~ding~ [Assassin] reached level 100. 1 Attribute Point awarded. Congratulations! For reaching the fifth milestone in your class you gain +2 DEX and +2 PER. Please choose your further path!

I had to read the system message again. This was it. Class evolution. The big thing I had been looking forwards to for a few months by now. The additional points in Dexterity and Perception barely registered. There was, of course, a second message.

~ding~ Please choose one of the available paths. Failure to do so will result in a path being selected automatically.

[Death in Darkness]

[Warping Wing]

[Dream Cutter]

[Eldritch Guardian]

[Twice The End]

That meant I had to choose somewhat quickly. And these options… Wow. Just the names were so wonderfully edgy. Just to see, I tried activating [Identify] to gleam more information. It had not worked for the Skills but this time, I got something.

[Death in Darkness]: The night is your home. Death, your right wing. Bring an end to all, they will not see you coming. But beware of the sun. It will show your intent. Gain +2 Per and +2 Dex. Gain +1 AP per level in this Class. Two Skills will be altered. Two Skills may be altered.

Okay, that was a lot to unpack. Obviously, the text. It seemed… mediocre. Beware of the sun because it will show your intent? That seemed like a stupid idea. The Attributes and free points were expected. Two each for the main Attributes per level per milestone and one free point. Nothing too amazing. The altered Skills, though. Those were interesting. It looked like this Class would forcefully change two of my Skills to work differently. And on top of that, I would get the option to change two others. Were those set or would I be able to choose?

For now, I decided to check out my other options.

[Warping Wing]: You are from beyond reality and yet part of this world. Your wings bring knowledge, though not without danger. Some may even find it easier to forget. Forever. Beware of the changes you may bring. Gain +2 Int and +2 Wis. Gain +1 AP per level in this Class. Two Skills will be altered. Two Skills may be altered.

The Skill options were the same. Was this always the case? Also, this Class gave me my favoured Attributes so it already had [Death in Darkness] beat. Though it sounded like I would passively warp the world around me. If that created taint, the Class was practically impossible to use so I assumed it would not do so. It looked more like I could bring knowledge and maybe do magic more easily. The biggest risk was that I might hurt my friends just from getting close.

[Dream Cutter]: When one dreams, their mind leaves on a faraway journey. So what would happen when you cut the thread it left to return? Of course, the answer is clear: Death. But the body will be left behind for you to use. Gain +2 Int and +2 Wis. Gain +1 AP per level in this Class. One Skill will be altered. One Skill will be replaced. Three Skills may be altered.

That… was a scary option. Was this a necromancy Class? How did I gain that? Well, it did not really raise the dead, just let me use those I killed. However that was supposed to work. Cool but… not my thing. At least I learned that the altered Skills were different for every Class. That likely meant they were set and not for me to choose. Now, for an interesting one.

[Eldritch Guardian]: You know. They can not know. You know. They can not know. You know. They can not know. You know. They can not know. You…

It continued like that for what felt like forever. There was nothing about Attributes or Skills. Honestly, I was almost convinced Truth somehow made me get this option as a joke. Just as I thought that it disappeared and I heard a chuckle near my soul. There was one more option to look at, at least.

[Twice The End]: One mind. One soul. One body. And yet, you are two. And two can strike twice. Make sure your target may never return. This is the only way. Gain +1 Per, +1 Dex, +1 Int and +1 Wis. Gain +2 AP per two levels in this Class. Two Skills will be altered. One Skill will be replaced. Two Skills may be altered.

That… was interesting. Something that made use of both Fio and Catori. Both of my ‘parts’. The ‘never return’ thing sounded a bit… off, though. Would this destroy my target’s soul? Or just send them away to the next life? I hoped it was the latter. And if it was not, I could most likely avoid using that part of the Skill. The would make things much easier. Also, it looked like every second level gave two Attribute Points. That was... strange.

Now that I had gone through my options, I was conflicted. Nothing jumped out as being some kind of perfect fit. [Death in Darkness] had the sunlight issue, [Warping Wing] might make my friends go mad. That made me easily put both of them at the bottom of the list. [Dream Cutter] seemed interesting but I was not sure about using the bodies of my victims. At least it was not slavery or mind control, so I kept it in consideration. [Twice The End] had a chance to completely destroy souls. I… did not like that. The Class was also split for its main Attributes while [Dream Cutter] had a clear focus on Intelligence and Wisdom.

I was on the fence. I had to choose something or I might end up with one of the Classes I did not like. I knew I had some time, at least a few hours, but I was not convinced that would be enough to make a clear decision. So… I took the easy way out. A coin toss.

