Zoe at least made it inside a more intact-looking building before stumbling into a corner and collapsing.


    Your Nascent Fiend Core has reached 103% development.


    Your core evolution is now in progress. Do you wish to proceed?


    She stared at the system message for a few seconds longer. There was a pressure building inside her—a small knot of tension in her lower chest straining itself with a conflicting push and pull. Right where her core was. It felt like it was clenching itself—and it was still growing worse.


    Lilith was sitting next to her, the apparition hugging its knees as it watched her with an unreadable expression. Zoe pushed herself up with a wince. “Anything I should know before I start?”


    Shrugging, Lilith then shook her head. “Not really. Just—don’t try to be clever, and you should probably just go along with what seems obvious. Oh, and lie down.”


    Zoe was happy to oblige. Staring up into the darkness, she pulled open her system again. Don’t try to be clever. Do what feels obvious. While that sounded a bit simple and uselessly vague—Zoe also got the feeling it was really important advice. The kind that makes perfect sense once you see for yourself.


    Do you wish to proceed?


    There was nothing else for her to do—and Zoe wasn’t keen on finding out what complications could arise from delaying it. The system itself had given her a warning, after all.


    Yes.


    Proceeding with core evolution.


    Having experienced multiple level-ups and now the experience of a ready-to-evolve core, Zoe expected an explosion of energy. That was sort of the case—but only barely. The unclenching of her core was slow. It seemed to take a whole minute for the energy to reach the farthest tips of her body—and then a minute after that as the thrumming power grew and stabilized itself.


    Then the system returned.


    Your skill: Mana Resistance (Rank D) has become a new trait: Mana Resistance (Rank D)!


    Your skill: Mental Resistance (Rank C) has become a new trait: Mental Resistance (Rank C)!


    …


    You have gained the Rank E trait: Cold Resistance!


    There was no pain, or anything like it, but there was a sense of urgency behind the system messages. The only time it had felt this way before was during her second class selection—when something tried to screw with her own choices. Zoe hoped that wouldn’t happen again this time—but she didn’t have much time to worry.


    The following traits can be merged to form a new trait at a higher tier:


    > Light Resistance (Rank E)


    > Wind Resistance (Rank E)


    > Cold Resistance (Rank E)


    Do you wish to form the Rank D trait: Elemental Resistance?


    Cold resistance? Zoe supposed that did make a lot of sense—she just felt it would have been a whole lot more helpful a day ago. As for merging it with the other resistance traits—is there a downside?


    It sounded a lot like a pure upgrade. Not only was the fusion a rank higher—elemental resistance implied that it would cover all of the possible elements—not just these three.


    The urgency continued to build as more messages flashed by. And while it still didn’t hurt exactly, an impulse to do something was growing strong enough to nearly block out any other thoughts.


    Another of the messages caught Zoe’s eye.


    The following trait can be transformed by the Tierless skill: Hallowed Touch to form a new trait at a higher tier:


    > Light Resistance (Rank E)


    Do you wish to form the Rank C trait: Hallow Resistance?


    Looking between the two different options, Zoe tried to think things through. If she chose to form hallow resistance, would it prevent her from still being able to form elemental resistance?


    But then again, hallow resistance was a whole two tiers higher, not just one—and Zoe was now a Demon. Hallow resistance seemed more relevant to her particular strengths and weaknesses right now. And also—assuming it just took three different elemental resistances to merge them—Zoe could probably get it again with her next evolution. But there was no guarantee that she’d be able to get light resistance specifically again.


    It was getting hard to focus on anything. Every fiber of Zoe’s body was twitching and tensing at her to do something and choose.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    Hallow resistance, I choose hallow resistance!


    You have gained the Rank C trait: Hallow Resistance!


    The urgency lessened—if only slightly. Even more notifications had bombarded Zoe in the time it took her to finalize her decision. One down, no idea how many to go. So which should she focus on next?


    The following trait can be transformed by consuming the Rank F skill: Unarmed Combat to form a new trait at a higher tier:


    > Demonite Claws (Rank F)


    Do you wish to form the Rank E trait: Natural Weapons?


    Uh…


    While that wasn’t necessarily an obvious thing to have happen, it did seem like an obvious thing to just go ahead and pick. But it said it would consume her skill—screw it. Lilith’s only advice had been to just do the obvious thing and not try to be clever.


    And at this point, Zoe was already behind on following that. Yeah sure, give me the natural weapons.


    You have gained the Rank E trait: Natural Weapons!


    The relief of tension wasn’t nearly as great this time. However, it seemed Zoe made up for it by not waiting around to come to a decision. She felt like she was starting to get the hang of this.


    The following traits can be merged to form a new trait at a higher tier:


    > Wind Resistance (Rank E)


    > Cold Resistance (Rank E)


    > Hallow Resistance (Rank C)


    Do you wish to form the Rank C trait: Greater Elemental Resistance?


