Chapter Nine: Significant Change
Walking towards the Guardian's Treasure, Jashuri started smiling uncontrollably, she was excited because of the potential stuff she could gain from this treasure trove. They are called Guardian's Treasure for multiple reasons.
Number one; they are made when a Guardian is killed and traps their killer in the prison and because of the strength of the prison, they are left in their to starve to death. Number two; the people or person inside usually carry their most powerful equipment into battle without taking food or water since they weren't expecting to be trapped inside of the Guardian, which left all of that powerful loot for the taking.
And lastly number three; the Guardian's Core, which is the mushroom that Karl burned, that is located inside of the Guardian's Treasure is a valuable material for the forging of powerful equipment such as higher level wands, armour, or storage equipment.
Jashuri had heard about the Guardian's Treasure through rumours from the group that Kris and Matthew had been scouting with. After hearing about the rumours, she found five guys in a random corner of a small bar, she then slept with them, in return for sleeping with them, they would protect her until she got to the location of the Treasure and back.
They would then receive a part of the reward after they all returned to the Safe Haven, but they hadn't expected to be killed by the same person who had "Employed" them, and they died because of that. You should never turn your back on a person like Jashuri.
Stepping inside of the Guardian's Treasure, Jashuri excitedly looked around for loot and equipment, but she was stunned to find a single skeleton inside of the treasure trove. Looking at the skeleton blankly, Jashuri walked up to it, moved it around, and then started kicking it and stomping on the bones when she didn't find any small items such as a storage item.
After a few minutes of nonstop beating, Jashuri stopped to take a breather as she didn't have unlimited stamina like Karl did, she then mumbled, "I guess I'll need to head back to the Safe Haven without any gaining anything from this trip. At least my raven is particularly fast compared to most others and I can make it back to the Safe Haven located at Great Bear Lake."
She had killed those men for nothing, she only killed them because she had wanted to keep all of the loot for herself, but since there was none then it was pointless for her to kill the five men. That was five perfectly good pawns that she was able to use as disposable bodyguards.
Waiting until he didn't hear anymore footsteps, Karl very carefully got up as he tapped the back of his skull. Scared at his current amount of health, Karl looked at the two points of health that he had remaining, and he almost passed out due to anxiety.
Jashuri has almost stomped Karl to death out of anger, but luckily she didn't have any desire to continue, or else his story would have ended here. Waiting for five more minutes before he decided to exit his prison, Karl very carefully observed his outside surroundings as he made sure not to gain any attention from hostile things as he did not want to die.
When he saw the surroundings outside the prison, Karl was stupefied. There were 50 metre long cuts that were 10 metres deep, large body parts of Sporelings strewn all over the ground, and lastly, there was a giant hole that was in the side of the mushroom stem.
That hole was over 100 metres tall and 30 metres wide, Sporelings, big and small, with their bodies cut in half, were crawling out of the stem towards the direction that Jashuri had presumably left in. Seeing the large hole along with the disabled Sporelings, Karl decided to make a run for it, he didn't know how long that hole would last or if it would cause other Sporelings to come and investigate.
Running towards the hole, Karl made a quick stop and touched one of the dead Sporelings, he wanted to see if he could gain any points from absorbing them if they had been killed by something else other than him, but he couldn't.
Continuing to run, Karl made sure to dodge as best he could, even a little touch from any of the Sporelings could possibly kill him, and he wasn't comfortable in testing if that theory was true or not.
Not using his full speed, Karl only ran at the speed of 40 kilometres an hour, which was still quite fast, but not as fast as the average sports car, which was just over 205 kilometres an hour.
Stumbling out of the hole, Karl had tripped over one of the Sporelings that was crawling when he had thought he saw a large bird in the sky, and he stumbled to the ground. Falling and rolling a dozen metres away, Karl was still at the brink of death, and he needed to get up and continue running.
Looking back at the Sporeling he had tripped over, he realized it was one of the ones that was over 100 metres tall, but it was also cut in half, so it was only around 50 metres tall now. He had tripped over one of it's fingers that was on it's outstretched arm, it had stopped crawling to look at him, and then it started crawling toward him like a zombie on drugs.
With his brain in a panic because he was near the brink of death and he knew that he would die if the Sporeling touched him, Karl had lost most of his rational thought, he just knew that he needed to get away from the Sporeling.
Standing up and running, Karl used his maximum speed to try and get away from the Sporeling, but it was pointless as the Sporeling was catching up. The only reason that Karl had managed to escape from them previously when he was running to the mushroom was because they had started chasing him too late and they were blocked by the smaller Sporelings.
Turning his head just in time, Karl saw a hand descending towards him, and he would most certainly die if it even lightly grazes him. Rolling out of the way, Karl was still hit with the shockwave accompanied by the hand hitting the ground.
Because of his increased constitution, Karl actually had increased bone toughness, so being hit was that shockwave didn't cause any harm, it just disoriented him momentarily, but that was enough time for the Sporeling to reach him.
Regaining his senses just as the Sporeling was about to eat him, Karl slapped the gigantic head of the Sporeling, and then it's head snapped to the side as if it had been hit by a truck. Dumbfounded at his strength, Karl only now realized that he had 34 points in his strength, which gave him the strength of a Sporeling that was 15 metres tall.
With that one hit, Karl realize that the Sporeling had died since he had got a notification a second after he slapped it, and it was a smile inducing notification. "Congratulations on killing the Sporeling Knight, you have gained 5400 EXP, for killing this monster for the first time you have gained two times the EXP."
