"I couldn't even test any of my new creations," Lev casually threw out, knowing what kind of reaction it would invoke. "The serpent turned out to be a bit too strong."

  "Be glad you're alive," Isabella spoke out loud, frowning at him. "If my father were here, he would've put you under house arrest because of your stupidity."

  "Good thing I turned down his offer, then," Lev chuckled. "I much prefer my freedom to die on my own terms."

  "Stay alive," Lisa said and rolled her eyes. "Why are you talking about death so casually? Are you depressed?"

  Lev just stared into her eyes. "I'm simply not delusional."

  Melvine threw a puff of very cold air at his face, making him shiver and sneeze uncontrollably. He gave her a betrayed look and warmed his face again with fire mana, then realized why she had done so.

  Perhaps bringing up the likely future of everyone present wasn't a wise idea. Lev wasn't really thinking straight, either. The pain in his body was only getting worse in the absence of adrenaline, so he latched onto the best available distraction.

  "So," he voiced, looking at Aryan. "Ready?"

  The rogue nodded, still going over his status. "What about some last-minute training? Do you think it's worth it?"

  "It is up to you," Isabella remarked. "No one will stop you if you want to wait another week or two. I don't think you were planning to evolve so quickly."

  "Yes," he bobbed his head, thoughtful. "There's also the matter of skill levels. They likely aren't going to increase again, since most of mine are already on the upper end of what is possible for an Adept. It kind of defeats the purpose of delaying."

  "Then it boils down to if there's anything specific you're unsatisfied with," Elias piped up.

  "Nothing of the sort," Aryan replied after a few seconds. "I'm already pushing the boundaries of what I can realistically do with the class, and I've also been an Adept for nearly 10 years now."

  That's quite a bit longer than I was expecting, Lev mused. How long was I an Adept for? Two years? Three?

  His perception of time had become funny. Not only did days blend together way too easily, but his past on Monarch now also seemed like a very short period of time. No doubt, mana was changing his brain, adapting it to his new lifespan, but it was still eerily unique in how smooth the massive change was.

  Everyone here is also a fair bit older than me.

  "I will evolve then," Aryan nodded resolutely. Mevline seemed to be waiting for that. Summoning a chair, she waved the rogue to sit on it and created a dome of ice around them.

  Curiously enough, while the temperature did drop, it was nowhere near as cold as her element. Lev noted the degree of her control and stood up before summoning a chair for himself, too.

  One by one, everyone else also took their seats. Aryan took a deep breath and nodded resolutely. His eyes clouded over for a second, and after leaning back in his chair, the rogue's body went limp.

  Try as he might, Lev could not detect even a whiff of mana from the ongoing evolution. There were only minor indications of changes in Aryan's limbs as the muscles moved minutely, no doubt due to the increased attributes and passive buffs. Nothing else stood out.

  A minute or so later, Aryan opened his eyes again. Shadow mana rushed out of him, wild and potent, only to be pulled back inside after a moment. Then his aura unfurled, and it was amazing.

  Lev took it all in with wide eyes, trying and barely understanding why it was different. Aryan's presence was far from the strongest, for that title belonged to Lev and Melvine. What the rogue possessed, however, was a quality that told him in no uncertain terms just how potent the new class was.

  The aura screamed precision. It gave off the impression of death by a thousand cuts, yet each cut retained just as much significance as a deep stab wound, regardless of how small it was. Moreover, willpower played a very important role for the new class, and the difficulty Lev had in focusing on the aura also revealed how effective the rogue's new stealth was going to be.

  More subtle effects were also noticeable, though he couldn't decipher them with his limited understanding. The class was obscenely strong, and while the power it could bring about in a duel would be unmatched, a severe downside was also obvious from the start.

  Aryan was now truly a glass cannon.

  He could imbue willpower into his assault and overwhelm monsters much stronger than him, but at the same time, his sustainability was even lower than before. Unless the rogue paced himself, which would reduce the power of his class by a massive degree, he would need to finish every fight in a few minutes and also rest immediately after to not be pushed out of commission.

  "Ha.. ha…," Aryan's incredulous laughter sounded after a minute of silence. His face was ashen from both excitement and nervousness. The twitching of his eyes betrayed how he was constantly rereading the changes, and given his newfound Perception, that was a lot of reading.

  "You guys knew?" he eventually asked, meeting everyone's eyes. "Is this why you so readily agreed to letting me evolve first?"

  "Obviously," Rena answered. "We hinted several times at how strong the evolution is. The only reason we didn't force you to was not to take the choice away."

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "Besides, having someone with strong scouting capabilities is going to be pretty handy," Isabella added. "I'm assuming you now have the second strongest senses amongst us?"

  "Third strongest, probably," the rogue replied.

  "Nah," Lev piped up, keeping his eyes closed lest a few insistent tears fall out from the excruciating healing. "My senses aren't all that great. I just have really high Perception, as well as potent aura senses and eyesight."

  "What's left, even?" Elias snorted. "Beyond mana, I guess."

  "Skills related to them," Lev answered flatly. "I have only one skill that focuses on Perception. Aryan most likely has more in that regard."

  "Much more," the rogue nodded. "I even have drastically improved mana perception from the class benefits."

  "Those are a thing?" Elias muttered, and Lev was in the same boat. He didn't know class benefits could provide bonuses to senses directly.

  The chair vanished beneath Lev in the same instant as the ice dome. Stretching, he took a few steps and opened his eyes, grimacing from how muscles threatened to unravel in a few places. Focusing the small yet steady stream of restoration mana in those locations, he continued to slowly wander in a circle under the gaze of everyone else.

