Tsar was feeling good about himself. He had spent the past week trying to level his skills to the utmost of his ability. But it was slow going. He’d gotten Swimming, Jumping, Enhanced Five Senses, Utility Tongue, and Singing to level 5. All of that meant that he’d reached Level 4 in his Race Level and only needed 10 Exp to hit level five. The sweet, sweet call of evolution was at his fingertips. Come to think of it Tsar wasn’t sure if frog digits were considered fingers.

But anyways his skill leveling seemed to have crawled to a halt. It had been a whole day since he’d gone up a single skill level in anything. Which was irritating. Obviously, his skill levels would slow down in their progress, but he hadn’t thought that they would practically hit a wall at level 5. The only one that he hadn’t leveled since he got it was Decoy. And he wasn’t about to go purposefully trying to get the swamps predators to chase him so he could level it.

Honestly, he was probably just being impatient about it all. But he really wanted to get those last ten experience points and evolve… so he’d hatched a plan. A plan to leach EXP off of the Hippo Monsters. He’d learned their name now as he’d analyzed them. They were called Plated Hippos(C), which was pretty appropriate.

Tsar had learned a lot over the past week about his local ecosystem. The Plated Hippos seemed to be omnivores, grazing on the grasses, and preying on the larger wildlife, like the caiman that were very prevalent throughout the swamp’s waters. What he’d found out about the Plated Hippos though was that they completely ignored Life-Mote Frogs. Life-Mote Frogs were everywhere and seemed to be a food source of the smaller predators around. By observing the other Frogs Tsar had discovered what their main food source was and couldn’t believe he’d missed it. All over the place in the swamp were little slugs called Rock Slugs. They weren’t even a G- tier creature, they were just Rock Slugs. The saddest part about them was that they didn’t even have souls. But they filled the stomach, so Tsar wasn’t going to complain.

Anyways his plan was simple. He was going to go sit on the Alpha of a herd of the Plated Hippos and start mimicking the sounds he’d heard the Caiman making. His goal was to use the Hippos as a trap to kill things for him. That should net him some EXP right?

So that is what he was doing at this moment. Sitting on the back of a Plated Hippo, along with two other Life-Mote who had already been there when he’d found the herd. He started his mimicked calls soon after. The Hippos immediately reacted to the sound, turning this way and that, trying to identify where their prey was but soon stopped. Tsar repeated the process several times over a couple of hours before he got results.

And oh boy he may have messed up. Although he wanted creatures to die here so it could be called a success too. His trap had worked a little too well. The herd of hippos was only about twenty strong. The number of Caiman that came out of the swamps grasses expecting to find either a mate or something else was easily fifty. It was hard to tell because a lot of them went underwater the moment they came close enough to see the hippos.

As soon as the Hippos spotted the caiman a veritable feeding frenzy/slaughter of the pore gators went down. The commotion somehow causing another herd of hippos to come charging in. Which started a fight between the herds, which seemingly devolved into a mad house until one of the hippo alphas managed to kill the other. The whole time Tsar just watched the carnage he had instigated from the safety of a tree.

After the conflict was over Tsar simply sat back in the tree branches looking over his notifications. It had worked even better than he could have imagined. He got a new skill out of it, and he got to see the Alphas using some sort of charge attack that was definitely a skill which he might be able to replicate if he spent the time to try it out.

Congratulations

You have successfully set and sprung a trap using your natural environment and potentially hostile forces. Leading to the deaths of more than 25 enemies.

For this feat you have been awarded the Title: Lesser Tactician

Effects: Gain [Lesser Tacticians Battle Map], Gain 1% more EXP from battles involving 20 to 50 combatants.

This is an upgradeable title, participate in bigger warfare operations to upgrade.

Lesser Tacticians Battle Map

Adds a small map into the HUD function. Displays up to 100 yards around the user and can track up to fifty individuals or monsters at a time.

Congratulations

You either killed or were the main reason why 35X Caiman(D+), 4X Plated Hippos(C), and 1X Plated Hippo Alpha(C+) were killed.

