Chapter 8: Evolving

It’s been about a year since I’ve greatly expanded my vocabulary and can now speak in a few full sentences. I’ve also learned how to walk and run, though my parents still worry over me. They still think I’m blind. Can’t they see that I can navigate my way through the house?

[Sense Mana] has been leveling slower and slower. I guess I get diminishing returns on EXP when seeing things. I enjoyed a good boost at the start probably because of the high mana density. But now I’m used to it, and it stopped hurting a long time ago.

Of course, when I learned to sense elemental mana, I gained a few quick levels. If I want to continue to level up my only way of “seeing” the world, I’ll have to seek out or figure out novel ways to sense mana. Off the top of my head, I could go to lower mana density as that would be something new, but I’d have to leave this archipelago since there’s a ley line nexus right above us—finding a mana in a poor area is going to be tough.

Also, even though I can now sense elemental mana, people still look like silhouettes; they seem to have little, if any, elemental mana. I’ve tried to learn how you see their unique mana, but it’s a lot harder—they all seem to look the same.

General Skill 1: Sense Mana 17/40General Skill 2: Pain Tolerance 15/30General Skill 3: Soul Damage Reduction 1/10General Skill 4: Mana Toxicity Tolerance 5/20General Skill 5: Charm 5/10General Skill 6:General Skill 7:General Skill 8:General Skill 9:General Skill 10:

My [Mana Toxicity Tolerance] went up a few levels after meeting the dragon again. And even my [Sense Mana] level from the sheer amount of mana leaking from it. Other than that, I had a few opportunities to use and practice my charm, which still levels at a nice pace.

Being a baby has been dreadfully boring, especially with no technology. I have a rattle and some cloth dolls now, but I’ve not been too interested in playing with them. Instead, I busy myself with learning useful things. Like [Sense Mana]. And while seeing people’s mana hasn’t been very fruitful, I’ve been trying to sense differing amounts of mana within objects and trying to expand the distance I can sense mana.

I expected today of all days to be normal, even though it’s been close to a year. There’s been no real way to track the days. A year here could have been five hundred days or just three hundred. I have no real idea—yet.

Now, however, I know it’s been exactly one year since my birth—how do I know this? Because of this.

Ting! Congratulations! You now qualify for a race evolution!

Apparently, one can upgrade their race class. Also, evolution isn’t the correct word, but it’s the closest thing. If  I convert my system language to this world’s, it’ll read as:

Tyn! Ho! Jiun tl yanamoduma!

Gotta say once I figured this out, it helped me a lot to memorize the language but sadly does nothing if I don’t actually know the words; it just defaults to English.

Ting! Change Runalymo to Mana Seer Runalymo?(Adept)Requirements: Be at least 1 year of age; have at least 10 levels in Sense Mana; have 3 breakthroughs in Sense Mana.A powerful Runalymo, able to sense and see fluctuations in mana and predict the mana weather of the nexus and other lesser congregations of mana ley lines. Able to know when a spell is being cast and act before others can know when an attack is happening.

Note: Any skills made racial or merged with a current racial skill cannot gain any more levels.

Sounds like it’ll combine my [Spirit Sight] and [Sense Mana] skills. Seeing as how I won’t gain any more levels and thus be stuck with what I have, I'll pass on this, or at least wait until I get the skill higher.

Ting! Change Runalymo to Pain Glutton Runalymo?(Adept)Requirements: Be at least 1 year of age; have at least 10 levels in Pain Tolerance; have 2 breakthroughs in Pain Tolerance.Having grown to enjoy pain you have learned how to regenerate from that which harms you, making such actions inconsequential so you can indulge in more pleasure.

Note: Any skills made racial or merged with a current racial skill cannot gain any more levels.

No! I’m not a masochist. Though the regeneration does sound good.

Ting! Change Runalymo to Myrou Blessed Runalymo?(Adept)Requirements: Be at least 1 year of age; have been blessed by goddess Myrou.Blessed by the goddess of beauty and creativity herself. This race will have no problem being inspired, and talent in the arts and crafts will come easy. Many will find jealousness in your radiant and transcendent beauty.

Note: No skills will be lost or merged.

Honestly, this sounds pretty neat!

Ting! Change Runalymo to Phantom Runalymo?(Major)Requirements: Be at least 1 year of age; have the Astral Projection cursed skill.Something akin to a ghost, but still living. This race has the innate ability to turn intangible for a limited time and take over the bodies of others, though their ability to adapt to hostile environments is lessened.

Note: Skills may be lost or replaced.

