I had figured that the outside of the compound would have been rather cold. Since everyone I overheard and avoided seemed to speak of the tundra as impassable. Especially in these apparently stormy conditions.

  But in all honesty, it wasn’t so bad.

  The [Chitin] did its thing. Insulating me from the worst of the storm. The [Feathers] and the [Fur] and the [Rubbery Hide] all helped too. Making me feel as though I were wearing three or four parkas, snow pants and boots at the same time.

  Only, without feeling bulky or encumbered or having to deal with the sweating.

  I could stroll by, leap and jump over all the fences and barriers around the place. With no concerns about anyone spotting me to boot.

  Not only did the people here not have any form of CCTV put in place, they also couldn’t have seen anything outside their windows if they had with how thick the snowstorm was.

  I had seen a couple of patrols around the main doors and next to the garage, but they seemed much too preoccupied with staying warm and shielding themselves against the gale to bother with anything that might be going on outside.

  ‘I don’t know what’s going through their heads. And what’s more, that helps me focus even more on how the cold surrounds me. How novel.’

  I caught the silhouette of one of the guards then. Cursing under his breath as he almost slipped on a sheet of ice.

  He or she, I had no idea, was wearing what appeared to be a thick snow-proof coat and the equivalent of power-armor underneath that. With glowing pauldrons on their arms and kneepads for each of their four legs.

  They and all their comrades had rifles, but almost all of them had been discarded deeper inside the garage or the entrance boot. So that their owners could wrap the coats even more tightly around themselves whilst huddling up with their peers.

  To me, it all seemed a bit inefficient.

  Any normal security overseer would have known that this would happen and would have placed automated turrets in place of living guards. That, or robots.

  Personally, I wouldn’t even have bothered with any such measures at all and instead placed a functioning CCTV system with heat sensors in place. If the cameras or sensors caught sight of anything out of the ordinary, that would be a signal for guards to come out.

  As things stood, this was a waste.

  The only consolation being that the temperature wasn’t really all that bad.

  Okay so maybe it was that bad.

  I felt a rustle passing through all my layers. From the hide to the tips of my feathers.

  Psy was passing through all the bones and muscles underneath. Entering each of my cells and pushing out the cold.

  To the point where I had to reduce the length of the [Feathers] and the [Fur] because I was starting to overheat.

  Then I started to feel the chill again and started pushing back against it with the same wave of Psy.

  ‘Well isn’t that interesting? I can get more levels in those abilities by merely surviving and exercising my power. And I don’t have to worry about running out of Psy because of all my Titles. So I can keep trying new things if it ever gets too bad.’

  I nodded and dove deeper into the wilderness and the roaring storm ravaging it.

  I walked and walked until, against all possibility, the snows got even thicker and more impenetrable. Each new step feeling like there were four bulky folks pushing against me from the front and from the sides.

  At once, there was a twist in the winds, and the patterns contorted and shifted into a completely different direction. Picking up speed and tearing bloody chunks of feathers, fur and chitin from my back.

  The pain was not suppressed by my Tier 10 abilities and it hit me all at once like a frozen knife plunged into my shoulder blades.

  I screamed, but the sound was drowned out by the blizzard.

  I rolled onto all fours and forced my body to grow a thicker layer of [Chitin]. Alongside new, thicker patches of [Fur] and [Feathers].

  I felt Psy rushing to the affected areas and I felt the power falter.

  The frozen knife refusing to dislodge itself from my back, even as the already ludicrous winds picked up speed. Some bits of hail now puncturing my shell and reaching into the muscles below like bullets.

  The pain was excruciating and all encompassing. Coming from all sides at the same time.

  I grit my teeth and pumped even more Psy into all my layers. Overloading tens of thousands of points into a finite structure so that my cells kept reproducing and shoring up my defences at faster and faster rates.

  Minutes passed like that, while the shards of hail kept peppering me more and more. Growing larger and more jagged and more vicious by the second.

  ‘Geez! No wonder those guys back at the compound had power armor! Anything less and they’d have been turned into Swiss cheese!’

