The Lone Wanderer

Chapter 592 – Skin (2)

“Well? What do you think?” Micky asked Elaine.

His cousin circled him a few times, scrutinizing his appearance carefully before eventually nodding. “It’s good. You look just like Grandpa! I wouldn’t be able to tell if I hadn’t seen you transform.”

Micky’s smile widened. Technically, the lower grade of his mana cores would give him away rather easily, but it was nothing that a few concealment runes wouldn’t fix.

“How about now?” he asked again, shifting his appearance.

Unlike before, he didn’t bother to reconstruct his entire body from scratch. Only a thin layer on the surface squirmed as shards of soul-freezing ice and droplets of soul-freezing water rearranged themselves, adjusting his shape and colours slightly.

Soon after commencing his latest project, he had realized that he didn’t need to have light pass through his entire body. He only needed to create lots of tiny crystals of various shapes that would bend, reflect and disperse light into distinct colours, and have his trait dynamically arrange them as necessary. The resolution he could achieve was frightening, as modifying his appearance was the part of his transformation where his trait excelled.

Perfecting his new spell had ended up taking about a full month, meaning that he was cutting it close with the affinity-granting treasure that he had to deliver to Nesha. Micky had always found it difficult to pause in the middle of a project that he found interesting. This was definitely a trait that he had inherited from Percy, as his Huehuan side wasn’t like that.

“This is… quite unsettling,” Elaine said as soon as he was done transforming. This time, she sounded less than pleased. “Is it me, or did you make me look a little fat around the waist?”

Micky chuckled, though he opted not to say anything. He was pretty sure that he hadn’t made a mistake – his cousin had gained some weight in the last couple of years. She was still quite lean, but clearly not as much as she would have liked.

Unwilling to give her another reason to slap him, he quickly transformed into something else. This time, he picked Galahad – a person that he had never possessed. Technically, that made it harder to copy one’s appearance, but morphing just his exterior wasn’t much of an issue as long as it was a species that he was already used to.

“Yeap. This one’s perfect too. You even got his clothes right,” Elaine confirmed, before poking his cheek with her finger. “Your skin even feels and bends like a human’s!” she added, before frowning. “Though it’s still as cold as ice.”

He shrugged. “Not much I can do about that. Or well… there’s probably a way to fix that too if I want, but it sounds like too much effort for too little gain.”

Next, he spent a few minutes cycling through a bunch of other forms. He had grown better at transforming into most of his sapient hosts – except for those that he hadn’t spent much time possessing – and he could even freely adjust their appearance into a customized member of their species.

Sadly, his cousin hadn’t seen any of those people before, so she wouldn’t be able to tell if he made a mistake, though he was confident by now that his own enhanced instincts were good enough.

His Status clearly agreed.

[Congratulations! You have mastered a new spell: Hybrid Art: Chameleon’s Skin – Refined!]

‘Finally,’ he thought, exhaling in relief. ‘Straight to Refined too!’

It didn’t really matter whether he registered the spell or not, because this wasn’t one that synergized with his mutated eyes. Hell, he didn’t even have them in this body. Still, the notification was proof that he had grown proficient enough to potentially trick somebody if necessary.

It also felt good to have his efforts recognized.

As for why it was a Hybrid Art – that wasn’t much of a mystery. It made use of both a mutation and a spectral trait, so it was a mixture of a Wild Art and a Spectral Art. Apparently, Phoebe’s Decree was more than happy to lump it in the same category as his Core Bestowal, despite that one being a mixture of a Spectral Art and a Secret Art.

If he ever incorporated his bloodline into Chameleon’s Skin, it might even turn into an Ultimate Art like the Symphony, though he doubted he would create another Extreme spell anytime soon.

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Then again, it could be argued that he had already sort of included his bloodline into the current version of the spell, because the knowledge of many of his current forms had been acquired by him possessing them. However, that wasn’t a strict requirement for it to work, which was reflected in the spell’s name.

“What are its limitations?” his cousin suddenly asked, snapping him out of his thoughts.

“Anything that’s not human, Huehuan or crow takes a few seconds longer to turn into, though the difference is small. I think I’ve had enough practice with the spell to turn into most of my past hosts and other members of their species, though some of the more bizarre ones will probably still collapse the moment I start straining myself,” he explained.

