As some of you might already know, monsters and individuals are separated into different categories of Pathbearer. The main separation between individual and monster is debated, but the core differences are experiential, origin, and metaphysical. Though there have been questionable experiments conducted by ancient empires to raise “Feral Pathbearers” who might be able to access a monster’s Path, thus far it takes a significant alteration to an individual Pathbearer’s nature for them to gain Monster Skills.
Individual Pathbearers will notice that their skills grant them more abilities to interface with the world, applying more control or delivering more sophisticated attacks. This isn’t to say that Individual Skills are not potent, but taking Toughness Skill Evolutions for example and the fact that most Individual Pathbearers rely on equipment and armor, most skills in such a category develop toward prevention, reduction, or nullification of damage rather than raw durability.
Such is not the same with monsters. Most monsters do not develop sapient intelligence until a far higher tier—if at all—and as such their skills lend to more brutal and overwhelming capacities.
Such is why the Storm Giants tend to evolve their Aeromancy toward skills such as This Storm My Soul, which allows them to store a massive storm inside themselves and drink in lightning while an individual Aeromancer might achieve something like Architect of Descending Storms, which focuses less on raw mana output, but spread their mana field further and wider while allowing for delicate controls.
Regardless, it is not impossible for one to gain Monster Skills. But most means to attain monster Skill Evolutions will usually require significant acts of Biomancy, in which the Individual Pathbearer’s body is reshaped, a blessing that allows you to tap into a monster’s nature somehow, or a skill transplant, which is extremely experimental at present and will require a Master Animancer to perform.
-The Paths of Ascension, Essential Reading at Phoenix Academy of The Yellowstone Republic
136 (I)
Assimilation [I]
Woundeater 90 > 94
Vitamancy 67 > 69
Vitality Drain 59 > 61
Practical Metabiology 38 > 40
Multi-Tasking 1 > 4
Memorization 1 > 6
Awareness 21 > 24
Getting Biomantically assimilated was a captivating way to die.
For one, there wasn’t a lot of physical pain involved. The entire process was more characterized by a sudden feeling of absence than anything else. One moment he could feel his hand, and the next moment it wasn’t his hand anymore. Nested within the Court Leviathan’s flesh, Shiv resisted the invasive Biomancy possessed by the massive beast—further amplified by Helix and his cohort of orc Biomancers. They didn’t smash through his Biomancy field or rip it apart immediately. Instead, they showed him how mages fought. Technically. Strategically. Taking advantage of mistakes and or misunderstandings to pass through his field and directly twist his flesh.
Strings of shifting biomass danced within the Court Leviathan and washed over him, gripping and pulling at him. He repelled them at first, but then came subtler and subtler touches, subtler and subtler spells. Eventually, his aforementioned hand rebelled of its own accord. It stopped functioning in accordance with his nervous system and detached itself from his wrist. It sprouted ant-like legs made from its bones as it skittered off and melted into the Court Leviathan’s biomass. More glancing touches of Biomancy passed against him, and with each dip against his body, treason was whispered into his flesh.
His legs left him next. Then one of his eyes. His tongue. His organs. His ears. Until he finally, he was but a spine, a brain, a heart, a larynx, and two lungs. Still, he remained alive, painless, aside from how strained his Biomancy felt. He tried to direct his intent, but it was far harder without hands. But still, Shiv kept going. Because despite everything, this was fun. He was finally learning in the most hands-on way possible.
And for all his haughtiness, Helix wasn’t a bad instructor.
“Alright, pull him out,” Helix’s muffled voice sounded from above. The quivering folds of animated flesh shifted around Shiv. They went from being a cage of cartilage meant to hold him in place to active muscle and pushed him upward. As he emerged, he felt the ground solidify into a smooth surface of bone, and over him stood the bespectacled orc.
“So. Better this time. But still not good. I once again must spit on whoever deliberately crippled your learning. You’re missing far too many essential skills. Not even Adept-Tier Memorization or Multi-Tasking. It’s getting in the way of your efficiency. It’s probably the main reason you’re so incompetent at responding to minute or multi-pronged spells.”
Shiv tried to say something, but realized his tongue was absent.
“It’s fine,” Helix sighed, brushing off his coat. “I am not blaming you. I suspect you will be evolving your Woundeater first. That makes you a horrifically inverted Pathbearer in terms of development, which, I suppose, fits someone of your aberrant nature.”
Shiv grunted in agreement. The other orcs looked down at him with appreciation and amusement. Most of them still had fear-chains connected to him, and a few had grown thicker when Shiv exposed his willingness to suffer torment and death to grow. But more than fear, he noted a glee to their expressions. Most of them genuinely liked him. It wasn’t the kind of liking where some Umbrals and Weaveresses saw him as a hero to their city. No, the orcs liked him as a person.
They considered his mortality and ethics flaws, but aside from that, they treated him as something of a neighborhood celebrity. And despite Shiv’s best efforts, he enjoyed it. He valued it. After a lifetime of being a pariah, positive attention was like an oasis in a desert for Shiv.
But they’re still orcs. Never forget, Shiv. Never forget what they do to people. What they’ll do to the people you care about the moment they get a chance. He reminded himself of this time and time again.
But knowing was one thing, and feeling was another. And there he noticed another weakness in himself that the orcs could exploit—that they were exploiting.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
He had Shape of Monstrosity. That was his edge in terms of social dynamics. That, and his willingness to break or kill them—his indifference toward death and pain. But their grasp over psychology and social dynamics far exceeded his, and in the hours he spent in the Tutorial, he found himself laughing with the orcs. Amused by them. Mistaking them for companions.
And I can’t let them charm me. Not completely.
