Before Owen had a chance to claim credit for the kill, a system prompt appeared in front of his eyes.

*Briar is ready to finish it's metamorphizes

Please select yes if you would like to continue with Briar's evolution.

Begin evolution Y/N?

You have selected yes, beginning evolution.*

Owen had less than a second to look around at his friends, before everything went black. At first he thought he had been knocked out, but quickly realized that he was in the same void space area that he had been given the option to change his appearance during the tutorial. He didn't have to wait long for a system screen to appear, letting him know what was happening.

*Due to the wide variety of types of monsters consumed by your familiar 'Briar' you have been given a multitude of options for Briar's evolution path.

1.) Superior Roseborn Amalgamation

2.) Awakened Humanoid Roseborn

3.) Fourwinds humanoid roseborn

4.) Superior Elemental Roseborn

5.) Elemental roseborn devourer*

Owen was immediately inundated with options and felt his anxiety begin to rise as each of the options were absent of any explanation. He was happy that Briar was evolving, but at the same time worried that he was being given the option. He tried to wave away the window to give himself a chance to think and another window replaced it.

*Would you like to give your familiar the option to choose it's evolution path? Y/N?

Warning option selected by familiar does not provide any guarantee of evolution path with high potential.*

He ignored the prompt and tried to think through it logically. Briar had shown themself to be smart, but very instinctive. While he loved having Briar on the team, they so far hadn't especially needed the extra help, though it had been nice. Did the evolution probably matter a lot in the long term? The answer was yes, but in the short term it wasn't needed enough for Owen to have spent the time to find out about familiars being able to evolve and he certainly didn't know what the best option was. He let himself think about it for another couple minutes, but in the end he decided to try and cross some options off of the list Briar would get, just so that they didn't end up with the amalgamation.

It had certainly been a strong boss monster, but its main focus wouldn't work very well for the types of fights they had been participating in so far. He was surprised when the system actually let him choose to block off some of the options, so he blocked the hidden boss monster type, but let the rest stay. He then closed out of the window and instantly opened his eyes in the normal world.

Peggy was looking at him expectantly and when Owen looked around he was surprised to see that Briar was completely gone. He did his best to explain what had happened in the void to his friends and while Peggy seemed worried, she seemed to approve his decision. Myra on the other hand was staring at him with a look of dissatisfaction, which by itself wasn't that unusual, but Owen quickly understood why. "Myra, I think I will count this as your win." Myra then went to interrupt, but Owen spoke faster to stop her. "This isn't giving you a pity win, I just genuinely don't think I would've won on my own, whereas I think you could've."

That wasn't just it, despite having really wanted to win, it was probably for the best if he just met their parents anyways. The last thing he wanted was for their parents to develop some idea of him that was entirely opposite to the way he actually is and come off as a creep by avoiding a meeting. Plus it was probably better to keep Myra happy as the meeting with her parents seemed to matter a lot to her and it was the least he could do. Myra seemed slightly more satisfied with that response and they began talking through the battle, waiting for Briar's inevitable return. Several more minutes passed before Owen received what felt like the thousandth system message that day.

*Congratulations, for being the first person to evolve their familiar, you have gained the title 'Familiar trainer'. This title grants the trainer the ability to channel 10% more mana through their bonded familiar.*

A new type of window then appeared with a screen he hadn't ever seen before. Taking just a quick glance through the contents, he realized it was just Briar's status page had been added to his own list of system menus. His focus was lost though as he could now feel that Briar was about to come back and waiting expectantly, he closed the status page.

Instead of a four legged ball of plant matter with a face made out of thorns, a humanoid figure appeared where Briar had been. It had bright red hair, with white and grey intermixing in color across the rest of the body. Owen then realized something that he would have never thought before with the old Briar, it was naked. He quickly pulled out some clothes and tried passing them to Briar, before remembering it was a plant being. Despite that, Briar took the clothes, closed it's eyes for only a moment and the clothes had disappeared.

