In classic after-evolution fashion, I awoke with a start.

As per usual, the pain of evolution had been too much to bear and I eventually fell unconscious. But! I had gotten further still, experiencing the growth of my new “hands” in real-time. A most painful, yet curious experience. Thinking of which, I extended my new extremities, watching as both tentacles split into four at the tip.

The individual “fingers” were quite long, ensuring that I could grab larger objects as well. I played around with them for a while, getting a feel for how they moved, surprised at just how well I was able to move them. I know I designed them to be able to finely manipulate things, but the degree of accuracy and control was still surprising. After experimenting for a while, I retracted them, and instead took a closer look at myself.

To my surprise, I hadn’t changed at all, disregarding my new set of limbs. Same size, same colors, same swirly patterns. I remembered my new upgrade to my mouth, and extended it from below myself, surprised at just how much of it unfolded. If I completely opened my mouth, it was slightly bigger than myself, making me wonder where I stored all that mass. I couldn’t curve my eyes around the opening of my mouth, but I assumed that it was chock-full of teeth ready to tear apart anything that entered.

Happy with my little experiments, I finally directed my attention to the system, which had been vying for it ever since I woke up.

Achievement: HunterxHunter (B)

You have bested a hunter, one of the most powerful creatures the planet Suigoss has to offer. Challenge yourself to defeat more of them, proving your worth to the administration.

Reward:

Hunter Radar skill

Apex Hunter passive ability

Hunter Radar (D)

Upon using the skill, gain a vague idea of the direction the closest hunter currently is in.

Apex Hunter (Passive) (C)

Gain a 10% damage increase when fighting against a hunter.

So I was given support to hunt more of these things down, huh?

Well, I can’t say that the rewards of killing a hunter weren’t worth it, but I would decide on a case-by-case basis, I guess. I was more intrigued by the little bit that mentioned the administration. If I remember correctly, I’d only ever seen them mentioned in the description of this planet. The skill description was asking me to prove my worth to the administration, did that mean my earlier theory of hunters being a sort of test for travelers was true?

I couldn’t even begin to imagine how powerful the administration of the system was, but being in their good graces probably wouldn’t be a bad thing. Who knows, if I managed to get their attention they might start to sponsor me by providing me with rare abilities or something.

Well, there was no way for me to know, but it was something I should maybe consider going forward. For now, I’d just hunt purely for myself, if the system admin ever took an interest in me, that would just be a bonus.

Which left me with picking out a C-Rank skill as my last reward. I thought long and hard about what I needed, and what I needed most was something with utility. I had damage and mobility mostly covered with my spells and mutations, which left defense and utility as potential skill choices. I was mostly happy with my defensive options, so what I really needed was something that would provide me with… something. I wasn’t entirely sure what to pick yet, but the system would no doubt provide me with a gigantic list for me to comb through.

Something interesting and useful was bound to show up.

Powerful Leap (C)

Push off the ground in a display of strength, rocketing off in the desired direction. Allows for a secondary leap in mid-air to change direction.

Cooldown: 60 seconds

I eventually settled on a skill that would give me a lot of maneuverability. This, combined with my bomb jumping would allow me to flit around in the air and upping my dodge game by a lot. If I could, I would shed a tear at how far my mobility had come.

I also wanted to purchase the reset items from the P2W shop, but seeing just how close I’d gotten to saving up 20k DP, I held off for now. The stuff I was able to buy upon evolution was pretty cheap, and with the achievement for double DP, I would be able to afford them in no time flat.

Which meant I could finally focus on getting to the fourth floor. The system was egging me on as well by refusing to tell me my evolution requirements before going down, as well as providing a compass pointing me in the right direction of a descent point. Seeing as I’d only gone down the layers “illegally”, this was the first time I saw this. Very convenient.

