Part of Jelin's new training schedule included him spending more time with the others in his territory.  He wanted to not only work on his shifting but also his acting while learning more about how they did things.  It was also a good chance to make sure that the baby bat was being taken care of.  Between him and Saph, they managed to actually teach Ain both [Identify] and [Analyze], even.  Ain then gave everyone including herself the surprise information that she had somehow already picked a class and was a [Temporary Tamer of Youths].  The rest of the approximate eight weeks that it took for everyone except Jelin to evolve was filled with much smaller, and less hilarious, accomplishments.  

Jelin himself managed to get his class to evolve once more and upon picking the {Psychic Thief} option became a [Masked Power Thief].  Moving his [Enhanced Dexterity] skill over to his class, finally, had also turned out an interesting result after some more training.  He was given the choices to combine [Hide], [Quiet], and [Disguise] into [Camouflage], using [Enhanced Dexterity] instead of [Disguise] for [Stealth], or doing something called an 'Combined Evolution' with [Enhanced Dexterity] and [Take] for [Steal].  He took [Stealth] and was surprise to see that he could still get [Steal] as well but chose not to.

Figuring out the rat's shadow abilities was both more difficult and easier than he thought.  He could not keep the rat in his own shadow like some kind of storage but could make it go into shadows.  Apparently shadow traversal had more to it that he didn't understand, though, since he wasn't always sure where, exactly, the rat would pop back out unless there was a shadow in the exact same spot it disappeared from.  Other than that, the rat could just become shrouded in a kind of lighter and thinner darkness like he did with his dark magic.

Evolving the rat brought up changed options again.  He had the two remaining options from when he chose to make it a Bone Rat with a new one that replaced the already taken (Bonded) option: {Strong Bone Rat (Bonded)}.  (Swarm) still seemed useless and (Sentient) still felt worrisome so he went with the new option.  He had Ell help him sharpen the blades again and decided to put some goo invention of hers in its joints instead of messing with its tail addition.  

[Lei; Lesser Young Magic Arachne]

It took a lot of convincing to keep Lei away from the 'Lifter' evolution.  Jelin had images of her becoming some kind of body builder or something, which neither of them wanted.  It wasn't until he explained that it was likely only physical strength that it offered and probably not enough to make enough of a difference and that she should go for the feeling of what made her stronger in other ways that she accepted it.  Thus she finally picked something that would help cover one of her weaknesses.  The way the smooth chitin parts embedded in her skin gained a silvery shine was kind of pretty and he told her so.

[Sai; Lesser Young Mother Mantea]

Sai picked the obvious choice.  Her breasts seemed to get a little softer and bouncier, and her humanoid parts extended just a little further like everyone else, giving her a more proper humanoid vagina.  That was about it for her visual changes.  Nobody expected much more than that, but the huge smile she kept on her face for almost an entire day made Jelin think that there might be something he was missing somewhere.  He didn't dare ask, though.

[Zaer; Lesser Young Supporter Bee Queen]

After hearing about what 'Supporter' could do, Zaer was probably as excited to get it as Emmy was.  There weren't any visual changes that Jelin could find but her enthusiasm and joy were filling her with an energy that wouldn't let her sit still for a few days.  The sounds of her constantly buzzing all over the place became a common sound during that time.  Eventually, she finally gave Jelin the reasoning for intense excitement by having him start learning how to handle some of her drones her way.

Learning more of how she typically controlled her drones and received information from them was an...interesting experience.  He had to learn how to think a little differently to understand the information they tried to send back to him.  It was like working a complex puzzle that had to be completed even while it was constantly changing.  With Zaer's help he managed to figure out the trick to it, but it was still disorienting every time he did it.

[Kai; Lesser Young Mother Glow Faerie]

Kai had a difficult decision to make.  She wanted the 'Null Illusionist', 'Swarm', 'Magic', and 'Space' options while also even considering the 'Wild' option.  In the end, Jelin could only give some quick descriptions of what he thought she could expect from each to help her decide.  She finally chose to just match up with everyone else since Saph's advice was valued so much.  She did make Jelin promise to talk more about what the other choices were likely to mean so she could choose easier next time, though.

[Emerald; Young Supporter Gem Fox]

Emmy's evolution was also an obvious choice.  She then proceeded to try and do something nobody expected or had even thought of: she tried to use her own degraded version of linking on Jelin himself.  The weirdest part was that it supposedly worked.  Mel, upon hearing that, considered doing the same.  After a private discussion with Emmy that Jelin wisely chose not to intrude upon, Mel backed down and even asked Emmy to try and link to as many of their family as possible instead.  That ended up being only Mel and Sai for now.

[Clare; Lesser Young Life Mantea]

The only real visible change with Clare was in her wings.  They had turned a golden color and in some ways he thought she even looked like some kind of divine angel with her wings spread out now.  She made some comments about how her healing using the life magic was different from how she normally healed people after she played around with it some.  Jelin did start to wonder if she was already the greatest healer in the world and, if not, how great the greatest healer in the world really was.  It was hard to imagine how much more effective any healing could be.

[Ell; Lesser Young Psychic Arachne]

Ell, after some extra discussion with Jelin, decided to put her 'spawn a bunch of diggy helpers' plan on hold for a little longer.  There were some things about the whole idea that it would probably be better to wait for Mel's own experiences to settle first.  Instead, they decided together to have her go with 'Psychic' because she was still playing with the idea of telekinesis that he had given her some time ago and he still wanted everyone to have either telepathy or empathy.

Strangely, it turned only the clawed tips of her front two legs a little more blue when it came to the visible changes.  Jelin wanted to try and teach her about a lot of the psychic stuff he had discovered or learned but was quickly reminded by the girls about his deal to work on himself.  As a compromise, he asked the strongest psychic he knew to help out, Sapphire, and sent Ell off with her for a week of training.  He hadn't ever seen Saph use telekinesis but was pretty sure she just didn't really need to rather than couldn't, so he was sure Ell would get the training she needed to do what she wanted.

[Mel; Lesser Young Arachne Shifter]

Mel was a bit of a strange case.  For starters, she had to accept that she was a 'Broodmother' now and that caused her no small amount of worry.  Even after Jelin had opened the link between her, Zaer, and himself so that she would not only get a better idea of what it meant but how Jelin thought about it and her, she still seemed to have some problems accepting it.  Once she finally spawned a group of broodlings and bloodlings, thought, she seemed to come to accept it much better.  When the time came, Jelin took a look at her evolutions after so long.

{Lesser Young Arachne Swarm Leader}

{Lesser Young Arachne Telepath}

{Lesser Young Arachne Shifter}

{Young Mutator Arachne}

{Young Magic Arachne}

{Young Spinner Arachne}

{Young Psychic Arachne}

{Young Water Arachne}

{Young Psychometric Arachne}

{Young Arachne Princess}

{Young Arachne S̷h̴o̶o̶t̴}

When he saw the 'Young' options he had to immediately warn her not to even think about the messed up option for her safety.  He swore to remember to submit another 'bug report' to the gods as soon as possible as well.  It wasn't until the very last moment that she finally made her choice.  She was apparently tempted to skip on to the 'Young' evolutions that had more of what she wanted right then, but she also mentioned having an interest in doing similar shifting to him so that she could accompany him easier when he infiltrated the races in the future.

Jelin actually felt ready to evolve about a day after Mel had started so when she came out of her evolution, he gave her the typical check up and prepared to evolve himself.  He couldn't find any differences and would have to wait to hear about any actual changes until he woke up again.  He sighed and made himself comfortable as Ell pulled the molt away.  He gave the girls a last look before closing his eyes and starting to evolve once more.