Come and get me, sucker.
We were about as high up as I could fly with [Flight (Minor)] and the falcon absolutely had speed on its side. I could only evade for so long. Not that evading forever was my ultimate goal.
The falcon’s talons closed on me, pinning my wings against my sides.
Oh, no, I’ve been caught. Hah. Chomp. [Venomous Bite]!
A screech told me all I needed to know about how that felt for the bird of prey. It tried to release me, but I jammed my stinger into its foot and grabbed hold with my gecko feet.
I wasn’t sure if my skill stacked, but I figured it was worth a shot.
Chomp. [Venomous Bite]! Chomp. [Venomous Bite]! Chomp. [Venomous Bite]!
The bird didn’t like that so much. It started slashing at me with its other foot, spinning to try and dislodge me.
Ow. Stop that. [Venomous Bite]!
A stray talon split my belly open.
Oh, shoot, my organs.
This was a pretty wild attempt at laying claim to a stronger foe, but I was full up on mass and had prepared for some danger. I wasn’t entirely sure this would work, but it was time to find out.
Body:→
My body changed, and with it, my injury went away.
Excellent. Health restored, as well as my plentiful organs.
The falcon was starting to flag, and we were rapidly loosing altitude.
All I have to do now is survive the fall.
Down we tumbled, my mouth firmly gripped on the angry, screeching creature. I caught another stray talon, switching back to, losing some of my stored mass as I went, but not enough to ruin my plan’s finale.
The ground raced towards us. Right before we landed, I released the bird and kicked off of it with [Mighty Leap], flapping my wings a few times to decelerate. Then, before the bird could recover, I transformed again.
Head:
Body:
Limbs:
Tail:
Wings:
That ate up a lot of my mass, but in turn, I now had some weight to throw around. I leapt, mightily, onto the falcon, pinning it to the ground and stabbing at its body, now within my reach, with my stinger while using my rat incisors to bite at the bird’s neck, adding another [Venomous Bite] for good measure.
Breathing hard, I stepped back once I got my reward.
(Level 5) defeated. Experience gained.
Level up! You have reached Level 6.
You have earned an attribute upgrade and a skill point.
Hell yeah.
I stood on my hind legs, spread my wings, and roared at the sky.
A shrill squeak was all I could manage, but I felt powerful.
I had an upgrade to choose, but first, my rat belly was a lot larger than I had available to me since I first started this loop.
profile 100% complete. Added to [Amalgamation]’s Loadout options.
Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
NOTICE!profile contains upgraded version of unlocked skill. [Flight (Minor)] can evolve into [Flight (Major)]. Proceed?
That’s new. Yes, definitely. I had wondered about the difference between skills that had no tiers and the skills that had tiers. I had been reluctant to purchase some other skills because they were rated as Minor, since I figured I would have to spend another skill point to pick up a Major version later—and any subsequent tiers—but it seemed like that would regulate itself for me. Maybe I will pick up [Regeneration (Minor)], then…
Not this time, however. I now had much more powerful flight, but with that came some other challenges. I needed an ocular upgrade if I wanted to keep up with my increased speed and to be able to sight prey from a distance.
In addition to [Flight (Major)], the falcon also had a skill called [Hyper Vision]. It was a no-brainer at this stage, because I intended to make a lot of use of this profile. The bird wasn’t actually that much heavier than the rat, as much of its bulk was feathers, and after eating it, I had more than enough mass to spare.
Head:
Body:
Limbs:
Tail:
Wings:
Oooooh, that feels good.
I had only enjoyed being a single comprehensive profile once in all this time, and I had almost forgot how good it felt. I was pretty sure I could fix that with that scaling factor upgrade, which I had been considering purchasing at Level 6, but if I could ride out my newprofile for a level or two, I could probably defer that.
