Freya pulled the stopper and drank the potion in the bottle in one gulp. This time, she did not fall asleep. Instead, she remained conscious throughout the entire process, even “seeing” and “watching” with her own eyes some kind of change occurring within the cells of her body.
However, Freya had almost no knowledge related to biology or cells in her mind, so she could not understand the situation inside her body at all. Her most direct sensation right now was that her red blood cells... seemed to have turned green?
At the same time, her hair, which originally had only a faint touch of green at the tips, saw this green spread at a speed visible to the naked eye. In the end, the bottom third of her hair turned completely green.
About half an hour later, Freya let out a soft breath, withdrew from that strange state of “internal inspection,” and successfully advanced to Rank Five at this very moment!
After her promotion, her Heart Perception ability was significantly enhanced once again. Her god's-eye view expanded from the original two or three streets directly to covering half the city.
In addition, her abilities to control plants and manipulate life energy were also improved to a certain extent, and she obtained two brand-new abilities: “Life Domain” and “Lifeform Modification.”
The former was a toggleable passive skill. If Freya chose to activate it, an invisible domain would appear around her, spanning a circle roughly one kilometer in diameter. Within this range, the soil would become increasingly fertile, plants would grow faster, and over time, spirituality would slowly emerge in these ordinary soils and plants.
Freya didn't know what use spiritual soil had for the time being. As for spiritual plants, controlling them with her plant-manipulation ability would be much easier, and with a bit of luck, some special extraordinary herbs might even sprout within the range of the Life Domain.
Just then, Freya suddenly realized something. If spiritual plants enhanced her plant-control combat power, then was spiritual soil meant to enhance her earth-manipulation combat power?
But her only earth-related ability was the one from Rank Three, and up until now, she didn't seem to have used it even once.
Still, if she had teammates from the Path of the Earth, she could boost their strength, so it was still somewhat useful. In other words, this Life Domain was essentially a territory-building ability. If someone fought Freya on her own turf, she would undoubtedly have the upper hand.
As for the second ability, its effect was exactly as the name suggested. Freya could perform “lifeform modifications” on herself or others. For example, she could make a second heart grow inside someone's body, and she got to decide its location—even if she wanted it to grow in their buttocks.
Therefore, if Freya had been Rank Five during the previous battle, she could have used this ability to fashion a brand-new heart inside Euphemia's body. Then, by using her Heal ability while channeling life energy, she might have actually saved her.
And creating a second heart was actually the most basic application of this ability. Freya could also make someone grow gills, cat ears, or a tail, provided she understood these anatomical structures first.
As everyone knew, there was a heart inside every person's body, and Freya could use this ability to directly “internally inspect” her own heart to observe its structure. Once she understood it, she could create a new one.
By the same token, if she wanted to modify someone to have gills, cat ears, tails, or any other miscellaneous features, she would first have to study and understand the corresponding anatomical structures.
This ability didn't seem to boost her combat strength much in the short term, but it was highly promising for the future. The strength of this ability depended entirely on Freya's own imagination and depth of knowledge.
Freya used this ability to start observing her own body, planning to first record vital organs like the heart, liver, and lungs. However, as she watched, she suddenly felt something off—a sense of discordance.
To put it in perspective, Freya had originally assumed she was a normal person. But now, after repeatedly using this Lifeform Modification ability to perform physical checkups on herself, the more she looked, the more she felt she wasn't a normal person, but rather a disabled person missing limbs.
Of course, “normal” and “disabled” here were meant in an occult sense. She felt as if something was missing from her body, though she had no idea what it actually was.
While pondering, Freya even stood up and hopped around a couple of times. She muttered, “There's nothing wrong, though.”
Unable to figure it out, she turned her gaze to the Archbishop, who had been guarding her the entire time, and briefly explained her current confusion to him. However, the Archbishop also shook his head and said, “My apologies, Your Holiness, but I do not know what is going on either.”
“Never mind.” Since she couldn't figure it out, she decided not to dwell on it for now. After all, the fact remained that her body was perfectly intact. Freya packed up her things, making sure to bring along the four War Pathway potions Nolan had delivered not long ago, and returned to her room in the cathedral. She muttered, “End simulation!”
Feeling as if she had held her breath underwater for a long time and suddenly broke the surface, Freya abruptly opened her eyes, gasping for air. She looked at the system prompt appearing before her:
【Simulation complete. Duration: 15 days. Save this save slot?】
Naturally, Freya chose yes and saved it in slot 02. After some thought, she renamed this save slot “Life Freya.”
Immediately after, with a single thought, both 【01 War Freya】 and 【02 Life Freya】 materialized out of thin air in front of her, standing side-by-side next to the bed.
In truth, compared to the Rank Five Life Freya, the Rank One War Freya was already practically redundant. The gap in their combat strength was simply too vast.
Freya's original plan was to enter the simulation with her real body again next time and continue to get free potions from the church. But this time, she would choose the Path of the Earth. Although she couldn't go straight to Rank Five, getting another guaranteed Rank Four clone from one simulation was a win no matter how she looked at it.
However, the four War Pathway potions Nolan had provided at the end made her hesitate. These four potions ranged from Rank One to Rank Four. Although she didn't know what class advancement this Rank Four was, the Warrior, Hunter, and General paths were all quite strong.
Just as Freya was torn between cultivating another Path of the Earth clone or continuing down the War Pathway, Life Freya suddenly made a surprising discovery. There were no residual “potion impurities” on War Freya. This meant that when War Freya drank the Rank One War Pathway potion, that potion had also dissolved instantly upon entering her mouth.
