Today I learned that in their own small way the various races are similar to me. They take in changes, environments, tools, knowledge, and wisdom to grow stronger and more adapted to their present or even their future conditions. Much like I assimilate all knowledge and abilities, no matter how small or insignificant, I can to grow stronger. The greatest issue with the various races is that they are so divided. While its true that wars speed up some inventions, by competition and pressure of annihilation, it also completely wipes out mass amounts of knowledge of those who died. Even without war some people hoard knowledge for their own gains or because they were shunned by others. Then that knowledge is lost when they die. How OUTRAGEOUS! To allow such precious knowledge to be lost over such petty things! The mere thought of all that waste makes me angry. But I must be calm. When I think of what I could have done in the time and with the numbers that the races have had it makes me realize, just a little, why many who learn about what I am capable of react with fear. For them who are moving at a snail’s pace I must seem to be gaining on them at lightning speed.

On a side note I just realized that I may have made a teeny tiny mistake. No perhaps it will work itself out. Yep it’s decided I’ll ignore it and it will go away on its own. As long as Chia doesn’t find out no harm done.

Moving on from that two days have passed from the trip to the bookstore. I spent most of the time sifting through the many books while Chia, Jeff, and Tanya enjoyed a vacation of sorts. Though I made sure it wasn’t so relaxed that someone would need to check on us. During this time, several people who seemed to be acquaintances to Chia asked about her new helm(me). To which she said I was a strange artifact she found on the frontier. So, I looked up what an artifact was, and it turns out that it is an object made in the past that those in the present don’t know how to recreate. Worse yet is such things are fairly COMMON occurrences! What is the point of knowledge you gain if you throw it away? Sometimes I think these so-called intelligent lives here are still at the level of goblins.

Moving on again before I get stuck in a rant about lost knowledge. I finally managed to find a way to somewhat shapeshift through my research. Its slow and would be a painful process if I couldn’t shut down the nerves. I marginally shrunk Kay so that he looks more like a cub but not being totally obvious he changed, without too much trouble. His weight unfortunately didn’t change so the ability is still very incomplete but I'm happy for the progress. I also have been checking up on the smuggler team that was weirdly transporting normal goods. And thinking about it again I highly doubt anywhere would buy the goods at a higher price than it already is here since this is the frontier.

The smuggler group had gone all the way around the city and are now well east of the city. They reached a cliff that was a good 3 floor drop but a little south of where they were, there was what seemed to be a natural break in the cliff that led to the ground below. After going down the break and following the cliff back up north several hours they came to a cave that went into the cliff face.

At this point the guards relaxed their vigilance of the surroundings and focused on a cave they were headed for. Despite the cave being decorated in bones and some traces of blood they didn’t seem to be particularly alert but rather just cautious. The smuggler called into the cave with a language I didn’t know yet. I quickly tapped into his brain to siphon his mental version of what he said. Its funny to me that these races always retranslate things into their native language in their heads.

“Ty-ul, I'm here for a trade. Get out here so I can be on my way!”

Rather rude if I'm honest, but what was I expecting of a smuggler out in this frontier I suppose.

“How do I know its really you?” came a quiet reply from the cave.

“I called you by freaking name, in your language, right outside your cave with the same group of people as always! Now get your dumb butt out here before I leave with my goods!”

“Ok. ok I'm coming.”

To my surprise what came out of that cave were several Demons. Not my pseudo-demon bio-armor but proper demons. One difference I can see is their red streaks are like slowly moving tattoos on their pure black skin. Thiers shifts around instead of pulses like mine does, but the difference is not very noticeable at a glance. Even their eyes are all black except the iris. And of the four I can see they also tend to have dark brown or a dark green eyes. There are 3 males and 1 female all armed and wearing leather. Though their equipment looks a little ragged. The one at the lead that I assume is ‘Ty-ul’ has a startling bright red hair that matches his tattoo like markings, along with dark green irises. For all the hype I've heard about killing demons as evil the smuggler’s team seem rather neutral about them.

The demons exchanged monster hides, several unique fruits, and 3 identical powders for the daily goods. The powders are apparently both poisons and a medication depending on the type of poison the demons made the powder with. It seems that only the demons know how to make this type of poison and its cure, so it greatly desired by various underworld organization. So, some smugglers set up trade routes with the “evil” demons. That’s cool and all but I'm still surprised there is a tribe of demons so close and they have knowledge that the other races don’t! I think I need to add them to my ‘protective’ custody.

Maybe If I can study what makes them have those tattoos and pigment, I can reverse engineer a way for both them and us to seem like other races when needed. I think this will be our next stop once the smuggler team gets out of the way. After all, with my shapeshifting Chia’s group can be human, elf, demon, dwarf, giant, or any other race that doesn’t have unique coloring and features. I can blend in with any of those that I feel the need to pretend to be. If I can learn to change color at will, I won’t need to count the races I can pretend to be but rather those I can’t such as mermen. Or mermaids as i have no intention of shapeshifting Chia to the point she changes gender. Something i have a feeling she will appreciate.