Chimera Rising: Beast King Ascension [How a human-turned-lion went from Zero to Absolute Ruler]

Rushing back to the scene of the battle between him and the vetens, Dominic’s eyes darted around to check for scavengers. 

For now, it was clear and he heaved a sigh of relief. He didn’t want to make the same mistake as before when he’d hung around a bloody area for too long, but at the same time he also didn’t want to risk missing out on one of the creature’s corpses or Cores. 

Since he’d already started packing his storage space with the bodies, he decided he might as well continue and then pull them out somewhere else. What if putting them in my storage space degrades them in some way? he questioned himself, even as he started moving towards the closest bodies.

After a moment of thought, he ended up shrugging and continuing to add the bodies into his gorget’s spatial storage. If they degraded then he’d know not to do this again. Still, the Cores from the meerkats didn’t seem to have been harmed by the experience of being in his storage space. At least, he’d still been able to absorb enough of them to gain Group Attack.

Though, he thought to himself, the fact that the torch continued burning in my spatial storage does indicate that time isn’t halted while it’s there. Which probably meant that he couldn’t hope to keep carcasses in there indefinitely. Not that he intended on doing so in the first place, though it would be nice to have had a backup in case he had to venture into an area with little prey on offer. 

Since that wasn’t an issue at present, though, he wasn’t going to cry over the lack. It would be nice to be able to carry around corpses – kind of like little backup health potions. Maybe it would be worth testing with one body…. Though did he want to risk Consuming a half-rotten carcass? Well, that was something to decide later when he actually had one decomposing in his gorget.

He’d need to have the bodies in the storage first, though. To that end, Dominic quickly moved around, the bodies of the veten disappearing wherever he went. He counted as he went, by the end rather impressed with just how many of the smaller creatures he’d managed to kill.

Not including the ones he’d killed in their retreat, he’d taken down twenty-nine veten. There had been the five he’d taken out in the first blow, then another twenty-four later. Most of those showed the marks of his tail mace, proving that it had been a good idea to have pulled that out before the battle. One even carried a few burn marks on it, the signs of his magical spell having done at least some damage. 

Dominic did take a moment to put his tail armour back into his spatial storage, though – it was starting to drag rather heavily on his lower spine. Still, it was a step forward from before. He’d not only been able to move with relative ease despite it offering an unaccustomed weight to his hindquarters, but also to use it to overcome a large number of enemies. 

And, considering their relative sizes, it had been a closer battle than he’d have liked. Dominic’s health hadn’t dipped much below half, but his stamina had got pretty low. His mana was, of course, empty. It was a bit of a risk since he never knew if a situation would come up that would require his trump card. On the other hand, the spell wouldn’t level up if he never used it, so he might as well use it as often as he could. 

Plus, if his estimations of how many Prey Points he’d gained from the battle were right, he might have already earned another level. That would be nice. 

For now, though, he quickly absorbed the half-eaten corpse of the barasingha, then trotted away from the blood-soaked ground. The deer-creature’s carcass didn’t give him much of his health or stamina back; he’d need to absorb the corpses of the vetens to do that. 

When he was far enough away, he stopped to clean his paws and face. Unlike most battles, the damage the vetens had done was Crushing. They’d only actually broken his skin in a few places, though he could definitely feel some deep bruising. In fact, he might even have a few fractures in the bones they’d hit most often, his hip and shoulder bones in particular. 

Fortunately, he had a remedy for that, one which he’d pull out as soon as he was clean. The fact that the vetens had done Crushing damage did mean that he’d spilled little of his own blood so he only really needed to clean his claws and teeth. And a few splatters from where his tail-mace had sent bloody bits flying. At least centrifugal force meant that most of those had gone in the other direction. 

A few minutes later, he pulled the first corpse out of his storage. Wondering what the rabbit-like creatures would have as their Ability, he set his teeth around the head of the carcass and simply bit down. With the crushing power of his jaws and the relatively thin bone of the veten’s skull, it wasn’t hard to chew the whole thing until he was able to fish out the Core from within. Fortunately, the Core itself hadn’t been crushed in the process. 

He spat out the small marble, then used Information on it. 

[You have obtained a Beast Core: Veten Level 4

Ability: Powerful Kick]

Powerful Kick…isn’t that what the kangaroos and zebras had? Dominic asked himself. Quickly looking at his list of Acquired Abilities, he saw Powerful Kick was already in the list, at 52% towards level 1, actually. With rising excitement, he estimated that with as many bodies and Cores as were in his spatial storage, he was almost certain to get the ability on this go-around. 

