Blackthorne closed his status window then looked around. None of the creatures in the area had chosen to bother him yet, but that did not mean that he was safe. If anything, there was a chance that he was trapped underground.

"Maybe not completely trapped... I mean dream world or not these things still need to breathe." Blackthorne took note of the bats and scorpions. Now and then a bat would dive down and attack a scorpion. On rare occasions the scorpion would fight off the bat. Most of the time however, the bat would tear off the scorpion's pincer or tail and it would lose any chance of survival.

"Scorpions... probably like the ones that ran me away from the mine that day. If my resistances aren't high enough this might as well be my grave," remarked Blackthorne.

All things told, his main body was not much larger than one of the scorpions in the pit below. A bat might easily confuse him for its typical lunch.

He checked his Metamorphosis skill. It was tempting to change into human form or to become a cloud of darkness.

"Need to increase that a bit before I can really use it for much," he said thoughtfully. His upgraded Metamorph talent was incredibly useful. Had he not increased it, his cloud form would have been impossible to use for quite some time, even if he still could barely use it now, and his human form would have only lasted two minutes.

He looked at his Metamorphosis skill. Hoping for a miracle he added a skill point to it. Nothing changed at all.

Annoyed at the loss of a skill point for no visible effect, he could only sigh as he pushed eight more points into it. Even at rank thirty it showed no visible change to the effectiveness of the skill. "There's not even a new skill to acquire..."

Blackthorne growled in a strangely adorable manner then looked to his human form sub-skill. "Eighteen more points just to see if you'll do anything."

Unable to deny his need, he spent the points. His eyes lit up, however. Even before he could choose a technique, he finally saw a difference in his metamorphic capabilities. He now had two minutes of human form per twenty-five life force spent. Given his regenerative capacity, as long as he did not dip too low on life force to maintain the skill he could be human indefinitely. Of course, should be lack the twenty-five life force whenever he needed to expend it, he would be forcefully reverted back to draconic form.

It was akin to tensing a muscle. His vitality was great enough that he could do so indefinitely. However, if someone punched him in the face he might lose focus and the muscle would relax. In the case of his metamorphosis, if he took enough damage or used too many spells, he would not be able to maintain his form. Otherwise, he could just switch back and forth whenever he pleased. He immediately splurged another twenty points to raise it to rank twenty. In the process his time in human form increased by another minute, and he could acquire a second technique from his dragon form.

He looked through the offered techniques. "Some of these are pretty decent..."

Blackthorne could acquire some of his draconic abilities in human form as a limited technique. There was no technique provided to further increase the time limit for his human form, however. "Mana sense and mana manipulation sound like real winners..."

His stats mostly crossed over from one state of existence to another, but his abilities varied wildly. Mana sense and mana manipulation would allow him access their techniques and sub-skills as well. He already knew they would prove to be incredibly useful in the long run, as mana draw alone would allow him to use life force from external sources to power his spells. It would not be powerful enough to maintain his metamorphosis, but he would be able to rapidly cast a lot of weak magical abilities.

"Five points left," said Blackthorne. Honestly, there was little doubt of where those points should go. They went nowhere, as he wanted to save at least a few of them for later.

Since the critters in the pit, and the bats for that matter, paid no attention to him at the moment Blackthorne decided to try out his metamorphosis. Instincts that he never knew himself to have before allowed him to focus on the lore of his old life. He recalled what it was to be a man. He remembered the limited senses, the hairy knuckles, and the unprotected testicles.

Blackthorne drew upon the memory of what he once was and slowly began to reshape himself in that image. Dragons could sweat, surprisingly, as liquid condensation began to bead up along his scales. He narrowed his eyes and strained to perform the action, giving a strange appearance of tension to his form. Much like a man who knew nothing but the worst case of constipation, the struggle proved to be real.

The very essence of his life was ripped away as his innate magic caused his scales to burst. Blackthorne hissed in pain as black electrical sparks skittered along his glossy exterior. Slowly, inexorably, he grew in size and stature until his body split open and voluminous gouts of black mist rose up. His flesh faded away, becoming part of the mist. Soon a new body reformed in the image of his old form.

Scott Blackthorne, rather the former Scott Logan, gazed down upon his nakedness. He looked very much like he had before, save for one important fact. His eyes widened. "Dreams do come true..."

He swiveled his hips from side to side and rejoiced in his glory. While he had already improved that particular attribute, during his new life creation, it was now beyond the realm of humanity and quite supernatural. At least, he liked to think so. There were no doubt many porn stars in the world who could put him to shame.

"That was fun," he said lightly. He now knew that his human form remained largely the same outside of a few minor enhancements. He would need to find a proper mirror to know the full extent of the differences.

There was one thing that bothered him, however. "Where the hell are my clothes?"

Naked in a cave full of bats and scorpions, Blackthorne looked out into the darkness. His visual acuity was much lower now as he'd lost the vast majority of his draconic senses, but his decision to keep his life sense ability allowed him to at least detect living creatures.

"Shit..." he muttered. Getting out of this place as a naked human was pretty much impossible. He would need his draconic senses to navigate. He also did not trust whatever the midnight shadow form would prove to be, though in the innermost corners of his mind he held a niggling thought that it would be exactly what he needed to escape.

He spent a short time reveling in his strength and the way his manliness glowed with rainbow hued fire for a moment, then sighed. Gone, gone, the form of man... once again he became the adorable dragon.

"Weird, this is so much more comfortable..." remarked Blackthorne as the sense of tension flowed out of his body. The dragon stretched like a cat then cutely waddled forward like the newborn that he happened to be. It was time to face the dungeon and become the darkness that reaches for the light.