Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

It was dull. Really dull. Lilith had decided against sleep for the time being, figuring that it would add another layer to her fast and speed things up. So, she waited. She had taken up meditating as Kali had suggested, but it was still a monotonous experience. She wished she could –

No. She was getting distracted. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been meditating. Eyes closed, focused only on her breath. Something had been at the edge of her awareness for the past…while, but she paid it no mind. Best to keep on with the meditation.

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

The thing at the edge of her awareness had been increasing in intensity from time to time. Not a slow, gradual change, but one that came in bursts. Each burst added an imperceptible amount to the thing, but it wasn’t to the level where she couldn’t handle it.

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

An indeterminate amount of time later, the pressure to pay attention to the thing became much, much larger. The sudden spike of sensation snapped her out of her trance, and she refocused, now paying attention to the windows in front of her.

Lilith happily left the room and found Kali and Siph playing cards. Lilith raised an eyebrow as she watched the two. “Mom, I thought you weren’t very fond of Kali after the whole “losing me” thing.”

Siph smiled. “Well, when she was talking to me about coming here, she explained everything. Now that I know that she knew where you were the whole time and only let you out of her sight so you could meet me, I’m fine with it. Anyway, now that you’re done with your fast, would you like something to eat? I’m sure you must be starving.”

“Sure.” Lilith said, taking a seat at the small table they had set up.

“Alright, give me one minute to go grab that!” Siph said, hurriedly standing up and leaving via a door Lilith swore wasn’t there last night. Sneaking a peak at Siph’s cards, Lilith found that she was losing. Badly.

“I swear I’m not using magic.” Kali said. “She’s just really bad. Hasn’t played a game in her life.”

“I didn’t say you were.” Lilith replied, hiding a smile. “By the way, about the flavor text, do you write all of it?”

Kali grinned. “Only for Exclusive and Unique things. Most of the other text is auto-generated, but I’ll write it for things that catch my eye. For now, that means basically whatever you have, so I guess for your purposes, yes, I write all of it.”

“I figured as much. So, what’s the plan?”

“I had Siph gather a group of animals weak enough that you could wipe them all out with a single breath attack. We’ll have you go there and take them out, and you’ll be set.”

Lilith frowned. “Why not like, a bunch of ants or something? Surely that’d count.”

Kali shook her head. “Ants would count as a swarm kill for you. At least the little ones. If you were a bug, maybe they wouldn’t, but you’re out of their league right now. Well, until some of them start to evolve. Then it’s different.”

“So, animals and monsters can evolve?”

“Yup! They just level up their Racial Class enough and it can evolve, just like your Skills. And no, you can’t evolve your racial classes. You already have those evolutions. I guess, unless it’s something that’s not in the system yet. Huh. Didn’t think of that. Oh well, you probably don’t need to worry about it for now. That’s going to be at the end of some pretty high-level stuff…although…we might be able to work towards that while training. I’ll have to give it some thought.”

“But that’s later. While we’re on the subject, you haven’t evolved your Skills yet, right? Look over them, but aside from Meditation I would advise you don’t evolve them until after you get Wrath. I designed them to have compatibility with the Title you’ll get after you have all the Sins and Virtues, which should increase their power by a large margin. Probably should have let you know before everything, but as you weren’t going to do it anyway it just slipped my mind. Besides, once you max out the evolved Skill, you’ll be able to get the other one anyway, so it shouldn’t be a big deal. Take a look and think about what you’ll want to do over breakfast, alright? ”

Lilith went ahead and opened her menu to locate the skills that were waiting to be evolved. Fortunately, a menu explicitly for evolving skills came up, saving having to dig through her whole Status to find them.

Deciding to start at the top and work her way down, Lilith peeked at Alpha and Omega.

Lilith gulped. That first Skill was…ominous. Would the rest be like that?

Well, Lilith thought, I suppose that answers that question. I’m willing to bet the other Skills will be similar. Siph walked up to Lilith, offering a piece of toast. Lilith accepted absentmindedly, opening the remaining Skills from Progenitor. She ignored the second evolution of each, looking only at the one she would gain after receiving the High Arbiter title.

From First Come, First Serve came Smite.

Journey of 1000 Miles gave Arbiter’s Manacles.

And, finally, The Early Bird Gets the Worm would turn into Wipe the Slate.

Having finished looking those over, Lilith went to check out Meditation.

Lilith puzzled over this one for a while and decided to take a look down the list of abilities these meditations would eventually unlock. Unfortunately, all she was able to see was “data not found” under possible evolutions.

“Hey, Kali, why is the display telling me that data isn’t found when I’m trying to look down Meditation’s possible evolutions?”

Kali blushed. “Ah, right. So. That’s…sort of my fault? King’s Knowledge should tell you everything, but that’s only everything that exists at the moment. For Skills, that’s pretty limited because…well, the only ones that currently exist are ones you have and those they can evolve into. When I send the system out into the world, it’ll take stock of everyone’s abilities, even do a deep dive into history and see what people would have had, but it can’t do that until live release. I have a pretty good idea of what’ll happen, but not specifics. For Meditation in particular, Background Meditation will lead you down a path that lets you meditate in combat and will probably give some sort of buff while you’re meditating, and Restorative Meditation will focus on increasing the regeneration and health bonuses Meditation gives.”

