After the success of the scorpocroc, Greg made a few other forms, because why not. The cheetahman turned into a noble race named… Cheetah Folk. Boring, but then again, he'd called it a cheetahman, so was he really one to judge? The sharkman was predictably a monstrous race named a Tarnidon, while the cheesegrater was somehow a noble race called a Placki. "How is this noble?!?" Greg asked incredulously, looking down at the body absolutely covered in small, sharp… spikes? Whatever the shreddy things were called. "It doesn't even have a dick!" He paused. "I think? Unless…" He eyed one of the tentacles cautiously, before turning to raise an eyebrow at the others. "Have you guys seen enough hentai to get where I'm going with this?"

"No, no, no!" Andrew shook his head, shuddering slightly. "You are not going near anyone with those things! I don't care how noble this stupid World says your race is!"

"Speaking as a part-time woman, I'm gonna have to ask you to keep those at least forty-four meters away from me at all times." Thomas agreed.

"What's hentai?" Chris frowned.

Greg grinned, throwing a tentacle around his shoulder. "My friend, I have some shit to show you."

"No you do not!" Andrew snapped.

"It's just porn, Chris." Thomas sighed. "Weird, disturbing, cartoon porn."

"It isn't cartoon, it's anime!" Greg retorted.

"Same thing!" Thomas countered.

"That's like a saying a hamburger is the same thing as a steak because they're both fucking beef!" Greg protested.

Chris turned to Andrew. "So it's just weird porn?"

"Yeah, just weird porn." Andrew snorted, shaking his head.

"Got it." Chris nodded. Porn wasn't really his thing, so he'd probably just ignore it.

"Whatever." Thomas waved dismissively. "So what are you planning on doing with these guys then?"

"Well, I'm a hivemind, so… I'm gonna hivemind, I guess?" Greg shrugged. "However, I think the real question is how we can get you and Chris to do this evolution thing, too."

Thomas blinked. "Excuse me?"

Andrew paused. "That- actually isn't a bad idea."

Thomas frowned at him. "Again, I have to ask, excuse me?"

"Think about it, both Andrew and I have been through the process, and the World… noticed what we are, and gave us abilities based on that information. Abilities we are theoretically capable of given enough practice, I assume. Additionally, it gave Andrew a Class based on his abilities! I'm thinking there's a good chance I'll get something like that too, which means the World will actually help us figure out what we can do! If you evolve, then the World can figure out what you can do too, and then you'll get abilities and Classes as well!" Greg explained excitedly. "We can probably do you by just getting enough points for you to make some weird creature or something, but…" He turned to Chris. "I have no idea how to help Chris."

"I don't have a connection to this World, so I'm not sure if it can evolve me." Chris shrugged. "Though if we wanted to check…" Chris opened a portal and his mutated form walked out.

"Whoa!" Andrew jumped. "Where did that come from!"

Chris cocked his head. "Oh yeah, I've never shown you guys my mutated form before. I haven't really been using it much lately. But as you can see, no evolution." He gestured vaguely to his other self who was clearly not covered in a glowing cocoon.

"That thing is freaky." Andrew shuddered. Why didn't it have any lips!?!

Greg snorted. "Like you're one to talk. You should have seen what you looked like before we woke you up! All limbs and eyes, with claws and mandibles sticking out at odd angles… that was freaky."

"Maybe, but I didn't choose to look like that!" Andrew protested.

"No, you choose to look like some kinda monster ant thing." Thomas pointed out.

Andrew scowled. "Carapace is practical."

"I'm sure." Greg chuckled. "But seriously, any ideas for Chris?"

"Well, the problem is that he doesn't have a connection to the World, so… we have to do something to fix that?" Thomas shrugged. "Kinda Andrew's department, to be honest."

"Look, he doesn't have a core! He doesn't even have an aura! How am I supposed to work with that?!?" Andrew protested. "I can't create a connection from nothing! Even if I shove a core into one of his bodies, it's just going to be me in there, not him!"

"Can you just give him aura or something?" Greg asked.

"Can you just give him smoke?!?" Andrew retorted.

"Hm, point taken." Greg grunted. "What about his subordinates then? They're connected to both the World and him, right? Could he somehow steal that connection?"

Quinn froze. "I don't like where this is going." She muttered.

"How would I manage that?" Chris cocked his head.

"Actually, that might work…" Andrew muttered. "The aura is connected to the body, so if you took it… but then there's the core as well… maybe if you somehow just replaced their consciousness with your own? Can you do that?"

Chris frowned. "Maybe? I've never tried to do anything like that, though… seems like a violation somehow."

"It is absolutely a violation!" Quinn snapped. "You'd be stealing someone's body!"

Chris nodded. "Exactly."

"So just use one of those apes you grabbed." Greg shrugged. "I mean, you just got them for the energy anyway, right? Why not take their connection to the World?"

