Initiating advancement of Denizen XAVIER COLLINS from E Grade to D Grade.
Denizen’s attributes deemed as: …
…
Error.
Attribute values higher than anticipated.
Recalibrating advancement…
…
Attribute values higher than limit.
Xavier blinked, staring at the notification. What did it mean, that his attributes were higher than the limit? He hadn’t even known there was a limit. Nothing had ever stopped him from gaining more attributes in the past. He shook his head in confusion, but mostly he was just feeling in awe.
It made him wonder if anything like this had ever happened before.
Advancement Interrupted.
Title Unlocked!
Strongest E Grade (Unmatched): You are the strongest E Grade who has ever lived in the entirety of the Greater Universe. The System has never encountered an advancement such as yours before.
This is an unmatched title.
You have received +500 attributes.
What the hell? Xavier thought. Since when could someone attain a title while they were advancing? He stared at the title, still in awe. He supposed it made sense that he was the strongest E Grade, considering the other notification that he’d just received.
But actually getting a title for it? One that made him even stronger?
Xavier couldn’t help but smile. His anticipation for what would come next was through the roof.
Reinitiating advancement to D Grade.
…
…
Checking spells…
Denizen’s spells deemed as: Highly Exceptional
Checking skills…
Denizen’s skills deemed as: Highly Exceptional
Xavier smiled again. While he hadn’t obtained the same result as when his attributes had been judged, he’d known something like that wouldn’t be possible when it came to his spells and skills. Unlike his attributes, there had been a hard limit on how strong he could make those spells and skills while still E Grade.
He couldn’t wait to push them further. If he was this powerful right now, with the ability to defeat a C Grade—even if he’d had to observe alternate realities to do it—than how strong would he soon be?
Soon, I’ll be the most powerful Denizen to have ever set foot on this floor.
Defeating that C Grade dragon to steal its egg and acquire a vessel of the spirit of the dragon Volkarin was looking more and more likely to become a reality in the near future.
The last time he had advanced, his attributes had been deemed as “Exceptional,” while his spells and skills had only been deemed as “High.” He hadn’t even known there was a “Highly Exceptional” option. It was strange to think he hadn’t met that for his attributes last time, but he was glad to see he’d reached it for spells and skills this time around.
Checking Spirit Core…
Denizen’s Spirit Core deemed as: Highly Exceptional
Checking Willpower Core…
Denizen’s Willpower Core deemed as: Highly Exceptional
Checking Speed Core
Denizen’s Speed Core deemed as: Highly Exceptional
Xavier wondered if there was a way he could make his cores even more powerful than they already were. Highly Exceptional was an amazing outcome—and a better one than he’d gotten the last time he’d advanced—but now that he knew there was something beyond that which could be achieved…
The standard he’d set for himself had just been raised even higher.
Advancement to D Grade initiated.
Advancement cannot be interrupted.
Prepare yourself.
Xavier thought he was prepared for what came next. He’d felt the pain of advancement. He’d felt his body split apart at a molecular level. This was something he hadn’t been looking forward to experiencing again, but something he would gladly put himself through considering what it meant.
But the pain was even worse than it had been the last time he’d done this.
It hurt too much to scream. To even think. But he had been through this before, and even though the experience tore through his very being just as it had the last time—and tore through his very consciousness—he felt parts of his mind coming to life even as it was being torn asunder.
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As his mind worked to grasp itself, to become whole, it was split apart again and again, a seemingly infinite number of times. But whenever his mind did become whole, it could sense… something. A presence.
He was being watched.
But it wasn’t one of those presences that he had felt in the past. It wasn’t the Empress Larona watching over him, nor was it Adranial’s ancestor—no, this was…
Something more.
If Xavier could feel fear in that moment, he would. But feelings weren’t something he was conscious of.
His mind was obliterated once more.
And then slowly, it was stitched back together. His very being was being rebuilt, atom by atom, and an energy was surrounding him. If he could frown, he would, for his consciousness was quickly coming to terms with something—the presence that he had felt around him as he had put his mind back together himself… it hadn’t been the System.
For he was feeling the presence of the System right now. He was feeling the energy—the System Energy—envelop and recreate him.
But there was something else. Something he could no longer feel but knew was still there. Something behind the very System itself. And it reminded him of what he had learnt from the older version of himself—that the System had been created, and before it had existed, Spirit Energy, magic, all of it, had already been there.
The System had just learnt how to harness and describe it.
So what was this he had felt behind the System? What power had he sensed?
All these thoughts swirled through his fractured mind as it was once more stitched back together, and Xavier felt a pain even more intense than what he had just been in takeover.
A Racial Shift has been detected in XAVIER COLLINS.
A boon identified as Higher Value Race Upgrade has been detected and utilised.
This Racial Shift will affect your advancement.
Advancement completion imminent.
Xavier opened his eyes.
He was lying on the cold ground of the cave chamber he’d initiated the advancement within. His time dilation field was still active, something he was grateful for. He’d known there would be a small risk of the spell deactivating while he was advancing to the next grade, but it had been a risk he’d been willing to take.
Xavier’s mind, body, and soul were once more whole. He was no longer in even the smallest amount of pain. He stood up, and already he could feel the differences.