EXP Boosted due to killing enemies Three and Four full Tiers above your own Racial Tier.

EXP boosted for killing enemies more than twice your level.

Total EXP Gained 2,510

Congratulations

You have reached Race Level 5, Banking excess EXP

You have fulfilled the conditions (Save more than double the necessary EXP to evolve to the next Racial Tier) to qualify for a Lateral Evolution.

You may now Evolve.

Would you like to proceed? Y/N

{Evolving laterally consumes all excess EXP}

That last notification was music to Tsar little frog ears. But more importantly he realized that this was the first time he’d truly seen anything interesting pop up due to his Occultist Class. He knew that the different font and color of the text in the notification was normally hidden information that his class had somehow revealed. But the information kind of confused him. Why would evolving laterally require a double of the total EXP needed to advance to the next Racial Tier…

Tsar pondered it for a little while before he realized why that would be. It was because if he evolved Laterally, he could stay as a G Tier which would mean that he could fairly easily level up again. Every time he Evolved, he would get +10 to all of his stats, then at a minimum +5 for the five Racial levels, not to mention whatever the bonus stat points would be for each Species he evolved into along with potential racial skills. It was the potential to gain far more stat points than your Tier would suggest.

Once he figured that out Tsar was torn between evolving vertically or laterally. He had the opportunity to gain a huge number of stats. But evolving Laterally would consume all of his banked EXP meaning he would need to collect at a minimum another 500 EXP to reach the next Tier evolution threshold again. And to be completely honest Tsar wasn’t all that concerned about getting to be the most powerful entity he could be on what was essentially his first run through a life that was going to repeat over and over again. He was essentially a human with the body of a fairly large frog right now and he was missing the social aspect of his humanity. Evolving vertically was the only way that he could potentially rejoin a civilized society and with the amount of banked EXP he had, he could probably just fly through a whole Tier, maybe two. He knew that at a minimum he needed to be able to evolve into a B+ tier to become a naturally sapient species…

After a few minutes of internal debate Tsar finally decided to ignore lateral evolutions until he reached B+ Tier and could join society. At that point he could just do the whole lateral evolution through the different species of natural Sapient creatures and grow stupidly powerful there. So, he was going to ignore the option for now.

So, he brought up his evolution options and was surprised to find a ton of them. Not all of them were even frog related but the top four options were the most interesting. [Angel Frog(E+)], [Mystic Hopper(E+)], [War-Toad(E+)], and [Poison Darter(E+)]. He didn’t know if skipping an entire Tier was a good thing, but it could potentially get him into the world of people again quicker. Tsar wished he could tell what the different species actually were and what their strengths and weaknesses were. He didn’t like Toads so that meant War-Toad was out right off the bat. Poison Darter seemed like it would be a great one that would up his combat potential if it indeed had poison, but if it was just poisonous that meant that he’d have to let things bite him or eat parts of his body. Angel Frog was a bit of an outlier, he had no clue what it could potentially do based on the name. Would it give him wings? Make him look pretty? He didn’t know. Mystic Hopper made him think of magic. Magic was something that Tsar really wanted.

After an admittedly short internal debate Tsar decided to go with Mystic Hopper. The potential for there to be magic or magical skills waiting for him in that line of evolution was too much for his inner nerd to ignore. So, he quickly snugged himself into a safe spot in the branches of the tree he was in and pressed confirm.

Like the first time he’d evolved Tsar immediately blacked out the second he pressed confirm. The moment he came too, he nearly fell out of the tree he was in because he’d gotten a lot larger. He was disoriented from the sudden near falling experience. Examining his physical changes and based off the size of the hippos. Assuming he had the size scales right, he’d grown from a frog that would have been admittedly huge back on earth, probably around the size of a house cat. To what he was now as a Mystic Hopper, a frog that was probably the size of a mid-sized dog, like he probably weighed nearly sixty pounds now. After shaking his head for a moment to dispel the disorientation of suddenly becoming much larger. And pointedly ignoring the fact that he had somehow just gained a lot of mass out of seemingly thin air, Tsar took a look at his notifications which were blaring for attention.

