Errazorrus kept moving through the shadows of the tunnel. He had an instinctive understanding of Azotreh's draconic powers, including the way the Eye of the Black Dragon ability made darker areas lighter to his vision. Combining that with the panther form's natural dark fur and their new Scales of the Black Dragon ability allowed him to almost blend with the shadows.
His memories from the varied parts of dragons he was constituted from were still fragmentary and confusing, but this was comforting. He wasn't actively hunting monsters like Nicholas, but simply reveling in the ability to blend into shadows.
Of course, it didn't help as much as he thought, as his aura was still blasting through the tunnel. But the inherent tyrannical presence of a dragon and the frigid presence of a monster drove most beasts into flight.
The tunnel he'd chosen had few monsters, which was intentional on his end. Monsters were immune to the tyrannical might of a dragon, their rage driving them to destroy anything that lived. He wanted to practice moving and hiding, both to calm his own racing mind and because those skills would be translated to Azotreh.
They still had the quest to reach Journeyman in 50 skills from the mistress of gluttony, and this new act of diligence nonsense.
At least by keeping Eye of the Black Dragon, Eye of the Red Dragon, and Scales of the Black Dragon active constantly assisted him in pushing those abilities forward. Simple and constant use seemed to be what drove abilities forward. He recalled that, though the memory was accompanied by a raging headache.
Fuzem was overdrawing their intuition resource, and Azotreh had just drawn their willpower to null. It was another reason that Errazorrus went to do something physical and outside of their body. The puma could draw on the resource pools of Azotreh, but had its own pools as well, though substantially smaller.
Errazorrus only drew mana from the dungeon nexus to keep the abilities active constantly as he snuck along the cave, mentally mapping the world before him.
He had vague recollections of a mapping ability, but didn't remember where he got it or how. He stopped in a particularly shadowy corner and thought about a map ability. He did remember that the ability came directly from the skill system, so it wasn't a massive jump to assume it'd give it to him if he asked. The system had also given them an inventory upgrade when they wanted it, so why shouldn't it give something like that?
But nothing happened.
He tried again, and once more, nothing appeared. No system windows or ringing notifications through his mind. Not even the mental images Fuzem described.
He wondered why, then put the idea away. He had other goals today.
He wandered further into the winding cave until he reached another large cavern. This one was more swampy, with murky water and reeds rather than fungi. It did have another giant nightshade fungus, though this one had glowing purple spots rather than the bright blue ones of the previous chamber.
[You have acquired a new resistance: Nightshade Fungal Poison Resistance (0.01%)]
[Poison Resistance has increased to (0.04%)]
[You have acquired a new resistance: Spore Resistance (0.01%)]
[You have acquired a new resistance: Invasive Nightshade Spore Resistance (0.01%)]
[You have been afflicted with Nightshade Fungal Poison. You are taking damage.]
[You have been afflicted with Invasive Nightshade Spores. You are taking damage.]
Errazorrus couldn't feel the spores at first, but as they drifted closer onto him, he slowly began to feel them dig into the flesh beneath his scales.
[Scales of the Black Dragon has allowed you to partially resist the effects of Nightshade Fungal Poison. Your aura is slightly strengthened.]
[Scales of the Black Dragon has reached level 3!]
This was the effect he was betting on. Black dragons were mostly reliant on darkness and necrosis to create and defend their lairs. They had a natural resistance to poison through their scales, the same as a red dragon had fire resistance through their scales. He was hoping Scales of the Black Dragon would replicate the effect, even if it was weaker.
Even though the scales helped with the poison, they did not help with the spores now growing into the puma's skin. They slowly spread thin hyphae into the mana-rich body of the monstrous puma, feeding off the rich energy to grow.
But Errazorrus had died in an avatar before. He wasn't afraid of dying in this one either. Only the prime avatar that Azotreh occupied was important to the continued survival of himself and the weirdos he shared a soul with.
So he decided to venture deeper into the swamp. The feet of the puma sank into the murky water, and Errazorrus began to swim along slowly, careful not to make any sudden moves.
[Sneak has advanced to Apprentice 14]
The system message rang in his head as he ventured deeper into the bog. Partially submerged as he was, fewer spores landed on him, lessening the escalating damage of the nightshade fungi. Even still, the advantage of sneaking was damaged even further as mist slowly began to rise from his body. The damage finally enough to begin breaking apart the monster body at a more fundamental level. He watched the mostly black smoke rise into the cavern as it dispersed into the ambient magic.
He kept swimming through the water as his body continued to dissolve. He had an idea of something else to do now, though it would take time.
What truly startled him was the voice of the system speaking once again. It sounded masculine and powerful, wise beyond measure. It had always sounded like that to him.
[Gained skill: Swimming (A-1)]
As Nicholas was once again slamming an oversized orcish fist into the side of a giant monster, he suddenly got a system notification.
