Lisa had a few thousand more experience points than Lohan, since not only did she never rely on him to move at high speed to hunt monsters, but she also had more playtime available each day.
It took Lohan two hours by bus to get to college and back. Even if Lisa didn’t play in the morning, spending 30 minutes getting home and another 30 minutes doing other things before logging into the game, that still added up to 60 extra minutes of gameplay per day.
During that time, the only thing Lisa had to do was hunt monsters in the forest, and that was exactly what she did.
The monsters she hunted during these times were lower-level monsters than the ones she hunted with Lohan, so the experience she gained on her own wasn’t that significant, but little by little that gap grew until now she was about 10,000 experience points ahead of Lohan.
But he didn’t mind.
The faster Lisa got stronger, the better it would be for him, since she could help him level up even more as well.
In the clearing of Mythlorien, the battle against the Cockatrice nest was reaching its climax.
Dee kept her shield raised, blocking the heavy attacks of one of the Level 11 beasts, while Alice delivered rapid strikes to keep the monster off balance. Wyrm and Tunder had isolated another creature with a combination of roots and electric shocks, but Lohan, this time, remained merely a passive observer.
He was perched on a low branch, watching the scene with his artificial eyes fixed on Lisa. He decided not to intervene with his clones or webs to ensure that the entire slaughtering experience was directed exclusively at her, though he still kept clones with each group as a safeguard in case something went wrong.
Lisa moved with an aggressiveness that Lohan rarely saw. She activated the [Spectral Step]
Even while facing Level 11 creatures while she was still at Level 10, she was able to fight head-on in a very evenly matched battle, demonstrating what a high-rarity Base was capable of compared to lower ones.
"Samantha, get away! She’s going to try to peck!" Alice shouted.
Samantha rolled to the side just as the Cockatrice’s beak struck the ground, with a peck far more powerful than usual, instantly turning the earth to stone.
Before the monster could lift its head, Lisa appeared from above. She fell onto the back of the beast’s neck, and her jaws, wrapped in white flames, sank into the weak spot that Lohan had previously identified.
With a sharp movement, Lisa ripped the life from the monster. A flash of white light shot from the corpse and was absorbed by her body.
Only two remained. The group of professional soldiers strategically retreated, clearing the way for the fox, understanding that this was her moment.
Lisa fired at the penultimate Level 11 Cockatrice. The monster tried to flap its wings to destabilize Lisa, but she was quicker.
She leaped onto it and delivered a kick imbued with such spiritual intensity that it made the air around her vibrate. The blow struck the creature’s chest, piercing the shell and hitting the vital core.
As soon as the Cockatrice’s body hit the ground, something changed.
Lohan felt a vibration through the ground coming from a resonance of pure Mana. Lisa’s body, which was panting and dirty from the fight, suddenly froze.
A pearly glow began to emanate from the base of her white fur.
The light wasn’t blinding, but an aura that seemed dense and liquid, expanding outward like a sacred mist.
The white flames, which she normally had to concentrate to keep active, began to sprout spontaneously from her skin, floating around her like petals of fire dancing in a magical breeze.
Alice and the soldiers stopped, watching in reverent silence. They knew they were witnessing the milestone that separated ordinary Players from Elysium’s elite: the qualitative evolution of Level 11.
Lohan watched, fascinated, as the Mana around Lisa began to swirl in a silent vortex. The fox’s physical structure seemed to be being rewritten. Her muscles became more defined beneath the fur, which now shone with an almost celestial purity.
Her body, which was the size of a normal fox, also grew from its original length of 1 meter, slowly extending by another 50 centimeters to reach a total of 1.5 meters. (3’ 3" -> 4’ 11")
The most striking moment occurred at her tail.
The base from which her tail emerged emitted an intense white glow, while a structure very similar to her original tail took shape there.
Lohan watched the biological structure unfold fluidly, as if a new life were emerging just as the first had. In a matter of seconds, where there had once been only an elegant tail, two identical tails now swayed in perfect harmony, each exuding a spiritual pressure far more intense than moments before.
Lisa’s aura stabilized into an intense white hue.
Without her realizing it, her mouth opened and she let out a howl that sounded like a call that echoed directly in the minds of everyone present, charged with a shocking authority.
Both the soldiers and the remaining Cockatrice looked at her in shock, while Lohan, despite not feeling anything as intense as what they were feeling, was also very surprised by the intensity of that sensation she was transmitting.
Lisa opened her golden eyes, which now shone even brighter, arching her back with a sense of amusement and excitement she rarely showed.
With a single movement, she vanished from where she stood and appeared in front of the last Cockatrice. A simple touch of her paw, wrapped in the new energy, was enough to shatter the monster’s resistance, ending the battle and solidifying her new form as a true two-tailed Spirit Fox.
Lohan rolled off the branch and landed beside her, feeling the residual heat from that evolution. He formed a small hand and patted Lisa’s new tail.
"Congratulations, Lisa," Lohan conveyed, speaking excitedly as he admired the fox in front of him. "Your new evolution looks amazing!"