And we're back!

  As you've noticed, I went on a hiatus recently, due in part to school and a high number of finals. It was exhausting to say the least.

  Gd to return to writing.

  They're over now, so I'm back, and I'm hoping to go back to a weekly schedule now that summer has opened up.

  So, yayyy!?

  It was astonishing seeing how much weaker everything around him was as they headed down the mountain, and towards civilization.

  The number of high ranking monsters quickly dissipated as they headed in the direction of the nearest towns.

  They pnned to head to an outpost, to easier slip in, before heading in. Their journey was made easier by the fact that they were still deep enough within empire nds, so the suspicion they would face as possible spies would lessen. An outpost often attracts less attention and scrutiny than more poputed pces.

  Despite heading towards human civilization, they were still in beast form.

  According to sister Alexandria, she was using a high level camoufge skill to hide their appearances, lest they scare any passing by people.

  Sadly, they could not use this spell once they were deeper into the empire, where the level of practitioners would be high enough to see through her deception, according to the wyrm, and the obvious fact that such a spell would not fly within cities.

  The idea of someone strong enough to see through the camoufge scared Richard, as it presented the idea of hidden monsters(metaphorical) who were capable of posing a genuine threat to them.

  Before they went in, they would have to undoubtedly take human form.

  That was one challenge Richard was unsure he could take.

  There was a part of him that was excited, yet another part that dreaded this next step.

  Did he want to be human again? To be weak like before? To be powerless?

  Regardless, it was a step that he would have to take. If he wanted to see all that he held dear, and to finally get to see the world outside the temple, he would have to take human form.

  Breathe in

  ...

  breath out

  Richard took deep breaths as he prepared to use his true shapeshifting skill.

  He didn't have to purchase a human tempte, thanks to his previous life as a human had counted as one tempte for him.

  The transformation was painful in a different way from his transformation into a thunder monitor as he felt his body sink and compress, in all the worst ways.

  Still, since he'd already done a transformation st time, the transformation wasn't as painful as the st time. Or he'd adapted since then. Or perhaps the pain simply wasn't as overwhelming after two evolutions and one shapeshifting.

  Whatever the case was, he adapted to it quickly.

  And then,

  he was man again.

  His hands small and delicate.

  The same fair, if not pale skin was there once more.

  His long white hair still came down to his shoulders, uncut as the day he died.

  But it was different.

  Underneath it all was power now.

  It didn't feel as great as his true body, and yet he felt stronger than he'd ever been as a man.

  And it made him happy. To see how far he'd come.

  He couldn't help but marvel at his hands, which no longer with his every move.

  His neck rolled smoothly, and how easily his fingers moved.

  His body no longer ached!

  Richard suppressed his marveling, as he has another thing to focus on.

  The other half of his body. Up to this point, he had yet to try his legs.

  The greatest curse he had suffered.

  With his body filled with invigoration, Grant took his first step as a human once more.

  And then he tripped, falling ft on his face.

  BOMP!

  Silence

  "PFFFT! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

  Sister Alexandria was merely watching, smiling.

  Unbeknownst to him, she was secretly using a recording magical tool to capture the moment. She had already suspected this would happen.

  Krackle unwittingly sent a feeling of worry to their master, alongside a small tingle of amusement.

  Ats quietly turned his attention elsewhere, ignoring his master's misstep.

  Achil thought nothing of it. Without his tail, of course he'd fall over.

  Richard perhaps had rarely been so embarrassed, even as a human.

  He had known his limits as a human, and as a dragon, he had never suffered a ck of bance, except maybe when he first began flying.

  Richard grunted as he pushed himself up, trying to steady himself using the staff that was krackle. He seemed fine standing up, but he did not trust himself not to fall again.

  Thanks to them, he found himself able to get up, and to contempte what went wrong.

  Why did he fall?

  He tried to feel what was wrong, and soon, he realized what it was.

  Richard felt off

  His bance was weird.

