NOVEL NEXT Chapter 67: Merely Phantasmal
Dominic was in the middle of reviewing a memory of his eighteenth birthday when he had the sense that someone was calling him. The sensation was a bit like being in a dream and hearing someone’s voice. At first, it feels like the voice is part of the dream, but then, as one rises towards consciousness, it becomes clear that the voice is real and the dream world merely phantasmal. That’s what this felt like.
He’d spent some time wondering which of his friends the strangely familiar growling voice was coming from, and why it was telling Dominic to ‘come on out of your hiding place’, before he thought to pull himself out of the memory. Apparently viewing it in the book also involved re-experiencing it, but it was easy enough to exit – as easy as closing the book, in fact.
When it became evident that, in fact, it was Leo telling him that he’d finished his recent bout of mating, Dominic quickly exited the soulspace altogether.
‘I’m not going to ask,’ Dominic said flatly to Leo, whose mind was emanating smug satisfaction.
‘I can tell you without you asking,’ Leo teased Dominic. In a better state of mind than previously, the former-human reacted more calmly.
‘Do that and I’ll shove memories of me having sex with a woman at you,’ he threatened.
‘You mean that one time of it?’ Leo continued to prod at him.
‘Shove off,’ Dominic replied with a bit of heat. ‘I might not have had lion stamina and be able to go multiple times in an hour, but at least my partners are open to having sex all year round.’
‘Shows how long it takes humans to get their females pregnant,’ Leo returned, undaunted. Dominic gave up. He’d never felt the lion in such a good mood before – clearly taking over a pride and mating multiple times with the females in it had a remarkable effect on him. Then again, Dominic supposed that a similar experience with a hot woman would have a similar effect on him too.
‘So, are we going to level up now, then?’ he asked, wanting to move on from exchanging barbs.
‘Yes, and then we will hunt. The females are starting to move, so we need to be quick on choosing our enhancements.’
‘OK,’ Dominic replied, though rolled his eyes a bit. How come it was the females who decided when to get going, not the lion who was supposedly the ‘king’? Then again, he realised he actually knew better than that now that he could dip into Leo’s memories.
It seemed like lions had been portrayed as a lot more patriarchal than they really were: while the male lion did tend to take first dibs on any kills, it was very much the females who decided where the pride went and what they hunted. The male was actually more of a glorified security-guard than the munificent king portrayed by the iconic childhood film.
But none of that was relevant to his enhancements. Or rather, he’d be able to do a better job as a security guard if he became stronger, and that was also a good survival strategy, so at least those two goals coincided.
‘So, we said that we’d enhance our vocal cords this time. Do you still want to do that?’ Dominic checked with his passenger.
‘Yes, definitely,’ Leo responded with certainty. ‘We need to let other males know not to enter our territory now, and having a more powerful roar will warn them of our strength.’ OK, not Dominic’s reasoning for picking that as an enhancement, but since they were in agreement on the enhancement itself, no need to quibble over why to choose it.
‘Alright, so that’s one of them. What for the other? More speed? More stamina? More defence? Or maybe choose something we haven’t chosen before?’ The problem that faced them was choice paralysis. There were just so many good options…and no perfect ones.
‘Maybe we should lengthen our bones,’ Leo suggested.
‘Why do you say that,’ asked Dominic, intrigued.
‘When we gained the enhancement upon levelling up, we grew in both size and strength. Although I do not think that overdoing it is a good thing, I cannot help but think that it will serve us well in our new situation.’
‘Why is that? Dominc inquired further. We’ve been focussing on a speed build up until now; wouldn’t increasing our size again risk slowing us down? For all we know, we might have gained more speed or more stamina on Evolution if we hadn’t grown in size – since all the changes happened together it’s hard to know what might have been different.’
‘We’re in a different situation now, though,’ Leo objected. ‘On our own it was one thing, but now we’re part of a pride…. Females are masters of speed and agility; males offer power and weight. Right now, although we may be faster than the females, I suspect that is only because we are a higher level than them. Equally, we beat the other lion out in weight and power, but I would be surprised if he was much more than level 6 and we’re level 13.’
‘I take your point,’ Dominic sighed. It was the age-old question of specialisation again. His body-type suited power; his fighting style was more aimed at speed. So, which did he change – his body to suit his fighting style or his style to suit his body? Or did he try to do both at the same time, leading to a jack of all trades situation?
‘I accept your point about fitting in with the pride, but I disagree about fitting ourselves around them,’ Dominic said finally after giving the matter some thought. ‘We have to do what’s right for us since we never know what might happen in the future.’
‘You’re not thinking about leaving the pride, are you?’ Leo growled at Dominic,the tone carrying with it both rejection and a touch of fear.
‘No,’ Dominic replied immediately. ‘But we never know what might happen. Putting all our eggs in one basket is an invitation to having them crushed.’
‘Lions don’t lay eggs,’ Leo grumbled, but he appeared mollified.
