Chapter 36: Thoughts
The sun hadn’t fully cleared the horizon before Kael was already barking instructions across the training grounds, and Malrik was already regretting how easy everything suddenly felt.
The Morveth here ranged between Level 20 and 40 — respectable numbers, the kind that should have made his arms ache by the second hour. Yesterday, they would have. Yesterday, he’d have finished this session drenched in sweat and nursing at least one bruise he’d pretend not to notice in front of Kael.
Today, he cut through a Level 34 without breaking stride.
This is almost unfair.
Kael had no idea what happened in that forest last night. As far as the man was concerned, his student had simply improved overnight — the kind of leap instructors liked to attribute to "finally understanding the fundamentals" or some equally vague nonsense that let them take partial credit.
Let him think whatever he wants. Less explaining for me.
The session ended without incident, which was its own kind of strange. Malrik killed exactly as many monsters as he needed to look appropriately winded, thanked Kael with the correct amount of humility, and walked back toward his room already thinking about something far more interesting.
Evolution.
He’d been sitting on the thought since last night, turning it over the way a man turns over a coin he’s not sure is real.
Can my talent actually change what these things are? Not just make them stronger — change them?
He summoned Eliza the moment his door closed behind him.
She arrived within the minute, composed as always, though he caught something tighter than usual behind her eyes. Last night clearly hadn’t finished settling in her yet.
"Young Master."
"We’re heading back to yesterday’s hunting ground."
A pause, longer than he expected. "...The nest is empty now, Young Master."
"We’re not hunting."
Her expression didn’t change much, but something behind it clearly recalculated. "...Understood."
The ride there gave him time to think, which was both useful and a little dangerous, because thinking too much about evolution points had a way of spiraling into thinking about everything else he still didn’t understand about his own Class.
[ Total EP: 14,450 ]
Fourteen thousand, four hundred, and fifty. He’d stared at that number so many times since waking up that it had started to feel less like currency and more like a taunt — an enormous pile of potential sitting there doing absolutely nothing while he figured out how to actually spend it.
Do I focus everything on one soul and push it as far as it’ll go? Or do I spread the points around and get modest gains across the whole army?
He’d wrestled with a version of this question before, back when he’d first realized Evolution Points existed at all, and the logic hadn’t really changed since then.
A slightly stronger wolf is still just a wolf. A wolf that turns into something else entirely — that’s a different conversation.
He had spent some time then chose Fenrir for the Wolf King; it was the first name that came to his mind.
If he’d learned anything from tonight’s fight, it was that raw numbers only carried an army so far. Forty souls hadn’t been enough against one Awakened-Rank Queen. What had actually made the difference was Lilith — not more bodies, but a fundamentally different kind of soul entirely.
If evolution can produce more of that — even a fraction of that — it’s worth every point I’ve got.
Fair point. He kept doing the math anyway.
By the time the carriage stopped at the edge of the forest, he’d more or less settled on an approach: start with Fenrir, since the Wolf King had been with him the longest and had already proven, more than any other soul in the army, that leadership mattered as much as raw stats. If evolution behaved the way he suspected — compounding, escalating, requiring exponentially more with each tier — then it made sense to test the pattern on something he already trusted completely before gambling everything on the Queen.
Start small. Learn the pattern. Then decide how far I’m willing to push it.
He climbed out of the carriage and looked toward the cave entrance, still faintly scarred with dried venom from the night before.
"Wait here," he told Eliza. "Watch the entrance. No one comes in. No one interrupts. Not while I’m inside."
She placed a hand against her sword hilt, more habit than necessity at this point. "...Understood, Young Master."
He walked in alone.
the cave looked different in daylight — less like a threat and more like the scene of something that had already finished happening, which, technically, it was. Dried patches of green stained the ground. The eggs still hung untouched from the ceiling further in, exactly where he’d left them.
He stopped in the same chamber where it had all ended the night before and raised both hands Then he summoned the two spirits
Two shapes gathered out of shadow and mana, taking form with the quiet. One wolf-sized. One considerably larger, easily twice the height of the other even folded down and waiting.
He pulled up both status screens, side by side, and stared at the numbers.
[ Name: Fenrir ]
[ Type: Shadow Wolf ]
[ Potential: Rare ★ ]
[ Evolution Required Points: 0 / 100 ]
[ Name: Spider Queen ]
[ Type: Venom Spider ]
[ Potential: Rare ★ ]
[ Evolution Required Points: 0 / 100 ]
He stared intently at the screen; both spirits possessed the same capabilities and required the same number of evolution points.
It seems that potential doesn’t depend on rank; if I hadn’t killed Fenrir, he would have been destined to reach the power of the Spider Queen.
One hundred points each. That’s it? For a Rare-potential soul?
No, don’t think like that. If it weren’t for the money Malrik amassed and his influence within the duchy, those figures wouldn’t have been collected so easily.
I doubt any nobleman below the rank of duke would pay 4,000 platinum coins for soul stones.
That’s the budget of a noble household for at least a year. 100 evolution points are worth hundreds of gold coins; they’re not cheap at all.
He looked between the two of them, weighing the decision one last time even though he’d already made it back in the carriage.
Fenrir first. He’s earned it.
He raised his hand, fed a hundred points into the bond, and felt the number in the corner of his vision tick downward with a satisfying, slightly terrifying finality.
"...Evolve."
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