  His tail, or ck thereof.

  The young dragon had gotten so used to having a tail and wings to right his bance that now without them, everything felt off.

  The human form felt inconvenient.

  Richard couldn't help but dryly chuckle. The very idea of being human again had excited him, and yet now that he was human again, he felt reluctant instead.

  Was this why monsters often looked down upon humans and the like?

  He had to admit now that he was used to having a tail, this felt inconvenient and foolish even.

  Richard still needed to practice so that he would blend in amongst humans once more, but swore to himself that he would be going back to dragon form soon enough.

  This did not stop him from spending the rest of the day from tripping and falling over himself.

  He found a temporary workaround. Emphasis on temporary.

  Using the speed baron armor skill he had from Ats, he found that he was able to walk marginally better.

  This of course was more about the adaptive phase than anything else, but hopefully it'd help him move around some more.

  It also helped him overcome the limits of the human body.

  It was weaker than he'd hope for.

  Despite the level he was at being theoretically at being the same he found himself unable to assert his full strength.

  Was it the ck of a tail? The wings maybe?

  Surprisingly, he could still use breath attacks, but it felt weird and uncomfortable, His jaw unhinged, contorting and clicking before his breath could be used properly.

  Clearly he'd need to work around this, or find another way to exert his skills in this form.

  The next day, both Achil and Alexandria take on human form.

  But to Richard, it wasn't quite the fom he had expected.

  Achil looked like a child, with bck curly hair that came down to his face, covering his eyes, and pale skin, akin to Richard's own pale skin.

  Sister Alexandria looked like an older woman, perhaps in her early thirties, with scarlet red hair and glowing eyes, and a rather rge bust size for a wyrm. Richard suspected it was a personal choice of hers, perhaps made during her st advent into human society.

  So why was he surprised?

  It was what he didn't mention.

  Tails.

  They both had one.

  Achil may have looked mostly human, but one of the biggest giveaways was the rge plump tail growing out behind him, a rge scaly bck tail trailing behind him.

  And despite looking like a human child, you'll see the sharp, lizard like teeth whenever he opened his mouth, and the trace of scales flecking on his body.

  He wasn't the only one with a tail, as sister Alexandria also had one. However, unlike Achil, hers encompassed the whole of her lower torso, resulting in sister Alexandria looking more like a mia than a human.

  The webbing in her other form also made its appearance, but instead were a golden piece of headwear. Like Achil, scales appeared randomly throughout her body, and she had two long fangs instead of the row of sharp teeth, with a serpents tongue.

  And the eyes, well the eyes were a serpents eyes.

  Richard was anxious to say the least.

  "These aren't human forms! How are we going to blend in with forms like these!?" he said anxiously.

  The whole point of human forms was to blend in. But taking these inhuman forms would only attract attention. Did this not fail to meet this standard.

  Sister Alexandria responded with a chuckle. "You worry too much Richard. We can only become so inconspicuous before it becomes suspicious you know. Sometimes the most hidden ones are the ones who stand out.." she said coquettishly, her behavior reminding Richard of those widows who would often show up to the temple trying to snatch young men.

  Speaking of young men...

  Richard didn't even know how he could convince Achil to abandon his tail.

  Achil seemed pretty determined to keep it.

  "I will not abandon my tail." He said firmly in his soft voice. His fists clenched and the upturned pouting lip, he was-

  "Ooooh, he's so cute!" Cooed Alexandria as she swept the young boy up, holding him like a plushy, burying him in her chest.

  Richard could only feel bad for poor child. Whenever older women used to do that to him he used to half-choke to death, and he nearly died on three separate incidents, and it always drove Lyssandra mad.

  Panda's eyebrow twitched imperceptibly, as he felt his master's flowing sympathy for the young dragon.

  Sympathy? Why!?

  The boy looks pretty happy to me!

  Ultimately the session ended with Richard unable to convince either to take more human forms.

