I looked at the medium sized (Torch Pepper) with cautious curiosity. It seemed like this was something that was rare, and hard to use properly so how Red managed to make it look so easy must mean that she's either had way too many of them to be healthy or she's been able to get more of them than the average royal probably has.

I wouldn't be surprised if it were any case honestly.

I carefully grabbed the strange thing with a delicate claw and looked between it and my eggs. Did I want to use it now on all of them, or did I want to hide it and save it for a small portion of them with the risk that Redline might steal it from me before I got the chance to actually do anything with it? I looked between the mountain of eggs before me and the pepper again for a moment, deciding that eating them normally was the better option and saving a small mountain for just in case something went wrong.

Of course they tasted as heavenly as usual. I looked at Pops with an envious eye, wondering how in this world he managed to make something so plain taste so damn amazing. It might've been the drastic change my new race and the new taste and senses that came with it, but even Redline seemed to love hers too--excluding the fact there was fish with it too--so there must've been something the giant did to it to make her eat everything and not just get around the eggs to the fish.

After I'd gotten the mountain down to a somewhat head-shaped form I snuck a glance at Redline to see if she was occupied or not, and seeing that she was, I took out the pepper again and decided to hell with it. I gripped the top of the thing firmly with my left claw and did my best to aim where I believed the stream of fire would come out, and then I squeezed.

It was about worse than expected: the pepper made a sound similar to that of a dying fox and the smallest stream of blue flame I'd ever seen came from the edge of the plant. It seems that my claws had poked several holes in the side of it because that's where the rest of the fire decided to exit out of. Straight into Pops' face.

The world slowed to a crawl for a moment as I pondered what my chances of running, or storing my food and then running before he reacted went through my head. It seemed that was enough to distract Redline from her blind hunger-craze and she also seemed to just stare in shock at the comically blackened face of Poppa. His piercing glare twitching towards me was what got me to realize I needed to move, right now, so I quickly touched the plate of semi-burned eggs and high-tailed it out of the kitchen.

"You little lizard, get back here!" The Incinerator yelled but I was not taking any chances. I ran through the nearest wall, went up through the floor and hid in Redline's room under her secondary bed at the corner of the room. There was absolutely no way he would come in here, even if she wasn't currently occupying the area.

Not a moment after appearing under the table I could hear the heavy growling just outside her door and there seemed to be a grinding noise from near the top half of the door before all noise stopped for a moment and there was a heavy sigh accompanying the tense atmosphere. "Alright. I probably should've realized that might've happened." He grumbled but I didn't so much as twitch, "Don't worry I'm not mad at you, that's not entirely your fault, but know that until you're able to control your strength I will not be giving you another one of those...no matter how much you beg." At that he softly stomped away.

I waited for a few minutes more just in-case he decided to come back to give me chores, and when he didn't I took that as my chance to see how that little bit of the pepper tasted on the eggs. It appeared right in front of me and I could say that it didn't look nearly as appetizing as it was: being partially-powderized and very blackened in other places, but when I took a bite...

When I took a bite I came to realizing that I was licking the plate clean.

I'd never done that before. Ever! It...there were no words for how good it was, it was just so different...a good different, definitely a good one. Just the tip of my tongue touching the strange dust that the eggs had turned into had triggered something absolutely feral in my mind and I think that I blacked out here...from eggs. I quickly stored the plate away to keep myself from licking it more, and with great embarrassment, I left the room to rejoin them; It seemed that, after seemingly licking her plate clean as well, Redline had migrated to the giant couches in the living area to curl up into a purring ball of satisfied kitty.

I decided to not look at Pops while he smirked where he sat. He was reading some kind of book I'd never seen around the house before:

How to Take Care of...

When he caught me staring, trying to decipher the letters of it's title, he quickly disappeared the book and stood. "I have to go into the city for a bit to meet with the Guard Captain about what happened a few weeks ago, and then I'll likely be stuck at the guild all day doing paperwork so I likely won't be here when you both leave." I cocked my head curiously at this. Wouldn't he have already submitted a report of whatever when everything was over? I mean sure we did have to wait a week for Red to be able to leave the Infirmary, and another for the mages to rebuild the mansion, but I thought he would've already met with Cinder and discussed what had happened by now...

"No. I know what that head-tilt is, and the answer is no. As much time as I did have to handle things with the Guard, and the Guild. I intentionally kept them as a last priority over making sure Redline, and you, were both healthy and safe." He responded. I could catch the slight shift as he included me in that sentence, but didn't actually seem to really mean it other than just as necessity...it did hurt a bit, but I'd only been with them for a month or so now, and since coming into their home all I'd done was screw things up and destroy more things...

"Now just because I am not going to be able to see you off does not mean that you don't have to wait for Freija and Wreign to come escort you to the dungeons. Understood." I quickly nodded in affirmation towards at the rigidity of his tone. He looked me over--or rather my head over--for a moment before shaking his head..."I still have a hard time believing you're the same dark-scaled (Young) Dragon that Red had snuck into the house just a month ago..." With that he disappeared where he stood and I looked down at Redline's relaxed form, although crushing the hell out of one of the couch comforters as she napped.

I let a good two thirds of my body ripple into view. I'd gotten more control over my (Invisibility) passive, but it still took a hell of a lot of mana to keep just two thirds of my body visible for a time. It made no sense! Why couldn't I have gotten a skill to let me turn invisible over just having a skill that kept me invisible?

The Voice hadn't said anything in a while either. I think this is the longest I've gone without hearing something from it, and surprisingly I was starting to miss fighting with it. Although one-sided it was in reality.

