Chapter 23: The ShellHe could not breathe and he was dying, but the nature of his new body ensured that his state of perishing would extend for a long duration. It would take hours for him to die, but at least there was a silver lining. I mean, he could now move around. Although he could not afford to die anytime soon, he would lose a valuable lifespan, and he might have already used his final chance for resurrection. His new state of detachment made these assumptions distant from him, and he did not panic. There was a hint here that he was not seeing, he focused his mind and he realized an important detail he missed.𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞 He had not been breathing inside the shell before, and he was fine what was the reason for that? It did not take long for him to come up with the cause —The golden liquid. When he pushed soul point into Ouroboros, it had created more of that golden liquid for him. Did that not mean that if he had more soul points, it would be possible for him to breathe? Rowan called up the Primordial Record and nearly screamed in anger because of the new state of his being. PᖇᎥᗰᗝᖇᗪᎥᗩᒪ ᖇᗴᑕᗝᖇᗪ Name: Rowan Kuranes Age: 11/11 Strength: 2.7 Agility: 1.9 Constitution: 7.3 Spirit: 2.7 Class: None Title: Plane walker Skill: (None) Passive: Decipher language (complete), Icy soul (level 2) Records: 𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗢𝗕𝗢𝗥𝗢𝗦 [ATAVISM]- level 0 [28/2000] 𝗦𝗢𝗨𝗟 𝗦𝗘𝗜𝗭𝗘𝗥 – level 0 [0/1000] Soul Point: .9998 Remark: Divine Fodder Rowan's annoyance broke through his calm disposition, and he nearly screamed at the sky. Stay calm and breath …. breathe. Do not focus on the negatives. Don't look at the double amount of Soul Point required. Who cares about a journey of a thousand miles? We can walk two thousand miles..... Just breath. Lord Are's sweet tush! No problem, great idea all around, just phenomenal, but you see there is one problem with that, Em. I Can't BREATH! Okay just, I don't know, sigh? We need to look at the positives here okay? Positives. Positives. Yes. We can look at that. I must be going crazy, what with all this "We business" I got going over here. Anything to keep you sane, boyo. Calm down and assess your situation. Okay. He could do that. The growing pains in his lungs meant he may have two hours or more before he became lethargic. In the spirit of using time wisely, let's see what I missed in my panic. He saw the growth of his stats, and it did not take long for him to see a semblance of how it works, only further experiments would prove if his inferences were incorrect. He pushed twenty-eight points of souls into Ouroboros and was rewarded with an exact increase of 2.8 in the Constitution, it did not require a genius to figure that out, every ten points in Ouroboros gave him a one-point increase in his Constitution. What that could mean further down the line was terrifying. His Strength and Agility grew by a single point, he guessed that they increased by every twenty points into Ouroboros. The Bloodline had changed, with a new prefix beside it—Atavism. There was no description of its meaning, but it had extended the amount of soul points he needed to be legendary. Finally, the last valuable hint that had been tugging at his consciousness. His soul points. He watched idly as it clicked forward to .9999 and finally turned to 1. Soul Seizer passively collected Soul Fragments, and it appears that when he was in an area of conflict, the collection capability increased. He did not think too deeply about it but pushed the single point into Ouroboros, and waited in tense expectation. Soon, a trickle of golden liquid secreted from the skin–tight shell and was absorbed into his body. The golden liquid brought a rush of clarity and gave his lungs a burst of sweet release that he nearly cried. The pressure began to build, but it was distant, he may have ten minutes before he began to feel the bite of suffocation once more. Great. So that golden liquid is my amniotic fluid and without it, I am a stillborn. "Well at least he now had mobility", he thought to himself as he picked himself from the floor, his spirit perception now serving as his eyes showed him his body. The first thing he noticed as he saw himself from this perspective was that he had grown, he had the lanky build of a teenager, but he was now five foot two inches. His shoulders were a little broad, and he appeared quite slim and delicate. The other was his shell, it was gray and smooth and there was a golden tattoo that resembled a snake that was swallowing its tail, that encircled his chest, now directly below it there was a second faint tattoo that was an exact duplicate of the first. He could barely see it, but it was there. His perception snapped back into his head with a jolt, keeping him in darkness once more. It would seem this vision of his depended on his spirit, he remembered the last time he used it, and it barely lasted a few seconds. He could feel a sort of cool aura in his head that was rapidly gathering again, maybe in thirty more seconds it would be refilled, and then he would have another five minutes of vision. So in the serene darkness, he began to plot, he stood still as a statue for the next four minutes, and he began to move. The first place he went to was to his shelves, during his studies, he had gathered various poisons and toxic materials and the most dangerous material he gathered was in a little red box he maintained very carefully. The box was easy enough to carry and was not bulky, finding a pair of strong silk-like ropes, he fashioned a strap for the box, so it sat beside his waist. Then he walked to the center of the room, where the divine weapon he used to kill the Demon wolf was kept, he took it and attempted to cut through the shell with the most powerful weapon he had, but he failed. The blade of the Divine Weapon slid across, not leaving even a scratch. Next, he had to find clothes, but he paused when he saw neatly folded clothes and shoes aside from the door, most likely kept by Maeve. She does think of everything. It did not take long for him to wear the clothes, and he felt like a mannequin in a fashion house. The underwear must have been of excellent quality, but he could not feel it, he wore black trousers that were a little too small, but still fit perfectly enough, maybe she anticipated that he might grow, but she underestimated the amount. The robe she gave him was black with purple linings on the edges, he had to drop the red box to wear it, and thankfully it came with a hood, he wore the shoes and walked to the door where he paused and two seconds later he fell into darkness. In thirty seconds, his sight returned and he hurried down the stairs. Along the way, he began experimenting with what he could do with this five-minute vision he had.