The most obvious change besides the new shape of his core was how his Wrath Incarnate skill was connected. Instead of it hanging from the cable-like thread of will it now orbited his core, pulsing along with fire within his core. He wasn’t sure how it worked, a large part of the changes he made himself were to help restrain the leaking of his wrath which now he understood wasn’t really the whole problem. Sure the wrath leaking probably wasn’t efficient but the lack of control he experienced was due to his birthright riding along with his leaking wrath. His quick fix had partially fixed the issue but now that his core has been upgraded it was pretty clear that it wouldn’t be an issue anymore, or at least he hoped so.

His wrath and birthright now seemed to completely reside within his core, none of it leaking out in any way unlike it had with his tier zero core. He had no wrath to test anything out but by looking at the orb that represented Wrath Incarnate he could tell that there was some kind of resonance. Did that mean it would draw wrath from his core without any kind of visible connection, or would some kind of channel appear when it was activated? Kal would have to remember to check when he got enough wrath to make it worth using.

Kal’s other skills seemed to be much like the skills he had seen in Melisia’s core. They simply moved across the surface of his core, occasionally appearing as a flash of the colors most heavily in line with the skill. He thought about trying to upgrade them now, but he still had his notifications to go over and one of them seemed awfully insistent.

Every few moments since Kal had woken up his notification log continued to flash across his vision but he had ignored it until now. It was more important that he remained sane than to dive head-first into whatever chaos was waiting for him in his log. But now it was time to see what was so urgent that the system continued to notify him. Opening his log, he was immediately bombarded with hundreds of system warnings.

Warning due to the presence of an anomaly at your location many higher-tier entities have been made aware of your location. Direct intervention however is unlikely as planar collapse is likely to occur if a tier two or greater entity was to enter this plane. Many petitions to end [The Trial of the Slayer I ] have been submitted.

“That doesn’t sound good…” Kal wouldn’t last a second if anything over tier one turned up and from the sounds of it whatever wanted the trial to be over was definitely higher than that. He kept scrolling down the list seeing hundreds of other notifications.

[Gorefiend Slazak | ??? ] has been notified of your location.

[Seeker Daaxuret | ??? ] has been notified of your location.

[Lumixet Vorayx | ?? ] has been notified of your location.

The list continued for several scrolls before he finally reached the bottom of the surprisingly long list of people who probably wanted to kill him.

All petitions for the termination of [The Trial of the Slayer I] have been denied. Intervention from those not participating in the trial will not be possible until the conclusion of the event. As a precaution to ensure no interference will be possible, all entrances to the trial zone have been sealed. Only the completion of the trial, or the death of participant [Kalum Lesta] will unseal the trial zone.

Wave: 1 [Cleared]

The enemy's leadership has retreated for now. But will return with even greater numbers. Due to anomalous circumstances, a grace period has been allowed. This will not happen again.

Time Until Next Wave: 2 hours, 39 minutes, 42 seconds

Well, there was some good news at least. He had at least until he finished the trial before whoever had found him could get involved. Seeing all the question marks had put Kal on edge. There were some serious monsters likely on their way to the dome right now. He would either need to get drastically stronger or find a way to slip away once the trial was done. Kal had no idea how long this trial was supposed to be or how long it had already been going for. Breaking his core again made him lose time but he didn’t think it had been over twenty hours. The grace period was an amazing boon right now. Kal had barely stopped to do anything but fight and heal for some time now, there were a few things had wanted to do for a while now. But first, there was one more notification to deal with.

Class evolution: Select one

From what little Kal understood about class evolutions this would be his only opportunity to change his class until he was able to reach level one hundred. Anything after that was completely unknown to him. He was honestly pretty happy with his current class. It already increased his three most important attributes, and since he had upgraded Soul Forge even his mental attributes were growing quickly, leaving him his free points to invest in the attributes that missed out. But increases in class rarity were possible during class evolutions so it was worth considering all his options.

Slayer [Epic]

Something deep within you cries out for blood but through force of will you remain in control. You are a Slayer, not a monster, though your power may stem from darker sources you do not lust for the kill but see it as a necessity despite your inner ferocity. Wade through your enemies as a bulwark of death, your will unyielding, your might indomitable. A class focusing on melee combat with whatever weapons are on hand and self-empowering abilities to strengthen your body. This class focuses on physical attributes. The path of the Slayer is one filled with blood and death but while there are enemies to slay, growth is inevitable. Level benefits: +5 Strength, Endurance, +2 Vitality, Will, +6 Free points.

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Kal was glad he had the option to remain in the same class. He had suspected you could choose not to evolve your class but he hadn’t been sure until he saw it in the list. Knowing he at least had a backup plan if all the other options weren’t ideal he moved on to the first new option.

