We’d had contact with lots of beasts over the time we’d been travelling. Even back on Callus there were quite a few of them, animals like my wolf Jin and the other puppies, or even Randall himself, but we’d seen more powerful beasts since leaving our home planet as well. We were well and truly used to dealing with them at this point, but despite our extensive experience, none of us had ever seen a beast rank up.

Strolling over to the entrance, I called Bethy over and as she made her appearance, I leaned up against the tent wall. “So…what can you tell me about beast evolutions? You’re good with animals right?”

The Vampire nodded. “Oh sure, I’ve seen plenty of animals evolve. My family interacts with them a lot. Animal companions are easier to bond with than thralls, since Thrall is a Job that needs to be adopted rather than a process you can do at any time.”

“So how does it work? How do animals reach the next rank?” I asked as I stared at Randall. The bear had laid down, head on his paws, and I could see his soul changing with Eye of Revelation, but it was MUCH slower than it had been for any of the humans I’d seen.

Shrugging, she tilted her head thoughtfully before answering. “Age?” She finally said. “Or, I guess not. But kind of. You know how passive item and material cultivation works right?” When I nodded, she continued. “Well beasts are like that. Which means that longer lived animals tend to develop the kind of reputation that makes them grow. Actual rank ups for animals are a bit different though, since they don’t have abilities it works more like a racial trait, changing what they are. When an animal ranks up they evolve into a NEW animal.”

“That makes sense.” I said slowly. “But how do we know what kind of new animal? I can use Eye of Revelation to see some details, but it’s not like he can share his stat sheet with us.”

She shrugged. “You can’t. This isn’t some game where you can identify things with a magic spell.”

I laughed at that. Identification actually WAS a possible ability of Divination classes in Doom Sovereign, but it was an extremely high level ability. I might be able to develop it when I hit D-rank, but I couldn’t say for sure. I had to admit though, I was excited to see what Randall would become.

“Is this safe though?” I asked as I stared at the tense looking bear. “Like is there any risk to him?”

Her smile was reassuring as she patted me on the shoulder. “Not at all. This is a totally natural process. Jessie helped with the bond, but it’s still something his body was designed to handle. Plus Jessie is here to help.” She nodded to my friend, who was kneeling on the other side of her bear with a patient and encouraging smile, hands on his side as she channeled life energy into him.

It was a fascinating thing to watch in real time. Unlike Jessie, Benny, and even myself, Randall’s body wasn’t full of Skill patterns. Rather, he seemed to be made up in a similar way to a Skill himself. It had taken a bit of tweaking the crown to get a better look, but her mention of a racial trait had helped me figure out what to look for.

Randall’s body was built a lot like a Skill, in that he seemed to be made of stats constructed in certain ways. I saw lots of Might, which was expected, but also lots of Vitality, more of which seemed to be flowing in even as I watched. I could see the Vitality points trying to break up the Might chains, inserting themself into the patterns to try to alter the way the bear was made. It was sort of like what I imagined watching a virus infecting a person would look like in a microscope.

Thankfully, it didn’t seem like it was causing any damage or harm, just altering the patterns in unusual ways that seemed to ripple out and change more and more. Despite his physical form not changing visibly yet, Randall was already a very different being than he had been to start.

His soul wasn’t what I expected, being green after the upgrade, apparently some of Jessie’s training had gotten through the bond, as the soul changed and overflowed, it rolled through the body, lubricating the stats so the changes could happen more easily, and I saw spiderwebs of faint patterns too small and quickly fading to understand.

I had to flinch back and let my brain process for a second, because I wasn’t equipped to understand what was going on. Racial traits (if that’s what this was) were WAY more complicated than Skills, taking up the whole body and beating out maybe even my wish ability for complexity, though it was hard to say since I couldn’t really understand either of them. I heard Bethy gasp, and saw nothing, but I realized my Eye of Revelation was hiding the changes.

Allowing my skill to fade, I saw the changes she was seeing. Randall, who had always been a big brown bear, had started to change. The brown darkened to black, swirls of green rolling across the visible fur. His eyes blazed with green light, and he shrank in size, condensing to a more durable and stocky form.

The changes took a few minutes, and when he was finally done, he stood up on his back legs (still easily fifteen feet tall, lucky we were in a tent with a vaulted ceiling) and let out a bonerattling roar.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Demanded our healer as she glared up the bear. Randall stopped roaring, looking confused as she planted hands on her hips. “This is a sick tent. There are injured people resting, and we’re in the middle of a camp. People could be sleeping, working, or who knows what else.”

Randall hunched his shoulders, averting his eyes as he grumbled out a low growl. It didn’t seem hostile, more sullen, and Jessie was having none of it.

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“I don’t CARE how Mighty you are.” She snapped. “You use your inside voice when you’re in the camp. How am I supposed to explain to all the scrambling soldiers that there isn’t a beast attacking them? We’re being invaded by lions tomorrow!”

