With his desired class decided, Henry confirmed his choice and waited.

  Class Stalking Threat (E) was selected.

  Bite is empowered. Maw of the Trickster’s growth rate increased.

  Mimicking Arms is empowered. Alter Physique’s growth rate increased.

  Razor Arm, Telekinesis, Arm Whip are empowered.

  Synergy detected! Recuperative Meditation will be merged with Accelerated Regeneration.

  Upgrade in 3…2…1…

  Sand rippled around him, and the water grew turbulent. Motes of light began materializing, many more than any other instance so far, and Henry braced as he bewilderedly looked around.

  Wait wha–

  ***

  Henry opened his eyes.

  –t’s happening?

  He looked around and slowly picked himself back up. He’d been lying on the sand. And the interior of the shell seemed a bit tighter, which made him glance down at his limbs, quickly noticing they’ve grown longer and thicker once more.

  I got bigger? At least I can control it if I need to.

  The algae outside was a bit disturbed, but other than that it seemed like nothing had happened. As if there hadn’t been a mini-magic storm building up when he passed out.

  Henry stared at the notifications and nodded to himself.

  Never do this outside. Got it.

  He saw a few notifications waiting for him, so he brought them up.

  Class rank-up completed.

  Species rank-up completed.

  Trickster Octopus (F) evolved into Mature Trickster Octopus (E). All base stats increased by 2.

  Accelerated Regeneration and Recuperative Meditation successfully merged into Accelerated Recovery.

  Henry’s inexistent brows shot up.

  Over five stats, that comes to a total of 10 free stat points. That’s… 50 levels’ worth of stats. Damn.

  Next, he pulled up his newly merged trait.

  Accelerated Recovery (F): Recovers from injuries and ailments faster. While meditating, health and mana recovery are sped up even further.

  It’s still F-rank though… but I did get a way to upgrade it, didn’t I?

  Henry pulled up his new menu and looked at his available options. Both Accelerated Recovery and Magic Mimic were listed as possible upgrades. He tried clicking on the latter

  Upgrade Magic Mimic (F) for 1 Evolutionary Point?

  I’ve got… six of those. But the System said I better save them.

  Henry paused. These points seemed important, but an upgraded Magic Mimic might allow to start copying traits. As for Accelerated Recovery, it was a survival ability. It would allow him to accelerate his healing and potentially build life-saving Hoard Vitals charges faster. Was that worth delaying?

  No, not really.

  Magic Mimic would certainly save his life by giving him access to great traits, same for Accelerated Recovery and as for the points, he just should always challenge himself. That should earn him a few extra on the next evolution.

  Henry wasn’t shying away from the challenges, but it meant that he’d have to be very deliberate about which traits to upgrade and which ones to not touch.

  Unless there’s other ways of upgrading traits. Or other ways of getting these Evolutionary Points.

  Problems for later. Henry accepted the first upgrade and waited.

  His body began buzzing and tingling, similar to when his Species skill had upgraded. Moments later, it was over.

  Henry pulled up Magic Mimic again to examine the differences.

  Magic Mimic (E): By sampling the tissues of a magic-empowered being, a skill or a trait can be temporarily copied. Only one of each can be remembered at a time.

  And that’s how I get traits.

  Henry took the time to upgrade Accelerated Recovery as well, then pulled up his whole status to see how much it had changed. He squinted his eyes as he studied his details hovering in his mind’s eye and grinned at his improved stat breakdown.

  Yes… give me all the stats.

  Name: Henry Dubois

  Species: Mature Trickster Octopus - Reincarnated Intelligence (E)

  Class: Stalking Threat - Level 1

  Consumption Tokens: 79 F-Tokens

  Evolutionary Points: 4

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  Strength: 12

  Constitution: 17

  Spirit: 12

  Perception: 12

  Dexterity: 9

  Unassigned: 2

  Species skills

  Bite (E)

  Maw of the Trickster (E)

  Mimicking Arms (E)

  Alter Physique (E)

  Inkjet (F)

  Species traits:

  Magic Mimic (E)

  Accelerated Recovery (E)

  Ephemerals (0/2)

  Class - Undecided Marine Biologist

  Class skills (5/10):

  Identify

  Hoard Vitals (E)[13 charges]

  Razor Arm (E)

  Telekinesis (E)

  Arm Whip (F)

  Class traits (2/11):

  Universal Tongue

  Nothing is Lost - Stalking Threat

  Lots of changes. Class Skill and Trait slots went up by a bunch. Nothing is Lost’s title and description has changed too…

  Henry pulled up the details and read through them.

  Nothing is Lost - Stalking Threat: On death, a being’s power is condensed into a core. The core is automatically collected from any being that succumbs to your deathblow. Such cores can be claimed, consumed, or exchanged for Consumption Tokens at any time.