[Gained skill: Swimming (A-1)]
[Your Champion Monster: Nightshade Puma has died. +10DP]
He finally brought his fist forward in one final strike before the monster, which appeared like some kind of dog, though instead of a head, it simply had rows of curved teeth stretching down its back. The abominable thing died, and Nicholas looted it.
[You have slain Chaindog]
[Base EXP: 10]
[Grade Disparity Bonus: 1x]
[Rank Disparity Bonus: 1x]
[You have earned 10 EXP]
[You have earned 12 DX]
[You have looted Chaindog]
[+10 Tin-Rank Alchemic Coins]
[+1 Tin-Rank Monster Core]
[+40 Chaindog Teeth (Tin-Rank)]
[+10 Chaindog Claws (Tin-Rank)]
[+1 kg of Chaindog Meat (Tin-Rank)]
After spending the moment to once more empty most of the inventory into the growing pile on the floor of the core room, though he left the chaindog meat and alchemic coins in the inventory, he turned back to that notification.
Swimming was a skill. It was important in his own revelation. He assumed that skills were somehow based on the will of the one who gained them and of the magic around them. Shifting stone was a skill that could be developed, just as painting was. But swimming was more than definitely a skill in his world, and not one that everyone had.
So was punching, which was his goal.
He'd killed three monsters with just his fists, but hadn't gotten the skill. The overwhelming toughness of the orcish body and its ability to regenerate by pulling on the mana of the dungeon nexus were the only reasons he was still standing. Otherwise, he'd have died before Errazorrus did.
But he still grinned and set out again, once more on his journey to find the skill of punching things really hard. He liked magic, but had no clue how it worked. He had no idea how to throw fire or anything, only the Astral Bolt spell they'd learned early from that bit of the astral infection felt like proper magic, and he had no idea how it worked.
So, until then, he'd just keep punching stuff until he figured out how to throw fire at people.
More materials kept appearing in the room with the nexus. The massive heart kept glancing at them with undisguised hunger. They wouldn't provide blueprints on their own, since that required a whole corpse, but it was still hungry.
It was an innate devourer. It had an ability to prove it. Massive teeth around its eye continued to slightly gnash as it attempted to reach the things on the ground. The monster cores were by far the greatest possible boon to it. It knew, it felt, it needed those cores.
It retracted its eye, its cold awareness fully cognizant of the irrationality it moved with. But it did so anyway. It produced a blue slime, watching the ball of sticky gel drop to the floor.
It commanded the new monster with an odd urgency. A need it could barely place. But the slime didn't move. It just wobbled in place a bit. The monster was not responding to it. It needed a way to command the monster.
[Would you like to promote monster to Champion status? Costs 10DP]
The bright blue box that its bound avatar often saw appeared before it. It gave its mental ascent, then watched as the slime lit up with rainbow light.
After a long moment, the light died down and revealed a slime that seemed physically unchanged, but responded to commands.
It commanded the slime to bring the four monster cores now sitting in the pile to it. The slime obeyed easily, small pseudopods emerging from its form to grasp the blue and red stones. Its eye retracted as the cores entered its mouth. It used Dungeon Devouring on them as they entered its expansive maw.
[You have used an F-Grade monster core. Your potens have advanced.]
[Your Bodily Purity Poten has decreased from 100% to 99%]
[You have used an F-Grade monster core. Your potens have advanced.]
[Your Bodily Purity Poten has decreased from 99% to 98%]
…
[You have used an E-Grade monster core. Your potens have advanced.]
[Your Bodily Purity Poten has decreased from 97% to 92%]
[You have gained basic insights into the concepts of Shadow, Darkness, Hunt, Claw]
[Your insights have opened new records!]
The flood of system windows didn't make the cold awareness flinch as they often did for those it shared a soul with. It read over them before closing its eye once more. It returned its awareness to Azotreh's body. It had a new task, then it could continue devouring the items piling up in front of it.
Azotreh felt the absence of the cold consciousness for a long moment before notifications flashed into life before them. They shut them away. They weren't ready for the new flood of information. The cold consciousness returned a moment later, stabilized their aura, and then began to do something.
[Technique: Residue Cleaning (Devouring) has advanced to Crimson 0002]
[You have accumulated excess energy. Excess energy automatically being converted to additional potens.]
Azotreh began to shine again as they did while Ruby had encompassed their aura, though in other colors. The silver of the speed poten, the bright purple of the perception poten, the gold of the spirit poten, all underpinned by the steady turquoise-green light of E-Grade.
Their aura grew slightly weightier as new titles appeared within for pushing their individual potens to E-Grade.
[New Titles: Core Devourer I, Monster Core Devourer I, The Darkened Path]
[Your ability to progress your potens naturally will be decreased so long as impurities remain within you.]
[New Title: Residue Devourer I]
Mukurric was growing ever more curious every second. She knew their aura wasn't fully recovered yet, so she wasn't willing to continue training. But something was happening in that room.
