So I’m a Fish, So What?

“Proficiency has reached the required level. Skill...”

“Condition satisfied....”

“Skill...”

A female voice enters my ears, awakening me from my deep slumber.

I try to open my eyes, but my eyelids feel so heavy.

Struggling for a couple of moments, I’m finally able to half-open them.

My surroundings are pitch-black and Night Vision isn’t working, I can’t see anything.

Ah... right. My skills were all disabled for some reason, I should forget about the system for a bit and utilize my usual method of seeing.

However, I soon discover that my Spatial Awareness sphere isn’t working either.

This... isn’t supposed to happen, Spatial Awareness was never included inside the system nor integrated into Daughter of Space.

It was always my own ability, included inside my soul core and isolated from the outside world.

Without leaving me enough time to figure out why, a beam of light suddenly descends from above and shines on a lonely figure right in front of my eyes.

... I didn’t even realize someone else was there.

It seems that even my super intuition isn’t working.

My half-opened eyes only transfer a blurry picture, but I can make out the basic features of a female figure.

Shoulder-length silver hair that fades into blue at the edges, blue feathery ears that turn amber at the tips, and a pair of wings sprouting from her waist with the same color scheme as her ears.

Only her hunched upper body is visible, everything from the waist down seems to be enveloped in some space distortion.

Her cold emotionless voice echoes through our surroundings.

“Condition satisfied. Acquired title...”

Suddenly, her head snaps up and I’m greeted by a pair of dull silver-green eyes,

That emotionless, almost-mechanical gaze gives me goosebumps.

A strange uncomfortable feeling passes through my body, as if those eyes are looking past my body and staring right at my soul.

I get that same ominous premonition I had a few hours ago when a certain evil goddess uncovered my true soul even without intuition.

Unlike last time however, I feel that its purpose is to appraise my worth rather than D’s simple but cruel curiosity.

It’s the second time this happens to me yet I still have no method of resisting, it’s like I’m meat on the chopping block.

Those eyes soon discover the newly recovered illusory veil around my true soul and I feel their intent to tear it up again.

A shadowy silhouette suddenly condenses between me and those eyes however, its obsidian black eyes squinting back at the invader.

After what seems like years, their staring contest ends with the owner of green eyes withdrawing.

The shadowy figure then disappears, but not before turning back and giving me a wink.

I promptly find myself back in front of that hunched figure, but not for long.

“Evolution completed.”

“Individual race has become Illsoir Mejer.”

My consciousness starts to fade again, but that voice reaches my ear one last time before I fall back into slumber.

“Help. It hurts.”

 

 

Waking up, my confusion-filled eyes snap open.

... Was that what they call a dream? Or was it a nightmare?

It’s the first time I experience such a phenomenon anyways.

However, with the exception of the confrontation between those two figures, the rest was oddly familiar...

The gears in my mind start turning as I search through my memories.

Then it hit me, that guy Shun had a similar dream in the anime!

It happened at the time when they were traversing the Great Elroe Labyrinth after being declared rebels or something.

Also, that winged woman’s figure was shown a couple of times in the snippets of information Taboo gave Kumoko upon it reached level 10!

... Both my strength and information are nowhere close to the threshold required to intervene in those matters.

This shit’s waaay above my paygrade!! Why the heck are you pulling me into this?!

 

{Evolution completed.}

{Individual race has become Illsoir Mejer.}

{All basic attributes have increased.}

{Skill proficiency evolutionary bonus acquired.}

{Proficiency has reached the required level. Acquired skill [Phantom Runes LV 1].}

{Skill [Phantom Runes LV 1] has been integrated into skill [Soul Seeker].}

{Proficiency has reached the required level. Acquired skill [Magic Power Operation LV 1].}

{Proficiency has reached the required level. Acquired skill [Magic Power Perception LV 1].}

{Skill points acquired.}

 

Hooh? So, I get a unique racial skill and both of the skills required for using magic.

A few of my skills leveled up with the proficiency bonus as well.

Not gonna lie, that was unexpectedly anti-climactic...

I was expecting a bunch of broken skills and titles after everything I went through to earn this evolution.

“And broken skills you got, little fish. Here, have this one as well before I forget.”

 

{Condition satisfied. Acquired title [Champion].}

{Acquired skills [Destruction Enhancement LV 1] [Status Condition Resistance LV 1] as a result of title [Champion].}

 

“Ah...? Thank you, O’ almighty smartphone goddess!”

“It’s evil goddess, not smartphone goddess! Geez, what a handful you are... Now go, give me more of those novel entertaining scenes.”

“As long as I get a reward that’s worth my efforts—sure.”

To be honest, I’d rather not agree to anything this woman asks of me, but she probably won’t take my opinion into consideration anyways.

You know what they say, if you can’t beat them, join ‘em!

Asking for more rewards and entertaining her is more realistic than telling her to stop anyways!

Leaving that aside, I’m craving some of that heavenly wyrm sashimi right now.

My current location is still at the now-dead jellyfish’s nest, this place will remain safe until some other predator decides to move in, so it was a good spot to evolve in.

However, I noticed a problem as soon as I moved which forced me to temporarily abandon my plans and go back down.

Sage’s high processing power normally lets me adapt to any changes in my body parameters without any conscious effort on my end, but the stat increase seems to have exceeded the limit this time.

I had intended to leisurely swim up while checking the changes in my appraisal results, but I found myself zooming through the water in a way that makes it seem as if physics decided to go on a vacation.