  "Are you sure-"

  "I'm fine," he cut off Zack, the man speaking for the first time. "Come on, I can't just stay inactive for a day or two to heal when we only have three months. Besides, Melvine won't keep killing the approaching monsters forever. Prepare yourselves."

  They probably knew that already. Melvine's range was nearly as large as Lev's, which meant that her level had to be way higher in comparison. Her icy mana formed sharp needles and fired them with lethal precision, eradicating all the ground sharpers long before they reached the humans. Most of them died underground.

  His bubble suddenly became visible. He took a good look at its enchantments, noting that the emergency measures he had prepared were still operational, and stepped inside. The driver's seat provided a distinct comfort that made Lev feel better than he was, and that display also put the worries of the others to rest.

  Alright, what's up with this stupid element?

  Healing was slowly becoming easier, yet his annoyance only rose. Usually, the injuries didn't reject healing mana for too long, but the wounds from the searing wave of light mana were taking forever to cool down. Any attempts at mending his dissolved skin hurt like hell, and the mana used was also wasted.

  Beyond that, his soul was also taxed. The lethargy was different from his usual fights that cut it too close. For once, he was facing a rather simple issue of manipulating too much mana in a short time, which cemented just how potent his soul was compared to others. After all, not only had he emptied his own and Stargazer's massive pools, but he had also drained several cores to the point of disintegration.

  That was a lot of mana, and he had shaped it all without fail.

  Granted, failing in this instance was just an even worse case of mana overuse that would force him to retreat. He had merely finished the fight before getting to that point.

  The group still had a bit of time to pass before sunset and proper scouting and mapping. Before that, he powered the invisibility of the bubble with severe discomfort and made it ascend, momentarily bringing them away from monsters.

  "I don't sense anything too strong in the vicinity," he voiced out loud, sighing soundlessly as the pain lowered to a constant itch. "My regeneration will also take a while to replenish my pool, so I'll be a spectator for the most part. Which also works out in your favor. I've gained plenty of class and skill levels from the fight."

  Something tore out of the ground beneath them less than an hour later, looking around with its insane gaze under the bright light of three moons. The monster looked like a cross between a stickman and a thick cable, its muscles coiled like a thread.

  [Night Hunter - Level 418]

  "So, who's up next?" Lev asked.

  "We'll deal with it," Isabella voiced, preparing herself. The team shared a meaningful glance and nodded in unison, signaling that they were ready.

  The bubble moved a few hundred meters away before it landed lower than the wary monster. It could detect the humans to some extent, only unable to locate their exact position. So when Isabella's group stepped out of the invisible bubble, the Night Hunter wasted no time in shrieking at the top of its lungs before rushing them.

  Lev, Elias's team, and Melvine settled in to watch. None of them had ever seen the monster before, which was why he also kept invisible shields close to the humans on the ground.

  "Is it just me, or…" he trailed off, letting others finish the sentence.

  "That is a strange monster," Lisa added thoughtfully. "Something tells me that my skills would react weirdly with it."

  "You will probably need to intervene," Melvine said abruptly. "Pay attention."

  No sooner than she had said that, the monster vanished from sight. It was still visible in everyone's mana perception and, oddly enough, eyesight too. Moonlight was absorbed and twisted in its wake, illuminating its strides. And some strides they were.

  Zack's posture stiffened, and he infused his body with insane amounts of fire mana. The monster covered the large distance as a blur, smashing into the brawler with the might of a rolling boulder.

  To his credit, Zack hit back with enough strength to send the hunter flying. Both of them were separated with a loud bang, and the ground underneath them didn't survive either.

  Isabella immediately gave the order to make distance. Grabbing everyone with her whips, she flew down the flat section of the mountain and deposited her team near the base of the structure, away from any potential natural calamities.

  Once again, a bright silvery blur marked the monster's passage. It glided down the mountain without an iota of stealth. The very ground was rent as it reached Zack again, and astonishingly enough, this time, the human was the only one sent flying.

  Mid-air, Zack fired a point-blank fireball at the monster, only for the hunter to leap over it. Isabella's whips tried to strangle it during the jump, yet the hunter confused them all again by twisting its thin, compressed flesh, wriggling out of the whips completely unharmed.

  She still tried to hurt it with a last-ditch explosion before it could reach the ground. Her whips blew up as one, and while the hunter was caught in the vicinity, it landed on the ground on all fours, only slightly burnt.

  "New plan," Lev immediately addressed Elias and his team. "You guys should join them. I'll provide support whenever I get the chance."

  They didn't ask questions. Lev didn't expect them to, for his instincts were blaring warnings. Even worse, Melvine's expression continued to harden, realizing something the others couldn't see yet.

  "Elias," she spoke just before the bubble landed. "No holding back. Tell Isabella the same."

  The swordsman merely nodded and sprinted towards Zack, immediately pushing his buffs to the maximum to provide support. Viktor's thrown axe provided a good opening, and when Elias moved in to capitalize on it, the hunter screeched.

  It took a moment for Lev to register the changes. The already skinny monster shrank even more, and against all logic, Elias's swords simply bounced off with nothing more than scratches to show for the strikes.

  How is that even possible-

  "IT'S ABSORBING THE MOONLIGHT!" Isabella's panicked voice reached him. Even Melvine's eyes widened with alarm as she jumped out of the bubble, announcing her presence with a barrage of deadly ice spikes.

  It was one thing to face a strong monster, and a completely different thing to face one that twisted the element of the Goddess to empower itself.