"Thank you for the meal Seed Bearer, I will do my best to grow and become your strength." Briar then bowed towards Owen, who was shell shocked. He pulled up Briar's status page and was surprised at the chosen evolution.

*Briar - Elemental Roseborn Devourer Level 25

Vitality = 25

Mana = 2

Strength = 20

Perception = 15

Agility = 18

Resilience = 15

Dexterity = 2*

Owen looked back at Briar, entirely speechless for several seconds before gathering his wits. "Briar, just call me Owen, there is no need for calling me seed bearer." "If it is your command," Briar's rasping voice came out. Briar then turned to each of Owen's friends and thanked them, before excusing itself. "It has been a pleasure meeting the companions of the seed bearer... Owen, I need to solidify myself in this new form and I will need time for now." Then in a single moment, Briar disappeared entirely and an interlaced red, white and grey interwoven cord of what looked like metal appeared around Owen's wrist.

Owen wasn't sure what the hell was going on and when he looked at Briar's status page it hadn't mentioned anything like this. Feeling slightly frustrated at never knowing anything he felt like he should have been told by the system or even his master. He turned to Lucas with a pleading look in his eyes. "There isn't anyway master mentioned familiars to you did he?" Lucas shook his head with a pained smile on his face. "Sorry, master really didn't teach me much. I only got to interact with him for a day before he had reached his limit for time spent on earth or something."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Owen just sighed, he was going to have to talk to Lucas later for more specifics and turned to Peggy and Myra. Myra looked confused and Peggy looked disappointed. "I thought for sure he was going to stay super cute and maybe even get more cuddly." Peggy whined and Owen sympathized. He felt like he and Peggy were currently tied on how much effort had been put into helping out Briar. "Sorry, Peggy, I just didn't want to pick for them, plus there sadly hadn't been a cute and cuddly option either." Peggy nodded glumly, before it looked like her eyes went unfocused for a moment and a suit of what looked like the bosses armor appeared.

Staring surprised at her she just smiled and shared the system window.

*You have selected Armor of Aeolus*

Realizing she had picked her loot reward from the gate, Owen quickly opened his own notifications and couldn't help but smile at the stack of them that had piled up.

*You have slain Echo of Aeolus. 1250 experience gained. 625 experience has been consumed by your 2nd grade soul.

You have leveled up, you have 2 unallocated stats points.

Your class Polymath's apprentice has leveled up. you gain 1 stat point in mana, strength, perception, agility, dexterity and luck*

Owen felt the power course through him and he couldn't help but laugh a little bit, using all of his free stats as well, he had reached a new level of power in just 2 level ups and a class level up. Feeling very satisfied, he looked at the last notification and got a little giddy, he was going to actually get some more gear.

*Congratulations for clearing out the hidden boss, greater rewards will be calculated.

You have a 3 choices for rewards.

*Armor of Aeolus - Grants 10 resilience and an additional 5 strength when in boss fight*

*Wind sword of Aeolus - Imbues attack with wind essence, creating wind blades that can strike opponents from a distance*

*Signet of the Wind God - Grants 10% increase to agility*

*Bonus Reward*

*Meeting with the True Polymath in ten days*

Owen barely noticed the loot at all as he saw the last sentence at the end of the panel. A meeting with the Polymath was insane and he was pretty sure unheard of. When he had talked with Xerxes before, he had gotten a brief explanation of the gods before. They almost never interacted with mortals, because there was no need to bothers themselves with the mortal world. So, for a meeting to be a reward Owen was both excited and incredibly nervous. In ten days he would meet a god and he wasn't sure how it would go, but given it the reward was a meeting with a god, he wasn't sure whether the reward was getting to see the god or if the Polymath would actually give him something themself.

