Julia woke once again to the strange sights and smells of the marsh. This was the second time in just minutes that she’d been unconscious. She hoped desperately that when the System put her to sleep for her Class change/Evolution, it had actually made her sleep, rather than just knocking her out. She didn’t know the specifics, but Braden had said that any duration of unconsciousness was bad.

  She took stock of her situation and realized she was still lying straddled on the branch near the top of the tree. She was glad her evolution hadn’t knocked her back into the water. She slowly sat up, noticing how responsive her body felt. It was like the instant she thought of doing something, her body did it—as if the lag between the thought and the motion had completely vanished.

  She hadn’t even realized there was a lag between those two things until it was gone. She looked herself over and confirmed that she still looked the same as before the evolution. That was a relief. She’d thought it unlikely, but she couldn’t help being nervous about turning into something not-human.

  Although, technically, she wasn’t human anymore. For some reason, the idea of not looking human was more distressing than anything else. She focused her attention on the blinking notification and expanded it.

  This one was much easier. Julia already knew exactly what she wanted.

  She was just about to look at her updated Status when another notification appeared.

  Julia cringed as knowledge was jammed into her mind. The horrible feeling passed quickly, but she was stunned by how much she had just learned. Three Subclass Skills being revealed meant it had jumped from Level 1 to over Level 10, while her main Class had to be somewhere between 30 and 35 to unlock a new Skill.

  She pulled up her Status to get a grip on everything that had changed.

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  Julia was shocked by how different her Status looked compared to just a few minutes ago—she assumed. She’d been unconscious during the evolution, so it could’ve been much longer. She glanced at the sun’s position, but it wasn’t much help. It had been mid morning when she left Striton for the dungeon. Now it was…mid morning again. She must have been teleported farther than she’d hoped.

  Regardless, she refocused on her Status. The first thing she noticed was the obvious increase in her Attributes. Her Body Attributes had been merged with her Mind, and with the Level boosts, her stats had skyrocketed to nearly ten times what they were that morning—an outrageous increase!

  The second big change was in her Skills. It looked like Spiritual Sense had absorbed many of her previous sensory abilities. The fact that it started at Level 7 was a pretty big clue.

  She was surprised to see that several of her newly acquired Skills had no levels next to them—Spirit Core, Body of Mana, and Dispersal. They must all be enhancements.

  Julia jumped down from her perch and landed on a root jutting out just above the water. It was time to test out her new body and Skills. Then, she’d figure out where she was—and what she was going to do next.