Or not.... my foot crunched the pine leaves strewn on the forest floor. This doesn't seem to be the begining of my multiversal adventure. Even the constant laughing of Artalis couldn't distract me from the immense sense of disappointment I was experiencing. It's like walking into a normal wardrobe to get to Narnia, or maybe even finding out that santa wasn't real at Christmas eve.
Long story short, I had blood magic. The advanced stuff. Weapon manifesting, blood manipulation, super regeneration,possession, puppetry, voodoo stuff, invulnerability, rebirth, the works. With a few additional skills, I was like a pumped version of carnage, minus the energy emitting stuff.
The thing was, I lacked control. So no mist forms or manifesting a ton of weapons like Gilgamesh. I was not the only resident in my head , and as a mana sensitive magical creature, Artalis seemed to direct her thoughts into mana without even trying. And the two different thoughts influence the mana making my control very basic.
I could still manifest anything I wanted, but they would be extremely disfigured. For an example, if I wanted to manifest a sword, normally I would be able to create a perfectly balanced blade with a pristine shine and even a few decorations without much effort. But because of the complication I was facing at the moment, I could only manifest a serrated blade that would look like it had been in the bottom of the Hudson River for a year. The structural integrity would be compromised by this as well. And though pumping more Ichor would've solved the structural problem, that would cost a lot more to maintain shape. A very inefficient and tiring in practice. Other than that, I could manifest a door every time I want to, in the best quality. Because it seems to come to me from instinct
And so, I spent all day, every day till the school started, training the controls, and exerting myself physically while practicing my stealth. The police force gratefully lent me a hand in the latter part of the training by trying to capture a dangerous animal poacher called the Zookeeper, someone I had "absolutely no connection" to.
Days passed in the blink of an eye. Practice kept my mind occupied, so I didn't even feel it flow by. And by the time enrollment began, I had already managed to change my Ichor into three different, distinct shapes. Something I found after much practice was that, I could change my blood into shapes that I am intimately connected either physically or mentally , easily. The mentally connected shape ended with the door, but the physically intimate shapes turned to be centipede like tails and a small arm blade. The centipede tail should be of courtesy of my Kakuja as a ghoul, but the small arm blade was a remnant of my eight grader syndrome. I may or may not have tried to make a wrist blade after playing assassin creed for three straight days before I passed out. Though I count it as a mental and physical manifesting , because I used an arm blade for a brief time before going through the mutation. I could also briefly manifest simpler versions of the kagune I had previously possesed.Things were much simpler back then, I wondered as I got ready to school. Sure, the options were limited, but at least I had the ability to do what I wanted. But now, I had to learn how to fight using a door. Which by the way is a legit training I went through with Artalis.
Of course when school started, I directly applied. Before my death, I was a bit of a social out cast for the first part. And only after entering high school did I start to actively join the society. I made actual friends, ate lunch from the same box, spend time at their houses. I was on the starting point of building a social life, even though I was a bit of a geek. But unfortunately, I got shot and reincarnated.
And while the presence of Artalis in my head had been a huge help, there are somethings only boys of similar age can understand. Also, I needed some friends who don't know every thought in my head.
Since I was 15 years old in this body, the same age as Jacob was in the beginning, I was put into the same class as he was. And I could tell straight away that he had begun phasing. Not just him,at lea st three more boys in my class seemed to have entered phasing themself.
How did I guess? Because they looked like a bunch of eighteen year old than fifteen year old. Also their bodies were hot, I could feel the heat basically steaming the humid air around them. Added the fact they smell. Like really bad. You know how dogs smell after they get wet and stayed like that for a day? They smelled like that to me. Almost close to the smell of dirty socks. It was revolting, at least to me. And I lost my appetite for days on the thought of consuming one. Ugh.
Don't get me wrong, I would have to eat one in the future, or at least drink blood from one to acquire the ability to spirit walk. But the thought of eating a part of a human crossed with a dog had me hurling for days.
I also came across the stone men. A term I officially coined to the vampires after seeing them from a distance. Reason being that they smelled like granite. I didn't smell it clearly before, but after evolving, I could smell more clearly. They smelled like powdered granite mixed with quartz dust. A big no no for consumption on my opinion.
WHHHYYYY! must every supernatural creature in this stupid word has to smell so unappetising? Just for once , I would like to see a supernatural creature that can actually make my mouth water, I couldn't help venting in my mind. On another note, humans didn't smell too much either. A good but concerning point. At least no more than a piece of raw steak does to a normal man.
The good thing about this was, that I didn't salivate everytime I got close to someone. The bad thing was Artalis. As the other person hanging out in my head, she wanted to experience magnificent tastes. And there seemed to be none, which in turn made her hangry. Both hungry and angry at the same time. And when she gets angry, she tends to vent it on me during practice.
And so my school life began miserably, centering wet dog men, walking statues and a cranky dragoness who kept ripping me to shreds at a daily basis.