[EoR] Chapter 94

My return to consciousness was not gentle.

Thump thump.

“Gah,” I spat, rolling onto my side and curling up into a fetal position. My blood felt heavy in my veins, like it was too thick as it sloshed through me with each beat of my heart.

Something dripped from my nose. I wiped it, and looked at the offending liquid. It was a familiar crimson, though it still held an iridescent sheen.

I was alive, and my attempt to transform my blood definitely did something. I had no idea how long I was unconscious for, and I hurt all over. There was quite a lot of blood pooling under me, which seemed to have leaked from every orifice on my body. That was a bit distressing, but the fact that the blood was red gave me enough hope to push the pain aside and pull up my System.

Holy fuck, it worked.

My Blood technique skills were active again. I knew that skills gained in another universe could carry through, since that was already the case for my martial and crafting skills, but this was the first time I was able to tap into the more supernatural abilities of my past lives outside of their origin universes.

While I didn’t know if that was entirely safe, or what the possible implications of that could be, I had to assume it was accounted for at a higher level since the System seemed content enough to unlock my skills. If it were a problem, [Metasurvival] wouldn’t allow it, or so I let myself to think.

That didn’t mean my body liked it. In this case, at least, I could practically feel the disarray of two different biologies competing inside of me. I also noted that [Transformative Growth] had leveled again from my change. I felt weak and starved, as had been the case after my last transformation, but I hurt too much to crawl over to the nearest bud.

At least I had [Restorative Growth]. Except, now, I also had [Blood Restoration]. That was a higher level and was a bit more flexible, so I reached for that skill and attempted to heal myself.

My body seized in pain as my Blood attempting to restore biology that it was not meant to interact with, and I immediately stopped, coughing and wincing. Okay, ow, not that, I thought.

The fact that my body didn’t like [Blood Restoration] was a bit concerning. Would [Restorative Growth] hurt, too? It might try and heal the blood transformation, undo what I had done. That might not be so bad, if I was stuck with this pain otherwise. I would want to get some food in my before I tried it, in any case.

Was there another way I could alleviate this pain? Maybe I could reduce the pressure.

Delicately, I used [Blood Control] to draw away what I’d already bled off my fur and the tree beneath me, and that felt normal enough. Once I had gathered the blood, I switched to a [Blood Blade], and used that to make a few small incisions across my body, then used [Blood Control] to draw out more.

My new wounds stung, but aside from that, I felt… less bad. A minor relief of pressure, at the very least. Enough relief that I could sit up and sort through my thoughts.

I had to maintain [Blood Control] so that my wounds wouldn’t keep leaking, since I couldn’t use [Blood Restoration], so I used it to cut a few buds off that were growing nearby and nudge them toward me. When the first was within arm’s reach, I picked it up and started to eat.

The bud was the same as always, but it didn’t feel quite as nourishing as I was used to. I felt better as I ate, but something was still missing. The nutrients the tree provided probably weren’t sufficient for the parts of me that I had twisted into being like an Uli, to generate Blood. That could be a problem.

Once I was fed, I decided I would need to try [Restorative Growth], even if it did revert what I had just accomplished. I had still done something very interesting, even if it got undone, so the pain I went through had been worth it.

Given the fact that it was still daytime, I assumed I had been unconscious through the night, since I had done my transformation in the evening. That meant I would have a new day of Mother’s Love at my disposal. There was no time like the present, so I used [Restorative Growth], hoping for the best.

My wounds closed up and my body immediately felt better. It still felt different, so it hadn’t undone the transformation, just the damage caused by the change. That was a huge relief, and made sense, since the changes had come from a growth skill of this world too. Since I no longer needed to maintain [Blood Control], I turned the mass of blood I was holding into a [Blood Lance] and shot it as far as I could, off the branch, and hoped it wouldn’t hit any other branches down below.

With the evidence of my transformation tossed into the miasma, I got to my feet, testing my modified form. I could still move around as usual, despite the dull ache.

That might just be my life now, I thought with a grimace. At least it won’t be terribly long. And at least I can now do this.

With a [Blood-Empowered Leap], I flung myself into the air. I threw my arms out wide and my patagia snapped open, catching the air. I glided forward, continuing my journey towards the trunk.

*

As the next settlement came into view, I slowed down my running speed and disabled [Blood Augmentation].

I made excellent time thanks to my restored Blood techniques, but I had also learned a few things. Notably, any aches and pains that were caused by my transformation were reduced while I was actively using up my Blood energy, and when I didn’t use them, the pain very slowly built back up.

That pain also seemed to correlate with the speed that my Blood energy recovered at, though it was hard to say for sure. I had bottomed out my energy with big empowered leaps so I could glide, and felt quite good for a while, until I had regained enough Blood to use my augmentation.

It stood to reason that my Uli blood was kind of a toxin to my squirrel form, or something like that. They didn’t play nice together. I also noticed that my Blood recovery rate was abysmal, probably due to missing nutrients. That wasn’t a huge problem, itself, since when my Blood recovered too much, it started to cause enough damage that I had to use Mother’s Love on [Restorative Growth].