“What would you two suggest?” Lilith asked.

“I, for one, think aiming for combat use is the right way to go.” Siph said immediately. “If you have time to take that break, you’ll have access to a healer or something. It’s best to have that edge.”

Kali thought about it for a moment. “She brings a valid point. However, I disagree with the availability of a healer. If you happen to be raiding a particularly nasty dungeon, are in the middle of a war or infiltration or something, there’s a chance you won’t have access to that healer, or they’ll be out of mana. It’s good to be self-sufficient. There are some other ways to go about this, though. While the evolution path branches, you can go back and pick up the other branches and have both at the same time instead of doubling up on the evolution you want. Or, you could try and manually figure out the Skill like you did with Meditation, but that’s a lot harder and has a chance to give a Skill that is inferior to what you would otherwise get. Or superior, but that’s all up to how you do it.”

“Once you become able to evolve the Skill after that, you would likely end up with three branching paths, the old two, and a new one for the variant you made. The new one might end up intersecting the old ones at some point, though.” She paused. “Well, that’s how it would normally work. For you, I’m not exactly sure. King’s Knowledge throws what I know completely out of the window, since, as far as I’m aware, you’re the only non-admin to have something like this, and it works differently than stuff the admins have.”

“I think I get it. Kind of.” Lilith said. “I can get Skill evolutions, or something close to them, by figuring out how to do it myself.”

“Right. But it’s harder. A lot harder. You have to really ingrain what you’re training yourself to do, you can’t just chance on the solution and get the Skill.” Kali paused again, thinking. “Ok, I can’t actually rule that out for you in particular, but I find it pretty unlikely. Fortunately, for this Skill in particular, you’ve got a shortcut. Well, will have a shortcut.” She winked. “We’ll get to that later, but I think I’ve got a way to get around the whole ‘hard to use while doing something else’ aspect of meditation, so if you’re going that route do it because you want the buffs, not because you want to meditate while doing other things.”

Lilith nodded. To her, it was becoming increasingly clear that Restorative Meditation was the better choice. Figuring out how to do Background Meditation on her own seemed easier – just practice meditating and doing other things – but she wouldn’t even know where to start on Restorative Meditation, and having reliable self-healing was attractive. So, she went ahead and got that skill, watching as the messages rolled in.

Lilith nodded in satisfaction. “Alright, I picked Restorative Meditation. I think that’ll come in handy in the future. But, more importantly, what’s up with the evolutions to Progenitor’s Skills? They seem…” She paused, struggling for the right word.

“Intense?” Kali offered.

“Yeah. The flavor text you put in makes them almost seem like something a villain would have.”

“I…might have gotten carried away.” Kali admitted sheepishly, scratching the back of her head. “Still, I think those will go a long way towards keeping the peace.”

“We’re going to have to raise my mana if we want me to be able to get any significant effects from this.”

Kali looked away. “Right. All the more important we get you that last Sin, then. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes, I’ve got the teleports ready to go.” A glowing circle materialized where she was looking, and Lilith put down her half-finished piece of toast. The circle closed. “No. Finish eating. Remember that from now on, no matter where you are, things move according to your schedule. The only exception is if I directly tell you otherwise. You’re the most important person in the room, understood?”

“Fine. Then, as the most important person in the room, I want to leave now. If it’ll only take a couple of minutes I can come back and look over what I get over breakfast.”

Kali smirked. “I’ll let it slide this once. But, in the future, you’re going to take your time, got it? You’re going to have to get used to this. A certain amount of posturing is needed if you want people to take you seriously.” The circle reopened, and Lilith stepped through. There was a moment of disorientation, and then she was suddenly in the middle of rocky, barren ground. Directly in front of her was a hole filled with animals, all standing stock still and looking vacantly forward.

You should be able to get them all in one fire breath. Torch them and then be on your way back.

Obediently, Lilith drew back and exhaled a stream of fire into the hole, watching her stamina and mana deplete as she did. A few seconds later she stopped and confirmed that she had received the Title. She turned around and walked back through another magic circle, appearing back in the room. “See, faster than taking a trip to the bathroom.” She said, sitting back down and grabbing the toast while she looked over the messages.

Lilith looked to Kali, swallowing her bite of toast. “So, I need your approval or something?”

Kali nodded. “Yes. Before we go any further, though, I need to make sure you understand what you’re getting into. As a wise man once said, with great power comes great responsibility. Yours will be ensuring the transition is as smooth as possible. No one group will be allowed to rule over the others, and if it comes to it, you’ll be the only thing stopping them. You’ll have to make hard choices, possibly even fight those you’ve come to call friends in your short time at Tunem’s academy. You may have to kill one to save ten others. You will be a target of hatred, fear, gratitude, and perhaps even worship. After accepting this, your life will forever change. This is your last chance to turn back.”

