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Ch 168: E is for Evolution
🕑 Added 2025-08-04 14:00:12 +0000 UTCYou have defeated Beast King Crinoptera, the Peerless Scourge - lvl 50 +
Reid panted, and let himself slide down until he sat on the edge of Crinoptera's wound. The glow faded from his body, and with it, a flood of exhaustion and suppressed pain flowed through him. He had pushed himself during this fight. Whatever that more intense glow and light represented, it left him spent... and there was something else about the fight that slipped away from his mind when he tried to grasp it. Maybe something he said? Reid couldn't pin it down, and more notifications flooded in that demanded attention.
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Questline Stage Completed: The Beast Lords - (Stage 10 of 10)
Secret Challenge Completed: Finished Stage 10 in less than 3,081 days.
Bonus Experience awarded for completing secret challenge!
Achievement Upgraded!
Venator IX -> Venator X
(Earned for engaging and defeating beast lords in solo combat)
Invulnerable IV -> Invulnerable V
(Earned for defeating two beast lords without taking any losses)
Regicide I -> Regicide II
(Earned for killing a King)
Grade Jumper I -> Grade Jumper II
(Earned for defeating an F grade entity while still in G grade -> Upgraded for defeating an E grade entity while still in F grade)
Desolate Warrior I -> Desolate Warrior II
(Earned for fighting and winning inside of an inhospitable or near-fatal environment)
New Achievements Earned!
Goliath Breaker
(Earned for defeating a Goliath-sized beast for the first time)
Deal increased damage to beasts that are Goliath-sized, or larger.
Dangerous Pause
(Earned for disengaging from a battle while still under enemy attacks and in enemy territory)
Grants a slight boost to recovery during pauses in battle.
Full Boost
(Earned for maintaining the maximum theoretical potential of a boosting effect without suffering permanent or terminal consequences)
Slightly improves resilience to side effects of auras, blessings, boons, boosts, and buffs.
Questline Stage Experience Awarded: 1,000,000 xp (E)
Accelerated Growth Experience (.72) Awarded: 720,000 xp (E)
Level: 49 -> 65
Grade: F -> E
Control: 630 -> 870
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NOTICE: EVOLUTION TRIGGERED.
NOTICE: Notifications for [Questline Rewards] will resume once evolution is complete.
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Reid's head swam trying to keep up with the text. Thoughts flashed through his mind. He blew through multiple levels with just the points from the questline stage - which made some sense. The lower levels inside a grade had comparatively low xp requirements, so getting 1.7 Million E grade xp out the gate vaulted him forward. Reid's brain worked the math quickly - he'd gained 16 levels, and 240 control, which worked out to... 15 control per level. He spent a moment in worry. After all, he was getting 20 points per level in F grade - except that F grade's 'normal' rate had been 10 points per level, and he got another 10 from his evolution achievements.
So under normal circumstances, G grade was a max of 5 stat points per level, F grade was 10, and E grade was 15. Reid pushed the thoughts aside, even as he hoped he would get another stat boost from evolution achievements.
He'd upgraded a ton of skills - some he wasn't even aware had a second stage to them. There were implications about the size of beasts increasing from the insane size he'd encountered in the tutorial, and another implication that his golden light and that sublime empowered feeling was not meant to be used at the level he was using it. Boosting, if that's what it was, seemed to be something people didn't just turn on and use.
A rippling charge pulsed out from his abdomen, and through his body. Reid felt it, permeating through both his physical and metaphysical self with a design, a mission, and a purpose. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as memories of the tortoruous experience of his last evolution came back to him. His voice came out softer than he intended.
"Nyx?"
He felt her before he heard a response - a coil of mixed emotions that solidified into something more certain and rigid. "I've got you, Reid. I'm ready this time."
Reid let out a shaky breath, and tried to relax. He trusted Nyx, completely - but it was hard to shake off the feeling of what happened in the past. He could practically feel his stomach flipping, though nothing had happened yet. Reid semiconsciously readied himself to burn through the evolution's energy, just like he'd done before. His hands dug into Crinoptera's cold remains, as if holding on tight to the physical world would save him.