Without any further ado, he started dumping the bodies out of his storage a few at a time, Consuming the corpses and then absorbing the Cores they left behind. He did keep an eye on his Abilities list, though: previous experience had shown that the progress meter would stop at 100% until he’d levelled up and actually ‘acquired’ the Ability. Since he would only then be able to continue gaining progress to level 2, he didn’t see any point in just gobbling all the bodies and Cores now, and potentially losing that progress. 

Sure enough, he got to 100% after absorbing eight bodies and seven Cores. By that point, he’d managed to get his health back up to two-thirds full and his stamina was almost full. Even more exciting was what he saw when he looked at his status. 

Status of Dominic Martin Cole / Leo

Species: Lion (body) / Human (mind), Two-Souled

Level: Evolved Beast Level 15 Tier 2 (Path of Evolution) level up

Progress to Evolution: 707/315 PP

Satiation level: 100%

Hydration level: 96%

Health Points: 315/500

Stamina Points: 158/170

Mana Points: 0/15

Quests: A Noble Endeavour; Regain what is Lost

‘Over seven hundred Prey Points!’ Dominic exclaimed. ‘Do you see that Leo? Do you think we might actually be able to level up twice?’ 

‘Quite possibly,’ the lion replied, before moving onto practicality. ‘What are we upgrading this time?’ Dominic had actually been thinking about that.

‘I think we should upgrade Skin twice: harder and more flexible. And then if we’ve got a second level up waiting for us, maybe thicken our fur too?’

‘Why thicken? Why not lengthen or harden?’ the lion asked, not saying he disagreed necessarily, but sounding more like he wanted to hear Dominic’s reasoning. 

‘Because upgrading our Skin should reduce Tearing and Piercing damage, but thickening our fur should improve our damage reduction for Crushing and, if I remember correctly, a bit of Slicing damage. So if we choose all those options, we’ll have better defence overall.’

‘What about enhancing our mane?’ Leo suggested in a way Dominic was pretty sure he thought was casual. He rolled his eyes at the lion.

‘Yes, it would also offer defence, but only to that area.’

‘Which is our most vulnerable area, you have to admit,’ Leo countered swiftly.

‘And which already has protection in the form of the gorget,’

‘Very well. But I wish to enhance our mane again soon,’ he warned. Dominic sent him a sense of grudging agreement.  

With his blessing, Dominic activated the level up, choosing to acquire Powerful Kick when it came up as an option. However, unlike previous times, another message followed the one offering the Ability. 

[Warning: Powerful Kick requires significant change to the User’s physiology. 

Option 1: Continue with Powerful Kick (significant physiological changes)

Option 2: Transform Powerful Kick into a similar Ability which is more suited to the User’s current form (none to minor physiological changes)

Option 3: Reject Powerful Kick]

‘Option 2, don’t you think, Leo?’ Dominic asked his companion for courtesy’s sake, but he couldn’t see why Leo would argue with him. After all, clearly choosing an Ability which was ‘wrong’ for his body couldn’t mean anything good. And rejecting the Ability entirely seemed just a waste. 

He supposed it made sense that Powerful Kick would require significant physiological changes: zebras, kangaroos, and the rabbit-like veten all had powerful hind-legs. Although a lion’s body also had powerful hind-quarters, the power was all there for leaping, whether in an ambush or to cross an obstacle. Leaning forward onto his front legs and kicking backwards the way a zebra or veten would or, he thought with amusement, leaning back onto his tail and kicking out like a kangaroo, was not likely to work well. 

Pity it doesn’t say what the transformed Ability would be, he mused to himself while waiting for his companion to reply. It would certainly make the choice easier, even if to him it was pretty clear as it was: choose an Ability which was more suited for his body rather than one which wasn’t? Yes please.

‘I agree,’ Leo replied soon after. ‘The second option seems the most beneficial.’ Maybe following along with Dominic’s thoughts had made the decision for him. 

Dominic was finding the lack of privacy even in his own head easier to deal with these days. Perhaps it was partly to do with how Leo got the same lack of privacy when he was in the driving seat. Or perhaps he was simply getting used to it. 

Either way, it looked like the decision was made.  

With anticipation, he chose door number two. The refreshing energy of the level up rushed through him, though this time it didn’t quickly dissipate. Instead, he started to feel pain gathering in his shoulders. 

‘Oh no,’ he thought to Leo with dread. ‘What’s gone wrong this time?’

S_Winter

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