Congratulations

You have evolved into a Mystic Hopper(E+).

Evolution Bonus: +10 to all unlocked stats.

Racial Bonuses: Gain Skill [Sense Mana lvl.1], Gain Skill [Thaumic Digestion lvl.1]

Banked EXP applied to Race Level

Congratulations

You have reached race level 10

Attribute points have been allotted.

You now qualify for a new class.

Congratulations

You have skipped an entire Tier in your evolutionary tree gaining you the Title: [Skipper]

Effect: +1 to all unlocked attributes

Curious, Tsar mentally tapped the New Class to see what it was. The title was good and all, more stats were more stats. And he could check out his new skills later. The class was a big deal though. At least for him. Classes were what was going to determine his build after all.

Shaman

Requirements Met: Has interacted with many spirits or souls and remained sane. Has the [Savage] Title. Has lived as a primitive without access to fire or clean water. Has the Willpower Stat Unlocked. Has the Soul stat Unlocked. Has a NAME. Has experienced Death. Has partaken of the flesh of relatives.

Description:

A Shaman gains +5 Wis, +5 Int, and +5 Will per class level gained.

Gains access to the Shaman skill tree.

Gains the skills [Bind Spirit lvl.1] [Create Totem lvl.1] and [Commune With Spirit lvl.1]

Accept Class Y/N?

Tsar didn’t even need to think about it. He took the class immediately. Shamans were a magical class in every game he’d ever played, most of the time they were some form of support class, but magic was magic. Also, the requirements for this class were pretty insane, just the [Savage] title alone meant that the class was basically impossible to get normally. Let alone the fact that you needed two different, normally locked stats… Tsar wouldn’t be surprised if he would end up being the sole living person in the world with the Shaman Class. Which was confirmed the moment he took the class as another notification popped up in his vision.

Congratulations

You are the strongest living Shaman in the world.

Title awarded [Shaman King]

Effects: Gain skill [Create Talisman lvl.1]

Tsar was pretty happy about his whole new class and the new skills. That was until he looked at his stat sheet and remembered that Classes add to the total EXP needed to level his race. It was a significant increase.

Name: Tsar Bomba

Race: Mystic Hopper(E+)

Race Level: 10 EXP 0/1240

Titles: [Self Named] [Savage] [Skipper] [Shaman King] [Lesser Tactician]

Classes: Occultist(lvl.1) Shaman(lvl.1)

0 banked EXP

Death Counter

32

Options Menu…

[Sp 300/335] 0.55sph

Resource Pools

[Hp 310/310] 6.75hph

[Mp285/720]14.95mph

Primary Attributes

Strength: 67

Dexterity: 62

Constitution: 67

Toughness: 62

Vitality: 62

Intelligence: 82

Wisdom: 82

Perception: 86

Charisma: 83

Secondary Attributes

Fortitude: 62

Willpower: 276

MP Regen: 62(144)

MP Capacity: 62(144)

Soul: 62

Lifespan: 66

HP Regen: 62

Aura: 62

See next page… 1 of ???

Skills

Mind of the Occultist lvl.N/A

Auto Translate lvl.N/A

Perpetual Rebirth lvl.10

Analyze lvl.10

Zen Meditation lvl.10

Mimicry lvl.10

Soul Vault lvl.10

Swimming lvl.5

Stealth lvl.5

Enhanced Five Senses lvl.5

Utility Tongue lvl.5

Jumping lvl.5

Singing lvl.5

Decoy lvl.1

Find Hidden Things lvl.1

Bind Spirit lvl.1

Create Totem lvl.1

Commune With Spirit lvl.1

Create Talisman lvl.1

Sense Mana lvl.1

Thaumic Digestion lvl.1

Spells

N/A

Attunement Slots

OOOO

OOOO

OOOO

OOOO

Equipment Slots

OOOOOOOO

OOOOOOOO

OOOOOOOO

OOOOOOOO

BloodLine:

