Samuel stretched out as he thought of what to ask the system. Should he perhaps ask about his family? No, if the worst case scenario had happened, he wouldn't be able to take it, so he decided to get rid of the idea. Perhaps creation magic? He probably wouldn't be able to use such a thing in his lifetime, and he didn't need something for the long term, since even at this moment, his survival wasn't assured.
The cogs in Samuel's brain were in hyperdrive as several ideas passed his mind every few seconds with incredible efficiency due to the twenty stats his intelligence got from the awakening. Samuel was so absorbed in his thoughts that he couldn't even hear the growling barking outside of his base.
Half an hour later, Samuel had narrowed his needs to a few things, those being armor or a way to avoid being hit, a skill that would allow him to summon a being to aid him in combat or to keep watch over him at night in case he decided to leave, and lastly, a way to fuse skills and items.
Samuel then began to consider which of them was more crucial, which one his class wouldn't give him, and predict what the system would choose for him. And after another 15 minutes of deliberating, Samuel had made his choice.
"System, I'd like to receive my apology."
[Please state your desire.]
"A skill to fuse items, skills, and beings into higher ranks."
Samuel decided to plan for the long run, knowing his class was probably strong enough, and because that was the choice that made the most sense to him. If he picked armor, the system could have just given him some heavy armor and moved on, also because he believed that by increasing the concentration of the dragon blood, he could get dragon scales. If he picked a way to evade, the system could have given him merely footwork, which he had plenty of from Unarmed Mastery. And for the summoning magic, he believed that he could get it from going further into his class, so he didn't choose it.
And thus, Samuel picked the fusion ability, because it felt like the most direct of the three options he had. There was no way the system could misinterpret this.
[Searching for "A skill to fuse items, skills, and beings into higher ranks." Please wait...]
[Please wait...]
[No results found.]
[Creating skill...]
[Skill: Ultimate Fusion Lv. 1 granted.]
[Ultimate Fusion {Special Rank}: A skill that allows you to permanently fuse items, skills, and creatures into higher ranks. (Limited to uncommon rank until skill level becomes 2.)
Restrictions:
1. You may not use items from safe zones as fusion materials.
2. You may only fuse beings if they explicitly give you permission or if you can overpower them.
Note: As this is a recently created skill, its restrictions may be subject to change.]
Samuel wasn't expecting the system to create a whole new skill just for him, but he was absolutely not complaining. He stretched out with a big smile, before deciding on what to do next. While he would like to establish a stronghold for himself in the city, he still had to find his family and make sure they were okay. It seemed like the next step was to simply grow stronger, and his first order of business was awakening his pets.
Samuel, finally snapping out of his trance, had heard the barking outside of the warehouse and poked his head out to check, only to find chaos again. The Red-Furred Wolf appeared to be fighting a jaguar of a similar size armored with rubble that covered its whole body.
The jaguar was a one-man— one-beast? army as it clobbered through the wolf's followers with ease, the only real threat being the wolf himself. Samuel almost grabbed a chair and some popcorn to watch such a show before activating his Ghostly Spirit Body and Evil Eye to capture a few targets for his pets' awakening.
The closest few dogs could only whimper and squeal in pain as their sanity was chewed on by the spirits due to their low mental resistance stats. And soon 4 dogs, 2 wolves, and a fox all dropped to the floor unconsciously. They were still alive but they were in a coma from the things they saw due to their minds getting invaded.
Of course, the loss of seven subordinates from the wolf's entourage, which was now bigger, was nothing to scoff at, but as the wolf knew they were of no use in this fight, it couldn't care less as it was engaged in battle with its mortal enemy.
Samuel dragged the canines into the warehouse, and then into the pocket dimension granted to him by his class, which he could finally look at. Inside was a lush forest with massive trees that covered that covered the sun. Was it even real?
No matter. Samuel quickly looked around for his pets in this place, since he actually had full awareness of what happened here. After gathering his seven pets, Samuel placed each of them down on a different canine that he had damaged enough for a single hit to kill them.
Venus didn't understand a word of what Samuel was saying, but she saw her first morcel of real meat in four whole days in front of her, and she decided to just take a bite of it. After a couple seconds of biting and chewing, she began to glow a golden light before she was envelopped by a cocoon.
[Your familiar Venus is evolving. Time remaining: 4 minutes 47 seconds.]
Seeing what had happened to Venus, the others quickly followed followed her example and were all envelopped in cocoons soon enough, so Samuel decided to wait 5 minutes for their evolution.
[Your familiar Venus has evolved into a Flood Dragon Hatchling.]
[Your familiar Moon has evolved into a Shadow Serpent.]
[Your familiar Sun has evolved into a Sun Cobra.]
[Your familiar Newt has evolved into a Salamander.]
[Your familiar Argon has evolved into a Fortress Tortoise.]
[Your familiar Shifter has evolved into a Doppelganger Lizard.]
[Your familiar Shape has evolved into a Mimicry Lizard.]
After five minutes of waiting, his seven companions had hatched out of their eggs, his crest on all of their heads.
Venus didn't look much different, aside from having grown to the size of an adult crocodile and having two horns on her head.
Moon's scales had turned completely dark, along with two completely white eyes.
Sun was hard to look at because of his bright white scales that reflected the sun's rays, but Samuel could at least see that its eyes had turned black— the polar opposite of Moon. Perhaps they had a synergetic effect in battle?
[Taking user's suggestion into consideration.]
"The hell? So synergies aren't a thing yet?"
Seeing the system remain silent, Samuel could only shrug and look at Newt next, who had remained about the same size, but now had flames all over his body.
Argon was by far the biggest of the bunch, being the size of a large car, and carrying several cannons on its shell and body.
Shifter had grown much bigger than before, being about 1 metre now. Its scales had grown dark and its eyes green with 2 new pairs of legs.
Shape had turned into a metallic lizard somewhat bigger than Shifter, and disappeared at times. If not for the fact that he could hear its breathing, he would have suspected its newly gained ability to be teleportation.
[You may now communicate with your familiars.]
"Oh, so they can understand me now?"
"Oh... sssso they can... understand me now..."
A hoarse voice spoke, and looking for its source, Samuel found that it was Shifter, who seemed to be training his vocal cords for better mimicking of people.
Although he would have liked to talk more to his pets and understand their new powers, he still wanted to try leveling up, but the two beasts were still fighting at his door, so Samuel decided to practice his martial arts and using his wings' attack mode for the rest of the day.