Status

Name: Nathan Orion

Moniker: N/A

Level: 51

Archetype: Blood Berserker

Class: Blood Pawn (Evolution Pending)

Imprints: Balls of Steel, Demon Slayer, Skull Crusher, Bronze Dungeoneer, Wrong Underdog

Strength: 38

Dexterity: 16

Vitality: 18

Constitution: 27

Perception: 15

Dao: N/A

Ra'hal Coins: 547,840

Free Points: 20

Twenty points?

Nathan stared passively at the screen even as his mind began to go wild with the possibilities. He wondered how exactly he was going to allocate this lump of points. Sure, dumping all inside his strength stat would have some drawbacks—like the Demon Lord had found out. He took a minute to breathe.

He could hear the others filing out of the cabin even as they discussed, but his full focus was on the information that the system was showing him. Twenty points was a lot, especially at the later stages where it was harder to level up, which meant this might be the biggest opportunity he'd get to fix himself up.

A soft sigh left his lips as he came to the conclusion that he'd never be able to make a perfect decision that'd make him unstoppable simply because there wasn't one; he just needed to allocate them as best as he could. Even with the realization in mind, something held him back from carrying on the allocation, a little bit of nagging in the back of his mind. He looked through the information again, his eyes stopping on his class.

Evolution Pending.

He repeated the words out loud. He knew what the words meant, and the part of him that always strived for progress and improvements was impatient to find out what his next evolution would bring. He held back nonetheless—would the evolution change his body? Would his skin change? Would he grow claws or fangs? Nathan wondered. It seemed to terrify him the more he thought about it; by choosing to evolve, he could be throwing his entire humanity to the side.

"Maybe I could end up with a tail," Nathan muttered.

A shiver ran down his spine at the possibility of having a tail-like appendage growing out of his body. The berserker preferred to retain his natural human-like body; more muscle mass was always welcomed, but growing new organs and appendages would certainly freak him out.

"Well, what do you think?" Nathan asked the only occupant of the cabin, the Neran rabbit.

The bunny simply looked at him passively like Nathan hadn't just questioned it, making the Berserker feel stupid and a little worried for his sanity. Maybe he was losing it the longer he survived in this freaking apocalypse. He'd fought demons, gremlins, dwarves, a freaking lich within a span of a month. He'd progressed so far in this new system he was starting to forget that this entire thing was unnatural.

"I need... something."

He couldn't put a finger on what it was, or why he felt like he was missing something, but he knew deep down that he was. Crossing his fingers and trying to relax, he hummed a little something he'd picked up when he was amongst Sparrow and the rest. It'd helped him during his earlier days, and it helped him now.

"Evolve class."

[Nathan Orion, Confirm command to Evolve class from Blood Pawn to Blood Baron.]

I confirm, Evolve class.

Nathan refused to read whatever the system was trying to show him in fear that he'd chicken out and not go through with the process of evolving. Out here in the world, power was everything, and if evolving meant he'd get enough to protect himself and everyone around him, then he'd risk growing a tail.

[Decision Confirmed.

Evolving Class from Blood Pawn to Blood Baron.

Please be advised that the pain levels during evolutions are proportional to the rarity of the class in question.

Estimated Evolution time: 10 hours.]

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Okay, no backing out now. Let's go," Nathan said, gritting his teeth.

He wasn't in pain yet, but he'd braced himself for the pain that'd eventually come. A gentle spike of pain pulsed out from his tailbone, causing Nathan to flinch involuntarily, much to the amusement of the bunny which was watching him from the floor. He wasn't sure, but he believed that the infernal rabbit was laughing at him.

That wasn't the only thing he noticed. For one, the blue transparent-ish barrier he'd half been expecting to cover him as he evolved hadn't popped up, which was surprising. The barrier had been there when he'd been integrating his class into his body, and a part of him had assumed that it was the natural procedure for the barrier to pop up during situations like this.

"Bollocks!!!"

Before Nathan could consider the matter any further, a second spike exploded, and this time it came from somewhere in his chest. It wasn't too much per se, and he wasn't going to keel over and die because of the pain, but at the same time, he'd rather not be experiencing the painful sensation racking his body.

He furrowed his brows as the simple act of breathing started to get harder to carry out. He started to sweat even though the room temperature had been perfect just a few moments ago. The spikes of pain had started spreading to the closest regions like wildfire, and a little part of him wondered if he was boiling from the inside.

A third spike exploded, this time in his brain. The spike was more intense and violent than the ones that had come before. Nathan tried to open his mouth to curse or scream out loud, but it felt like his lips were now glued together. He tried to move, but his entire body defied him. It felt like he was fighting against an invisible force to regain control of his body.

