Becoming a Monster

Chapter 241: Chapter 241: Mimicry Stone

His hand, that held the other item, was holding it with extreme care. This was no ordinary object; it had the potential to balance weakness or enhance his strength significantly, based on how he used it.

A translucent crystal glimmered softly. Its borders had the appearance of being rough and sharp, yet the texture of its entire exterior was extremely smooth. The inside of the crystal had soft swirls of red, blue, and green hues beautifully blended together, with glowing golden runes that were barely noticeable to the naked eye tracing along its edges while one pattern stood out much larger, rooted in the center of the crystal, glowing faintly.

With this crystal, the item allowed Noah to first imbue his essence into it, marking it, and tying the ruins to his essence signature. The crystal worked as a link, providing him to gain a skill from a creature bonded to him, rather that was through his taming pact or through the use of another skill didn’t matter. But, to use the item, one of his creatures also needed to insert their own essence into the core, allowing Noah to then absorb the crystal’s energy into himself to permanently learn one of their skills.

Before he obtained the crystal, Noah was originally conflicted with what ability to use the ascension stone on. He had varying skills that could bring him the most utility depending on certain situations. His most useful skills he was deciding on where his Chimeric Predator skill that allowed him to control tainted creatures and zombies; his Vassal skill that would allow him to gather an additional zombie vassal as strong or stronger than Eve; and then his Sentinel ability, increasing the duration and response time for his subconscious spider appendages and his web armor to protect.

Just these three skills were perhaps his most useful abilities when it came to abilities that he could potentially upgrade in time, even without the crystal. As long as he could get the corresponding cores of higher beings then leveling them would be simple. However, that made the choice harder, because he had two abilities that were useful and was unable to level up as quickly as the others. Both being his Manabolt ability and his Greater Illusion skill. Although he uses the respective three skills more, the two other skills could be just valuable. Just the Manabolt alone had become one of his most used trump cards. It was an ability that had stretched its potential so far that he was able to quickly reach 100% progress without the assistance of cores.

From experience, he knew that the next level would be significantly tedious to do without the boost of being able to consume cores, making the choice to use the ascension stone after using his upgrade stone on the skill even more prevalent.

And lastly, there was the one skill that he felt to be the best out of them all; a skill that he was certain would be useful, but not only did he lack the main resource for the skill, he had to be very selective when using it. The skill was his Chimeric Soulforge ability, the ability that could guarantee the ascension of his creature’s race while also further empowering them. The only issue was the resources, he needed a strong catalyst during their ascension because as for now, each creature can only have one soul forcibly merged with their own. Gaining another would only destroy the recent soul forged within them, causing them not only agonizing pain, but also permanently ridding them of the abilities that were learned from the merger. However, the benefit would be that they could potentially grow stronger if the catalyst for the new soul forging was stronger. And the last criteria also had to be useful. If Noah were to take the Behemoth’s spider soul and forge it to Arachne, she would most likely gain attributes stronger than her current attributes, but would her newly acquired skills be better than the ones she currently has? Noah doubted his chances.

But there was still a benefit for upgrading the skill. Currently, the skill allows him to be able to forge anyone’s soul, making them into a chimera; no matter if they are bonded to him or not, and no matter if they are human or monster. The skill was set to allow him to forge three creatures’ souls currently, giving him one companion of his that he could still further ascend. And that was only because his spirit was high enough to sustain the ability. But! if he was to upgrade the skill just once, he could practically double the amount of creatures he could forge. The growth his team needed would be guaranteed if he were to make the decision to upgrade this very skill.

It seemed to be a decision that shouldn’t have to be thought about, his Soulforge ability was obviously the best solution. But from Noah’s perspective, he wasn’t sure how long it would take to further require the souls to ascend his creatures, feeling that it would only be better to improve his personal strength instead so he could defeat the enemies that his companions couldn’t and then forging that very creature into them.

And now, with the crystal, the need to carefully weigh his decision was no longer needed. Each one of his companions had a skill that he fancied, but Fenrir had a skill that fitted him the most and gave the most potential to boost his own personal power.

His eyes reflected his eagerness to obtain the skill as ventured outside, calling Fenrir to his side.

”Big guy, I need your help.”

Fenrir’s attention piqued without knowing what he needed to do, just completing one of Noah’s commands caused him to get excited. Out of everyone there, it was he that Noah came to, just that simple act alone filled Fenrir with a sense of pride. His competitiveness with Arachne as the favorite. His tail flicked once, but strong enough to almost cause Eve to topple over from the wind generated alone. His ears twitched as he watched Noah carefully, not caring for the dead eye being directed behind him as he awaited Noah’s next words.

What followed was Noah explaining about gaining one of Fenrir’s abilities. Before Noah could finish explaining the entire process, Fenrir had already shoved his head into Noah’s chest, slightly pushing him back. Fenrir’s antics elicited a warm smile from Noah, giving up explaining anything else before placing the crystal onto the beast head. With Fenrir not as perceptive as to be able to flow his essence into the crystal on his own, Noah had to use the crystal to forcefully extract it himself.

”This might sting,” Noah warned, though he doubted Fenrir even cared. Though when Noah activated the crystal and it began to draw from Fenrir’s essence, his body tensed, and a low growl rumbled from deep within his chest, but he didn’t move, he was determined to prove to be Noah’s best partner.

The pain didn’t escalate during the extended period, nor did it take long to even process the absorption since Fenrir was more than cooperative. The crystal simply brightened more exaggeratedly as the process continued until its glow became almost blinding. The colorful hues that swirled within the crystal were now completely corrupted by the violent energies of Fenrir’s own essence. A hectic blend of black, violet and crimson, swirling together as one.

When it was over, the crystals glow subsided, leaving Fenrir’s breathing irregular, however his eyes continued to look towards Noah in anticipation.

Despite Noah’s own eagerness, his gaze scrutinized Fenrir’s appearance, making sure that the process didn’t inflict any permanent or drastic injuries before his attention was directed back to the core in hand. There weren’t any directions on how to use the crystal, it was only when he tried to use it originally that he had learned that he was missing the essence of a bonded creature. Without any prior information, he could only continue to figure out how to succeed. He first thought about placing the crystal to his own head. However, thinking about the fact where cores originated, he decided to place the crystal against his chest, activating the runic symbols by once again injecting his mana.

The glow from the crystal intensified like before after being activated, and despite Noah believing placing the crystal to his heart to shorten the distance to its source, he was unable to prevent himself from going through his own bout of pain. His muscles tensed as he braced himself, instinctively, the slime residing within his body began to leak out of every part of his pores, enveloping his body to the point that his figure remained the same, but his appearance was now eerily similar to Ailetta’s.

The process drew the attention of the others, who quickly gathered around. They each waited for Noah to finish, not knowing how he was faring since the slime was blocking his face to see his expression. Only minutes passed before the light and energy within the crystal died off, with the crystal becoming fragile, brittle, breaking down into dust within his enforced grip.

With the ending of the assimilation, the slime began to recede back into Noah’s body, revealing the change in his appearance after he accidentally activated his newly acquired ability.