  Achil had a reason, one that was surprisingly practical.

  "You fell. I have tail. I won't." He said simply, referencing Richard's poor first shapeshifting that had resulted in him falling face first, and the many subsequent incidents.

  After seeing that, it made sense why the boy insisted on the tail, not wanting to end up like his senior.

  And secretly, the boy enjoyed how much closer it brought him to the wyrm.

  And for sister Alexandria, it made even more sense.

  She was a wyrm, a creature who was used to traveling without limbs, relying on the contractions of its muscles to travel around.

  Legs were not apt for her.

  She would merely stand out even more if she were to walk around awkwardly, and would blend in better if her body moved seamlessly.

  If anything she'd also be more capable of scaring off people with greed if they were to see a beautiful mia rather than a beautiful woman.

  The logic made sense, and Richard was convinced, but he had to admit it felt wrong somehow.

  She didn't have to be a beautiful woman after all.

  Maybe shapeshift into an old hag...

  Shiver

  Richard felt a cold travel down his spine as she looked meaningfully at him.

  Richard knew better than to say this out loud.

  Another thing he learned at church. Which things not to say.

  Ultimately Richard had to concede, given both seemed rather firm in their stances.

  They also pointed something out that Richard hadn't noticed.

  "Richard, I'm curious, did your eyes used to spark like that?"

  "Hmm? What do you mean by that?" Richard asked, being met by a mirror to the face.

  "Huh?"

  His eyes had changed in a weird way.

  Light blue they were still, but now, there was a spark.

  Like a small storm in his eyes, sparks of red would go off, as if lightning was contained in those eyes.

  "No, my eyes never did that back then." Richard murmured, and sister Alexandria commented cheerfully. "See, now we all stand out. Also, I'm pretty sure that's my fault, a side effect of my bloodline."

  Hmm?

  Then shouldn't there be more traces?

  Richard started looking at his hair, et there was no trace of any of this bloodline, simirly, nothing else had changed.

  Weird.

  Still, now Richard felt like he could no longer comment, given that he too had a weird look.

  Looking in the mirror, Richard noticed that like his old body, it was a rather thin body, malnourished even.

  If the other two stood out because of how exotic they were, then Richard looked like the victim of some horrid abuse, as if his father hadn't been feeding him or something.

  Richard frowned. Hopefully it'll go away when he eats more. He had resigned himself to this appearance back then, but now that the situation had changed, he hoped that this would change as well.

  The next few days were just that, mostly shape shifting back and forth.

  Travel was rather quiet, but this was to be expected. Not all days could be filled with excitement and adventure after all.

  The journey in hiding was about a week before they encountered humans again.

  And as humans always seemed to do, they seemed to bing great excitement with them.

  The spirit federation is a rather interesting thing.

  The Americas in this world never became the United states, Mexico, Canada, and the rest like it did in our world, something I attribute to a number of factors.

  1. The Americas are a lot closer, and thus the Romanas empire and the Qing have been aware of them for a long while, and more importantly, the federation was made aware of any ill intentioned neighbors.

  2. their enemies were extremely busy. Within the period of time the Americas were colonized by european powers, the Romanas empire was instead busy fighting the Qing empire in a war that even gods and nascent soul cultivators got pulled into. They didn't have time to consider the Americas, giving them more time.

  3. The empires in south america, one particurly barbaric one, fell a lot faster, giving the other tribes more space to breathe, and setting them on equal ground.

  4. The arrival of their spiritual leader, the first chieftain who managed to unite the tribes.

  The federation, unlike the Australian one, is not a strong nation. Instead of 8 great families, it is a group of loosely tied tribes and cns, who work together with a representative government comprised of the chiefs of all these nations.

  Perhaps their strongest uniter is the true chieftain, their great leader, who's descendants now lead the cns.

  What is truly fascinating, is that the first chieftain is still alive, but in seclusion, being well over 1000 years old, and married to a spirit.

  -pyer 0 Grant