As if spurred on by his memories, the energy pushed towards his physical mind. Nyx did seemingly little to try to control or stop it, and Reid kept his breathing steady as best he could. He felt it push up to his neck, then beyond.
Reid braced himself - but the pain didn't come.
As it neared his cancer, the energy veered off and repeatedly split into a series of intense beams. They bounced on and around things Reid couldn't really sense or feel. The only way he knew something was there was because the energy bounced off of it. Or - bounced off wasn't quite the right term. As energy flowed into the odd branching mess, the branches solidified. Each split and branch turned into a more solid, real thing. Once he noticed the process, its purpose became clear. He let out a breath with a half-whistle.
Nyx was... pretty damn impressive.
Not only was she preventing the energy from causing him harm or letting his cancer's growth catch up to his leveling, Nyx had found a way to make the energy build a protective, bean-shaped cage over the area. With every branch, some of the main energy was consumed to make a solid structure. With each next bit of energy that moved through it, the structure was made a little thicker. Instead of making it beyond the thickening branches, new energy was immediately consumed by the branches themselves.
The process felt simple, but Reid suspected it was anything but. Especially because the sensation he got from the structure was 'similar' to the sensations he'd gotten from Hugo as the man had progressed in his soul structuring. There was something potentially encompassing all three aspects of the physical, metaphysical, and... soul-esque? Spiritual? Ethereal? Reid was going to have to ask Nyx what the term for soul stuff was. But his instinct pointed at her work encompassing all three aspects.
The energy pulsing from within him faded as time progressed, until the last bits flowed into the structure Nyx had created, and solidified. Everything stilled. Reid didn't dare speak, and he could tell both he and Nyx were waiting for something to go wrong. As the seconds ticked by, Nyx's reluctant hope turned into a joyous roil.
"YEEEESSS! HA! Take that! You can't beat me, because I'm too. DAMN. GOOD!"
Reid smiled up at empty air, where grey clouds were starting to noticeably disperse. Relief washed through him in waves, and he let his grip on Crinoptera's corpse go slack. He looked at his bare hands, coated in a thick layer of blue viscera from the creature. He was still sitting in the wound he'd made inside the thing's head, using the carcass of a giant, once-unmatched beast as the world's grossest chair. At least it wasn't as gross as a pumpkin.
Reid chuckled at the thought, and his hands, and this situation, and Nyx's joy. The sound echoed off the mountain stone. He laughed, and Nyx laughed, and they both kept going until tears streamed down Reid's face.
He'd made it through evolution, and he made it through the tutorial. Nyx and him both.
They actually made it.
A new breath of cold air brought more laughter, and with it more tears.
There were so many setbacks he'd endured. Challenges he refused to back down from in the moments, and ones he bashed his head against as he trekked over miles and miles of wild terrain. A near-constant wind sprint through F grade he'd been forced to endure, to stay alive. Monsters and men he'd fought to advance, or stay alive, or just to eat. He'd almost started to expect every advancement to come with some sort of drawback or downside. And now, here he was, and he'd made it.
And there were no drawbacks to be seen.
Maybe this is what it was supposed to be like. The joy and excitement of advancement and growth, unblemished by dark clouds and dark fates. Spots of sun broke completely through the clouds, bathing sections of the mountain and the surrounding area in their gleaming glow. A small group of grey birds took wing, and flew unfettered by wind.
A bottle of water popped into existence in Reid's hands, and he used it to rinse off the gore as he spoke.
"That was some damn impressive stuff, Nyx. Thank you."
"Somebody has to give you a run for your money, Reid... but, you're welcome. And thank-you, too."
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NOTICE: Evolution Complete!
Achievements Upgraded!
True Balance I -> True Balance II
(Earned for evolving to a new grade with perfect or near-perfect stat balance)
Automatically compensates for minor stat imbalances. Grants a small bonus to level-awarded stat points in grade: [E].
True Arcana I -> True Arcana II
(Earned for evolving to a new grade with metaphysical abilities at or near the given individual's limit)
Allows the individual to more easily condense and manipulate their energies. Grants a small bonus to level-awarded stat points in grade: [E].
