Chương 47: Chapter Forty Six

Ding!

You have chosen the Class: Dimensional Mage (A) Class: Dimensional Mage (A) Level: 1/100 EXP: 0/24 Attribute Gain Per Level: Intelligence + 10 Willpower + 6 * Constitution + 4 Class Skill Dimensional Weave (A) Evolution Path Dimensional Magic Level 10: Skill Evolution 1 Level 20: Skill Evolution 2 Level 30: Skill Evolution 3 Level 50: Skill Evolution 4 Level 75: Skill Evolution 5 Level 100: Skill Evolution 6 -Unique Experience Gain- Dimensional Mage (A) Gains Experience points by leveling Dimensional Path Skills.

Ding! You have acquired the Skill ' Dimensional Weave (A)', from the 'Dimensional Magic Path' Dimensional Weave (A) Glimpsing the Weave allows one far greater control and understanding over Dimensional Magics. Lessening the cost and increasing the power of Dimensional Path Skills, as well as aiding in their creation. As the windows jumped up in front of his eye, Bob briefly found himself distracted.

His attention split between the infodump about his new Class and the shrill, burbling shrieks which seemed to echo from the rooms above. That is, until his Class Skill decided to kick in. Much like with 'Treasure Sense', it was a passive ability. Unlike his first Class Skill however, 'Dimensional Weave' didn't deal in strange, sonar-like signals lighting up inside his head. It dealt in Understanding. Bob felt as though a part of his mind was almost peeled back.

Whereupon not knowledge, but instinct was pushed inside. Instinct over the quantum two-state system. A feeling in his wooden flesh for how to change Mana into negative matter. For how to bend photons and trick space into believing that a small section of reality here was actually a much larger chuck of reality from over there. And how to entangle the two enough to make it permanent. Concepts he had no ability to understand on an intellectual level were burned into him.

Able to access them less as thoughts than as feelings. Strange, alien parodies of familiar sensations now floating about his consciousness. Bent and folded into something nearly fitting the human mind, but oh-so-obviously not. When Bob had first arrived here, the system had warned him that his Class choices would change him. Mind, Body and Soul; it had said. A warning he had unfortunately discarded, far too focused on the horrible transformation wrought on him by his Species.

A warning he very much regretted ignoring now. The strange impulses that the mimic parts of him occasionally tossed his way were nothing compared to the unearthly understanding now filling his mind. Bob felt as though something truly… human had been cut out of him. Something deeper and more important than flesh and bone. Taken. To make room for something else. After what seemed an endless moment, the process was done. Bob's form slumping over as the assault upon his existence ceased.

The damage it left behind functioning as the foundation of his newest Class Skill. When he finally managed to lift himself back up some five or so minutes later, it was as a different being entirely. The previous illusions he held about still being 'human' beneath the wooden façade now shattered. For a while he just stood there. Mind not blank, but more… processing. Trying to hold himself together while not being entirely sure which bits of him were himself and which bits were recent additions.

The bits which felt like they wanted to reach out and tear a hole in the fabric of the universe, Bob decided, probably being new. The intrusive thought actually worked to calm him. To help show him that, despite the alien sensations he was currently beset by, Bob was mostly the same person underneath. The changes caused by his Class more focused on perspective than personality. Unfortunately, the changes to his perspective had been… vast. Or at least he was pretty sure they had been.

Horrifyingly however, as the seconds ticked by, he was having a harder and harder time identifying exactly how. A part of him feeling certain that he shouldn't be visualizing the mass of matter engulfing him in quite the way he was currently doing, while simultaneously having no idea how else it could be visualized. The sensation that something wasn't quite right nagged at him like a phantom itch. The world around him seeming to lack its previous sense of stability.

Everything feeling less the sum of its parts and more like parts of a sum. The bits and pieces making up the walls and water surrounding him just as appreciable as their unified form. Which was obviously how it should be. At least if you discounted the tiny voice inside him screaming that it absolutely was not. Just as the horrible 'off-ness' of the situation was about send him spiraling, however, he was once more interrupted.

The same keening wail he'd heard previously seeming to pierce through the waters surrounding him. A sensation which felt almost visual as well as auditory. Bob able to sense its movement as the sound bounced through the room, ricocheting off the walls. A sound which could only be coming from one thing. In a moment, Bob found his previous confusion and horror struck from him. A strange, white-hot emptiness taking its place.