He didn't know how long it'd been, but he'd started to panic inwardly. He couldn't move a muscle, he couldn't scream for help, and he couldn't cry, but above all these issues was the fact that he felt like his body was burning up from within—like his very blood was being boiled.

It might've been minutes or hours, heck maybe even seconds, but Nathan was starting to regret his decision to evolve his class. The pain had gone from somewhat manageable to unbearable. His entire being rebelled against the process, and deep down Nathan knew that if he'd been in control of his limbs, he'd have thrown himself off of a cliff just to be rid of the pain. Alas, he couldn't, and so he stared at the only other occupant in the room, trying to distract himself from whatever was happening to his internal system.

The bunny stared at Nathan with a blank expression, the white-furred animal seemingly unbothered with the struggles of the Berserker, content to watch Nathan's face twitch but not move enough to signify a solid expression. To its credit, it did hop towards him, an act which made Nathan wary rather than relax him.

The already stressed-out berserker had to watch as an innocent-looking killer bunny hopped towards him—a defenseless human. If he could've gulped, he would've, but as it was, he couldn't, and so the berserker settled for watching the bunny hop towards him. Nothing in a million years would've prepared Nathan for what happened next: the bunny simply hopped onto his lap and made itself at home.

If Nathan's face could've displayed shock, it would've, but at the moment, it was all he could do to keep his eyeballs from popping out of his skull. It wasn't much from the bunny's point of view, but the little act from the creature had made his evolution a little bit less painful.

At least that was what it seemed like at that moment until the system increased the difficulty to destroy whatever effect the bunny was having on his trial of pain. Nathan gritted harder because of the pain; a liquid substance seemed to be running down his nose, but Nathan couldn't check what it was as he was incapacitated at the moment. He made peace with the fact that checking now wouldn't stop the pain—he had to survive the evolution.

People don't die from evolutions... Right?

He couldn't speak, and there wasn't anyone in the room to ask anyway, so he swallowed the question. Besides, he wouldn't put it past this sadistic system to find a way to kill people during evolutions. After all, it seemed like the system was always finding the most innovative ways to dispose of them.

Who knows, maybe this dog-eat-dog thing was just a way for the system to eradicate a good amount of the human population in order to flood it with alien races. Yes, that had to be it. The system was probably scamming them to keep on with the charade by giving new cool skills to toy around with and monsters to kill left and right until they aren't moved by such things.

The hell.

Nathan would've continued on that train of thought except for the fact that he could see steam rising up from his body. He couldn't even tell if he was delirious or if it was actually happening. Before the Berserker could think up a reasonable explanation for the sight, the mother of all spikes exploded in his groin area, causing him to lose consciousness. Everything went black, the whole world around him gone.

---

Nathan didn't know how long he was out, but when he woke up, he was flat on the floor instead of the legs-crossed meditation pose he'd been in before he'd passed out. Purple light streamed in from the windows, and a group of concerned faces stared at him like he'd died and suddenly resurrected.

The first thing Nathan did was suck in as much air as he could, and it was then that it hit him: blood. The entire room reeked of blood, and if he was getting this right, it was his blood, blackened and dried on his skin. The smell was so foul he'd have thrown up if he could've mustered up the strength.

His body felt newer although it was tired; it was like he'd been born again. With this realization, Nathan's head snapped like a startled cat as he searched his body for all the changes that the system had wrought on his body. A sigh of relief left his lips as he realized that he was the same as before, even if he was a little fresher. The system hadn't given him a tail or webbed feet. Running a hand over his head, he confirmed that he'd not gotten horns either.

He stared at the closest faces to his—Pirlo, Ciara, and Ruben's. Their lips seemed to be moving, but he couldn't hear a single thing the trio said, so he flashed them a weak toothy smile, which caused Ruben to recoil, the berserker getting looks from the rogue and the mage. Nathan wasn't really offended; if anything, the Berserker's reaction confirmed that Nathan not only smelled like shit, he probably looked like it as well.

Yayyy, go Ra'hal system.

It'd managed to turn him into trash within 10 hours, and it'd done it easily too. With a half shrug to bring back feelings to his shoulder muscles, Nathan braced himself on the ground and pushed up. Maybe he was just tripping, or it was the after-effect of having his blood boiled and quite possibly his brain, but Nathan believed that the motion had been way too easy to pull off.

Well, it wasn't necessarily a hard thing to do before, but it was significantly easier to pull off now, and this was in his tired state. He wasn't the brightest, but he felt as though the evolution had not only improved him physically, it'd also improved his immediate potential by far eclipsing whatever was his previous potential.

Alright, time to see what this class evolution has done to me.

Status.

[Congratulations Nathan Orion on your first blood class evolution.

You are now a Blood Baron.

You have received one new boon for Evolving;]

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