Reborn As A Tentacle Monster - Chapter 3 Chapter 2

Hey system index or whatever your name is. Pull out my stats- Ack! What now!?

My eyes clamp down and my vision was slowly growing dimmer. No!!! I thought I clearly won that fight! Then in the blink of an eye, darkness was once again my friend.

*Flashback*

I hear faint yells in the distance of my own mind.

“Take it! It is our only hope!”

“What are you talking about Dr.Oaken?!”

“You have to take it! You must! I am sorry my young apprentice!”

“No! Get away from me!”- I see a young boy with brown hair, only the back of his head. He is wearing a wool necklace with a crystal key attached in the bottom.

Is that my voice? Is that Dr. Oaken? I walk around in my dark mindscape. Is this some kind of dream? Or a nightmare? I then see a faint vision of an old man with a shaved grey beard holding a sharp metallic needle device in his hands.

What the hell is he holding?

“Listen to Dr.Oaken, my son! We have no time they are coming!-”

“Father is that you!?” I yell out in the depths of my mind.

I hear frantic screams in the background and see falling skyscraper towers on fire.

Then out of nowhere a horrific grim looking massively tall humanoid-being, laced in black armor and wearing a skull-shaped helmet with long serrated teeth and horns, was eating human beings who were running for their lives. The giant creature coldly stares down at me. Its gleaming black lifeless eyes peered deep into my soul. Then it spoke in a dark menacing tone.

“Boros Ventros Hexos!” Mist expelled from the spiky helmet visor as it spoke those unreadable words.

I stumbled back and fall. Is this my human body? I look at my hands and there were translucent like a ghost. The tall armored humanoid-creature walked closer to me with its metal boots earthquaking my brain. It reaches out its dragon-sized hands and screeches,”Boros Ventros Hexos!” A sonic boom of wind smacks up against my face.

“Get away from me!” I screamed in the endless dark abyss of my mind.

I suddenly open my eye’s wide and shake my head. My vision is back, but know it’s kind of fuzzy. Wait am I still a tentacle monster? I lift up my hands and see the strangest thing I have ever seen. Even stranger than the slimes.

I see a fusion of zombified human hands and shredded octopus tentacles! Fingers were sticking at the end of my tentacles, what is this madness?! I look down and see a pair of boney human legs that were wrapped around hundreds of smaller tentacles. I open my mouth and scream at my ghastly transformation. At least I can open my mouth now. I think I am in my human body mixed in with my tentacle beast form.

A Growl and rumble sound echoes across the cave.

[Warning You are malnourished! Rejection of beast form activated! Death is Imminent!]

[Slimes are not a prime mana force meal. Your primal stage is weakening by 5 seconds counting]

(You have 1min to find a mana force)

My stomach feels like it’s going to explode!

“Blarrrrgggh!” My eyeball’s vomited out blood and slime juices all over the cave walls. Fucking slimes are so useless they can’t even be eaten! How can they not be a prime food source! I hopelessly stared at my freakish alien-like hands. It was a horrific sight. I looked like some kind of Xenomorph fuck up.

[Critical Condition! HP: 5%]

What the fuck have I become! Haven’t I been through enough already? Judging from my past life it fared no different than this. Cursed to always be an abomination. Looked upon as an outcast. Tch. Screw that!

I blinked my eyes to use my clone skill in order to make more of myself to search for food that is bio-gradable. But nothing happens.

[ Warning: You do not have enough mana force to active clone skill. Good luck surviving!] *Informs the bitchy system index*

“Then what other choices are there to replenish my mana force?” I asked.

[ How should I know?] the system index replies in a monotonous voice.

“God. You really are a fucking bitch.” I hissed as my freakish arms moved everywhere.

[Sorry, I don’t quite understand your request.]

“Heres one. How about you help me out!” I angrily gargle out blood and roll around in hellish pain.

[The clock is ticking. Tik Tok (20s left until rejection of human cells and DNA)] Mocked the system index.

