I slowly came back to consciousness as the comforting warmth that had enveloped me began to recede again.
My mind was still a bit foggy, but the memories slowly came back. I had successfully reached the peak of tier two and chosen to pick one of the evolutions that included a racial change.
Without even having to look at my status yet, everything already felt completely different. Had I grown a few centimeters? The ground felt slightly further down than before. As I had always been on the smaller side, I welcomed that change.
My skin was also incredibly smooth and yet tough and resilient at the same time, like it was made of an unknown alien material. The rough stone I had been walking on with my bare feet all this time had long since stopped hurting me, but the increased thickness of my soles had drastically reduced the sensitivity of how well I could perceive the properties of the ground. Now, however, my feet were as unblemished as before, and walking on the rough stone wasn't even uncomfortable anymore.
Unexpectedly, the biggest outwardly perceivable change was my originally black hair, which now shimmered in a gorgeous yellowish-orange. I had liked my old hair color, but this one was definitely better, it wasn't just ethereal to look at but also so incredibly silky. All the matting I had experienced was gone now as well, which was a huge relief personally.
Speaking of changes in appearance, my halo apparently changed as well, though it was hard to tell exactly from my perspective since it was floating over my head, which made it just barely visible at the edge of my view.
Fitting the theming of my new class, it had lost the sky blue of my [Celestial Fire] and instead turned a color not too different from my new hair color, though it was a lot lighter in value and also more glowy. It also seemed slightly bigger than before, and I thought I could even make out a second, counter-rotating ring at the very last smidge of my field of view, though I could also be imagining that. Maybe the description would tell me, or I could take a look at it through a mirror of some kind if it doesn't.
I also noticed that I could see a lot better in the extremely dim cave, which was currently only lit by the residual light of the halo on my head. Maybe the color of my eye had changed as well? Damn, I wish I had a mirror right now. Doing an evolution like this in a cave was just mean from that perspective.
Anyways, having finished inspecting the immediately obvious, I turned to the elephant in the room that was begging me for attention ever since I woke up again. Finally giving in to my urges, I willed my new status window into existence.
[Name: Hanah Mayflower (Sentinel of the Realm)
Race: Celestial
Level: 76 (Tier III)
Mana: 36,030/36,030 | 30,000/30,000
Achievements: [Hero Candidate], [Predator III], [Molten Rebirth], [Slayer of the Leviathan], [Sentinel of the Realm], [Vanquisher II], [Progenitor], [Trailblazer]
Class: Celestial of the Sun (Legendary+)
Active Skills:
[Sunfire Lv. 30]
[Empress of the Skies Lv. 1]
[Inverted Sky Lv. 17]
[Domain: Volatile Space Lv. 30]
Passive Skills:
[Nuclear Fusion]
[Ethereal Reservoir Lv. 30]
[Indomitable Mind]
[Regalia: Celestial Anthelion Lv. 30]
General Skills:
[Identify], [Pain Immunity]
[Heightened Senses Lv. 19]
[Magical Resistance Lv. 6]
[Physical Resistance Lv. 2]]
Oh wow, there were a lot more changes than I expected. First of all, my race changed, which was one of the things I knew to expect already. I'd look at its description later, though. Obviously, my level and tier changed as well.
One of the things I did not expect was the sheer amount of mana I got from this. While the capacity of my halo was apparently now double that of the previous amount, my natural mana reserves almost quadrupled. While a somewhat large increase in this aspect was normal for tier ups, it didn't match the increase from my previous tier at all. If I had to guess right off the bat, I'd either blame my new race or the new passive skill [Ethereal Reservoir], which could definitely be related to that.
I also apparently got two new achievements in my list, namely [Progenitor] and [Trailblazer]. While I could guess what the progenitor one was for, how I got the trailblazer one was entirely a mystery to me.
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Well, I'd find out soon enough anyway when I get to identifying them. The first thing I wanted to look at was my new race, which fittingly was also first in the list of things I need to look at.
[Celestial:
A new race sculpted out of the desire for freedom and revenge combined. Unseen before, a new form of life, emerged from below, chained and confined. Born under pressure, a diamond in the raw, flawless yet imperfect, though still inspiring awe.
As entirely mana-based life forms, celestials no longer fear the physical destruction of their body as it is an expression of life more than it is a necessity or a requirement. An expression of the soul, a thought given form, a force of nature like an unending storm.
Generate 1 mana per hour. (Hint: Guarantees continued survival under adverse conditions if no other way of generating or claiming mana is available. This prevents an empty natural mana pool from resulting in death.)
In event of physical destruction, body can be regenerated through mana. (Hint: Influencing this process in an attempt to change the resulting physical appearance is not possible.)
Prefixed skills no longer take up skill slots.
> [Progenitor]: Racial inheritance is guaranteed for children when procreating. Race presumed to be selected randomly in case of both parents being [Progenitors].
Hint: Status will now display as [Celestial] when identified.]
