Karolina let the kobold fall to the ground, shaking her hand to get the blood off. Running into the lizard-like monster in the middle of the woods had been surprising, but once she dodged its first attack it had been an easy fight.

You have slain [Kobold] - Level 23.

Experience has been awarded.

You have leveled up. You are now a level 24 [Human (F) / Monk].

Level 24. Finally. She was almost to her class evolution. She stared down at the corpse, glad that she had decided to come out into the forest alone today. It had been a few days since Weber had been killed, and everything had actually been going smoothly.

The people from Weber’s camp had overcome their initial hesitance and started cooperating heavily with her camp. Everyone was working together to kill monsters and keep the camps safe.

Selena hadn’t done anything too shady, as far as she could tell, and Karolina had a team she could be proud of. Ada was still herself, but Karolina could tell that the woman was happy with the way things were going. She was also relieved that Thomas was adapting better to fighting monsters now that they had a full-time healer with them. Natalia was loving the chance to take the fight to the monsters with her new skill, Malaise Bolt, that she got due to the skill crystal.

Despite how happy she was with how her friends were doing, she had headed out into the woods alone today. From what they could figure out, killing monsters when you were alone gave the most experience, and Karolina badly wanted to evolve her class.

Even though she was out here in the woods alone, she was being as careful as she could. She had two healing potions, kept her Mana Armor up at all times, and carefully picked her fights. She wasn’t going to get herself killed.

Now that she had leveled up once, she only had one more level to go, but she wanted to do one more thing before she got to level twenty-five: upgrade Combat Perception. She had been banging her head against the skill for a long time, but she was pretty sure she had finally figured out how she could upgrade it.

The skill worked by creating a mana formation inside of the target, which magically transmitted information on the target to her. She had no idea how the mana formation actually worked, but she didn’t need to, because she was pretty sure her mana control had gotten good enough to replicate it. She had upgraded Strong Blow by forcing more stamina in, and she was going to upgrade Combat Perception by using it on multiple targets at the same time.

She activated her mana perception, eyes watering a little once she could see the huge amount of mana in the air. She drew some mana out of her soul and started shaping it into the formation made by her skill. She had spent so long fiddling with the strangely shaped mana wireframe that she had memorized its exact shape.

After spending a minute or two reproducing the mana formation, she was done. She carefully looked it over, making sure that she hadn’t made any mistakes. After she was satisfied, she bent down and carefully inserted the mana into a rock. It didn’t do anything, but she hadn’t expected it to.

She activated Combat Perception on a different rock, watching an identical mana formation speed into the rock. At first, nothing happened, and it seemed that this attempt was another failure. Before she could cancel the skill, however, she felt the drain on her mana suddenly accelerate.

After a second or two, she felt a new connection form with the original rock. Her attempt had worked. She released the skill, surprised at how much of her mana it had used, but the upgrade screen explained it.

Your skill, Combat Perception (E), has upgraded to become Combat Perception (D).

Original Skill:

Combat Perception (E): Gives the user the ability to perceive and react to the movement of one physical object. This skill costs mana while in use.

Combat Perception (D): Gives the user the ability to perceive and react to the movement of physical objects. This skill costs an exponential amount of mana based on the number of objects while in use.

She smiled. That had gone much better than when she had first experimented with her stamina and upgraded Strong Blow. It wasn’t great that the mana cost scaled that fast, but at least she had the option to use her skill on multiple objects at a time now. She should be able to deal with multiple enemies at a time better now.

Now that she had finally upgraded her skill, she was ready to evolve her class. She just needed to kill some more monsters. She was relatively deep into the forest, so finding some more high level monsters hopefully shouldn’t be too hard. She set off deeper into the forest, ready to unleash some violence.

It took the rest of the afternoon, but just as the sun began to set she finally did it. Killing a small group of high-level goblins was enough to tip her over the edge and get her to level twenty-five.

You have leveled up. You are now a level 25 [Human (F) / Monk].

You have the opportunity to evolve your class. Say or think “Class Evolution” to begin the evolution process. Evolving your class will also rank up your race. Choose your class wisely.

Karolina stared at the notification, letting the warm feeling of her level up fade away. Her class evolution was finally here. Her race was about to rank up as well, apparently. Honestly, she had mostly forgotten about that, but more stat points were always welcome.

She seemed to be in a relatively safe area, and she didn’t want to have to wait until she got back to camp before choosing her new class. She loudly said “Class Evolution” after checking around her one more time to be sure that there were no monsters around.

Defender: The defender focuses on defending others through their high resilience and magic. Although lacking in offensive skills, nothing rivals a defender in sheer defensive skill.

