**Alert** New Skill Evolution Available Choose one Hydraulic assist Requirement: Exoskeleton Reinforced frame Pressurized fluid

Jack stared in annoyance at the screen in front of him. “Kai, sorry to bother you again, but do skill evolutions normally leave out any details?”

“Yes,” Kai deadpanned.

Letting out a frustrated sigh Jack dismissed the screen and slowly got up to get ready to leave. While still painful and sore, his back was much better than the day before. Kai had already put everything that needed to be packed inside his inventory except the hide blanket Jack had been sleeping with. Folding the blanket up, he was about to bring it over to Kai when it shrunk down to the size of a washcloth.

Hide blanket of a restful sleep Expands to cover whoever is sleeping under it.

Those who are attempting to sleep under this blanket will find it easier to do so.

Those sleeping under the blanket are less noticeable.

“Wow, that’s a cool blanket, where did you get it?” Jack asked as he handed the shrunken blanket to Kai.

“A dungeon.” Kai stuffed the cloth into a small leather pack strapped to his hip. “Five minutes.”

Jack grabbed his pole and picked up Lucy, placing her on his shoulder so that she wouldn’t accidentally hit his back. “Ok, I’m ready.”

Kai nodded and started to walk through the forest as Ava took off into the sky. Jack had to hide his disappointment when he realized they would be walking and he wasn’t going to get to ride Ava.

Kai’s natural walking pace was about five times as fast as Jack’s. So it was no surprise that Kai had to constantly stop and wait for Jack to catch up.

After only two hours of walking, Jack’s body was on fire. His legs were throbbing and his back was sending shocks of pain out in every direction from his back. When his stamina hit zero, he had to finally ask Kai for a break. Kai let out one of his high pitched clicked of disappointment but immediately stopped.

Sitting down and pulling out some water, Jack pulled up the waiting evolution screen. “Kai, have you heard of the hydraulic leap skill?”

“No.”

“How do you normally choose a skill evolution?”

“If it is a known skill, you will have more information and can choose what will help you the most. Though if you are pioneering a skill if an evolution has a requirement, that is generally the most advanced and powerful choice. If you have over one with a requirement or none of them have one, then you go with the evolution that sounds the most in line with what you want out of the skill.”

Jack twisted his mouth in frustration. Kai’s yellow eyes seem to pierce right through him, almost like he was reading his mind. “If you are worried about making the wrong decision, you can always reset the skill.”

“What do you mean reset my skill, you can do that?” Jack responded in shock.

“Yes.”

Jack waited for a beat to see if Kai would elaborate, “How do you do that?”

Kai clicked and closed his eyes in frustration. Jack immediately regretted asking. Kai obviously wasn’t much of a talker, let alone a teacher. Jack was about to tell him to forget about it, that he didn’t have to explain when Kai opened his beak to respond.

“Once you have a full list of skills, you can replace those skills when you unlock a new one. The replaced skill then goes to your unlocked skills list and refunds any coins spent on the skill. If you decide you want to relearn the skill, then you can replace another skill with the one you want to learn again. Once you have the skill again, it starts back at level one, although it is much easier to bring it back up to its previous level.” Kai finished and began to wander around their small rest spot, inspecting the ground and base of the trees.

“Ok thanks, Kai. I’m sorry if my questions are annoying.”

“You are ignorant of many things, you can not help but be annoying. It is the same with young ones who are learning all this for the first time. Knowledge of these things is essential, so I can not fault you for asking questions, I can only give you as much information as my patience will allow.”

Jack made a mental note to spread his questions out as much as possible. The fact that you could reset skills was an enormous weight off of his shoulders. He didn’t feel like he was going to screw up Lucy’s entire future build by making a wrong choice, because if he did, all it would take is some extra time to train it back up. With that, he took Kai’s advice and chose the option with the requirement.

**Alert** Hydraulic Leap has evolved to Hydraulic Assist Hydraulic Assist Using the fluid to enhance the strength of bodily movements.

Hydraulic assist sounded a lot like what he was wanting to do with the skill for himself, kicking, or punching really hard. Maybe it could even help with lifting.

He made another mental note to have Lucy start training her new skill while they are moving. She could easily jump around a bunch while they are walking, and when she gets tired, she could ride on his shoulder.

Knowing they had around seventeen minutes of resting left due to his stamina regeneration, Jack wanted to flesh out his ideas for Lucy’s build.

Just like him, she had the skills to be a rogue but probably more of an assassin. That’s what most of the other manaweavers and most spiders in general are; ambush hunters. He thought of the last manaweaver he saw, the one that used the illusion. If he could figure out how to teach her to harness magic, she could use that to distract enemies while they sneak up behind and attack them.

