Minor Incongruencies

The moment the pigeon landed, Vidya immediately got down and expertly joined into the crowd, standing at the forefront of the team she was in charge of.

Putting the earlier annoyance to the back of their heads, the duo gracefully got down and stood before the rows of warriors that stood with an imposing vigour.

"Brother, you can start from him," Viram said as he pointed to a certain man who stood at the forefront of all the warriors, signifying his high combat prowess.

"Alright," Purple smoke gushed out of him and transformed into Ugly Shaggy that revolved around his body and began to create spirals around him. Ugly Shaggy continued to spiral around him until his body was entirely enclosed within it. After that, purple some began to gush out of his body and was seemingly absorbed by Ugly Shaggy.

The purple smoke converged around the forehead of Ugly Shaggy and formed into a lump. The lump voraciously sucked the gushing purple smoke and began to grow in size. When it had grown to half the size of Ugly Shaggy's head, the lump detached itself from the forehead and hovered in the air.

It then began to shrink itself until it turned into a thumb-sized egg. Moreover, small veined patterns began to form on its surface that created a series of interlocked grooves on its surface which glowed with a faint purple hue.

The cocoon-like structure dissolved into purple smoke and converged together to form into Ugly Shaggy that hovered beside Prakash.

Clutching the thumb-sized purple egg in his palm, Prakash felt a mysterious feeling emanate from deep within him. No, it seemed like the mysterious feeling was due to the presence of the Ugly Shaggy within him.

"Take it," Prakash gently pushed the thumb-sized purple egg towards the man Vikram had pointed.

The man audibly gulped in anticipation as the purple egg floated towards him. He felt an indescribable sense of joy to be the first in the base to gain another mighty Skill.

But, just when he had outstretched his hand to catch it, purple smoke gushed out of his body and condensed into a mini Victoris that sped forward to catch the purple egg in its mouth. Before the man could react in surprise, the mini Victoris gently pushed the purple egg into the hands of Prakash and dissolved into purple smoke.

Only when the purple smoke belonging to his mini Victoris was absorbed into his body did the man come to a startling realisation. His mini Victoris had rejected the Skill. The man didn't know whether to laugh or cry as he looked at the face of Prakash whose expression was no different to his own.

"Hmm, Vidya, come here," Vikram beckoned for Vidya to receive the purple egg. He felt that there was a certain chance he and Prakash had miscalculated the abilities of their Karmic Arts.

When Prakash once again pushed the purple egg towards Vidya, a mini Victoris materialised from her body that gently pushed back the purple egg towards himself.

"Call someone who doesn't possess a Skill," Prakash said after noticing that the mini Victoris in their bodies will continue to reject his Skill.

Vikram nodded and walked into the ranks of his men and soon walked out with another youth. This youth was the strongest in their base apart from the warriors who possessed a mini Victoris and happened to be the one Vikram had planned to bestow a mini Victoris with next.

Prakash pushed the egg with a faint sense of anticipation towards the youth who seemed to be quite excited at the prospect of gaining a Skill. The youth caught hold of the purple egg without trouble and injected his Karma into it.

A moment later, the purple egg turned transparent and entered his body. Something seemed to have been given birth in his body as all the Karma belonging to various creatures that were silently circulating within his body roiled around like raging waves as a small serpentine figure manifested into existence from the purple egg.

Purple smoke gushed out of his body and transformed into a purple snake with the head of a dog. The youth was giddy with joy as he gazed at the mini Shaggy that hovered beside him while a new row had been added in his 'Record'.

<Skill: Convert (0.10%)>

"So, it was a success," Prakash inferred from the joyful expression of the youth and discussed with Vikram about changing their plans.

After a round of discussion, Vikram made a hundred warriors assemble in a line before Prakash. They were all strong warriors who hadn't possessed a Skill so they were capable of accepting a mini Shaggy without trouble.

The duo stopped at a hundred because that was the most Prakash could spend at present. It took him about 75 units of Dog Karma in contrast to the initial 80 units of Dog Karma to create a purple egg. Since he had increased his Karmic Art attainment to about '25%', the amount of Dog Karma expended to create a purple egg had also decreased.

Creating a hundred purple eggs will cost him 7500 units of Dog Karma. He initially had 8811 units of Dog Karma after 3 hours at the murky waters and then gained another 800 units of Dog Karma in the last hour.

So, after subtracting the Karma expended to create the purple eggs, he would have approximately 2000 units of Dog Karma which was more than enough for the next fight.