Stats per level: (+6 Constitution, +3 Dexterity, +3 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom, +2 Endurance, +1 Strength)

The defender class was a strong choice, and seemed to fit her well at first. Protecting people was her goal, after all. She didn’t like the stat distribution, though. Constitution was nice and all, but she’d rather hit monsters hard than get hit. Plus, she found her offensive abilities really useful, and wanted to get more of them.

Combat Instructor: The combat instructor focuses on improving others instead of themselves. They use skills to improve the strength and learning rate of their students, acting as a force multiplier.

Stats per level: (+3 Dexterity, +3 Intelligence, +3 Strength, +3 Constitution, +3 Intelligence, +3 Endurance)

This class was interesting, as it didn’t seem to have any relation to her current class. She must have access to it because she had helped teach people how to fight monsters after the attack on the camp. She didn’t like that the class didn’t help her as much, but would that be worth it if she could improve the strength of everyone else?

Soul Monk: The soul monk uses soul mana and the strength of their body to crush their enemies. This class is a rare and powerful monk subtype, able to deal with any enemy they are faced with.

Stats per level: (+4 Dexterity, +4 Strength, +4 Intelligence, +3 Wisdom, +2 Constitution, +2 Endurance)

Soul Monk was the class that she had been working towards for her entire time in the tutorial. She loved being a monk, and this class was a straight upgrade to that. Plus, the class had a clear focus on soul mana, which allowed her to leverage her soulsight. She still needed to take any advantage she could get.

She carefully considered her three options. She quickly eliminated Defender, as even though the class would be useful, it just wasn’t suited to her. She enjoyed defeating monsters too much to consider taking a step into a more defensive role. The class also had lower stats than the other two, and would probably make it much harder to fight alone which she might need to do at any point.

Choosing between Combat Instructor and Soul Monk was much harder, however. She wanted to pick Soul Monk, but she wasn’t sure if Combat Instructor would be better for the camp as a whole. Acting as a force multiplier sounded very useful, after all.

After considering her options for a long time, she picked Soul Monk. When Aaron was introducing her to Natalia, he described her as their camp’s strongest fighter, and that was the role that she needed to fill. They needed someone strong, who was able to fight the monsters no one else could. If she hadn’t been combat-focused, she wouldn’t have been able to defeat Weber, and she wouldn’t be able to defeat whatever monsters the world still had to throw at her.

You are now a level 25 [Human (E) / Soul Monk].

Your skill, Unarmed Combat Mastery (F), has upgraded to become Unarmed Combat Mastery (E).

Original Skill:

Unarmed Combat Mastery (F): The user knows how to fight without using any weapons. Adds a bonus to damage done without using weapons based on strength and dexterity.

Upgraded Skill:

Unarmed Combat Mastery (E): The user knows how to fight without using any weapons at an intermediate level. Adds a large bonus to damage done without using weapons based on strength and dexterity.

You have gained a skill!

Soul Mana (F): The user’s mana pool is now naturally composed of soul mana. All skills that use soul mana can be used faster and are more effective.

You have gained a skill!

Soul Reinforcement (E): The user’s body is now reinforced using their soul. Their constitution and strength are increased based on their intelligence.

She clenched her fists, feeling her new strength. She hadn’t gotten any new active skills from her class selection, but she was still pleased with her new abilities. Her biggest problem with Soul Strike, besides the obscene mana cost, was how long it took to use. She was happy that she could activate the skill more quickly now.

She opened her status, excited to see everything that had changed.

Status:

Name: Karolina Grant

Level: 25

Race: [Human (E)]

Class: [Soul Monk]

Health: 730/730

Stamina: 580/580

Mana: 610/610

Stats:

Str: 83 (98)

End: 58

Dex: 85

Con: 59 (74)

Int: 60

Wis: 61

Free Points: 1

Her Soul Reinforcement seemed incredibly useful. From what she could tell, it was adding a quarter of her intelligence to both her strength and constitution. That was thirty free stat points! It didn’t even cost any mana.

Besides that, not much had changed besides her race. She checked it out, and wasn’t surprised by what she found.

Human (E): Humans are some of the most common and balanced races in the multiverse, known for being capable of many things but not being innately talented at anything in particular. This specific type of human has begun to grow in power, and has innate mana perception.

Stats per level: (+2 to all stats, +2 free point)

The next rank up seemed like a solid upgrade to her race, with the only unexpected addition being the mana perception. Given that she had already figured out mana perception with Thomas’s help, that was a useless boost, but it might be helpful for other people.

Karolina closed all of the blue windows and took a deep breath. For what felt like the first time since the tutorial had started, she was feeling good about the future. She had her new class, she had a team of trusted friends, and she even had a tentative ally in Selena. She wasn’t sure what the future held for them, but she was looking forward to finding out.