
“That’s… maybe? A Core requires vis enrichment and maturity. Both of those aren’t reliant on level so… I can see it happening.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem. You want to evolve into a human? Or a humanoid, at least?”
“… yes. It would be nice if I can get a strong base, though.”
“Did you learn something new?”
She was quiet for a moment.
“I managed to figure out a Skill. I think.”
“Of the starling?”
“Yep. It might be related to our infusion of aer but… I can create a much louder screech than I should be able to. Nymph was really annoyed.”
“… could it have been [Intimidating Screech]?”, I asked.
“Probably not. We found some insects and I tried to use it. No effect.”
“Maybe they can’t be scared?”
“I… it’s possible?”
“No matter what, it’s good progress. We should find a more distinct animal. Any of the sparling racial Skills could be ours, as well. If you can use the Skills of whatever body we snatch, that would be great.”
“Yes. Let’s do that. Just find… another mouse?”
“Something like that.”
Rather than a mouse, the first suitable candidate for our test was a wild horse. A whole herd of them, in fact. They should have some running and jumping Skills, maybe endurance. A quick [Hidden Identify] showed none of them had any vis enrichment. We decided to go for metallum vis for our [Winged Dream]. It was unlikely to replace any active Skills. Passive Skills were pretty impossible to catch.
I swooped with my left wing glowing a soft silver right into the middle of the herd. They were sleeping and my absolute silence made for the perfect kill.
~ding~ You have taken out your chosen target. Experience awarded.
~ding~ [Dream Cutter] reached level 102. 2 Attribute Points awarded.
That was… something I had not seen for a while. Though certainly welcome. Somehow, I had not gained a single level in the Class since getting it. Even though I had taken out two targets to use [Distant Dreaming] on. Speaking of, the Skill was still level one.
I shoved the thought aside for a moment and activated it. Just before I lost the sensation of my wings, I felt Catori follow into our main body to take it back into the air. Then, everything shifted. My legs were suddenly much longer and I had four of them. My wings were gone and I had a tail swishing softly. There were muscles everywhere.
I opened my eyes to a blanket of darkness. This body could barely see anything. The ears were much worse as well. Only my sense of smell had improved by quite a bit, which was… not very advantageous in the middle of a herd of wild horses. At least this nose was used to it. I snorted and flexed some of my muscles. Nothing seemed amiss.
“Ready?”, I asked.
“Yup”, Catori said.
There was a smile in her voice. Was she looking forward to being a horse? To be fair, they were majestic animals. I could remember loving them before I got bound to the hospital bed. The feeling was probably much stronger for Catori.
With a flex of our combined will, we swapped places. Moments later, I was back in the air, seeing every little detail. I could hear the whinnying from below, waking up the herd. It seemed like Catori was having fun. Though the herd did not enjoy the disturbance. Just a few seconds later, they were galloping over the grassy hills.
“This is fun!”, Catori sent.
“Your herd is panicking.”
I could hear the eye roll.
“I know. We’re already slowing down. I’ll tell Nymph about this experiment once this body is back asleep.”
“You’re getting more comfortable with switching shape”, I said.
“I mean… It’s only going to help with finding me a long-term body.”
“True. I think I should be using some other bodies as well, though. [Distant Dreaming] hasn’t increased once.”
“That… makes sense. But also not. Aren’t we the same ‘person’ in the system’s eyes?”
“Maybe we aren’t…”
Catori went silent.
It was almost a minute later before she spoke up again with only a whisper.
“I’d like that…”
I sent her a feeling of reassurance and love which she reciprocated.
A few minutes of quiet flying later, I decided to pull up my Status. I had not looked at it since we got to [Dream Cutter].
Species: Sgiathan Dorcha Owl (adult)
Age: 2
Name: Fio Catori
Gender: female
Status: sapient, healthy, Beast Core (unique, enriched – medium)
Level: 102
Class: [Dream Cutter lvl 102], [Apprentice Witch lvl 14], -
Strength: 39
Constitution: 36
Dexterity: 44
Perception: 44
Intelligence: 114 (8+2)
Wisdom: 113 (6+2)
AP: 0
Skills:
Racial:
Utility: [Owl Senses lvl 7], [Preening lvl 4], [Owl Stomach lvl 7], [Sgiathan Dorcha lvl 7]
Offensive: [Solid Grip lvl 4], [Intimidating Screech lvl 4], [Owl’s Shadow lvl 7], [Aerial Combat lvl 4]
General:
[Imaginatics lvl 7], [Hidden Identify lvl 7], [Telepathy lvl 4], [Eldritch Guidance lvl 5], [Sneak lvl 5]
Dream Cutter:
[Distant Dreaming lvl 1], [Shock Attack lvl 7], [Mingling lvl 7], [Eldritch Shift lvl 8], [Winged Dream lvl 7]
Apprentice Witch:
[Brewing lvl 4], [Ritualism lvl 1], [Familiar Bond lvl 1]
The two Attribute Points went into the standard Intelligence and Wisdom. I did spend half a second considering other options but then simply distributed them. Don’t change a working system and all that.
