The Rise of the Winter Wolf - Book 2 - Chapter 43 - Another New Species

Wolf

As soon as I finish reading the notification, a description menu appears in its place. I ignore the still roaring monster to read the description with a look of anticipation on my face.

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Harbinger Lycanthrope

New Benefits:

Your venom can change any creature into an Arctic Lycanthrope.

This will not only increase the creature’s physical abilities and senses, but it will also grant them shapeshifting and ice manipulation powers dependent on the purity of the venom.

The venom of every Arctic Lycanthrope drops in purity in each generation, making each lycanthrope turned have a less pure venom when compared with the lycanthrope that turned them.

The consequence of being turned by a Lycanthrope with low purity may result in problems such as loss of intelligence within the turned, the inability to shift into hunter form, or the loss of the natural generation of and ability to manipulate the ice element.

Those that lose the ability to naturally generate and manipulate the ice element will turn into Lycanthropes instead of Arctic Lycanthropes.

Furthermore, as the original Lycanthrope, every Lycanthrope – Arctic or otherwise – is bound to you and must obey your commands, whether they were turned by you or not.

Note: Your venom does not affect the status of a player or non-player’s privileges, nor will it affect the intelligence of the one turned.

Close

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A wide grin stretches across my face as I finish reading the description.

Now that’s some nice venom!

As soon as I select close on the description, another one takes its place. Except this time, it is showing the description of the Arctic Lycanthropes.

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Arctic Lycanthrope

Benefits:

An Arctic Lycanthrope’s body naturally generates ice element that they can then manipulate.

An Arctic Lycanthrope is granted increased physical abilities and senses.

Dependent on the purity of the venom that turned the Arctic Lycanthrope, they are able to shapeshift into either a wolf form or a hunter form from their neutral form. While in any form, their fangs will be able to infect other creatures with lycanthropy and their fur will be partially made out of a durable ice.

While in wolf form, their speed, agility, and maneuverability will be increased from their neutral form.

While in hunter form, all of their physical abilities will be increased from their neutral form.

Drawbacks:

An Arctic Lycanthrope takes more damage from fire-based attacks dependent on their purity.

When in hunter form, an Arctic Lycanthrope will have a thick fog covering their thoughts, making it more difficult to think as clearly. They will also be blocked from wearing rings, amulets, necklaces, or any other form of accessory while in hunter form.

When in wolf form, the items that an Arctic Lycanthrope can wear will be limited to Tier 7 or above.

Any locked items in either of these forms will be transferred to the Arctic Lycanthrope’s inventory upon transformation and transferred back to your body when you return to a form that they are no longer locked.

While in any form, an Arctic Lycanthrope is extremely sensitive to sounds, and will have a desire to transform under a full moon that grows larger dependent on their purity.

An Arctic Lycanthrope has a compulsion to obey the commands of their sire, and those above their sire. They will also not be able to refuse the commands of the original Lycanthrope.

Note: There may or may not be more benefits or drawbacks that the System missed.

Close

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I reread through the description once more before selecting close and lowering my head in thought.

Based off of their description, it doesn’t look like these Arctic Lycanthropes can create ice element on will or manipulate any of it that’s in the air already. Just the ice element that is naturally generated by their body.

Sapphire suddenly leaves my shadow and lays her head down in my lap. I unconsciously begin to rub her head without pausing in my though.

The System also mentioned that if I turned a non-player – a monster – then they would still be one after turning. So, does that mean that I won’t be able to bring a turned monster with me to the next floor? Or are monsters able to traverse floors too?

My thoughts turn back to the bear in front of me as I realize that it isn’t roaring anymore.

When I look up to see it, I find that the bear’s claws have also become sharper, while its fangs have changed shape entirely. Now they are more like a mixture of both a wolf’s and a bear’s fangs, with most of the bear’s flatter teeth getting sharper, while leaving the bear’s canines as sharp as they were before.

I gently move Sapphires head from my lap before getting up and approaching the creature.

As I do so, the bear just stares at me with a calm expression on its face without moving.

Let’s see if this works…

“Spin around in a circle once,” I command the bear.

The thing hesitates for less than a second before doing exactly what I told it to do.

I slowly begin to circle around the sphere of ice containing the bear as I inspect it for any other changes excluding its eye and fur color, fangs, and claws.

Sapphire quickly rushes to follow after me as I’m doing this while sending an occasional glance at the bear.

“Interesting,” I mutter as I arrive back around in a complete circle.

It looks like the bear’s muscles have gotten bigger, and I can also faintly sense a small amount of ice element building up from within its body.

I pause in front of the sphere before glancing at Sapphire and ordering, “Get back into my shadow, Sapphire.”

She sends me a quick glance before doing as ordered before I undo the sphere of ice in front of me.

The bear looks around for a moment before continuing to stare at me without moving a muscle. We then proceed to stare at each other for nearly an entire minute before it begins to wander away from me.

As it’s doing that, I take a moment to identify the creature.

_-| Unnamed – Arctic Lycanthrope – Level 248 |-_

Nothing surprising there…

Before the bear can get out of the clearing, I call after it, “Stop and come back.”

The bear freezes in place for a second before turning around and slowly coming back to me.

“Now sit down,” I continue before approaching the bear as it sits down right in front of me.

I take a closer look at it before voicing another command, “Follow me.”

The bear gets back to its feet before following after me as I start leaving the clearing.

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Executive Stream

Diane ignores the slack jawed werewolf moderators as she stares at the bear on Wolf’s screen whilst leaning against the side of the couch with her head being supported by her right arm.

‘Well, that’s interesting,’ she thinks to herself before turning her head towards the door as a bright red flash of light shines from near it.

Leo soon steps out of the flash of light with a wide-eyed look on his face as he quickly says, “Now I finally understand why you were so upset before. He is not a werewolf.”

Diane just nods her head in agreement before turning back to the screen again as she says, “Even I wasn’t expecting him to be able to control anything he turned like this.”

The two Moderators in the corner of the room finally snap out of their own stupor before one of them turns to Diane and asks, “Do you think his venom is similar to the vampiric dragons?”

His statement causes a look of concern to shroud the Administrators’ faces as they both turn to stare at the Moderator in question.

The vampiric dragons are one of the top strongest races within the System. They are a race of dragons that is born with the ability to manipulate their own blood and can turn another creature into a vampiric dragonling by injecting a small amount of their blood into their heart. This will grant the creature abilities of the vampiric dragons varying depending on the purity of the blood injected into them, while also forcing a compulsion to follow their sire’s orders on them.

“That…” Leo mutters before turning to look at Diane, “could be a problem.”

Diane nods her head without looking at him as she says, “Yes, it could. Let’s just hope – if it is like their way of turning – that the dragons don’t feel threatened by this.”

She then purses her lips in thought and turns back to the screen, ‘Which might just happen, considering how hot-headed those beasts are.’