Chapter 73: Chapter 69: Inhuman

For eliciting the sympathy of an angelica tutela, single element abilities are enhanced to span all elements.

Sympathy. Hah. I took a few steps down the staircase to the fifth floor before stopping and sitting down, waving my legs in front of me in the darkness. The guardian had spun fantastic tales of previous heroes, but all of them were... weird. In what way does the blessing to drink as much as you like without suffering a hangover the next morning help you beat monsters? Yes, it was a handy ability, and I would quite like to have it, but it wouldn't help me here, and it was hardly hero material.

Of course, I had no idea how much truth there was to the stories. Of the memories I'd let the guardian see, I'd included the previous state of the fourth floor, complete with vined-up demons and the concluding dragon, and she hadn't even noticed the incongruity. Her head was even more messed up than mine. No, not head; she didn't have one. Where would a tree keep its thinking organ? Perhaps the lack of one was her problem?

But putting the tree aside, what was with that new class perk? Single element abilities? Is that element in the Earth sense? Like abilities that only work on iron or oxygen? That seems silly. Elements in a magical sense, like fire, water, earth and air? I did have one fire based ability. On a whim, I started to invoke my fire breath, but concentrated on feelings of cold. And then stopped.

Right, that would be a stupid thing to do. I only had the second tier cold resistance, and freezing my throat shut before I'd even reached the bottom of the staircase would be a particularly foolish waste of my first foray onto the fifth floor.

Did I have any other elemental abilities? None that I could think of, and nothing on my status had changed. Oh, there was the ice affinity skill I had available. Did that count? On checking the skills I could buy, there were, in fact, two changes.

Elemental affinity: You can cast basic and intermediate elemental spells
Draconic scales (rainbow): Develop weak rainbow-coloured dragon scales to provide additional protection from both physical and magical attacks, as well as very high resistance to the elements

Ice affinity had changed to elemental affinity, despite decay affinity remaining untouched. Decay was presumably not considered an element in the way that mattered for my new perk. But also, rainbow scales!

I wanted them. They offered extra protection against physical and magical attacks, and increased elemental resistances. And I bet they would look awesome. The thought of my skin shimmering in the light like the rainbow tree was all sorts of cool. The only reason I didn't take the skill there and then was that I still had Katie the university student fresh in my mind.

Katie the university student would not have got excited about growing scales of any colour. She wouldn't have accepted them if someone had paid her. If someone had offered her a fox-kin tail or ears, she might have been tempted, but even that was a maybe.

I sighed as I continued swinging my legs. The first time I'd done resistance training, it wasn't just pain I was scared of, but I was worried about how it wasn't a normal thing to do. I feared for my sanity. Now I regularly tortured myself to death without batting an eyelid. That was... not normal behaviour. As time went on, I was embracing my changes more and more.

Despite my comments to the rainbow tree, I couldn't even blame friend of fear for it all. Yes, I may well have not taken the tamer class without it, but after taking my tamer class, I'd at least been concerned about the changes it made to my body, despite them being relatively minor. The wings hadn't been deliberate, but they couldn't be described as minor. They would be far harder to hide or explain away on Earth than my other changes, and yet I'd been glad of them, and hardly concerned at all. And now I was considering something that would cover my skin in scales. Deliberately.

Was I even human anymore? Was I as much of a monster as my zombie twin?

Putting off my skill selection for the moment, I continued my way down the stairs. The air grew progressively hotter, and the ambient mana was stifling. A dull, red glow shone from the walls, growing brighter the further I descended. The abyss was basically their version of hell, right? So, lakes of fire?

The bottom of the staircase came out into a large cavern, and this one was well lit. It wasn't quite a lake of fire, but a lake of lava was pretty darn close. As a child, playing games of 'the floor is lava' was a matter of course. Never did I expect to be playing it for real. Without my maxed heat nullification, I'd probably be dead just from standing there.

A narrow stone bridge, two metres wide and only one metre above the lava lake, extended out from the cavern entrance and towards a central island. Or central fortress, perhaps, given that the island had walls all the way around. There was a gate set at the end of the bridge, looking imposing even from this distance.

Perceive presence was blocked, but not in any way I'd seen before. Rather than hiding from it, everything reacted. It was like the entire lake was some sort of monster at an even higher level than the spider queen.

So, as if previous floors hadn't been hard enough, this time I needed to assault some sort of demon fortress? Forget that. I could just fly around it. Turning myself inhuman had its advantages. I took to the air and skirted around the edge of the cavern.

Sense danger advanced to level 7

I switched direction, a flap of my wings redirecting my forward momentum straight up. Moments later, a stream of lava passed beneath me, catching one of my feet and burning straight through the silk. A second burst of lava came from another direction, but with my higher altitude, I succeeded in dodging.

Looking down, I saw the head and neck of two creatures sticking out of the lava. Because of course this place would have monsters that live in lava. Stupid me. Their skin was dark, rough and stone-like, but was criss-crossed with numerous cracks through which a dull red light glowed. Maybe it was a stone shell over some sort of lava creature? The head was wide, flat and streamlined. One opened its mouth again, forming a circular hole, glowing red from within. There were no signs of teeth, but that was more than made up for by the glob of lava it spat out. No need to chew your food if you melt it beforehand.

I dodged again, but when I saw the lava lake ripple and three more of the monsters emerge, I decided it was best to head back to the entrance. I couldn't dodge all of them.