I took out a Cathedral gold from my storage and looked at it more closely. One side had the Church’s cross, the other had a ring with six segments and an orb in the centre. Cross for [Dream Cutter], ring for [Twice The End]. I took the coin in my beak and threw up my head. The gold glinted in the daylight as it spun. I made sure to keep close and when it came back down to my level, I caught it on a pillow of darkness. I quickly slapped a tendril on top so it would not fall off. Then I brought the coin close to my face. Carefully, I lifted my tendril. It showed Cross. I chose [Dream Cutter] before I could second guess myself.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

~ding~ Congratulations! Your Class [Assassin] has evolved into [Dream Cutter]! Your Skill [Sneak lvl 7] was replaced with [Distant Dreaming lvl 1]. Your Skill [Winged Death lvl 6] was altered to [Winged Dream lvl 6]. You may alter your Skills [Shock Attack lvl 7], [Mingling lvl 7], [Telepathy lvl 4]. Once you alter at least one of your Skills, you may no longer use this option.

Say what? [Sneak]? Noooo! What did you do to my [Sneak] you stupid system! Now I would… oh. I could probably learn it as a general Skill pretty easily. Like upgrading from an apprentice Class to have more Skills available. Would it work the same way for the next milestones? Would it let me replace one of the Skills I had or alter it?

A thought for later. Now, I had to figure out what my new and altered Skills did. First, [Distant Dreaming].

[Distant Dreaming]: You know your soul is not in this world. You can make use of that. Connect your soul to a body and use it for your purposes. This may only happen to victims of [Winged Dream]. Distance increases with Intelligence, control increases with Wisdom.

What the… I could use other bodies? And it required me to use another Skill of my Class? That seemed insane. Could I become… multiple people? And live all their lives like a hivemind? That was unlikely. There was still a dreaming part to this Skill. I would most likely have to be asleep to ‘become’ someone else. All in all, a very powerful Skill. Now what had been changed for [Winged Death]?

[Winged Dream]: Your species is truly specialized in the way of the taking lives. The only weakness the lack of ranged weaponry. Use your wings to mitigate that and strike at your target with wings woven from pure essence and cut through their connection to reality. Much more effective on sleeping targets.

1st Breakthrough: You may now mix several types of non-adjacent essence to create additional effects. Pull on the world around you to take out your target and turn their body into something better suited for your use.

So I still had a ranged attack but it was better against sleeping targets. Definitely something I had to see in action. It would be terrible if my void feathers, or void wings, I supposed, no longer cut into my target. The Breakthrough also seemed interesting. Now I would provoke some kind of change in my target’s body if I killed them with an essence wing. Again, something I had to see in action.

The big question was if I should use the option to alter my Skills, and if so, which ones. From [Winged Dream] I knew most of the functionality would be preserved so it seemed almost stupid not to do so. But I could see [Mingling] and [Shock Attack] lose some of the important parts. This Class was structured around dreams and controlling the bodies of my victims. Both of those Skills could be drastically changed to make them more suited to that goal. For now, I decided to keep the option. I knew I would eventually use it on [Telepathy] since it was likely to help with remote controlling my additional bodies. I still had to figure out if I wanted to use it on the others as well.

Before any of that happened, or any testing for that matter, I decided to work on something very important. [Sneak].

I found the closest farm with people out and about and decided to make it from one end of the property to the other without being noticed. That should be enough, right? The place had four buildings. Two were rather large and had sounds of animals coming from inside, one shone with thaumaturgical wards and was likely holding grains or something else that was important. The last was a home. A few people were out and about. Children, youths, and an old woman sitting on a porch and knitting. A few adults were working in the barns as well.

I ducked and weaved through the shadows and between farm equipment. Of course, I made sure to draw on my void vis and eat up any noise I made. This felt very similar to what I had done back when I worked on my Breakthrough for the Skill. There were a few close calls, especially with the two cats roaming the premises but I somehow made it through without being noticed. I even managed to cut my name into the porch right behind the knitting grandma. And I was immediately rewarded.

~ding~ Congratulations! Through your efforts and familiarity, you have learned the Skill [Sneak]. Your advanced control propelled the Skill-level to five.

I took a deep breath as I rose into the air. My status appeared in my vision. I had gained some interesting options. Now it was time to use them.

Species: Sgiathan Dorcha Owl (adult)

Age: 2

Name: Fio Catori

Gender: female

Status: sapient, healthy, Beast Core (unique, enriched – medium)

Level: 102

Class: [Dream Cutter lvl 100], [Apprentice Witch lvl 14], -

Strength: 39

Constitution: 36

Dexterity: 44

Perception: 44

Intelligence: 113

Wisdom: 112

AP: 0

Skills:

Racial:

Utility: [Owl Senses lvl 7], [Preening lvl 4], [Owl Stomach lvl 7], [Sgiathan Dorcha lvl 7]

Offensive: [Solid Grip lvl 4], [Intimidating Screech lvl 4], [Owl’s Shadow lvl 7], [Aerial Combat lvl 4]

General:

[Imaginatics lvl 7], [Hidden Identify lvl 7], [Telepathy lvl 4], [Eldritch Guidance lvl 5], [Sneak lvl 5]

Dream Cutter:

[Distant Dreaming lvl 1], [Shock Attack lvl 7], [Mingling lvl 7], [Eldritch Shift lvl 8], [Winged Dream lvl 6]

Apprentice Witch:

[Brewing lvl 4], [Ritualism lvl 1], [Familiar Bond lvl 1]