After choosing the permanent option, there was a further choice that I could make. This one was optional and it was my chance to influence the result in some way. I could have the boost focus more on the Vitality and Endurance enhancement if I wanted to, or the magical enhancement.

I wasn't able to change it much but I decided to leave it as was. The vitality, endurance, and magic boost were all something I needed. One wasn't that important over the other and I didn't want to mess with something I shouldn't.

It was already hard enough trying to contain the concentrated heart energy coursing through me. I wanted this to be over as soon as possible before I went pop.

My body was strong enough that it was able to integrate the Frost Giant heart but I didn't have time to muck about choosing my options. It was a higher-tiered energy that I was using and it wasn't playing nice.

I was glad I chose the material I did, though. It was just high enough that I was able to use it without going too far and reaching for too much. It felt like if it was any stronger, unpleasant things would have happened. Like trying to fit 10 pounds of stuff in a 5 pound bag.

With my choices made, the energy flooded into my chest and started revolving around my heart. Pain blossomed and it felt like I was having a heart attack.

Alarm spread over me as the pain intensified because none of the others said anything about pain. They all said after making the options the energy would rush into their core and settle there after some time, not start stabbing pins into my chest.

There were two things it could be and there was no way for me to know which one it was. It could be the material's tier coming to bite me in the ass or it could be the permanent changes being made to my physiology.

I elected to think it was the physical changes to my heart being made rather than the risky decision of using the heart.

It made me feel better at least.

After the pain I went through refining my body, this was nothing. It was rather unpleasant but it wasn't the sharp, sustained pain of the Wind Chamber.

It took a few moments to finish the changes before the process was complete. My eyes opened slowly and the only thing I could see was a face millimeters away from mine.

"AH!" I screamed.

"AHH!" Austin screamed back.

"What the hell, man! Why were you so close?" I accused while trying to calm myself from the jump scare.

"It was taking longer than normal and you were grunting. I wanted to get a closer look." He answered like it was totally logical to be that close to someone else's face.

"Well, what did you see?"

"You need a shower,"

Gee thanks, asshole.

I most certainly did but he didn't need to point that out. Time had been fleeting trying to get all of this done and my hygiene took a back seat for a few days while I was rushing to evolve.

"I'll get right on that, princess," I said.

He nodded, "See that you do. You're stinking up my cabin."

After saying that, he just stared at me expectantly. I turned to see that everyone was also staring at me. It was unnerving seeing everyone look at me with such curiosity like I was a zoo exhibit.

"Well, what did you get?" Austin was the first to break, unsurprisingly.

If it was only him with me, I might have played around a bit but the 16 other sets of eyes disabused me of that idea.

"Legendary,"

Gasps were audible along with Jonathan's rueful smile. He was no doubt thinking about the fact he just caught up to me with his new Rare class only for me to up the ante again.

Everyone knew that my new class was going to be up there but we didn't know if it was enough for Legendary.

There was still another Path of Power out there that we had no knowledge of which I had yet to do. While the store gave a lot of information, we didn't know everything, and assuming we did was asking for trouble.

Higher rarities were notoriously hard to get information on and we didn't have a single information booklet on classes higher than Epic. We didn't know their requirements or their unlock conditions.

For all we knew every Path of Power was required.

There was still a rarity above Legendary so maybe that was the one that required all four.

We didn't know.

They stayed huddled around me until they got all of the details out of me. Nothing was spared and they didn't stop until they had me tell them the four classes I didn't choose as well.

Stats, distribution, requirements. I held nothing back. While this information could be used against me, I trusted my family more than anything. Now that there wasn't a risk someone was mind-controlled, that trust was absolute.

After Christian, we didn't take any chances and bought a trinket from the store to make sure. It wrapped around the head to check if there was any mental magic or compulsions in effect and we all underwent the test. Even me.

There would not be another incident where family had to kill family.

I almost missed the stat bonus from evolving because of the pain of having my heart altered. It was usually obvious when I evolved as it worked through every cell of my body with every stat getting a boost but the pain took my mind off of it.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I opened the notification to confirm how many stats I received.

Racial Evolution: F->E

All stats +16

Along with the stat boost, there were two new skills that I received. The profession skill was generic and I knew what it was going to be before I evolved. The book about how to get the Runesmith class said which skill it came with.

It came with [Runesmithing(Rare)]. Similar to [Warding(Un)] and [Formation Mana Flows(Un)] it helped with the runesmithing process. It gave knowledge of how to combine smithing and enchanting to make the best product possible and a boost to the finished product.

While the skill would help a lot in my craft, there was another skill I was more excited about. The skill that came with my Legendary class.

Frostbound Hammer(Legendary) – A splinter of the weapon once wielded by the Jotnar King Thiassi thousands of years ago. The ice this hammer was forged from still holds some of his spirit and must be awakened to show its true power. Combine with other splinters to bring back its full might. Only given to the mightiest of warriors with a strong ice affinity and bound to them by frost once summoned.

Reading the skill was eye-opening. The ancient weapon of a King of Old? What did that even mean? It said that power was still inside the weapon and I had to awaken it to show its true might but it didn't come with an instruction manual.

People were still around waiting to see it and excitement was building up in me as I read the skill description aloud. All of us wanted to see what a Legendary skill would be like.

