A door opened in Argul’s view, and Alyra stepped through, closing the door behind her. “Hey, mom, congratulations on reaching level 5! You really made the flowers weirder again, hehe.”

He was happy too, having completed one of his short-term goals, though he had expected Alyra to sail in a bit earlier. “Thanks, Aly. And really? You say that only now after I finished the floor?”

She scratched herself behind her ear, embarrassed. “Yeah, I just couldn’t find a good moment to barge in.” 

Excitement filled her eyes again. “So, when do you want to try to create your avatar?”

Argul would squint at her if he could. “You only wanted to know that, didn’t you? I want to change my entrance options first, and then we can try to create a materialization spell for real.”

Alyra gleefully rubbed her hands together like some shady character in a bad movie. “Okaay. Hurry up, I can’t wait any longer!”

She was definitely a bit more excited than Argul. He already knew how it was to have a body and wasn’t sure if he wanted one back or not, primarily because of his past. Still, just for Alyra, he tried to do what he wanted to do a bit faster.

On his first five floors, there would be one entrance to the next floor for every 50km radius. They would stay in the range of their area but still relocate to a random location every time Argul’s strength increased. 

There would still only be one portal in the middle of the floor for now, and he wanted the outermost entrance of one floor to always go to the portal of the next floor, while the others would lead to random locations on the next floor.

His floors restructured themself a bit, and new entrances started to be carved out of the earth. Argul changed his view to the first floor and really looked at it for the first time in quite a while. 

It was pretty beautiful, and plants were blooming everywhere. Negators flew through the air, and you could see a slime springing somewhere now and then.

He breathed in heavily. “I’m ready, Aly.”

She had not left him this time, and her avatar had been aimlessly floating around in his view. Now she jumped up, and a fire lit up in her eyes that was a bit contagious. “Yes! Remember, no opening your eyes until I say so, and I will cut that info out of your domain skill for the moment too!” She could do things like that for limited amounts of time, though the stronger a being was, the less she could mess with its skills.

Argul had to laugh at that. “Okay, okay, no opening my eyes until you say so.”

Alyra bumped her fist into the air and raised her voice in even more excitement. “Now go for it!”

Argul was now a bit excited himself. He had no idea what his body would look like, but his method was the safest they had come up with.

He had to push all of his mana into an area in a single moment and with the intent of it representing himself. He also needed to leave a connection between his core and the point where he pushed his mana. 

This connection had nearly no cost, but it was the most challenging part of the spell. It was like creating thousands of magic missiles simultaneously without knowing how to cast the spell. That was precisely why Argul had to train this a bit, and without the stats he now had, it wouldn’t be possible.

He nearly messed up but managed to catch himself, saving the spell, and his vision went black. He shifted his weight slightly, noticing that he was standing on four legs. He would need to create a similar spell for a humanoid form, which would be much easier as he now roughly knew what to do.

His mouth felt a bit strange. It was longer than he remembered and bigger too. As he felt around with his tongue, he noticed that he had really sharp teeth. That was strange because he had never seen himself as someone predatory.

Argul was so curious that he nearly opened his eyes but remembered his promise to Alyra and stopped. Instead, he sniffed the air and was immediately assaulted by a motherload of different intense smells, only recognizing his own scent. It was again different from what he had smelled like in his previous life, but his instincts still told him that it came from his body.

With all these clues, he was pretty sure he had assumed the form of some kind of predator. Maybe there was some kind of hunger deep inside of himself that he didn’t acknowledge.

A sweet female voice sounded out. It came from somewhere in front of him. “You can open your eyes.”

Argul grunted a response only to surprise himself. His voice was not male and definitely not his old voice. It was higher and more feminine.

Argul opened his eyes, taking in the sight in front of him. As far as he could see, there was silver everywhere, with a few flowers in between. A gentle breeze shifted the branches of a tree that was about 50m away and to the left.

The sky was a darker blue than the Earth’s, and bright light shone everywhere. He couldn’t see a source for the light, and there was no point where it hurt to look at the sky.

The most eye-catching feature, though, was the white-furred creature that stood a few meters in front of him. He searched for something to compare its height to and chose the tree. The animal was obviously a predator, and he guessed it to be around 2 meters in height even though it was only half his own size.

Except for the height, it was pretty similar to an Arctic fox. It didn’t match exactly, and there were two differences that were plainly obvious.

First, starting from the nose of the creature, a red pattern moved across its face in a branch-like manner. 

Second, the ears were much like those of a caracal and relatively large in relation to the head. They stood upright, and there was more fur on them than what Argul remembered seeing on cats or foxes on Earth.

Argul looked at the tail of the creature and added another considerable difference. The large animal had three tails that were happily swaying from left to right.

The fox-like creature had also been the source of the voice, so it wasn’t all that difficult for Argul to connect it to Alyra, and he had to admit she was quite beautiful.

As he thought that, it suddenly clicked. He was looking down on Alyra, literally, and she was half his size! “Holy shit, I’m huge!”

Speaking was really awkward with a different mouth, but he had somehow managed it. Argul had also heard his own voice more clearly this time and didn’t know what to say. 

It just sounded nice and made him want to listen to it longer. He really liked it, but saying that out loud would be narcissistic.

Argul was about to look at himself when Alyra barked at him. “No looking at yourself! Let me describe you, but you have to describe me first!” Her three tails wagged in excitement.

Argul thought for a few seconds before answering, only barely managing not to look at himself. He was so damn curious! “Right, you look somewhat like a fox, but the most beautiful one I have ever seen. You are about two meters tall and have mostly white fur, the red mysterious looking pattern in your face being the exception.”