I emerged from my bunker into the oasis, which was still a complete mess. I probably hadn’t been unconscious for an entire day, judging by how it looked up here. Though, I wasn’t sure how the system was going to deal with the huge chunks of rock decorating the landscape. Maybe it’d just leave them there. Whatever, not my problem. I turned myself around so I faced the direction the compass was pointing to and took off, snaking between the debris until I emerged in the desert proper.

The sun was high in the sky, implying it was around noon, the huge black hole still visible above me. Mentally shrugging, I almost took off again, when I remembered I could actually shrug now. I took a stupid amount of pleasure in extending my new tentacles just to do the shrugging motion, the simple act making me feel just a little human again.

Shaking my head at myself, I decided to test my new skill and leaped into the air. There was a lot more power behind the jump than what I could usually do, proving the worth of the skill. I activated it again in mid-air, an invisible platform allowing me to leap again. This was fun!

I eventually landed back in the sand, the cooldown of the skill preventing me from using it constantly. Still, it would be a huge help in getting around and dodging in a fight. And, thinking of getting around, I still had a new spell to test out!

As per usual, the system had dumped all of the required knowledge straight into my brain. Still creepy. Also, this spell had to be the most complicated shit I’ve ever seen. Spells usually worked by mentally “drawing” these rune-like shapes into a sort of formation. Well, you actually used your mind to shape trace amounts of mana into the necessary form before pushing the mana needed to activate the spell through this formation.

Whenever I started with a newly learned spell, the process was like copying a drawing onto another sheet of paper, constantly having to cross-check and being afraid of messing up. As I got more familiar with the spell I could draw the required “spell matrix”, as the system called it, faster and faster. With poison spear, for example, I had the entire thing memorized to the point where I had a sort of mental stamp ready to use at a moment's notice. Visualize the stamp, push mana through, and the spell is cast.

This was a somewhat recent ability, though, as I only became able to do this once I mutated my brain to tier four. The mutation really helped enormously with the process. I felt like I had been studying thousands of these spell matrixes for years, instead of the few I actually learned over the past few months. As a result, I could quickly pick up new patterns, seeing the logic behind why things were where they were.

But this new void jump spell… Still felt complicated.

I had never seen a spell matrix this extensive and complicated and I felt like I was back in my tier zero days, trying to cast poison shot for the first time. Granted, poison shot was a baby spell barely consisting of three runes, and I was able to cast it relatively fast with little to no training. In comparison, void jump had three separate sequences, each consisting of at least fifty runes.

But thinking about how difficult this spell was wouldn’t get me anywhere. I had a lot of spell practice under my belt, as well as a highly specialized brain to help me along, so I should be able to pull it off. Making sure there weren’t any monsters nearby, I began to carefully weave the spell. It took me almost three minutes for my first attempt, but I eventually managed to properly cast the spell with the minimum of required mana. I wanted to see just how far this base amount would teleport me.

Just as the name implied, a small portal opened up in front of me, primed for me to jump through. I was sure that I had cast the spell correctly, so I jumped in with only slight hesitation. My vision was overtaken by blurry darkness for a split second before color returned to the world and I emerged from another portal, unceremoniously flopping into the sand.

I quickly looked back to see the tear in reality close behind me, the oasis now decidedly further away than before. If I had to make a guess, the spell probably teleported me around one kilometer. Far enough to be a decent getaway tool, except I couldn’t cast it fast enough yet. I would need to practice since most monsters probably wouldn’t wait for me to finish casting my spell.

Eager to try again, I decided to cast the spell with double the VMP capacity, curious to see if it would just double the distance. I took my time to study the magic, attempting to commit the formula to memory, and four minutes later another portal floated in front of me. I jumped through again, emerging some distance away when I noticed a problem.

The oasis was currently not visible, since it was hidden behind a dune, so I had no way to tell how far I’d teleported this time. I quickly ascended the closest dune and used my leap skill to jump straight up, and when I still couldn’t see the oasis, leaped again in mid-air.