True Prowess I -> True Prowess II
(Earned for evolving to a new grade with physical abilities at or near the given individual's limit)
Slightly increases the individual's mastery of the physical self. Grants a small bonus to level-awarded stat points in grade: [E].
Perfect Evolution I -> Perfect Evolution II
(Earned for achieving True evolutions in each tracked area)
Assists progress. Deepens awareness. Grants a bonus to level-awarded stat points in grade: [E].
New Achievements Awarded!
Extraordinary Velocity
(Earned for progressing through the entirety of F grade in 10 years or fewer)
Slightly increases the rate at which new quests, questlines, and challenges become available.
Dualgrade Anomaly
(Earned for evolving twice within a single spacio-temporal construct, subspace, or engineered pocket dimension)
Slightly reduces the progress-dampening effects of temporal dilation. Slightly improves resilience against anomalous zones.
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NOTICE: Achievement Effects Retroactively Applied to: [Level 50], [Level 51], [Level 52]...
Control: 870 -> 1,110
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NOTICE: [Questline Rewards] resuming.
NOTICE: Calculating Questline Rewards, Please Wait.
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Reid blinked, once, and slowly. He knew he would have more text scrolling in front of him in short order, but there was a great deal of implication in what he'd just read.
First, his 'true' and 'perfect' achievements had upgraded, and with that upgrade, they had given him the promised additional stats. Reid barely had to think about the math. It was 15 points - double the standard amount for E grade. That meant a total of 30 points per level in this grade - and a total of 150 stat points per level spread between the 5 mains.
Reid was strong. He knew that, despite a bit of consistent mental disconnect between his self image and what he was truly capable of. So when he saw that new spread, Reid first grasped the idea that he was going to remain leaps and bounds stronger than the people around him. The next thought was far more promising.
Speed.
Reid would get closer to the point where he could stand up for himself, and Sara, and Susan against whatever opposing force they encountered - and he would do it at an advanced rate over any rational timeline. He had been able to tear apart Belar's F grade power armor as soon as he was F grade himself, which meant he would be ready to fight cosmic-level threats before he was truly 'equal' to their grade or level. That all meant he would be able to see his family sooner.
Heck, now that he was thinking about it, Win had said he could start helping her out with her issues once he hit D grade. If his math on everything was correct, Reid might be able to give a D-grader a run for their money in a straight fight. It was all good, promising ideas that helped to further lift Reid's spirits and make him excited for what was to come.
Then, there was his achievement, extraordinary velocity. He had, of course, told Nyx he wanted to set a record - but part of that was self-motivation. Seeing that the award was for doing the grade in less than 10 years confirmed he had again been far from ordinary with his progress, and went to show just how far outside the scope of normal it had been. The other thing it confirmed for him was that the system counted the years he spent petrified against his 'age' and the time he'd spent in G grade. Otherwise, Reid expected he would also have gotten an achievement for how quickly he made it through that one. So, confirmation of a theory, and recognition of his accomplishment were both good. The effect of getting him new quests and questlines, though, was less than necessary. Reid had plenty of things to worry about already without the number of quests for him increasing even further.
Dualgrade Anomaly was the final achievement - and the one really made him think. Apparently, going from G to F and then F to E in the tutorial did have an achievement tied to it. One that implied the existence of time dilation, of all things, along with subspaces and pocket dimensions, and spacetime constructs. The pocket dimensions one was probably what the tutorial actually was, which was an interesting thing to know. Interesting, because the affect implied there were more spaces like the tutorial that could exist out there. If time dilation was a thing, though - Reid wanted to find it. He wanted to use it. If his advantages to leveling speed and his capability and might were paired with something like that - his timeline to see his family again would be phenomenally shorter.
The big question was where and how to find a place like that. Luckily, he had Nyx with him. If anyone could give him advice on where to find some time-compression training space, it would be an ancient, knowledgeable entity like her. Another thing to add to the questions pile. Reid smiled as the next notification rolled in.
NOTICE: Calculations Complete.
Congratulations! You have completed the questline, [The Beast Lords].
Please select distribution.
It was time for some new rewards.