  I focused some of my Psy on the tips of my fingers then.

  Growing larger claws that allowed me to begin digging into the hard, frozen soil.

  It felt like a mistake, as each movement I made seemed to encourage the pellets to tear more chunks away from my limbs and torso and the sides of my head.

  But I knew I had to get out of the way of the storm and I was sure there was still more opportunity for progress out here than back inside the compound.

  Minutes passed while I kept getting flayed.

  My arms and legs now shivering even as I grew new ones to speed up the process and gain more mass with which to defend myself.

  Then, I started feeling chunks, not small shards of ice, but literal fist-sized chunks coming in at blinding speeds and ripping one or more of my limbs apart at the same time. Not to mention the agony that came from every time one of those chunks tore right past all my defences and lodged themselves inside my torso and hips and skull.

  ‘Holy cow. That Hazimon (Gnome)r wasn’t kidding! This is hardcore!’

  I didn’t even know if I could have survived for as long as I had if I didn’t already have all those Titles acting as multipliers for my Psy.

  On the other hand, I couldn’t deny that it made for effective training.

  This many levels on this small amount of time was nothing to scoff at.

  I kept digging and digging. Even as my claws began to shatter on the hardened soil. Even as the bitter cold crept through my fingers and began to freeze the blood in my veins. Even as I felt muscles tearing and black bits of frozen blood fall down as small crystals.

  [Proprioception] made me feel each and every wound as if it was a hundred times deeper and a thousand times worse than it actually was. The agony making my nerves freeze and spasm in ways I had never even imagined with [Solomon’s Perfect Vicissitude X].

  Yet it also made me more coordinated.

  The new ability helping me to connect with all my cells on a deeper level now that the combined ability was off the table due to the suppression.

  I burrowed and burrowed.

  For what felt like hours.

  All while the storm kept getting thicker and more ferocious.

  Until at last, I managed to squeeze most of my body into the hole I’d dug. With only my rear legs sticking out.

  They too began to freeze over, but I decided to ignore the pain in favor of sending oceans of Psy to all the covered and insulated parts of my body. Because it was still really bloody cold without the storm beating down on me.

  All the sections of hard-packed dirt felt like ice-cubes whenever my fur and feathers brushed up against them. Stealing what little warmth I had been trying to keep to myself.

  I did my best to ignore it all and kept digging.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Scratching and scratching against the dirt with thicker and stouter claws despite the slower and slower progress.

  It kept going until I started losing time. Becoming so focused on the task at hand that my mind began to wander and move about.

  I started to think about mom and dad again. About the things they would be doing, now that Halkon was my puppet and no longer a threat. Now that Mittens would be keeping them as safe as possible.

  Would they be reading the Forums too? Would they be seeing all the horror stories of people detailing the things Nega-Sully had done? What would they think of me? What would they think of the life we’d lead and the time we’d spent?

  Part of me wanted to leave my mind to the cobweb and search for the right future.

  But I refused the temptation. Losing myself to the simplicity of digging.

  Blocking all other thoughts from my mind and forcefully losing more of myself in the present.

  Tear at the earth, push dirt out.

  Tear at the earth, push dirt out.

  Tear at the earth, push dirt out.

  Over and over and over and over.

  Stay warm, tear at the earth, push dirt out.

  Stay warm, tear at the earth, push dirt out.

  Stay warm, tear at the earth, push dirt out.

  Over and over and over and over.

  Grow thicker layers, stay warm, tear at the earth, push dirt out.

  Grow thicker layers, stay warm, tear at the earth, push dirt out.

  Grow thicker layers, stay warm, tear at the earth, push dirt out.

  Without stopping for even a second. Without thinking about anything else.

  I kept going until I began to see it as fun.

  As a Zen experience that helped me relax.

  [Proprioception] helped it all along. Making each and every cell its own mind. Making it so that each and every cell felt as much pain as I did and wanted to escape as much as I did.

  ‘It really is so much better than all the combined abilities I already had. Having my body be so under-control and so perfect all the time was so tiring. This is much better. I need to be aware of all the pain and all the vulnerabilities to know where to improve. To know how better I need to be.’