Siph gently squeezed Lilith’s shoulder. “No matter what happens, I won’t treat you any different. I love you.”

Lilith turned to Siph, smiling. “Thanks, mom.” Turning back to Kali, she nodded. “In for a penny, in for a pound. I’ll do it.”

Fighterman481

EDIT: I realized that I forgot to add a very important detail of Parallel Processing in the bonus chapter. I've since fixed that, but here's the addition so you don't have to go looking: "Parallels have separate Classes and Class levels from the main consciousness and each other but share Racial Class levels, Titles, Achievements, and Skills. Skills gained from Classes are not shared unless the Skill is Unique or Exclusive. Only one Parallel can earn experience from a victory. Parallels can take levels in Unique and Exclusive Classes that are already in use by other Parallels or the main consciousness."

Alright, this is more what I wanted Chapter 24 to look like. That being said, I did upload a bonus chapter right before this, so check that out if you're interested in looking at the specifics of Lilith's unexplained Skills! I corrected quite a few errors to Status that I realized existed previously, as well as changed the style of Skill presentation to look a little cleaner (putting level on the line with EXP instead of the Skill name). Don't feel obligated to reread it, though. It was really just some stat increases that I forgot to apply and a level that I realized should have been obtained but wasn't.

Also, if you haven't already, go back and vote on the poll in chapter 23! Regardless of the outcome to that, though, next chapter will be Carmen. I don't want to have three relatively info box heavy chapters in a row, so I'll be splitting it up with Carmen. Sorry, people who want to know details on High Arbiter, you'll have to wait ;).

Last bit of bookkeeping before we talk about the chapter, I used a different style of boxing this chapter, choosing to merge all info boxes next to each other into one box, instead of breaking it up whenever a new Skill was looked at, so let me know which style you prefer!

Alright, so, first thing I really want to talk about is the 'league' Kali mentions. Because that made me struggle for a bit. Because, see, the most efficient way I thought of to gain a lot of kills or a lot of followers really quick for Wrath and Pride was ants. But, at the same time, that just sounded stupid for something as big as a Sin Title. So, I tentatively came up with this 'league'. The boundaries between 'leagues' are fuzzy, but you a rough divide would be microscopic organisms/insect-size organisms/larger organisms. Exceptions are made for particularly dangerous species of insect, mostly very poisonous ones, which are moved up a 'league' for when something kills them, but remain in their league for them killing other things, if that makes sense. Basically it's just to have a reason why some random exterminator doesn't hold Wrath.

That being said, if you're wondering about a Perfect Chimera's league, it remains the same as whatever their league was before they became a Perfect Chimera.

As for Racial Class evolution, don't expect to see that for a long time yet. Lilith's nowhere near that level, and once everything else gets the system, most easy evolutions will be taken straight away and thus be granted to Lilith automatically.

Skill Evolution should...hopefully be straightforward? Just think of it like a skill tree in an RPG. You can invest points in abilities later down the tree, but can always come back for earlier ones you skipped. And for learning the Skill on your own, I think that just makes sense. Skill evolution is more a fasttrack to the knowledge of how to do something than anything, and it's perfectly possible to obtain a Skill on your own if you have the required knowledge, so I see no reason you couldn't obtain the evolution of a Skill you already have with proper knowledge. It's more of a gamble for people who don't have King's Knowledge, but with that there's a lot less chance to get something worse than the evolution, and a lot greater chance to get something better.

And then we have the continuation of Kali trying to teach Lilith how to be a good enforcer. The only reason Kali allowed Lilith's little 'and I said I want to do it now' stunt is because Lilith actually "stood up" to her to do something Kali just said she didn't want. I look forward to developing Lilith a little more and getting her caught in the need to act arrogant and the deep-seated desire to not do so.

Then there's High Arbiter and the High Arbiter Skills.

Three guesses as to what's going to be similar between High Arbiter and Progenitor (The answer is that they're both incredibly broken Classes, by the way). There's no real reason Kali wouldn't make it busted, but it'll be busted in a different way compared to Progenitor's experience scaling. The Skills are gonna be just about as intense as the ones she'll get from evolving Progenitor's Skills, though.

Speaking of those Skills, you'll notice they seem quite inefficient. If you look at it from the angle of an enforcer being able to take away large amounts of a person's power as punishment, then Lilith isn't anywhere near the level that would be threatening to someone decently prepared. She just doesn't have the mana. I mean, a properly used geas would do the trick, but that'd also deal that same amount of damage to Lilith, which isn't ideal.

So, what gives? Well, Kali was withholding quite a bit of information on High Arbiter from Lilith. Not maliciously, she just didn't want to turn Lilith away from it because of a couple of...minor hangups that information would have caused. This won't negatively affect Lilith in any way, and Siph actually knows exactly what's going down right now and is totally on board with it. Carmen would also be totally on board with it, it's mostly just Lilith who would have those...concerns.

Anyway, I...think that's all? See you next week! Unless you leave a comment, that is. I do read all the comments, so if you leave one I guess that means I'll be seeing you a little bit sooner!