Huh? Was that even possible?
Life Freya immediately used her ability to focus her senses on War Freya. The first thing she felt was naturally a pungent smell of rust and blood. Life Freya couldn't help but frown; this smell was truly unpleasant.
Conversely, both War Freya and Freya herself found the scent on Life Freya extremely pleasant. Freya even pulled Life Freya to her side, hugging her other self like a giant body pillow and rubbing against her. She muttered, “No wonder Euphy liked pinching my face so much before. Life Freya really smells so good.”
Back to the main topic. Just as Life Freya could perceive Countless Blessings on herself, she could actually perceive something similar on War Freya now, which could tentatively be called “Countless Resentments.” If the former was the gratitude of those who had been helped, the latter was undoubtedly the hatred of those who had been slain.
But wasn't this a bit too bizarre? Previously, when Freya had Countless Blessings on her, she suspected it might have been inherited from her past life—perhaps she had been a philanthropist or a doctor. But now, that guess was clearly unreasonable!
After all, her past life couldn't possibly have been both a doctor and a killer, right? Saving people while killing people? Wasn't that a bit too absurd?
“So where on earth did these blessings and resentments come from?” Freya even wondered if this was another one of her “cheat codes.” For example, maybe she didn't need to digest potions for any pathway, meaning every potion dissolved instantly, guaranteeing a straight shot to Rank Five or something.
But that didn't make sense either.
Though she couldn't wrap her head around it, this was undoubtedly a good thing for the current Freya. Life Freya took out the four War Pathway potions one by one and handed them to War Freya.
Since War Freya had already drunk the Rank One War Pathway potion, she set that bottle aside, picked up the Rank Two potion, and downed it in one gulp.
Then came Rank Three and Rank Four. Unlike the gentle Life potions, every single War potion gave War Freya the sensation of her entire body being set ablaze upon drinking. Especially when she drank the Rank Four potion, the intense pain even made the nearby Life Freya and Freya herself grimace.
Life Freya immediately used her ability, releasing gentle life energy to envelop the three of them, which eased the pain to some extent.
Right then, Freya suddenly thought of a highly absurd way to fight. Didn't the War Pathway have Battle Continuation, the ability to lock one's health and refuse to die? Even if the heart was shattered, they could go on fighting for a long time.
Under normal circumstances, a War Pathway extraordinary was doomed to die once this ability was triggered; they could only go on a final rampage. But for the current Life Freya, such an injury was not a major issue at all. If the heart exploded, she could just fashion a new one.
So, could War Freya simply “commit suicide” right at the start of a battle to fully stack the Blood Rage buff? Then, when she was on the verge of death, Life Freya could heal her back with a burst of life energy, after which she would suicide again, repeating the process.
In any case, Battle Continuation didn't seem to have a cooldown, nor did it consume mana. After all, a normal extraordinary would only use this ability once in their entire lifetime, so who would have thought it could be exploited like this?
The idea was feasible, but the problem was... it would probably hurt like hell, wouldn't it? Freya's lips twitched slightly. She considered her willpower and pain tolerance to be quite high, but she couldn't torture herself like this, could she? Just thinking about it now made her hair stand on end, and she started feeling phantom pain.
Well, it wasn't phantom pain. War Freya was currently advancing, so it was real pain.
However, Freya thought about it further. Perhaps she could use Life Freya's ability to sever the pain nerves in War Freya's body? Wouldn't that prevent her from feeling any pain at all?
While she was pondering, the promotion finally concluded. War Freya slowly got up from the floor (having just rolled around in pain). Her hair had now completely turned a fiery red with a slight, natural curl, cascading casually down her back to just past her shoulders.
Her pupils had also turned red, looking like glowing rubies.
The Rank One to Three abilities of the War Pathway had already been mentioned before, so they wouldn't be repeated here. After successfully advancing to Rank Four, War Freya also learned what class advancement this Rank Four potion granted:
【Warrior】!
However, the two new abilities she obtained at Rank Four made her feel a bit speechless. They were “Colossal Strength” and “Toughness.” True to their names, the former made her much stronger, while the latter made her physical body tougher, granting higher defensive power.
Comparing them horizontally, the Rank Four abilities of the Path of Life under the Earth Pathway were Companion Plant and life energy manipulation. Meanwhile, the Rank Four abilities of the General under the War Pathway were “Grant Adjutant” and One-Man Army. No matter how she looked at it, those sounded way cooler than just “having immense strength,” right?
But since this “immense strength” was ranked alongside other Rank Four abilities like life energy manipulation and One-Man Army, it proved that this strength was truly monstrous. As for exactly how strong... War Freya looked around. There was no way to test it right now, so she could only leave it for later.
As for the other ability, Toughness, War Freya looked down at her still slender arms and legs. Her skin was fair and smooth, with a faint, healthy rosy glow. No matter how she looked at it, she didn't seem like someone with boosted defense.
At this moment, Life Freya broke free from the real body's embrace and came to War Freya's side. She activated the Lifeform Modification ability and began to run a physical checkup on War Freya.
The results were absolutely shocking. She discovered that War Freya's lifeform had undergone an earth-shattering transformation. To put it one way, the “skin” that made War Freya look no different from an ordinary person was actually no longer human skin at all. Instead, it had turned into something else that merely looked like skin.
It still possessed the basic functions of human skin and felt soft to the touch, but its actual durability was terrifyingly high. It was no exaggeration to say that even if someone shot her with a small-caliber firearm now, it would at most leave a red mark and fail to penetrate at all!
And that was just her skin. Her muscles and bones were even harder!
...
Rate on N.U.
