Forsyx stared at the circular tattoo. This was another important component of his class, his second passive class skill.
This single ability changed his transformation from a static transformation to more dynamic changes.
Now he could shift from human to any form and change back to humanoid form with no care about his clothes.
It was a big plus, as other shapeshifting classes had no such ability. Another thing was that this passive skill was a growth type.
The Mark of Wilder 1 was just the base version. There was still a lot stored in this simple passive skill.
He slid his shirt back on and then stared at the rabbit and the snake templates.
After some thought, he decided to save the Rabbit template for the Awakening Cycle.
There were a lot of mistakes he made in his last life, and one of them was using the same templates for both as a player and during the Awakening Cycles.
There were many psychos in the game who loved digging deeper into the system.
Now, he wasn't a hundred percent sure, but he felt like in his last life, a couple of players had managed to connect the dots and figure out his weakness.
That must be the reason he faced so many players back then.
He sighed and shook his head.
No matter whether or not that was true, he would not make the same mistake this time.
Both Snake and Rabbit were great transformations, but Rabbit's agility and high regeneration increased its survivability a bit more.
While snake flexibility would fit more with the quick transformation.
That's why he picked up the snake template. With the template in his hand, he said, "Equip the template."
The card disappeared from his hand, and the next moment, a notification popped in front of him.
Ding!
[Green Hook Snake Template equipped.]
The moment he equipped both templates, he felt the entire lab shaking for a bit, and a new notification popped in front of him.
[Template Lab:
Lab level: 1.
Number of stored templates: 2/10.
Lab assistant: —.
Funds: 20 coppers.
(Note: Upgrade the lab to open more facilities inside the lab.)
]
Forsyx just smiled at the almost empty lab interface. At level one, the lab was more about storing and equipping the template, nothing more.
He closed the lab interface and checked his status one last time.
After making sure he had both templates equipped, he got up from the seat.
The moment he stood up, the hidden slot disappeared along with the timer.
Not thinking much about it, he glanced at the assistant crystal one last time and said, "Teleport back to the World of Apex."
Ding!
[Teleportation in progress. Remain still for 30 seconds.]
A familiar timer popped in front of him. He just stood there thinking about his plan of action.
Soon, a bright light engulfed him.
Zap!
Before Forsyx could even open his eyes, he smelled the horrendous, rotting stench.
It was so bad that he felt a burning sensation in his nostrils—like he was inhaling acid vapors that were burning his insides.
He blocked his nose and looked at the garbage plot. There, he saw a new additional pile of liquid.
It was likely failed or expired potions.
He held his breath and rushed back to the market. When he got back, he took a deep breath.
It was much better than smelling that crap.
After calming down, he opened his inventory.
There, in the very first slot, he saw the big white bear badge.
In Apex Ascension, changing or resetting your character was extremely hard, but even if you could do it, there were still many downsides.
The biggest downside was that, even though he had to give up all his resources as a guild master, all his debts and connections would remain.
He found that out the hard way last time when he borrowed a bunch of money from NPC merchants and then reset his character.
He was very happy at the time, thinking he had cheated the system. But even after resetting his character, the debt stayed attached to his character.
It wasn't just about the debt. There were even some high-level curses that stayed attached to the player.
There was that famous incident in the past where a few powerful members of one of the top guilds got cursed by some god-like entity.
The curse was so lethal that it made their characters unplayable.
A few of them managed to find the reset parchment, but even after the reset, the curse stayed with them.
It was very well-known because everyone with that curse later came online to share their experience.
A few of them even changed careers and became game pundits who analyzed the Guild Wars.
Well, thankfully, the system did not treat his selling the guild's resources as him borrowing from the guild.
At least he was free from the Limia guild. As for the Kiyon guild, this was a big part of his plan.
He never wanted to join them as some washed-out guild leader but as a new rising star who was going to create waves.
He just took out the guild badge.
Ding!
The system detected a guild membership! Player Forsyx, you are joining the Kiyon guild. Congratulations on becoming part of the Kiyon guild.]
With that, the badge disappeared from his inventory and attached itself to his shirt.
Next to the badge was this old, low-grade trash sword.
In Apex Ascension, weapons came in the following grades:
Trash → Iron → Bronze → Copper → Silver → Gold → Dark Gold → Epic → Legendary → ??? → ??? → ????.
Each of these grades was further divided into low, mid, and high tiers.
He took out the sword, felt its weight, and swung it around.
After a couple of swings, he just shook his head and placed it back into the inventory.
There were just so many things wrong with that sword, from rust on the back of the blade to chips and cracks here and there.
He needed to invest in a decent weapon.
Except for the weapon, he just had 20 copper coins, a few loaves of hard bread to deal with his hunger, and two 5-liter water tanks.
He closed the inventory and started stretching. It was time to test his new transformations. Wasting no time, he started running toward the Blackwater Village main gate.
…
Forsyx stood in the outer forest just outside the beginner village.
The players had already cleaned this area, leaving little to no monsters here.
Not caring about that, he just sat on the low branch of a tree and said, "Template shift to Pipler Bird."
In the blink of an eye, the world tilted. His bones shrank, feathers erupted, and the sky suddenly didn't feel so far away, and then…