For a long time, Ray just laid on the cold, rough stone of the cave floor, feeling the strange new energy of this world—Nyrr—flow into his lungs with every breath.
It was thick and heavy, tasting of metal and ozone, but it felt like life itself to his new body.
After about half an hour, the initial shock wore off, and he pushed himself fully upright, his muscles coiling with a strength he'd never known.
He took a proper look around his prison.
The cave was massive, domed, and littered with the bones of countless creatures. Some were picked clean, white and gleaming in the faint fungal light; others were still covered in grisly shreds of flesh, a testament to the cave owner's appetite.
The nest he had hatched in was a vast pile of dried moss, brittle leaves, and what looked disturbingly like hides of creatures skinned alive.
The pieces of his own obsidian egg lay scattered around him, already looking dull and inert, their purpose served.
A jolt of primal alarm shot through him.
"What about the creature that brought me here?" he mumbled, his voice a rough, unused croak. He stared at the cave entrance, a semicircle of profound gloom that promised a way out into the darker forest beyond.
"How will I get out of this place?"
A quick, fearful scan confirmed the creature was absent, likely out on a hunt.
Relief was short-lived. He tried to stand, but his legs, though packed with power, were uncoordinated, buckling beneath him like a newborn foal's. He stumbled, catching himself on the rough cave wall.
His body, however, was evolving at a phenomenal, visible rate.
He could feel it adapting, learning.
An hour passed, then two, then four, marked only by the frantic beat of his own heart.
After the first hour, the wobbling ceased, and he could walk, his gait steadying with each confident step.
After two hours, the scales on his arms and chest became more pronounced and refined. They were a dark, stormy grey like polished slate, but now a subtle, almost imperceptible golden sheen glinted from their centers, and their edges carried a faint, luminescent green trace.
When eight hours had passed, he had the height and lean musculature of a twelve-year-old human boy. The scales now covered every part of his body like a second skin of living armor, except for his face, the upper part of his neck, his palms and soles, his abdomen, and his genitalia. He ran a hand over his scaled thigh, feeling the powerful, leathery texture.
He was still stark naked, with nothing to cover himself, but modesty felt like a distant, human concern.
He used the time to experiment, to learn the limits of this new form.
He focused, and with a mental command, he extended his claws.
A black, slime-like liquid manifested from his knuckles, dripping down his fingers before solidifying into five, two-inch-long, razor-sharp black talons on each hand. They were wicked and deadly. He willed them back, and the process reversed seamlessly, the liquid reabsorbing into his skin without a trace.
He tested them on the cave wall, scoring deep, gashes into the solid stone.
They weren't as impossibly hard as his eggshell had been, but they were formidable weapons.
Next, he tested his physical abilities.
A casual, curious jump sent him soaring effortlessly to the top of the cave's dome, nearly ten feet high. He landed with a soft thud, his body absorbing the impact with ease.
Feeling excited, he drove his fist into a nearby stalagmite.
It didn't just crack; it exploded into a cloud of dust and shards. He was, as Ashborn had said, like an athlete on a potent cocktail of steroids.
He willed his scales to harden, and they became as tough as rock, deflecting the sharper fragments of his test.
His senses were a continuous revelation. His hearing picked up the skittering of tiny, blind insects in the deepest, most hidden cracks of the cave.
His nose was flooded with a symphony of information—the damp, earthy smell of moss, the pungent, cloying odor of old blood and rot, the sharp, clean scent of ozone from the Nyrr-rich air.
And his eyes… they pierced the near-total darkness as if it were a cloudy afternoon, every striation in the rock, every bone fragment, sharp and clear.
A sense of restless urgency, of confinement, built in him.
He was strong.
He was fast.
He was armed.
'I'm going to go out of this suffocating cave now,' Ray declared to himself, and he started to walk with newfound confidence towards the entrance, towards the unknown world and the freedom it promised.
"Return to the cave this instant, boy!" Ashborn's voice was a whip of pure alarm in his mind, so sharp and sudden it made Ray physically flinch and halt in his tracks.
"You are not ready. You are just walking prey in that forest. You have no conception of the monstrosities that lurk beyond that entrance, things that would make the beast that dwells here seem like a pet. You should be more worried about the one who dwells in this cave first. You have the body of a Trueborn, but you haven't even started on the Path of Profanity. Your physical strength is that of a peak-stage Ashborn, but that is all. It is the bare minimum."
Ray felt a flicker of injured pride. 'Am I like, crazy strong? I feel like I could punch through a tank!'
Ashborn's mental voice was a sneer of utter disdain.
"It is just the first and easiest stage of the nine stages of profanity. The foundation. You are a toddler with a sharp stick when compared to the true monsters that hunt in these forests, let alone the champions and lords of the nine great clans. Your raw strength is meaningless without the knowledge and the refined power to use it. Your ignorance will get you killed before you take ten steps into that twilight. Now, hide. Before the master of this den returns."
The command was absolute, brooking no argument.
Ray's brief thrill evaporated, replaced by a cold, sinking prickle of fear that slithered down his spine.
He quickly retreated deeper into the cave, away from the tempting entrance.
At the very back, behind the giant, reeking nest of skins and bones, his enhanced eyes found a narrow, vertical crack in the cave wall, just wide enough for him to squeeze his now-adolescent body into.
He wedged himself inside.
It was cramped, dark, and deeply uncomfortable, the stone cold and unyielding against his scaled back.
He waited.
Silence pressed in on him, broken only by the sound of his own breathing and the frantic thumping of his heart.
Then, after what seemed like three hours of tense, motionless waiting, a new scent began to dominate the air, cutting through the cave's baseline odors of decay and damp stone.
It was thick, coppery, and fresh. Blood.
The smell grew more and more potent with each passing minute, until it was overwhelming, a metallic tang that coated the back of his throat and filled his sinuses.
Then came the footsteps.
They were not loud, but they were impossibly heavy, each one a subtle, earth-trembling thud that vibrated through the very stone he was pressed against.
They were slow, deliberate, and powerful, a grim announcement of the cave's true master returning from its hunt.