Undersea Reincarnation - [Octopus Monster Evolution LitRPG]

A blood-red ghostly octopus flitted in and around the shredded eels like a rogue blender's blade, trailing a cloud of blood behind as its empowered limb whipped with manifested blades and crackled with electricity cutting and shocking any eel that happened to get even remotely near it.

That was impressive, Henry thought as he let out another pulse of electricity across his green-scaled skin, zapping-off the eels that had sunk their jagged teeth around whatever bit of flesh they could find. An instant later, a green-hued, tiny octopus laid an elongated arm on his skin. The limb pulsed with vibrant green lights, and the wave of healing spread through Henry's body, instantly closing up all of the shallow wounds the eels had caused before the little Octomind secured its grip on Henry's arm again, right next to Maurice who was currently shooting up a storm. The healer-octopus, infused with the healing and shifting concepts of Renewal of the Trickster, stood ready to activate its healing abilities whenever any of them sustained enough injuries for it to intervene. In the meantime, it hung back, and it waited.

While the Octominds could dip into his Aspects for a little conceptual essence to empower their skills—if Henry allowed it—he realized that he could also pump them full of concepts themselves, which seemed to make the Octomind's projection into little avatars of the Aspect, altering their behaviour and adding a pretty significant boost to their capabilities. It was why filling an Octomind with the conceptual essence of Predation had turned the little bugger into a hungry, raging whirlwind of blades and death.

Renewal's change is a little more peaceful, but how about the other two?

Before he could test that, he wanted to created a little space, so Henry sent out a batch of Trickster's Shadows all around, summoning as many as he could—which was just under fifty–then after making sure they were all within range of the swarm of eels, he had them all form sharp and barbed bits all over their skins before they encased themselves in bones, and once they were all done, he ordered them all to trigger Spiteful Detonation.

A rumble shook the surrounding waters as nearly fifty clones detonated in a violent explosion of mana and bone-shrapnel, while a wall of text of death notification filled his inbox. Henry didn't pay it any attention. Instead, he studied the feedback he was getting from the freshly integrated skill. It was already close to an upgrade, or at least, he believed it was. And so were all of his Aspects, in fact. Once he was done testing the effects of his Aspects on his new Octominds, he'd start looking into finishing the upgrades of his Aspects. Maybe some levels as well. After all, none of the eels were managing to land any significant damage, and between his regenerating skills and the handful of mana stealing and capturing abilities at his disposal, Henry could honestly go on… indefinitely. Especially since he was progressively consuming the cores, he was gaining.

For his next attempt, Henry channeled the subtle and elusive essence of Dancing Shadows to one of the Octomind projection and he watched as the magical octopus grew darker while rippling purple patterns began dancing on its skin. It zipped away, popping in an out of existence in between the swarm as it used its bone-tipped arms to stab into the eel's unprotected eyes and throats, and whenever it was noticed, whenever an attempt was made at biting, attacking, or blasting it away, the octopus would be already two blinks away.

It was practically impossible to catch. No Telekinesis was fast enough. No bites or blasts of electricity. Nothing could even land a tail-whip at it, so it tore through the swarm with complete impunity.

At least until it ran out of essence, of course.

Finally, Henry tested the effect of the last Aspect—which happened to hold the skill that was responsible for the Octominds themselves, and unsurprisingly, the octopus he empowered grew larger. Realer. It's body rippled with the deep blue glow of the arcane, and hovering above him, it began whipping its arm, throwing sharp blades of echoing magic that tore through the bodies of the eels, and whenever one of the creature managed to reach it, the Domain would activate and it'd either move the creature into the path of one of its many projectiles, or it would trigger a very localized Dispelling Pulse to kill the eel's attack.

All in all, creating little avatars for his Aspects was a pretty interesting and valuable new ability. One that hadn't been really advertised, sure, but he could see himself using it quite often and once this swarm was dealt with, Henry had a few plans for what came next.

Empowered by these much more powerful Octominds, it might be time to locate some more of the orbs, and if that still didn't work, maybe attempt another contact with the turtle. For that, he had to finish bringing up all of his fused Aspects to B-rank, and there was no better time than now, especially now that Maurice had just called in his break.

Encasing the crab in his limbs was a lot easier to handle than protecting him while he was out and shooting his imploding bubbles.

***

With Maurice safely tucked away under around a couple of empowered and strengthened arms, Henry turned part of his attention inward as he—along with his Octominds and clones—continued to tear into the swarm. By now, he was sitting on a literal mountain of B-rank cores. A treasure trove of fragments and potential levels, but he didn't want to deal with it just yet. He might be burning them soon, though. Especially if Aspect upgrading without the interface turned out to be a bit more difficult.

