Jill P.O.V

  There was only one thing that drew Jill’s attention, and she felt unable to tear her gaze away from it. The monster had a mostly human body, though it did have two additional hands. Although that barely even registered in her mind as she was focused on the creature’s eyes. It had seven of them. Four on the right side of her head, and three on the other. They were stacked atop one another closely though all were angled upwards. The sight bothered her, but she couldn’t take her gaze away. Each of the monster's many eyes was entirely different. One looked as though it was observing the entire world, and another was like fractured glass. Other than the odd eyes, the monster had the face of a wrinkled older woman. Splotches of grey hair poured down from her hood.

  Fear stopped Jill’s movements, and she only stared at the enormous monster. Something was wrong about it, and it twisted her guts in all the wrong ways. Unlike Mash, she wasn’t so stupid to try and have a conversation with everything she saw. This creature’s completely unfazed expression left her to know doubts. She needed to run, and quickly. Without turning around, she glanced to her side teleporting outside of the cage. She couldn’t really see far in the darkness, and her light had not been enough to illuminate the whole room. As she appeared the monster’s hand appeared in front of her.

  A vision passed through her mind. She saw herself getting swatted like a bug. The monster was uncaring as she exploded from the light swing of its hand. Even after the vision ended, she only had a fraction of a second to make the teleport. Her instincts kicked in and she appeared a few meters to the right. It was enough to avoid the swinging hand, but only barely. The wind from the swing crashed into her roughly. The force of that alone was enough to move her a little. Sweat fell from her forehead as she teleported again. Another vision had passed, but she managed to get further from the swinging hand this time.

  This thing was horrifying. Its swings looked casual like it didn’t really care whether or not it really hit her. The situation was more of a game to the monster. Space was bending around her hands, making her slow signs feel unavoidable. Visions passed through her mind as she dodged. In some half her body gets torn off, in others, she explodes like a squished fruit. In a few, she died even before the hand actually reached her.

  After dodging a few times, she felt her shirt sticking to her back. She had been sweating buckets, and she was struggling to stay positive. Thankfully she had enough adrenaline pumping to keep her from ruminating on any of the visions. The next blink gave her a momentary pause, and she used it to try attacking. The space around the creature’s eyes shifted for a second but didn’t explode as she wanted it to. A cackling noise came from the enormous thing, and Jill realized it was laughing at her. Another vision passed, but this time there was no hand. She simply died her body twisting in on itself.

  Jill teleported away. Though the vision chased her, and she did it again. Only single thought raced through her mind in repetition.

  Get away! Get away! Get away! Get away! Get away! Get away! Get away! Get away!

  She blinked with each thought, trying desperately to find a way out of wherever she was. She teleported continuously though the visions wouldn’t end either. It was getting harder and harder to keep track of her position. At some point, she was just teleporting randomly but never saw a way out of the room. She barely even got to see things around her. A stinging pain spread from her head. The constant teleportation was becoming too difficult. Her mind couldn’t handle it, and the pain was quickly growing unbearable.

  She couldn’t stop so long as that vision was still chasing her. Eventually, she couldn’t take it anymore, and her next teleport left her dazed. It felt like she had been spinning as fast as she could and suddenly stopped. Everything inside of her felt like it was in the wrong place, and she couldn’t focus her sight on anything. The vision didn’t end, but she didn’t think it was a good idea to teleport again. She couldn’t make out her surroundings, teleporting to a bad location would be bad. Instead, she poured all her mana into her defensive items. The spatial armor wrapped her thickly.

  It didn’t last, the space around her warping violently as her defenses collided with the thing’s magic. Then she could see as the metal bands on her wrist cracked and the item shattered. Pieces of metal dug into her arm, and the armor winked away. Her mind shut down as she waited to die. Then she felt nothing, and everything went black.

  ______________________________________________________________________________

  Mash P.O.V

  Most of the masters had left to warn people and inform the other sects. Jeral stayed with Daniel. They were both curious to see how Mash planned on getting their people out if needed. Although now that he thought about it, Mash didn’t actually know how his skill would function either. It sounded like he would just be able to make a portal, but he wasn’t entirely sure if others could go through. He didn’t worry about it too much and started opening a portal in the space in front of him.