Psychology 26 > 28
And so, intermittently, he applied his own psychological updates. He reached back and reminded himself of memories and emotions. Memories of what Band did, of how 811 crushed a child’s skull before Shiv’s eyes just to mess with him. Time and again, Shiv fed himself doses of slight rage to center his thoughts and taint his feelings toward the orcs. It had some effect. But it wouldn’t be enough in the long run. He would need to ask for Uva’s aid in bolstering his defenses.
Psychomancy 14 > 16
“Insul… Insul!” Helix called out, snapping his fingers in front of Shiv's face. He blinked, realizing he'd sunk into his own thoughts again. “Ah. Your attention span is also too fragile. You should ask that Umbral of yours to show you how to tether your mind to the present. That will make up for more than a few of your deficiencies.”
The Deathless tried to nod, but as he was just a few pieces of bone and meat on the ground, he ended up using his Biomancy to wiggle himself instead. At least Helix wasn’t pestering him about letting orc Psychomancers “optimize his mind.”
Biomancy was one thing, but letting orcs touch his thoughts and memories? Yeah. Haha. No. More than even odds were they would mentally twist him into some kind of cannibal chef that delighted in the taste of human flesh.
“Again, let us finish this off the classical way! We’re going to tear your mana apart again, and then we’re going to do terrible things to your body. Fight all the way.”
Shiv let out the closest thing to a snorting noise that he could as he sent a telepathic thought at the orc. “Well, then hurry up. I’m tired of waiting.”
Helix let out a quiet laugh. “Hurry up, he says. Very well. Biomancers. Field first. Then, let’s see how he handles hyper-accelerated aging again.”
A few, large gray heads popped into Shiv’s periphery. There were a few hundred orcs around him on the bridge of the Court Leviathan. Most of them were fused into the walls, but a few directly assisted Helix, leering down at him with vicious glee in their eyes.
Even as their Biomancy sank its teeth into his body, they didn’t tear him apart. Instead, they destroyed him on a fine level. He noticed it at first in his cells—and a sudden onrush of lethargy hit him. Even with so little of his body remaining, he could feel his bodily functions slow to a brutal halt. Every breath was harder. His eyesight got immensely worse. What few muscles he had left shrank. His heart twitched and spasmed painfully, barely able to sustain its own beats. But they didn’t kill him. Not immediately. The orcs worked to accelerate his aging, and once they were done, they simply stepped back.
Shiv lay on the ground and regarded himself using his broken Biomancy. It hurt to move the field, but he did anyway. His organs were shriveled. Spent as if after eons of use. He tried to think, but his mind felt sluggish, and a tiredness washed through him, pulled him closer to the embrace of slumber. Time slipped away from him as if water running through his fingers. Just as he started trying to undo some of the damage, he…
He…
Wait… Where’s the Swan-Eating Toad? Why am I here? Where is my body?
“Psychomancy and Biomancy are tied,” Helix declared, standing over Shiv. He pushed his spectacles up with his thumb. “The material mind is the foundation upon which the metaphysical intellect is crowned. With the former compromised, the latter is doomed to collapse as well. Such is why Biomancy is the most foundational magic that all organic entities can learn. Granted by the System to shape your own evolution. To ensure your own growth. Truthfully, I pity the non-organic Pathbearers. For they must build and maintain themselves constantly at the lowest Tiers, while we are installed in our own self-directing miracle. And all we need to do is make it better.”
Shiv blinked. He barely recalled Helix’s existence, and everything was hazy. He… Where was he again?
Helix rubbed his chin. “Ah. The mental degeneration is getting worse. You see now the more insidious threat of Psychomancy. A great many of my foes fell to me this way, they—”
But then, Shiv’s ruined flesh began to twitch and grow. His lungs refilled. His pupil dilated. Streaks of white in his strands of hair turned back to black as he shuddered. The dense haze choking his mind broke apart, and once more his thoughts flowed free. It was like his biology got unblocked in some way, and more importantly, Shiv felt amazing. And that feeling only grew as his physical form swelled larger and larger, until he was a five-meter stretch of spine and flesh.
Plaguefueled 64 > 69
Helix blinked. A few other orcs leaned in as well. “Oh, you have Plaguefueled. I see. Well, of course you have that. You live life by letting the world kill you over and over again. It would make sense that your body is absorbing all the aging disease pathways.” Shiv let out a gasp of pleasure, and some orcs began laughing at his response. “Well. This will come in useful when you enter another battle, I suppose. It shouldn’t be hard to teach you how to do this, either. Aging is a simple thing to induce… Hard to repair, however.”
Shiv barely heard Helix. The only thing that matched aging was the basilisk venom. And—
Helix waved a hand. A flash of crimson mana pulsed over Shiv. “But here is something adjacent that you won’t be able to resist quite so well.”
Just then, Shiv felt the blood inside him ignite. His organs seared, and his body tensed. He went from euphoria to agony as he felt like he was coming apart from within. He used his Biomancy field to observe himself again. It felt like the insides of his cells were dragging against themselves. Some kind of biological friction? I—
And Shiv’s death came in a sudden instant. His Vitae avatar burst free from his corpse and hovered over his body. He watched as his flesh combusted from within and began degenerating into vile paste at a rapid pace.
“What the hells did you just do to me?” Shiv asked Helix.
The orc just laughed as he placed one hand on his hip and raised the other with two fingers extended. “Two things. The first was hyper-accelerating your metabolism. The second was damaging your blood code; the helices that hold your structures together, so to speak. That was the rapid degeneration we saw just now. It is a more targeted form of attack than something you might experience from a Pathbearer who can wield atomics or radiation. But the effects are much the same.”
Woundeater 94 > 97
Plaguefueled 69 > 72
Multi-Tasking 4 > 9
Memorization 6 > 11