Bloodlines of the Ancient Pantheons

Chapter 493: CDXCIII. The Requirements

After a few seconds of admiring the aesthetic beauty of his gift, Dag read it aloud: "For the use of this skill you need to have both your hands free, without holding weapons. Once the wolf warrior or anyone else has already activated a shape-shifting ability, the skill can be activated."

"Seen? I can't do that. You have to be a wolf or another shapeshifter soldier... I don't meet these requirements" he added, looking at Freydis, who looked back, trying to make him realize he was wrong.

"What? Do you think my dark power can be used as a 'shape-shifting skill'? I recently discovered that they come from dark matter, the same matter that the tissue of the universe is made of, I don't think it had anything to do with shape-shifting. Anyway, let's see..." 

Dag pointed his finger back at the scroll, reading aloud what Freydis's beautiful handwriting said: "By concentrating on the breath and touching a source of intense heat, the warrior will have to expel a considerable amount of air from his lungs, to increase body heat. When these requirements are met, the warrior's hands will change in shape and size, and the claws will become as hard as steel, ensuring effective cutting force even against the toughest armor, with thermal energy that will contribute to the process."

"Expel a significant amount of air from the lungs? What does it mean? Blow?" Freydis asked naively, trying to perform those movements in her mind.

"I think you need to trivially... scream" Dag concluded, looking Freydis in the eye and unable to hold back a laugh.

"Scream? Everyone would scream by touching a heat source! Ahaha! I had the same reaction as you when I transcribed that part! I hope this scroll isn't just a fake! The title seemed original to me and so I continued" she said, justifying why she had decided to finish her translation work and hand it over to Dag.

"Well, when we'll finish tomorrow's mission, hoping that its outcome will be positive, I'll start practicing this technique, trying not to burn my hands completely and see if anything happens. Now we have more important things to think about" he replied, who after finishing reading the scroll, closed it and put it back in his bag, making sure not to ruin it and making sure all the things useful to the start were already in there.

"As you will. I'm glad you liked my gift. Let's go to bed now, we need some rest" she smiled as she began to climb the stairs and head for the bed.

Dag finished eating and drinking the last things on the table, making sure there was no other food hidden somewhere, and then followed his woman, giving a caress to Thalos, who, like the day before, fell asleep at the hottest spot in the house, by the fireplace.

Once they were under the fur blankets, Freydis turned to the other side, approaching her back to Dag's chest, which hugged her and placed his chin on her head, wrapping her completely and helping her retain her body heat.

As he stroked her hair, she fell into a deep sleep, so deep that she slept with her mouth open. 

Dag, on the other hand, strangely could not sleep, despite fatigue and a full stomach, rethinking what would happen the next day.

He had in mind the map shown to him by Kranus and had now memorized all the most important details, such as the location of the largest cities and the main points of interest of Krypstorm, which according to Kranus and the other two warriors, was entirely depicted on that old map.

The night fell over Tungvek and the window lights turned off one at a time, leaving the city plunged into darkness, but Dag still couldn't sleep. 

Slowly, he detached himself from Freydis's body, being careful not to wake her, and got out of bed, not making any noise thanks to its soft fur-covered surface.

On tiptoe, barefoot, he descended the steps leading to the chimney area and approached Thalos, who opened his eyes.

"I can't sleep, my friend. Keep us company. I'll let you rest in a little while, I promise you" he whispered in his wolf's ears, that involuntarily move to that sound.

After sitting on the ground by the fireplace, next to Thalos, Dag continued to think, staring at the fire that burned the last pieces of wood, which somehow reminded him of the farm and the lumberjack's work of his late father and his brother, who was surely continuing that old job in Jernhest or who knows where.

When the wave of melancholy ended, his gaze fell on his bag, in which was the scroll Freydis gave him.

"All right, okay... a night reading can only do me good... in a few minutes, I will try to sleep again. Maybe the energy I spent getting out of bed made me a little tired" he thought, crawling up to the bag and scrolling through the skill translation, looking at Freydis out of the corner of his eye, making sure she didn't wake up.

Dag spent about an hour next to the fireplace reading and rereading the parchment, guessing it was a level 2 skill from the Claws Of Fenrir Clan. 

To understand all the useful details, he just had to make a comparison with the original scroll, which like all those of his library at Temple of Orn and those of the other Clans, had the same paragraphing and style, differing only by the alphabet.

When his eyes began to close, he put the two pieces of paper in place and went back upstairs, entering the bed on tiptoe and lifting the blankets with extreme delicacy, leaving Freydis in her dream world and falling asleep next to her after a few minutes.

...

"Hey! Hey, wake up sleepyhead! We have to leave Tungvek, remember? Hahah, you're the one who proposed the departure date!" 

Freydis' voice echoed through his ears, and his eyes opened timidly, noting that there was no light around him, because of the closed windows and the fact that it was only dawn.