Elaine nodded thoughtfully. “What about creatures you’ve never possessed before?”

“They should still be too hard at the moment, but every new appearance I master makes it easier to learn more,” he replied.

There were only so many ways to structure an arm or a skull. The more forms he added to his repertoire, the more reference points he would have in the future. Micky hoped that he could slowly expand his capabilities to include any living creature – including not only those that he’d never possessed, but even some that he had never personally seen.

Perhaps, he might even grow capable of transforming into other structures eventually – bypassing the need for a consistent biology entirely. His new trait and spell were merely the starting point for a brand-new area of research.

Obviously, completing his artificial advancement and finding a way to strengthen Kassorith were more urgent – especially since the Amorphos wouldn’t really help with either – but he still intended to make some time to practice his new ability on the side.

Micky chatted with Elaine for a few minutes longer, though his cousin eventually bade him farewell to return to her guard duties. He was about to pack up his things to finally head to Twilight City, when somebody knocked on his door.

‘Hmmm? Did she forget something?’ he wondered, willing the concealment runes on the door to deactivate so that he could scan his visitor with Mana Sense and Soul Vision.

To his great surprise, he found nobody standing outside his house. It was like the person had vanished instantly upon knocking.

Frowning, he took a couple of deep breaths to flood his channels with mana, preparing himself for a fight in case he was about to be attacked by an enemy. He obviously knew that an enemy wouldn’t have bothered to announce themselves before ambushing him, so this was more likely somebody pranking him, but he wouldn’t relax until he was sure.

Opening the door, his eyes widened in shock as he saw the last person he had expected to see – not just outside his hut in Bogside town, but anywhere on Remior. His Mana Sense and Soul Vision still showed nothing, yet the figure smirking at him in his regular sight looked as real as a heart attack.

He was a tall man with a head of dull grey hair, his gaze intense and intimidating. He was wearing expensive-looking robes, a series of roots emerging from the underside of a cloud on his insignia, indicating that he was a member of Remior’s leading Great House.

More importantly, Micky recognized him, which only made it harder to accept that this person was standing before him, alive and well. After all, Micky had personally killed this man.

“Deimos!” he exclaimed, his frozen heart leaping into his equally frigid mouth. “How?!”

The fallen Violet’s smirk brightened, though he remained silent, the bastard clearly happy watching Micky squirm. He made no move to attack either, somehow entirely unconcerned as he faced the very person who had executed him.

Sure, Micky had only managed to defeat Hermes’s son after fusing with Percy, and his human body was dozens of kilometres away at the moment. However, he still had access to their powerful, shared domain with either of his bodies, so it might not be impossible to even the playing field and hold his own against the noble.

The man’s indifference to the danger he was in seemed almost as unreasonable as his unexpected survival.

Almost.

‘No, wait. I’m an idiot. There’s no way he’s alive,’ he quickly realized, forcing himself to calm down.

His mind raced with possibilities as he considered every other reasonable explanation. Did Deimos have a twin brother, or was this Hermes himself, sporting an unusual resemblance to his deceased son?

Even if the god cared about his dead progeny, Micky didn’t think that he would take direct action against him. The worst-case scenario would be that this was Machaon in disguise, as Micky wasn’t ready to fight against a White – certainly not with one of his bodies missing. However, Machaon’s memory-erasing bloodline was well known, and it shouldn’t have allowed him to transform into somebody else.

Silence stretched for several seconds, neither man making any further moves. Eventually, Micky settled on a guess that he felt fairly confident in, his shoulders finally relaxing as he realized that he wasn’t in any danger.

“Very funny,” he spat, his features twisting into a grimace. “I’ve been expecting you for weeks, and you decide to pull this stunt the moment you show up.”

‘Deimos’ chuckled, though his crisp laughter rang through the small hut like a gentle bell, sounding nothing like the deceased noble used to. At the same time, his body melted like wax, transforming into another.

“I arrived here a while ago, but I didn’t want to interrupt you as you were working on your new spell. After spending days watching you shapeshift, I couldn’t resist,” the prettiest woman that Micky had ever laid eyes upon said.

He sighed, not bothering to argue with the titaness.

The visitor was naturally Phoebe, and she was clearly here to honour her promise. It was finally time to segregate the Lone Wanderer’s memories and truly reclaim his separate identities as Percy and Micky.