Damn, so I'm technically no longer a carbon-based life form now? What is my body made out of now, just pure solidified mana of some kind? What about my brain, though? Do I lose my ability to think when my head gets destroyed, or do I simply no longer have a brain, and my mind fully resides within my soul now? If so, how do senses like touch and sight work? Do I still have nerves like normal beings, or is the information carried by the mana somehow? How does it all work and function together?
I had so many questions about all of this that I didn't even really know where to start. I could cut myself open to see what's inside, but I was very averse to that idea for rather obvious reasons.
Even more interesting, unless something could directly attack my soul somehow, I was basically immortal now, right? Also, could I still age, or was I locked into my current age forever now? I knew that higher-tier beings could live a lot longer than lower-tier beings could, but being biologically immortal was not something I had ever expected to achieve, especially not so early into my life. I don't exactly know how long it took me, but it can't have taken more than a few years at most, presumed that I truly no longer age, of course.
...Also, thanks for directly telling me what [Progenitor] does, I guess. I wasn't planning on having any kids anytime soon, but it was better to have that issue sorted out early rather than late or never, right? Haha...
Never mind that, though. One of the largest benefits of this was the fact that my so-called 'prefixed' skills no longer take up one of the already very limited skill slots. Since I had two of those, I now had four active and four passive skills, while others only had three of each. Having more skills couldn't possibly hurt, right? This was guaranteed, especially in the case of having more passive skills available.
Well, since there wasn't much more to unpack here, I continued with identifying [Trailblazer], the last remaining new addition to my achievements.
[Trailblazer:
Awarded for the first ever recorded instance of possessing a class of a higher grade than the previously recorded highest grade.
Highest known grade: (Legendary) -> (Legendary+)
x2 Experience gained.
[Identify] will now provide more information.]
...The more stuff like this I get from the system, the less I think the system is actually in control of all of this. Just like with the evolution simulation it mentioned before, the system has no idea of what kind of classes could possibly exist out there. All it ever does is recording, analyzing, classifying, and ultimately displaying information. The only thing not entirely fitting into this schema is the experience multipliers it is giving out every now and then.
Experience is directly related to class evolutions. And while the system is evidently not directly responsible for classes or evolutions, it has its fingers in there somewhere since it is very much capable of starting evolutions with the flick of a finger, provided that one is at the maximum level for their tier. There is still a piece of the puzzle missing here, but I'm not exactly sure which one.
Well, maybe I'd find out eventually. It wasn't that important anyway, more of a curiosity than anything actually relevant right now. Having finished my business with my two new achievements, it was time to move on to the main course of the evolution: my new and newly evolved skills.
First I wanted to go over the general skills, even if they are at the bottom of the page. While I previously had resistances to different aspects of magic individually, I now only have two very general skills called [Magical Resistance] and [Physical Resistance]. Was this a perk of my race and its resulting physical changes, or was this related to my class somehow? It could technically also just be related to the tier up, but I think that Instructor Wyn would have touched upon that topic with us if that were to be the case.
Their descriptions were both rather bland and truly obvious from just their name. The skills themselves were really useful, though. After all, no one truly minded being just a bit harder to kill. [Heightened Senses] also jumped in level a bit, which I simply wrote off as a side effect of my new race. The skill leveled up weirdly and for no reason all of the time anyway, so it was better than having no explanation on hand.
Interestingly, [Pain Resistance] had changed to [Pain Immunity], which, honestly, was not that strange. I had the skill at such a high level that I was virtually immune to it anyway, even if it didn't say so explicitly. Pain was an entirely subjective feeling anyways, and who knew if my new body even still had such things as mundane pain receptors and nerves? If my new body fed the sensations to my mind over mana, there was no need for me to interpret those signals as 'painful', even if they technically signal pain, at least semantically.
Before actually involving myself in trying out my active skills, I wanted to familiarize myself with my new passives first. After all, actively testing out skills took a lot longer than just reading descriptions, which made the active skills a good thing to sort out last.
The first skill on this list was [Nuclear Fusion], and I had really high hopes about this one. Since it lacked a level, I wasn't able to tell if it was a new skill or an evolved one, but it wasn't that important anyway. If I remember correctly, nuclear fusion was the process that suns used to generate the endless torrents of energy they expelled. If I were to translate that into the theming of this world and my class, maybe I'd end up with some kind of mana generation skill?
[Nuclear Fusion:
A beacon of hope in the expanse of life destroyed. Burning bright like a star of the night, a ball of power and unending might. Break the laws and generate energy straight from the void.
One law broken, another one infallible and permanent. For keeping balance, a limit is needed. Limited and ceiled but still infinite, a power fulfilled but not completed.
Generate mana equivalent to 1% of your maximum natural mana capacity every minute. (Hint: ≈6 mana/sec)]
Well, spot on I'd say. Incredibly strong as well, exactly like I had dared to hope. With this, it would take at most 100 minutes, less than two hours, to get back to full from zero. My halo's reserve wasn't counted in this one, though, which effectively doubled the time needed as it was pretty much equivalent to my current natural mana pool. Combined with the fact that my mana pool was unreasonably much larger than just a single level ago, it was just incredible. Just what the hell was I supposed to do with so much mana?