  I started humming to myself.

  Nothing specific, just a series of random tunes that popped into my mind. It helped keep things smooth.

  I started falling back to the pulsing organ inside my chest. Inside that empty void where the lake had been.

  The organ was still warm and fuzzy, despite the blizzard. It was beating so fast. So ferociously.

  I allowed myself to meld with it. Following each beat to their intended location and adding in more Psy automatically. As if my body didn’t have its own mind, but merely one overreaching instinct.

  One will to live.

  Yeah. Nice and smooth.

  Nice and warm.

  Nice and….

  I dropped through the ceiling.

  Through a ceiling.

  Landing with a thud on a frozen underground lake.

  I blinked. Bringing one of my thick furry and feathery arms to my furry and feathery skull and rubbing one of the rapidly healing bumps on it.

  Then I looked back to my legs. Seeing nothing without light, but feeling the frozen veins thawing slowly as the Psy coursing through my body reached there too.

  Then I looked up and realized that the sky above was black as pitch.

  I turned to my Status.

  My eyes bulged when I saw the Psy totals.

  On a percentage scale, it wasn’t really all that much.

  But if we went by the numbers, then one could see that a couple million points of Psy had gone to overcharging the abilities I had in order to keep me alive and moving.

  If it had been anyone else digging in this instance, they would have croaked long, long ago.

  So either this route was way off the beaten path and I hadn’t been meant to wander away from the compound, or this was an instance designed for people who had millions of Psy to spare. Like me.

  It was honestly a toss up.

  Someone like the Drake or even Mr. Hazimon wouldn’t have cared overmuch about the expenditure, as they both had just as much, if not more Psy than I did, due to having all those levels under their belt on top of the multipliers.

  Anyone else would have been dead however.

  ‘No. That’s a short-sighted way of looking at things.’ I chided myself. ‘I chose to block out the Telepath Type and some Shifter abilities, but there’s a good chance someone with Enhancer powers could have stood daintily in the middle of the blizzard without feeling even a bit of cold. Someone with Projector powers might have been able to keep themselves warm by calling down a firestorm. There’s simply no way to tell how many avenues there would have been for survival. I should not underestimate my competition.’

  I stood on all eight legs. Stretching my arms as I did so.

  Then I brought up the Shifter ability board and looked for something that could help me navigate the cave.

  I had five points to spend and a whole lot of things that could be very useful.

  [Night Vision], [Thermal Vision] and [Echolocation] were the ones I gravitated to first, since they were all fairly straightforward. Though granted, the last one was the only one I might find useful right now, given that there was no light at all down here and I knew from the Drake’s memories that [Night Vision] required at least a little light to work. Also, there was nothing warm that I could see so far from the compound, so [Thermal Vision]’s usefulness was very much in question.

  I also thought about getting [Low-Frequency Hearing] and [High Frequency Hearing] because I knew they could be combined with [Echolocation] and that even before then, they enhanced the way the power worked. Giving it more range and making it so that the ability was more resistant to sonic attacks that might have otherwise blinded the power. Not to mention making the ability much better at detecting small critters trying to sneak by.

  Finally, there was the five main sensory powers. [Eyes], [Ears], [Nose], [Tongue] and [Proprioception].

  I already had [Proprioception] and I already liked it much better than the other combined abilities I’d been living with so far. Despite the pain.

  [Ears] could really help with the combination I was putting together.

  Or, I could go with [Eyes] and try to combine it with [Night Vision] and [Thermal Vision]. It wouldn’t do much for me right now, but I knew it would go great with [Solomon’s Protean Form X].

  I already knew how to grow new eyes and I already knew how to use my additional eyes to track people I was sparring against on the arena.

  I ultimately decided to go with my gut and focus on hearing, rather than sight.

  I’d gained much and more in these past few hours and I would probably have enough points to spread around if I kept training.

  Doing better now was more important than improving myself in areas I already had covered.

  As such, I got [Ears], [Low-Frequency Hearing], [High Frequency Hearing] and [Echolocation] for one point each. Leaving one point for later.