  He checked his energy usage during the process and watched as the number drained rapidly. Eventually, the portal finished, and it looked almost identical to a dungeon entrance. There was one oddity to it thought. It had appeared as an archway; a wooden frame had grown from the ground as the portal formed to fill it. The portal itself was a black swirling mass of nothingness, that seemed to be churning endlessly.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Mash looked at the archway and saw markings that he didn’t recognize. Had the skill imparted the knowledge to him? No, if that was the case, he would know how to read it, right? The skill just worked, and he didn’t worry about it too much for the moment. He had wanted to make a portal back to his own world, and it looked like a success. The energy cost was more than he expected. It drained almost half of his energy. It was a lot, and few people would have the mana needed to perform a skill with this kind of requirement. It was unique though, so others wouldn’t even be able to get the skill so long as he was alive.

  “I guess I’ll see you guys soon.”

  Mash waved toward the two men, before turning away. Although, he was held up as Jeral spoke. He sounded curious, but there was something else in his tone that Mash couldn’t place.

  “Perhaps one of us should accompany you? It would be good to learn of your world.”

  Mash thought about it but decided against it. He trusted Daniel to an extent, but not Jeral or the other masters. While he knew that the term master was being used in a different context than he initially assumed, he didn’t like the idea of a group of people requiring that others address them that way. It sounded like something a good person wouldn’t ever do.

  ‘You will have the time for that later, I won’t really be exploring anything in my world. Plus, I won’t be going to any big cities if I can avoid it.”

  Both men seemed confused by the information, and Jeral looked like he wanted to protest. He refrained from speaking and only nodded to Mash. It seemed like the man might have an idea of what Mash was thinking. After the agreement, Mash stepped through the portal. It felt like he was entering another dungeon. The portal’s swirling darkness fell upon him. Drowning out his vision, before opening again in the middle of a town. He stepped out surprised to be staring down a handful of guards with spears raised. They wore full metal armor which was surprising considering the relative size of the town.

  “Identify yourself!”

  The guard in front yelled, but Mash was distracted by his surroundings. He had expected the portal to take him out where the dungeon’s entrance had been, but this town was pretty unrecognizable. He wondered if the skill had moved him a relative distance to his own movements within the other world, or if it was just a random location. He didn’t know and almost opened his storage space to grab his map. Managing to restrain himself for the moment, he decided to deal with the guards first.

  “I’m an adventurer. My name is Mash.”

  Mash spoke while attempting to close the portal behind him. He didn’t know exactly how to do it, but he imagined it dissipating, and that seemed to work. The portal responded to his intentions and dissipated, the wooden frame dissolving into nothing.

  “Show me your badge!”

  The guard's voice didn’t grow any less hostile, and Mash sighed as he realized this would take longer than he wanted it to. Plus, his badge was in his storage space, and he didn’t really want to open it in front of others again. The last time had ended with him getting in serious trouble, and he knew better now. Rather than bothering the guards, Mash let wings sprout from his back. Instead of the cat form, he decided to try replicating the wyvern’s wings. It had strange wings, which consisted of a mix of scales and feathers. It appeared; the color shifted so that the scales along the top were black while the feathers on the wings were white.

  Mash didn’t hear what the guard said, as he shot into the air with incredible speed. Far faster than he could manage with his cat form. It might have been faster than even his dragon form. Did that mean that wyverns were creatures of speed? The one he fought had been faster than him, so he guessed that might be true. He wanted to test more with the new form but decided to leave it alone for the moment. He opened his storage space when he went beyond the sight of the guards and pulled out his map.

  He was close to the dungeon he had entered before. Judging from the direction it seemed like there was some relation between the distance he traveled in the other world and the location where the portal had led to in this world. That was good, though it didn’t seem like it would make his journey any faster. The distance he had traveled in the other world was a lot further than the displacement he experienced in this one.

  He didn’t feel any of his imitations of Priscilla and assumed that his friends were still doing their trials. In the back of his mind, he was worried for the others, but he trusted that they would be fine. His trial hadn’t really been about his power, and he thought that the others would have similar ones. Even if they didn’t, all three of them were extremely hard to kill. He trusted that they would be fine, but he still worried about them a little. He decided to do what he could and tried contacting his sister.

  [Hey, Luna what day is it?]

  It was the first concern that came to his mind. He wanted to know how much time he had spent. To him, it felt like two days, but he knew that it could be different. It took a second to receive his response.

  [Mash! I was in the middle of something important. It’s the 3rd of the 2ndmonth.]

  He was surprised to realize that some tone had come through the message. In fact, Priscilla had managed to recreate his sister’s voice as well. It seemed like she had gotten better since his last attempt at this. The information was only slightly bothersome. It meant that his time in the other world had translated to a little over two weeks here.

  [Sorry, I just got out of my trial. Can you get Arthur? I got some more stuff for him.]