I'd actually changed a lot with this evolution: for one I had fur now, yeah fur. All of my scales had fallen off and I'd grown a kind of spiky mane that went down the length of my spine to the very tip of my tail, and speaking of tail the blade that I'd had there was now a sheathed blade! Meaning I could look like a normal fluffy dragon and if something manages to surprise me from behind or above or something I could just unsheathe the deadly weapon that doubled as a sort of stinger and impale them...I may or may not have bullied the dummies in the Training room a little during the night to see what the most effective way of doing as such. 

The second thing that came with all of my scales falling off and actually having fur now was that I was now about to control the venom throughout the entirety of my coat to either make it receded to cover my skin underneath or spread out to the strange vein-like formation it used along my spine. I didn't know what it did exactly, but I could be touched now and that's all I was happy about.

Third was my stats, it was actually pretty insane to see all three of them in the quad-digits, even if I couldn't see my Magic, Mana, or Stamina's Stats yet. It took me several hours and nearly three times as long to get used to everything...and I had to make sure my Strength didn't eclipse everything else since it seemed to increase at a much higher difference than all of my other stats did, but I was happy where I was currently. Evolving actually gave me a few more Special Skills and increased the Skills I did have to a point just under increasing their tiers. Same for my Resistances too, which was amazing.

Oh and I could finally see my full first name, just the first one though. It seemed that my full name was still a mystery until something important happened I'm guessing. So far everything looked like such:

Name: (Sc'the)or'theasus ?????? ???????
Species: (Young Adolescent) Reaper Acolyte (Dragon)
Condition: —————
(Class S Monster)
Estimated Rank: S++
Job: ------
Personal Level 1/100
Health: 23000/23000
Constitution: 1150 (+1050)
Strength: 1300 (+400*3)
Magic: ?????
Dexterity: 1172 (+1072)
Mana: —/—
Stamina: —/—
Free Points: 0

Skills: Flame (Lv.89), Toxic Slash (Lv.76), Tail Smash (Lv.73), Bite (Lv.90), Flight (Lv.40), Toxic Breath (Lv.76), Hindrance (Lv.92), Stealth (Lv.97), Patient Hunter (Lv.80), Steal (Lv.42), Tracking (Lv. 50), Paralyzing Touch (Lv. 78), Dash (Lv. 97), Meditation (Lv.41), Dodging (Lv. 86).

Special Skills: Void Storage (Lv. —), Invisibility (Passive/Activated), Fear Aura (Lv. 32 (Passive)), Spy (Lv. 10), Reap (Lv.5), Soul Devour (Lv.5), Incorporeality (Lv. 44), Star Scream (Lv. 32), Death Strike (Lv. 1), Toxin Manipulation (Lv. 4).

Resistances: Toxin Resistance (Lv.42), Hunger Resistance (Lv.55), Physical Resistance (Lv. 46), Magic Resistance (Lv. 82), Fire Resistance (Lv. 90), Fear Resistance (Lv. 88), Aura Pressure Resistance (Lv.67), Heat Resistance (Lv. 64), Holy Magic Resistance (Lv. 28), Explosion Resistance (Lv. 25), Shockwave Resistance (Lv. 24).

Titles: Hunter, Thief, Destroyer, Reincarnated One (Hidden), Powerful One (Hidden), Curious Soul, Good Natured, Judge & Executioner, Merciless, Reaper of Souls, Graceless Daredevil, Unrelenting

It was still pretty disorienting seeing such a long list of things, but I was getting used to it...sort of.

Anyways the first thing that I noticed were the two new Special Skills: (Death Strike) and (Toxin Manipulation). The former I had an inkling of what it might do, but I couldn't be sure unless I actually tried it out on something living...and no I was not going to go around killing the bunnies just to test it out...even if that would be the quickest way. The latter, however, was what I guessed allowed me to change the amount of toxin spread throughout the subsurface of my fur, probably as a sort of defensive mechanism I could use at will I guess.

Sadly it didn't seem to effect my claws or horns so I still had to watch out for those...speaking of claws they were now sheathed limbs! Now I didn't have to worry about accidentally scratching or killing someone or something if I didn't want to because as long as I didn't flex my claws or activate the correlated skill they wouldn't unsheathe themselves to cause any damage.

It was amazing, and the first thing I did when realizing this was sneaking into Redline's arms while she took her evening naps back when she was injured still, but then I learned she was a crushing hugger, and quickly learned my lesson to let the other non-living things keep her company in her sleep.

Nearly all of my Skills and Resistances had doubled in level and quite a few of them were on the edge of being able to advance to the next tier. That was something that I was really excited for; though I noticed that I'd lost a few titles and gained a new one as well: Graceless Daredevil. I didn't know what it did, but there was a nagging feeling that the system was making fun of me again...

I watched the time pass by while I debated on what I wanted to do till Red woke up, or till Freija and Wreign came by later today:

7:76am
.
.
.
7:77am

Why not test out my Skills a bit more downstairs. After all, practice is a necessity in this world.

So. This is about the size a chapter would normally be. It took me longer than I was hoping to actually write, but here's Sc'the's current Stats!! It took me a bit to go back through the chapters to fix the math mistakes I'd made, and then I had to do it again when I realized I hadn't included the evolution bonus points, but that's all fixed now, so now there shouldn't be any other problems...I hope :-/

Anyways I hope you enjoyed the chapter. This is the last chapter that you all will likely see until I am able to write again, hopefully I'll be back soon but the future is unknown as of the present. 

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