I could finally see the oasis again, but gauging the distance was hard, especially since I was already falling again. Judging by how small the oasis was now, I would guess that it didn’t entirely double the distance…

I smacked into the sand, tumbling down the dune before being able to catch myself. Well, the spell worked, was a great travel tool, and would work as a quick getaway once I could cast it faster. I would need to figure out whether I could more specifically designate a spot to teleport to, but I was satisfied with my new tools for now.

Unwilling to waste more VMP, just in case something went horribly wrong, I decided to continue the old-fashioned way. I did use leap every time it came off cooldown, though, since not only would the skill gain levels that way, but it also made me faster. After a few hours of traveling, occasionally taking out a feisty monster, I finally arrived at the spot the system was leading me to.

A massive pyramid was sitting in the center of a sand-crater, three black lines going around the pyramid as a sort of decoration. I could see an entrance at the bottom of the pyramid, large enough to even accommodate a hunter. Shrugging to myself with my awesome new shrugging appendages, I made my way toward the entrance. I hadn’t seen any monsters in a while and assumed that this was just like the platform in the second layer, where monsters stayed away unless they had permission to descend.

Still, it would do me no good to rush head-first into an ambush because of an assumption, so while I descended into the crater I activated void cloak. Once I got past the entrance, I took some time to let my eyes adjust to the reduced lighting, noticing a line of torches on both sides of the wall. Unfortunately, the walls were so far apart that the torches barely managed to illuminate the path.

There were drawings covering the walls, depicting all kinds of monsters. I’d seen a lot of them on the layers I’d been to, but there were also a lot that I’d never seen before. I kept an eye on the paintings and the other looking ahead so I wouldn’t get ambushed, but my careful advance turned out to be unnecessary.

After a while, I emerged into a large room, all four sides connecting to a pathway leading back outside. In the center of the room was a large platform, illuminated by another set of torches. I did a quick check of the room, but I was seemingly alone, so I carefully made my way to the center of the platform.

As soon as I did, the system asked me if I wanted to descend to the fourth layer. I took a deep breath, mentally preparing myself for whatever might wait for me down there, and selected yes. The platform shook a little, before starting its descent.

So long, third layer.

Name Gary Traveler Tier 1 Type Monster(P2W) Species Nascent Voidling (T4) Level 1 Max HP 715 Max MP 2658 Max VMP 1462 Strength 30 Agility 40 Intelligence 100 Wisdom (C) 103 Constitution 65 Luck 45 Attribute Points 0 Skill Points 2 Data Points 19420 Skill Trees 1/1 Poison Mutations 1

Skills: Destructive Poison Mucus Armor Lv.5 (D), Compress Lv.4 (D), Hunter Radar Lv.1 (D), Powerful Leap Lv.1 (C)

Magic: Destructive Poison Shot Lv.10 (E), Destructive Poison Spear Lv.10 (D), Destructive Poison Mist Lv. 8 (D), Destructive Poison Needle Lv. 10 (D), Destructive Poison Bomb Lv.4 (C), Destructive Poison Assassination Lv.1 (C), Giant Spike Lv.1 (SS), Void Javelin Lv.4 (B), Void Cloak Lv.10 (C), Void Jump Lv.1 (B)

Passive Skills: Bottomless Inventory (S), Stealth (C), Turret (B), Giant Hunter (S), Gluttony (SSS), Toxic and Poison Immunity (B), Increased Passive Void Mana Regeneration (A), Crystalized Poison (C), Fast Learner: Poison (A), Poison Master (A), Dreams of the void (A), Wisdom King (B), Polonic Chance (A), Void Guidance (S), Void Synchronisation (A), Apex Hunter (C)

Mutations: Destructive Poison Mucus (T4), Mana Gland (T2), Mana Concentration Gland (T1), Mana Absorbent Skin (T1), Spell Attuned Brain (T4), Monster Eyes (T1), Stable Void Connection (T4), Void Mana Conversion Gland (T3), Movement Tentacles (T2), Hand Tentacles (T2), Bigger Mouth (T2), More Teeth (T2), Mana Infusion Gland (T2)