Even after the first couple of days Leo had already spent recuperating within Taylor’s cave, it still took him what felt like another week and a half to fully recover from breaking half the ribs on the left side of his chest, along with all his other various injuries. Leo still didn’t have access to Nexus time, which meant even now he was guessing at best as to how much time was passing. The poisonous plane was one of the ones without an actual day-night cycle, instead maintaining a near constant gloom over the entire landscape, which made it even harder to keep track of the passage of time than it already was.

  Thankfully, with every new layer he added to his soul, his body was strengthened a fraction more as well. With a rank 6 soul, he healed significantly faster than a regular, non-gem holder. But he didn’t stay at rank 6 for very long.

  With nothing to do besides lie there and let his body knit itself back together, Leo spent almost the entirety of that time consuming the magical beast gems Taylor brought back for him and adding their power to his own soul. Hunting the deadly magical beasts that filled this plane appeared to be practically effortless for Taylor, and Leo could only shake his head every time they returned to the cave without so much as a scratch on them, dragging a brand-new carcass behind them.

  The Grade 6 gems from the centipedes got him up to rank 7, after which Taylor began bringing back these foul-smelling fish that were apparently found within some of the toxic sludge pools surrounding the trees. They were Grade 8 beasts, which perfectly bridged the gap between the centipedes and the giant cats. Thanks to those, and being spoon-fed gem after gem as fast as he could absorb them, Leo progressed by leaps and bounds over the next week and a half.

  Soul Rank: 9 (0 available)

  Beast Gem: Monstrous Centipede (6)

  Skill: Minor Tremorsense

  Beast Gem: Guck Toad (3)

  Skill: Poisonous

  The monstrous centipede’s beast gem offered the Minor Tremorsense skill, which Leo was quite excited to have nestled away within his soul. The skill allowed him to sense any sort of movement or vibration that occurred within about a dozen feet of him, which explained how the centipedes knew when someone was walking by in order to dig themselves out of the ground. Pretty much every Cartographer worth their maps kept at least one skill handy that allowed them to detect things like ambushes or threats before they were visible, and Leo finally had one for himself. But as excited as he was for that skill, that was nothing compared to what came next.

  His first evolution.

  Leo sat there, staring at the three corpses lying before him. A monstrous centipede, a dark cat, and a sludge fish had all been laid out beside him, along with the gem box that held his arrow-hawk gem. Like any wanna-be Cartographer, he’d dreamed of this day for just about as long as he could remember. Admittedly, in most of those dreams, he’d always had a bit wider of a selection for what gem to build the foundation of his future off of. Though in his current situation, he supposed he should be happy to have any options to pick between at all.

  “Explain again?” Taylor asked, leaning back against the cave wall as they watched him.

  “Every ten soul ranks, a gem holder essentially takes a magical beast gem and incorporates it into the very foundation of their being, while still keeping the skill somewhat intact,” Leo tried to explain, despite knowing it was pointless with how little Taylor understood about gem holders. Even so, talking through the process calmed him down a bit and helped him work on his difficult decision. “Rather than convert the gem into power and use that to build up the soul’s outermost layer, or draw the gem’s structure into one’s core to absorb its skill, the gem itself ends up being woven into the relevant portion of a person’s being, depending on their current evolution. Permanently. It’s an incredibly delicate process, and while the skill won’t remain in its entirety, it has a bit of a permanent effect on the gem holder for the rest of their lives.”

  “Huh. I didn’t do that.”

  “Yes, I’m aware you didn’t do that,” Leo sighed, shaking his head. “We’ve already established that you’re something of a unique case. I’m pretty sure there are some scholars in the Nexus that would pay just about anything to get a chance to study your soul.”

  Leo had had his suspicions ever since watching Taylor eat a magical beast gem, but over the past week and a half, he’d come to a rather startling conclusion.

  Taylor’s soul… wasn’t human. Not anymore.

  As far as Leo could tell, not only Taylor’s soul, but even their very body, were both some sort of strange blend between human and magical beast. He didn’t have the faintest idea as to how Taylor had managed to survive having a beast gem shoved into their soul when they were only twelve, but even if the process hadn’t killed them, it had certainly left its mark. Rather than absorb beast gems by converting them to power and carefully laying it around their soul, Taylor ate them, naturally adding their power to their own without even having to think about it. Similarly, Taylor’s body seemed stronger, more powerful than a regular gem holder should be for their rank, as though they’d started off with one of these evolutions from the very beginning. At the very least, it would explain how they’d managed to actually survive the poison-filled wasteland as a clueless twelve-year-old.

  Leo was still slowly working up the courage to ask his savior to allow him to peer into their soul, just out of simple curiosity. But he was admittedly a tad worried about what he’d find. If Taylor’s soul truly was so different from a regular gem holder’s…

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  What if they weren’t capable of traveling between planes at all?

  “So, which gem are you going to build off of?” Taylor asked, pointing to the dark cat. “The cat’s the strongest one here.”

  “Grade isn’t necessarily the most important thing when it comes to an evolution,” Leo explained. “It’s more so about the skill. Like I said, most of the gem gets stripped away and turned into power to tip the gem holder over into rank 10, but an echo of the skill will remain, engrained within the gem holder and used to strengthen and enhance the body in this case. It will remain regardless of what skills are held within the core, and even if the soul is dampened. At least to some extent.”