Since I was again hitting the limits of my available mass, that was probably the right choice for now. The storage seemed to multiply by ten each upgrade, which would bring me from 1kg to 10kg. That would open up a ton of doors for me moving forward. As a falcon, I could take out some rabbits, which were in that range. Maybe a cat, if I could find one; that could be a useful form for hunting as well.
I felt the feathers on my neck raise in alarm. Something triggered my instincts, so I used [Mighty Leap] to evade and then [Flight (Major)] to stay airborne, glancing down at where I just was.
The ground has burst open and something slithered out, slapping around in frustration. I recognize you. I had seen one in the wizard’s tower. It was a large worm-like creature with a circular mouth full of razor teeth, which was wide open as it reached up for me in futility.
Clearly, I had just avoided becoming a meal for this burrowing beastie.
Something about it rubbed me the wrong way. My memories were mush, but I seemed to recall a lot about a bunch of animals. This one didn’t trigger any sort of recognition except for the visual similarity to a giant tapeworm.
I heard a snap, and glanced to where the sound came from.
“Oh, a burroworm,” the stranger.
An arrow thrummed through the air, impacting into the side of the monster’s head-like area, and the beast screeched a sound that was like grinding glass. Another arrow silenced it, as it flopped over.
“Lucky I didn’t step on that,” the man said, sauntering over.
He looked like some kind of hunter; well equipped, with a quiver full of arrows and a nice-looking bow. He had a head of long brown hair which was tied up in a bun, and a short matching beard. Clear green eyes glanced around, and locked onto me.
Hello. Please don’t shoot me.
The man stopped moving. “Well, ain’t you a beaut,” he said, looking me over.
I took my eyes off him for a moment to look at the dead worm, but only for a second before locking them back on the stranger. There must be a town nearby. I hadn’t noticed from above with my weak gecko vision.
The question was: how willing was the man to send an arrow in my direction, like he had the worm?
The man had caught my glance at the corpse. He motioned towards it with his chin. “You want it? You can eat it, if you want, pretty bird.”
Hmm. Suspicious. But while its mass, profile, and skills were valuable to me, maybe the corpse was worthless to him.
We stood in our stalemate for a few minutes longer. I was surprised at the man’s patience. He just watched me watching him.
...All right, fine, I thought. I upgraded [Chimaeric Core], taking the extra storage upgrade I had planned on, which grew to 10,000g as expected, then swooped over to the dead monster and started pecking at it.
profile 0.001% complete.
“There ya go. Eat up,” the man said. I glanced over at him, and he had sat down, pulling out a canteen and some rations.
I glanced back at the burroworm corpse. It actually didn’t taste bad, but the guy had actual food. I was curious about it. I watched him rip off a strip of jerky, stick it in his mouth, and start chewing.
Figuring the guy seemed to like me, I took a small hop in his direction.
“Greedy little thing, eh?” the hunter said. But I was right about him; he seemed to like me, as he ripped a piece of jerky off—admittedly smaller than one he had taken for himself—and tossed it towards me. I snapped it up with my beak and swallowed it quickly.
profile 0.001% complete.
Bro, you’re eating horse meat. Do you know that?
It would take a lot of jerky for me to earn that profile. The burroworm wasn’t something I could finish in one sitting either, but I turned back to that and decided to do my best.
profile 3.397% complete.
“Wow, you really packed that in,” the hunter said when I finally stopped eating. “I’m honestly kind of impressed.”
I gave a weak screech in return. Half of it went into my storage, but I still felt a bit ill. Belatedly, I realized flying right now would be pretty miserable.
The man walked over, and figuring I had trusted him this far, I didn’t freak out or try anything. He wasn’t coming at me, anyway, but the corpse. He knelt down, pulling out a small knife, and started cutting into the corpse with practiced precision.
Reaching his hand into the body, which for some reason grossed me out even though I had just been eating it, he pulled out a small stone of some kind. Maybe crystal, not stone. Weird.
He pocketed it, then stood.
“Well. Nice to meet you, pretty bird. I’m going to go cash this in.”
And with that, he walked away.