Deciding to quickly choose his other loot, he was slightly disappointed he couldn't pick several of the options, but ultimately decided on taking the signet. A 10% bonus was just too much at once for him to pass up. He felt even more sad when the ring landed in his hand and both Peggy and Myra were sporting the armor set. "Neither of you guys wanted the ring?" Owen asked. Both gave him a weird look and Myra answered. "I didn't get the option, I only had the choice between the armor and the sword and neither of us really use that style of sword. What ring are you talking about?"\

Owen shared the details of the ring which elicited a whistle from Myra. "That would've been amazing, but of course I'll have to get something similar later." Myra said. Owen nodded and slipped the ring onto his finger. The immediate boost of agility was a rush that made Owen want to begin running. He held himself back however and since there wasn't a time limit for being kicked out yet, he called everyone close by.

"So, I think I know why this quest changed for me and not you guys." Owen started. "At the end of this gate I got a system message that said I earned a bonus reward, but instead of letting me pick something, it said that I now had a meeting with the Polymath in ten days." Lucas's eyes widened in shock and the others just sort of shrugged. "I assumed it had something to do with your weird class." Peggy said confidently. "Well it seems you were right then." Owen nodded. "I'm not sure what the meeting might be about however. I technically stole my inheritance directly from them and Xerxes had seemed surprised that I was even able to do that."

"I can't imagine it will be something awful, shouldn't they not care about whether you have the inheritance or not since they are supposed to be so far from our mortal world. I wouldn't be surprised if this is something the system is enforcing rather than the Polymath themselves." Myra said and Owen nodded again, but still felt a little worried.

"Aren't you guys ignoring the most important thing?" Lucas asked surprised. Everyone raised eyebrows at that. "What are we forgetting?" Myra asked sounding like she was a couple steps from just being cold to him. She already had the look of indifference plastered on her face that was becoming more and more unfamiliar to Owen as she hadn't done it as much recently. Lucas coughed nervously but began again in earnest.

"The gates are supposed to break in less than 12 hours, but I haven't heard you guys mention it at all yet." Owen felt a pit form in his stomach. He really hadn't thought about it as much as he should have. He had been focused on clearing gates and getting stronger to become as independent as possible. Looking around, Peggy and Myra seemed to have been thinking along the same lines as he had. "Do you have a plan for the breaks then? Other than clearing out as many gates between now and then as possible?"

Lucas looked a little disappointed by the response, but just shook his head. "I just thought I would bring it up since it hadn't been focused on before." Everyone seemed lost in thought for a second before Owen started to feel a plan form in his head. "Hey Briar, I need your help for a second." The bracelet on his wrist made out of the multicolored metals slowly disconnected, before forming together again in the new humanoid form of Briar. "Do you think you could've eaten all of the bosses in this gate by yourself?" Briar hardly seemed to give it any thought before shaking their head no.

"I am strong enough now that if I were to take several hours of rest, I could have consumed every creature in this gate, but not before the evolution." Owen nodded and thanked them. Instead of turning back into the bracelet, Briar shifted again as its form seemed to melt down into a liquid and then began shifting into their original form with some drastic changes. It had three colored strips across the plant matter that made up most of its body and it looked even more like a magical dog than before.

The magic had still been lost on Peggy, as she no longer felt like cuddling and petting the Briar that could shift into a humanoid. "I think I am also strong enough I might be able to clear a tier 2 gate on my own, but it isn't a guarantee. Myra, I think you probably could and Peggy and Lucas might be able to take out one together." Owen said as he tried thinking about all of their options. "I think we are close enough in strength to get some leeway from the government at least for later today." Owen said trying to sound confident, but it was a gamble. If anyone was of similar strength and more closely aligned with bureaucracy, then they just might be screwed.

"What if we go around clearing all of the tier one gates? I think everyone of us is strong enough to clear one of those gates in an hour or so." Myra offered and Peggy nodded for a moment before grimacing. "We would need to get clearance for several of the gates anyways. There are more and more blockades surrounding both types of gates. I was surprised we managed to find this one."

Owen then thought of someone and hoped it would be enough to let them go on a spree, before the gates began breaking. "Guys, did I ever tell you about Mark Adams?" Everyone except Lucas shook their heads in confusion. "He told me earlier that I should be looking to help out if I can. I'm thinking I can try and see if he has any ability to get us clearance to these gates, otherwise we will have to break in, or find others one and just hope to be close by."