I awoke with a start.

That weird feeling you got from waking up because you fell in your dream, followed by a small spike of adrenalin, disorientation, and panic. This really was becoming a regular thing after evolving. I vaguely remembered trying to push through the pain of evolution and seemingly getting quite far in.

Or maybe it just felt like that because time seemed to become irrelevant when pain became the only sensation I could feel.

I quickly scanned my body for any notable changes, noting that I didn’t get bigger this time. The weird shifting of my body had gotten more intense though. Previously, it had been a barely perceptible shifting of the colors, but now I could actively see the colors shift around. My colored spots were actually wandering up and down my length, which was kinda freaky looking and the black coloration seemed to swirl like a whirlpool, gently guiding the colors along unseen paths.

I took a quick look at my status, and just as I’d thought, it didn’t look impressive. Most of the changes this time around were in the quality department, so, aside from my increased attributes, my status didn’t accurately represent my growth. My mutations and new skills were doing the heavy lifting this time around, and I couldn’t wait to test out my new capabilities.

If you told me some years ago, that there would come a point in my life where I’d enjoy slaughtering tons of monsters for personal gain, I’d have called you insane. But here I was, looking forward to going killing again. My definition of fun really took a drastic turn, didn’t it?

Giddy to see what I was capable of now, I catapulted out of the hole I was in, making a beeline for the nearby lake. I was already capable of decimating most tier-three monsters before I evolved, and now that I was on an even playing field, I considered them as little more than bags of XP and DP.

I could level again and probably wouldn’t have any issues reaching the top level this time as well. Which reminded me, I was so eager to get to fighting, that I forgot to check my new evolution quests.

Evolution Goals:

Reach Level 20

Bonus Objective:

Kill a Hunter.

Reach 100 in a single attribute.

Well, reaching level twenty was par for the course by now, and reaching 100 in a single attribute was going to be incredibly easy. I’d get twenty points just from leveling up and I only needed eighteen more to push wisdom to the goal. Barring that, I still had gluttony, or I could even just buy some points from the shop, which had reset upon evolution.

The real doozy was killing a hunter.

The wording suggested that there was more than one Hunter on this layer, which was a terrifying thought. My eyes wandered to the other side of the lake, where the oasis was still completely razed to the ground and I shuddered.

I quickly banished the thought of fighting with the hunter and focused back on the here and now. I’d decide whether or not I could do it when I maxed out my level. I would have a much better grasp of what I was able to do by then, anyway.

So, with renewed motivation, I began to indulge in my favorite pastime: Void javelin fishing!

I started to conjure the now familiar javelin and was surprised at just how much faster I was than before. It barely took five seconds for me to cast the damn thing! My tier four spell-attuned brain was making the previously arduous process a literal cakewalk! I threw the javelin into the water and was rewarded with both a huge splash of water, as well as a kill notification.

The monster was relatively low level, so I didn’t get an immediate level up, but no matter. I pulled up my status, paying special attention to my VMP reserves. Just as Void Attunement promised, casting the javelin had become cheaper. But now I wanted to test the active VMP regeneration I’d received from Stable Void Connection.

As per usual, the system had dumped all the necessary knowledge into my brain, which was still creepy, by the way.

I started meditating, trying to focus on the organ in my body that was responsible for my connection to the void. Finding it wasn’t hard, as I felt like I’d done this many times before. I could feel the void energy emanate from it in small waves and concentrate on them, feeling the energy course through my body. Eventually, I felt like there was a thin strand of void mana that came from outside my body.

It was a weird feeling since the strand seemingly started and ended within my void organ, but I could clearly tell that one end of it was coming from somewhere… else. I tried following the strand, almost pulling my mind along like it was a rope and suddenly my consciousness lurched and I was surrounded by darkness.

I immediately recognized this place. I’d been here once before when I evolved. This was the void.

I could still feel my body, sitting on a palm tree leaf in the third layer, but I saw the void. The info the system dumped into my brain told me that I was only visiting the void spiritually, but it was a weird experience nonetheless. It didn’t help that I was feeling a sort of primal fear, and a sense of belonging and home at the same time.

