Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 73: Evolution, the second

Isaac took a deep breath … and spent the 5,000 XP needed to Level up one final time. Every Evolution was important, but that went doubly for the second one.

For one, it was the first one that gave options to change one’s race. Right now, most people considered the ‘Race: Human’ part of the Status Screen to be the most ridiculously superfluous thing on there. Of course, the number of people who’d reached the second Evolution and knew better was vanishingly small. As in, if Isaac needed to take off his socks to count them, he’d be very surprised.

As to what racial options would be available, he could only speculate. There were certain combinations of Aspects and [Classes] that could unlock them, like any kind of [Warrior]-style [Class] and the Draugr Aspect would grant the [Draugr] [Class] along with the Draugr race. The [Class] provided incredible [Skills] both for offense and mobility, while the race passively provided incredible survival and regeneration. All for the low, lowprice of one’s good looks and human appearance.

Also, a certain focus in one’s build could also open up new racial options. For example, an aquatic build granting the option to turn into a fishperson or mermaid, and so on, and so forth.

Still, even if he was offered something good, he almost certainly wouldn’t take it. Changing races tended to lead to being treated differently. Anyone stupid enough to do that to people’s faces was a near-automatic Darwin Award winner, given that the very thing they were mocking people for also marked them as being extraordinarily powerful.

Isaac shook his head at focusing too much onto speculating instead of actually looking at what he had available. He quickly tossed the ten Stat points he’d gained from the Level up into Mana Regeneration, and then pulled up the Evolution Tab.

Congratulations! You’ve managed to reach the second Evolution Threshold.

Based on your current achievements, Skill Levels and Aspects, you have unlocked several new Classes. If these options do not satisfy you, you may choose to leave this screen and continue to rack up more prerequisites, but you cannot increase your Level beyond 25 until you evolve your Class.

Here are your possible Class Evolutions:

Prophet of Loki (legendary)

You have gazed upon the magnificence that is the divine trickster, in all his ultimate glory. So you now gain the option of joining him in the pursuit of making the world a less boring place, isn’t that exciting?

To gain the incredible power this Class grants, all you have to do is join Loki in his cause and spread the good word, fighting boredom, mundanity and stagnation as you go along. After all, nothing is as boring as everything staying the same.

And towards this purpose, you may invoke the divine wrath of the greatest Norse god, thus is the power of a Prophet.

So join him, become an agent of change and good natured fun, what other choice is there`

(Unlocks Liosalfar racial option)

Isaac stopped reading further down the [Class] list to facepalm. He’d come face to face with a god, and now he was being offered the [Class] for that, a [Class] which he would not, ever, under any circumstances, be taking.

The simple fact that it was a divine [Class] was reason enough for that, never mind that Isaac could not stand the god it was attached to.

In essence, divine [Classes] came with a bunch of strings attached, but they were pretty powerful, granting rare, epic and in this case, even legendary levels of power, all in exchange for appropriate levels of worship. This worship would, in turn, allow the gods to reciprocate using some tiny measure of their true power without jostling the balance between divine factions.

However, at the end of the day, these kinds of [Classes] were only normal [Classes] of their rarity, and on the weaker end at that. A true blue legendary [Class] would go just as far, if not further without, any kind of annoying caveats.

Besides, you couldn’t just grab a legendary rarity divine [Class] without actually seeing the relevant god or achieving something equally insane. An epic [Class] was easier to get, but it still required a rather large sacrifice of goods, livestock, or if the god in question was dark enough, human lives. Anyone could get a rare [Class], but getting a normal rare [Class] was easy enough and Isaac would look down on anyone who took that easy way to power.

End of the day, power borrowed was power that wasn’t yours. Really, there was no way in hell he’d pick that.

However, he was glad that he’d seen the option, because it confirmed a couple of things for him.

The first was that some gods were writing [System] messages. That message up there had been incredibly silly, not ‘occasional [System] silliness’, but rather ‘Loki’ level ridiculousness. Also, the [System] usually didn’t blow smoke up people’s asses as it had done here. This had pretty clearly been written by the god himself. It gave all the information needed to understand what the [Class] required and what it offered in return, it merely did so using supremely weird phrasing.

It also represented solid proof that none of his achievements from the other timeline carried over. After all, he’d come face to face with the god Janus there, so he should also have been offered something along the lines of [Prophet of Janus], but he hadn’t. And that incident had taken place mere moments before his return to the past, no less. If anything were to carry over, it should have been this … but it hadn’t.

On some level, that was disappointing, but weirdly enough, he was feeling pretty relieved. Somehow, this represented a kind a separation from that timeline of death and Armageddon, that he wasn’t tied to that great failure anymore.

Now though, he’d check out the race just for the hell of it. After all, the Liosalfar, or as most people knew it, the elven race was pretty famous and one of the few that he might have considered taking when offered, though right now, it was solidly off the table due to it being linked to a [Class] that was, in turn, linked to Loki.

Congratulations! You’ve reached the point where you may change your race!

Sticking with your old race might not give you exciting new body parts and bonuses, but it sure is comfortable to stick with what you know, isn’t it?

