Chapter 577 A Different Evolution
Chapter 577 A Different Evolution
“Ugh, I still can’t get used to this.”
Even if it was your favorite thing, anyone would grow tired of taking the same thing over and over again.
Michael hated the sensation, but he was delighted at the sight of his accumulated Evolution Points-both from the spirit potions he had just consumed and from the amount he had saved up since evolving his spear.
[Evolution points: 2721]
However, what Michael hadn’t expected was that it would take 1,500 points to evolve his race.
He had thought that evolving his race would follow the same five-times multiple rule, where the next evolution would cost five times the previous amount. Instead of the 500 he had assumed, it became 1,500.
That was three times higher than his original estimate.
If Michael had been uncertain before about whether this evolution would compare to an Epic-grade creature, now he was sure.
Still, he prayed this was only for his own race and not his undead. Previously, he had calculated it would take just over 3,000 points to evolve one of his undead to One-Star Epic grade. If it actually required 10,000 points each, he felt he might go insane.
He truly hoped that wasn’t the case.
If any other Necromancer knew Michael’s thoughts, they would spit in his face with disdain.
He could at least evolve his undead, even if the cost was steep-but was it truly steep?
With his current daily gain, he would need just about four months at most to accumulate 10,000 Evolution Points.
An Epic-grade creature every four months was considered slow?
Four months, not even half a percent of their lifespan?
The ungrateful Michael, sorry, the ignorant main character, who at first felt like he had been robbed, soon pushed all distracting thoughts away from his mind.
Right now, it was his original body that was inside the coffin space.
If he wasn’t certain that evolving brought only pain and not death, Michael would never have attempted this.
But to avoid calamity caused by evolving, like attracting attention or breaking things, or even harming people, Michael had no choice but to use his original body.
Just like in the Land of Origin, Michael remained extremely cautious about his surroundings in the real world as well.
That world mattered more to him for several reasons.
Of course, just as he took precautions in the real world, Michael did the same in the Land of Origin.
With the Everlong Forest so close, he ventured deep into its depths and had both Prince and Gale guard him, with the former instructed to contain any commotion he caused as much as possible. Michael had a feeling that this evolution wasn’t going to be simple.
Inside the dome Prince had conjured in the Land of Origin, Michael summoned his talent and willed it to begin evolving his body.
Michael immediately braced for agony. A second passed. Then another. Then a third.
Nothing.
Frowning, Michael opened his eyes.
What he saw left him stunned.
He was no longer in the coffin space. No longer in the dome Prince had raised in the Everlong Forest.
He stood adrift in a boundless sea of stars.
What shocked him more was the sight of a familiar item floating before him.
It loomed vast, as massive as a moon.
A cauldron.
His talent.
“What’s happening?” Michael tried to speak, but no sound left his mouth.
The cauldron began to tremble. At first, the vibration was faint, like the hum of a distant bell, but soon it grew stronger, sending ripples through the star-filled void.
White light seeped from its bronze surface, soft at first, then blinding as if a sun had awoken inside it.
Michael blinked against the glow, only to realize something even more unsettling, he was naked. Not in the vulnerable sense, but stripped of everything physical. He could feel his body, and yet… it wasn’t a body. It was something else.
My soul?
The thought came unbidden, and it made sense. Only, why was his soul here? And more importantly, why was his talent-something that should have been nested deep inside his soul-standing before him as if it had taken on a life of its own?
He didn’t have time to answer the question.
The cauldron’s light surged, erupting like a tidal wave. Engravings Michael had never noticed before lit up across its bronze hide- mountains rising, beasts roaring, humans kneeling, gods descending. Each image seemed alive, moving in sequence, like an ancient story unfurling in fragments.
Then, all at once, the light burst outward.
It rushed into him. His consciousness buckled, his vision blurred.
Soon Michael lost consciousness. Or rather, half lost consciousness.
And though his soul floated here, Michael could still feel his body
Then warmth spread through him.
It wasn’t the sharp tearing agony of every evolution he had seen and the one he endured.
Warmth deepened into drowsiness. His eyelids grew heavy, not in body, but in soul. It wasn’t his choice-it was an involuntary pull, a tide dragging him down into slumber.
Michael struggled, tried to resist, but his will slipped like sand through an open palm. The last thought he clung to made his chest
tighten.
Was it wise… to step into this without testing it first?
If he had let one of his undead attempt this path before him, he might
have known what awaited. Now, all he could do was surrender to the
unknown.
The starlit void blurred. The cauldron’s engravings pulsed one final
time, spilling light across his being.
And Michael fell asleep.
What Michael did not know was that, outside the starry void, his true
body had begun to change.
First came the light. Not the blistering flare that once burned the eyes
of anyone nearby, but a calm radiance that seeped from his skin
making his whole form looked carved from dawn.
Then the runes appeared.
They rose one by one and started appearing in mid air around him..
The sight would have been peaceful if not for the mana.
It came in quiet floods from every direction.
Gale stood at a distance with arms folded and eyes narrowed.
Prince kept his hands splayed, maintaining the dome, and let a second shell form inside the first to bleed off pressure. The barrier
trembled as if listening. When the mana surge spiked, the dome imbedded with hints if his law grew thicker by a hair and the forest quieted again.
To those who could sense such things, the feeling it gave felt like an opportunity.
One that normally only natural treasures gave.
Hours slid by, and even Prince could no longer keep the surge fully contained. The dome held, but it hummed like a drumskin under a steady hand.
The Forest grew watchful.
Shapes gathered in the dark.
One by one, Rank 3 beasts padded out of the trees and took up
positions in a loose ring a kilometer out. They didn’t do anything and simply watched the dome.
If this had happened hours ago, Prince and Gale might not have understood what drew them, but now they did. They could not name the pattern of it, but they could feel it.
Michael’s change was tugging at the rules behind the world.
Laws.
By standing near him, both Prince and Gale felt their own paths sharpen. Insights that would have taken months to tease apart came forward like inked bold.
It was as if the air around Michael had become a classroom and a
shrine at once.
The monsters felt it too.
But to them, the current Michael was nothing less than a treasure
that had not yet been harvested. This was the reason why none of them had attacked yet.
They were waiting for him to bloom.
Prince adjusted the inner shell and glanced at Gale. “They have not
moved yet.”
“They will the instant he wakes,” Gale said.
Inside the dome, runes continued to circle Michael like slow stars.
The calm glow on his skin did not fade. Mana streamed in from everywhere then vanished into him without a ripple.
Like this, the first day passed.
The dome still held, but the forest outside had grown heavy with
eyes. The number of Rank 3 monsters watching from the shadows had swelled to nearly two dozen.
By the second day, that number doubled. Almost four dozen beasts
now ringed the dome-serpents coiled around trees, avians perched like gargoyles, horned predators crouched low. The circle tightened without a single roar.
All of them stared, all of them waiting.
The mana density around Michael had reached the point where even
the weakest of them could sense their laws stir faintly, as though an
unseen teacher whispered directly into their souls.
Then came the third day.
Close to fifty monsters had gathered.
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Next Title: True Human and New Title. A New Gift?
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A/N: Sorry for the slow chapter update guys. I’ll make it up with
tomorrow’s chapter release. Thanks for reading and see you tomorrow!
Also, Lucky art is out on discord but I’ll paste it here under the comment section.