    Holy shit! It looked like Zoe definitely made the right choice earlier—because ‘greater’ had to mean ‘better,’ right? It had to, given the difference in tier from just regular elemental resistance. Taking the new version was beyond obvious.


    You have gained the Rank C trait: Greater Elemental Resistance!


    Hell yeah. In all honesty, Zoe probably would have hesitated if not for the ‘greater’ thing. It would, in a sense, be reversing her earlier decision to choose hallow resistance. But this? Obviously adding that specific trait into the mix did something different. Not that Zoe understood specifically what—but this was no time to complain.


    The still-mounting pressure eased up just a little—only to crash back down with renewed weight as a new option appeared. And—of course—it was related to the resistance traits. Again.


    The following traits can be merged to form an alternative trait:


    > Greater Elemental Resistance (Rank C)


    > Mana Resistance (Rank D)


    Do you wish to form the Rank C trait: Magic Resistance?


    What next, after this I fuse something into everything-resistance? It really said something that Zoe was able to manifest sarcasm under the bizarre strain her evolution caused.


    But this one was clearly different as well. It doesn’t say higher tier… it just says ‘alternative.’


    The implication there was pretty clear. It wasn’t a direct upgrade—more like horizontal movement rather than vertical. Zoe readily understood it as exchanging her current option for a related one of roughly equal value.


    So which is better? Zoe leaned fully into Lilith’s advice this time—she went with her gut.


    You have gained the Rank C trait: Magic Resistance!


    Logically, sticking with what she already had seemed like a better idea, if only marginally. By proceeding with the merger, she didn’t just exchange greater elemental resistance—she actually lost mana resistance too. Without knowing the details of either, covering both aspects with two different traits seemed smarter than trying to combine them into something else.


    But Zoe had already done it, and she was ultimately putting a small degree of trust in Lilith by not getting too ‘clever.’ Her initial reaction was that magic resistance sounded like a more valuable path in the long-term. So that’s what she chose.


    Right, what’s next…


    The following trait can consume the Rank E skill: Surgeon’s Eye to form a modified trait:


    > Vital Antennae (Rank E)


    Do you wish to form the Rank E trait: Vital Antennae?


    Zoe stared at this one for far longer than she should have. Not because she was struggling to come to a decision—her thoughts were more along the lines of that sounds absolutely stupid.


    Combining surgeon’s eye with her horns—ahem, arcane antennae—sounded bizarre and unintuitive to begin with, and she probably wouldn’t pick whatever the result was.


    But this particular result? It was just bad. She would lose a useful skill, just to—what, turn a useful essential feature of my biology into the same thing but restricted to something more specific? Everything about it seemed like a pure downgrade.


    Yeah no, please don’t do that.


    The message disappeared as the system moved on. Zoe hadn’t expected that. She anticipated some sort of double-check or even just confirmation first. Eh, doesn’t really matter.


    Skimming through the remaining messages, Zoe realized most of them were entirely irrelevant—a large portion of which was because of notifications related to things that had already happened. It ended up leaving only a few actual decisions to make—and only one of them had any merit. The rest were more garbage like ‘vital antennae.’


    Like seriously, why would I ever want something called ‘scornful constitution?’


    That wasn’t just stupid—it sounded downright insulting, even if it was hard to imagine what it could actually mean. Alright, time to wrap this up. Zoe went back to the single remaining useful message.


    The following traits and skills can be merged and consumed to form a new trait at a higher tier:


    > Blood Magic (Rank E)


    > Regeneration (Rank E)


    > Infernal Constitution (Rank E)


    > Lesser Vampirism (Rank F)


    > Bloodlust (Rank E)


    Do you wish to form the Rank C trait: Bloodshaper?


    It was—vague. Zoe honestly couldn’t say she knew what to make of the name of the new trait. Sure, it was pretty obvious what the theme of the whole thing was, but that still left quite a few degrees of freedom for the result. This was especially true with how little she still knew about magic or even her own abilities.


    At least two—and probably three—of the abilities she’d be combining had already proven quite useful. Merging them all into an unknown result was a genuine risk. Even blood magic, which had been useless so far, was probably really important for the whole theme she had going right now.


    The urgency was starting to grow, well, unbearable. For the first time, it started to hurt. Zoe knew with instinctive certainty that she couldn’t delay the last decisions any longer. The process was going to complete itself regardless of whether she was ready or not.


    Zoe might not always be the most cautious person—but this was a bigger risk than even she was willing to take. This wasn’t a game, not for her. This was her life now, her world, and she needed to make sure she survived.


    Which meant the way she used to approach things no longer applied. Zoe had already stolen the Demon core that got her to this situation. The old way of deciding was for a past version of Zoe. And here, the only way out is forward.


    Do you wish to form the Rank C trait: Bloodshaper?


    Now or never.


    “Yes.”


    You have gained the Rank C trait: Bloodshaper!


    Full core evolution is now in progress.