While there was plenty of things I needed to do to prepare, the first and most important was to check my Status to see what had changed, as I doubted I would suddenly grow without any changes having happened, on top of that the purple orb I absorbed surely increased something or granted me a new Skill. Not wanting to waste time I also busied myself with weaving a new set of clothing to fit my new frame as I looked over my new Status.

There had been quite a large amount of changes since the last time I had checked, but the most bizarre was my age. Chronologically I should only be fifteen, yet for some reason my age had suddenly shot up, though I supposed I at least looked the part of a proper adult. The increase in Strength and Agility were something I had figured since I had already noticed the difference, though I was surprised to see that Charm had increased as well.

As for new entries, my Class had once again changed along with my Race, and I counted seven new or evolved Skills, a new record. As usual I used Seshat's Library to get an idea of what had changed and what sort of new abilities I would need to practice.

'Sanguine Temptress: A class based around the bloodshed of both friend and foe, as well as the tempting pleasure of lethal situations. Increases effectiveness and growth speed of Masochism II, Sadism II, Essence Sharing, Seduction, Devour and all Martial and Magical combat Skills. Greatly increases growth correction of Strength, Charm and Vitality.'

'Ashen Latrodectus: A unique off-shoot of the Widow Arachne, which combines the immortality of the Phoenix with the primordial darkness and desires of the She-Demon.'

'Devour: A Skill used to completely consume the lifeforce and soul of a victim. Combos with Primordial $!@# Magic to enhance the strength of control. Combos with Desiccating Yin to consume during combat. Granted by Lives of the Past: Vellastria'

'Masochism II: An evolved form of Masochism. Converts all pain into sexual pleasure and increases recovery rate based on level of arousal. Combos with Undying Blood to further enhance recovery.'

'Sadism II: An evolved form of Sadism. Increases arousal when inflicting pain or damage to another creature and allows one to inflict mental damage with physical attacks. Combos with Primordial @$!# Magic to lower the resistance of victims. Combos with Essence Sharing to drain Life and Magic essence from enemies.'

'Carapace II: An evolved form of Carapace. Allows the creation of extremely durable carapace on select biological surfaces of the user. Combos with Thread Creation II to allow Carapace growth on connected thread.'

'Thread Creation II: An evolved form of Thread Creation. Allows for a large variety of silks and threads to be produced. Combos with Artifice to produce a larger variety of thread and wire.'

'Desiccating Yin: A Skill for controlling the destructive and draining energy of Yin. Combos with Sadism II to destroy the lifeforce of foes.'

"Thread Manipulation: Allows the user to manipulate thread from the users body by expending mana. Combos with Nuhrot's Loom to increase the precision of manipulation.'

There was all kinds of new and interesting abilities that my Skill had taken on, though I felt that I was becoming like some kind of vampire with all the life draining abilities I was gaining. Though I was quite happy with four evolved Skills as not only did they get some more functionality, but it was likely that increasing them would have similar effects to when I began leveling them, though I wasn't quite sure how I felt about Sadism combining with @#$! Magic, since it sound like it would be more useful for torture or brainwashing, not something I planed to be getting into.

Probably the Skill I was most thrilled about was Thread Manipulation. Once I'd read it's description I couldn't help but try it out, and true to its word I was able to manipulate the thread I produced. It looked similar to telekinesis in that there didn't seem to be any connection to me and the thread as it was manipulated, but in reality it felt like I was manipulating four invisible spider-like limbs to do so. The further away a thread got the less control I was able to assert, but when it was within a foot of my body it was incredibly precise and actually sped up the weaving process considerably and with better quality than a loom.

I slowly tested out the evolved Skills to find out the differences from their original forms. The easiest ones to tell the difference with were the new Carapace, Thread Creation, and Desiccating Yin.

Originally Carapace had only been capable of covering me, now it was more like a conversion. I could actually feel the insides of my arms and legs change as the shiny black chitin exoskeleton replaced my skin. It was much thinner now and I'd easily be able to wear additional armor over it without worrying about having to create adjustment straps as I'd been planning before it evolved. In addition, the amount of power I could put behind the replaced limbs was much higher, which meant I could use either heavier materials, or thicken the plating without issue for both my weapon and armor.

Thread Creation got an interesting enhancement that I was extremely excited about and that was the ability to not only create silk, but completely decide the properties on it as well, though the better I made it, the greater expenditure of mana I had. The common silk I produced was about equivalent to steel, but now I was able to adjust all manner of things and could produce a small amount of thread that was equal to orichalcum, the Divine Metal, though it was rather exhausting, and probably the first time I'd actually come close to running out my mana pool. Though likely the scariest application was that I was able to create monomolecular thread, which could then be vibrated and infused with Desiccating Yin to make an extremely deadly cutting edge, or whip.

Desiccating Yin was the scariest Skill in my opinion, as not only was I able to manifest the purple black flames, but I was able to shape it into other forms of energy as well. It would take some testing to find out what worked the best, but I found that I was able to greatly increase the range of its attack if I formed it into the form of lightning. This resulted in me having both purple black flame and purple black electricity running along my limbs, the flame for close quarters as it's distance was limited but was great for defense and the lightning for offense as it range was much larger, but was only able to affect a small limited area. I wasn't actually sure of the limits or strength as I'd expended too much mana when I'd been testing Thread Creation, but I was actually looking forward to my fight with the Hero now, he would provide a perfect test subject.

The awaited day slowly approached as I completely retrofitted my equipment to harness and compliment my new and enhanced Skills.

I want to do a side story, mostly for myself as I've hit 100+ chapters(For Patrons). I want to see what kind of side story stuff you guys would be interested in as any side story I do will be released for free same day as well. If you're unsure, Arya, Elaine, Reine, Ellie all have slice of life stuff I can do, as well as just Vell's general school life and childhood for that matter.