I could still see my status, and my VMP reserves were ticking up at a visible pace now. This method was restoring my VMP incredibly fast. I was so focused on watching the number go up, that I almost didn’t notice the attack coming my way.

I could barely see anything in the darkness, almost nothing, really, but I saw some of the darkness shift slightly and got a really bad feeling, so I dodged out of instinct. I could feel something whizz past me, barely missing. This was followed by a guttural noise that I couldn’t even begin to describe, but it gave me the heebie-jeebies, so I immediately pulled my spirit back to reality.

The last thing I heard was another warped cry, most likely of annoyance at having failed to kill me. Alright, so connecting to the void gave me insane VMP recovery, but I also ran the risk of ending up on some fucked up void creatures dinner plate. I’d have to use this sparingly, or only for very short bursts.

What would even happen to me when something killed my spirit? Would I still be alive in a way? Would I be gone mentally, while my body would revert to a braindead monster? It was scary to think about, and I didn’t really care to find out. The bottom line being, the void provided great power, at equally great risk.

Satisfied with my little experiment, I returned to the task at hand. I needed to hit level 20, and I wanted to get it done fast. I considered myself a bit of a powerhouse on this layer, so there really was nothing in my way to reach the top.

Well, except for the hunters, of course.

I settled back into one of my bunkers, tired from a full day of fighting.

I was a bit surprised at how slow the leveling process was, only having reached level twelve today. Of course, I was still rushing through the levels at blinding speed, compared to every other monster out there. I guess I was so used to punching upwards and reaping the corresponding higher XP, that I didn’t realize how much longer it’d take when I fought against monsters of the same tier.

It was a, dare I say, comfortable process. I spent the entire day casually ripping through the monsters in and out of the lake, and I hadn’t lost a single HP. It was almost scary how easy it was. This was a good thing. Very good even. But at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel… bored.

There was no challenge in what I was doing.

Ever since I became a traveler, I had to struggle just to see another day. I had staked my life in every battle, fought tooth and nail, and spent my days being scared of the other, bigger monsters. Now, my hard work finally paid off and I was rewarded with the ability to shred through the opposition. I thought that was what I wanted.

But now that I had it, I felt unfulfilled.

Did I get addicted to being in danger when I wasn’t looking? I had an odd feeling like my addiction had shifted away from gambling, to something far, far worse. I caught myself looking forward to fighting the hunter for my bonus objective every now and again. That had to be a bad sign for my mental state, right?

I was painfully aware that something was wrong with me, but every time I thought about besting the hunter, hulking beast of annihilation that it was, I felt a shiver run down my spine. Not of fear, but excitement.

I briefly considered whether the system was messing with my brain, but that was a train of thought that I didn’t want to pursue too far, out of fear of what I might discover.

Not wanting to think about it any further, I instead redirected my attention to the P2W shop. It had reset upon my evolution, and I quickly bought the usual suspects. Namely: Five attribute points, five skill points, and one mutation point. This cost me 800 DP.

I’d been stacking up DP like mad recently. With today's earnings, I had slightly over 11k DP so this expense barely made a dent.

I now had two mutation points, but I decided against spending them for now. Mutations were getting more expensive, so saving them felt like the better choice. On the skill tree part, I bought the second to last item available. After this, there was only the capstone ability left, which would run me a whopping fifteen skill points. Which meant I needed six more skill points, which in turn meant, I was gonna cap out my poison skill tree before I evolved again.

Poison Spell Cost Reduction: 30%

Now that I had this, combined with the reduction I received earlier, my poison spells would cost 40% less MP to cast. Combined with my large mana pool, they were essentially free.

As for my attribute points, I pumped them all into Wisdom in order to complete my other bonus objective. I got slightly annoyed when I ended up with 99 Wisdom, but getting that last point should be easy enough. My MP soared by a whopping 600 points, with that investment.

Yeah, I think I’d stop going for wisdom for a while after I achieved my goal. I was a walking mana tank by now, and my other attributes needed some love too.

Satisfied with my large status increase, I settled in for the night, intent on getting a good night's sleep.