Fiendish Pugilist [Epic]

A Pugilist requires no weapons but their own fists, but the Fiendish Pugilist wishes to feel the flow of blood between their fingers and the pop of ruptured organs in their palms. A Fiendish Pugilist uses a combination of their superior physical attributes and potent disabling offensive skills to brutally slay their enemies.

Level Benefits: +5 Strength, Agility, +2 Endurance, Wisdom, +6 Free points.

It was surprisingly tempting. The description was pretty simple compared to the choices he got when he ascended but the attribute spread was pretty good. His agility was lacking right now and would always be something he put some of his free points into each level. The question was whether the increase in agility progression was worth ignoring the few things that bothered him about the class. The first thing that bothered him was the fact the class would clearly push him towards abandoning using weapons altogether. Kal liked using his sword, sure it wasn’t ideal in these circumstances, and looking at it now it had started to like it had seen better days.

The second issue Kal had with the class was that it swapped out will for wisdom, which frankly was his least useful attribute right now. Wrath Incarnate’s cost used to scale with his will but its description no longer mentioned any kind of scaling besides what the fear aura provided. But Kal was certain that his will played a major role in his ability to maintain control while using the skill. The feeling of balance was still clear in his mind from the early moments after using the skill in combat, before his emotions faded away. He was sure that if his will became one of his lower attributes he would quickly struggle in many of his mental tasks, whether it was controlling his anger or just using his Soul Forge skill in general. Especially when he was forced to do both at the same time like he had over the last week or two. Moving on Kal read the next class's description.

Gourmet of the Abyssal Planes [Epic]

A gourmet strives to taste all cuisine that the universe has to offer. Likewise, the Gourmet of the Abyssal Planes searches for the most potent and rare meats across the planes of the abyss. The Gourmet of the Abyssal Planes empowers themselves with every meal, their growth endless so long as they feed the hunger within them. In combat they use the variety of abilities they have learned through their consumption to deal with any situation that comes before them.

Level Benefits: +2 Strength, Endurance, Vitality, +1 Intellect. Additional attributes can be increased by consuming the flesh of particular beast or monster variants.

Kal was surprised to see a second epic rarity class. He had assumed that most would be worse than his current class but leaning in different directions. Apparently what he had achieved was enough in the eyes of the system to earn him multiple epic classes.

The class itself was strange. It was clearly inspired by his Abyssal Consumption skill. The skills description heavily implied that there was more that he could do with his Abyssal Consumption once it had increased in rarity, and he imagined taking the class would help him along in that regard. Being able to steal a creature's skills sounded amazing but the whole eating everything theme didn’t appeal to him at all. His birthright already made him bloodthirsty enough, he definitely didn’t need to help it along by making most of his progression revolve around eating everything he found. Also who knew how many attributes he could actually gain from eating stuff, with the measly seven total attributes per level by default it would have to be amazing for it to be worth the added risk of fighting things when your attributes are lower than they should be.

“Pass,” Kal muttered before moving on to the next class.

Scion of the Abyssal Planes [Epic]

A scion of the abyss wields the dark powers of the Abyssal Planes in search of a darker evolutionary path. Many seek to join the elite of the dreadlords or worship the gods of the first universe as so many dark practitioners did before them. The Scion of the Abyssal Planes wields the power of death and slaughter as a weapon, performing powerful rituals and curses to gain power and reputation in the halls of the abyssal elite.

Level Benefits: +5 Intellect, Wisdom, Will, +2 Vitality, Perception, +7 Free points

Now he was getting somewhere. This class was definitely something that interested Kal. Dramatically increasing all his mental attributes would drastically increase control over his birthright and furthermore, it even had an additional free point to distribute each level. With Soul Forge already boosting his perception, will, and wisdom, he could become a powerhouse with whatever skills he could gain with that class. There was only one problem with that. He wouldn’t gain another skill for another five levels, which would mean until then all of his attribute increases would barely benefit him at all. He could spend all seven free points on strength and endurance every level up, but he was pretty sure he would need to grow stronger than that during the rest of this trial. Kal couldn’t be sure if the royal guard variant garghounds were dead or not. But if he had to bet on it, he would go with that they were the ones that retreated after he broke his core.

He wasn’t exactly a fan of the whole gaining reputation with the abyssal elite part either but everything else about the class was very tempting. But ultimately Kal knew it wasn’t the wise choice, at least not right now. There were too many things already pushing him to the brink of exhaustion to start fully committing himself to his mental attributes to that degree. He was about to scroll back up to Slayer but then he realized there was one more option. He had figured it would work like skills did, where he got three new options plus one or two previously offered options. He read the title expecting it to be one of the crap ones from last time but his eyes widened when he read its name.

Slayer of Fate [Epic] [Anomalous]