Chris considered it for a moment before shrugging. "I suppose I could try." He turned his attention to his world, focusing on one of the apes. He wasn't sure where to start though… he concentrated, trying to somehow deepen his connection with the ape and… just relived all the ape's memories. He frowned slightly as he tried pushing his consciousness in, taking the ape's consciousness out, swirling the two together and he got nothing. The ape didn't even notice anything was happening! He shook his head. "Nothing. I don't think it's possible guys."

Quinn let out a relieved sigh. She didn't need another reason to be scared of Chris and the consequences of being connected to his world.

"Damn." Greg frowned. "Well, then I got nothing."

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"Yeah, Chris may just be out of luck." Thomas agreed.

"Maybe my Essence Master Class will help me figure something out?" Andrew offered. "Probably not for a while though…"

Chris shrugged. "It's fine. What would it even tell me? How to make better portals? That I can connect people to my world and analyze them? That I can make rules? I mean, I like my world, but it isn't exactly complicated. Or more, it's kind of a blank canvas and it's up to me to make something out of it."

"Well, maybe you could be doing more with your portals…" Andrew commented. "I mean, some of the things I've seen you do are reminiscent of a Tiger's abilities, and if you can get to that level of spatial control… I don't know, it's just something to think about."

Chris cocked his head. "I suppose I could put more work into them. Maybe study more spatial abilities for inspiration."

"It couldn't hurt." Greg agreed. "Though I think figuring out how to connect you to the World would be more helpful. That way you wouldn't be limited by what you've analyzed and could actually grow beyond your subordinates."

"I mean, that's not really a problem as long as I get enough subordinates." Chris shrugged. "And they grow fast enough… and they have diverse enough abilities… Maybe being able to grow on my own would be nice." He turned to Andrew. "I figured out my world acts as my core. Think you can work with that?"

"Can you bring your world into this one?" Andrew scoffed.

"Kinda?" Chris shrugged.

"That's what I- wait, you can?" Andrew blinked.

"I told you about this. I can sort of extend my world using my portals. Hell, I just did it a bit ago to watch what my World was doing to you." Chris replied.

Andrew frowned. "What were you- wait, your world or Maze World?"

"Maze World." Chris answered.

"Ah, with the Deer core." Andrew nodded in understanding, before frowning. "Wait, how'd you get something like that around me? I thought you couldn't make portals on people?"

"I can't, but I can make portals on me and things connected to my world, so I just anchored it to myself and walked next to you." Chris shrugged.

"Huh. So, then your world is your core, and you can pull it into this World…" Andrew muttered. "Have you tried pulling your world out here yet?"

"No… there hasn't really been a reason to." Chris frowned.

"Okay, so… do that?" Andrew replied.

Chris cocked his head. "I guess I could." He pulled his world out around him and… "I don't think anything is happening."

"Are you sure?" Andrew asked.

"Pretty sure…" Chris muttered. "I have a perfect awareness of both my body and my world, and they're both here, so I think I'd notice."

"Gotta say, that's hard to argue with." Greg chuckled.

"Damn." Andrew sighed. "I thought that would do something. I guess you can stop now."

"Wait!" Allison exclaimed. "You actually have a status!"

"Well… yeah?" Chris frowned at her. "My world is out and I have a status in my world."

"No, that's not- I mean I can actually see it!" She elaborated. "Usually you just come up blank… so you're a Changeling?"

"Again, my world is out, so I actually have a status for you to see." Chris reiterated. "And yeah, I'm a Changeling. I thought it was just because I scanned Quinn first, but… it's probably because a Changeling encapsulates multiple races so that's what my status registers me as."

"No, what I'm saying is that since your world is out, I can actually- look, if you have a status here, don't you think it's possible you can actually interact with the World, now?" Allison sighed, shaking her head. "Try training a skill and seeing if you get experience or something!"

"Okay." Chris shrugged. He considered his options for a moment, before pulling out his bow. If he was going to test a skill, it was going to be for his bow, since neither Allison or Quinn had any archery skills. Why was archery so underappreciated? He lined up his shot, aiming for a spot on a nearby wall and released, pausing as he felt his Draw and Aim skills increase. "Huh… I guess it works."

"That's it?!?" Allison exclaimed. "You finally learn how to interact with a World, and all you have is 'huh'!?!"

"I told you. He's empty." Quinn muttered.

"I mean, it's nice." Chris shrugged. "I guess I don't need as many subordinates now? That's kinda nice."

Allison frowned at him for a moment, before shaking her head. "You're insane."

"I wouldn't say that…" Chris frowned. "Just weird. Really, really weird."

"Which is known by everyone." Greg chuckled. "Now, since you can interact with the World, the question becomes how do we get it to evolve you? Try putting your world around your other self?"