The water resistance effect on me dropped sharply as a result of a drastic increase in both strength and speed.

Even with my huge mental power, it’ll take me a few minutes to adapt and regain the fine control I had over my body.

Better check my status and new appearance before I do anything, some naughty goddess might’ve played with the number to mess with me after all.

 

 

Going through the results by order, my eyes first land on the stats.

... Yup, this is totally messed up.

I mean, Ruler of Greed’s stats increase might’ve just skyrocketed with my evolution, but that doesn’t explain why both speed and stamina got a huge increase as well.

The culprit quickly becomes clear though—a new skill I don’t even remember acquiring and one that even comes with a title.

Mischief— a ruler skill that I’m pretty sure was made exclusively for me.

The ruler skills inside the system are the Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Heavenly virtues, anything else is an anomaly.

For example, Kumoko’s Wisdom skill was created by D on a whim and now, my own Mischief skill seems to have come about due to similar reasons.

 

{Mischief: n% of the power to reach godhood. Choose one target to decrease their presence parameters to the extent that even gods would subconsciously ignore them. In addition, the W system is surpassed and the right to interfere with the ＭＡ field is obtained.}

 

Now don’t get me wrong, this skill is overpowered, and its user would be a nightmare to their enemies.

The user can just choose themselves as a target, waltz wherever they want undetected, gather all the information they can find, and slaughter their enemies without anyone finding out what happened.

Thing is, even with all of those ridiculous advantages, that would only be using a maximum of 10% of the skill’s true strength.

Its true strength lies in the latter part of its effect—Even gods would subconsciously ignore them.

Mortals can’t normally damage gods, so this phrase would just be seen as flavor text.

However, the soul-afflicting poison recipe I’ve recovered from that laboratory can deal damage to mortals and divines alike.

The jellyfish might’ve even been able to fight lower gods in its heyday, so imagine combining that with Mischief.

So, I’m the fish that this skill deserves!

Then there are the effects of the ruler title.

 

{Ruler of Mischief: Acquired skills [Trickster] [Shapeshifting]. Acquisition conditions: Obtain [Mischief] skill. Effect: Each ability of speed and SP rise. Lifts the ban on Item Creation-type skills. +Correction to Creation type skill proficiencies. Grants ruling class privileges. Description: A title granted to one who’s conquered Mischief.}

 

The effects are quite strange, right? It’s the first time I’ve even heard of a creation-type classification.

Poison synthesis was thrown under that tab though, so I can guess its effects.

Reincarnations might think the system is incomplete as it lacks many crafting skills while most of the included skills are geared towards combat, but this proves them wrong.

The W system is D’s creation, and even if it was made for entertainment, adding in crafting skills is practically effortless for her.

She just decided to impose a ban on them, requiring some unknown conditions to lift.

I don’t know why she did it, but what I’m sure of is that any person who lifts this ban will automatically become the most wanted in the entire world.

Just think about it for a minute, humans would pay a huge price to get their hands on a monster with Poison Synthesis because it’s theoretically an infinite source of poison.

Now, Imagine what’d happen if there was a way to create equipment from pretty much thin air!

Whoever has that ability would be a literal walking treasure trove for which kingdoms and empires wouldn’t hesitate to start wars.

Ruler of Mischief goes above and beyond as it lifts the ban on ALL creation-type skills. Freaking all of them!

Poison Synthesis, Medicine Synthesis, Magic Item Creation, Weapon creation, etc... I might even be able to get a thread skill!

I can get all of those as long as I devote a small period of time to learning the craft.

The people who’d want to catch me wouldn’t just be limited to humans, but to any race with a smidgen of intelligence out there.

... How troublesome.

Yup, I knew it.

D’s rewards must always have some insane hidden trap.

The fact that there’s no note indicating that Sage has turned off the title’s hidden effect says a lot.

 

{Trickster: Achieve ultimate body control without surpassing the W system.}

 

This one is rather vague.

My first impression upon reading this is that it’s a complex skill that integrates all types of movement skills like swimming, flight, etc...

But High-Speed Swimming wasn’t integrated into it which means I’m wrong.

Looking back through my system notification log, I’m still unable to decipher its true principle, but it seems to integrate movement skills that defy science in some form.

For example, it’s impossible for a living creature to fully control its body temperature regardless of outside factors in the way Heatless works, the same goes for odor and sound and their respective skills. Those skills defy biology.

Evasion is rather vague in this aspect, as I had thought it to be more of a probability-altering skill from the same vein that Probability Correction comes from, but it seems that it actually works by allowing your body to do minute movements that would normally be impossible. This defies both biology and physics, I guess.

I don't know how strong its effect is, but hopefully it can allow me to do some matrix shit in my future fights.

Then there’s Shapeshifting.

 

{Shapeshifting: Consume stamina to morph your appearance into whatever you want. Limited to a one-size difference, bigger sizes continuously consume stamina.}

 

The description is quite simple, yet confusing at the same time.

Basically, if my base body size is medium-scale, I can permanently shapeshift into any small and medium size at a one-time red SP cost.

However, if I try to morph into a large-scale creature, red SP is consumed at a continuous rate relative to the difference in size instead.

It’s impossible to shapeshift into tiny and giant-scale targets though.

Another cool aspect is that you get the basic biological functions of the creature you morph into.

Or in easy terms, I can now temporarily change into a human body!

Humans are medium-scale creatures, so I’d have to keep on eating in order to offset the continuous consumption, but it’s a start anyways.

I wonder how much my appearance changed after this evolution...