He stood up, this time remembering how 4 legged creatures usually stand up. Then walked towards one of the crystals etched in the wall. In that crystal he saw his new face.
He now had large amber eyes that appeared deadly and beautiful at the same time. He had dark slits for pupils that looked like black holes. They were probably to be accredited for his clear vision even in this dark environment.
His sharp and pointy ears looked ready to react to any sound. He felt like he could hear a lot further than he could when he was human.
His nose quivered with every breath he took. When he focused on the smells, he sensed that he could distinguish countless smells around him. The smell of soil, rocks, the crystals, as well as some smells that he could not attribute to anything.
If he had to guess, then those smells probably belonged to living entities, but there was no one in his close vicinity so he should be safe for now.
His gaze moved down to his mouth that concealed the sharpest weapons in his body, each of his teeth, like an ivory dagger that looked ready to tear apart flesh of the creatures he encountered.
It was at this moment that he realised that he was not a Big Black Cat. Instead, he was a Black Panther, wait, they are the same thing.
Well, Black Panther seemed the cooler way of saying it so Ragnar decided to go with that.
Ragnar felt like this face might be slightly better than his older one. He could live with it.
But then, his attention went back to the sensation that he had been having ever since he gained consciousness. It was like something that he might need was leaking out of his body and he had no idea as to what it was.
It was clear that he could not let this go on any longer, or he might regret it.
He was now sure that this wasn't a trial. The Realm had not lied to him since he still had his mind intact and there was the connection he felt with his human form.
He felt it, he knew that his human body was not lost. It was still somewhere inside him.
He just had to reach out to it.
He focused his mind and tried to reach it, his human form. And when he reached it, a sudden bolt ran through his body, like stretching his body after a long sleep. It was surreal, as if each cell in his body was reconstructing itself into what it once was. The process was neither comforting, nor painful, rather it felt like a process that his body was made for. It felt natural.
Most of the bloodlust inside him vanished as his body came close to finishing the transformation. By the time his body stopped morphing, he also felt the leaking sensation disappear.
Now that it was gone, he realized what it was that was leaking out of his body all this time he had been in his Shifted form.
It was his humanity.
It was his ability to feel for people other than himself.
But there already weren't any people left who he could feel for, unless we consider his anger and wish for revenge as an emotion. He was sure that it could also be found in Shifted creatures just as much.
Realising this was strange. But if he really thought about it, at this point, what did he really need his humanity for?
It was completely useless to him.
Even though he came to this conclusion, he did not turn back into his Shifted form since he had a lot to check in this form.
He wanted to check his status, that's what people had named it. He had heard from Tristan that Mutants were capable of seeing their information that the Realm compiled for them just by thinking about it.
So, he did it and willed for his status to appear, and it did in his mind. The symbols it used were still the native language of the Realm. It read,
Name: Ragnar Drakorian
He had only read the name but he had to pause there.
Things started to click, what the Realm meant when it said that it would sound good with his name,
'Well, I can't lie, it does sound alright.'
But that was not important, what was important was what this entailed.
When the Realm first mentioned a Lineage, Ragnar had no clue since he had never heard that word before. But getting a surname from the Realm, that might be a slightly significant matter, since even he had heard of it.
Well, almost every human had. Because there have only ever been 7 people who have received a surname from the Realm.
Until now, that is.
They were the first 7 people who came out alive from the Rift during the EtherShift Calamity. These people went on to create 7 families which still remained as the strongest organisations of their respective continents. Even after all these years.
By coincidence, each of the 7-person turned out to be from a different continent leading to the rise of a powerhouse in each continent.
Ragnar didn't know how to feel about this.
Was the Realm expecting him to form a family as well? This thought made him chuckle self-deprecatingly. For him, who did not even have a single person left to call his friend, let alone someone close enough to be part of his family, it was a pathetic thought.
Ragnar decided to read further to shake off his bad mood,
Species: Human
Rank: Mutant
Lineage: Drakorian
Lineage Ability: ???
Lineage Perk: Shifted Transformation
Seeing that the Lineage ability was marked as question marks, Ragnar understood that it must be the use that Realm talked about. Which will unlock when he completes the task, when will that be? Probably Never.
Then he noticed the Lineage perk which was Shifted Transformation. So, his Shifted form was a result of his Lineage after all.
But does that mean the members of those 7 families will also have something similar? That shouldn't be, because if these were so common then he probably would have learned about it from Tristan. He seemed to have extensive knowledge on this subject anyways.
He discerned that there was a lot more to his Shifted form than just his night vision. He planned to explore it soon but he needed to see the rest of his status, especially, his ability.
Rank: Mutant
Class: Primordial
He had only read until here when the content made him frown.
He was not that surprised by him having a class even though humans were not supposed to have one. He also had a Shifted form that normal humans could not have.
What made him doubt the symbols was the class he was in… it was Primordial. Which was the first time he had seen that word.
He had never heard of this class. In fact, he was sure that this class had never been seen before.
The knowledge of classes was not hidden and was available for the general public. It was known that the Shifted creatures came in 4 classes; Rogue, Menace, Dread and Elder. These were the only ones that humans had killed or maybe even found.
It was to be noted here that humans did not get any help in this regard from the Realm. All the information that they had, had been gathered by their own efforts.
The 4 classes that humans have knowledge of were the ones they had found and killed. Thereby getting the kill message which told them their class and rank.
So what did this entail, had the creatures of Primordial class never been killed before? Or maybe they had been killed but that knowledge had never made it to the general public.
Because if creatures of this class existed then there should be people who are capable of killing them. Even though the higher classed Shifted creatures can be strong enough to triumph against enemies who were of a higher rank, the same couldn't be said about another who is two ranks higher.
The difference in ranks was a much more substantial factor in defining one's strength, being a qualitative as well as quantitative leap in strength. Whereas the difference in classes was more focused on quality of their essence as well as their control over bloodlust.
Creatures of higher classes were usually much smarter and hence, harder to kill then creatures of a lower class who were blinded by their bloodlust.
There was another possibility though, which was the one that Ragnar was more inclined to believe. It was that humans had never encountered a Shifted Primordial before.
It made much more sense. Since even if the creatures of this rank would be stronger than their counterparts, they should not be invincible by any means. Hence, it was much more probable that either they didn't exist now, or they didn't come out in the open.
There was another probability, which was much scarier, where humans did encounter them but were never able to slay them.
Ragnar concluded his thoughts that were clearly going off the rails at this point. Considering how his bloodlust had reacted to its presence, his Primordial class had to be higher than the other classes that had existed until now.
Ragnar had no opinions about his new class yet, it will have to wait until he figures out its capabilities.
He will have to do it through trial and error though. The Realm was not one to provide any help in such matters, the most it could ever explain was the one liner description it used for all abilities.
Speaking of abilities, Ragnar finally moved his attention back to his status.