Human (natural, mundane (current race))

Homo sapiens sapiens, the wise man, the Earth’s premier species, or at least that’s what they think. Hell, the very word primates is derived from the Latin language and means first or noble, which is where the people who named them think they are when ranking all living beings.

Humans are adaptable, intelligent tool users descended from endurance predators, their ability to sweat allowing them to cool without having to stop and pant, letting them outrun any land creature at a distance.

In addition, their hands are highly flexible and allow them to grasp and manipulate most tools while the high number of neurons in their brain grant them a high level of intelligence, pattern recognition and creativity.

Benefits: intelligence (current level),

Base Stats: 5-15 for a normal adult

Liosalfar (supernatural)

I believe the phrase ‘Bow Chicka Wow Wow’ is appropriate here. Sex appeal made manifest. Hottest thing under the sun, and maybe even hotter than the flaming ball of plasma and nuclear fusion itself.

That is how someone might describe the, if you want to be boring, ‘fair folk’.

Beauitful, long lived, strong as hell. Who wouldn’t want to become one?

Benefits: increased lifespan, increased magical sensitivity, increased affinity with wild animals and nature magic

Base Stats: 10-25 in physical stats (Strength, Fortitude, Agility, Perception), 30-35 in magical stats

He hadn’t been offered any races other than his current one, human, and the Liosalfar, which was attached to that stupid [Prophet of Loki] [Class].

Also, he’d gotten a chance to read the proper description for that race in the other timeline … which most certainly wasn’t what was written here. Someone had clearly had a lot of fun with that one.

Overall though, it seemed to be the same race that he’d known from the other timeline, just described by someone with the emotional maturity of a toddler. It offered great strength through a decent boost to the physical stats and a massive one to the magical ones, though the biggest draw would always and forever be the massively increased lifespan.

But there were plenty of good alternatives for the latter, some available through [Classes], others gained from Aspects. [Draconic Lifeforce], [Eternal Vigil], [Perfect Regeneration], [Stabilized Genetics], and so on, and so forth.

Isaac facepalmed again. How the hell had a being older than all countries and most civilizations, at the very minimum, managed to sound so utterly juvenile?

But yeah, who wouldn’t want to be an elf, a light elf to be specific? Well, depending on who you asked, that distinction wasn’t actually necessary. Alfar were elves, split into the Liosalfar, the light elves and cliché blonde beauties with immense magical power and the Döckalfar, the dark elves who lived underground and were amazing metalsmiths. However, some scolars thought that the Döckalfar were actually dwarves, given how similar they were. Others used the term Svartalfar, black elves, for dwarves, meaning that both they and the dark elves lived underground.

The [System] hadn’t been any help either, calling the people who’d chosen the dwarven race ‘Dwarves’. Sometimes, it felt like it picked which words to use purely based on what would fuck with humanity the most.

Thankfully, he still had plenty of other options for a [Class], even if they didn’t come with a cool new race.

Beast of Infinite Forms (epic)

Turning into a massive Kaiju and finishing a fight in moments sounds great, right? But what if a Kaiju is the only thing you can turn into, do you think it might end up being a little inconvenient?

And that is what this Class is for, granting countless Skills to improve shapeshifting, gaining and customizing additional forms, perfectly adjusting the new bodies. Become the deadly predator you always were on the inside!

Weaver of Deathly Images (epic)

What was that, right there in the shadows? And wasn’t someone standing right there just a moment ago? … and what is that, is that wind in your neck the hot breath of some monster?

Point is, a person with this Class can be bloody terrifying, for they are some of the world’s deadliest assassins.

Masters of stealth and manipulating their victim’s senses, and they even have the ultimate ability to snatch their victim out of this very reality and trapping them with you in a pocket dimension for a few minutes. But really, how many people are still going to be alive after that long.

Reeve (epic)

What is justice? Blindly following the letter of the law? A complex moral question without any clear answers? Merely a title the powerful slap onto their decisions to make them seem alright?

Yet despite all those questions, there are a few things that are unquestionably good, right and just. For example, stopping a notorious serial killer’s murder spree.

And this Class is about things like this. Catch the bad guy, save the people.

This Class grants you Skills to solve crimes, find criminals, take them down, and finally, the ability to actually contain them.

Bladewraith (legendary)

There are as many paths of the blade as there are grains of sand on a beach, each only differentiated by a tiny facet of their being. A different weapon, a different Core Skill or set of Central Skills, just a tiny change that alters how the Class is used.

But this Class is more than any ordinary, focused one. This is the true essence of fighting with a sword of any type, shape, elemental affinity and every other kind of modification.

This is the power of an adaptable soulbound blade, one that can be anything it needs to be, anything you could possibly want to slay a monster.

This Class is all about blade and the Skills it grants reflect that. With this Class, you can boost the power of your sword, strengthen your strikes and empower your fighting skills.

Machiavelli’s Heir (legendary)

Movers and shakers shape the world. Some do so openly, leading nations as democratically elected leaders or monarchs, others do so from the shadows. A word here, a gift there, and maybe a little espionage out of the public eye.

