Jake woke up with a yawn after his nap and was instantly struck by the stench. He held his nose for a moment as he looked around and saw the source of it. The ground was black and rotting, the treants already well on their way to getting decomposed by now.
With a bit of panic, Jake turned to the Ethgleam Mothertree, and luckily it still looked fine. For a moment, he was afraid he had broken the damn thing, but the wood still looked unblemished, and he felt the energy still within.
It did not take him long to locate his loot as he dug it out from within the center of the tree.
[Ethgleam Mothertree Lifecore (Ancient)] – The Lifecore of an early-tier C-grade Ethgleam Mothertree. Contains potent life energy attuned towards the soul, making it a highly suitable ingredient for any vitality-increasing potions or life and soul-based toxins. Directly consuming this Lifecore may have an adverse effect. If this Lifecore is planted and nourished adequately, regrowing the tree may be possible.
The Lifecore was a stone quite a bit bigger than Jake had anticipated. It was about the size of a human torso and looked difficult to use in alchemy simply due to its size. He would have to extract the energy and not use the core itself, that was for sure.
Looking at the description, Jake, first of all, considered if it felt longer and more substantial due to Identify and Sagacity upgrading or if this was just the expected information. Secondly, he considered the part about potentially regrowing the tree. Was it worth it to try? Maybe he could do some fancy stuff with it…
Shaking his head, he decided to just put it inside his Palate of the Malefic Viper space for now. Jake had not really had anything in there for a long period in recent times, as there wasn’t really anything worth studying deeply. He did know he wanted to make better soul poisons, so maybe this core could help a bit.
On a side note, no, time dilation did not have any effect on Palate. It worked solely in Realtime, unaffected by all fancy time magic stuff.
After Jake was done eating, he decided to start a minor forest fire. He still felt dense energy from within all the wood of the tree, and rather than bring it with him by cutting up the trunks and branches into small enough pieces to transport, he decided to turn the entire thing more transportable.
Alchemical Flame activated as Jake used telekinesis to manipulate all the wood. Jake drove his fire to form a large flame and began lowering the wood down into it. It instantly caught on fire and seemed to simply disperse into nothing to the naked eye. However, Jake saw that some byproduct was made. Ash. Not a lot of it, as it looked like he had to burn around a kilo of wood just a few grams of ash, but when one considered the size of the entire tree, it was pretty damn good.He collected the ash from the burnt tree in glass jars with a hundred grams in each. Jake noticed that the more he burned, the less ash was generated, but once he was all done, he still ended up with forty-two and a half jars of ash. Identifying it, he nodded in satisfaction.
[Ethwood Ashes (Rare)] – The ashes left behind by burnt early-tier C-grade Ethgleam Mothertree. Used in a myriad of recipes as a catalyst when the creation is related to the soul and mind. Has no effect upon direct consumption.
Jake had remembered the Forgotten Sewers dungeon and the staff he burned back then, generating Lesser Ethwood Ashes, and reckoned he could make some himself. His theory proved accurate, and he managed to walk away with not just a Lifecore but a nice extra bounty of ash he could use in alchemy.
With everything gathered up, Jake took a seat on the ground again. It seemed that he had only slept for an hour or so, and while the weakness from Arcane Awakening was mostly gone, it was still there. As he had some time to spare, Jake checked out his evolution quests. Two of them had arrived with his level-up, and he started with the class one.
Class Evolution Quest
A hunter at heart, you seek out worthy prey with avarice. While a bow is your preferred weapon, you gladly make use of any tool available to you, embracing your Legacy as a human. Yet you also deviate, willingly picking up weapons shunned by your kind, delving into and holding onto curses and realities best forgotten. Your Path is wide, rife with exploration, myriad prey fearfully awaiting their encounter with you. You have proven yourself a hunter standing at the apex more than once, and only death shall stop you from continuing to do so.
Objective: Slay ten C-grades (10/10). Slay at least one C-grade more than 15 levels above your own (1/1)
He always liked how the system was so nice and praised him every time in these descriptions. It was like a small summary of how he had gone through the grade and acknowledged some of the things he had done. Jake was surprised by it talking quite a bit about curses, though, making him slightly worried about the impact on his evolution options. It shouldn’t be too bad, right?
Nah, it would be fine. His gut told him so.
That he had already completed the quest didn’t come as a surprise either. He was a bit disappointed to see it didn’t count above the requirements of the quests, though. Then again, all it would do was give him a nice summary, and it did make a bit more sense when it came to the Legacy of the Malefic Viper skills.