I see how it is. I swallow hard. I always do everything alone anyway.

Fuck it! I have no other choice than this! I bravely roar out.

I lifted up my mutated tentacle human hands or whatever the fuck it is and sink my teeth inside it. I started to rip and tear off my scaly skin piece by piece. Greyish disgusting blood grossly gushes against my face. The rotten corpse dead smell and salty blood iron taste made me gag uncontrollably. My stomach churned and grouched with a sickly growl. I felt like dying honestly. At this point, dying was better than what the fuck I was eating. I kept on devouring myself, it seemed like hours had passed. But I really only took two bites until I puke out human bloody fingers and tentacles. This is just the best meal I have ever had. Ha, fuck my life. I wonder what my family, Dr. Oaken, and friends(If I had any) would actually think of this. I felt disgusted and mind-fucked about my own sanity right now. I swallowed as much of myself as I could. It tasted like eating a rotten fish that had been left out in the sun for years.

[HP:5+6(11%) You have found a sustainable mana force. Reverting back to beast form.]

Hands down, this is the craziest day of my life. I don’t care what anyone says. First I slaughter talking slimes and now I am eating myself. Massacre and cannibalism in one day. Things escalate quickly, don’t they? In this fucking moment, I really wanted know why I was reborn as a tentacle monster and I wanted to know what just fucking happened, did I turn back into a human for a brief moment?

“Hey, bitch open my stats screen already,” I say aloud.

[You know I have a name! Wait I don’t]

“I can give you one. But from now on you help me out.” I kindly offered while spitting out blood from my eyehole.

[ Fine, go ahead. I will be turning into talking mode in your mindscape to save aura energy]

“How about Althera? Does it sound good?” I changed it up the name a little, but I was obviously inspired by the Greek name which means healer.

“Y-yes it is an excellent name!” Altheara exclaims. “But you can still call me system index if you like.” She cutely mumbles.

“By the way who made you?” I asked as I flex around my huge eyeball.

“Sorry. I cannot answer your question.” She snapped. Geez way to change your attitude.

“Why not?” I said as I wiggle around my regenerating tentacles.

“Because of the Codex Rule.” She firmly implored.

“Fine then just bring my stats up. I have been itching to see what my stats look like now.” I crack my tentacles forward, oh snap they don’t have bones.

“Will do. By the way, do you have a name?” Asks Althera.

“Not really. I will eventually find out my name and I will find out about my past. I will also figure out why I was reborn as this tentacle beast. I would like to also explore this world. The reason I am being nice to you is that you are the only reasonable person here. Or for a better lack of a term, you are the only entity I can talk to without my mindscape. There are probably a bunch of creatures in this cave that want to kill me. Now that I mention it, where are we exactly? In a dungeon?” I asked while scanning through my status screen with my tentacle.

Name: Unknown

Race: Tentacle Monster

Class: N/A

HP:11/50 Shield: 0

Level: 1

Rank: Bronze

Mana Force: 2/12

Cultivation Power: 1

Attack: 9 +2: [11]

Agility: 2

Defense: 8 +1 : [9]

Magic:11

Intelligence: 7

Karma:0

Willpower: 5

——————————————-

[Skills]

>>Past Skills<<

Tentacle Smash(Tier 1)

All seeing eye(Tier 1)

Mindscape(Tier 1)

[ New Skills ]- (All tier 1)

[ Absorb]: You can absorb any mana force creature, item, and cores. Be warned of what you absorb. (Span 5s)

[Regeneration]: You can grow back any part of your body. (Span 10s)

[Slime Clone]: Your body will multiply by a maximum of 12 clones. (Span 5s)

[Tentacle Shield]: A spherical shield made with the manna source and aura of your tentacles. (span 5s)

——————————————-

[Evolution Bloodline]:

Slime Skin added! You can now change your body form into a slime!