Considering the fact that he only required 1 unit of Dog Karma per second to maintain a complete transformation of the dog, he could stay in his transformed state for well more than half-an-hour. This was a safety margin the duo came to a conclusion after various considerations.

Prakash began to create purple eggs continuously while the row of warriors calmly walked forward to receive it and absorb it into their bodies. They maintained military discipline throughout the entire process, neither making unnecessary sounds nor trying to cut the line to gain the Skill earlier.

One, they were trained through numerous life and death experiences to maintain a sense of decorum; two, they knew that they were bound to receive their Skill since they were among the lucky hundred warriors; three, Vikram stood nearby that served to extinguish any chaotic thoughts from their heads before it could even form.

"Phew, that was really exhausting," Prakash slumped to the floor and wiped his forehead that was dripping with sweat.

"Good job," Vikram said as he handed over a piece of wet cotton.

"Haha, thanks," Prakash used the cloth to wipe away all the sweat that had accumulated on his body and stood up. It was then he noticed that his sweat seemed different than the one he was used to till date.

First of all, it didn't smell. When he brought his nose closer to the wet cotton and sniffed it, all he got was the smell of water, nothing pungent like he had expected.

Purple smoke gushed out of his orifices and transformed his face into that of a dog's as he once again sniffed the wet cotton.

"Bleh," Prakash threw away the wet cotton and immediately dissolved his partial transformation. His dog nose picked up a significant difference as compared to his human nose; it had picked up an intense aromatic smell, just a whiff alone almost overwhelmed his senses.

Had he sniffed it a second longer, his dog head would have taken a chomp out of the wet cotton, something he didn't want to no matter what. Even though it didn't affect his mind like how it did to other creatures, but the feeling of wanting to take a bite still appeared in his head, which was a cause for concern.

The feeling disappeared the moment he dissolved his transformation but it was still a fact that couldn't be glossed over. Prakash immediately discussed this incident with Vikram.

"Thankfully we don't sweat much even after an intense exercise," Vikram said.

"Yeah, but that's not the case for the two of us. We would sweat buckets when creating a new Skill and moreover, the odour is way too intense as compared to normal," Prakash said with worry.

The duo conversed for a while but failed to think up any measures against it for the time being. After that, Vikram instructed everyone about their action plan while Prakash guided them to use their mini Shaggy.

He made everyone fly atop the puppet pigeon for a round across their base using their mini Shaggy to control it. Some did exceptionally well, but some couldn't even make the puppet pigeon take off. Prakash noted all the details and revised their formation with Vikram.

Once they were fully prepared, Vikram ordered the remaining members of their base to enter into the safety of the buildings they had created. A gigantic Lego structure stood at the centre of their base that looked like a castle. Spanning 5 metres long and four metres across while boasting a height of 2 metres, it was a humongous structure.

There were various centimetre wide holes on its outer surface while a passageway ran across behind it. This was to make it easy for the warriors standing in the passage to attack any creature through the safety of their walls by making use of sharp jewellery.

Anyway, they weren't lacking in any aspects with regards to either the Lego, glue, cloth, stationery items, or sharp jewellery. Their base was situated in a shopping mall and hence they made full use of all their available resources.

There were also various strings made of spider web that was inlaid across many surrounding areas that gave them protection against insects. Only when big creatures such as the pigeons attacked would they face difficulties in defending. But they would be able to survive for long enough by making use of the existing defensive arrangements until the expedition army returned.

After ensuring that every non-participant in the base had entered the safety of the huge structure Vikram walked towards the expeditionary army.

"Let's save our brethren from those birds!" Raising his right hand to the skies, Vikram bellowed a war cry.

"Save our brethren!"

"Save our brethren!"

"Save our brethren!"

A deafening cry reverberated in the air that rattled the surrounding spider webs. Their roaring sound that coursed through the air made the spider webs vibrate at a certain frequency that produced a humming sound similar to the one a stringed instrument produces when stroked.

It was like their entire base was composing a tune to their march that further raised the morale of the expeditionary army.

Prakash and Vikram sat atop the puppet pigeon and took off to the skies while maintaining a slow flight speed. The humanoid army charged on the ground in a detailed rectangular-shaped formation.

Rows of warriors walked on all the four sides while dozens of bulky men pushed toy carts in the middle that were filled to the brim with water containers.

This was their first large scale raid against giant foes that were capable of flight.