Elise wanted to check her options immediately, but she was still being actively pursued by the rest of the pack that she had been eradicating hunting, so she needed to get somewhere safe first. She had already made a fey bargain with Oberon to protect her while she evolved, and she had no reason to stay out in the wilderness anymore, so she decided to just head back to the castle. Plus, if any of her evolution options were weird, she could always ask Oberon if he had any insights. If nothing else, he was really old and experienced, so she could use his knowledge. Once she was safe from the wolves and flying back toward Everspring, she prompted the System to list her options so she could get a general idea of them before she made it back to safety. “You currently have {19} evolution options. Of those, you have 2 Epic evolution options and 12 Legendary evolution options, and 4 Mythic options, and 1 Unique option.” “Unique is the rarity beyond Mythic, and the second highest Rarity in the System.” Second highest? What’s higher? “I’m sorry, but you don’t have access to that information.” “I’m sorry, but it appears that you do not have access. If you believe this to be an error, you can file a support ticket. Would you like to file a support ticket?” Nevermind, thought Elise with a sigh. That trick had actually worked once. It was immediately patched out of existence, but before that, she had learned a bit more about the different types of {Transformation} skills than she otherwise would have. It was unfortunate that was the information she had gotten with it though, as Oberon had told her the exact same things. If she had known it had a real chance of working, she would have used it for something more important. “Would you like me to list your evolution options?” Yes, but only the names for now. And sort them by rarity, least rare first, ending on the unique. Elise had found that the System often needed more specific instructions ever since the Alpha update. It was mildly annoying, but it was also marginally more useful, so she considered it a net neutral tradeoff. “Your Epic evolution options are {Civilian Changeling} and {Demonic Rabbit Shifter}. Please take note that {Demonic Rabbit Shifter} is not on your current evolution path, and accepting this evolution may result in the loss of some path-specific skills.” Elise had no intention of taking either, but she found the {Civilian Changeling} option incredibly interesting. First, what skills would a Civilian get? Was that even a Class? Second, did the fact that there was no “Rabbit” in the evolution mean that it would make her no longer a rabbit? Would she be an ordinary changeling? She felt the tiniest twinge of temptation as she considered that. It wouldn’t really matter, since regular changelings weren’t any more generally accepted than rabbit changelings, so she would still need to transform to go anywhere, but the idea of having opposable thumbs in her base form was a little appealing. At the same time though, she had gotten somewhat attached to her rabbit form. With {Telekinesis}, the lack of thumbs didn’t really affect her as much, and having such powerful ears was nice. Plus, veggies tasted really good as a rabbit. Even raw, they tasted as good or better than most prepared foods did to her human tastebuds. “Your Legendary Evolutions are {Rabbit Changeling Tailor}, {Rabbit Changeling Merchant}, {Rabbit Changeling Thug}, {Rabbit Changeling Rogue}, {Rabbit Changeling Warrior}, {Rabbit Changeling Mage}, {Rabbit Changeling Priestess}, {Rabbit Changeling Noble}, {Rabbit Changeling Hunter}, {Rabbit Changeling Knight}, {Rabbit Changeling Vigilante}, and {Rabbit Changeling Spy}.” About what I expected, thought Elise. “Your Mythical evolution options are {Rabbit Princess Changeling}, {Rabbit Undercover Princess Changeling}, {Demonic Rabbit Changeling}, and {Greater Rabbit Skinwalker}. Please note that {Demonic Rabbit Changeling} would be a mutation of your path, and while you would not lose access to existing skills, you may not receive skills that you would otherwise have received on your path. “Your Unique evolution option is {Heavenly Ambassador Rabbit Changeling (Titania)}. Please note that choosing the {Heavenly Ambassador Rabbit Changeling (Titania)} will permanently lock you out of all other paths.” Those options left Elise with a bit more to chew on. She had rejected all the Demon upgrades until now because they were weird, or would lose her skills, but now she had an option that wasn’t that weird, and wouldn’t take away her skills, and best of all, it was Mythic rarity. She had no idea what to expect out of a demonic evolution though. She would have loved to ask Freddy, but even after two months, he had yet to respond