Looking down and examining myself, I was reminded of how not human I am now. My skin had no hint of color to it and was completely white. Not caucasian white, just white. There were some differences in the shade around my joints, with areas like my inner elbows and knees being significantly darker, but that was it. The only hint of color was these glowing gold veins that ran under my skin in some places.
My skin also felt smoother than normal. There were no pores or hairs anywhere, and it was less elastic than human skin.
Looking at my face, yes that feels weird to say, there was just a blank slate. My face was a bit rounded and still head-shaped, but there were no protrusions where my brows or nose would have been. It was all completely seamless except for the edges of the face where it seemed like there was some slight discoloration. Feeling around my head, there were small ridges around where my face would have transitioned to my head, making it look somewhat like I was wearing a mask, but besides that, my head looked like the rest of my body.
My neck, as well as some of my joints, seemed to have an almost ribbed texture to them, which blended in with the darker coloration. I also had a more pronounced and angular spine.
Changing my focus to my arms, I found that there were the same slight angular protrusions on my elbows, and my fingers followed the same pattern of having a darker coloration.
I would say that I looked pretty cool. I definitely didn't look human though, and I would have to do something about that when I wanted to blend into human society. If I wanted to blend into human society. I might not, we'll see I guess. Regardless, learning how to use my Awoken Flesh skill will be a good start to that endeavor.
Okay, I'm just going to ask it right off the bat. System, how do I use Awoken Flesh?
[-Will yourself to change-]
Thats it? There isn't some complicated process or misconception I have due to having been human? Isn't this the least human-like thing I can do?
[-All of what you have done at this point is just utilizing your innate abilities. You only struggled due to your preconceived notions. As you have none about this, it should come naturally-]
Well, that makes things easier. I wonder how I should go about this then. Maybe I should make some eyes? Or I could try making a mouth perhaps?
I started first by trying to make myself a pair of eyes. I imagined a pair of humanoid eyes appearing on my face, and to my surprise, willing it was indeed all I needed to do. Eyes slowly appeared, but they didn't seem quite right. They weren't inset because I didn't have a brow ridge, and they looked a little glassy. I had also imagined the eyes as being brown, but when they formed, they were a brilliant gold.
I could also immediately tell what the strain it was putting on my body was like. It was a headache that was quite distracting, and there was this almost tangible feeling of wrongness.
I kept the eyes manifested for a little bit longer so I could study them closer. The biggest realization that I had was that I could SEE out of them. It seemed pretty obvious at first, but I hadn't even really noticed it until I positioned my head to look further away. While looking at anything within the range of my spatial sensitivity, my eyes were wholly redundant and did nothing but strain me. Looking further than that though, They showed their value. I could see for much farther as long as I had an unobstructed line of sight, which I found somewhat useful.
Another thing that I noticed was that most of the time, they kind of just stared off into space. Unless I was looking at something far away, they kind of just glassed over and stared straight forwards. I had to make a conscious effort to move them to look at things because I was already so much more proficient and reliant on my spatial sensitivity due to its superiority over regular eyesight.
Eventually, I let them fade away and watched with interest as they molded back into my face, returning it to the blank slate that there was before.
Reforming them, I tried making them different sizes and even tried making moth many eyes and only one. My experimentation let me know that the more I did the greater the strain it had, but the constant was the golden iris. I was able to change the color of the iris to brown eventually, but the added strain was just not worth a simple color change. The strain wasn't even that bad, I feel like I could keep the eyes for hours more, but I didn't see much of a reason to.
I did learn that the eye type that I preferred the most was one large eyeball in the center of my head. Lacking depth perception was not a problem when I was only using it to look at things that were further away, and it both took less strain to maintain and was easier to form.
Letting my experiments fade, I moved on to the second thing I wanted to try. A mouth.
After having practiced so much with making eyes, it came rather naturally to me. My face split open, forming a mouth that extended to the back of where my throat would have been. There was no throat in the back, but there was some semblance of vocal cords. The rest of my mouth was pretty different in appearance from what I had been expecting.