A sixth monster emerged, right against the bridge, blocking the entrance back to floor four.

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More balls and streams of lava came at me, forcing me into a display of aerial acrobatics, swearing as I went. One caught my arm, burning me even through my armour and heat nullification. A few plates of chitin fell from me as the silk burnt.

Now what? From above, I could see that the island seemed to be a settlement, the interior of the walls filled with completely mismatched structures. Given the equally mismatched demons, that was unsurprising. Could I make it there?

Another pair of monsters emerged further along the bridge, before adding their own balls of lava to the bombardment. That would be a no, then.

One of the streams of lava clipped me in the wing, sending me spiralling out of control. Flying had been a terrible mistake. I'd note that down for next time, but for now, I couldn't see any way out of this other than death. Bathing in lava would surely be counted as an achievement for evolving heat nullification, so I switched direction for the final time, aiming straight down, not even trying to dodge any further attacks. I stored my armour just as I was engulfed by a lava-ball bigger than I was, then a moment later I splashed into the lake.

Evolution conditions met: Heat nullification ranks up to heat immunity
Fire is one of the more common elements of magic, and is used by mages and monsters alike, but magic isn't required to create excessive heat. Maybe an adventure will take you to a desert, or a lava filled dungeon. You have survived the fiery breath of an adult draco rubrum, major internal burns carbonising important parts of your body, the attacks of a hydra igneus, the heat of the abyss and a bath in a lake of lava. For these achievements, you have earned this upgrade from nullification to immunity. This skill renders you immune to the ambient heat of any natural environment, and strongly shields you from dangerously high temperatures.

Hydra! I knew that one! Wait... So, that wasn't eight separate monsters. It was just one with a lot of heads? But they were a hundred metres apart? What was going on beneath the surface? From the way perceive presence had reacted... Don't tell me that wasn't some sort of effort to blind it, but I was seeing what was really there?! A monster large enough to fill the entire lake!

Regardless of whether it was one monster or many, its presence made crossing the lake impossible, at least with my current level of manoeuvrability. The cavern ceiling wasn't high enough to get out of range. From what I'd seen of other resistance skills, the heat immunity evolution wouldn't be sufficient to stop the lava balls from harming me. I either needed to train my flying more, or take the scales skill and hope the extra protection was enough. Or I suppose I could walk along the bridge and see if they'd let me through. Stranger things had happened, and it wasn't as if I'd had any conflict with non-mind-controlled demons so far.

First though, since I was already at a shrine...

Evolution conditions met: Cold resistance ranks up to cold nullification
While less common than its opposite, fire, ice magic is still a relatively common choice, largely due to its simplicity. Or maybe magic wasn't the problem, and for some reason you decided to go adventuring mid-winter while naked. You have survived the ice of an aranea regina and major internal frostbite, earning you this upgrade from resistance to nullification. This skill greatly decreases the lower end of the temperature range in which you can comfortably operate and shields you from dangerously low temperatures.

Okay then. That... unexpectedly worked. Ish. The fact that I found myself lying on my back next to the shrine suggested that I had not, in fact, survived my major internal frostbite. But it was worth it for the skill evolution, and to confirm that my dragon breath had indeed been upgraded.

I tried my regular flame breath, happy to find that with the skill evolution I could dump my entire mana pool into it without burning myself to death. What next, then? Wouldn't an air affinity breath just be a breath? I mean, I breathe air all the time. I tried it anyway, and it caused a big gust of wind, but didn't hurt me and didn't have any spectacular effects. Useful for blowing things away from me in a non-fatal manner, possibly? What else could I do?

Corrosion immunity advanced to level 32

Acid breath, check, and that one didn't even kill me. Although, as I spent the next few minutes hacking up bits of throat, I kinda wished it had. Once I cut off the supply of mana to my fire breath, it didn't leave lingering burning coals in my throat, whereas this one left my throat coated in acid. Not ideal, even with my incorrectly named corrosion immunity.

I couldn't do an earth breath, but that was a stupid concept to start with. Any rocks small enough to pass up my throat wouldn't be able to do much unless I fired them out at bullet speeds, and I dreaded to think what would happen if such a thing clipped one of my teeth on the way out.

Light or darkness breaths failed. So did lightning. Perhaps the type of dragon involved needed to actually exist somewhere? Ice and acid breaths already increased my versatility, so it would be greedy to hope for more.

I'd try to enter the settlement through the front door, and if that didn't work, I'd take the scales and make another attempt at flight. Disturbingly, I found myself hoping that walking in through the front door didn't work, so that I'd have a legitimate reason to take the scales, beyond thinking they'd look cool.

I teleported to the fourth floor temple, which was unoccupied, but when I flew out of a window, I spotted the trio of presumed-priests camping outside the range of the barrier. The barrier must still be keeping them out, and they hadn't been replaced.

Would all barriers reject them now? That would mean they'd be unable to get back into their town, either. Hopefully not... I'd apologise, but they wouldn't be able to understand me.

I walked past the tree, down the stairs and out across the bridge. Nothing attacked me, even though the length of the hydra's necks was more than sufficient to reach the small distance. The city gate was closed, with a pair of humanoid demons standing in front.

"Hah, look who's back!" laughed one. "I owe you some thanks, Katie. That's a hundred shards you won me."

The second guard huffed and spat into the lava lake.

Apparently, I wasn't going to get my excuse for picking rainbow scales just yet.

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