I feel a bit nervous as the cool bamboo floor presses up against my body.

I look up and see a cute little fairy sitting across from me with the same anxious but excited look on her face as I have.

It took a while, but we finalized our catalysts and are prepared for ascension.

Neither of us is currently wearing any clothes. A precaution as I can only see them getting dirty or torn in the evolution process.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

Nodding at each other we take our catalysts and hold them up. Alice takes the small glowing green and red crystal and places it against the back of her neck. I mirror this action but take my own fist sized black and red gem and hold it up to my heart.

At the same time, we reach out with our souls and touch the catalysts.

The perfect sphere of dark crystal shines brightly and immediately melts into my body like a mass of living lava, burning through my flesh.

I scream out.

“For fuck’s sake! One day I would love to gain power without trauma inducing pain!”

I can hear a pained howl from Alice as well, which hurts my heart more than the molten crystal.

Thankfully both of us black out before we lose any more sanity.

…

..

.

My consciousness returns as I feel a familiar warmth spread through my body. Alice must be applying healing magic to me.

“Ugh…”

It is a struggle to open my eyes, but I can feel the world around me. A soft smooth sensation under my head and a hand stroking my hair.

Finally, I manage to open my eyes and the light floods in. A beautiful girl fills my vision above me. Long green hair falling over her face as she looks down at me with a smile on her face.

I can see that the tan skin on either side of my head is her thighs. Just a glimpse and I can tell her legs are incredibly long.

My mind is still groggy from the evolution, so I barely register the information flooding my brain.

“You are always passing out on me, you know that? He he.”

The woman giving me the lap pillow chuckles with a sweet familiarity.

“Alice?” I can’t help but ask. Still confused at seeing the supermodel-like woman stroking my hair.

“Who else would I be?”

Her voice is sweet, no longer taking on that magical ethereal tone that it used to. She sounds just like a normal girl. I can see in her shining eyes that she is ecstatic about her new body.

She is finally who she always wanted to be.

“... I see you are fully clothed.”

A fact that I can’t help but feel disappointed about.

“I guess you woke up before I did?”

Alice nods at that, explaining that I have been out for a few more hours than she was.

I sigh in relief. Much better than I was expecting. Thought I would end up out for a month or something stupid like that.

“I feel… weird.”

I shift my arms around without looking at them, still too focused on the girl above me. The sensation is like being underwater but made of air at the same time.

Fast yet slow, a very contradictory mix.

“You look quite different. More like a Demon Queen.”

Her words make me finally take my mind off her face and reach out for my magic. I switch my perspective and see my evolved body for the first time.

Pale. My skin used to have a healthy color to it before, even with all the time spent in The Sea of Trees. Now it is practically an ash white.

Large cracked swirling patterns cover my body, as if my flesh is sculpted clay left out in the sun too long.

My sapphire eyes look as though they contain countless stars and constellations.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

And my chest… It’s even flatter than it used to be!

In fact my whole body is quite slender. Something about that feels off though. Like I am far denser than my appearance would indicate.

An azure crystal that matches my eyes sits in the center of my chest, just below the collar bone. If I even have bones anymore…

I can also see a crown around my head. A large flat plate on my forehead fitted with a disc shaped crystal and twin horns on either side. The short horns arch backwards around my head, giving me a rather tribal looking crown as it resembles an animal skull on its own.

However the most notable change, and the most concerning, is that I am lacking any and all reproductive organs. I look like a damn department store mannequin!

Many thoughts swirl through my head. Mainly disappointment, as I had plans for Alice after seeing her new body.

I want to look like my old self again, naughty bits included!

And as though that thought was a trigger. I feel my energies within shift. My body morphs, twists, and clicks into place.

My skin regaining its healthy color, my chest expanding.

Other things reappearing.

Thank the cube god!

Within a few seconds the transformation finishes and I find my body perfectly matching how I used to look. I even look exactly like my Class 1 self!

“Woah…”

The words escape my lips at seeing what my new body is capable of.

“Huh, I guess you can shape shift. That’s neat.

Alice is struggling for words right now. Not even a snarky-

“You can finally make your boobs bigger.”

“Hey!”

I grumble to myself as I picture an aged up version of my body.

I am not doing this for the boobs, just so people will stop calling me ‘kid’!

My body twists and expands again. My head never leaving Alice’s lap pillow despite her snark.

I give myself a once over and see my slightly taller body, more filled out and ditching the baby face I had been stuck with.

All in all, I think I look a lot more mature.

“You still look more cute than mature.”

I pout at her statement. I don’t see anything wrong with keeping my cuteness!

“Got a problem with that?” I challenge her.

“Nope!”

Alice just smiles happily at me, never stopping her hand as it continues to play with my hair.

I smile back at her. Finally pushing myself up, quite reluctantly, to grab myself a robe from the pile in the corner of the room.

We had several robes prepared, just in case Alice grew up after her evolution.

I grab the one best fitted to my new size and get dressed while checking out Alice a bit more.

Right now, Alice and I look like perfectly ordinary humans. Her ears are slightly pointed and I can see tree roots along her arms and legs. Tiny wooden antlers catch my eye as well as they poke out from under her green hair, her roots as a wooden golem still making themselves known.

“Damn, you are tall.”

I didn’t make myself much taller but she is still towering over me. I would probably put her just shy of six feet tall.

“Got a problem with that?” Alice parrots my earlier statement back to me.

I grin at her as I finish putting on my robe.

“Not in a million years.”

She really is something. Nothing more than a mana construct that gained a soul at first, but now look at her. Her life magic gave her flesh and a real heart. Her happiness is contagious as I can’t stop smiling for her.

“I guess you are something like a dryad now.”

That is the first magical creature to come to mind based on her looks. The term also brings other thoughts to mind, but I do my best to suppress them from my face.

“Well, I guess that is a good way to describe it, yes. You however are something I have never seen anything like before… And I have seen quite a lot in my long life.”

Her jade eyes glow and I feel mana wash over my body, poking and prodding every inch.

“You may look like your old self right now, but every particle in your body is made of the same strange material. I doubt it would be a dealbreaker even if you got your head chopped off.”

“Wha-?”

I nearly trip at her final clinical assessment.

“I… am not sure if I want to try that or not.”

Alice gives me a rather pointed look.

“No. Are we clear?”

I quickly nod my head at her stern tone that brooks no argument.

I should be more careful about my experiments. Alice would get pissed if I really hurt myself, and I never want to make her angry.

I take a look inside myself with my own magic and see that, while I look perfectly normal on the outside, my insides are all that same clay substance.

If I can morph my body like this, then who is to say I can take it one step further?

I create a new image in my mind, one of a deadly weapon.

My right hand turns back into its original form and then stretches out into a large bone spike. A rather menacing thing to appear on a small girl's body.

This could be useful.

“One hell of a secret weapon.” Alice states looking at my spike arm with an odd look.

Suddenly a dirty grin takes over my face. But before I can try what I was thinking, I get slapped rather hard in the back of the head.

“I don’t know what you were about to do, but no! Just no!”

A shame…

“We should go to speak with Johann.”

I do my best to change the subject as I motion towards the door, shifting my hand back to normal.

Alice gives me a look, but does not say anything more about my obvious deflection.

“Yes. Although, I do wonder what the best term for your race would be?”

I don’t even really have to think about it when I answer. I have read enough fantasy novels to have a good idea of what I am now.

“If I were to call it anything, I would call myself a homunculus.”