Chapter 23 - His Change.

'Okay, okay, okay, okay, what the hell?!'

His mind took a while to process everything, he wasn't expecting to be overloaded with information like this.

'So, uh, why have I suddenly gotten full descriptions on all of my skills, I know I had an idea of what they did as soon as I got them, but this is fully detailed…'

"Wait, [Inspection]? Did [Identification] turn in to that, is that why I have more details? But that targets something else not me, so maybe not…" He was going through the more obvious stuff, yet his mind was fixated on the elephants in the room.

'Yeah, what the hell? What happened to my blessings? [Stainless Soul]? [Adept Learning]? Did I get new ones all of a sudden? And what's with the description, a fragment of what?' He thought hard and concluded after comparing his old and new blessings.

"No… They're kind of similar right? I mean I'd assume [Stainless Soul] is [Stubborn Will]? But that's just a guess, I never really understood the affect of the latter fully but maybe it's similar? [Adept Learning] on the other hand is basically identical to [Smooth Sailing] other than the name, at least these ones are less… casual?"

'An innate desire to become unimpeded…' He thought about the description in his head, and he couldn't match it to himself, maybe he didn't even know himself that well in the end; His eyes flickered as he recalled the 'him' in that vision before throwing it to the back of his mind.

'In the end I have no answers, but it shouldn't be bad; Next up I guess is [Inspection] but I can't really test it without a target so I'll do that as soon as I can, if I can get even as much as health and mana information from the target it will be much more useful'

"But what even is this? A bunch of question marks? Is it the cause of that screech which basically gave me a migraine earlier…? For some reason I feel like I have an idea of what it is" The memory of 'him' eating whatever 'that' was in that vision was still vivid to him, he had no idea what 'he' was thinking but there's no medicine for regret in this world, so he just had to move on.

He moved on to the last and most important piece of information, he stared intently at the column that listed his race - Race – Undead [Skeletal Ravager] is what was listed, at first this may seem like a 'normal' evolution for a monster but to Seth it was anything but, the key point was the lack of a certain word in 'race'.

It was "Human", with that gone he most likely had no trace of being human left but was now completely a different being; For other types of skeletons if he had a better way of inspecting their information a [Skeleton Mage] for example would show as [Skeleton Mage (Human)] however this was not the case for him anymore, no matter what the word 'Human' was omitted.

It may seem trivial but to Seth he felt like had taken a step he could no longer take back, at first, he had a sense of loss but soon after there was just numbness, unlike the few times before where he felt like having an internal breakdown, he just accepted it, maybe it was the feeling of difference between a 'human skeleton' and another 'skeleton' was minor or maybe it was something else.

Along with his racial change another skill had also changed [Devour] turned in to [Ravaging Devour] he doesn't know the difference between the two others than the seemingly increased chance of gaining effects but based on the name it was likely to be an innate racial ability.

That lead to another problem, he had never heard of a [Skeleton Devourer] in his time as an adventurer and he had explored his fair share of crypts, usually a new evolution is introduced due to a new change in the environment, but he was the only one of his kind in this ravine so he doubt it would be that, so he thought hard for a minute before it hit him.

"Fuck how could I have missed that! It was the cores!"

He had in his mind back then that he was a 'monster' so he could of course eat cores, however that was not correct in the least; Undead or more specifically skeletons were unique in their growth, their cores naturally strengthen from the mana in the air, and they don't consume cores so in this aspect Seth was an oddity.

"I wonder if I'm the first one of my kind. No that can't be unless there's another reason for my evolution…" He felt a strange conflicting pride, if he was the first this was, in a way, a large achievement.

'Now that I think about it, I gained the skill [Devour] from eating the core but I probably didn't gain the skill from the core itself but rather the accumulation of my actions, since obviously before I ate the core in the first place I never had the [Devour] so getting a skill due to it would be completely contradictory' He felt the clouds parting from his eyes as he deduced things more.

'I wonder if this is the effect of my increased stats, they all went up 5-20 points which is a significant amount overall, that's not including the spare point I have from levelling up, but I think I should save those rather than wantonly spending them this time, I'm not longer in need of an immediate boost so I can feel out what I need exactly in the future'

Lastly, he noticed one thing that slipped his initial inspection, the (??) next to his mana value 'Another unknown variable… nothing much I can do like the other enigma skill'.

He stood up from the floor and took a look at his hands, although the changes weren't drastic he could definitely see them, his bones seemed to take on a shinier appearance, much more polished than the dull colour the showed before, they also were a shade brighter without the dirt or impurities normal bones had.

It wasn't just those changed though, he realised it after standing straight but he was definitely at least a foot taller, his finger bones seemed slightly longer and sharper at the end, not only that on the joins sharp edges had vaguely grown out giving them the slight appearance of layered armour.

He quickly cast [Far Sight] to take a look at himself from a better perspective, at first he couldn't recognise his own bones yet the longer he looked the more he could see traces of his individuality here and there, they were just 'improved', like his fingers his entire body seemed overall more jagged and solid, he definitely no longer resembled a 'human' skeleton like before.

Seth slowly took in his new appearance, raising his hands and grasping the bones with a new sense of strength and power, he didn't truly understand what he was feeling, thrown out of his second life as a skeleton yet instead of trying to return he ended up going further away.

"Is this something I will regret, or am I moving forward towards something better?"

He pondered before pushing it to the back of his mind, too many questions still, he shouldn't be asking them; He only needed to look forward.

He decided to try on his armour just in case, to his dismay he couldn't fit it properly anymore, the chest piece was fine since it had plenty of leeway, but the other pieces didn't fit properly with his extended height and spike like joints.

"Damnit, I just got this as well!" He wanted to cry, was he going to have to walk around basically naked (Or at least as naked as a skeleton could get) again?

He sighed before removing the chest piece out of curiosity, like the rest of his body his ribs became more defined and thicker, looking closer with the oculi he created he could see his core had gone through a change as well, it was smaller about a size bigger than a pin-pong ball yet it glimmered with almost blinding light if you looked at it directly, but it wasn't just that if you observed carefully you could notice a small swirl of black energy rotating inside, the sight of this made Seth sigh as it basically confirmed what he thought before.

'Whatever it is, it's inside me now.' He stared intently, this thing was the cause of the corruption in the ley-lines (Or at least, that's what he assumed), was he safe with it inside him? Time will only tell.

He decided to move back towards where he came, he doesn't know how long it's been since he entered, but for him it was barely an hour.

He gave one glance towards the now dim cavern before walking away, it was finally time to leave this place.