As if a raging inferno had erupted in his mind and burnt all other thoughts and emotions to ash. All his worries and concerns for his fading humanity whisked away. His fear and despair turned to cinder. Only one thought still remaining. He was done. Bob was done with these fucking crabs. Without an additional thought, he began to walk up the stairs; his form focused and steady. Feet now moving smoothly up each immortal step, every individual one acting in perfect harmony with the other.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. As he reached the first-floor doorway, it was almost like the crab could sense his presence. No telepathic attacks being launched his way, but its shrill cries now accompanied by the thudding echo of the monster slamming its claws into unbreakable stone. When Bob had first arrived here, that sound had been the stuff of nightmares for him.

The fear caused by the Crab Behind the Wall's very presence making him lock up completely. Nearly allowing his first real opponent to make short work of him in his flat-footed state. Now, he was discovering, it meant very little. Because the crab and its hammering claws were as insubstantial as the rest of his surroundings. More so, even. Since whatever magics had been done to the building's walls were at least attempting to bind them down. To make their individual pieces unalterable and immune to entanglement.

A trait he doubted would be shared by the overgrown arthropod at the Manor's center. As the corridor he was walking down exited into a great hall, the shrieks suddenly silenced themselves. At least audibly. Though only a moment went by before they returned with their volume suddenly redoubled. Only this time, ringing out within his already brutalized mind.' KILL!'

'REND!' The drill-like words tore into his wounded consciousness. Causing Bob to wince before spinning towards where 'Treasure Sense' indicated his foe should be. As he did so, however, it was without fear. The crab was trapped. Its aura barely straying from one spot during the entirety of his existence here. If it could have moved from wherever it'd gotten stuck, it would have. Its endless tantrums during the crab-rain having made that quite apparent.

Still, he'd expected to turn and find it standing proudly within the confines of a grand ballroom or dining hall. For there to be a bit of back and forth as it attempted to dodge his attacks and perhaps even fire off a few of its own. Bob having no idea what route it took through the rest of its mad-crab evolutions, after all. Instead, he turned to find a face shoved tightly into a narrow doorway. A massive, ugly face; he should clarify.

One covered in horrifying spines and filled with hideous scintillating mandibles. A face that would normally cause him to freeze in fear and make him seriously rethink any attempts at combat. If it weren't for the fact that the crustacean was nearly molded into the stone entrance in front of it. And a quick glance beneath the creature's ponderous body showed things were no better behind it either. Another wall and doorway not five-feet past the first.

The massive crab somehow having the bad luck to evolve itself in what looked to be the antechamber to a larger room. Making it well and truly stuck. As well as being essentially harmless. Something which momentarily left Bob and the murderous intent which had pushed him up those stairs feeling a bit off-balance. Until the screams and wall-bashing once more began in earnest.

'DESTROY!' The violating words made him wince again, each one feeling headache-inducing. Another hammer blow on the massive nail that the crabs had, collectively, driven into his nonexistent skull. A product of unknown weeks or months spent suffering their sixties-era-Sci-Fi screams within his mind. Screams which, Bob had decided, would stop today. The horrendous wails only increased as Bob began to make his way towards the creature; but he did his best to ignore them.

Focused instead on trying to delicately harness some of the information and ability grafted onto him by his latest Class choice. Determined to find at least some silver lining in the mental mutilation he'd semi-willingly put himself through. He stopped himself a good twenty feet away. Well outside the reach of any short-ranged attacks. Something which seemed wise given how much it aggravated the monster. Its horrible vocalizations growing even more extreme while its body shook with un-checked rage.

Not that Bob really noticed. All his attention on the pooled mana inside of him. On slowly gathering it together before he cast it out as an infiltrating wave at his helpless opponent. Every infinitesimal speck of it connecting itself with an equally infinitesimal piece of angry crustacean. Before then, it also connected with something else. Because Bob didn't want the crab to be here anymore. Mana surged within him.

Nearly all he had available torn away as insubstantial energy somehow converted itself into exotic matter; fueling his attempt to craft a new Skill. An attempt which succeeded. Ding! Dimensional Path Skill Acquired: Displacement (C) It happened in an instant. The system alert appearing in front of him just as large portions of the crab simply… disappeared. Important portions, apparently. Given that the monster almost immediately slumped over.

