In the Mythlorien clearing, everyone stood silent, just watching the glow of Pip’s cocoon of light, hoping nothing would go wrong in the evolution of this little friend they’d known for such a short time, but already cared about so much.
Pip had won over the Silver Lotus members with his cute looks and sincere personality, so even having known the little boy for so little time, no one there wanted anything bad to happen to him during such an important process.
Suddenly, the silence was broken only by the rhythmic sound of the light cocoon cracking, releasing sparks that made the green grass around it grow instantly.
Lotus and the Silver Lotus Players stepped back several paces, surprised to feel the pressure of that transformation. For them, having just witnessed Halon’s raw power, watching their little guide go through such a grand evolution right after was confirmation that they’d made the right choice joining the guild.
Lohan watched every millisecond of that molecular restructuring.
Internally, the Slime felt a mix of pride and a deep anxiety vibrating through his gelatin.
He remembered the great change Pip had gone through, the frightened little boy in the beetle tree, trembling in dread while being controlled by the Queen, his desire to become stronger, to become someone who could protect Astralis Requiem, the first signs of his growth when he protected the Village that had rejected him so much in the past... and him still being able to move forward and hold firm to that mindset was something Lohan deeply respected, but the uncertainty of Elysium’s system still worried him.
Inside the cocoon, Pip felt his body stretch and fill with a vitality that burned like the sun, yet refreshed like morning dew.
His small butterfly wings, which had once seemed fragile and translucent, though hardened and sharpened after the Beetle Queen’s transformation, began to lengthen and grow even harder. The natural organic tissue still remaining in the wings was replaced by a structure resembling tempered glass, but combined with the metallic sheen inherited from the Glass Shell Queen, the edges of the wings became serrated and sharp as crystal daggers, able to slice through the air with a hissing sound that indicated superior agility.
Pip’s small body, which had still been developing muscle definition, now showed a musculature that was still cute, but far denser and more proportional beneath his skin, which now shone with a delicate purity. The pressure his organism could withstand rose drastically, Lohan realized that the biomass injections he’d been carrying out through the Weaver Mother hadn’t just been fuel, but had surprisingly also acted as bricks for a new biological infrastructure. The Natural Energy inside Pip, which had once been a calm current, turned into an overflowing, dense river, fusing with his cells.
Analyzing this evolution, Lohan was able to calculate that it was as if Pip’s Natural Energy Core had risen from level 2 to at least Level 4 or even Level 5 after this evolution.
But what was most shocking to Lohan was realizing just how different Pip was becoming from other fairies.
’This is like... it’s like his very race has evolved!!’ Lohan thought, shocked at the possibility.
The more he watched, the more that hypothesis seemed to make sense.
To confirm this hunch, Lohan opened the Guild interface, which showed the members and each of their information, and there was Pip’s profile.
[Name: Pip
Race: Fairy (Common) → Natural Fairy (Uncommon)
Class: Green Ranger (Common) → Sylvan Warrior (Uncommon)
Level: 11]
Looking at that status screen, Lohan was left completely speechless, unable to believe what he was seeing.
That defied the logic of progression Lohan knew. As far as the Players knew so far, races in Elysium were generally fixed, and changing their rarity was a milestone he’d only assumed was possible through level 11 evolutions for Players.
But Pip, a native creature, had broken through the bottleneck from "Common" to "Uncommon" thanks to the absurd combination of an Epic Matriarch’s energy and the biomass of a Mythic Slime.
This new discovery opened up so many new possibilities in Lohan’s mind that he couldn’t stop thinking about everything it represented.
Being able to evolve someone’s race, whether Player or native of this world, was something practically inconceivable until now, and if they truly figured out that it was possible to do this, and how to do it again, it could completely remove the Rarity limiter on the Guild members’ Bases, with the possibility that in the future, the Guild could have dozens, or even hundreds, of Legendary Players!!
Just thinking about it already made Lohan’s mind spin.
Lotus, noticing the change in Pip’s aura, took a step forward with her swords still in hand, but her gaze was one of pure admiration. "So this is what an evolution of a native of this world looks like...?"
Not just her, but every member of the group looked at that evolution in awe, not understanding that something even more shocking and unsettling had happened right there before their eyes.
Pip finally opened his eyes.
They were no longer just simple green, now they glowed with a subtle golden hue that made the little boy’s appearance even more adorable and ethereal.
He now floated in the air with much more ease, as if the air around him offered perfect traction. He looked down at his own hands and then at Halon, who was still beside him as the small blue sphere, and smiled.
"Halon! Pip feels like the world is slower!" the fairy exclaimed, his voice sounding like a finely tuned crystal bell. "Pip feels like the strength inside Pip could break those boring rocks with just a thought!"
Lohan laughed inwardly, pleased to see that Pip’s cheerful temperament hadn’t been erased by the evolution. "Pip, glad you’re okay haha, looks like your evolution took after my style of ’solving problems explosively.’"
Pip puffed out his cheeks, crossing his tiny but now much more muscular arms with a proud smile on his face, and eyes gleaming with excitement. "Yes, Pip is dying to solve more problems for Astralis, Master Halon, come on, let’s go after more monsters!"
Seeing his excitement, no one in the group refused, and they quickly set out in search of more monsters to test Pip’s new strength, curious to find out just how much more powerful he had become now!