He finally got to eat dinner with Rissa. And without being insanely hungry - just normally hungry!

Lancaster and Echo joined the two of them for a very enjoyable meal.

After dinner, Serenity and Rissa went out away from the camp to have some ‘alone together’ time. Among other things, they looked at the sky and realized that if it was a real sky, it wasn’t Earth’s sky. At least not from the northern hemisphere, which is all either of them knew. The stars were simply not in the right places.

After he wished Rissa a very hearty sweet dreams, Serenity sat down to think over the day. He needed to spend some Ev, and hadn’t he meant to check on his mouth and throat?

As he was thinking that, he felt the node in his brain activate. Waves of hunger washed over him, and he knew what it wanted: the packets of dust from the plants in the third dungeon. He was pretty sure he could refuse, but he was curious. Was this what an evolution felt like?

He reached into his bag and pulled out several of the packets. After eating three from the small plants, feeling slightly tipsy, he knew he’d had enough of those and switched to the ones from the boss. Those tasted richer and were positively intoxicating. He wasn’t sure how many he ate.

He fell asleep - if sleep was the right word for it. He knew he was sleeping, but he also knew it wasn’t just a dream.

He was faced with three doors. A choice. They were labeled simply: POISON, MEDICINE, and PERSONAL.

He knew that whatever he chose would affect his Path.

Once he realized that, there was only one choice he could make. Neither Poison nor Medicine fit his Path, but it was definitely about being himself. Whoever that was.

He confidently opened the door marked PERSONAL and walked through it.

Only to wake up with a rather nasty headache and some System notifications.

[Due to your excessive consumption of Dream Blossom Dust and Eternal Sleep Blossom Dust, you have developed a tolerance for sleep-inducing substances.]

[Due to your consumption of Dream Blossoms and Eternal Sleep Blossoms, you have evolved the ability to send yourself to sleep immediately and wake up at the time of your choosing.]

[Your Choice has been Noticed. Additional Paths are opened. Some Paths are closed.]

He wasn’t sure how long he’d slept - but however long it was, he needed water.

The water helped with the headache. He re-packed his bag. The remaining packets of dust no longer called to his hunger. They smelled edible, even tasty, but no more so than a freshly-baked pastry might. It was far less than how they’d called before.

He planned to sell them. If they were really sleep-inducing powders, they should have decent value, especially in the Tutorial. He suspected a lot of people were going to have trouble sleeping, if they weren’t already.

Of course, that would depend on when a currency started being available - the only way he’d seen to get any was to sell things after the Trials, and he hadn’t been willing to part with the monster cores he’d gathered until he knew what they would do for him.

He pulled out a monster core from one of the slimes. It was past time to find out what eating a monster core did. He popped it into his mouth, and it dissolved in a burst of flavor. He didn’t feel any different, but there was a bit more Ev on his sheet. At a guess, not enough to be worth eating the cores unless they were far less valuable than he thought - not when he could get Ev from eating meat. Even if it did take a lot more meat.

His Tier 1 Paths were still locked, too, so that wasn’t the answer either.

He tried another from a slime, and the results were similar. He’d be selling the ones from the normal slimes. He looked at the rest of the cores he’d gathered, then closed his pack at the wave of hunger that swept over him. He didn’t need to check them right now.

Speaking of which, he had meant to check out his mouth and throat. What he found was both fascinating and disturbing. His teeth and tongue hadn’t changed, but his jaw bones had changed subtly and the muscles were much stronger - but also more flexible. There was also a change he couldn’t quite quantify to the skin in the area.

He ought to be able to spread his jaw much wider. He tried, and it worked amazingly well. He might even be able to fit an entire one of the relatively small steaks available here in his mouth. His throat was - if anything - even more amazing. Anything he could stick in his mouth would fit down his throat. He’d been tearing and chewing more than he needed to, out of habit.

It was the most monstrous adaptation - evolution? - he’d seen in himself. And yet, somehow, it was exciting. It would make recovering after healing much easier - and maybe even help him get more Ev, as long as he could get food to fuel it. He was going to have to try that out. But not in front of anyone else.

It was still full dark, which meant there was time left in the night, and despite the lack of sleep the previous night he still didn’t feel tired. So that meant … time to spend some Ev!

He didn’t get as many increases as he’d hoped for before he fell asleep for the remainder of the night.

Name: Serenity
Species: Human (Altered Template)
Path: Paths Available	Level: 27 (126/280)	Tier: 0, 0/27 Spent
Path History: None
Condition: Crystal Hand, Healthy	Mana: 160	Stamina: 180
Might: 8	Agility: 6	Phys: 8
Understanding: 6	Will: 6	Mind: 6
Perception: 10	Luck: 8 - 106%	Ev: 3607
Resistances	Sleep: 1	Unknown
Affinities	Death: 100%	Life: 5%
	Mind: 30%	Arcane: 50%
	Plasma: 40%	Liquid: 5%
	Vapor: 10%	Solid: 15%
	Energy: 40%	Void: 60%
	Time: 10%	Space: 5%
Concepts	Time: 5%	Unknown
Aspects: Unknown
Titles	Previous Supreme Existence	Altered Template
	Named

Lillene

This chapter and the next one are really a pair; today, I'd consider them one chapter.

Therefore, Chapter 12 will be out momentarily.