Henry had intended on asking Arisia or Zerathstra—and he still could, as one of his Shadows was still up there—but he wanted to make the first attempt himself.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

His gut told him he could do it.

Turning his attention inwardly, Henry located his first target, and it took him a few minutes to completely wrap his awareness around the area in his soul that held in Predation of the Trickster and its cornerstone. Though putting his finger on that area was only the first step.

Now, how do I tell this thing to upgrade?

Henry spent a few minutes doing the equivalent of poking and prodding into his soul to trigger the upgrade while outwardly, he laid waste to the ever-thinning swarm of eels.

It's not working… then again, the upgrades used tokens, right? Where are those, exactly? Maybe channeling some to the Aspect could kick start the process, but where can I find them?

Stretching more of his awareness around, Henry scanned about, looking for anything that might fit, but while he'd seen a representation of his Aspect and so could visualize and interact with them, he'd never really experienced the same with tokens.

Henry hummed, then paused.

Wait…. I could just do that… no?

Picking one of the death notifications, he claimed one of the cores and before accepting it as fragments, he turned his attention inward and converted it.

The first time didn't work. The second, he thought he sensed something. On the 6th, he was nearly sure he got it, and it surprisingly felt very similar to the light of the current, though what he had in the cores and within him felt a bit more concentrated.

It's going past the Aspect. Somewhere a little deeper, still.

It took Henry a few more minutes to coax that odd energy back out and guide it to the Aspect and while he sensed his Aspect react to the tokens' presence, there didn't seem to be enough of it to do much. So Henry kept drawing on that thread, pulling more and more fragments out of storage and toward the Aspect. He had no system help, so he had no clue how much he'd pulled, but at a certain point, he must have reached a significant threshold as out of the blue, the Aspect pulsed, and the tokens were sucked in within seconds, mixing and matching with what made the Aspect.

The process took only minutes, and Henry knew it had worked even before he'd opened his eyes. He could sense it. It had grown stronger. More demanding. That yawning hunger that just wanted to devour everything and anything it could get its fangs in.

Checking the interface, Henry pumped one arm in victory as he confirmed his success.

Predation of the Trickster (B) - Level 1

Bite of the Trickster

Passives:

Magic Mimic: By sampling the tissues of a magic-empowered being, a Skill or Trait can be temporarily copied. Magic Mimic has a chance of copying abilities at a higher rank, and has an increased chance of adapting non-compatible abilities.

Nothing is Lost: You can absorb, claim, or exchange for Consumption Tokens the targets you vanquish.

Venom Production: Your salivary glands can now produce venoms after sufficient exposure. Production can be accelerated through channeling mana to the glands. Available venoms: Numbing of the Pufferfish, Spasmodic of the Sea Serpent, Tranquilizing of the Mesmer Eel, Anticoagulant of the Sea Drake, Agonizing of the Lionfish.

Actives:

F-Rank: Your bite inflicts more damage. You can produce venom you've been sufficiently exposed to.

E-Rank: Temporarily gain a property of your target's bite. The charge is available until used.

D-Rank: Two mimicked properties can be remembered permanently. [Draining Bite of the Arcane Kraken]

C-Rank: Your Bite has a chance of stealing some of your target's conceptual energies.

B-rank: Your Bite embeds a fragment of your own mana signature into the target. For a short duration, you may siphon their lifeforce, mana, and regeneration, redirecting a portion to yourself. More importantly, while this signature persists, the target becomes more susceptible to your abilities, as if your mana subtly overrides their internal resistances to outside magic.

Henry whistled, and if he had been in his human form right now, he'd be wincing. The new B-rank ability was legitimately nasty. He liked that the cornerstone seemed to be evolving somewhere between the Hunger and Fury. There was still theft, but now it was much more offensive than just copying skills or stealing some conceptual essence. Eying the rest of the Aspect's skill, Henry nodded along. Not much was changed as the other skills needed to be upgraded individually, but the level up certainly helped one in particular.

Maw of the Trickster can now hold up to 37 thousand cubic meters. Man. I can't even picture that at this point…

Henry popped his focus back out for a moment and whacked some more eels as he converted the little mountain of cores he was sitting on to fragments. Now, he just had to do that whole process three more times and if by then the swarm wasn't over with, he'd move on to the skills.

Now that he'd taken the time to stabilize his rushed foundations, he could really start moving forward. He just hoped Maurice would get the evolution he wished for.