Chương 73: Makes a Man Think

The first thing WARHOL did upon returning to The Grotto was take a bath. He kept basic warming incantations up while traversing the ice-cold chill of space, sure, but those incantations he only allowed to do the minimum. He didn't want many creature comforts draining his mana while on a mission. Per the norm, he had his hempen tea to calm himself; but he found he wasn't too shaken by the mission's events. Moved to act, yes, but not shaken. No one had been on the planet destroyed.

Was it terrible seeing such a beautiful world wrecked? Of course. But the world's destruction was a moving factor for him, not a tragedy. Warhol instead was wide-awake. He was ready to mutate and return to the field. As he bathed, he opened his menu and looked at his stats: [Name: Warhol Chaucer] [Level: 2400] [Martial Prowess: 100] [Magical Prowess: 32, 000] [Stamina: 1500] [Mastry Dynamics: 2325] His stats were higher than his last allocation would've put them and he wondered why.

He had only seconds to think before the reason came to him: his last mutation had, like the mutations before, doubled his stats. the only exception to that was his Mastery Dynamics which, as a special stat line, did not behave as the basic stat lines. His artifact sub-menu said the same as ever: [Human: 85%] [Mutations Acquired: Mana Gland; Oxygenated Blood Recycling; Cosmic Sense] First up was Boon Point allocation. His stats were already godlike — literally.

In fact, his stats were far beyond that of a mid-level deity. By all rights, Warhol should be working on his apotheosis statement, something any lifeform in his position would gladly undertake. Now, however, wasn't the time to think about godhood. Warhol thought about how his stats effectively doubled each time he mutated. At this rate, he did not need to allocate any points to his core stats.

If he dumped all thirty-seven-hundred points into Magical Prowess, for example, that would be small bones compared to his Prowess doubling up after a mutation. He could place some points into Martial Prowess for goofs but as a sorcerer, he wasn't concerned with strength; that and the fact if he increased his Martial Prowess too much, he would invariably need to re-learn daily life since he wouldn't know his own strength, literally. His only recourse, then, was his special stat line — Mastery Dynamics.

It was a bold move, but that was what he did. He saved a few hundred Boon Points for Holy Shope purchases, but spent the bulk, a total of thirty-two hundred, on Mastery Dynamics. Because he had already obtained 'True Mastery' in all his incantations, no new notification materialized. He did not invest so many points into Mastery Dynamics because he thought something hidden might unlock.

He did it for the same reason he saved some Boon Points, because he knew bigger and tougher spells were out there, just waiting for him. With his Boon Points done being allocated, he turned his attention next to his mutation of choice. He opened his bookmarked options and considered. His last few mutations had been centered near his head and took the form of either some gland being grafted onto him or something happening with his mind or blood.

He thought it was time for something more substantial to happen with his body. Sure, the mutation that allowed auto-incantations would be nice — context aside — but he already incanted so quickly, what would be the point of an organ that auto-incanted a select few spells? If he was giving up his humanity, he wanted something REAL to show for it, not just tidbits that made his incantating slightly faster. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

He was stuck between two mutations. One, dragonfly wings. Two, draconic armor. Each mutation had a magical substitute, so it wasn't as if by selecting one, he would be foregoing the other. The wings could be replicated through [Float] and [Levitate] Incantations combined with [Accelerate]. Meanwhile, the draconic armor had magical variants in his [Reinforce] and [Skin Armor] spells. What he was deciding was which mutation would be most useful in the moment since he was going to acquire them all anyway.

When he drilled to the heart of the matter, he thought the dragonfly wings would be best. Movement spells were a huge drain on his mana reserves. Having wings capable of removing the need for movement spells entirely was a gamechanger and something he didn't see all of in the draconic armor, which though was useful, he didn't need as much as movement. If one of the Horror's tentacle's slapped him, it wouldn't matter how much barrier he had incanted or reinforced. That tentacle would kill him dead. Period.

Decision made, he was about to confirm his selection when he remembered the pain which was to come and incanted [Pain Relief] and then [Extension] to the spell. Now the incantation would anticipate pain to come and give him relief as needed. Incanting done, he confirmed his selection. The artifact whirred into action and shot around him into his back, churning into his skin, muscle, fat, and bone like a lion fresh from the hunt. He did still feel some pain but not a lot.

He was impressed with himself for actually remembering to use one of his many useful spells while they still had that window of usefulness to them. Vibrations spread out from his back while the artifact did its job; he ignored the drizzle of blood down his skin as well as the sloughing motion of bits of body matter as it was torn from him and fell to the floor. After the artifact had chewed away whatever portion of his body it needed to eviscerate to install the wind, came the actual installation.

He hadn't a clue what the artifact did to him, but it stopped moving, choosing instead to rumble gentle as it began the next stage of his mutation. The artifact worked on him for hours. Wings were a mutation above what he had selected before, and so he expected them to take longer to form in him, but good gods, he wasn't expecting hours! Once the soft rumblings ceased and the artifact clattered to the floor, that was when the pain flared throughout his entire body.

He incanted [Pain Relief] and [Heal] as quick as he could to calm the firestorm of agony; he next incanted another [Extension] sub-routine spell to keep the pain relief going. [Mutation Successful: Divine Dragonfly Wings: These wings hail from a plane of eternal fields and hills where dragonfly-type creatures' rule. The Divine Dragonfly is king amongst these lifeforms with wings capable of navigating even cosmic hurricanes.] [Human: 75%] A full ten percent of his humanity gone. It made a man think...

That 'thinking' went out the window some, admittedly, when he saw his stats had again doubled. With power like this, why did he need to think? Reveling in his strength, a bell went off from his devices. An alarm. It was time for one of Lance's training excursions. His final one, if he were to keep to what he told his son last time. He groaned. Had it already been a week?

"Must be," he muttered. Warhol quickly dried and dressed himself and in a matter of seconds opened a portal to Lance's dorm room. He stepped through expecting to find his son but found only an empty dorm.

"What is this?" Where was his son? In the washroom, perhaps? He waited a few minutes, rifling through his son's belongings. Although his room was clean, there weren't any things of note aside from books, a trash bag in need of changing, and some rags hidden under his pillow. A painfully average dorm room.

Tiring of doing nothing and realizing his son clearly was not in the building, he incanted [Locate: Lance Chaucer] while putting enough mana into the spell to give it the ability to locate his son anywhere on the continent. The spell returned to him the location of his son — Murder Island. He sighed. His son would only be in one of two places, and he somehow had chosen the wrong of the two. Goodness graces. Warhol twirled his finger and stepped through another portal, this time, to the island.

What he saw was a truly unusual sight and that was coming from a pair of eyes as strange as his; for, when he stepped through the portal, he saw an arena on a beach and his son duking it out with a dragonkin warrior as rows of ex-slaves, former bandits, students, and some impressively sized dragons watched — and cheered — from the sidelines. Whatever was happening, he intended to find out.