Bro, I'm not an Undead!

[Your flesh and bones are augmented. A factor of 9 applies]

[Your flesh and bones are augmented. A factor of 5 applies]

[Your flesh and bones are augmented. A factor of 9 applies]

....

['High Cosmetic Body' levelled up!]

['High Cosmetic Body' has reached LV20. Would you like to evolve it into its next form?]

Skullius breathed out while dropping the last of the Enriching gems he had been absorbing; red ones with hints of green and pure green ones.

His body was close to saturation for the former and at least halfway through for the later. Still, given that it required 10,000 Enriching gems with the red and green hue within them and about 25,000 for the pure green ones to reach saturation, Skullius had covered quite some ground.

He had absorbed roughly 9,000 of the mixed gems and close to 12,000 of the pure green gems which gave a lot to his stats – the red green Enriching gems gave 5 points of constitution a piece and when a factor of 100 constitution points were reached, 45 stats points were allotted to his five stats namely Strength, Agility, Endurance, Health and Mana, while the green gems gave 9 points of constitution a piece and 60 stat points when a factor of 100 was reached.

Over the past weeks, Skullius had gotten a total of 14,850 stat points for each of his stats, which caused a very generous reaction from his Supreme skill, [High Cosmetic Body].

With these values in mind, Skullius could understand why some of the Master Stage experts he had seen had such absurd values in stats and in truth, even with this, he was not quite on the highest tier of physical power yet.

Mankind was definitely cheating. Enriching gems had Absolute Conversion properties to cater to all despite the differences in cores, which made this a heavy advantage for humans.

Not that beasts could really protest anyway.

Yet even with all this, Skullius wasn't really concerned about figures. This was but a secondary issue. If physical strength was all it took to rule the world, then there was no real benefit to diversity.

"Yes. Let's evolve this thing," Skullius gave a response to the guidance field's enquiry.

Red Rage was silently watching from the skies while also monitoring the surroundings to ensure that no one would crash the party.

After all, he and his master had a mission to finish.

The large blue-purple Cluster a distance from them wasn't going to clear itself. If not for Skullius insisting to get some skill of his evolved before they entered, they would have been halfway through by now.

That was a lie.

"Oh, something interesting is happening!" Red Rage said as he watched Skullius' flesh body wriggle madly as if the flesh was restructuring, the bones doing a rhumba dance within!

'Here we go again,' Skullius thought as he closed his eyes and gave himself up to the process. Last time he had evolved this skill from [Flesh It Like You Mean It], he had ballooned up before being reshaped into a more beautiful version of himself with additions to stats and skills like [Hyped] which had been forcibly evolved to [Beyond the Hype] and [Null Life Aura].

The latter was attained because [High Cosmetic Body] allowed Skullius to obtain skills from his Penetrator form whenever he evolved and Skullius was very much looking forward to what he would get next.

Sadly, racial and class skills probably couldn't be attained easily but the Hybrid Luman would take whatever he could get.

Surprisingly, his body didn't inflate like before.

Qualitative changes appeared over him subtly.

His height grew a bit. Only a bit and this turned out to be the most tame change.

His light auburn hair turned a bit lighter while its edges as it was slicked back got a deep orange shade that stylized the Hybrid Luman's look a lot.

His skin became lighter, different from the beauty of turning pale, gaining a smooth caramel sheen and a fuller look to it that hid the more pronounced masculine features Skullius had before. Right now, one could tell that he was male but his beauty and handsomeness struck quite a fine balance that made him easy on the eyes.

A bit too easy on the eyes.

Factoring in how his shoulders became broader, his muscles becoming a bit thicker and several degrees harder, the Hybrid Luman wouldn't look like someone who was still in the Advancement Stage at all.

One would overestimate the stage he was at.

"Is that...?"

Following the minute changes to his appearance, the most pronounced features within Skullius loaded within his interior.

['High Cosmetic Body' has evolved into 'Great Celestial Counterfeit']

[Your body is has begun the initial process of ascendant modification, morphing your suppressed aspects into their optimal forms]

[Please be patient...]

Skullius' body twitched.

"Ascendant modification, huh?" he wondered.

The Hybrid Luman felt everything within him whirring and burning, these sensations that he felt inside humming delighted tunes as if pleased with the process currently ongoing.

Then...

[Your <CURSED HEART> grows stronger. Your <MORTAL RUIN> production increases!]

[Your <CURSED BLOOD> grows stronger! Your <MORTAL RUIN> grows tremendously sharper!]

[Your <HEAVY PILLAR FRAME> grows stronger! Your <MORTAL RUIN> grows sturdier!]

[+8,000 to all Stats]

[The hidden embers of a powerful race hidden in your blood burn slightly brighter, awaiting further release]

[+28,000 to Mana]

[+12,000 to Health]

[Your 'Wing of the Just' grows vastly stronger]

'Hmmm? Hidden embers?' Skullius thought.

Because of his interactions with a certain Sif Princess, he worked out what this was within a moment as the additions to his stats made sense when he thought about it.

'That's my Luminant race, I guess. Does this mean it can undergo some kind of awakening if it's pushed far enough?' Skullius thought.

Frankly, Skullius got the impression that this new skill [Great Celestial Counterfeit] was merely a preparation.

Heck, it even said that.

If he was a Luminant in the same way Darwel described, then he should be vastly stronger and that was without tying in [Son of Luserus].

"Tsk!" Skullius couldn't help but click his tongue when thinking about that damned skill.

The prompts from the guidance field were yet to end though, as while the Hybrid Luman thought about all this, several rather shocking notifications that gave Skullius a true impression as to what [Great Celestial Counterfeit] was, appeared.

[You have awakened the organ 'Omniscient Thought Cracker']

[You have awakened the natural skill 'Celestial Hack']

---

[Author's Note]

Small Recap.

Enriching gems increase constitution by a certain value depending on their colour – purple, red, green, blue. Their colour depends on the Cluster they are taken from. When the value of constitution given by a specified. Enriching gem reaches 100, they offer stat points that depend on their rank.