Soul Well

55 [Blank] [Mundane Souls] +0.55 per hour to all resource pools

The fact that Shaman had added a thousand EXP to the requirements for leveling his race showed that Occultist was a particularly special class in that it did not increase the requirements at all. Still, he couldn’t complain all that much, he’d gotten so much stronger over the past week of his life he didn’t even know what to compare it to. For all he knew his stats were abysmal compared to other peoples. His analysis skill allowed him to see the five highest stats of his targets, and the hippos had all had stats that still doubled his own. Not willpower of course, that particular stat seemed pretty useless though and he had no clue what it actually did. Now it was time to check out his new skill descriptions. The feature on his stat page “Attunement Slots” was odd. It looked like he had 16 slots, but he didn’t know how to use them or what they even did. Equipment slots was sitting at 32 slots which seemed pretty damn excessive.

Bind Spirit lvl.1

Cast on target spirit within twenty feet.

Cost = Targets Resources pools 2x

Effect: Binds spirit to Shaman, Totem, or Talisman.

If bound to the Shaman, spirit takes up 1 attunement slot.

Create Totem lvl.1

Cast on target worked object of at least 6x6 inches in size.

Cost = variable based on size, quality, rarity, and type of totem created.

Totem Types available: Nurture, Ward, Healing

Effects: Creates a Totem of selected type

Totems may have spirits bound to them.

Create Talisman lvl.1

Cast on target worked item weighing less than 1lbs.

Cost = variable based on size, quality, rarity, and type of Talisman created.

Talisman Types available: Spirit holding, Shield, Ward.

Effects: Creates a Talisman of the selected type.

Each Talisman worn takes up 1 Equipment Slot.

Talismans may have spirits bound to them.

Commune With Spirit lvl.1

Cast on target Friendly or Bound Spirit.

Cost = 100 Mph/between Shaman and spirit.

Effects: Allows the Shaman to commune with target spirit and learn what it knows, and learn its skills.

Sense Mana lvl.1

This is a passive/active skill.

Utilizing your senses, sense the presence of mana.

Thaumic Digestion lvl.1

Use this skill to rapidly Digest anything eaten. Even mana.

Cost = 10 Mph

Effect: Drastically increase SP or MP regen when consuming food depending on what is eaten.

So, all in all Tsar could bind 16 spirits to himself for unknown effects. And he could potentially create up to 32 bound spirit talismans. Though binding spirits to the talismans was not necessary for them to function. The main issue with the talismans and totems at the moment was actually the fact that he was a frog and the skills specified Worked materials. He could also sense mana, and more rapidly regenerate his Sp by spending mana. That last one could definitely be useful. Tsar had no idea where he would find spirits, but he’d figure it eventually. Commune with spirt seemed like an awesome way to learn new skills. Now it was time to sense some mana!

But first he needed to head away from this place. He was pretty darn sure that the hippos would no longer tolerate his presence now that he wasn’t a life-mote frog. So, Tsar stealthily made his way away from the herd, avoiding caiman, and cautiously slipping through reeds and underbrush. As he moved, he looked up at the canopy above and wished that he could actually see the sky. The ever-present gloominess of the swamp was kind of annoying.

Once he’d made it to a more deserted area of the swamp and felt that he was as safe as he was not going to be attacked by some random critter Tsar started to focus on trying to sense mana.

Sensing mana was weird. Tsar got a vague feeling all around himself as he concentrated. It was… impossible to describe. The best way he could put it was that he could ‘feel the vibes’. Even though he didn’t really feel like he was getting anywhere with sensing the mana he kept at it for a long while. Then he ‘sensed’ a particularly strong vibe in one direction, and he got curious, so he started slowly making his way towards the feeling.