Despite [Distant Dreaming] being stuck at level one, likely because Catori was using it and not me, [Winged Dream] had reached the next Breakpoint. A glance at everything else showed that I could work some more on bringing [Sneak] back up but other than that, I had a lot of stuck Skills.
Maybe I could improve my Offensive Racial Skills before setting out into the Deep Green. [Intimidating Screech] was a powerful option with all my will-Attributes right now and [Solid Grip] had some potential for anything I could not take out in one hit. That said, [Winged Dream] could still harm those who were not sleeping and was definitely my strongest attack. I was definitely more of a sneak-past-and-wait-for-an-option kind of combatant. I had one thing I wanted to experiment with before setting out and Nymph would be a great help with that.
It did not take much longer for me to arrive at Greypeak. To my surprise, I immediately spotted my sister sitting on the watchtower that was my family’s new home. She spotted me as well and bobbed her head.
I dispelled the wings of darkness and lowered myself to land next to her. She greeted me with a soft hoot which I answered. I saw the arcane speaker on her chest held tight by a thin vest but she did not speak up. Instead, we started preening each other. It was only a tiny bit awkward with me towering more than a full head over her. Even once we were done, we simply sat still and observed the forest. I eventually closed my eyes to get some rest.
It was just dawning when I woke up. Yuuna still sat next to me. She gave me a glance before turning her head back to the trees. I followed her gaze and found my father emerging from the leaves, my brothers right behind him. They were really close to the village already and his eyes widened slightly as he spotted me. My brothers showed some more panic but I could hear father’s words calm them down.
“That is your big sister, boys”, he said.
His voice was a melodic tenor with very clear pronunciation.
“Fio?”, one of them asked.
“Big sister!”, the other near-shouted.
Yuuna smirked at me.
“Get ready”, she said.
Before I could ask what for, the two fledgeling owls almost crashed into me. I made sure to activate [Eldritch Shift] just at the right time to phase out of the world and reappear moments later in the very same spot. My little brothers had already rushed a dozen metres further and were trying their hardest to slow down and turn around.
“So they reached sapience”, I observed.
Yuuna nodded.
“Fiiioooooo!”, the rascals shouted together. This time, they slowed down enough to land in front of me, excitedly hopping all over the roof to look at me from every angle.
Their voices were… surprisingly similar to father’s. They had likely copied him. I was hoping they would at some point find their very own but it was distinct enough, for now.
“Calm down, kids”, Yuuna scowled.
She sounded much like me, still. There was a distinct tone mixed in that took me a moment to place as Mira’s scolding voice.
“Fio, Fio, Fio!”, the boys chanted.
I clicked my tongue.
Immediately they halted and made themselves small.
“Hello, brothers”, I said, “Nice to meet you.”
“Welcome back, Fio”, father said, “Come inside?”
I nodded.
“We have a lot to talk about”
We spent most of the morning catching up on what happened. It had been only about three weeks but still. The boys had gained sapience four days ago and were just learning to speak. They understood Ordugh just fine but had problems forming the sounds through their speakers. There was a lot of “Fio!” and “Sister!” and “Strong!” but otherwise they kept quiet.
Yuuna took a moment to tell Mira I was back before joining us as well. She said the [Witch] was looking forward to meeting me again and would wait at the mayor’s house. Apparently, mother was there as well. She had hit it off with Joanne, Circe’s mother, and was practically living there. That would make it easy for me to talk to all of them.
Other than that, not much had happened. Yuuna was steadily working towards getting [Apprentice Witch] Class to level ten. The boys had taken [Apprentice Hunter] and [Assassin] for themselves. Hik, the [Apprentice Hunter], was inspired by Leon, Circe’s brother. Sem, the [Assassin], well… He was a little more annoying than his brother.
Father was still bringing them to the node every other night with Yuuna and Mother using it when the boys weren’t there. Other than that, he spent most of his time helping Sem. His Class was [Shadow Assassin], after all. The two of them often flew deeper into the mountains to look for a large node, hopefully. They were planning to make the journey to Gobburgh, soon. Somehow, my father had set his mind on building a trading route right through the mountains.
I told a slightly redacted story of my own adventures of the last few weeks. They did not need to worry overly much about the end of the world. Not yet, at least. Though a trade route to Gobburgh would be very useful to have. Maybe we could even connect Selene to it? I should visit her as well… After I returned from my expedition. There was no need to push things.
We had a relaxed lunch with tea before the others all went to sleep. I had just enough time to ask about the Crimson Knight that had been going for the village after meeting with me and Truth. As it turned out, he had left after finding little of interest. My family had talked to him for a bit but he did not even stay for three nights. At least I had nothing to worry about from him. Now, I had a letter to deliver. And some more friends to meet.