Argul had to grin, exposing his teeth in the process. “You have large upright standing ears and three, your excitement betraying, fluffy tails. I really want to hug you because damn!” 

During his description, Alyra’s tails had started to wag faster and faster, especially during the last sentence. 

Argul was now barely able to contain his curiosity. “So, what do I look like?” 

His voice sent shivers down his spine. He could melt hearing it and wasn’t really sure for how long he would manage to address himself as male. That it was just that perfect for his taste was a bit off-putting, but he would have to get used to it. His voice was likely a result of his spell.

Argul felt something shift near his behind and concluded that he had at least one tail himself.

Alyra smiled brilliantly at him. “You look like the most beautiful and best mother a daughter could ask for!” 

Argul felt heat rising in his face. He was not good with compliments. He looked at her and noticed she was doing it on purpose.

Alyra lowered her stance and started prowling toward him as if stalking prey. “Your voice is lovely, and going by your description, you really look like my mother. You have mat silver fur and 7 tails, but you don’t have any patterns, and your ears are super large and cute, and I want to touch them!!”

Now knowing he had fur, Argul was sure the fur in his face was red by the end of Alyra’s sentence. His tails were wagging really hard, and honestly, he was just super happy and glad to see Alyra right now.  

Having finished her talk, she tackled Argul with a jump and managed to somehow lift them both off the ground. They took a bit longer than Argul had expected to fall back down, and he remembered the low gravity, not that it mattered right now.

The impact didn’t hurt, and he wasn’t sure if that was because of his fur or all the grass they had just flattened.

Argul, lying on his side with a happy Alyra on top of him, snuggling into his fur, tried to move his body a bit. He had no idea how to move around in this body, and it took him a minute to snuggle his own large face into Alyra’s side, which made her giggle happily. 

They had both desperately wanted to have contact with the other, be it curiosity and the necessity to truly see his daughter for Argul or just the need to hug her mother for Alyra. 

A large silver fox lay on the first floor for a long time cuddling with her in comparison more petite daughter. All the animals on the floor made sure not to get near the two fearsome large and beautiful predators.

Alyra stood up and climbed down the side of her mother after a while and looked at Argul as if she expected something of him. 

Argul could only sigh and tried to stand up, immediately messing up and falling back on his side because he had a lot more power than he had expected to have. Stats, right. They still existed. 

Alyra had to laugh so hard that she fell over herself, which in turn made Argul laugh until they both just lay there, wheezing. Faceplanting because of incompetence was just that funny.

Afterward, Alyra taught Argul how to move in his new body. He had no idea how she was doing it but was thankful for the help. 

It took him about one hour to get used to it, but mostly because they had to laugh a lot about his mistakes. Once he was confident, Argul took off on the run, with Alyra racing after him. 

They had both been able to move anywhere they wanted on Argul’s floors, but now that they felt the wind, now that they could see and feel the other’s presence, it felt like they had attained freedom, and they enjoyed every single second of it.

Argul’s tails trailed behind him as he ran across the floor, and he noticed Alyra trying to catch them. He obliged, and they took turns playing tail catch while racing over Argul’s first floor, terrifying all the animals on the floor in the process. All but one.

It was a really happy day for the family and the worst one for every other creature on the floor, not that they cared.

Argul had to take a lot back. He loved having a body, loved feeling his body breathing and feeling the ground beneath his feet. There was just so much that his actual body did not offer in feelings that he hadn’t even been aware of in his first life. Now that he knew, though, he appreciated it all the more.

It took until the light started to dim for Argul to lie down next to a tree, still enjoying the feeling of having a body. He wanted to have a humanoid body, but he promised himself that he would take on his natural form when he was alone with Alyra and his friends. It just felt so much better in comparison to his old one.

Alyra snuggled against his side again, and Argul, following his instincts, started to clean and smooth out the fur of her/his daughter, which made Alyra purr really loud. Once he was done, Alyra did the same for him, and it was time for Argul to purr contently. 

After calming down, they both just lay there watching time fly by as they drifted into a comfortable sleep. 

This day had been an important one that had determined their relationship, and both Alyra and Argul were extremely happy with what had happened. A lot could have gone wrong between the daughter-mother pair, but they had had the best day of their lives.

Once his Avatar was asleep, Argul noticed that he could still operate his dungeon if he wanted. Thanks to the mana AI he could also just enjoy sleeping under the sky with his daughter.

She or he? Argul didn’t care anymore and decided to go with ‘she’ from now on. That didn’t mean she discarded her masculine side. She just added the feminine part to what was already there, embracing that she was both now. Changing her pronoun was just her way to further differentiate this life from her last one.

Back to the point, she still wanted to create her humanoid option but wanted to try doing so without making an entirely new skill. She added the intent of a humanoid body to the spell and started the formation but disrupted it before it could finish. Argul didn’t want to wake her daughter up.

Skill created! 

• Materialization

• You created a skill enabling beings without a body or a body that cannot move to walk the world.
• This skill will materialize a body that represents a being almost perfectly, as long as said being has no body or a body that cannot move. This skill will not work for any other beings.
• Skills this body gains, the main body will gain too, but the effects might be different.
• As this is a major skill that will change the future, you are awarded +1 for all stats.

Subskill created! 

• Materialization (humanoid)

• This skill enables beings without a body or ones unable to move to materialize a humanoid body to walk the world with.
• Requires Materialization. It is possible to change from one form to the other without disabling the skill first.

Satisfied with herself, Argul joined her daughter in the land of sweet dreams. The next day she would finally go through with her plan of freeing her daughter and herself.