"Congratulations! You have gained two levels. Congratulations on reaching level 10, please accept the rewards that come with it." After seeing the flurry of messages, Karl was overjoyed, but then he felt pain, even though he had no nerves or even a brain, he felt pain somehow.
Falling to his knees, Karl started hitting the ground with clenched fists, then he started rolling around on the ground, and then he lied motionless. It only took fifteen seconds for Karl to be unable to withstand the pain without falling unconscious.
His bones then changed as they slowly started becoming thicker and denser, starting from his feet and continuing until just before reaching the skull, Karl became a very strange looking 'Thing'. Now, Karl looked really close to a normal Human, if they were made completely out of bone that is.
His arms and legs became as thick as an average man's while his ribs, hips, and spine became melded together and was smooth, it was almost like Karl was wearing armour carved out of bone. A few gaps a centimetre thick were still present on his lower rib cage, but that was expected since the rib cage wasn't quite as closed off as the upper rib cage.
Karl basically became a person made from bone but still just with a skull and a few gaps in his body that weren't able to meld together perfectly due to a lack of bone in that area. Another change had happened with his tail, but it was almost the exact same that thing happened with the rest of his body.
Becoming as smooth as a statue carved from marble, his tail was now truly like a whip, but much thicker. The thickness of his tail was now that of a man's thigh, but that was the size of the base of it that was connected to Karl, it slowly thinned out as it got closer to the tip with the blade on it.
Even so, the thinnest it got was still as thick as a man's finger, but that wasn't the most dramatic change to his tail. The most dramatic change that happened with Karl's tail was that it actually had a very small hole that was millimetre in diameter at the very tip, green and blue flames jutted out of the end of his tail, and the flames were extremely hot.
Slowly waking from his unconscious state, Karl tapped the back of his skull to check his stats, and he was surprised by what he saw. On his panel there was a new stat, 3 free points, a new tab called weapon proficiencies, and a new skill.
"Name: Karl, Age: 7 Months, Race: Evolving Skeleton, Level: 10
"Health: 34, Skills: Hand To Hand Combat, Pets: None, EXP required: 10,300, Relationships: Jashuri; -80
"Stats; Strength: 34, Constitution: 50, Agility: 86, Magic: 3
"Weapon Proficiencies; Whips: LvL 1, Flails: LvL 1,
"Free points: 3
Standing up, Karl looked at the state of his body, instead of being skeletal, it was now like that of a human wearing a suit of armour carved from the bones of some large beast. Running his fingers, that were now as thick as normal human fingers, Karl exclaimed in awe.
"Wow!" And then his brain halted for a few seconds as he realized that he just said actual words, instead of the sound of bones hitting each other, actual words left his mouth. "I can speak?" saying that to himself, the flames in Karl's eyes started burning fiercely as he started jumping up and down while also running around.
"I can talk! I can talk! I can talk!" Karl wasn't like those monks who could take vows of silence and last years, being unable to make any sounds other than that of bones clacking, he was depressed. Continuing to shout out those same three words while running around, it wasn't long before Karl ended up tripping over his own tail.
Rolling a few times on the ground, Karl hit a large chunk of brick that had fallen off of a destroyed building, and then Karl looked at his tail. On the end of his tail was the blue and green flame that was melting the concrete it was pointed towards.
"I guess this is what the magic stat is used for." Still surprised that he could now talk, Karl continued to watch as the flame from his tail continued to melt through the concrete, and he just continued to watch for a few minutes before he saw that the flames on his tail extinguished.
Sitting in a daze for a full 12 hours, Karl had only snapped out of his daze when a Sporedster that was only level 1 had tried to sneak attack him from behind, but it's head was crushed with an unconscious whip of Karl's tail. Looking down at how easily he could kill the same enemy that had very nearly ended his life, Karl marveled at his new strength, and it went to his head.
Beginning to think that he was strong, Karl laughed arrogantly as he raised his leg and placed it atop the corpse of the Sporedster so he could absorb it, and then he was smacked away by a large hand. Flying for a few dozen metres, Karl only stopped when he made a humanoid hole in the side of a relatively intact building.
There was no movement from whatever had hit him, Karl hadn't even been able to see what had hit him when he had been struck, and his arrogance was washed away immediately. Remembering how he was almost stomped to death by the woman who was to blame for his current situation, how he was almost killed when he fell, when he was hit by the short Sporeling, and how he could've been killed just now, Karl reminded himself that he was still a weak little skeleton before the strong entities out there.
After reminding himself about how he was weak, he also remembered what Jashuri had said just before she left, that there was a Safe Haven at Great Bear Lake. Making a decision that required no thought whatsoever, Karl decided that he would head to the Safe Haven there and see if he could find Kris and Matthew, and he started heading in the direction of Great Bear Lake based off of a memory of when he was younger.
(It took so long to write this one because I didn't make a good enough effort to get it out in a day or two. I can't dedicate a large amount of time to writing since I have to watch my nephew during the day, and then I go to work the evening or closing shift, and then I'm tired and don't feel like writing. Also I got an old laptop from my older sister so I'm now writing on that instead of an iPad. One last thing, I removed the Omegaverse tag because I didn't know that it meant gay werewolf smut, and I thought it was similar to multiverse, but my older sister explained what it was, and I promptly removed it. But my sister started laughing at the face of horrified realization I had made when I was told what it was, and then she told my mom who also started laughing. So if you had started reading this because of that tag, then I'm not sorry to say that there won't be any of that as far as I can tell.)