96 Waking up

As the time went on, the weak consciousness kept trying to awakened, while the bloodline essence kept trying to stop it.

In the world of beasts, the strong devours the weak, and adds it to its strength. This fact was so deeply rooted that it was engraved on a genetic level. The genetic composition of this plant was part beast – part human. The beasts' bloodline didn't like the idea of submitting to what it considers as weaker being. As such, it was trying to suppress the consciousness from awakening, as it would be forced to submit to its will, all the while, it was constantly corroding the human genes, and replicating them with beasts' genes.

The bloodline didn't have a soul, or was trying to take over the consciousness. Instead, it was trying to completely engulf the weaker human gene, as it considered it as flaw, before allowing the consciousness to wake up.

In the world of beasts, the beasts struggle in a constant fierce competition to survive. As such, the natural defense mechanism of the bloodline refused to allow any disadvantage to exist. Hence, it was removing this genetic flaw, as it didn't want to compromise its chances of surviving. It was trying to remove the weaker genes.

The entire thing was like a hypersensitivity autoimmune reaction, where the bloodline was removing what it considered as compromised parts.

As the years went by, the bloodline essence in the plant kept replacing the human genes with its own, slowly turning the plant body into a full-fledged subterranean ghost tree. While the artifact on the other hand, kept resisting the process.

The artifact was prioritizing preserving the consciousness over stopping the bloodline invasion, working on the false presumption that the bloodline was revolting against the will of its user. This resulted in the artifact using only small parts of its energy to stop the bloodline invasion.

In any case, the bloodline kept absorbing most of the magic energy that the plant was recovering, to fuel the process of gene invasion, thus preventing large portion of it from reaching the artifact. This made it so that the artifact was forced to use the little magic energy that it was recovering through the plant to defend the consciousness and slow down the human gene devouring, at the expense of awakening the consciousness.

The vicious cycle went on for a very long time, until a certain day.

Rustle! Rustle! Rustle!

Several meters away from the small water pond, a dense wall of shrubbery rustled a bit, before parting ways. A two meter height, wolf-like beast walked out with heavy steps.

Brrr!

Brrr!

Brrr!

The beasts was emitting the powerful aura undulation of tier-2 magical beasts, and was breathing raggedly, causing puffs of white smoke to blow out with every breath. The body of the beast was filled with bleeding cuts and wounds. One particular wound was so deep that even the interior organs could be made out.

It was obvious that this beast wasn't going to last any longer.

With eyes that were half closed, the beast forced it's already failing legs to carry it to the small pond, to drink his last sip of water in this life.

However, just as the beast was about to reach the pond, and as if stepping into some invisible boundary, a formless mysterious power directly attack the beast, causing it to go stiff right on the spot. The beast immediately collapsed, falling to the ground, as if it had lost consciousness.

Ordinarily, the beast would have been able to recover after a while, enough to escape this strange area. However, now, he was so heavily injured that it didn't have the power to even open its eyes, not to mention resist this mysterious power.

The strange state went on and on, and the beast never recovered afterward. Its body bled out, till it was no longer able to support itself. Not long afterward, the glow of life disappeared, and the beast breathed its last.

The blood of the beast flooded the ground, and the magic energy concentration spiked up in the area. As the subterranean plant next to the pond was a magical beast in nature, its reaction was to absorb as much magic energy as possible as fast as it could, before the energy diffuses to other areas with less concentration. Inside the plants' pulpy middle, the artifact, which had been getting only small portion of the magic energy share for the past years, suddenly vibrated. The abrupt increase of the energy absorbed by the plant meant that its usual small share had increased by several folds.

Even if the bloodline essence was stealing the lions' share of the absorbed energy, the current remaining small portion that was absorbed by the artifact was easily enough to fill the artifact by one magic energy point, which is the minimum threshold, needed to awaken the consciousness.

Bang!

The core, that has always been surrounded by the artifacts force field, gave sudden a violent tremor, alongside an intense glow.

The consciousness – has awakened!

Immediately, the bloodline invasion that has been ongoing for years – stopped! All of the voluntary bodily functions submitted to the consciousness.

This time around, the consciousness wasn't weak to the point of disappearing only after forming one thought. This time, it was completely awake… but also, fragile.

His thoughts were in complete disarray, he had no specific idea to unify his thoughts around it. He didn't know who he was, where he was, or what was happening? He knew nothing. Everything was blurry, and felt unreal.

Bang!

Suddenly, and as though an electric bomb had went off, various scenes rushed in like a flood, connecting to each other, and forming full picture.

'Damn it! The compound…! The bugs…! I mustn't allow them to devour me, not before I make them bleed out the price.' frantic thoughts reeled with urgency, causing him to flare with battle intent.

Ramie abruptly tried to open his eyes… however, he couldn't see a thing.

He tried to listen to the sounds… but he couldn't hear a thing.

He tried swinging his hands, and turning his head… but nothing happened.

'What is happening…?' a sharp sense of anxiousness rose in his heart.

The place he was confined in was utterly dark, completely silent, and he couldn't initiate any movement at all.

'Could it be that I've been eaten… and still alive inside the bug?' his agitation was growing. However, after thinking things over, ramie dismissed this horrific thought.

Calming himself down, ramie sent out his senses, to perceive his own body condition.

'This…!'

Spending few seconds to scan himself, Ramie conformed the outcome he feared the most.

He has been turned into a plant!

Recovering from his shock, Ramie hurriedly recalled the stat in his mind.

- Name: Ramie

- Lv.4 Magic Artifact (98%)

- Path: Bloodline Magic

- Class: Subterranean Ghost Tree (Special)

- Magic Energy: 0/98

- Innate Spell: Soul Perception

- Spells: Morphing (permanent)/deactivated, Green Vine (Rare), Ghost glare (Special), Rooting (Special)/deactivate (Uproot), Sprouting (Rare)

- Unused skill points: 0

- Bloodline's integration percent: 18%

Skimming through the stats, and seeing the term 'deactivated' beside the Morphing spell, Ramie's heart sank.

Morphing was a passive spell. Its effect was regulating the integration between the bloodline and the body of the artifact users. This spell was constantly activated. Its main function was to prevent the injected bloodlines, which had an immense genetic potency, from devouring the human genes that had far weaker.

The morphing spell basically suppresses the beasts' bloodlines at an integration rate of 5% or less. This percent enables the humans of using their respective bloodline innate spells and advantages without becoming full-fledged beasts!

However, now, and seeing that the spell was deactivated, ramie instantly knew that things had went south.

Seeing the Bloodline's integration percent at 18% confirmed his thought.

'*&&%^… *&%#... @%^&…!'

To vent his anger, he started cursing out for a while, before calming himself down.

The 18% meant that he was now 18% beast. It also meant that when he casts rooting again, to regain his human form… even more physical traits of the subterranean ghost tree would be forced on him. In other words, he'd be even less as human, and more as a beast.

His artifacts' flaw were constantly baiting at him. And everything that could go wrong with these yes/no type of spells was going.

'Morphing….' Ramie thought. And in response, the usual message appeared to him.

< Spell: Morphing (permanent) /inactive >

< Effect: gaining the bloodline of the subterranean ghost tree! >

< Cast: yes/no >

After casting this spell for the first time, it had given him the bloodline. However, if he was to cast it now, it would merely resume its bloodline suppression effect, and not injecting more bloodline.

After casting the spell, he felt a bit relieved.

Shifting his focus to the stats, he noticed some changes.

…