The Racial Shift.
He looked down and saw small changes in himself, ones that hadn’t been there before. But he hadn’t been changed as significantly as he’d first expected. At least, if he had been, it wasn’t yet clear.
His skin was still tinged a slight silvery grey, but there was something else mixed in there as well, something he couldn’t quite identify.
His body moved more smoothly than it ever had, and he felt something in his back, around his shoulder blades—two somethings, actually.
Xavier’s eyes widened in a flash. Whatever it was that he was feeling, it was much like the claws he was able to grow and retract. He could feel that there was a mechanism there.
Activating that mechanism was the very first thing that he did.
Something miraculous happened—something that he had only dreamed might happen.
Wings shot out on either side of him. They were as black as night, and looked like that of a bat, or a dragon. They were far larger than the wings Justin had gotten the first time he’d used his Winged Flight spell.
These looked to be fully formed, strong enough to carry him into the sky with ease, making his Aerial Combat skill and his Hover Dodge spell even more valuable assets than they already had been.
“I can fly!” he shouted aloud to the empty cave, inside his time dilation field, where not a soul would be able to hear him. He couldn’t help but laugh aloud in pure delight at this development.
And it wasn’t a spell that gave him the ability to fly, either. Nor even a skill. This was something far more natural than that.
This was a part of whatever he had now become.
When he had briefly returned to the Staging Room in order to acquire beast parts he could use with his Assimilate Properties skill so he could bring it up to Rank 100, he’d had this very thing in mind.
He had assimilated the wings of several different beasts into him. One of those beasts had been a dragon, though dragon wings had been incredibly expensive, and the only reason he’d been able to afford them at all was because he’d cashed in some of the winnings of all those bets on himself that Felicia had made on his behalf.
At the time, assimilating those beast parts into his body hadn’t given him the desired effect. He’d thought he’d wasted his time and money doing it, wondering if he had been foolish to think it might be possible.
He was very glad to find out that he had been wrong.
As much as he wanted to exit the cave and experiment with the new body that he had acquired, he also wanted to go through the notifications before him—a stream of them had appeared across his vision from the moment his advancement to D Grade had ended. And one of the things on his list of top priorities was to discover just what had changed about his race.
Congratulations, XAVIER COLLINS. By advancing to D Grade, you have taken the next step of your journey on the path.
You have received +500 to all stats!
Your body, mind, and soul have been transformed and will now work more efficiently. Your skin has been hardened, your strength improved. Your mind has been enhanced, your thoughts cleared. Your soul has been tempered, your spirit emboldened.
Your cores have become more robust. Your awareness of them increased.
The transformation to D Grade has changed you at the very foundation of your being. Each step forward on the path of advancement not only increases your power and lifespan, but increases your potential within the Greater Universe.
One cannot walk backward on the path.
Title Unlocked!
D Grade: This is a common title that everyone receives when they advance to E Grade.
You have received +250 to all stats!
Title unlocked!
D Grade Progenitor: You are the first person from your world to advance to E Grade.
You have received +500 to all stats!
Title unlocked!
D Grade Speedrun (Unmatched): You have reached D Grade faster than anyone in the Greater Universe, displaying a potential that has never been seen before.
This is an unmatched title.
The System is watching.
You have received +35% to all stats.
Congratulations, XAVIER COLLINS, a class upgrade is now available to you.
You have 24 hours to make your choice. You will not gain any Mastery Points until you have upgraded your class.
Would you like to see your options?
Xavier paused before looking at his options. There was another notification, one about his Racial Shift, at the end of the list. He took a breath, then he read through it.
You have activated a Racial Shift. Now that your advancement to a new grade has been completed, your race has been upgraded.
During the transformation of your race, the System Boon “Higher Value Race Upgrade” was applied, making the transformation even more powerful.
The Racial Shift is based on many aspects of your power, as well as what you have assimilated into yourself. Assimilation alone, however, does not decide what your race will shift into.
Your class has no bearing on your race.
You have upgraded from the race of Altered Human to the race of Dragonkin.
Xavier couldn’t help but be a little taken aback. He didn’t know what types of races there were out there, or how this transformation would work. If he were honest with himself, he had been worried that he would turn into some sort of monkey-rhinoceros hybrid, considering how many of their parts he had assimilated into himself.
But, according to the notification, assimilated properties weren’t the only things taken into account. He supposed there must be other ways in which Denizens changed their race.
Dragonkin.
That was curious. He wondered what it was about himself that had deemed such a transformation relevant to him. He couldn’t think of what it might be. He had summoned a dragon, many times, into this world—at least, the spirit of one, anyway.
Could being in the presence of Volkarin, the dragon that was the Spirit of Vengeance, have had that strong of an effect on him?
He didn’t know, but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He of course had no idea what being a Dragonkin amounted to, but considering it meant he was able to grow wings from his back… he couldn’t say that he was disappointed.
Besides, his appearance had barely changed, so he didn’t feel as though he was losing out on anything.
Dragonkin…
Xavier looked forward to exploring what being this different race would mean to him.
Before he chose his class, he figured it was about time he looked at his status sheet, to see just how much the titles he’d gained, and the advancement he’d just underwent, had changed him.