[Growth]: Body:[ Height:9ft , Width: 10ft] Tentacles :[Height 12ft]

——————————————-

I was waiting for Althera’s response but was too engrossed with my stats. After all, if I was to survive in this new world then I would have to utilize every tool to its fullest potential. My attack is now higher than my magic, nice. I, however, would like to learn some spells to enhance my magic. It would be cool to throw out fireballs or shot out thunderbolts from my tentacles. Maybe even learn a summoning spell. The new skills I have gained are tentacle absorb, tentacle regeneration, and tentacle shield; Perfect for defense. Then for my attack, I have slime clone, which I really want to test out. To bad my mana force is in the danger zone. I think I will have 12 mana force once I heal up. I assume that’s why I couldn’t use slime clone when I was in that freaky alien tentacle form. Anyways what is taking so long for Althera to answer me?

“Um Althera are we in a dungeon? Or not?” I asked again with a more deep and demanding tone.

“Not exactly.”

________<>________

As my body reverted back to its original huge eyeball form, I start to focus on the important task ahead to ensure my survival. I need to take a second good look at where I am, this time by using All seeing eye. I focused my vision ahead and start moving around in circular motion to scan the north, south, west, and east vicinity of the cave I am in. My vision extended throughout the cave. I could see all four different directions at the same time with my All seeing eye. To my surprise there seemed to be no flicker of light expelling from an entrance area of the cave. This means I was in total darkness, which begs the question. How is everything lit up so clearly? Did I have a nocturnal vision?

“Correct. Well, not entirely. You see this whole cave is being illuminated by that.” Althera said. In my mindscape, I imagine her as a gorgeous busty girl with sapphire hair pointing somewhere ahead.

“By what exactly,” I glare around and see nothing. Then a swarm of tiny butterflies with glowing violet wings appeared in front of me.

“What are those things?” I asked.

[ Auraflies- A harmless bug who’s whole body is made up entirely of aura and mana force. It drinks and digests mana force from nearby lakes and waterfalls. Power level:1 ]

“You got to kidding me. So I could have eaten those things!” I angrily declared while slapping my tentacles against my face.

“Haha. You would have to consume about 1 million of those feeble creatures to get even 1 buffer of manna force.” Althera gleefully chuckled.

My eyes squint downward in disapproval and spite. “I will never understand women.” I sigh in my mind.

“How do you know I am a woman? I can be a man for you all know.” Implies Althera in a sly A.I tone.

“Because you have a feminine voice” I stated the obvious.

“Ah, you have much to learn.”

I ignore her or whatever gender, you know what who cares. I scuttle around to look for a resting spot. Any carter or cranny will do. All I needed is a space in which I can easily camouflage and be completely invisible. Thus my search begins.

Althera was right about one thing, this wasn’t exactly a common dungeon or a cave, back in my world I would explore caves of all types to search for new specimens and a new energy source to help our dying world. Inside those caves, there were many rock formations that had been formed by erosion and the planets extremely sporadic weather. But in this cave, every rock, icy stalactite, and the soil itself looked and felt to be untouched by the outside weather for years. Strange very strange. What’s more, those Greek statues from before seem to be in pristine condition as well, aside from a few little cracks here and there.

I move my tentacles around the ground to feel any vibrations of a pit formed underground. Bingo.

I finally found a burrow worthy enough to hide in. I guess being blind in my past life paid off. I would always touch and feel things in order to navigate my path. Focusing my hearing and my smelling also helped as well. After the whole ordeal of killing slimes and eating myself, it seemed that my vision was slowly fading back to its original state. Soon I would be blind again if I don’t find a proper feeding source. With the rest of my strength and stamina, I left up a large builder about the same size as my body. I then glance down to see a big enough carter for me to fit in. Finally, I can rest. But before I do. I wanted to ask a few questions to Althera.

My tentacles quickly moved around to use the same torch from the slime massacre and create an open fire. I sat on a nearby rock and watched the bright orange flames crackle.

“Althera I want to ask you a few questions before I rest.”