to even Oberon’s call. Wherever he was, he was completely off the radar. She was almost worried about him, but Oberon had assured her that if anything capable of killing a 9th tier had occurred, he would know about it. In the absolute worst case, he had been trapped somewhere similar to where Irylax had been. Speaking of Irylax, about a month prior, Elise had finally found out what exactly had happened to her and Sophie, and where they had been. The island that they had been trapped on was called Alastor Island, and was famous, or rather, infamous, for not existing. Or at least it had been, until Irylax and Sophie broke the barrier that surrounded it. Apparently, thousands of years ago, a king named Alastor of a nation that no longer existed had a vacation home on that island. It was a nice island in the summer, but during the winter, the storms made it quite inhospitable. Rather than do the sensible thing and find another island in a better location to serve as his winter vacation home, King Alastor had the brilliant idea of moving the entire island to somewhere more pleasant instead. The legends said he employed over 200 of the finest dwarven runesmiths to build an enchantment around the entire island that would transport it to another predetermined location on the other side of the continent. It would cost an astronomical amount of mana to power, but the ancient dwarven runesmiths were masters of mana, and set the island up so that it automatically gathered mana all year round to power its teleportation, and supercharged that absorption whenever it needed to be moved. The formation had actually worked at first. The initial tests went well, and for a single year, it was used as intended, with Alastor himself even choosing to remain on the island during the teleportation. Then, in the second year, when it was time to move the island south for the winter, the island never reappeared. It was gone forever. Most historians and anthropologists were of the opinion that Alastor's island had never existed in the first place, as such an enchantment would have been practically impossible to get working even once. Of course, the reappearance of the island disproved that theory, and it was now flooded with people looking for answers. Its reappearance was the second biggest news of the year thus far, behind only the downfall of the Blood Syndicate and the public reveal of the existence of Ostra. All that aside though, Freddy was effectively missing. Even Firona, his right hand, didn’t know where he was, though he apparently had told her that he might be gone for a while, so she wasn’t particularly concerned. That meant that Elise’s best source of information on demons and their abilities would have to be Oberon. Or perhaps Rayna. She did still have that scroll that Rayna had given her. She still didn’t think that she would actually pick that option, but it was definitely something she would have to seriously consider. As for the others, just by the class names, the oddly specific {Undercover Princess Rabbit Changeling} seemed like exactly what she needed. The more general {Princess Rabbit Changeling} might also be good. That would be something else to ask Oberon. She did note that both of those had a different naming scheme than all the Legendary options, with the Princess coming before the Rabbit Changeling, making her think that it would make her a literal princess among changelings, rather than a changeling disguised as a princess. Of the Legendary options, none of them really jumped out at her except maybe {Rabbit Rogue Changeling}. She didn’t intend on being a Rogue in the long term, but the stealth skills that would come with it would probably help shore up her greatest weakness in hunting and combat, that being how much she stood out. Though perhaps the Undercover Princess option could help with that too. The Epic options were out too, obviously. As interesting as they were, she had no intention of downgrading. She still checked each of the descriptions, just in case they had something hidden within, but most of them were boring. She kept the Rogue option on the short list though as she went through each one. Rabbit Skinwalker was out already based on the name, but it was extra out after she had the System read the description to her. “A {Greater Rabbit Skinwalker} is a skinwalker, a type of fey, with the base form of a monstrous rabbit. Greater Rabbit Skinwalkers specialize in killing and replacing other creatures, disguising themselves so thoroughly that even the closest friends and relatives of the replaced might not notice that something is different. Greater Rabbit Skinwalkers mimic not only the form, but also the Skills of those they imitate, and they even inherit some