What sort of damage to the Death-Eater Path are we talking about?

[A Death-Eater is completely devoted to Death energy. Moving away from Death to another Affinity would normally damage the Death-Eater’s tie to Death energy. The most common damage is losing the ability to increase the Death Affinity, but this does not apply to you. Since you are Death’s Incarnate, the only likely permanent effect is that you will no longer gain Core progression from absorbing Death energy; if there are other resulting restrictions, they should be resolved the next time you Tier up]

[The Eat Death ability will be damaged. The exact nature of the damage is difficult to predict, but the healing and consuming features are the weakest and the most likely to be damaged. No other abilities will be damaged, as they are not innately tied to the Death-Eater subspecies and Path]

That explained why he’d hit the next evolution so quickly. Losing the ability to gain Core and evolve in a way that didn’t cost XP wasn’t minor, but at the same time, that implied ...

Are you telling me I’ll be able to eat things that aren’t saturated in Death energy?

[That is likely but not guaranteed]

Serenity looked forward to being able to eat again. Drawing in mana just wasn’t the same.

That sounded completely worth the cost. He definitely wanted a choice that damaged Eat Death.

Serenity glanced back at the descriptions. Foreign to normal space could be good or bad, as could not making intuitive sense. Breaking the normal rules could be useful.

Yet Serenity found the phrase "your success can only be measured by yourself" compelling. It didn't hurt that in some sense, he was who he was because of Time travel.

Child of Time, please.

[Your subchoices are:]

Teller of Fate - Ask and be told what is to come, for yourself or for others. Beware for fate is often not believed, and acting to avoid it can be the cause.

Blind Oracle - The world around you is little more than illusion; what is to come is Truth.

Weaver of Threads - Shape That Which Is into the shape you wish.

Guardian of Destiny - Protect the future from those who would break it.

Doomsayer - Know the darkness that is coming. Warn those who will not heed.

Lachesis - Snip the threads whose time has come.

Fortune’s Fool - High or low, you are cast on the winds of Time and Fate.

Unbound - Fate, destiny, fortune, or doom, your future and that of those around you is in your hands. Foretold is forewarned. You shape the future; it does not shape you.

No, ehh, maybe, no, definitely not, nope, ugh no, and yes. Well, that was easy; only Weaver of Threads came anywhere near Unbound, and it sounded more like a background manipulator than an active participant or leader.

Unbound

[Evolution initiated. The Child of Time (Unbound) Path will become active when you complete Battle Adept]

[Unbound Path skills: Basic Sense Raw Magic, Linked Sight, Moment of Prescience, Time’s Eye, Unbound]

[SpaceTime Affinity increased]

[Time Resistance initiated]

[Space Resistance initiated]

Serenity didn’t have time to do more than look at the names of the Path skills for a moment before he fell out of the darkness into a comforting warmth that reminded him somewhat of being in the egg, but it faded as he began to wonder if he was truly back in an egg.

A moment later, it was clear that he wasn’t. It was also clear that he was back in his dragon form, but at least the Voice had been nice enough to remove his armor so he didn’t have to struggle with it.

Serenity sighed and shifted to his Chimeric form. His vision changed; everything became slightly colorless. He looked at himself and realized he could see shapes but not fine details or color. It was like he was in a dark place and depending on his Eyeless Sight, instead of his actual vision.

When he closed his eyes, nothing changed.

That wasn’t a good sign.

Serenity shifted back to the dragon form and could see normally again. He wasn’t just imagining things. Child of Time had messed with his vision.

No, it was more than that. He was blind in his Chimera form.

This was less of a problem than it would be without his other abilities, but it still wasn’t a good situation. He reviewed the description and groaned. He hadn’t realized it would literally blind him.

Can you at least mark these little surprises a bit more clearly? “Beware lest it blind you” sounds like something I get a choice in.

[You did. Selecting Unbound meant that you heavily influenced the physical changes and Path Skills]

So I think of Time mages as being blind?

[Apparently so]

Well, hell.

He could already get around much of the problem with other skills, but lack of color vision would be annoying at best; he could see shapes, but not even dark or light. It was exactly like when he’d first become a Draugr - though it was one of the lesser problems with Draugr. He didn’t feel fortunate to have been through worse, but at least it meant he knew it could be dealt with.

At least he could still see normally in his dragon form.

As he was thinking that, another undead creature - a zombie monkey, this time - charged at him. It didn’t disintegrate as it ran through his aura, and it was larger than he was in his hatchling dragon form. It bowled him over then tried to take a bite of his flank, but its teeth slipped off his scales.

Serenity could feel the Death energy pouring off the zombified monkey, but it wasn’t fast enough. He pulled on the energy intentionally and the monkey evaporated.