Without further adieu, I went to activate the skill.

I began with just a trickle of mana into the skill but when nothing happened, I upped it to a little more.

Nothing continued to happen and I had to use more. And more. And more.

I was pouring my mana into the skill by this point.

The skill was sucking up all the mana I was giving it and it started taking more. Pulling in mana faster than I could push it. This was the first skill that had done anything like this and it was slightly worrying. None of the other ones were this hard to activate.

Just like [Mighty Blow(R)], it started taking stamina as well and started pulling on my stamina just like it had with my mana.

What kind of skill is this?

Ice started to coalesce in front of me and frost started to form in the area from the drop in temperature. Snowflakes froze around me as the air couldn't hold the moisture anymore. It was making... something inside the fog but I couldn't see very well and my senses were all messed up.

My mana pool was rapidly depleting and the amount of mana going into the skill was making it hard to tell what was happening. My vision was blocked by the foggy frost and it was too much to take in with my mana sense. The sheer mana density and concentration made it too blurry to see.

As it continued to build, I felt a tug on my mental energy where my Law was held as well. I had more control over that than I did mana, but I allowed the skill to take it anyway. I needed to find out what the skill did and I didn't want to cancel the activation now.

It took over half of my mana pool already, damnit!

The skill kept taking more and more building in concentration. The ice and fog grew until it extended out into the area around me.

My head started to hurt from everything that was happening. My Law being poured into the skill didn't help matters creating a headache of its own from the rapidly depleting mental energy.

Lastly, it pulled on my spirit. I wasn't as familiar with the energy that my Spirit used since I had only recently formed my Spirit Anchor but it was similar enough to the others I had used before.

While thicker and harder to move than mana, it could flow into and around my body in the same manner. I used it to strengthen things most of the time but it had more uses than that, I was sure of it.

Laws were similar. The way I used them, and the way most people used them, was to strengthen the attacks you made. Me with Ice, Jonathan with Stone, and Rachel with Fire.

It boosted the element that you had a Law in. Pushing it further than what only mana could.

It was amateur to think that boosting attacks was the only thing you could do with it, we just hadn't found out the rest yet. We had only been living with the System for less than 90 days and weren't that well-versed in it yet.

We focused on staying alive which meant producing the strongest attacks we could. Playing with Laws and Spirit Energy could come later.

All of that meant I had no experience with what was happening with the skill. It was taking everything I could give it while asking for more. It took mana, stamina, my Law, and my Spirit.

I didn't know skills could do this.

The skill continued drawing on everything I was giving it and it was draining me dry. This was the first time I had used a Legendary skill and it was proving difficult. My mana was nearly empty and the rest of me would soon follow if it didn't let up soon.

It was hard not to wonder why it was so hard to use. What was it taking all this energy for?

The suction on my power soon evened off before petering out completely. It drained me completely to create what it was doing. It left the frost in the air for a moment before that too was sucked away.

What I was left with made everyone speechless.

In my hand was a hammer. Not the hammer I usually used, but a massive Warhammer that looked infinitely stronger than mine.

The skill summoned a hammer from nothing.

This was the first time I had seen a skill summon something. Something that was real. Better than real actually.

Most of the time, skills were just mana conjurations that were lesser than the real thing. While my ice looked and felt like ice, there was a difference between it and the real thing.

Not the mundane ice on Earth from before, but the mana-infused Ice I had seen up in the mountains. My ice was better than normal Ice, but not the Ice in the tutorial. It was close, but there was something about it that was lesser.

I didn't have the senses to tell what it was that was different, but the ice conjured by skills was different than real ice. That was why using the naturally formed ice from the Frost Rune worked better than the stuff conjured from [Hail(C)].

It wasn't that much better, but in a fight every little bit counted.

The hammer in my hands looked magnificent. Better than anything I could have made and then some.

The hammerhead was similar to the one I was using now but it looked even better. With a massive blunt face on one side and a huge spike on the back. The ice itself was a striking Blue that mine didn't have. An inner glow and an ephemeral quality to it that mine was missing.

The head was mesmerizing to look at. It drew my eye and it was hard to look away. I swore I saw movement inside of the Ice. Like a living blizzard of snow revolved around the inside of the hammer.

That was just the head of the weapon. I didn't even get to the rest of it yet. The shaft was made of intricately carved wood in Formations and patterns that were different than the ones I knew.

The wood itself had frost growing off of it up and down the length of the weapon making it look even colder than it was. The weapon was so far above me I couldn't even tell what kind of wood it was, let alone the Runes running along its length. Their meaning was above me and seemed like they would stay that way for a while yet.

While I sat dumbstruck gazing at my new weapon, Austin couldn't hold back anymore and reached to touch it. The drawing effect too much for him to leave alone.

I was still stuck gazing at what looked like the insides of a snow globe and didn't notice his encroaching hand.

His fingers hovered over the ice before reaching down to glide along the surface. I didn't know what he was doing but he pulled his hand back quickly.

"Ah, fuck!" He exclaimed while shaking his hand in the air.

His scream drew me out of my reverie and made me look up from the magnetic effect of my new weapon.

He stood shaking his hand back and forth while Rachel created some fire to warm his hand up.

The tips of his fingers were black.

"Your hammer bit me!"