of their memories.” Heck. No. Scratch that one off the list right now. “Alright. I have removed {Greater Rabbit Skinwalker} from the shortlist.” It sounded really powerful, and Elise thought that if she was a psychopath, that would have been the perfect option for her, but she was not, and she hated it. It also made her paranoid that such a creature even existed. How did she know that none of the Grays had been replaced by Skinwalkers? The fact that it was a Mythic evolution option meant that they couldn’t be common, but she also knew that the “Rabbit” part seemed to add a tier of rarity to all her options, based on her conversations with Oberon, meaning that regular Greater Skinwalkers were slightly more common. Still not that common, since Legendary monsters were less than one in a million, but the fact that they existed at all was unsettling. Then again, the fact that Elise could terrify someone so badly they had a heart attack and died was also terrifying. As was the fact that monsters like Erin could plant false memories in the heads of the unsuspecting. And that Oberon could turn himself or someone else so completely invisible that even Freddy couldn’t find them. And that Irylax had enough mana to blow up the city. Come to think of it, there were a lot of terrifying people in Elise’s immediate vicinity. She pushed those thoughts aside as she had the System read off her final evolution option. “The {Heavenly Ambassador Rabbit Changeling (Titania)} is a unique species that has never existed before. It has a direct connection with a deity, in this case Titania, and it serves that deity as their master. The deity also personally selects the abilities granted by the evolution. This evolution can only exist if a deity extends a direct offer to a mortal, and comes with the guarantee of not only a direct connection, but a personal one.” While abilities tailored to her by a goddess who had likely been watching her every move was tempting, Elise crossed this one off the shortlist as well, sighing as she did. She wasn’t entirely sure why Titania had offered this while also explicitly warning her not to accept anything , but if her philosophy was anything like Oberon’s, it was probably something to do with freedom. While she didn’t think it was best, she still wanted Elise to have the choice. Elise did not want to become eternally tied to Titania. Perhaps in the past, it would have been a tougher decision, but after spending more time around Oberon and the other fey, she was certain she didn’t want to be exactly like them. There were aspects of the fey abilities and philosophy that she would gladly adopt and use, but a “proper fey life,” as Oberon liked to call it, was not the life for her. She wanted to forge her own path, if possible, and through that, reach goddesshood. That left her with four real options, which she pulled up in a grid in front of her as she flew. Tʜe source of this ᴄontent ɪs ɴovᴇl(F)ɪre.ɴet [ Rabbit Changeling Rogue (Legendary): A changeling with the base form of a rabbit fey that prefers to disguise themselves as a Rogue. Grants Rogue Class Skills ] [ Princess Rabbit Changeling (Mythic): A Rabbit Changeling who is a princess of the fey. Grants Princess Class Skills and unlocks Unique evolution paths ] [ Undercover Princess Rabbit Changeling (Mythic): A Rabbit Changeling who is a princess of the fey who prefers not to draw too much attention. Grants Undercover Princess Class Skills and unlocks Unique evolution paths ] [ Demonic Rabbit Changeling (Mythic): A Rabbit Changeling that has mutated to possess demonic abilities due to close relations with demons. Grants demonic abilities. ] The descriptions in the visual boxes were a bit more concise than the ones that the System voiced out loud, but they contained the same information. That is to say, very little information. She felt like she could have guessed pretty much everything about the descriptions with reasonable accuracy just based on the names. After some more consideration as she flew, she hesitantly crossed the Rogue off the list. “Not drawing too much attention” was most of her goal, and if she could accomplish that with the Undercover Princess option, that would be better, since she would get more stat points. As tempting as the higher Agility and Dexterity she would probably get from the Rogue option were, that would just dilute her stat pool, when at this stage, she should be committing to one path and optimizing the hell out of her build. With that in mind, it was a tossup between Princess and Undercover Princess, and it would really all come down to which gave her the better Skills. Princess Rabbit Changeling might not allow her to be stealthy, but it could have some powerful Charisma-based