Chapter 195 - 195: Alteration Paths
Alteration Paths
Gale and Bedrock sat on one of the lab tables, curiously looking at Osho, who had his tablet in one hand and a stylus in the other, his lab attire crisp and clean.
His hand moved deftly as he scribbled down notes on the screen, his face a calm mirror of concentration as many thoughts ran through his mind.
He'd occasionally look at his two beasts or ask them questions while he did this, and it was only after thirty or so minutes that he stopped his scribbling and exhaled.
As for what he was doing? Well...
He planned to alter some of the circuits the beasts had to grant them new abilities/pathways. However, there was an issue with that.
He had far too many options.
If there was one key takeaway he had from his experience with the red egg, it's that he'd gotten carried away due to the sheer number of options he had.
Each conduit was like its own little world, and Osho could go crazy only on each one, but in the grand scheme of things, the overall shape of the conduit wouldn't change much as each collection of conduits was too vast and complicated for the current Osho to affect significantly.
However, it also meant that there were far too many things for him to do. His ability wouldn't tell him that making a set of conduits a certain way wouldn't work. It simply told him what he needed to do and the materials he needed to complete the task.
As such, it was easy to get lost in the groove and go too crazy with what he wanted to do, just like with the red egg.
However, he planned to gradually alter the conduits of Gale and Bedrock instead of doing as much as he could in one go. This was to pace himself as well as avoid an incident like last time.
Now, other than that, Osho was considering what direction to go with the two beasts.
Technically speaking, he could go in any direction he wanted, as, again, his ability wouldn't tell him that a specific alteration wasn't possible, but would simply tell him the materials he needed to accomplish said alteration and the process to apply them.
In other words, if Osho really wanted to, he could make Gale resemble a Phoenix with his already existing abilities or grant Bedrock the ability to come himself.
However, he wasn't going to do that. Could didn't mean should, and the beasts already had clear paths ahead of them based on their bloodlines and affinities, and it didn't take a genius to realize that infringing on said paths too much, even if it wasn't inherently damaging, may have adverse consequences.
Osho wanted to avoid that.
As such, the alterations he wanted to make were all in line with things that Gale and Bedrock could already do, preventing a significant deviation from their paths without being too basic.
Osho took a breath and looked down at his tablet. On it, there were a bunch of notes which were summaries of what the two beasts could do already, after that, there were branching arrows that went into three different paths for the two of them.
Looking between them, Osho decided to focus on Gale's first as he looked at the three branches he'd named.
Ascension Feathers
Sky Spirit
Heaven's Gaze
Nodding, he looked at the attached notes under each one.
[Ascension Feathers: Gale's Feathers become ultra-flexible, yet absurdly resilient, granting him a massive increase in both physical and magical defenses, but mostly magical. He can control each Feather independently, and each one carries a form of sharpness that taps into his concept of freedom, allowing him to cut through anything he deems to be restrictive in relation to his intent. The feathers would work greatly with skills like Ozone Blade as they are inherently cutting, and if he wishes, he can send out the feathers like projectiles, or give them out to be used as materials for forging equipment.]
[Sky Spirit: Grants Gale the ability to assume an elemental form, making him borderline immune to physical damage. Gale will also be capable of melding himself with his domain, increasing his use over it immensely while making damaging him in any way significantly more difficult. He can also use it to become stealthy as he can meld with the environment, making detection far barder]
[Heaven's Gaze: A play on Gale's already existing ability to see weak points and his extreme perception, Gale's ocular abilities reach levels that are simply obscene. Once more tapping into his concept of freedom, his gaze can pierce through most things, allowing him to see through solid objects, magic, intent, actions, even emotions and the like, taking the phrase 'None can be hidden under the Heavens' to an entirely new level.]
Osho looked at them and nodded, feeling satisfied with what he came up with.
"Gale, come over here and see what you like." As soon as he said that, the bird trotted over as Osho used the split-screen feature of the table so that he could focus on what he'd written for Bedrock.
[Titan's Heart: Bedrock's internal dimension in his heart evolves into something akin to a furnace, allowing him to process and refine ingested materials at an exponentially faster speed. Instead of simoly copying the properties materials have, he can not only slowly evolve them into higher versions of themselves, he can also combine them to create hybrid materials that don't exist in nature. He essentially becomes a living forge, and the ores he can produce surpass their natural counterparts. This grants him extreme adaptability in both offense and defense as his body can instantly shift to an optimal material composition, depending on what hits him or what he tries to hit.]
[Worldbinder: Bedrock's connection with the earth depends until he goes beyond a beast that controls the ground and instead becomes an extension of it. Any terrain he stands upon becomes part of his body. His "territory" expands depending on his will, and he can create earthen constructs with his thoughts alone. Within his area of influence, gravity and density become his to control. He can increase or decrease it as will, crushing enemies or lightening allies. Essentially, the battlefield becomes his domain.]
[Eternal Bastion: Bedrock's regenerative ability evolves drastically. His form gains the ability yo persist even after destruction. When a oart of his is destroyed, his essence fuses with the surrounding earth and reforms elsewhere, essentially making him semi-immortal as long as he is connected to land with Mana. The "Bastion" tag comes from the ability allowing him go extend his endurance to allies by creating marks which anchor them, increasing their resistance to physical and elemental damage while standing on any surface connected to the ground.]
Now, admittedly, each ability sounded insane, and Osho nearly threw away his plan of doing it bit by bit, but he managed to keep his impulsivity under control and listed each one out.
To be clear, he planned on doing all of them for the two beasts. However, due to each alteration already being quite potent from what they could do, Osho couldn't perform multiple alterations at a time.
Most likely, he would have to wait for at least a week before he could make a similar alteration, and that was just to be safe.
He relayed the information of each alteration to Bedrock since he couldn't read yet, and he waited for the two beasts to make their decisions.
After all, they would be the ones to be altered. It always only fair that they picked which ability they found to be appealing.
It didn't take long for them to decide, though.
"Sky Spirit."
'Titan's Forge.' They answered in unison. However, only one of them truly 'spoke'.
Gale had used his wind to mimic the sound of talking, something he'd been getting better at ever since he used it to communicate with Ellie.
Meanwhile, Bedrock simply replied through their bond. He couldn't speak or read yet, but he now knew some basic phrases as well as to mimic whatever Osho said. Not that he needed to. His intent was enough for Osho to understand.
"Oh? Can I ask why?" Osho asked, not feeling disappointed in any way as he was simply curious about their choices.
"Sky Spirit suits me pretty well since it ties into my concelt quite a bit as it makes me unbound by my physical form, granting me far more freedom." Gale explained, and Osho nodded before looking at Bedrock.
The gorilla tilted his head before gesturing with his hands as he explained via intent.
Essentially, Bedrock really liked the prospect of being able to not only regine ingested materials faster, but also be able to combine them while refining them to be better than their natural counterparts, as hed wondered what would happen if he reached a point where the level of naturally occurring materials simply couldn't handle what he faced, so it appealed to him above the rest.
Nodding, Osho looked at the two of them and said.
"I have enough energy to perform both alterations now. But who wants to go first?" As soon as he asked, Gale eagerly raised a wing, and Osho glanced at Bedrock, who shook his head.
"Alrright then. Gale first."