Eren was becoming a summoner.
This was not what he had signed up for when he had decided to join the Titus competition. He never would have imagined changing his class at this point in his life. If he had any control over the process, he would have aborted it long ago.
But for better or worse, he didn't have any control while he was in that state. He felt like he was being played by his bad luck again.
Eren could understand everything that was happening to him. But he was a prisoner inside his own body with no control over its functions anymore.
Things only got more difficult for Eren from that point. He was then gifted with a killer headache.
It was as if someone was drilling through his crown to take his brain out. Eren was in so much pain that he couldn't shout or yell anymore. All he could do was bear the uncalled-for pain and wait for it to end.
And yet... things weren't as terrible as he made them out to be.
It was Eren's good luck that the class change was happening inside the spatial distortion and not out in the subspace for everyone to see. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been allowed to leave by the authorities. That's because he was undergoing a class change without using any supporting tools or techniques, which were familiar to them.
What was even more logic-defying was that Eren was undergoing a class change when he was in the solid stage of the Ace rank. And yet, his ranking progression was not regressing. That meant he didn't need a new rank, an updated technique, tools, or any form of support to get through the class change.
The entire Edinburgh kingdom and rankers' communities all over the world would have hunted Eren down in trying to gauge his secrets had he been through his class change in front of the live audience watching the Titus competition.
When the process was finally done, Eren felt like his body had been through a severe form of torture. This torture was something he hadn't even performed on any of his enemies or other rankers.
If Tim's soul was still present at the scene, he would have celebrated seeing the butcher in his current condition. Dom and all his other victims would have joined him in celebrating this moment.
'You want my help?'
Just when Eren thought he would fall unconscious against his will, he heard Alephee's voice. That voice sounded sweeter than honey to him in his current situation. He nodded his head in his mind and tried hard not to give in to the forced slumber his body was demanding from him.
Eren's solid stage mana core that had been depleted in the process of him changing his class started spinning in reverse under Alephee's influence. She was merged with him through his mana core so she had certain control over it.
The mana core only stopped spinning when it was back to its full potential. As a result, Eren could channel his mana throughout his body to somehow gain control over his limbs.
The first thing he did after gaining control over his arms was take out a vial of all-states recovery potion from his storage before drinking it up. The potion's effects kicked in immediately, and the fatigue and soreness that he felt all over his body were greatly reduced.
"Fuck… what… aaargh… shit… shit… shit… this throws away all the plans I had for winning the Titus tournament. How will I fight now? That fucking wrath flame…"
The first thing Eren did after feeling somewhat better was curse his heart out. He slowly got up and looked around himself. He then looked at his hands and torso to see if there were any other visible changes he wasn't aware of.
For some reason, he was in his Life-Drain Transformation mode. His white hair and almost blue eyes attested to that. Visually, nothing seemed to have been different from what was usual for Eren. But his class had been changed to that of a summoner. He felt like he was operating a foreign body when he channeled his mana through his newly reformed mana circuits.
For some reason, he also felt that his thought process was more enhanced now. He was troubled by his situation. But that didn't make him regret the choice he had made anymore. He felt like something like this was bound to happen one way or the other as he explored his Sins abilities. He regretted only the timing of its arrival.
Feeling frustrated, he took out his Sativa stick and lit it up quickly using his fire-element mana. He took a deep breath out of his stick and filled his lungs with its smoke. While releasing the smoke through his nose and walking aimlessly in front of him, the butcher cursed some more in his head. He thought about how he could escape from the Titus tournament without drawing attention.
'How are you feeling right now?'
Alephee asked Eren while sounding feeble again. The butcher heard her voice and responded quickly.
'Don't tell me you are drifting off into slumber now? Alephee now is not the time…'
Alephee cut him short by adding up.
'Don't worry. I'm not sinking into slumber. Let's just say that I'm just trying to conserve my consciousness. Things would have been a bit different had you not broken into the solid stage of the Ace rank before your class change.'
Alephee assured Eren that she was not planning to sleep on him. The butcher realized that he was starting to depend on Alephee which he shouldn't be doing after he processed his own words and hers.
But by now, he had stopped treating Alephee as an alien after her selfless involvement in his affairs. She had aided him when he needed it the most, and for all the character flaws the butcher had within him, he was grateful.
So he didn't feel completely repulsed by his dependency on her. He just needed to make sure that he kept it to a minimum for his own sake. Her existence was special after all, he didn't want her getting discovered by some high-ranking entity.
After being assured by Alephee, the butcher took a sigh of relief before answering her first question.
I don't know what's going on with me. This class change smacked me in the face and pulled the rugs out of my legs. I was only beginning to dig deep into becoming a close combat expert. But this...
Let's not talk about the efforts that I made in the past for my close combat class and the impact this class change would have on my future. My immediate present has also been damaged beyond repair. I need to say goodbye to those 100 thousand Extols I could have won from…'
Eren felt like he needed to vent his frustrations to get them out of his head. But Alephee cut him short once again.
'I think there's a bit of misunderstanding. The class change has been bound to your Life-Drain mode.
You can have your previous class back when you revert to your normal self.'
AN: Life Drain Enhancement mode and its characteristics have been mentioned in chapter 331.