Magic for her would be amazing but it’s not a guarantee; so unless someone in the herd or some way to learn it becomes apparent, magic is on the backburner.

Working on leveling up her hydraulic assist and poison fang attack needs to be the main priorities after that should be sneak and web weaving. He was thinking of endurance and vitality as the primary focus for her attributes. Vitality at least until she was at the same health level as he was; he didn’t want her to get squished in a fight. Endurance because hydraulic leap used a lot of stamina, and now that it evolved to assist, it made it seem like she could potentially trade stamina for extra strength.

With a basic plan for Lucy in place, Jack pulled out his crowbar and started digging a small hole in front of him to search for bugs. Lucy, seeing what he was doing, tried digging as well but with much less efficiency.

The rest of the day followed a similar pattern; hike for around an hour and a half to two hours, stop and rest, ask Kai a couple of questions, all the while digging for bugs. They did this a total of five times, each hike going shorter than the last as Jack’s stamina fell faster as the day went on.

He realized something was wrong when the last hike only lasted an hour before he was back to zero. His legs were throbbing and his feet were killing him. He looked at his modifiers and found an affliction.

Exhaustion Stamina recovery reduced until extended rest.

Asking Kai about it, he found out that bringing your stamina below twenty percent multiple times will give you that affliction. It will actually start affecting you long before the affliction shows up as a hidden debuff. The natural way to relieve it is to rest for around six hours. The best practice for long-distance traveling is to travel until you are just over twenty percent, then rest.

During their stops, Jack learned a little more about the world and Kai’s herd. Some information he had to glean from Kai’s single word answers.

First, while not exactly common, there were a lot of magic users in the world. Most races besides humans had some kind of natural aptitude for magic, while only humans with the Magical Affinity evolution tree could use it.

Turns out that there are around six ‘tier one’ evolutions for each sentient race. There were higher tier evolutions, but they all branched out from the tier ones.

Kai’s entire herd has the Pack Bond evolution at various tiers, which led to a revelation to Jack.

“Wait, Kai, if you have Pack Bond, does that mean you’re human?”

Kai let out several of his high-pitched clicks and his feathers seemed to ruffle around his neck and ribs. Jack realized he was laughing.

“Yes, I am human.”

“But you’re a birdman how can you be human?”

“Most bonded take the animal warrior class. It gives us the ability to transform into a hybrid creature similar to a beastkin.” He was still laughing slightly.

“Why don’t you change back? I’ve only ever seen you in bird form. I’d love to see what you actually look like.”

Kai abruptly stopped his laughter and looked almost offended. After a few seconds, his expression softened. “Asking to see a bonded’s human form is the equivalent of asking to see them naked. It is only appropriate for children who have not gotten their beast form yet and the non-bonded.”

Already stepped into a taboo of another culture, good one Jack.

He could tell Kai was in the ‘no more questions’ zone after that but he was able to get more information at their next rest.

Racial evolutions are gained one of two ways, you are either born with it or you gain one from some quests. Quests seem to be rare but you get a quest to pass the threshold from level twenty-four to twenty-five and the reward always includes an evolution.

The last bit of information was that you could have more than one evolution. Certain members of his herd also had Magical Affinity, and one called True Appendix. He wasn’t up for sharing any more about True Appendix.

The end of the day showed some pretty good gains as well.

**Skills Acquired** Burrow Level 1 Improves ability to dig Wanderer Level 1 Increases the effectiveness of travel. **Skills up** Hair Manipulation Level 4 Research Level 2 Wanderer Level 2

The last stretch of the hike was surprisingly the easiest. Even though he was tired he wasn’t tripping over things nearly as much, and he felt way more surefooted. He really had to thank the level up on wanderer for that.

Experience 92/400

Smashing bugs during his resting time had already put him a quarter of the way to level. Lucy also made some gains, while she wasn’t quite as fast as he was in digging for bugs, she was already close to leveling.

Jack watched as Lucy found the last bug she needed to level up. He watched her status screen like a hawk waiting for some indication that she now had a class available. Unfortunately, there was no class and only a few minor changes.

Level 3 Health 8/8 Stamina 4/4 Experience 0/300 Available Attribute Points 1

He found out from Kai that different races gain their classes at different levels. He only knew a handful; humans gain their class at level three, giant eagles at twelve, and something called an osmotic gained their class at level fifteen.

While disappointed she didn’t have a class yet, he was happy they still had time to level up her skills to get her a really good class. He put her single attribute point into vitality, bringing it up to five and her max health up to ten.

As Jack was winding down and setting up his bed, he checked his health, sighing at how slowly it was recovering.

“Only five more days,” he whispered to Lucy, excited for the pain to be gone and the ability to start training the rest of his skills. He drifted to sleep with images of jumping through the air and casting spells flowing through his mind.