The goo which constituted its muscles beginning to ooze – or even stream – from the various gaps chewed out of its carapace. Ding! You have destroyed a 'LV: 2 Colossal Armored Mad-Crab (C)' Alert! Primary Class unchosen! Please select Primary Class before Experience distribution! Bob slumped. Both the massive expenditure of mana and the less-than-climatic end to the situation making him feel a bit light-headed. Which was for the best, really.

As it also allowed him to take a moment to pause and regain some control over himself. That is, if he was, truly, himself. Bob felt his body shudder slightly. Once more wishing he had the ability to take a deep breath, or to at least close his eye against a world that simultaneously appeared both normal and alien to him now. But he didn't. Because he was a box. A box which could see and move and had just suffered what felt like a partial lobotomy.

This despite not having anything approaching an organic brain in the first place. And now that the Manor was silent again, he had no distractions to pull him away from that fact. To stop him from thinking about how little of 'Bob' it felt like there was remaining. Earlier he'd felt resigned over never returning home, but now he couldn't focus on anything other than how 'strange' the faces of people from his past seemed in his memories. Not unfamiliar, exactly, but… off.

As if they themselves weren't any different, but had instead been seen by different eyes. Though, Bob supposed the more accurate word choice here would be 'eye'. Given that the system had not yet seen fit to let him fix his depth perception. He allowed himself a little silent chuckle at his own joke, him being the only one around here making them. Before he did his best to let go of all the fear and confusion clouding his thoughts. They wouldn't do him any good.

There was nothing to be gained by weighing himself down with pointless concerns. The only path now was forward. And the first step would be finally responding to the system alert which had been steadily blinking in front of his face. Ding! Primary Class unchosen! Please choose Primary Class! Dimensional Mage (A) Treasure Hunter (B) Bob really didn't consider the choice to be a hard one.

While 'Treasure Hunter' had served him well so far, it was obviously going to be less of a priority than leveling his newest Class. Especially given how important that Class's attribute gain was going to be for his continued survival; what with how mana-hungry its skill-set had been so far. Plus, 'Treasure Hunter' was currently pulling in the lion's share of its experience from gold collection anyway. Something which, given Bob's species requirements, he had no intention of slowing down on anytime soon.

So, with the slightest nudge from his mind, the choice was made. Ding!' Dimensional Mage (A)' has been chosen as your primary Class! (259) Experience gained for Class: ' Dimensional Mage (A)' (86) Experience gained for Class: ' Treasure Hunter (B)' Ding! Congratulations!' Dimensional Mage (A)' is now level 4! Intelligence + 40 Willpower + 24 Constitution + 16 Were he able, Bob would have groaned aloud as the effect of the attribute dump hit him.

In an instant, his head clearing, emotions becoming more stabilized and body firming up around him. It felt amazing. And as he thought about how alien the sensation would feel to a normal human – how alien it had felt to himself, once upon a time – Bob decided that he didn't care. He didn't care about what he was becoming. Didn't care about his fragmenting humanity or the body-horror that was his ever-continuing transformation.

Didn't care about the species-spanning war he'd apparently ended up in or the ever-more-dangerous creatures he'd likely encounter as he grew in strength. He'd outlast them. Just like he'd outlasted the crabs. Like he'd outlasted a shitty childhood and shitty family members and a shitty, cheating wife. Like he'd outlasted life itself, in fact. With his soul, or consciousness, or whatever transcending death and ending up here. In the drowned, abandoned land he currently called home. He'd outlast everything.

Surviving however many physical 'evolutions' and mental violations as were necessary to do so. He might not be the same 'Bob' by the end of it, but he couldn't say he was currently the same person he'd been during his younger years either. Life and its varied circumstances sometimes required change. With more extenuating circumstances sometimes requiring a more rigorous transformation. And his current circumstances were nothing if not 'extenuating'. Still, he would survive them.

And after he had – and had looted this place down to the bedrock – he would leave. Whether journeying to the lands far above his head, or to a different dimension altogether, Bob found he didn't care. Either way, he would build a place for himself. By force, if necessary. Something which he, sadly, thought it would more than likely be. Still, that wouldn't put him off his path. The first step of which would come upon exiting the Manor's front door.