The original plan for our second trip to the 7th Floor was to separate the alliance team, with each of us passing the year Leeching for our original factions. Giving the members of the team a chance to give this benefit to our respective factions had been the cover for any of us reentering the 7th Floor from the start, so we couldn’t alter the plan so heavily that we entered as a Floor team again instead. We did take extra precautions, however. The factions had not just alliance team members, but the members of the teams they would be joining temporarily for this venture, take long-distance communication devices with them into the Floor. I was also informed that it was impressed upon them repeatedly that if an intruder in faction territory displayed intent to specifically attack one of us, that they should follow standard emergency withdraw procedures, then ensure the others were contacted as soon as it was safe to do so.

Personally, I thought it was an all-too-common case of putting a lock on the door after the thief had already gotten away, with the lock in question being one the Lock Picking Lawyer would be particularly eviscerating in describing how bad it was. But it meant more quality time alone with Mewi, and the harsh truth of things—which, no doubt, these measures were more intended to hide from the usual 7th Floor crowd than to actually increase security, was that most likely, the Federation itself was powerless to stop the organization behind the last incident from doing whatever the hell it wanted.

Just what it wanted was anyone’s guess, but I had to think that at the very least, they didn’t want to kill the alliance team. Whether they needed us alive for some unwitting part in their plan, or if their lack of desire to kill us could change for the worse and how that might happen was something that couldn’t even be speculated upon.

With that hanging over us, none of the team could really relax, even though our experience in the 7th Floor the second time was a vacation compared to the first. For one, since there were no mission rewards when clearing a Floor after the first time, there was no reason not to select Basic difficulty for the mission that we’d still need to clear. In Mewi and I’s case anyway, there was also no obligation to penetrate the deepest areas of the Floor for the rarest, most valuable materials.

About seven months into the “shift,” the timer that I could access from my Tower menu from the moment I’d first activated the totem was set to expire. Since we were trying to keep the fact that this was really why the alliance team was repeating the 7th Floor a secret, Mewi helped clear off the other team members and other Grosstin Leeches—who had, to this point, already been very respectful and distanced about working with us—before it reached 0.

When it did, the screen did not disappear, but it changed...

[Evolution Energy fully extracted.]

An amorphous orb of light emerged from where I had been keeping the totem. It hovered in front of me for a moment before slowly moving towards me and finally entering my body.

The effect was a far cry from when the Tower had first given me my class. In fact, it was like I’d gone to a sauna. It wasn’t quick, either—first one minute passed, then another, as I felt my body gradually changing.

Finally, the totem’s energy finished its work. The timer screen gave way to my normal Tower menu, and a new notification popped up:

[Congratulations. You have evolved beyond the constraints of your race.]

[You have unlocked your hidden racial profile.]

[Current Race: Enhanced Human I]

[Evolved from: Common Human]

[Continue to evolve to: Enhanced Human II]

[You may now temporarily unlock the Evolution Path submenu in your Tower Menu. From the Evolution Path submenu, you may view information on all possible evolution branch benefits, as well as manually select your next branch or branches. Cost: 5 AP per 10 minutes.]

“A Tower submenu that costs AP to access? Now there’s a twist.”

“So, what did the evolution do?” said Mewi.

“I’m not sure...oh, it looks like the racial profile section is prompting me to select it.” That option in the outer Tower Menu had bolded text. And when I looked, the Lifespan entry was bolded, and there was a new section called Attributes. I looked at Lifespan...and my jaw dropped.

[Lifespan: 150 years –> 400 years]

I freaked. I told Mewi. Mewi freaked.

When we were both breathing again, he said “Dude, we gotta get another one of those.”

“I doubt there’s another we can find...at least, in Area 1. Once we get to Area 2, we can look for clues for more evolution inducing items, for sure.”

“There’s still the hidden piece on the 8th Floor,” said Mewi, “but yeah that’d be a little unlikely.”

Then, I looked at Attributes:

[Health Pool +50%]

[Health Regeneration +100%]

[Defense +50%]

[Resistance +50%]

[Stamina +20%]

[Stamina Regeneration +50%]

“These boosts are also pretty crazy, huh, Mewi? And this is the minor evolution. I wonder what the major one will do?”

“I wonder why that wasn’t in the info Bruzigan could access?” said Mewi.

“Probably because the effects are different for different races. I mean yeah, maybe they had knowledge of the effects for humans but they might have seen no point telling us in advance.”

“I guess...hey though, you better activate the totem again, right? We need to get back to work soon."

"Err, right." I took care of the second activation, then we rejoined the monster clearing group we were leading.

The year ended. Another month of fighting off Kinetice and training followed. Not long after returning to the Firebrand, I finished learning the Unlimited version of Lesser Fireball. Lesser Incendiary Mine reached Level 7, and more and more of my other spells either reached Level 10 or got close enough that they’d likely max with using them in battle the next trip to the 7th Floor.

Sometimes, I tried to program training scenarios, coming up with whatever ideas I could as to what the Fire Sanctuary might be like. I had a feeling I wasn't going to come close, though. The training scenarios for steering the landing pod, on the other hand, I could rely on. A good thing too, since it took me quite a few tries to get the hang of it.

Meanwhile, General Karl too was making preparations to approach the Fire Sanctuary planet. In the ship's canteen—the only place I had any routine contact with the crew, since at Bruzigan's direction I'd been using it to continue my Chef training—I noted that they were reacting much as might be expected. They knew something special was going on, but not what. Once, someone acted like they were going to try to ask me about it, so I helped him think better of it with a quick look before turning attention back to what I was cooking.

And then, after a month in the Area, it all began again. It became routine—but we could never get too relaxed. Always, the idea that an enemy that possessed such knowledge and power as to cause the Sanctuaries to fall in the first place and still remain largely undetected was out there, and paying attention to us, hung over us like the Eye of Sauron.