If I'm completely honest I have no idea how long I was in that cocoon, it could have been 1 hour of 10 years, all I know is that I felt pain greater than any I had felt before and then woke up to in what for all I knew was a hammock
It was almost completely black with, and I could only make out the rough outline of my arm as I slowly moved it towards the skin of my new sleeping bag, using my front claw on I made an incision down in a relatively strait line down
There was little to zero resistance from the cocoon as if I was unzipping the door of a tent, as it open, I collapsed out onto the ground and into the light of a new day. As I began to get up from my fall I took in my surroundings
Thankfully I was still within my little hobbit hole in the dead tree, and nothing had really changed, although as I looked out of the window/entrance of my hole in the tree I was shocked
It was snowing!?
I must have been in that cocoon for at least a month! I mean sure I guess fully changing at a biological level must take a while huh? Before I had entered the cocoon the forest had been showing the beginning signs of winter with colder winds and slight frost in the mornings. But now we were in full arctic mode!
Speaking of changes to myself I began to inspect myself in the mirror. I had found a leak in the roof during my training period and taking use of my claws I had carved a small bath into the floor which had given me a clear source of water as well as a mirror, thankfully I had the oversight to install an overflow during its creation as to avoid leakage and water the plants at the base of the tree otherwise I would be dealing with a flooded home
From the moment I had stood up I had noticed one major change, my normal standing position had directly changed and now I saw why, previously my body had been almost identical to that of a normal mantis aside from having black chitin all over the body and possessing blades where a normal mantis would have barbs on their arms
But now it was totally different, the one of the main changes was a change in my very skeleton structure and body shape, previously my body had been the signature skinny body of a mantis and as such had a long thin body that had been held at a diagonal my four legs and been completely straight but thickening around the lower half due that being where my wings, organs and spiritual core were
Now it was like my body structure had been snapped into a 90-degree angle! The skeleton had changed into something resembling a centaur aside from still being a bug all over. I now had two discommendable body parts aside from my limbs! A lower and upper body!
Now when I say my body was all bug, I must admit that wasn't entirely true, my lower half still closely resembled that of a Black mantis but now I had a higher half which was much more humanoid!!
Now normally a beast would not start taking on humanoid characteristics until it reaches the shifter class but eating a Distorted Spiritual core seemed to cause my body to go through a much more drastic change during my prosses of changing classes
Now my upper body in all fairness could still be hardly called human looking, for the first part of the upper body it looked remarkably human with a waist and some nice abs that lead to I buff chest but past that it could hardly be called "human". The 4 arms that sat on the shoulders and lower (Yes Four! Does this mean I'm an arachnid now!?) back were of two different types, the larger two were like those of my past forms with a normal mantis shape and blades on the bottom except for one two main differences. Firstly, the blades on these arms extended past the ends of my arms, making the effectively swords and the other that the lades themselves had changed, becoming more metallic and the edges appeared to have gain spikey edges like a chainsaw!
The other two smaller arms however had me rather exited because I HAD HANDS!!! While admittedly the hands where entirely covered in loose segments of Chitin and had sharp ending fingers they were still hands none the less
Maybe one of these days my little brother will be returned to me safely *intense mental sobbing*
My head was pretty much the same as before which was admittedly a little terrifying to see on my relatively human upper half although it appeared my large eyes had become completely white so even, I could see my irises
All in all, I looked completely badass!
I mean come on I literally have abs as a Bug!
Oh, and one important thing to note was that I appear to be black now?
Not that it matters but who'd have thunk it?
Now phase two of my escape plans was complete out of my escape plan was completed I now began phase 3
Finding a Demonic Cultivator below of about rank two and use them to find my way out! And if they exist, they are likely freezing to death right now so there is no time to waste!
I began doing a few laps of the room to get used to my new body and also found that I could fold my bladed arms behind my back as to make it easier to move around before taking the two class one spiritual cores that I had harvested for emergency food during my moth of training, one in each hand and set off