Eat Death was definitely weaker and required him to act, but it was still a useful ability, well worth being a Tier 0 capstone skill. That was true even without the energy he could feel gathered around himself, held by the Skill. He tried to figure out what to do with it; it would dissipate in time if he didn’t do anything, but a Skill shouldn’t hold on to energy unless there was something he could do with it - or maybe something he had to do with it to discharge it properly. He supposed that was a possibility with a “damaged” skill.

The first thing he tried was eating it, but nothing happened. It also wouldn’t refill his mana pool, and his stamina was full.

Directing it to hover near his Core didn’t do anything, either, but he felt something. He couldn’t define what it was, but he knew there was something there, even if he couldn’t figure out what right now.

The only other thing he could think of to do was to manipulate it like he’d manipulate Death-attuned mana. He tried infusing it into his weapon with Infused Strike.

It all entered the weapon. He needed to compare it to a normal Infused Strike using his mana, so he turned and found a more-or-less bare patch of rock and threw it at the rock with his recently unlocked Far Strike. The rock seemed to implode in on itself in a larger area than he’d expected - it was about half the size of the monkey.

For comparison, he infused his weapon with Death and threw it with Far Strike at another rock. The stamina use was identical but the amount of rock damaged was significantly smaller, about two foot in diameter instead of three. Either of those was a nasty attack, far more than a lowly Tier 0 person should be able to launch.

It wasn’t until then that he realized he’d used his new Incarnate status - whatever that meant. He was glad he hadn’t stopped to wonder if it would work the same before he simply did it; that might have prevented it from working.

The monster reminded him of one other thing he needed to do. He didn’t need to advance his Core right now; instead, he needed to get his attributes up to where they should be to finish Tier 1. He would also need some skills, but stats were getting expensive.

Please change my allotment to 25% to XP, 75% to Ev, and 0% to Core.

[Done]

Serenity shifted to his human form to go through his pack. The next thing he wanted was definitely food. He was only slightly hungry, but he still wanted to try eating something he couldn’t have earlier.

The first thing he pulled out of his pack wasn’t food; it was the Crystal Seed he’d gotten from the shaman back in the last Dungeon Trial, when he’d avoided killing anyone. He started to put it to the side since it wasn’t food, before realizing that it was now edible. He didn’t quite know what had changed but he knew that he could use it on himself, when he hadn’t been able to before.

He had no idea what it would do.

Stupid monster system that doesn’t actually give details. It’s more than the Voice tells the Pathed, so it’s not all bad, but still. For more normal stuff, you can sometimes find out!

Not that he seemed to be terribly good lately at figuring out what would happen even WITH details. He supposed maybe he could try to look it up, but the odds of finding information on it were poor, since he was so unusual. Maybe he’d be able to compare it to a Path somewhere with a Devour-based ability, but who knew if that was even comparable?

He held the Crystal Seed while he pulled out the next thing from his pack, which turned out to be a small waxed paper bag containing jerky. That was perfect. He bit off a small piece of the jerky - which didn’t really have a smell - and swallowed before putting the bag back.

He didn’t feel nauseous.

When he still didn’t feel nauseous a minute later, he decided the gamble had paid off: he could eat normal food again. Meat, at least. It was a huge victory, and worth losing his sight since he had ways to get around most of that issue. He didn’t immediately know a way to actually fix his sight, but that was something he could figure out later; there were probably ways to do it.

He looked at the Crystal Seed again.

May as well go all in. It was a gift and a reward, and I’ve had good luck with eating anything that smells good, so far. There’s no need to look for trickery of that sort from the Tutorial. Elsewhere, yes, but not the Tutorial.

He swallowed it.

He felt it dissolve in his throat. Nothing seemed to happen for a moment, so he lay on his back and concentrated. There was a ball of coherent something that moved to in between his lungs, then moved lower into his abdomen. It seemed to take on a form that seemed a lot like the crystal seed itself, then he was overwhelmed by a wave of euphoria.

[Pleasure resistance increased]

[Linking Complete]

When Serenity resurfaced, his first thought was to check for undead. He hadn’t gotten to a safe place before he fell over. None had appeared - or if any had, his aura had been enough to take care of them without noticing. There weren’t any within sight.

The second thing he realized was that his belly hurt. Looking down, he could see that it protruded a bit - and it seemed to get larger as he watched.

He lay back and pulled on his Life Affinity to examine his body. It was unexpectedly simple; he’d expected the pain to make falling into the necessary trance difficult.

What was happening in his body was also fairly simple, if surprising. His awareness started in his brain, and he could already see changes from there. Flexible crystalline strands had spun out of his core and woven themselves down his spine to his belly, where they wound around the Crystal Seed.

Oh. It makes sense now. The euphoria was to knock me out so that I wouldn’t move and damage something. It’s just as well, I’d just as soon not damage my spine. Yeah, it’d heal, but worth avoiding anyway.

The Crystal Seed was growing and changing shape. Serenity supposed that made sense; seeds did grow into other things, after all. The problem was that there wasn’t room for it; it wasn’t like there was open space in the body.