Chris shook his head. "That wouldn't work. My world is my core, so even with a different form, nothing would change. I'd have to become something the World hasn't classified before or do something to merit an evolution. The former is out since all my stuff is based on what I've gotten from the World, which means it's already classified, while the latter… the only thing we know of that does that is when an animal kills someone with Intellect and gets it over ten, and since I already have Intellect over ten and I'm not an animal, that's not going to happen."

"You could reach level one hundred?" Quinn offered. "There's supposed to be some kind of change that happens at that point, and it might be something like evolution?"

"In your race and Class." Allison added. "You need your race and at least one Class to be at one hundred, and they're both capped there until you do. Supposedly the more Classes you have at one hundred the better, but I'm not sure why. I don't think it's about rank, since that increases with your Class, but I know it's big."

"Well, if it's that big a deal, you'd think you'd know more about it, right?" Thomas replied.

Allison shrugged. "Not many people ever reach one hundred in their race, let alone their Class. You need to have at least tier five skills you can actually use, and use regularly, for your Class, and you need to hunt high level creatures for your race. Adventures can usually get their race, but not their Class, while craftsmen can usually get their Class, but not their race, and everyone else is usually between those two extremes."

Quinn nodded in agreement. "Most people settle around level fifty and call it quits. They just don't have the time to dedicate to exploring dungeons or working on their skills in-between having a job and a family. Especially since higher level dungeons can take weeks to fully explore. They're simply too large and complex. Unless you go with a raid group, but then you risk not gaining anything since you have to be fast and lucky to get to the dungeon mobs before anyone else."

"So yeah, no one really talks about what goes on past the one hundred mark, unless you're part of an elite Academy or some kind of special forces program." Allison shrugged.

"Sort of like hackers then?" Andrew cocked his head. "They're a thing, everyone knows about them, but the average person still has no real idea how they actually work beyond not opening weird emails and avoiding sketchy websites."

"Fuck, I had this old laptop and I literally had to just mute the thing because I had some virus playing audio constantly. Didn't fix it until Victor told me to look up some video and I said I couldn't, because you know, no audio. He ran a virus scan, cleared it right up, and got me some anti-virus software, because I'm a freaking moron who never thought 'oh, I bet there's some way to fix this problem'." Greg chuckled.

Thomas blinked at him. "You literally just let a virus sit on your laptop because you didn't think to run a fucking scan?!?" He asked incredulously.

"I had it muted, and I don't like playing video games with audio, so it never bothered me." Greg shrugged.

"You don't like audio in video games?" Andrew frowned.

"It distracts from the TV." Greg explained.

"You watch TV while you play video games?" Thomas frowned, before shaking his head. "Never mind. Of course you watch TV while you play video games. And you're probably still a little bored while you do it!"

"I mean… yeah?" Greg grinned.

"Has anyone ever told you you might have ADHD?" Andrew asked.

Greg cocked his head. "I'm pretty sure that's what… uh, the old dude from the Rune World? Friends with Victoria's parents?"

"Maurice." Thomas provided.

"Yeah, him. I think that's what he was saying, but back before all this, I was fat and never left my room, so I don't think anyone considered it." Greg explained. "Plus I still got good grades and whatnot. I mean, homework was a bitch but I knew if I didn't do it, I'd lose all interest in the classes, so I kinda had to. Couldn't disappoint Uncle Jonathan."

"Could you even have been treated for it if anyone had known?" Thomas commented. "I mean, it obviously isn't physiological, or you wouldn't still be dealing with it, so it probably has something to do with your smoke."

"I know it seems to go away when I drain things using my smoke, so maybe it's because I'm… I want to say energy hungry but we call too many things energy already." Greg frowned. "Vitality maybe? Whatever makes your body go, because I draw that shit in and my body starts bumping while my mind calms down."

"So medication probably wouldn't have done shit for it." Thomas nodded.

"No, probably not." Greg agreed.

"Do you guys think the rest of us have something like that going on?" Andrew asked. "Like, do we all have some kind of mental disorder purely because of what we are?"

"Hey, I wouldn't say I have a mental disorder." Greg grumbled. "I still function, you know. I'm just weird."

"And what mental disorder would explain Chris?" Thomas muttered, giving the man a side-eyed glance.

"Have you studied that energy people's minds give off anymore to figure out why we don't have it?" Chris asked.

Thomas froze. "I- forgot, shit." He cursed.

"You forgot?" Chris raised an eyebrow at him.

"We've been dealing with so much crap lately and I'm not one of the ones who can pull extra selves out my ass, okay?!?" Thomas exclaimed. "I'll have the me in the Rune World work on it, since he doesn't have to cultivate and he can't hunt anymore."

"You get right on that." Greg chuckled, before checking the time. "Oh, shit, I gotta get ready for my date!"