You have shaken the world multiple times, all from your position first a student and then a research assistant, while pawning the credit off to someone else, and continue to do so.

You have proven yourself worthy of inheriting the mantle of the father of modern political philosophy. The knowledge he once held now passes to you, you may call on his instincts and even, once a week, his advice. In addition, this Class will bring with the ability to conduct negotiations and statecraft at preternatural levels, letting you sense motives, see through lies and visualize interpersonal connections without ever having to do more than activate a single Skill.

(see all available Classes?)

There were only a handful of [Classes] available, and only half of them were actually linked to his current [Class], the others having been unlocked by his achievements. However, that was to be expected. Having picked such a specialized [Class] with such a specific purpose had already set his path rather thoroughly. Now, he’d gotten the option of choosing to focus either on direct fighting, stealth fighting and ambushes, or his shapeshifting.

Sure, there were others he could look at, but that list covered literally all of the ones he’d unlocked, ever. However, the ones shown were always the best ones, meaning that that list was pretty superfluous. Given that the lowest rarity [Class] he was being shown was epic, that meant that everything on that list was rare, meaning they were effectively trash, at least to him.

He'd also gotten a [Class] for catching Krebs. It was only epic, but it seemed that the [System] deemed the fact that he’d caught a notorious serial killer who’d left a trail of bodies all over the continent significant enough to comment on it, but not significant enough to give him something legendary. After all, he’d only caught one such criminal.

Oh, and then there was [Machiavelli’s Heir]. He wouldn’t have thought he’d unlock an inheritor [Class], given that his situation was kina, sorta, utterly unique. Well, at least as far as he knew, though if someone had ever travelled to the past and prevented an apocalypse, Isaac assumed he’d have been offered the chance to pick up their mantle as well.

But he definitely hadn’t expected to get that inheritor [Class], even though it made a hell of a lot of sense after that explanation. He had taken a rather significant number of world changing, world shaking actions, all from his lowly position as a research assistant to one Professor Adam Bailey. His knowledge from the other timeline had certainly helped with that, but as he’d just found out, the [System] didn’t acknowledge any of that.

But also, ouch. The word ‘machiavellian’ had some damn serious negative connotations and smacking him with that label could easily be taken as an insult.

In some ways, it was the perfect [Class], quite literally designed to change the world.

In others, it was the worst possible choice. It was a non-combat [Class] and once the [Skills] from his old [Classes] stopped being quite as effective, combat would no longer be a good shortcut to power. Besides, it just wasn’t him, it … Isaac sighed. That last point had sounded whiny even to his own ears. He also realized that he was just coming up with reasons to not take it because he truly did not want to.

This [Class] wasn’t what he’d envisioned taking and that was one of the factors to consider. A [Class] became a part of you and it was a hell of a lot easier to advance it if one actually enjoyed what it let you do. Grinding a bunch of [Skills] one did not enjoy using was annoying as hell and provided subpar results.

In the end, while he didn’t have to be the strongest person in the world, he did need some measure of power to properly deal things, as that little incident with the serial killer had sadly proven. Taking a non-combat [Class] was simply not an option, even if [Machiavelli’s Heir] would have been truly incredible. Hell, having any kind of inheritor [Class] would have been awesome simply because of how it linked you to one of history’s greats.

Also, while this [Class] would have been truly amazing when dealing with people holding politician [Classes] of their own and help him successfully lie to people despite them having [Sense Bullshit] or similar [Skills], there were alternatives. Specifically, he was great at concealing his status and the vast Level difference stemming from the fact that he was advancing so incredibly quickly through combat would do the rest. As long as the people facing him across the negotiation table weren’t also fighters who spent all their free time wrestling Hyrdas and Trolls, he should be fine.

That just left the three [Class] focusses. Stealth, shapeshifting, the blade.

Shapeshifting was awesome, but not his primary focus. And his need to stay at least somewhere in the vicinityof the top meant that he couldn’t sit and grind both Aspects and the XP to slot them for months on end, as that would either slow his overall progression to a crawl or take too much time away from his work in research.

Stealth was a solo way of fighting unless it was mostly limited to scouting, but Isaac was likely going to be fighting alongside people a lot in the future. His fighting style, the ‘way of the demented pinball’, made mass combat difficult enough without throwing in an Evolution that made it hard for his allies to see him, which in turn massively increased the risk of not-so-friendly fire.

And then there was the path of the sword, the [Bladewraith]. It was a different path than the one he’d walked in the other timeline in some ways, but very similar in the sense that stealth had slowly become less and less of a focus.

In the end, a [Rogue] needed to focus either on stealth and ambushes or a more upfront fighting style, and he’d picked the latter the first time around and hadn’t regretted it, so he saw no reason not to do so again. Besides, it was the only legendary of the bunch and the best one to pass on, given how many ways there was to end up with a [Class] all about the blade.

So that was what he picked.

Congratulations on evolving your Class to become a Bladewraith!

Would you like to pick out your Skills now?

Y/N

Yeah, no, there was something else he needed to do first and then he could see if he could still afford to get some [Class] [Skills].

After all, Level 25 was when you got your [Aura].