The last of the fungal husks lay still, its twisted limbs sprawled in the dirt like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Its head lolled back at an unnatural angle, the fungal stalk protruding from its spine cracked in two. Ren pulled his dagger free and wiped the dark, sticky fluid on what remained of its ragged hide. The smell clung to the steel—wet rot mixed with bitter spores—and he made a mental note to scrub it properly later.
Around the camp, the others were already settling back into a guarded rest.
Leo crouched over the stubborn fire pit, coaxing a reluctant flame from damp wood. Raven sat cross-legged with her eyes closed, the slow, measured rhythm of her breathing marking her meditation. Sinclair paced the perimeter in a loose circle, gaze scanning the tree line. Every step he took was deliberate—boots finding quiet patches of soil, never a twig.
Ren’s heartbeat was finally slowing when the subtle chime came.
The sound was always the same—like a single droplet striking the surface of a still pond, rippling outward, not through the air but somewhere deep in his head.
[Level Up]
He exhaled, dragging in a breath heavy with the musk of wet leaves and ash, and pulled his status window into view.
Class: Arcane Sommelier
Level: 23
Stats:
? Strength: 11
? Dexterity: 27
? Constitution: 13
? Perception: 40
? Intelligence: 36
? Charisma: 9
? Free Stat Points: 13
Skills:
? Culinary Knowledge
- Flavor Sense II ?
Mana Pulse ?
Flavor Control
The glowing panel hovered before him, faint motes of light flickering across the transparent frame.
He scrolled back in his memory, tracing the path here.
Two months on the road. That was all. Two months of trudging through mud, waking to frost on the inside of the tent, and never truly knowing if a snapping branch meant wind or teeth. Two months since Level 19. Back then, his numbers had been smaller, his movements slower, his mana clumsier. Now the difference was stark—undeniable in the cold precision of numbers.
The gains had stacked cleanly. The fights, the hunts, the nights spent chasing fleeing things through undergrowth—all of it had pushed him to Level 22. Tonight’s fight had tipped him over into 23.
He could even recall the incremental growth markers as they had appeared.
[Congratulations! You have reached Level 20]
[Stat Growth Applied: +2 Intelligence, +2 Perception, +1 Dexterity, +2 Free Stat Points]
[Congratulations! You have reached Level 21]
[Stat Growth Applied: +2 Intelligence, +2 Perception, +1 Dexterity, +2 Free Stat Points]
[Congratulations! You have reached Level 22]
[Stat Growth Applied: +2 Intelligence, +2 Perception, +1 Dexterity, +2 Free Stat Points]
Now, Level 23. Just two more until…
He remembered the note from his Class description—the one he’d skimmed when first choosing the Arcane Sommelier path.
Second Evolution at Level 25.
The phrasing had been vague—“Choose your refined path”—but the message had been clear enough. Every experienced adventurer he’d met since had echoed the same warning: The better honed your core abilities, the better your next form will be.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
He was still staring at his panel when Sinclair appeared beside him, crouching in the dirt so they were level. The firelight caught on the faint scars along the man’s jaw, tracing pale lines against his darker skin.
“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” Sinclair’s voice was low, but it carried a certainty that left no room for denial.
Ren didn’t bother pretending. “Level 25. The evolution.”
Sinclair nodded once, slow. “Good. Think harder. Every step you take until then will shape the path you get. If your Class is split between cooking and fighting right now, you’re going to have to pick a focus.”
Ren frowned, not liking the narrowing of possibilities. “If I keep both?”
“You end up mid-tier at both.” There was no judgment in Sinclair’s tone—only the flat gravity of fact. “In this world, ‘mid-tier’ is just a longer way of saying ‘dead before your time.’”
Ren looked back to the fire. The wood was finally catching, the faint crackle almost soothing. His mind ticked over the possibilities.
Combat focus. That was the obvious choice. Logical. Efficient. Monsters didn’t care about seasoning or presentation, and in a place where a single lapse could mean your head in a beast’s jaws, the ability to kill fast and clean was the currency that bought survival. A blade in hand, Threads ready to snap, senses honed for threat—that was how people lived long enough to see their next level.
Cooking? That was a luxury. At least, that’s what common sense said. No monster would pause to admire a perfectly balanced stew.
And yet—
He thought about the first time he’d used [Flavor Sense] to detect a poison so subtle no one else in the camp could smell it. That moment had kept them alive as surely as any sword stroke.
He thought about the mana-rich broth he’d made after that long, cold trek through the swamps—how it had eased the bone-deep fatigue in Leo’s face, put color back in his cheeks.
He thought about the way the act of preparing food itself had a kind of magic, one not measured in combat efficiency. The sound of a simmering pot in the dead quiet between fights. The way a warm meal softened the edges of exhaustion, mended tempers, and made the road feel a little less like a punishment.
He thought about his father, too—about those evenings when they’d cooked together, when the restaurant was closed, and it was just the two of them experimenting with whatever was left in the fridge. His mother had died when he was young, and those meals with his dad had been one of the few times the silence in the apartment felt full instead of empty. Losing his father recently had left him hollow, but not in the way people expected. The grief was there, yes, but so was a strange lightness—freedom from the grind of a life where ambition meant endlessly climbing someone else’s ladder.
On Earth, the fight had always been against the invisible machinery of capitalism—targets, margins, reviews—until there was no joy left in the cooking that had once defined him. He hadn’t left that world to trade one suffocating fight for another.
The truth was, he didn’t just want to survive here. He wanted to live in a way that felt like him.
Sinclair’s words echoed: Pick a focus.
His mind made the case for fighting. His body, remembering the last fight’s strain, agreed. But his heart… his heart rebelled at the thought of giving up the thing that made him feel human in a place where it was too easy to become just another predator.
If the next evolution was going to be the truest version of his Class, then that version had to be all of him—not just the half that swung steel.
The decision solidified.
“I’m not giving up cooking,” he said finally.
Sinclair studied him for a long moment, eyes narrowing as if weighing the truth of the statement. Then, a faint smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Then you’d better find a way to make it deadly. Or indispensable.”
Ren’s answering smile was small, but it was there. “I can do that.”
The night air was cool, carrying the smell of wet earth and faint ozone from Raven’s earlier spell. Ren reopened his status window, eyes scanning the neat rows of numbers again. The free stat points waited, each one a small but permanent choice.
He could dump them all into Dexterity and Perception—classic combat stats, perfect for his Threads and his bow. That would be the smart move if survival was the only metric.
Instead, he split them. Leaned into Intelligence almost as much as speed.
Strength: 11
Dexterity: 30
Constitution: 13
Perception: 42
Intelligence: 39
After all, flavor could be a weapon, too—sharp as acid, heavy as smoke, subtle as a poison that only he could taste.
If the world insisted he choose, then he’d forge a path where fighting and cooking weren’t two separate roads but one. And when the Second Evolution came, it would have to reckon with all of him.
He dismissed the panel, the glow fading from his vision, and felt the weight of the choice settle over him—not as a burden, but as a promise.
Somewhere in the darkness beyond the fire’s reach, a branch snapped. Sinclair’s head turned instantly, hand drifting to his weapon. Ren’s own hand fell to his dagger, but the thoughts in his head had shifted.
There were fights ahead—of course there were—but he’d face them his way.
With a blade in one hand.
And a kitchen knife in the other.