  While only the first evolution was purely physical, Leo’s own father had based many of his evolutions around fire-related skills, which explained how he’d managed to survive the raging inferno of their house for so long, despite having his soul dampened to that of a rank 5. He basically had a natural resistance to fire.

  “I see,” Taylor nodded. “Which one then?”

  “I’m leaning toward the Dash skill, to be honest,” Leo admitted, pointing toward the black box he’d been given by one of the Planar Lords’ agents that he was now using to hold his old skill. “In theory, it should make my body naturally faster. While useful, the skill itself is quite dangerous, as it doesn’t help me think faster. But if I use it as a base for my rank 10 evolution, it should do a bit of both. If we’re going up against enemies stronger than us, I can’t really see increased speed as being a downside.”

  “Dark cat’s skill is quite useful,” Taylor offered, nudging the corpse with their bare foot. “I like it.”

  “I think it suits your style a bit more than mine,” Leo drawled, rolling his eyes. The dark cat’s skill was Natural Weapons, which was a skill that allowed Taylor to grow long, sharp claws and jagged teeth to fight with. That didn’t seem too powerful for a Grade 10 gem, until Leo realized it also provided Taylor with the powerful leaping ability of the dark cat, allowing them to launch themselves directly at their enemies without warning and rip them to shreds with their teeth and claws.

  Because the isolated, dirt-covered stranger simply wasn’t feral enough.

  “Your choice,” Taylor shrugged, dragging the other corpses away and leaving him with the gem box. “After this, we head out? Grow stronger?”

  “Yeah, that’s the plan. It would probably be smart to stick around until I hit rank 11, but those dark cats aren’t nearly as numerous as the centipedes or fish. We might be here for another week, maybe even longer, and I want to keep moving. My mother is still out there, fighting a one-woman war against the Planar Lords, and she probably thinks I’m dead. I want to find an actual town and see if I can’t get some real information as to what’s going on.”

  “I’m also eager to grow stronger,” Taylor said, shooting Leo their usual feral grin. “I’ll leave you to your evolution. Have fun!”

  As soon as Taylor left the cave, Leo cracked his neck, grabbing the waiting box and pulling it into his lap. Despite knowing how the process was supposed to work, naturally, all he was going off of was what he’d read in books, and what he could remember his parents mentioning about their own evolutions. The first one was supposed to be the simplest, as each subsequent evolution required a far stronger soul to be influenced than the last. But still, Leo was largely flying blind here. Messing up his evolution could have catastrophic consequences for his future.

  “Still, not like I have any other choice,” he muttered, opening the box and staring at the gleaming white gem held within. “Damn, I wish I could just eat this thing like Taylor does. Though it looks like it would hurt going down…”

  Focusing, Leo plucked the Grade 4 gem out of the box, snapping the box closed and placing it to the side. Bringing the gem close to his chest, he took a practice breath, and then another, trying to psych himself up. Deciding he was as ready as he’d ever be, he expelled all of the air in his lungs, pausing for just a fraction of a second.

  Before inhaling as deeply as he physically could, drawing all of the power from within the gem into him in an instant.

  Seeing as his core was already filled with beast gems, he didn’t have to fight against the vacuum attempting to suck in this one to the center of his being. And with his soul already at the peak of rank 9 and not able to grow any stronger without something to base its evolution around, the energy didn’t try to rip out of his grasp and swirl around his soul. For the first time, the gem’s power simply sat there, drifting on its own above his soul, almost as if it didn’t know what to do.

  Here… Let me show you.

  With a gentle but firm push of will, Leo directed the power down, forcing it to penetrate his soul’s defenses. Stretching the energy from the gem out like one would a spool of thread, he wove the tendrils all throughout the many separate layers of his soul, ensuring that there was an even spread all throughout. Strangely, this was actually one of the easier things he’d done involving his soul, and he blinked as he realized he was already just about done with the entire process almost before he’d even started.

  Of course, that was just the beginning.

  Once the threads of power had formed a giant, criss-crossing net throughout his soul, he took the excess of that power and looked outward, now focusing on his body. Mentally tracing a map of his bones, arteries, and muscles, he wove the power using the same technique outward from his core, focusing on one limb at a time. The detailed visualization wasn’t explicitly necessary, but his parents had assured him that it would lead to better results. Once each of his limbs were strung through and humming with power, Leo very carefully did the same with his neck and head, shuddering at the sensation of threads of power weaving throughout his own brain in a complex map. Despite knowing none of the power was actually physical, consciously messing with his own head wigged him out.

  Finishing his head as fast as he dared, Leo took the last chunk of power that still remained and returned to his soul, allowing it to now finish atop the final layer and bridge the gap between a soul rank of 9 and a soul rank of 10. In an instant, the power snapped into place, and Leo’s head rocked back as the last dregs of power left over from the evolution erupted from his chest. With a laugh, he opened his eyes, peering within his core at what he’d accomplished.

  Soul Rank: 10 (1 available)

  Physical Evolution (Dash): Increased speed and reflexes

  Beast Gem: Monstrous Centipede (6)

  Skill: Minor Tremorsense

  Beast Gem: Guck Toad (3)

  Skill: Poisonous

  Now that’s more like it, he thought, getting to his feet and enjoying the sensation of power radiating from his soul, coursing through his very flesh as it strengthened and improved it.

  “Time to keep moving.”

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