When creating this mouth, I didn't do so with any image of a mouth in mind, but rather I focused on the general idea of a mouth. I guess that changed the appearance, but it also meant that the result was much more natural to my state, and felt more comfortable.
The mouth I formed was lipless, and it only had canines in place of every other tooth. Each tooth was sharp, and there were no teeth for chewing like the mouth was made with combat in mind rather than eating. The teeth were the same white color as the rest of my body, but the inside of my mouth was a darker gray.
Time for the big reveal. Can I talk using it?
My first attempt resulted in me emitting a low-pitched grumbling noise, which I took as a good sign that I could even make noise in the first place.
"heLLo"
My next few attempts let me manage to make out a few words, though they sounded very broken and raspy. Each time was an improvement upon the last, and I noticed that the vocal cords that I had made were extending further down my neck and adapting to help me speak.
"Testing, testing, how does this sound?"
I got to a result that I was happy with. My voice was still quite low-pitched and gravelly, and it sounded kind of like two rocks had figured out how to slam together to make the sound of talking, but it was audible enough.
Speaking of audible, I don't have any ears, so how am I hearing this?
I continued making a low rumbling sound while I tried to figure out where I was picking it up, and I was decently stumped. Right before I gave up, I realized that I was looking for a specific part of me that was hearing but maybe I had been thinking about it wrong. Looking closer, it seemed like I was right. My entire body was picking up the vibrations and working like an ear. Seems pretty cool, but I hope it doesn't mean that I will go deaf if I get hit by something.
My mouth closed back in on itself and sealed, disappearing once again as my body returned to its natural state. Having accomplished what I had wanted, I now had to do what I had been avoiding this entire time and test my regeneration.
I contemplated for a bit whether or not I really had to, but eventually decided that I would prefer to learn how strong my regeneration was now rather than in a fight.
Briefly thinking about how I should go about this, I began looking around through the rubble. I soon detected a sharp and hard piece of something under a large slab of stone. I was worried for a bit that I wouldn't be able to lift the stone, but my stats proved to be working in my favor as I was able to lift it a few feet and shift it to the side.
What I uncovered was a hardened shard of multicolored glass depicting a grand battlefield of some kind. The shard was about as long as my forearm, and I bent over to pick it up.
"Pathetic"
I whirled around, slashing at the air behind me with my hand. My body felt overclocked, and I was tensed up and ready to burst into action.
There was nothing behind me. I knew that I had heard a voice though. That I had felt something with my spatial sensitivity. There was something, someone watching me. I couldn't feel it anymore, but I knew it was still there somewhere.
I stood frozen in place for a few more minutes, ready to run, fight, whatever I could do. Nothing changed. I had my sensitivity turned up to the max, and I couldn't even detect a bug near me. The voice sounded like it had been only a few feet behind me, so this was quite eerie.
Eventually, I calmed down enough to realize that I had changed shape. the protrusions on my spine and elbows had sharpened, and I had grown claws. My mouth had also appeared, and I was bearing my teeth.
System, what was that voice just now? Was there someone behind me?
[-... I did not register any voice or any presence. Your actions seem erratic-]
It must have done something to bypass the system then. I know what I heard. What I felt.
I began prowling around the area around the throne looking for clues. After a solid hour of searching, I found nothing. Maybe I was imagining things, but I could swear I still felt that presence in the background.
After a while, I concluded that whatever that voice was, I couldn't let it stop me from continuing onwards. I still needed to test my regeneration, and while I could go back and try to use that shard again, I had conveniently grown some sharp claws and teeth that I could use.
I rested the sharpened fingers of my right hand against my left forearm and slowly began to apply increasingly more and more pressure. I expected to start feeling pain, but even when my finger began to dig through my flesh all I felt was intense pressure. Enough to know that there was something wrong, but not enough to cloud my judgment in the slightest.
Distracted, I got a little carried away and ended up slicing my finger about an inch into my forearm, and upon noticing this, I quickly pulled back. Before my finger was even clear of the wound, I could already see it healing. Rubberband-like strands extend between the edges of the wide cut, connecting with the other side and pulling the wound closed. In about a minute, there was no sign that the wound had ever even existed.