Day 444 in this world
Day 58 of the sea voyage
Alright, it's exactly day 16 since I hit the second continent…
Rumble! Splashhh~~~ Crash!
A comfy breeze brushes Manta's face, sea waves splash, and water droplets speckle her cheeks. She's chilling lazily, waiting for some sharp-eyed but dumb fish to bite her bait from a boat zipping faster than they can swim. Life's good…
Crash!
"Mmm-hmm."
Manta (me) sits hugging her knees, nodding absently at one corner of the boat's walkway, where a hole's just big enough to drop a line and hook small fish. She tosses pebbles into the water for fun.
Why fish here? 'Cause the front edge is too dangerous for kids, and the adults hogged all the good spots. A good kid like me just helps out by fishing here. It's chill anyway—nothing else to do. If I snag a big fish, I'll help cook…
Wow, what a blissful tour~~~
Crash!!
I chuck another pebble hard.
Nah!! Too slow, so not thrilling!!!!
If I had my old body's cheat skills like [Possession], [Perfect Shapeshift], and [Overlimit], I could zip across the continent easy-peasy. With [Possession] plus [Overlimit], I could leap through people, objects, trees, mountains, or monsters super fast, undetectable, and plant "eggs" to warp back to those spots instantly whenever I wanted. (Sounds kinda parasitic, but pretty much, yeah.) In just 10 days, I could travel with every living thing on the continent and meet all the heroes no sweat. But for detailed travel—seeing stuff with my own eyes, moving point-to-point—I'd need external bodies to explore, like I've mentioned before.
But now, I've ditched [Possession], [Perfect Shapeshift], and [Overlimit] from all my clone bodies on other continents. Main reason? Self-preservation, duh. Gotta make sure no one can trace anything back to me if they catch someone cheating… (Not that I think I'd get caught, mind you.)
From checking nearly everyone on my main continent, nobody has [Overlimit]. (No surprise—it's a pain to use. Upgrading one skill from LV.10 to LV.11 costs 11 points and sacrifices 5 points? Upgrading to LV.12 costs 12 points and 10 more? Insane.)
No one has [Possession]and[Create Clone] together either, thanks to power limits, class restrictions, and the grind to level skills. ([Possession] is tied to dark, demonic, or spirit monsters; for humans, it's more like stealth or disguise. [Create Clone] is common but mostly for illusionists or flashy melee types.)
As for shapeshifting, basic or disguise skills exist, but [Perfect Shapeshift]—with its heavy restrictions—is only for high-tier mimics like Mimic Lords or Echomancers, or monsters. Even at LV.10, it's weaker than regular shapeshifting, so most mimics ditch it.
Now, without those skills, the real problem I'm used to is that [Possession] plus [Overlimit] let me travel crazy fast without caring about details, right?
On this new continent, I can't do [Possession] plus [Overlimit] anymore. Instead, I have to spawn people, monsters, or items and travel slowly. If something pops up, I swap bodies or [Call Army] to appear where my spawned stuff is. Like those pebbles I've been tossing since the start of this chapter? Not just for fun (though I'm bored, so kinda). They're items I spawned, so if I need to come back here, I can swap or [Call Army] to a spot I've hit.
(Oh, if you're wondering, "Didn't you say your clones use [Possession] in souls?"—yep, that's me stuffing them into a "special dimension" with my main body's [Possession] skill. They don't use it themselves, so if their [Hidden] state is exposed, they can't re-enter it. But if I send out [Trueform] or [Dungeon], I can swap in and out as long as [Hidden] stays in that dimension.)
Crash!!
Yup, that's the boring report of hitting the new continent. Traveling across it will be way slower now. If I get the chance, I'll just Time Skip! For now, I'll prep some fun dungeons inside Manta's body.
"Manta, come help fillet some fish! We caught a huge one!"
"Oh, sure thing!"
And so, Manta, the newbie adventurer girl, trots off to help chop fish with the other adventurer ladies, all cheery and bright.
Wait, that's it? The chapter ends like that? Ugh, yeah… There's literally nothing going on on this boat. Just wanted to flex my powers a bit, y'know!
If you want some wild, epic stuff like Seaneight's adventures, it's all 13+ to 18+, so I can't spill that tea… Haha!
The real big deal, though, is how I've tweaked controlling these gals a bit. Think about it, heh—a dungeon that can spawn people and slap on rough backstories, like I hinted back in Chapter 58. Just imagining it's already a blast!
End of Chapter 61
Boring Report of Day 16 on Continent 2