It wasn’t far away at all. Just behind a bush only a few feet away actually. As he circled it, he wasn’t sure he was sensing because he couldn’t see anything out of place. Focusing on the area he made a sweep with his eyes trying to see what was causing the feeling but there was nothing there. After several minutes of just staring at the area he finally saw what was causing the feeling to come into focus. It appeared out of thin air. A small orb of incredibly dim blue light that his eyes had slid over a dozen times already, the only reason he noticed the orb of light at all was because it was starting to get dark out. He used to analyze on it and found something strange.

Wisp (Spirit)

25 mana

That was it. The wisp didn’t have any stats which seemed weird. But at least Tsar had found a spirit. He could test his Bind Spirit skill now. Looking at the wisp Tsar activated the skill, and instantly felt his mana pool go down by fifty points. That felt strange. But what was even more strange was what it felt like to be bound to a spirit. It was like he suddenly had a new appendage. He could easily control the Wisp the same way he could move his arms and legs. It was very interesting.

He used Analyze on the Wisp again to see if anything had changed because of the Binding. Something had definitely changed. It had stats now. But only two.

Wisp (Spirit) [Bound]

[Mp75/720] 14.95mph

MP Capacity: 144

MP Regen: 144

Flicking back and forth between his stat page and the Wisps information Tsar rapidly realized something. For some reason Binding it had given it his stats but didn’t actually take away his stats. It was like the Wisp had been rewritten with his stat points as the base, but only those related to mana capacity and mana regen. The second thing he noticed was that one of his attunement slots was an I now instead of an O. The third thing he noticed was that the Wisp also benefited from his Soul Well. And the final thing he noticed was that the Wisp was not counted as any Race Tier of creature. It just was. He had no clue what that meant, but he figured that it simply meant that it did not have a soul. He would kill to find a library filled with all the answers to the questions he had compiled about this world so far.

“Well Well Well, that’s not something you see every day now, is it?” A voice said from behind Tsar.

Tsar absolutely did not freak out. He didn’t panic. And he absolutely did not jump fifteen feet in the air while ejecting the rest of the Tadpole corpses from his inventory and activating Decoy. He also did not then land atop the pile of corpses and flail around for a few moments while some old naked guy was laughing his ass off at the display. Nope, didn’t happen.

What really happened is that Tsar nonchalantly turned around and beheld a sight that, while admittedly was about to become common place in his life, he very much regretted seeing. It was an old looking naked man with long silver hair that was all matted and clumped. His face was utterly devoid of hair leaving his perfectly sculpted face for everyone to see. He was smiling a radiant white smile as his eyes seemed to take in the entire world and beyond as he looked down at Tsar. Even though the man looked old he looked old the same way as Captain Yamamoto from one of his old favorite animes. The guy was totally ripped.

When the old guy finally stopped laughing, he gasped in a great lungful of air and gave Tsar a little Bow.

“My apologies little one. It’s not every day that one gets to see a creature of the Feedoheem on the material plane. Much less one that has a Class I’ve never even heard of. Meaning that you are probably sapient! Oh my, where are my manners? I’ve yet to introduce myself. I am Radgar, Hermit Druid, and Guardian of Iggy. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” The old man said as he gave another bow.

Tsar didn’t really know how to react. He didn’t really have the vocal cords to be able to speak with the old man, so he quickly busied himself with gathering up a bunch of Tadpole corpses that someone had left all over the place here. Once he’d finished collecting the corpses Tsar looked back up at the old man who was examining him with a very interested expression on his face.

Tsar tried his best to for some words. To try and communicate with the old man. His first couple of attempts ended in him making a couple of chirping sounds that were quite embarrassing. The old man just stood there politely, seeming like he was giving Tsar time to piece together a response. After nearly a dozen failed attempts, Tsar finally got it right! It was crude sounding when he first got out the word ‘Hello’ but then a notification decided to show up halfway through and suddenly he was able to speak. Though his voice was kind of strange to his own ears.

“Hello Radgar, my name is Tsar Bomba.”