While I didn’t have much else to use Mother’s Love on each day, it was still kind of a waste.

I had no idea if the squirrels would be able to notice I was using [Blood Augmentation], but I decided not to risk it while I was around them. That also put me on a bit of a countdown for how long I could spend in a settlement before I would need to dump my Blood and restore myself.

This settlement was fairly similar to my home, given that it was the next closest one. Things wouldn’t really be that different here, so I didn’t need to spend much time here.

Sure enough, I found myself bored and frustrated almost immediately. The food was the same, there was nothing to shop for, and it wasn’t long before some males were approaching me, asking if I was thinking of settling down there.

All I really did before leaving was ask around a bit about my brothers. They had all left home, but I had no idea which direction they had traveled. I was heading to the trunk because I intended on climbing the tree, but they could have headed down the branch looking for smaller settlements to become a part of. The branches were still growing, so settlement density tended to increase towards the trunk and decrease towards the branch’s terminal point.

Though I wasn’t close with my brothers, I figured I could at least say hello if I was passing through where they settled down, but no one recognized the names, aside from one false positive. That squirrel had lived there his whole life, though, so it wouldn’t have been my brother.

With no reason to stay, I continued on my way. Traveling felt better, both physically and mentally. Being alone meant I could use my Blood and keep myself healthy, and also meant no one could hassle me about making babies.

The next settlement was more of the same. I started to get a lot more snappy and mean about being propositioned, but annoyingly, that resulted in even more males getting interested. Maybe it was just the larger settlement, which meant more males looking to mate, but by the time I left, I was irritated.

So, upon nearing another settlement, I came to a decision, and used [Transformative Growth] to form large, masculine antlers.

I had held off because I was planning on climbing the tree, and culture would be different on other branches, but I doubted I’d encounter a culture with the exact inverse of this branch’s culture. There would likely be different ways of expressing masculinity and femininity, but thanks to occasional travel between branches, there should be some baseline similarities. Squirrels from this branch would have climbed to the next branch over the years and generations, so culture would travel and mix.

The other issue had been the weight, but thanks to [Blood Augmentation], that wasn’t really a problem for me anymore. I was going to be much faster than the average squirrel no matter what.

My single use of [Transformative Growth] granted me a very impressive set of antlers. They weren’t quite as over-the-top as my teacher Tochiki’s were, but they were still equal to the work of a male who put real effort into growing them for show.

The results were largely what I had hoped for. I managed to go a while without a single guy propositioning me, though I did get some funny looks as people compared what was on my head to what was between my legs. What I hadn’t entirely considered was that some of the female squirrels had started looking me over, only to frown upon seeing that I was a girl, too.

My goal had been to get less attention from the males, but I was arguably getting more attention from everyone, now, of a different sort.

I didn’t quite make it out of the settlement before an antlered squirrel approached.

“Hey, you,” he said, frowning slightly.

I suppressed a sigh. “Can I help you?” I asked, turning to face him.

He looked me up and down. “Your antlers are way too big.”

“I know how big my antlers are. I’m the one that grew them.”

“I’m just saying. It makes you look like a guy.”

That was the point, I thought, but decided not to say. Instead, I shrugged. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“What do you want me to say? They’re already grown.”

“Hey, I’m trying to help. You shouldn’t grow them any larger. It’s unattractive.”

The gall of this squirrel left me momentarily stunned, which he clearly misinterpreted.

“Look, I’m a nice guy, so I can look past it. If you want, we can—”

“Canopy above, are you kidding me? Nice? You insult me, and you’re still going to proposition me? In what way do I even remotely look interested?”

The squirrel’s expression hardened. “You don’t need to be such am asshole about it.”

“Go jump off the branch,” I said, turning to leave.

Life here was pretty peaceful, so the squirrels rarely fought. That didn’t mean they couldn’t, though, and that they weren’t sometimes pushed to a point of conflict. It wasn’t usually taken too far, just minor squabbles, mostly.

Still, I guess saying to this guy the squirrel equivalent of “kill yourself” was pushing a bit too far.

I felt a hand drop on my shoulder, stopping me from walking away, and whirled back around, slapping the offending arm off of me. Between the variations of this issue repeatedly cropping up, no matter what I did, and the low level of persistent Blood-induced pain that was a result of my own actions, my temper was a bit short.

My fist flung forward, catching the squirrel in the jaw, and knocking him back on his ass. I had just enough composure to not use Blood and to pull back at the last second, so that I didn’t hit him with multiple lives of strength development, but he had still been knocked out from the blow.

“Fuck,” I muttered, shaking out my hand. I was pretty sure I fractured something myself, since I hadn’t done much physical training in this life, but I could heal it up later.

I checked that the prick was still alive, and confirming that he was, I left before anyone else approached. I couldn’t wait to get off this branch, though even once I did, I couldn’t outrun myself.

The Blood transformation worked—more or less—so perhaps a sex change transformation was in order, after all. Even if it came out less than perfect, in a way that would be difficult to overlook, I was attracting undesired attention already. Better to be different but more myself than repeatedly encounter what had just gone down.