The second notification hit him harder than the first.

  *Evolution path.*

  He'd read about it in the journal from the Library of Dust - the theoretical framework for unbound class archetypes suggested that evolution milestones came at intervals the System deemed significant. Level 5 was the first. The point where a class stopped being a seed and started being a plant. Where the System looked at what you'd done, how you'd grown, and offered you a new shape.

  Thirty-seven percent. More than a third of the way there. Months of grinding, fighting, studying, bleeding - and he was a third of the way to becoming something more than a [Nomad].

  The water ran over his face. He breathed.

  Three points. And this time, the decision matrix was different. He had [Mana Sense] now. He had a real weapon. He had a team that functioned and a combat identity that was beginning to crystallize - the adaptive fighter, the role-switcher, the one who watched and learned and stole and improvised. The bottlenecks were shifting.

  Mystical needed investment. [Mana Sense] was his most powerful tactical asset, and it ran on MP, and MP was MYS plus INT. Every point of Mystical bought him more seconds of the ability that let him see the dungeon's truth - mana flows, creature signatures, weak points, network structures. The Rat King fight had proven that [Mana Sense] wasn't a luxury. It was the difference between walking blind and walking with eyes open. MYS 8 was barely functional. MYS 9 was still low - but it was the threshold where magical skills started to feel less like forcing water uphill and more like channeling a current.

  Vitality. The day had taught him a lesson his bruises were still writing into his skin: resource pools determined survival duration, and SP was the pool that kept him standing. He'd hit empty twice during the Rat King fight. Both times, the emptiness had been a void - a cliff edge beyond which his body simply stopped responding to commands. Every point of Vitality deepened the well he drew from, and the margin between surviving and collapsing was measured in single Stamina points. One more point wouldn't buy him another full [Footwork] activation - the tripled cost made the math too cruel for that - but it bought him one more second of staying in the fight before his body quit on him. And one second, placed correctly, could be everything.

  And Strength. He'd resisted investing in STR - it wasn't his identity, wasn't his path. He wasn't going to out-muscle anyone. But the Rat King kill had put a blade in his hand that deserved better than an eight behind it. The Subway Fang was Agility-aligned, but a sword still needed to be swung, still needed force behind the edge. His killing blow had worked because he'd hit a weak point - anatomy plus precision. But weak points weren't always available. Sometimes you just needed to cut through hide, and an eight in Strength meant his cuts were shallow, his swings were slow, and his arms gave out before his tactical mind ran out of ideas. Nine wasn't strong. Nine was the floor of functional.

  Mystical. Vitality. Strength.

  He let the intent form. The warmth moved - one thread deeper into the space behind his sternum where mana lived, widening the channel by another fraction, the connection to the ambient currents strengthening like a radio slowly tuning to a clearer frequency. One thread into his core, his lungs, the deep reservoir of physical endurance that the System measured as Stamina. One thread into his shoulders, his forearms, the mechanical foundation of every strike - not much, not enough to change what he was, but enough to close the gap between *couldn't cut it* and *barely cut it*.

  ―――――――――――――――――――

  [SYSTEM]

  Attributes Updated:

  STR: 8 → 9 | AGI: 12 | VIT: 10 → 11

  INT: 13 | MYS: 8 → 9 | PRE: 10

  HP: 20 → 21 | SP: 20 → 21 | MP: 21 → 22

  ―――――――――――――――――――

  ―――――――――――――――――――

  [SYSTEM - STATUS]

  **Level Up: 3 → 4**

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  Attribute points distributed: Strength +1, Vitality +1, Mystical +1

  **Name:** Jace Miller

  **Class:** Nomad

  **Tier:** Normal

  **Role:** Unassigned

  **Level:** 4

  Strength: 9 ↑

  Agility: 12

  Vitality: 11 ↑

  Intelligence: 13

  Mystical: 9 ↑

  Presence: 10

  Hit Points: 21

  Stamina: 21

  Mana: 22

  **Skills:**

  Athletics - Novice

  [Footwork: Evasion] - Apprentice ↑

  Improvised Combat - Apprentice ↑

  Initiative - Apprentice

  Dodging - Novice

  Ranged Weapons: Throwing - Novice *(new)*

  Endurance - Apprentice

  Pain Tolerance - Novice

  Analysis - Journeyman ↑

  Academics - Novice

  Basic Mana Theory - Apprentice ↑

  Basic Rune Identification - Novice *(new)*

  Basic Anatomy - Apprentice ↑

  First Aid - Novice *(new)*

  Streetwise - Journeyman ↑

  Intimidation: Social - Novice *(new)*

  **Powers:**

  [Mana Sense] - Active - 15 MP/min

  Perceive ambient mana flows, creature signatures,

  and magical structures within range.

  Proficiency: Apprentice

  **Equipment of Note:**

  Subway Fang - Common - Finesse sword, AGI-aligned.

  *Vermin Bane* passive vs. beast-class dungeon fauna.

  Dungeon Rat-Hide Bracers - Common - Minor AGI bonus, improved grip.

  **Milestone:** Level 5 Evolution - 37% to threshold.

  ―――――――――――――――――――

  The warmth settled. The shower ran. Jace stood in the steam and the silence and felt the new architecture of himself - still small, still fragile by any standard that mattered, but *growing*. Not in one direction. In all of them. A foundation spreading outward, each level adding another layer of capability, another degree of flexibility. A specialist would have six more points in their primary attribute by now. A [Skirmisher] at Level 4 would have an AGI of 18 or 19. A [Brawler] would have STR over 20.

  Jace had nothing over 13 in any raw attribute. He was still below the starting line of every Rare-tier student in his year.

  But the evolution path was at thirty-seven percent. And the System - the System that categorized everything, that sorted the world into tiers and roles and boxes - had looked at what he was building and said: *continue current trajectory.*

  Not *error*. Not *insufficient*. Not *recalculate*.

  *Continue.*

  He turned off the water. Toweled off. Walked back to his room in the quiet dormitory, past closed doors behind which students with better classes and better stats slept the easy sleep of people who knew exactly what they were becoming.

  Jace didn't know what he was becoming. That was the point. That was the whole terrifying, exhilarating, impossible point.

  He lay on his cot. The Subway Fang hung from the bedpost, the dark metal catching the pipe's blue pulse. The Common-tier bracers sat on his desk beside eighty credits and a broken Trash-tier hilt he kept because it reminded him of who he'd been yesterday.

  Level 4. [Nomad]. Normal-tier. Every stat below the median, every resource pool a fraction of the standard, every skill bought at triple price and executed at half power.

  And thirty-seven percent of the way to becoming something the System hadn't named yet.

  He closed his eyes. The evolution counter ticked silently in the back of his awareness, patient as a clock, measuring the distance between who he was and who he might become.

  Sleep came. For once, it was not the sleep of exhaustion.

  It was the sleep of someone who was, against all evidence and all expectation, looking forward to tomorrow.

  ---