The First Legendary Beast Master

Chapter 1988 Same Same, But Different

Of course, nobody else would see Karl's actions as the sane and reasonable way to finish an advancement. Especially when one skill was designed for improving crafting, and the other was dragon breath that would force growth and mutation.

But in Karl's mind, that was what he needed. Just a bit of motivation to pick a form.

Eventually, everything felt like it had stabilized, and all that Karl could feel in the room was his own mana, not any lingering effects of the Trial. That should have been long enough, he decided.

So, he tried heading for the mirror again, but this time he kept his eyes closed and tried to ignore the obvious cues from his body as he walked over.

What the advancement had settled on was truly horrific.

It looked like someone had given a wrath demon an octopus to wear as a helmet. Black and red skin, black boned demon wings with translucent red membranes, and a vaguely humanoid head shape, except that it had octopus tentacles where the hair should be.

The long black claws had survived, and Karl realized that this was the form that the Elves "true form" array had turned him into.

Well, more or less. This one didn't have any dragon scales that he could see.

Something still felt off about it, though. Like there was something more to his body that he was simply overlooking because he didn't know where to look.

Briefly, he wondered if he would have to go about in Cat Demon or Fox form so that he avoided scaring people.

And then, his body simply shifted.

The wings retracted into his back, fur sprouted as his head reshaped into the familiar feline muzzle, and a long fluffy tail extended behind him as he shifted into cat demon form.

Except, he wasn't using the [Beast Form] skill.

Karl inspected the new addition to his skills in the system interface. [Ancient Beast Constitution] Peerless Grade.

No other description was given, and Karl had no idea whether this was supposed to be normal or not. So, he tried using the [Fox Form] skill.

His body shifted just fine, and [Fox Charm] took effect for a moment before Karl released the skill.

Then, he tried to shift into that shape without it, and found that he couldn't.

If it wouldn't do beastkin that were too human looking, so perhaps it was intended to do beasts? It did the fully furred cat demon form, after all.

With a bit of focus, Karl shifted into a black and white tiger three metres tall at the shoulder, sporting fangs that would make most modern felines pout with jealousy. From what he could tell, this should be a primordial form of the Moor Cat, or the Northern Snow Tiger.

And it was powerful.

A twitch of a paw was enough to toss him upright as he shifted back into his new natural form.

He would have to learn to restrain his strength all over again, as it had improved enough that controlling his fine motor skills was a challenge. That was a common issue with physical growth, though. Everyone who built up their body for combat had to deal with it now and then.

Now, he had a new problem. He had a lot of transformation skills, but none that made him look human.

Going out looking like a more terrifying version of the Lesser Watcher was probably not a great idea, so he shifted to the altered cat form that his upgraded body let him choose. That shouldn't be too scary for anyone.

In fact, with medium length white fur, black stripes and golden eyes, Lotus would say that he was actually cute. But in a huge and muscular way.

Perhaps that wasn't a good measure. Lotus had a particular fondness for large, muscular furry people.

The door burst open, and Dana rushed in, followed by Lotus, Cara and Ophelia, who was trying to catch Lotus. The little Priestess was too excited to stop, but she looked a bit disappointed that Karl's form was one that she was already familiar with.

"Why don't you look new and cool?

I was totally sure that after all that you would get a new form. But you look like the same cat that you did before. Not that it's bad, but it's the same."

Karl laughed, and let his body shift back to its neutral state.

"OOH! What is that? It's... you look like the Pet Sitters."

Karl laughed. Of course Lotus would remember them by their job title not their species. After all, she was one of the "Pets" that they were often caring for, when she got too excited about something and forgot to eat on time, or managed to lose track of time playing with the hatchlings.

The Pet Sitters that were in the Tiny World were exceptionally skilled at finding her and bringing her back to Ophelia when the Werebear requested it.

"The new skill name is [Ancient Beast Constitution], and this is the default form that it gives me, but I can shift to the cat form, or a fully feline form without using any other skill," Karl explained to the group, though the beasts already knew.

Dana did too, but it was a bit difficult to accept without seeing it.

"So, either of those could be considered your natural form now?" Dana asked, just to be sure.

"I think that technically, I could do a bunch more forms. But I can't do fully human or mostly human looking beastkin anymore. So, I'm going to have to make a new skill for that. No, wait. Now that I'm not human by default, let's see what [Beast Form] does."

Karl activated the skill, and found himself human again. Or, something close to it.

Dana smiled. "Huh, I guess that you're really not human anymore. Not even close enough that the system thinks you count. All the beasts get human forms from that spell, and now you do too.

And it's actually more human looking than when you were actually a human."

That made Lotus giggle. "It's kind of creepy. It's like he's wearing a Karl suit. He still looks like a Karl, but I can tell that it's fake."

Karl frowned, and the little cleric shrugged. "It's a Green Dragon thing. You don't smell like human."

Which meant that most dragons would be able to tell, and plenty of beastkin, plus some demons.