Yeah, no. Likely my Nexus Adaptation will be replaced and currently living in one with no way to move away from it will be like tossing me into a frying pan. Although, it’s considered “major,” I have an inkling that it refers to the tier, so it’s clearly better than the others.

Ting! Change Runalymo to All Seeing Runalymo?(Major)Requirements: Be at least 1 year of age; have the True Sight cursed skill.Nothing can hide. Nothing can be hidden. All falsehoods are revealed, and all truths made bare before your eyes.

Tempting, especially that “Major” tier. But if it’s too painful to use my eyes, then it’s effectively useless.

The only ones I’d consider are the Mana Seer and the Myrou Blessed, and of the two, Myrou Bless wins as I’d be able to still level and use [Sense Mana]. Also, it sounds like I’d eventually be able to do what Mana Seer does anyway, just a matter of knowing what to look for.

Another thing to consider: I don’t have to evolve right now. If I wait, the classes could become better, but I won’t. Why? Well, Myrou Blessed doesn’t sound like it’ll get any better, not with adding some sort of skill requirement to make it better; and if that’s the case, there might be a skill replacement, meaning I’d have to wait more for a better alternative.

And one more thing to consider: I’d likely have to wait years until I can get other skills. Swordplay, magic casting, music, or some crafting. All that may add to the list of evolutions and alter them in some way. Or I could evolve now and have those for the next evolution. Since the race doesn’t level up, it seems the only way to make it strong is to evolve into better race versions.

And the last piece of argument is that Myrou Blessed said my natural talent would be increased, making it easier to gain skills and level them, I hope, and thus better race evolutions. It’s best to get things that help your growth as early as you can so you can grow as fast as you can.

With that, I mentally affirm the Myrou Blessed Runalymo and all goes black.

Race: Myrou Blessed RunalymoRace Trait 1: Mana Generation

Having traded the now unneeded physical boosting traits of their parent species, the Runalymo has instead gained a heightened mana generation rate by (170%).

Race Trait 2: Spirit Sight

An old trait possessed by the parent species. This race is tuned to the spirit layer, able to see spiritual beings.

Race Trait 3: Nutritional Milk

Having suffered through near extinction by starvation, this race has turned to whatever it could in dark times and not succumb to the cursed act of cannibalism. This race’s milk is very nutritional, providing a creature with all their nutritional needs for 1 meal.

Race Trait 4: Heightened Senses

An old trait that has been honed and kept through the eons, and although this has not served the Runalymo as it has their parent species, this race still has very acute hearing, smell, and sight.

Race Trait 5: Mana Sustenance

Having adapted to a low-food environment and constant starvation, this race now passively consumes mana to sustain bodily needs. Mana regen cost increases the more that needs to be sustained.

Race Trait 6: Runalymo’s Cleanliness

The incessant nature for cleanliness and care of appearance grants this race a (+50%) to beauty essence after bathing and performing acts of maintaining appearance. The more care taken the higher the bonus up to (250%) and minimum of (100%).

Race Trait 7: Perfectionist’s Eye

Following the tenets of Myrou, this race has taken great care to perfect their arts and crafts. This skill makes it so flaws are easily spotted and never overlooked. Additionally, the more creativity essence a member of this race has, the faster they’ll learn and master their arts and crafts.

Race Trait 8: Nexus Adaptation

Adapting to the hostile environment of a nexus, even if the vast majority of the ambient mana is being siphoned, has made this race more resistant to heat and mana toxicity.

Race Trait 9: Inspirational Greatness

The dedication to the arts and crafts have made the Runalymo more creative, granting them a (+250%) to creativity essence.

Race Trait 10: Myrou’s Children

As dedicated and fervent followers of goddess Myrou, the Runalymo can more easily channel her essences of beauty and creativity (+250%).

It seems like half the skills got boosted. My [Mana Generation], [Runalymo’s Cleanliness], [Perfectionist's Eye], and [Inspirational Greatness].

The best improvement is obviously [Perfectionist’s Eye], which now scales with creativity essence.

I’ve awoken to these messages, and now I just noticed Mom and Dad are staring at me. It’s hard to note their expression, but something must have changed. Mom and Dad are talking in hushed voices.

“Momara?”

“You evolved, right?” Dad asks. It’s nice being able to know full sentences.

“It wasn’t cursed, was it?” Mom asks worriedly.

“No curse, Myrou blessed!” I give my answer, no real reason to hide it.

Both my parents sigh in relief. Then excitement hits them. I mean, come on—did they really think I was going to pick an evolution based on something like cursed skills?

My parents are excitedly talking, with sprinkles of “Myrou” being mentioned.

I stand and grab the railing of my crib.

“Bath time?” I ask. Both Mom and Dad suddenly realize why they have first come to me.