  I tried them out right away.

  Letting out a small click from the depths of my throat and feeling it bounce around the cavern walls and the frozen lake beneath my many feet.

  The bouncing sounds came back to me and painted me a colorless picture of all the nearby textures.

  Showing me a space that was roughly four meters in height and twenty meters across in all directions. With smaller burrows leading to adjacent chambers.

  I got closer to one of those burrows and heard that it was nowhere near big enough for me to fit in.

  Then I sighed and got down on all my arms and legs and started to dig once more.

  I once again lost track of time and once again found myself in a barren chamber. Devoid of light.

  I sighed again and searched for a burrow at the opposite side of the chamber. Letting the clicks guiding me to the place where I needed to dig.

  I stopped for a second as soon as I got the level, saw that I had 6 points left and used them to get [Eyes], [Nose] and [Tongue] at level 1. Adding in [Night Vision], [Thermal Vision] and lastly [Infrared Vision] to top things off on a nice note.

  ‘I should go one step further and get [Olfactory Navigation], [Olfactory Threat Detection] and [Olfactory Poison Detection] next time I have the chance.’ I thought to myself.

  ‘Going around relying on my Telepath senses has blinded me to the potential of Shifter abilities in the sensory department. It’s good to have backups in case I ever need them. Like, what would happen if I found myself in a dead world? How would I orient myself in total darkness without minds to read? I guess I could always drench the atmosphere in Psy and summon a horde of Intruders to read, but what would I do if that wasn’t an option for some reason? Great. Now I sound paranoid.’

  I shoved those plans to the back of my mind and kept digging.

  Sending out pulses of sound from the back of my throat every now and then to keep myself oriented on the task.

  Just like that, I made my way through another three chambers before something changed.

  There was an aperture here.

  A door that was obviously similar to those on the surface sections of the compound.

  This one was nowhere near as re-enforced as those above and it didn’t have guards around it. What it did have was seven, LARGE heat generators running constantly on high. To the point where they melted sizable holes on the surface of the frozen lake that made up most of the floor.

  One of those holes was of a size to contain my body. Or rather, the body I had come here with.

  “Ah, the plot thickens.” I said aloud. My musings followed closely by a deep and guttural rumbling in my stomach.

  I used two of my hands to rub my belly and only then started feeling the aching in my stomach lining.

  “Right. Enough of running. That was obviously not the way to go. Time to find myself a snack or ten.”

  I sauntered over to the open door. Looking far more like a massive hairy multi-armed bear than a human.

  I sent echoing clicks down the hall and down the tunnel. Getting signals back from as far as four-dozen meters in all directions.

  What’s more, there was now light with which to see and I grew more eyes on the top of my skull and on my shoulders. Placing them above the layer of [Chitin].

  The hallway itself led to many closed doors. Some of them holding nothing but scrap metal, some of them holding creatures frozen in blocks of ice.

  The former were ignored and the latter met my [Claws].

  The meal wasn’t exactly gourmet eating, but it would have to do.

  After that, I made my way upstairs.

  Wondering why I wasn’t seeing or hearing anyone making their way through the compound.

  Until I started hearing faint echoes over three floors away. In what appeared to be the complete other side of the building.

  I strained myself to hear, but could make out nothing but distant grumbling coming together. I forced some more Psy into the [Ears] I already had while growing new ones.

  “This one’s the alien!” A voice came through at once. “The alien ate him and took his shape! I know it! He never eats the beans I cook! He must be an impostor!”

  “HONEY!!” Another, more panicked voice came through. “What are you talking about!? I ate your beans yesterday! I just put glocko sauce on them! I am not an impostor!”

  “HE’S AN IMPOSTER!!!” Someone else shouted and that shout was accompanied by shuffling and wet stabbing sounds.

  “He’s not turning back!” Someone else said.

  “Nerry said her husband was the impostor but he didn’t turn back!”

  “It must not have been him!”

  “Get her!”

  Then more stabbing sounds followed. Leaving me alone in the distant hallway. With my mouth hanging open.