‘Look,’ Dominic continued patiently. ‘How about this. We choose bones and roar this level, and then choose speed and stamina next. That way we can undo any damage the increased size does to us. We see how things go with the pride and then consider our future growth. Sound good?’ It should do, since both enhancements were what Leo had expressed an interest in.
The lion agreed, though with an unexpected sense of hesitation. Was he seeing the value in Dominic’s words, or was he wondering when the other shoe would drop? Not that lions wear shoes, Dominic chuckled to himself, predicting what Leo would have said upon hearing that expression. And to be fair, if that was the reason for his hesitation, he’d be right: Dominic fully intended to leverage his capitulation now to his advantage in the future.
While power and strength did often go together, there was no reason why power and speed couldn't instead.
Trying to prompt the level up, Dominic was surprised when it didn't work. He made another attempt, wondering why suddenly the familiar process wasn't working.
‘Are you able to activate the level up?’ Dominic asked Leo, wondering if that was the solution he was missing. Leo had to take some time to work out how to do it, having only witnessed as Dominic triggered it each time. Still, it didn’t take too long before once more the rush of warmth was going through them.
The couple of lionesses who hadn’t yet moved out of sight turned, looking startled. One even returned to circle Leo, clearly wondering if something had changed about him. Leo just shook out his mane and jogged behind where the other lionesses had gone.
Stuck in his head, Dominic was left with a bit of a pit of fear in where his stomach would have been if he’d had one in this state. Was this what he had to look forward to if Leo ever succeeded in winning a challenge? Was this what Leo felt?
Useless.
He shouldn’t feel that way, he knew logically. They’d come to the decision together – Leo hadn’t just made it unilaterally. And it wasn’t like even here in his head Dominic wasn’t offering any benefit – he’d helped Leo win that fight with the lion, after all. And warned him about the lioness. But they felt like such small actions.
Suddenly, he felt an itching to be back in the driver’s seat, the long hours without control abruptly wearing on him. Leo slowed unexpectedly.
‘Do you wish to take back control?’ he asked uncertainly. And Dominic felt better immediately. Just having the choice was enough to soothe the ache.
‘No, it’s fine,’ he decided almost magnanimously. ‘I’d like to see a proper lion pride hunt, and wouldn’t know how to go about being part of one if I take back control now. But I would like to switch over soon.’
‘Are you going to mate with the females if you take back control?’ Leo asked bluntly, even as he picked up the pace again.
‘No!’ Dominic replied, not even wanting to think of it.
‘Then are you willing to wait until the two females are out of heat? Otherwise we will miss our opportunity to have cubs with them until they come back into heat.’ Dominic mentally sighed.
‘Give me back control a bit later and then I’ll give it back to you until the lionesses have finished their heats, OK?’ Leo didn’t reply verbally, but there was a sense of satisfaction that emanated from him.
Settling back into his corner of their shared mental space, Dominic pulled up their status screen, focussing on wanting to see what changes had been made.
Status of Dominic Martin Cole / Leo
Level: Evolved Beast Level 14 Tier 2 (Path of Evolution)
Progress to Evolution: 27/287 PP
Offensive abilities:
- Claws level 2 (12-22 Slicing damage, 12-16 –> 13-17 Tearing damage, 6-10 Piercing damage)
- Bite level 2 (46-75 –> 51-80 Crushing damage, 58-86 –> 60-89 Tearing damage, 48-70 Piercing damage)
- Roar level 1 +10% chance of intimidating the listener. +20% - +50% if listener is already intimidated by you.
General abilities:
- Muscular Body level 5 (max speed 28mps; max speed duration 18s –> 16s) (170 SP)
- Bones level 2 (growth + 10% –> +20%)
Paying attention to the sensations coming through his connection to Leo’s body, Dominic tried to feel if there were any differences he could detect. Maybe I feel a bit taller? he wondered, though it was hard to be sure. Probably it would be clearest when he stood next to one of the lionesses again.
It was the other change that was the most interesting to him. Apparently his roar now offered a good to better chance of intimidating anyone who heard him. I suppose that’s expected, he decided – from what he’d picked up from Leo, that was basically the reason lions roared. It was a way of identifying their territory and establishing their dominance within it.
And then there were all the changes to other parts of his body which must have been as a result of his enhancement to either Bones or Roar. His money – if he had any – would be on the former, though.
The question is more about whether my bite and claws were enhanced slightly because they’re considered ‘bones’ or whether it’s due to my increased weight having more power and momentum to put behind my strikes. Since it was Crushing damage which had gained the most and Tearing damage the next best beneficiary, Dominic was fairly sure that the answer was that he had more power due to his increased weight.
The only negative – his reduced maximum speed duration – was no doubt due to the same reason. Still, overall Dominic was pretty pleased with the results. Although he wasn’t going to be tempted into continually increasing his size just for all its incidental benefits, he might be able to be convinced to do it another time or two, at an appropriate time in the future.
Suddenly, he realised that his body had come to a stop. Focussing on what his eyes were telling him rather than on the status screen, he felt his mouth go dry. Or he would have, had he had control over his mouth at the time.
‘Ah, Leo? Aren’t those, you know, dangerous? Even for lions?’
