In Winterfell's great hall, no one noticed that Clay, the heir to White Harbor, had been gone for quite some time. His utterly loyal captain of the guards had taken off his iron gauntlets and set them on the table, and was now drinking heavily with a guard he had met in Winterfell, his face and neck flushed red.
He had seen his young master go out, but had thought nothing of it. This was Duke Eddard's territory, after all. No one would dare do anything to Clay.
His Majesty the King, their guest, was holding a dancing girl and wildly gyrating his fat body. His face shone with grease and sweat, and his hearty laughter echoed throughout Winterfell's great hall.
Their host, Duke Eddard, sat expressionless in his seat, swallowing the food the kitchen had so carefully prepared as though he were chewing wax.
Eddard Stark had never liked such noisy surroundings, not even as a child.
Beside him, the beautiful queen sat with the most proper, dignified posture, smiling as she watched her husband in the hall. Yet there was not a trace of warmth in her emerald eyes.
While the king and his future Hand of the King were raising cups in celebration or sitting with icy faces in Winterfell's great hall, Clay lay in the damp earth.
The joy of breaking free of the Heart Tree had barely faded before Clay discovered a serious problem:
There was too much magic!
He could not see inside his body, but Clay knew perfectly well that he could not so much as lift a finger. Magic ran rampant throughout his swollen body.
Breaking free of the Heart Tree had already pushed him to his limit. Now he could do nothing.
He struggled to breathe while his mind raced for a solution.
His first thought was to return to his room immediately. Only under the protection of House Manderly's guards would he feel safe enough to make further plans.
But after just two seconds of consideration, he abandoned that idea.
Clay knew exactly why he could barely move. The excess magic was not a problem that would disappear if he risked lying here for three or four hours.
His Magic Pool was not an actual pool from which he could drain a little when it grew too full.
The urgent task was to consume the excess magic in his body and bring the amount in his Magic Pool down to a safe level. Magic was not in his blood; bleeding himself a little would not settle this.
Sighing inwardly, he decided to carry out the riskiest but most effective method: mutation!
Right here in House Stark's sacred ground, beneath the branches of the Heart Tree in the Godswood, under the gaze of the Old Gods, he would mutate!
At a flicker of thought, the system opened, and Clay selected the three little bottles sitting quietly in his inventory as quickly as he could.
Gritting his teeth, Clay used every ounce of strength to take out the little bottles. He had no time to work out which came first, so he simply bit them open.
"This Decoction of the Grasses is version 1.0. It carries considerable risks and the following side effects... Use magic to offset them?"
What was there to hesitate over? Without even looking, Clay pushed the success rate to its limit and canceled out every side effect.
The next second, the magic inside his body surged like lightning toward the potion that had turned Clay's face pale in an instant.
Agonizing pain began in his stomach, then spread rapidly throughout his body.
Clay grew restless, his limbs twisting unnaturally, his body arching and tearing up the turf beneath him.
His pupils dilated, his gaze dull and empty, holding only the pitch-black night sky obscured by the canopy.
About ten minutes passed before Clay, curled into a ball, suddenly began writhing wildly. His hands flailed and clawed mindlessly at the air, as though trying to pluck a swiftly drifting snowflake from it.
A little later, both his hands suddenly settled on his chest, tearing hard at his already tattered black outer robe and the fine clothes embroidered with a merman sigil beneath it.
His heavy breathing resounded through the deathly silent Godswood, like some terrifying monster lurking in the darkness.
As he moved incessantly, Clay began sweating profusely, soon soaking every stitch of clothing on his body.
His skin, coated in dirt and sweat, became slick and foul-smelling.
Clay's body convulsed involuntarily as he fought the immense pain that permeated every part of him.
Clay had focused all along on the success rate of the Trial of the Grasses and how to negate its side effects, but had overlooked the tremendous pain of the trial itself.
He finally understood why the witchers' trial was a brush with death. Who knew how many witcher apprentices had died from the pain alone!
The potion kept eating away at his nervous system, while the magic in his body kept protecting it.
From his face all the way down to that most important part, every part of his body was sounding an alarm. Yet the magic kept Clay fully conscious, letting him experience every inch of change in his bones, muscles, glands, and everything else.
Finding amusement in his suffering, Clay thought, I absolutely cannot keep this wonderful experience to myself. Only when those fated to come after me have all experienced it will I feel a little more at peace.
He felt warmth on his face: scalding blood flowing from his nose. His body temperature was astonishingly high. Though not enough to boil water, anyone else would long since have had a memorial service held in a sept or beneath a Heart Tree...
After an unknown length of time, Clay lost his sight, taste, smell, and hearing in succession. Then those vanished senses returned one by one, and the swollen feeling in his body gradually faded.
Clay could finally feel his stomach again. The instant he drank the potion, he had felt as though he had swallowed a bomb about to detonate, one that had blown his stomach to pieces the moment it reached his belly.
The pain in his stomach vanished. Then a violent urge to vomit rose straight into his throat.
With his mind growing clearer, Clay kept telling himself, Don't throw up. Don't throw up!
But...
"Bleurgh..."
The world fell silent.
Perhaps it was an hour, or perhaps two? Who knew? In any case, this was the longest night of Clay's sixteen years of life.
When the last trace of pain vanished, Clay's half-closed eyes snapped open!
An unprecedented strength flowed through his body. Without relying on anything else, he sprang out of the muddy pit using his legs alone.
In the bright moonlight, a tall, powerfully built figure appeared in the lake's reflection.
With a strange smile on his face, Clay raised his left hand and made an odd gesture:
His little finger curled, his ring and middle fingers pressed together, his index finger held apart, and his palm slowly moved forward.
Magic surged, and a pale yellow spherical shield abruptly appeared around him.
Clay relaxed his fingers, and the shield shattered in response. He dropped to his knees and buried his head in his arms to hide the wild laughter he could barely contain.
Because he was a witcher!
The protagonist has completed his mutation, but rest assured, the power scaling won't break. Besides, the social setting wouldn't allow a nobleman like him to perform tricks in public.