  Interestingg… I guess that’s why when other predators kill their prey, they don’t go around looking for a core.

  Henry examined the rest of the small changes. One part in particular that was interesting was how Recuperative Meditation and Accelerated Regeneration had merged into a new ability that wasn’t taking a class slot.

  So if a skill or trait are close enough to a species' ability, they can be merged? That’s… very good to know.

  Eying the rest, he noticed that neither Razor Arm or Arm Whip had merged with Mimicking Arms, but that might be due to their conflicting natures. Mimicking Arms was for stealth and camouflage, to change his appearance, while the other two skills were very offence-oriented.

  Or maybe it’ll happen with the next evolution. The System had mentioned that all this was in preparation for the next step.

  Henry sat down on his arms and took a moment to appreciate his progress over the last month. Or more like, two or three weeks?

  The days are kinda melding together. But this is good progress. And I still have some perks to go through. But before that… can I upgrade a trait beyond E-Rank?

  He tried navigating back to the menu, but he saw nothing listed there so he shrugged.

  I guess I need to use for a bit before an ability can be upgraded. We’ll see in a few levels. For now… it’s time to have a bite.

  Henry moved his arm to his beak, and layered piece of gray and red popped on his curled arm. Deepcaller’s gift. He examined it for a moment, and his brain showed him a close up of where the piece had been taken from, then it overlapped a picture of a fingernail on top of it.

  Ugh. Dammit brain. Don’t overthink it. It’s barely a bit of skin.

  Henry paused and would have thrown up a bit in his mouth if he could.

  That made it worse, he thought, shaking his soft head, then, bracing, he tried to bite off half of the piece. Henry gnashed his beak and twisted, then stopped. It felt like trying to chew through a tractor tire, so he decided to shove the whole portion into his mouth and swallowed it whole, hoping the magic would come through. A few moments later it did.

  Magic Mimic: Telepathic Message (F) was copied temporarily.

  Magic Mimic: Telepathic Sense (F) was copied temporarily.

  Mimicking Arms: Resilience of the Bahamut Whale charge acquired.

  Ephemerals (2/2):

  Telepathic Message (F): Send a telepathic message to a target you can see.

  Telepathic Sense (F): Vaguely sense nearby mental signatures.

  Oh man… this was worth the wait. Was that how the whales found me the first time? Theirs must have been at a higher rank. And I get their resilience? I wonder how long that’ll last. Or how effective it will be.

  Henry was immediately on his way to purchase both skills and add them to his arsenal when he saw the prices. Gone were the reasonable and accessible prices of 10 F-tokens per skill. Now they became 10 E-tokens. And the trait was priced the same.

  Dammit, System.

  He popped his second Whipcrack shark core and converted it to tokens.

  With the Riptide tokens… and this one…. I have 5.3 E-Tokens. Still not enough for either telepathic abilities.

  Henry hummed. He guessed it was time to take the new class for a test-run.

  Yeah. One last big fight in the reef and get whatever I didn’t manage to copy. Then maybe I’ll start moving.

  Henry swam back out and began making his way toward his new hunting grounds.

  So the System can manipulate what is shown in Identify? That was an interesting ability to have. I wonder if—

  Henry stopped and looked down at his arms.

  Wait. What do people see when they Identify me? Does it say octopus? Damn… I should have asked Deepcaller. Am I being shown as my class or my species?

  Henry rubbed the back of his head. It felt weird doing that with arms, so he dropped his appendages around him. How did I not think of this?

  Henry continued swimming. He was going to have to figure that problem out before he could approach anyone. Unless… he thought, glancing upward. “System?” He waited for a moment then shook his head.

  Dang it. I should have asked. But then again, I might have not gotten an answer from him. Maybe I can ask him on the next class upgrade… Unless I meet some new sapient species before that. If they’re friendly.

  Henry arrived and looked up. Above, a few Whipcrack sharks were roaming. One of them veered down and snapped its tail into a shoal of bluefish, stunning–and vaporizing–a few of the small fish before it swallowed them.

  If I could attract a few down, I could train up Inkjet. The earlier fight worked pretty well. Hmmm… what if…

  Henry swam upward for a couple of seconds. His eyes landed on the closest shark, and he used Telepathic Message. “[Hey! I’m food! Come get me!]”

  The closest shark–around 30 feet away–twitched and grew agitated.

  Henry spread out his arms and made himself look bigger. “[Over here!]”

  The shark’s eyes finally faced the right direction, and it began swimming down. Two more sharks followed.

  Henry grinned nervously.

  Alright. Let’s do this. Let’s see what these upgrades and class empowerements can do.

  Coati, VerityGray, and Graf Maga for posting the first reviews.

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