"Alright, calm down, it's not a big deal for me to alter your appearances. There is no need to panic." Cain tried to calm down the witches that had assembled inside the Inn's dining room.
"If it was no big deal we would already have done it ourselves." The wizened old Matriarch of the Coven countered, the pustules on her face pulsing as she waved her hand in frustration.
"Let's save some time then. Name a species." Cain announced, making the old woman give him a sneaky smile.
"Squirrel Kin." She answered without hesitation, trying to poke Cain into action.
The room was suddenly filled with a fleshy sound that made everyone present think that Cain had slapped the old woman for daring to rush him, but when the old woman lowered her hood and placed her hand to her face what was revealed was not a horrific bruise, but a pre-teen Squirrel Kin girl with brown bushy hair that had a pair of white stripes running through it starting at her ears.
"That's one, who is next? Name your Species." Cain announced while the matriarch was still in shock from the sudden transformation.
"Dark Elf!" One of the others exclaimed and the sound happened again.
Normally the process was silent and painless, but Cain was annoyed by the volume and insistence of the witches, so he was doing it in an instant, simply picking a species and letting the System randomize their appearance. Normally this was what would happen before he began altering them to their final form if he was changing their species, but to Cain's surprise, it actually turned out fairly decently without his intervention.
The second of the witches looked at her new form and laughed. At 165cm tall, she was big for a Dark Elf, and with an equally prodigious chest and hips to match. She was going to say something about the appearance, but the others had already lined up to get a new appearance. It wasn't quite what she had in mind, but she was reasonably certain that a little time exercising could take care of these extra thick thighs.
One after another, Cain altered the witches, with the ones who were out on errands joining the back of the line as those who were already transformed took their places.
There were only a little over twenty members of the Coven, so even one transformation a minute wasn't going to take Cain long to finish, only a little longer than it took him to finish his breakfast in fact. But there were faces at the back of the line now that definitely weren't witches. Not only did they not have the gnarled face from casting curses and making potions, but they weren't even wearing the Coven's signature robes.
The witches themselves appeared to be finished and Cain looked down at the one-armed urchin in front of him. The boy was one of the local vagrants, not an orphan or homeless, but crippled and suffering life with useless parents who preferred theft to work. Moana had seen the city guard haul all three of them away last night after they were caught trying to steal from Prana's newly refurbished garden.
"Scylla." The boy said in his very best falsetto, trying to blend in with the witches in front of him using a filthy blanket to emulate their black robes.
Cain thought about telling him off since this was a deal he had worked with the witches in exchange for their assistance. But why not have a little fun? At worst, the Coven could hold it against the boy and ask him to pay off the debt for the transformation by doing legitimate work.
[I want a pet octopus.] Moana suggested, spreading evil thoughts into Cain's mind.
[No, we have enough pets and members of our party already. A baby Scylla would just get in the way.] Cain answered after considering her idea.
[Please?] The Leviathan tried one more time.
[You can't keep it. Play with it until we go and then find it a new home.] Cain agreed and the form of the young demon disappeared into a pile of blankets.
With a cheer from Moana, a jet of water shot out, picking up the tiny form of the baby demon, with a human upper body and an Octopus' eight tentacles for legs.
"You're not going to leave him like that are you?" One of the witches laughed, seeing Moana rubbing her face against the shocked demon.
"I don't see any good reason why not. Just look at it. How long has it been since you saw something that cute?" Cain replied with a wicked smile, before turning to the others in the group.
They also weren't witches but had the same idea as the first boy. Most of them scattered, but one old woman came forward, hobbling along with the help of her walker.
"Carnage Please." The old woman, who Cain could see was a lesser Demon of the Wrath variety asked politely.
Everyone in the room stared at her in shock. Does the old woman want to become a mighty demonic warrior?
"Done and done." Cain declared, shifting her form to the childhood phase of Carnage.
It would take too much work to actually make her into a Legendary demon since she was currently at normal quality and not even an Epic demon. Though that was to be expected given her deteriorating physical condition. Most Epic Demons live for many centuries before becoming elderly, much less that decrepit.
In the form of a 190cm tall adolescent girl with deep red skin and wings, showing powerful muscles to the world, since the gown she was previously in wasn't an equipped item, she made an impressive sight to the world.
The old demon turned to each side, admiring her new form for a moment before one of the witches tapped her on the arm, handing her a piece of cloth.
"Please equip this. It's just too embarrassing to see you strutting around naked, Elder Gwar." The witch informed her softly.
The demon was about to correct her, saying that she doesn't have a System, but then realized that she could now see the interface for herself. Tears of happiness rolled down her face as she hugged the nearest witch, who was still trying to get her to put clothes on, but she stopped herself short when she realized she no longer knew who she was hugging. She didn't recognize the new appearances, so it was like being in a room full of strangers, or a costume party.
"Um, thanks. I think if I, Ah there it is." The demon declared proudly as she equipped the robe, which became a toga on her new body.
"Hey, did you know that with a System you can just look at people and see their names? How useful is that? Wait, have you all been doing that all along to greet people so you don't have to remember them? That is so unfair." The old woman, better known as Elder Gwar, called out at very nearly a shout, not used to the powerful voice of her new form.
The voice of the adolescent version of Carnage was a low-pitched growl, but somehow still gave off a hint of femininity that the adult male version was lacking. Cain didn't know if there were actually other members of the species before today, but the system had no problem changing the old woman, so it certainly was possible that they did exist.
"I hope you didn't want to change for immediate vengeance. You're Epic Quality now, but you're only level 1 and I'm guessing your body is the equivalent of about fourteen years old." Cain laughed as the old woman flexed her wings and posed like a bodybuilder.
Despite the obvious youth, her arms were bigger than Cain's in his current adult Wrath Demon form, and every muscle rippled with restrained power, just waiting for the demon to grow up so it could be unleashed in the form of a Quality upgrade. She should naturally move from Epic to Legendary in her early adulthood with proper training, so her progression shouldn't be a problem.
The increased power of the world would even make it easy, pulling her first towards level 300 as an Epic Demon, then towards 400 as a Legendary one.
The real question would be if that affected the ability to improve classes. Once you got past the first advancement, simply going up in level was far from enough to get a new class. You might be offered a side grade to a more versatile class, but a true second advancement class needed a variety of other learned skills to acquire. If you didn't get them before reaching the level cap of 200, where you would run out of skills to assign points to, it was possible that the System would penalize you for being slow to adapt.
Many transfers who had leveled out of their class had failed to get the second advancement class they wanted, even after fulfilling all the same qualifications that others had when they advanced, so Cain was certain that there was more to it than simply having the appropriate skills.
"Since that's everyone, let's have a meal and get to know each other better. I'd offer to adjust your forms a little, but frankly, I enjoyed randomizing you all way too much to mess it up after the fact."
Cain's blunt admission startled the witches, but amusement soon overtook the shock.
'He is an Ancient after all.' They thought with a mix of amusement and frustration, looking over their new bodies.
Prana came in once she had finished her morning meetings, to see how Cain was doing. She had seen a few of the transformed witches already, and the sight shocked her. Especially the thick-thighed Dark Elf. Who would ask for that form in the first place? But listening to the group chat Prana realized that they didn't all get a careful consideration that she did, of a perfect match to the ideal body in her mind.
They were still the best-looking Coven that she had ever heard of though.