  It took a few seconds for him to receive the response. When he did get Luna sounded very annoyed, and he wondered what was happening on her end.

  [Look what you did, now I’m going to get in trouble for messing up. Fine I will go and get Arthur. What happened though, did you advance? Should we be expecting another thousand people or something?]

  Mash found himself relaxing as he began explaining the situation to his sister. Bragging about his advancement, while also telling him of his other experience. He also asked her about how things were going in his world. There was supposed to be an invasion going on here too, but he trusted that his world would be fine.

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  Chapter 183: Suffering

  Name: Mash Stellumbra           Class: Chimeric Vagabond

  Level: 100

  Health: 3000 / 3000

  Energy: 3560 / 3560

  Fortitude: 300

  Endurance: 186

  Strength: 250

  Agility: 252

  Intelligence: 221

  Wisdom: 110

  Charisma: 100

  T: 1419

  Free Stats: 0

  Skills: Hunt, Thunder-wood Creation, Inhuman Hibernation, Monstrous Transformation →Chimeric Transformation, Thunder-wood Imitation, Chimeric Reconstruction, Vagabond’s Path, Draconic Domain →Chimeric Domain, Adaptable Monster Core, Monstrous Humanity →Chimera’s Constitution, Wooden Body, Mimic’s Avarice, A Touch of Nothingness, Golden Body

  Hunt: You have gone beyond your limits when fighting enemies and devouring their power. Go beyond your limits. Continue current fight even after depleting energy. Stats improve while at 0 stamina. Continues until either you or your enemies are dead.

  Current Bonus: +100% stats

  Inhuman Hibernation: You have stolen the techniques of mages and monks to form an artificial technique, your inhuman body morphing it to fit your corrupted nature. Hibernating will increase the rate at which your body recovers, healing most wounds.

  Current Rate: +200% recovery

  Thunder-wood Creation: You know how deadly sticks can be. Forge your mana into wooden creations. Lightning has tempered your wood, and it thrums with the power of thunder.

  Monstrous Transformation → Chimeric Transformation: Transform your body taking on aspects of those which you have consumed. Control which aspects to take and combine them to create the perfect form. Greatly increased energy consumption when combining forms.

  Thunder-wood Imitation: Form imitations of creatures you have consumed, imitating some of their bodily functions through your wood.

  Chimeric Reconstruction: Consume what you kill for more than just stats. Steal their flesh to repair your own. Their blood becomes yours. Your enemies are nothing more than your medicine.

  Vagabond’s Path (unique): Having chosen the path of the vagabond, you have freed yourself from your own world. An explorer at heart, you laugh as you leap between worlds. Open portals to worlds you have already been. Once per cycle of the moon create a portal to a random world. Create a world of your own, portal to personal world granted.

  Draconic Domain → Chimeric Domain (Passive): Your eyes just weren’t enough. Sense the changes in the mana around you. Connect to the mana and life in your space and inherently understand the nature of the mana and life. Your presence suffuses the space, weakens the magic and strength of enemies beneath you. They cower beneath your might.

  Current Range: 23 → 53 feet

  Adaptable Monster Core (Passive): An unnatural mana core has fundamentally altered your body, fusion with a monster has given you access to its potential. Stamina and Mana combine to become energy. Your monstrous body is better able to handle the changes to your core.

  Current Bonus: +75% efficiency

  Wooden Body (Passive): You can connect with the wood that you are touching. By expending your energy, you bring your creations to life as another one of your limbs.

  Monstrous Humanity → Chimera’s Constitution (Passive): Giving up your humanity has improved your body, improving your physical control, natural defenses, animalistic intuition, and mana control. No longer a human in any sense, you are no longer bound by that which limits them. You have created your own race, improving your rate of growth.

  Mimic’s Avarice (Passive): Devour your enemy in battle to temporarily raise your stats. The fresher the victim the stronger the bonus. Gain full benefits even when consuming through your magic. Absorbs some properties of those you devour alive. Removes the negative effects of things you consume.

  A Touch of Nothingness: Belonging to no race or group, you have embraced the nothingness that is a part of everything. You are free, and automatically resist others' attempts to bind you. Constantly emit the aura of nothingness within your domain. Your allies will gain some of the freedom you possess. Enemies weaker than yourself will slowly lose that which makes them whole.

  Golden Body (Passive): Having stolen the techniques of another world, your body evolves beyond its old limitations. However, even this transformation is incomplete. Seek out the next Step and truly make this power your own.

  Trial of the True Body: 5 / 100