skills that Undercover Princess didn’t. Meanwhile, Demonic Rabbit Changeling was really only on the list out of curiosity. The more she thought about it, the less it appealed to her. She wasn’t sure what the Demonic would add that she would want. Contract abilities like Freddy’s might have been situationally useful, but unlike the old demon, she was not enthusiastic about the law, and leveling the skill would probably be tedious. Not to mention most of the other demons she had seen where either succubi, or were big and buff, and used mostly physical skills, neither of which aligned with her current self or personal preferences. When she got back to the castle, she told Oberon about all her options, and he basically confirmed all of her own ideas. The Epic options were very interesting, but worthless. The Legendary options were good, but couldn’t compete with the Mythic options. Demonic Rabbit Changeling would indeed give her the contract ability, and it would also tie her to one of the seven deadly sins, which would grant power, but would also come with drawbacks. Elise didn’t like the sound of that, so they decided to cross that one off. And as for the Unique evolution option… “Did you say Titania offered?” he asked. “Yeah. Actually, I’ve been meaning to ask. Do you know her?” For the first time ever Elise saw an expression on his face that wasn’t of amusement or anything similar. He almost looked… sad? “I used to,” he eventually said. “What happened?” Elise asked. Oberon looked at her contemplatively, then his face returned to his usual smile. “Oh, the stories I could tell!” he said. “It’s really too much for one conversation, but I’ll give you the brief version. We were the best of friends, and we did everything together. We founded Corunia together! She was the brains, and I was the fun! And then she went and ascended for some reason, and now… Well, here we are.” “Why don’t you ascend after her?” Elise asked. “Why would I do that?” asked Oberon. Once again, Elise saw an expression on his face that she had never seen before: a fake smile. Or at least, an obviously fake smile. Whether his other smiles had been false or not, she did not know, but this time, she could tell that he didn’t mean it. “Why would I give up all this?” he continued. “Abandon my position? My freedom? Take on the responsibilities of godhood? Why would I ascend when I am perfectly happy down here? Why would she ascend when she was perfectly happy down here as well?” Elise hesitated for a moment, then spoke again. “Are you sure you’re happy down here?” “Of course I am! I get to meet people like you! I couldn’t do that if I was a god now, could I?” Elise felt like there was more to be said there, but while Oberon generally had tight enough control over his aether that {Sense Emotions} didn’t work on him, she got the subtle sense that she shouldn’t press the issue. “So then about my evolution,” she said, changing the subject. “What’s the main difference between the Princess and Undercover Princess options?” “Frankly, it’s not much of a competition,” said Oberon. “Undercover Princess is clearly better. Undercover Princess is an evolution of the Princess Class, so theoretically, you would be getting everything you would from Princess Rabbit Changeling and more by choosing the Undercover Princess Rabbit Changeling option.” “I see,” said Elise. “Well, I guess that settles it then.” “You know, the skinwalker option-” “Nope!” said Elise, standing up from her seat on the couch. She was pretty sure he was just messing with her, and would never actually suggest something like that, but she could never be sure with him. “Well, have fun,” said Oberon, standing up as well. “Your room is well-warded, and I’ll have a dozen clones at every entrance.” By that, he meant he would literally have a dozen on each door and each window. Oberon had offered it when they were initially bargaining, and while taken aback, Elise saw no reason to reject that much guarding. Unless Oberon decided to go back on his word and get her killed, there were very few places on the entire planet that would be safer than her room while she evolved. She locked herself inside and hopped over to the bathtub, which was the size of a hot tub. Oberon proudly stated that his castle had the most advanced drainage system in the world, owing to the fact that he employed almost exclusively changelings who needed places to evolve without making a goopy mess when they emerged. She hopped into the tub, settled herself in one one of the edges, then called for the System. “Would you like to begin your evolution now? The process of evolution will take a significant amount of time, and a disturbance in the middle would result in your death.” [Beginning Evolution]