As he watched, the Crystal Seed stopped expanding in size and started changing shape. Some of the shapes were recognizable, but many weren’t. He saw miniature versions of a Town Crystal, a City Crystal, a Remote Crystal, a Capital Crystal, a World Core, several Ship Crystals, and many others he didn’t immediately recognize before it stopped with another shape he recognized: his own Core. It was almost exactly the same size as his Core, too, unlike all of the others he’d recognized.

[Crystal initialization Complete]

[A message is encoded on this crystal and keyed to you. Play message?]

Sure, why not.

Serenity could suddenly see normally again, enough to see Shaman Ekrittak, the old woman who’d given him the crystal. She smiled and looked directly at him. “Good to see you figured out that planting the Seed requires starting a Town. Hopefully it’ll grow into a nice Town Crystal for you, or maybe more if you become a true Lord. Visit me when you have the downtime and the means to teleport to my Town Crystal; I’ve encoded the location for you, so it should be on your Contacts now. We can talk about things. Maybe I’ll even tell you a bit more about how Great Dungeons work, they’re not like anything you will have seen elsewhere - the Dungeon Trial is an extension of one. Take as long as you need, I’m in no hurry.”

[Message ends]

She disappeared and Serenity’s vision returned to the inside of his body.

She was definitely not just a dungeon-created monster, though he suspected that many of the “humans” in that Trial were. He wanted to visit her, but he doubted it would be soon. She clearly hadn’t expected him to do what he’d done.

When Serenity returned to awareness, the pain in his belly had disappeared, replaced by a feeling of wrongness, even before he looked down. His body could heal the damage that was causing the pain, but this was something it couldn’t fix with just healing, so it was letting him know. He could probably have “solved” it by changing the template he’d set into it back when he’d first discovered his healing organ, but that wasn’t an answer he liked.

Looking down, he was grateful he hadn’t yet put his armor back on, because it wouldn’t have fit properly. He had a beer belly large enough to be mistaken for a late-term pregnancy.

Some examination of his abdomen told him that there was enough room for the crystal - but not for the crystal and the fat he’d been storing there. It was too bad to give up the reserve healing, but at this point it was necessary.

The easiest solution would be to use the same method he’d found early on and turn it into Ev. He looked for the node in his brain that he’d used, only to find out that it wasn’t there anymore. It had been where the Core was now, and he couldn’t find the controls he’d used; it seemed they’d disappeared when his Core formed.

Not only that, but his Core seemed bigger than he remembered and what little was left outside his Core was completely infiltrated by strands of crystal. There wasn’t anything to be done about that, even if he wanted to, and he still had a different issue to deal with.

Well, if he couldn’t solve the problem the easy way, maybe his body would still steal from his fat for healing. This was going to hurt.

He needed to drain his healing reserve and more. This was going to suck. A lot.

It did.

Fortunately, it worked.

-------------------

General

No, it's not a mistake that his Species is still listed as Essence Dragon Chimera. Child of Time was added in Heritages - and in several other places it affected.

Name: Serenity

Species: Essence Dragon Chimera (Hatchling)

Core: Unique

Progression: 0.1%

Tier: 1

Features: 4/11

True

Crystal

Link

Death

Path: Battle Adept

Level: 78 (730/790)

Tier: 0, 0/100 Spent

Path History: Death-Eater

Condition: Healthy

Healing Available: Full

Mana: 830/830

Stamina: 850/850

Might: 75

Agility: 75

Phys: 75

Understanding: 73

Will: 77

Mind: 73

Perception: 75

Luck: 71 - 168%

Essence

Pure (Innate)

Ev: 2686 (Purified)

Titles

Previous Supreme Existence

First of A Kind

Named

Ghost in the System

Aspect Pathfinder

Incarnate

Coin

240 Etherium

Magic

Essence Techniques

Chimeric Alteration

Claim Mana

Devour Mana

Purify

Affinities

Arcane: 50%

Energy: 40%

Life: 14%

Liquid: 6%

Mind: 32%

Plasma: 42%

Solid: 17%

SpaceTime: 71%

Vapor: 14%

Void: 60%

Concepts

Arcane: 78%

Energy: 52%

Essence: 15%

Mind: 15%

Plasma: 26%

SpaceTime: 30%

Void: 25%

Aspects

Essence: Growth (Bloodline)

SpaceTime: Nascent

Incarnate

Death

Physical

Resistances

Chemical: 137+10

Cold: 553 (53 active)+10

Curse: 263

Darkness: 277 (27 active)+10

Heat: 532+10

Light: 298+10

Pain: 1038 (38 active)

Pleasure: 31

Shock: 334+10

Sleep: 1

Space: 250

Time: 1000

Unknown

Chimeric Heritage

Pure (Innate)

Essence Dragon (Bloodline)

Asura

Child of Time, Unbound

Draugr, Sage

Godling

Human, Earth

Lich, Paramount

Vampire, Daywalker

Known Heritages

Sea Lion, Earth