Sleeping felt weird to Gravis. It also took him quite some time to fall asleep since he wasn't being used to it anymore. Luckily, he didn't dream. The brain of his new eel-body probably wasn't developed enough to have dreams.
After who knew how long, Gravis woke up again. Apparently, a lot of time had passed while his consciousness was asleep. Gravis awkwardly stretched himself and thought about how weird it felt to sleep again. He also saw the flounder patrolling around him, looking at everything. At least it was doing its job.
"Master," it transmitted as it noticed that Gravis woke up.
"Continue patrolling," Gravis said.
"Yes," the flounder transmitted back.
Whoop! CRRR!
Gravis summoned several shrimp and tore them apart with his Spirit. Then, he separated edible from inedible and shoved the edible parts into his stomach. He didn't even taste any of it. It was about as much meat as previously, but Gravis didn't feel as bloated.
'It seems like my body has gotten more powerful,' he thought. 'It probably won't take too long to achieve my first evolution.'
But now, Gravis had no idea what he should do. The digestion couldn't be accelerated, and he wasn't tired anymore. After some minutes, boredom set in, and Gravis decided to look at the CMO some more. Seeing it constantly change form felt enchanting.
Of course, only his Spirit Sense was inside the Life Ring. Everything else remained outside as his eel-body just laid on the sand. During his sleep, a lot of other beasts appeared in the vicinity, but nothing dared to come too close to that imposing flounder.
From time to time, some demonic beasts also appeared, but that was a relatively rare occasion. The demonic beasts might become enticing enough to a Spirit Beast if it felt hungry. So, they kept themselves away. It wasn't that they were smart enough to realize the danger, but that their long honed instinct made them fear the deep.
Whoom!
Gravis' body started shaking suddenly. 'Oh, I'm becoming a demonic beast,' he thought with some excitement. 'Let's see how this whole evolution thing works.'
As his body shook, Gravis felt the Energy inside his body move, but it wasn't the Energy that he used to heal himself. It was the Energy that made up the whole body. This was something fundamental and completely different, Energy in the form of matter. Something Gravis had no real experience with.
Gravis felt himself become bigger and longer. He felt his instincts driving him forward as an image of a bigger eel appeared in his mind. 'No! Change!' Gravis willed, and slowly, the image in his mind started changing.
Instead of growing bigger, Gravis did his best to imagine the form he wanted. His father had told him that he couldn't change too much at once. So, Gravis had to take it slow. As soon as he had seen his body previously, he thought about his future changes.
That wasn't very hard and didn't take up much time. The main reason for that was that he had already planned the evolution for every possible body type when he had been taking a break in his homeworld. Of course, a long, snake-like body had also been a consideration. He had even considered what he would do if he inhabited the body of a worm.
The evolution and changes that a worm would go through were similar to what he would do with an eel-body. Thus, Gravis already had a pretty solid plan in mind.
Yet, after receiving the scale from his father, and hearing about the fact that he could morph into a human when he became an Immortal, changed his plan slightly. He wasn't planning on creating a perfect replica of a human anymore.
'Why waste such an incredible opportunity to create a body perfect for battle?' Gravis thought with a smirk as his body shook. 'The more weapons I have at my disposal, the better!'
As the image in his mind changed, Gravis started to feel a disconnect. It was like his body would no longer be himself if he went through with the change. 'So, that's the threshold. As long as I don't overstep this boundary, it should be fine.'
Gravis did some more modifications to the image as his physical body started morphing into the image inside his mind. After some seconds, Gravis finalized the image inside his head and willed his body to become the image.
His body morphed faster, and after a minute, the process ended.
Gravis breathed through his gills with satisfaction as he looked at his new body.
What did he change?
There were only two changes that he had made. One of them wasn't visible from the outside. It was a change of his bones and their structure. His spine now looked more like that of a mammal, something that was important for the future.
He had decided to modify his spine after he had seen that he could still change some other stuff after he was finished with his main change.
What was his main change?
His head.