After nursing— seriously, I can be weaned now— we’re off to the baths. It’s currently snowing, the Nexus weather always surprising me. I don’t know about the rest of the world, but here in the nexus, there are no seasons—it could snow one day then be blistering hot the next. But I did learn that when this happens, at the same time, a large influx of an element is the cause.

Lightning element causes, you guessed it, thunderstorms. Ice element obviously brings cold and snow. Fire, heat. The more confusing one is earth. Which doesn’t seem to have a correlated weather. Light element is bad during the day. Everything becomes hard to look at, and people are in danger of eye strain—not me, though! Dark makes day look very dim, and people are usually asleep at night, though if someone wanders off at night during a dark storm, they are liable to walk right off the jetty—though most, if not everyone, above a certain age can swim.

Naturally, like umbrellas, there are smoked glasses to handle light storms. Lamps with glowing crystals are used during dark storms and are permanently set up in several areas, like around the baths, but during light storms, they get ultra-bright; they share the same element, after all.

One thing I noticed over the year I’ve been alive is that after each storm and especially after earth storms, there are more ores brought in for the smiths. Or more element-based crystals and gems. My guess is that they grow or become more attuned during the storms, bringing surprisingly renewable resources out of normally non-renewable stuff.

Naturally, the snow doesn’t last long in this hot place, but the bath waters will be a lot cooler and feel lukewarm during an ice-element storm.

During the baths, I get a lot of attention. I hear a lot of “Vesha.” Knowing that “ve” is hair, I can guess something happened to my hair during my evolution.

“Vesha?” I ask my parents, looking up at them and pointing to my head.

Mom thinks for a bit, then holds the tips of my hair. “Vesha,” and puts a hand on my head, “Veshy.”

Ah, I see now. The tips of my hair are a different color. Question is, what color? I really wanna know, but to do that, I’ll have to open my eyes and be in a ton of pain. Whelp, guess I’ll never know.

Ting! A great entity, Sand Elemental, was slain by Erandur the dragon.

Umm, okay. Why am I being notified of this? I look up at Mom and tilt my head.

“It’ll happen about once a decade. When something gets super strong and dies, the shock of that reaches the entire world.”

So, it means that when a Great Being, or Entity as it was called, dies, everyone gets a notification. Something about being so powerful leaves an impression on the system, and once that’s removed, it ripples out. Also, it mentions who the slayer is, so no unsung heroes or any way to falsify a kill or kill one without anyone knowing about it.

Once we get back home, Mom and Dad are off to work. I’m again locked in the bedroom, bored out of my mind. Rattle? Boring. Dolls? Not my thing. Trash the room? Meh, I don’t want to be that kid. Sleep? Waste of time. I wanna do something productive. Something like leveling my skills. I’m getting nowhere with [Sense Mana], and I really don’t have any other skill to work on. I have that bond thing, but I know nothing about that.

I actually do have two other skills I can work on, technically, but they’re very painful to use. Actually, just [True Sight] and [Astral Projection] don't hurt. It just, you know, risks me never returning to my body again—not much of a big deal.

Actually, I’ve had a thought on that, and I’ve been mulling it over in my head. Remember that pickaxe I formed way back? What if I formed a lifeline? A tether to my body?

Alright, it’s decided. I’ll attempt [Astral Projection] with a tether but, if I can’t form a tether or it doesn’t work, I’ll give up on the skill—never do it again.

With that, I meditate and soon return to my soul space, at the soul barrier.

I focus on my soul barrier, creating a door. I mentally will into existence a rope tied around me and anchored to the door, a long rope that’ll expand as needed. I steel my nerves and gently step outside of my soul barrier. The tether still contacts me, and I’m able to drift outside and float around.

After a little while, I start feeling a little daring. I drift off further and further into the darkness. Until my soul barrier is barely in sight. I stop moving away and encircle my soul barrier. My body? I dunno, it looks like a sphere. Maybe it’s where my soul is housed within my body?

I should probably get back to my body now—it’s not wise to linger until I get better. Who knows, maybe some spirit will drift by and try to eat me. Or maybe some grim reaper thing will try to reap my wandering soul.

With that shuddering thought, I follow the tether back and return to the world.

Ting! Astral Projection has met the requirements for a breakthrough. Astral Projection will now continue leveling past level 20!

Ting! Astral Projection has obtained levels 2-5!

Astral Projection: You have sent out your consciousness outside of your soul, risking losing yourself in the process. This skill will help you grow into a master of Astral Projection.

1ˢᵗ Breakthrough: You have taken the first step to becoming a true master of Astral Projection by tethering yourself to your body, making sure you will never lose your way.