That was…a really good point actually. I turned to see if anyone had shown up to check and saw Chelsea coming back inside. She was laughing at the sulking bear and waved us off, a smug rabbit sitting on her shoulder. “It’s fine, I told the first person who showed up what happened and he promised to spread the word.”

Jessie sighed in relief. “Well that’s good at least. Tomorrow will be stressful enough without a bunch of people glaring at me all day.”

“You’re the healer.” I said with a scoff. “Nobody gives the healer shit. That’s like…the first rule of having powers.”

Chelsea nodded. “He’s right. I’m not exactly a healer, but my flames can do similar things when it comes to say, poisons, and even I get plenty of leeway from others.” She paused. “Also my grandfather is the Pope, so that probably helps. But mostly the healer thing.”

I snickered at her. “You undermined your point there a bit. Anyway did you see Randall’s cool new color scheme?” I pointed at the bear, hoping to amuse him a bit so he would cheer up. As expected he preened, leaning back to show off the green and black pattern under his dark metal armor.

The combination, I had to admit, looked pretty sharp. I’d seen some intimidating beasts in my day, but Randall was up there, even moreso than before when he’d been a giant bear the size of a bus.

Chelsea made the appropriate oohs and aahs of amazement, and Randall’s smugness ratcheted up a few notches, until Chalk got jealous and hurled himself across the room. One of those big thumping bunny feet slammed into Randall’s helmeted head, rocking the big bear to the side and the rabbit cheered in victory, hopping up and down on his defeated foe.

“Chalk!” Said Chelsea with horror. “You can’t just attack people…” She trailed off. “Or bears I guess. Bad rabbit, is my point.”

Jessie walked over, zero fear in her as she snagged the rabbit by the scruff and tossed him at his owner. She knelt down with a wince, rubbing Randall’s head. “Poor baby. Did the mean old bunny hurt you?” Her cooing voice appeared to embarrass the bear, who hid his head under his paws with a whine. Jessie scoffed. “There’s nothing wrong with me worrying about you. It’s not humiliating at all.”

I tried suppress my snicker, but must have failed because Jessie just glared at me and I put my hands up. “So…do you know what kind of bear he is?”

She nodded. “I can see specifically actually.” She smirked at me. “He might not be able to show you his stat sheet, but he shows up on mine.” She squinted into space. “Apparently he’s an ‘Undying Lifestorm Ursa’. Not sure what that is, but it sounds pretty impressive. I wonder how that happened?”

“You, obviously.” I said bluntly. “That bond is two way, and he’s been dumping Might into your stat sheet for months. I imagine you’ve been doing the same, not to mention your lifeweaving can improve animals over time with consistent application. You’ve been pouring high level mutation energy into him for as long as you’ve been bonded. No wonder he got a nice upgrade.”

Jessie’s class was a rare variant that had evolved from her earliest plant ability thanks to some mixed in Skills and what we assumed was a LOT of influence from stacking Vitality. It was normally impossible to weight yourself that heavily to a single stat, and it seemed to have worked out well for her, as shown by some of her amazing abilities.

Right now though, I was more curious about what an ‘Undying Lifestorm Ursa’ could do. “Hey Randall?” I asked the bear. “Why don’t you try…doing something.” I trailed off lamely,flushing as everyone gave me flat looks. “Sorry, I don’t know what to suggest. He’d know better than I would.”

The big bear snorted, looking away dramatically, and suddenly… there was light. Green flames erupted from his eyes and the green portions of his fur. I saw his muscles stretch, making him bigger without much skeletal change. He blurred forward, paws swiping out as he attacked Chalk, who effortlessly slipped aside from the attacks.

Jessie snapped at him, but at that point it didn’t matter, the smug rabbit was MUCH higher in E-rank than Randall and was well accustomed to the power.

Still, Randall attacked with blistering speed, hundreds of blows so fast I could barely keep up, and didn’t seem to tire out. It appeared that Jessie’s buff had become a permanent part of him, as his ‘Lifestorm’ tag had implied.

While the bear snarled at the smug rabbit, my sister walked over and scooped her pet up, bopping him on the nose. The sheer horror and outrage on the face of the rabbit at her audacity was hilarious as she turned and walked out of the tent, holding the shocked and furious bunny.

“Well, seems like we did everything that needed doing.” I said as I looked around. “I know you’ll be needed her tomorrow, but can you take some time to come to dinner? I wanted to eat as a group on the last night before the big battle, considering we’re all going to be split up.”

She smiled, using her pendant to shrink Randall before snatching him up like a plushy. “Sure, sounds like fun.” She said cheerfully. “Lead the way.” And with a smile, I did just that. Bethy trailed behind us and I was glad to see her come along. It was important for us all to spend time together before everything got crazy.