She'd felt Azotreh's lack of natural progression, the innate growth all arcane entities shared through the gathering poten as it pulled in ambient quantities of the poten generica from the air. While Atu hadn't voiced her concern, the fact that Azotreh hadn't made any progress in the two months she'd known them was concerning her. Mukurric could read it in her body language any time she brought up poten advancement.
She didn't know why they weren't growing naturally, but suddenly felt the aura growth that happened naturally with advancement.
While children younger than ten could not progress due to their weakened aspects, Azotreh had the draconic parts shoved into them and then some transformation into a member of a different archetype. She assumed that it shared the feature of her own beast archetype that allowed children to advance as soon as they were born.
But even though they'd reached F-Grade, they'd stopped progressing. Except for when Ruby's aura was surrounding theirs. She had no clue why that or whatever was happening now would push them forward.
She stood up and looked at Kurdan, "You, with me." She commanded. Her tone brooked no argument.
The orc rose from his chair with a confused look as he followed her into the room with Azotreh. The kid was still on the ground, their eyes unfocused and their breathing light. Mukurric crouched beside them to begin to examine whatever was happening.
Her eyes lit up with her Mana Mastery ability as she looked at them, and she was immediately blinded. There weren't channels in their body, no lines of pulsing blue light. Instead, they were a homogenous mass of bright blue light.
Normally, she'd examine their channels to figure out what was wrong, or in this case, right. But she couldn't pinpoint it, right up until she saw a dimmed spot in the mana. There was a spot of black impurity in their body. Similar to the rest of their body, it wasn't held in their channels. Instead, it was spread out throughout the body and between the segments as a whole.
"Monster cores…" She murmured, her voice flat and yet slightly confused. How had the kid gotten their hands on monster cores? They hadn't looted their own dungeon monsters, and even if they did, the ants she'd seen around a couple of times didn't have cores. They were lesser monsters, with manifested cores about a hundredth the size of a regular core. There shouldn't be this much residue.
She continued to watch, hoping that maybe she could force it out. It wasn't strictly physical, so if it concentrated in an arm, one couldn't cut off the arm to remove the impurities. Regrowing the arm would return the impurities.
She began to look across the rest of their body. There were a few other spots of impurity. Too many for a lesser core, even a little much for a regular core. Maybe they'd used two?
No, that couldn't be true. There wasn't enough residue for two.
She turned her eyes back to the center of their body, her eyes looking for the bright light near their heart. She was surprised twice over as she looked. The first surprise was the way the impurities had lessened. They had slightly dissolved away. She didn't know how or why, but they had shrunk. At least it was definitely good.
Her second shock was the lack of a core. The glowing point of light in their heart simply wasn't there. The impurities had hidden their heart before, but even as the impurities were slowly dissolved for some reason, she couldn't see it.
Azotreh felt that overwhelming draconic aura press against them again, but not to suppress, just to observe. There was a second aura, one they didn't recognize. It had the feeling of something smart, but not wise.
But neither aura threatened them, so they didn't decide to focus.
[You have cleared 10% of absorbed impurities.]
[You have gained achievement: Core Cleanser I]
[You have gained title: Core Cleanser I]
[Technique: Residue Cleansing (Devouring) has reached Crimson 0010 and reached its limit. Breakthrough to continue advancing.]
[New Titles: Cleansing Technique (C) I, Devouring Technique (C) I, Devouring Cleansing Technique (C) I]
They felt the cold consciousness's efforts slow and focused, seeing two people above them. One, the draconic woman from before. The other was an orc they didn't recognize.
They got up, both of the others making space for them to do so.
"I need a potion…" They murmured before leaving the room. The two behind them exchanged glances before following them.
"What kind of potion?" Mukurric asked.
They paused for a moment before remembering the name, "Krelli's Nucleic Brew."
Kurdan raised his eyebrows before reaching out to grab Azotreh's shoulder.
"You sure?" His voice was quiet for an orc, but still carried the calm surety of a professional.
Azotreh nodded. Kurdan reached into the air and pulled out a rack of potions, and handed one to Azotreh. Azotreh downed it in a moment, feeling the potion take effect just as it did last time.
[New Record: Krelli's Nucleic Brew. Current Record: 2.49%]
[Your limit has been broken. You have accumulated additional impurities. These impurities have not lowered any of your purity potens.]
[Technique: Residue Cleansing (Devouring) has created a nucleus. It can now be advanced to a maximum of Crimson 0020]
Azotreh nodded to the orc. But instead of joining the group in the room with Atu's actual furniture, they returned to the training room. Their eyes were sharper than ever, and their irises were black. They settled into a lotus position in the back and closed their eyes.
Mukurric and Kurdan glanced at each other before leaving the room. This was a strange shift in behavior. Azotreh was always determined to get stronger. Mukurric had always felt it in their aura. But this wasn't just determined. This was the need to grow accelerated out of fear.
She felt the faint draconic might from the very core of the aura rather than the regular benevolence of a hero. She needed to learn more.