“I can oblige to your request. However you may only answer five questions, for I am tired as well. Yawwn!”

“But you’re a program? Do you even sleep?” My eyes widen in confusion of her response.

“I don’t know what I am.” She coldly replies. I could hear the uncertainty of her voice.

“I am sorry, that was rude of me. Let me ask the first question- What exactly is the tentacle monster race?” I showcase my tentacles and poke my large spherical eye to visual the question for Althera.

“I need to know your blood origin in order to fully answer your question. Every beast and creature of Zareth has a blood origin. Through many myths and legends, the beast bloodline comes from one single potent powerful force.”

“Which is mana and primal force?” I cut her off.

“No. I will say that your race is amongst the most intriguing of all beast. But I can’t go into detail without your blood origin or without confirming your beast class. Next question.”

“Tell me about the world Zareth.” If I had a face, my lips would be smirking wide of anticipation of hearing about this new magical world.

“Hmph. Ask someone else I am not your tour guide!” Althera huffed in a sassy tone.

“Are you serious!?”

“Ugh to be honest I haven’t seen the outside world of Zareth in awhile.” Althera sighed and groaned at her awful predicament.

“Dammit, do you know anything?” I snarled with a sarcastic blink.

“Yes, I do! I know everything! It just has been awhile, I am a prototype system index after all.”

“Prototype?” I said with my large eyeballs furrowed.

“You see, beast do not use the system. So I guess you can say that you might be the first who can. My creator discarded me and I had to search for a new vessel. ”

“Well, this changes everything” Filled with pride and ego I do a couple of air punches with my tentacles.

“Three more questions. Hurry up.” Althera yawns again.

“You didn’t even answer my first two!”

“Oh, how painfully tragic.”

“Ugh, you are something else. Fine. I will actually now ask you two straight questions. What is mana force and cultivation power?” I start working out my tentacles by lifting up nearby rocks with all eight of my tentacles.

“Alchemist and other magic users use mana force to summon glyphs and use magic techniques through a grimoire or scroll. Manna force is, by all means, the source of life in Zareth. Every living creature has mana force, even the slimes you devoured do. Unluckily for you though, slimes have a rich toxic mana force supply. That’s why you almost died. I wish I could have done something to help you, but II don’t have a body to do anything.” Althera muttered with gloom in her robotic voice.

“Don’t worry about it. We all feel defenseless at one point in our life. What about the cultivation question?”

“Oh right. Cultivation power is how much you train your mind, body, manna force, soul, and how much your powers grow. There is no cap limit on cultivation power, the highest tier is that of the Gods, but you can go higher. Your ‘Level’ is affected by cultivation as well. The cap on your level is unknown.” Althera stuttered to say her words since she was taken back by my kind response.

“Good to know. Final question. Why was I reborn? And what does ‘Boros Ventros Hex’ mean?” I saved this question last for a reason, well two. I wanted to figure out what the armor humanoid monster said to me and I needed to know what Dr. Oaken wanted me to take and what everyone in my past world was running from. And why did I wear a necklace with a key on it?”

“I have no clue on why you were reborn. I am merely a system index that was given to you. Though I will say reincarnation was a theory alchemist sought out most. There was once an ancient grimoire that goes deep into the process of reincarnation, but that is classified information. As for the language you spluttered out, it is in beast tongue. You need a maiden, withcer, or spell caster to translate that ancient beast language. Well, I will be leaving. You know what to do when you want to active me. Goodbye, terrific tentacle monster.” Althera’s voice slowly fades away into the distance of my mind.

I have a lot to think about. Dammit!I forgot to ask Althera if I can revert back to human form! Ugh, for now, I need to rest and not die. 11 HP is not really a safe zone. I tiredly stretched out my tentacle arms and approach my new perfect carter-sized hideout, suddenly I hear a screeching young girlish voice, “Please someone help me! Anyone!Eyaaahhhh!”

Can a tentacle monster get some damn rest?