Chapter 2039: New Racial Skills

Once back home, Elayne carefully checked her Status and the new System message she had just obtained. It seemed that not even that much time had passed since she last evolved, and now she was evolving all over again.

The intense battle against Jester, the enigmatic Death Apostle and a member of the Black Hand, had been more stimulating than she ever imagined. By obtaining the power of the Circle of Constellations and the Circle of Hell, she had attained enough raw strength to overcome his own abilities.

However, Elayne was still confident she could have at least pressured him enough to escape or weaken him even without those new powers. After all, she had completely taken over the Domain he created using her Terrain Magic and commanded her endless army of Sporeborns.

But just as he had abused the System to gain so much power by combining it with his real-life magic and abilities, why wouldn’t she be allowed to do the same? It was only fair!

Nonetheless, Ranking Up in the World of Arcadia, and even now in its Netherworld, did not only include the growth and obtaining of new Classes and Skills. It also involved the Evolution of oneself.

And Elayne, an incredibly unique lifeform, was both an Undead Zombie and an Undead Plant at the exact same time.

Not even she fully understood how that had really happened now that she thought about it carefully. Because she had allowed a colony of plants to live within her body and slowly "possessed" them with her own phantasmal energies and spiritual essence, perhaps that was what made her become those plants as well, while still remaining separate enough to count as two different races. This gave her an incredible advantage, as she was capable of evolving...

Twice!

Dual Evolution was an incredibly rare thing among the inhabitants of Arcadia and its Planes of the Living and the Dead, let alone among those who possessed two full Classes instead of one Class and a Subclass.

Elayne had become an anomaly among anomalies. She held two Classes and two Races, meaning she was technically able to Rank Up four times each time she reached Max Level.

It was only natural that her stats would become so high after Ranking Up so many times and gaining power from two Classes and two Races... even though her two Classes were still rather new. Somehow they were almost exactly the same, except for the difference in their Circles: one wielded the Circle of Constellations while the other commanded the Circle of Hell.

Now Elayne found herself once more facing many choices. Her eyes carefully read the messages floating in front of her as she nodded silently to herself.

[Available Races for Evolution]: [Sword Revenant – Tier 2] [Abyssal Myconid – Tier 2]

[Do you wish to Evolve? Please pick a Race first.]

Sword Revenant.

Abyssal Myconid.

These were her current races, the evolutions of her original Zombie and Nether Plant Colony Races respectively. She had been offered other interesting choices before as well, but in the end she had gone for Sword Revenant because of its strong affinity with swords.

What she had not fully realized until now was that, even though she wanted to concentrate on evolving further, she had not taken enough notice of the rewards she received from her existing races after both reached Max Level.

"Huh?"

Ding!

[You have reached Max Level in your two races, Learning two Racial Skills.]

[You learned the Sword Revenant’s Racial Skill: [Bloodthirsty Sword – Tier 2: Level 1/20]!]

[All Stats +10,000!]

[You learned the Abyssal Myconid Racial Skill: [Shadow Spores – Tier 2: Level 1/20]!]

[All Stats +10,000!]

"Wait! This is new!" Elayne said in surprise. "And... right! Because I am not a Player, my Skills and stat points are all distributed automatically, right? Yeah..."

Thus, instead of needing to choose skills from any sort of skill tree herself, Elayne simply learned the skills directly and immediately.

This showed once more the great benefits of having two Races at the same time.

More than anything else, she also received large stat bonuses — a full 20,000 to All Stats — simply because she possessed two Races. It was an incredible exploit of the System’s rules.

And now, with her two Classes that had already given her Double Skills and Double Stat Boosts, how much stronger would she continue to grow?

Her path toward regaining her full former strength and then surpassing it was drawing ever closer as she faced the endless horrors of the Netherworld.

Now, before choosing her next evolution, Elayne decided to carefully examine what her two new Racial Skills could do.

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[Bloodthirsty Sword – Tier 2: Level 1/20]

The blades held by the Sword Revenant share his thirst for blood and death.

When attacking with a sword, you deal 50% more Damage and there’s a 5% chance with each attack to drain 30% of damage dealt.

What the sword drains is, from the living, Lifeforce, and from the dead, Soul Essence.

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[Shadow Spores – Tier 2: Level 1/20]

The Abyssal Myconid live in the darkness of the abyss within the Labyrinth. Spores are born from their shadows, spreading everywhere and infecting anything they wish to.

Your body naturally produces Shadow Spores which can be spread across a large area. Once planted, Shadow Spores will grow into Shadow Spots, which you can use to freely teleport through Abyssal Shroud.

Shadow Spots can also be erased, provoking an explosion that deals Soul and Magic Damage in a small area around it, further spreading more Shadow Spores.

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"Very interesting skills. One is more straightforward than the other," Elayne nodded thoughtfully. "But they’re both better than what I received earlier from my Races... Sword Obsession was alright, but it was never that impressive. These are clearly superior. It’s like a special reward for maxing out the levels of both races..."

Elayne analyzed the skills carefully while thinking about how to use them effectively on combat. Back then, she would never have gotten such ideas herself, but as time passed, she had become unconsciously continued to evolve as a genius in combat, even when she didn’t realize.

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