Moving on, Jake opened to see the race evolution quest.
This one Jake was actually worried about. Race quests were notorious for barring people who had struggles in their Paths from evolutions, especially those who were scatterbrained. A bit like Jake. More than that, the goal was often not apparent before you saw it. Jake could make educated guesses for class and profession and had a good idea of what he would have to do beforehand, but it was not the case with his race evolution quest.
With determination, Jake opened the description of his final quest.
Race Evolution Quest
Humanity. The enlightened race with the largest population in the multiverse, a race that can walk myriad paths, be found in all grades and at all levels of power. Be it the Path of a creator, a destroyer, or anything in between, a human can be found who has walked it. Yet you have managed to create your own Path, claiming what you desire from the Legacies of others as your own while using your unique Origin as the foundation. An unshakeable will, indomitable mind, immutable desire, and unrivaled Origin. Continue on your Path to supremacy, Primal Hunter.
Objective: N/A
First, the elephant in the room.
N/A.
Not applicable.
There were two ways that could be interpreted off the top of his head. Firstly, Jake had already fulfilled the evolution requirement, so it didn’t bother showing it to him… but if that was the case, why did it show it for all prior evolution quests?
Secondly, it could mean it in a far more literal sense. That he never had any requirements from the beginning because these usual requirements simply didn’t apply to him. If that was the case, why? He already knew the most likely answer… Bloodline. However, Jake had a hard time seeing the Bloodline outright cause this, as it usually didn’t interfere – or wasn’t allowed to interfere – with system stuff like this. Of course, this was only worth worrying about if his situation was actually abnormal.
Maybe Jake was overthinking it, and people who had sufficient Records would always just get N/A. But he had a feeling it wasn’t so… and he failed to hold himself back from asking someone who had to know.
“Hey… Villy… I got a question,” Jake reached out.
“Yes, you can make quite delicious drinks using Ethwood Ash. It comes out tasting a bit like-“
“What is a usual objective of the race evolution quest?” Jake interrupted him and asked.
“Fine, I lied anyway; it tastes like shit. But a usual objective? I know a few of the common archetypes. There is the Find Your Path style, this one tends to be annoying, but you only get it if you have serious problems. Then there is the Affirm Your Path type, which is something people who are already doing well often get offered to reflect on their Path and properly articulate it. The third big one is Enact Your Path, where you have to do something in accordance with your Path. Pretty similar to the one before, but this one is offered to those who already know. Due to that, this one is the easiest by far and is considered the fastest and simplest of these three classics. Mind you, there are far more kinds, but these are the most common types, and most of the variants still fall under one umbrella or another,” Villy explained.
“Are there those who don’t get one?” Jake asked with a frown.
“Well, yeah. Plenty doesn’t need to do any race evolution quests,” Villy answered nonchalantly. Just as Jake was about to breathe out in relief, the Viper continued. “The Sylphian is one such example, as her actual grade is considered higher than she is currently at, making evolutions just a formality. Children of beings at a higher grade also dodge this requirement, which is one of the reasons it is so much easier for the True Dragon Whelp to grow to a B-grade. To summarize, they don’t have any quests as they are just catching up to the grade they technically already are. You should already know this; we have talked about it before.”
“Okay… any other cases?” Jake kept asking searchingly.
“Considering your level, I assume you are not asking for a friend. There are race quests that are already completed once you get them, but this is not the same scenario. For these individuals, it is just a formality, and the objective simply says-“
“Not applicable,” Jake answered.
The Malefic Viper got uncharacteristically silent for a while. Several seconds passed as none of them spoke before Villy just came out and asked.
“Your objective says N/A?”
“Yep,” Jake confirmed.
“And, as stupid as it sounds of me to ask, I need to confirm. Your race is human, right. Not a variant of any kind?”
“As far as I can tell, I am as human as they come. Gives the same stats and matches the descriptions in the books to the letter,” Jake answered. Then he got an idea, and his eyes lit up. “I did get that Anomalous Soul of the Heretic-Chosen skill we talked about a while back that changed my soul, together with my Bloodline, maybe that-“
“No, that isn’t how it works,” the Viper shut him down. A few more seconds passed before he spoke again. “When you evolved to D-grade, you got the choice to evolve to a Malefic Dragonkin, right?”