His head had changed its shape completely. It became bigger and now looked very similar to the head of an alligator. His snout poked out of his head with visible teeth poking out of his closed mouth.
Gravis had envisioned the head of an alligator. They had a powerful bite, but the mouth wasn't as big or cumbersome as a crocodile's. Yet, to him, this was more than enough. He wouldn't use his mouth as his primary weapon, after all. It would only function as an auxiliary or backup weapon.
Gravis had also decided to add some additional muscles to his head so that he could actually show expressions. Not being able to show expressions felt weird to him. Now, he could finally sigh, smile, sneer, and most importantly, narrow his eyes.
Yet, right now, Gravis' look could only be described as weird. He hadn't changed his slimy skin, after all. So, his alligator head didn't have any scales. It was just a slimy, fleshy head in the shape of an alligator. On top of that, he still didn't have any arms or legs.
A fleshy alligator head on a six-meter-long eel looked weird, but Gravis didn't mind that. 'It doesn't matter how I look right now. This is only temporary, and I will achieve my true, envisioned form soon.'
"What happened, master?" the flounder asked. "Look different," it transmitted.
"Following your instincts isn't always the best path to power," Gravis transmitted back.
Sadly, the flounder didn't have the capability to understand such a concept. Even for a Spirit Beast, it was quite stupid.
Seeing that the flounder didn't understand him, Gravis didn't bother to continue his explanation. He might have had the patience to teach Skye, but the flounder wasn't his friend. After all, it had tried to kill him previously. The fact that it was still alive was pity enough from him.
Gravis tried some expressions and noticed that he could perform nearly all of them. He had changed his bones and muscles so that he could smile and frown with his big head. Instead of having eyebrows, he had made the muscles above his eyes movable. This should be good enough.
'Let's see about that digestion speed. After all, I'm a low-grade Demonic Beast now,' Gravis thought with a smirk.
Whoop!
Another crab appeared, and Gravis repeated the usual process. His body hadn't increased in size, so he couldn't fit more of the meat into him, but that shouldn't be a problem.
Gravis watched his stomach go to work and, sure enough, the digestion was faster than before. 'Great! Instead of taking multiple hours, I should be able to digest a meal in just a single hour,' he thought with satisfaction.
After several more minutes passed, Gravis noticed something else. 'Interesting. My hunger had vanished for a couple of minutes, but now it returned. I guess the bodies of ferocious beasts aren't enough anymore. I should get some Demonic Beasts.'
Gravis looked into his Life Ring and took note of all the ferocious beasts inside it.
Whoop!
All the ferocious beasts that had been kept inside his ring were released. Gravis also released them from the Life Ring's restriction. They had regained their free will. 'They haven't attacked me, and I won't eat them. Keeping them is useless.'
The beasts were confused for a second but then quickly fled when they noticed the gigantic flounder. Like this, they quickly scattered into the distance.
"Where can I find Demonic Beasts?" Gravis asked the flounder.
"What that?" it asked back.
"Beasts that are stronger than these weaklings, but weaker than you," Gravis answered back.
"Weak beasts on surface," it transmitted to him.
Gravis nodded. "And down here?" Gravis asked.
"Only very weak and very powerful beasts here," it transmitted back.
Gravis tried to scratch his chin unsuccessfully. 'Interesting,' he thought, 'Just as I had expected. However, I think the flounder is mistaken. I think it's thinking of Energy Beasts. Energy Beasts might not be able to transmit their thoughts, but they are smart enough to keep as far away from Spirit Beasts as possible.'
Gravis looked upward but didn't see much. The bottom of the ocean was utterly dark since no light could reach it. 'If the Spirit Beasts are on the ocean floor, the Energy Beasts are probably at the surface since it's the farthest place from the floor. The Demonic Beasts can't go to the surface or the floor, so they're probably stuck in limbo.'
'They should inhabit the space between the surface and the floor. Also, I found that fish at that place earlier,' Gravis thought.
'Speaking of, I should see if I can digest it now.'
