Jason claps his hands, “Anyway, I was about to take the potion? Going to just sit in the corner and chug it like you advised.”

Gregor nods with a look of deep concentration on his face. “Yes, fine, you do that. I’ll have to think about this new information a bit more. It isn’t really new information but the fact you knew about it means something. After all, I highly doubt someone else got to you first and pumped you full of info to prank me. Anyway, your ideas are different enough that I doubt someone familiar with our current understanding could fake it.

“Sure, it isn’t my focus of study by any means, but as a kitsune with access to a strange potion to help with the tail problem, I’m not uninformed. Plus, the kingdom has a few researchers on the subject that are recognized as true Philosophers. A bit of a rarity, not just because most wise ones tend to be either magi or sages, but because not many bother with the soul.”

Jason rolls his eyes and sits down in the corner, “Yep, sounds cool. Drinking my potion.”

Gregor continues to talk, though he lowers his voice and is clearly talking to himself. Jason, on the other hand, is unpackaging the potion. The box it came in was a bit smaller than he expected, but once opened reveals the reason. The potion bottle is rectangular in shape so the box is just barely big enough to fit it. The fact that the bottle has been filled up with more potion than any other potion he had seen yet means there is more potion by half than normal. The liquid is literally just below the stopper and Jason gets the feeling that the little bit of air left in the bottle is only there because the maker had tired of trying to remove that last bit.

Jason shrugs, the potion is probably air sensitive or some such. He shakes his head and unstops the bottle. A quick sniff brings to mind fresh blueberries, ground thyme, and wet cat. Because, of course, the potion had to have a nasty kicker to it. Nevermind the fact the potion itself looks a bit too gluggy.

Eyes closed, he tips his head back and starts chugging. That lack of air in the bottle made it harder than it should be. That is, of course, if you ignore the texture and consistency. It didn’t just look gluggy, that’s for sure. Really one of those things that make you second guess your choices at the moment. Jason powers through it, though when for a moment it felt like the potion was trying to crawl back up his throat incited quite the urge to help it.

And then he waited. Jason could feel things happening but the System wasn’t saying anything. An hour or so passed as a non-specific feeling of wiggling. Like, it felt as if he was wiggling an arm or some such but he wasn’t moving. Then finally as it settled down, the System started to flash up a blank screen. This gives Jason a headache but after a few moments the System calms down and decides on what it wants to say.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

{Tail Control potion consumed

+104 [Base] Control

Changes Happened}

The massive boost to control is overwhelming but that balances how underwhelming the message is as a whole. Jason sighs, “Well that is a less than useful message. Hey Gregor, take a look and tell me what you think. [System, share this message with Gregor please.]”

Gregor looks up from the book he is reading and glances at the message. “Huh, that’s a good portion of control. Most kitsune who take the potion only get around 50. Besides that, though, the System really has no clue what to do with you. Locals generally get some form of unique skill or bonus that is completely random as well as a number of other interesting little tweaks.”

Jason shrugs, “My guess is since my soul isn’t native to NeoRealm the System doesn’t have a good enough view of what happened to put it into words yet. Of course, that means I get to play twenty questions with myself to try and figure out what I got.”

Gregor nods, “That would make the most sense. Of course, it is also the answer that will frustrate the researchers the most. I can just imagine the look on their faces. Their current guess on the ability is that they are based on the soul and they very much wanted to know what you would get out of it. The funny part of this outcome is that later on when you do discover what the ability is, you won’t even be able to say for certain it came from the potion. After all, adventurers awaken strange powers all the time.

“I’ve seen a gall who could turn an appropriate sized pebble into an acorn once a day. Not from a potion or anything mind you, she just had always been able to do it since before she could remember. Mind you, the ability gained from the tail control potion all tend towards being more useful than not so you will notice it. The only question is if it will be useful to you.

“My favorite cautionary tale about expecting too much is a kitsune mage who put all their hopes on gaining an elemental ability of some sort because everyone else in their family had. Instead, they got a bonus to Qi manipulation. An almost completely useless bonus for a Mana user. About the only use is fending off attacks where Qi is injected directly into your body.”

Jason leans back against the wall, “Whatever I got is probably even weirder than that. I bet the System does some work behind the scenes to make the abilities match NeoRealm better. This isn’t a bad thing, mind you. I could have totally gained a bonus similar to that mage except for a power that doesn’t exist here.”

Gregor laughs, “True enough.”