“Yeah, I did, but just thinking about the option made me… wait… damn, it really is the Bloodline,” Jake said with a sigh.
“Explain.”
“When I was evolving to D-grade, I did have the Dragonkin evolution offered, but I felt such a visceral disgust towards the mere thought of not staying human. Stemming from my Bloodline. Thinking back, I even get the feeling something seriously bad would have happened if I had picked it,” Jake explained.
Another long pause followed before the Viper spoke again.
“I want to give advice, but I truly have none. What I can do is at least give a bit of insight. Many races have a base grade that they cannot naturally be born above and that base grade for humans is D-grade. That means if two S-grade humans have a child, it will be born as a D-grade and have to evolve like anyone else going above that – sans the influx of Records from the parents making this Path easier. What I am trying to say is that not getting any evolution quest objective as a human isn’t possible. There is no precedence. This makes me reconsider if you are human at all, though everything does point to that being a fact,” Villy explained.
Jake knew the thing about humans being born at D-grade as long as their parents were C-grade or above. The same was true for most enlightened species, though many of them did have variants. Elves could become High Elves, for example.
However, one thing did bother him with this explanation.
“Why does it work like that?”
“Why does it work like what?” Villy asked, a bit confused.
“The grade thing. Why can the true grade of a beast or monster be at a higher grade than D from birth, but not humans? You said Sylphie won’t have any race quest either, right? So why would I? Human is not an inferior race inherently to a Sylphian Hawk,” Jake said confidently.
“It relates to Records of their Origin, which… huh,” Villy said as he seemed to realize something. His tone became more solemn and serious as he continued. “Okay, this conversation will end after this, and we are adding everything regarding anything with these evolutions to the list of things to never fucking talk about again, alright? This will be the last thing I add, so listen up. As you know, then beasts have different names despite their true grade varying. The Sylphian Eyas will evolve to a Juvenile Sylphian Hawk or something like that before probably becoming a fully-fledged Sylphian Hawk at B-grade. Same for Sandy, who will evolve to their true form, probably at B-grade too. Yet their names vary. The stat points they get vary. There are no inherent indications outside of the name of the race that they are not already at their true grade. I hope you understand what this means, and now let’s shelve this topic. This doesn’t change anything, at least not right now, so just keep going as normal and evolve. Talk to you post-evolution.”
With those words, Villy cut the connection, leaving Jake alone with his thoughts. His frown deepened as he wracked his brain, looking for an answer he kind of already knew. One he felt. In some ways, hadn’t the truth been in front of his eyes all along?
Jake always had a superiority complex. He always had to try to suppress this to not turn into an utter asshole, thinking he was better than everyone else. You know, like sim-Jake, who had never been able to care about another human being in this life. Never been able to view anyone as an equal.
This did make it hard to engage with other people, especially those who weren’t strong, but he had always thought he knew why. The explanation for this had always been his Bloodline, but when he thought about it… why didn’t it make him feel superior to other races in the same way? He never felt the same innate sense of superiority towards Irin, Draskil, any of the hawks, or really anyone that wasn’t human. He could recognize he was stronger, but it was not a purely instinctual sense of superiority.
Why was this? Again, blaming the Bloodline was easy, and it was certainly involved. Very involved, even. Superiority was a part of his Bloodline and who he was, hence the entire resistance-to-presences aspect. But it was more than that. Far more. He truly should have realized it sooner.
Jake had fucked with so many rituals and so many evolutions of other creatures and monsters throughout his life with the system so far. A child of a late E-grade and an early D-grade hawk turned into something that was rightfully a B-grade. A Sand Worm transformed into a creature even gods didn’t recognize. A cursed scimitar and an old curse smashed together to form a Sin weapon with room for infinite growth.
All of this was done by injecting some of his own energy and thus Records. Yet he had never asked a fundamental question…
How had this affected Jake’s own evolutionary Path?
What exactly had the Bloodline done to his own Origin?
He was human. Just… not entirely the same kind of human as everyone else. He was more. This feeling did not simply come from his inflated ego or his Bloodline but from his Origin itself. His sense of superiority had never been solely due to the Bloodline but because, when among other humans, he felt like a dragon amongst winged snakes.
Jake was just a fledgling of a higher race, still growing into his own. The thought of the potential of better race evolutions during race evolution during the selection had long been at the back of his mind. The thought that maybe he could get some superior variant of human is an appealing prospect.
Never realizing he had been such a variant all along.