System Change

Out of the corner of his eye, Derek saw Edgar’s eyelid twitch as he pulled out one of his chairs and sat on it. The prince was also one who enjoyed a nice, cushioned seat, but it looked like he was too proud to ask-

“Hey! Give me one of those!” Edgar finally broke.

Derek laughed, but in the end, he opened his Time Prison and allowed everyone to go inside and bring out one of the chairs they used for furniture. Still, those chairs weren’t as comfy as the one Derek had stored in his storage bracelet, though they were still of a much higher quality than what most were used to.

As they waited, Derek thought back to when he had first made his contract with Silvi. Once he bonded with his companion, it had taken a few hours for the bunny to evolve. He didn’t know what to expect with the wyvern and amphithere, however. Silvi may have taken so long because she was evolving from a common beast to a legendary one.

On the other hand, her evolution may have been quick because of how low level they had both been at the time. He was unsure. But, six hours later, he found his answer as Avery’s companion began to break out of its evolution sphere.

The sphere surrounding the amphithere began to crack and light shone through. As the sphere splintered like an eggshell, Avery jumped up in excitement and ran forward, not able to contain himself. Everyone else also stood at that point. Derek moved forward, too, but stay a respectable distance away from Avery and his companion.

He was excited to see what kind of evolution the beast would go through. To be honest, Derek didn’t know much about the beast, and he hadn’t asked, as it wasn’t his place to do so. But from what he did see of the beast before he left Avery alone with it, it hadn’t seemed all that impressive. In fact, it was the runt of the litter.

It was much smaller than every other beast he had seen flying and roaming around in the sky and on the ground. So, he waited for the big reveal.

Finally, the beast broke out of its shell and the grayish sphere disintegrated just like Silvi’s own void sphere had before. What Derek saw in front of him left him surprised to say the least.

Before him wasn’t the same small, winged serpent he had seen before, but a giant winged serpent, almost the same size as the wyverns they had faced. Honestly, he was stumped, and had no clue what was going on.

Avery seemed surprised for a short time as well, but broke out of it as he ran forward and ran his hand along the side of the slithering beast that had just landed on the ground.

Before, the beast was white with a pink shade around its extremities and on the crown of her head. Now, the bright white of the scales and feathers had faded into a dull white, not quite gray, but not white. Actually, if Derek had to say what color it was, platinum came to mind. On top of the white darkening, the pink shading had also changed into a sort of muted lavender coloring.

The amphithere wasn’t as… cute and pretty as it was before, but what it lost in its cuteness, it gained in physicality and intimidation. Derek stood back and let the man and his new bonded companion have a moment, while he thought about all the questions he wanted to ask.

Edgar came over to him then. “I didn’t expect he could find such a beast that wasn’t at legendary rank,” he mused. “I saw a bunch of winged serpents like that earlier when the fighting first began, but I never seen one anywhere that size.”

“It wasn’t that size,” Derek answered as he stared at the beast and Avery. “It was so much smaller than that before it evolved.”

“Really?” Edgar asked, surprised.

“Yeah, like… a lot smaller. Smaller than any of the other winged serpents you saw before.” Derek then went on to explain to Edgar what he saw of the beast when they were fighting and how surprised he was when Avery chose it to be his companion.

“That’s crazy. I don’t know if it was luck, or if Avery knew what he was doing,” Edgar replied. “He has certainly gained a lot from this trial.”

Derek could only nod and think about the meals he had in his storage bracelet that Silvi had cooked for him before he left for the dungeon. She was still the best companion. That was no doubt. Yup… she’s the best. These dragons have nothing on her. Derek really believed that, too. He wasn’t trying to convince himself. He had not once regretted bonding to the murder bunny.

Soon, Avery turned back to the group and walked toward them with a smile reaching his eyes. He was ecstatic.

“How did that happen?” Derek asked. Like he thought before, it wasn’t his place to know, but he couldn’t help himself anymore.

“It surprised me, too,” Avery said. “So… you know how if you bond with, say… a common creature, but your class is epic. That creature becomes an epic ranked existence?”

Derek nodded. That was exactly what he experienced when he bonded with Silvi. She had gone from the run-of-the-mill common Horned Rabbit to a Void Rabbit with the class of Legendary Void Companion that gained three quarters of the stats as Derek.

“Well, it looks like when I bonded with Lyra, she evolved from a high epic ranked Immature Amphithere to the legendary Mature Amphithere that you see here. Unfortunately, I didn’t receive 75 percent of her stats like she would have mine, but it did come with another… amazing perk,” Avery hinted vaguely.

Everyone waited for him to speak, but he didn’t. Finally, someone couldn’t take it anymore.

“Well! What is the amazing perk?” Edgar blurted.

“Hehehe…” Edgar chuckled. “I got a new Achievement for bonding to a beast of a higher rarity than myself.”

“But didn’t you say she was an epic rarity when you bonded?” Derek asked.

“She was,” Avery nodded. “But for some reason, maybe because she was level 249 before and basically hit level 250 when we bonded, or maybe because of her stats, or even my close to legendary stats, she matured into a legendary beast. Though, I’m not entirely sure about that, as I’ve heard stories of Drakes and other epic companions, but never heard about them maturing to legendary status.”

Derek rubbed his chin in thought. If what Avery was saying was true, he was getting some ideas.

“What was the Achievement’s name?” Edgar asked.

“Taming Up,” Avery replied.

I guess that’s like the ‘punching up’ or ‘punching down’ idioms from back on Earth, Derek thought. It kind of surprised him at some of the similar sayings and things, especially Achievement titles, the system and even the world used. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem like meme culture had made it to this world yet. Thank God!

“And what did it do?”

Avery grinned once again. “You won’t believe it.” He teased.

“Just tell us already!” Edgar near yelled.

“It raised the rarity of my class from epic to legendary. Unfortunately, as I am already at level 250, I won’t gain stats for leveling, but it allowed Lyra to gain 75 percent of my stats, and it came with a nifty 250 free stat bonus,” he explained.

“Are you serious?” Edgar was shocked. “That’s like half of the stat points you would have gotten if you had unlocked a legendary class at level 200. Giving your bonded companion your stat boosts, which is why she is much bigger than before, I suspect, is already such a great reward for an Achievement, 250 extra stat points on top of that are just insane.”

“Well, it is a non-upgradable Achievement, and those are usually pretty rare,” Avery said.

“I guess. It’s still amazing. Congratulations!”

Derek was slightly stunned to see that Edgar was actually genuinely happy for Avery. It seemed like the prince did have his own pride, and was quite a bit of a showoff, but was still able to humble himself and give praise and compliments when needed, especially to his friends and those he respected. And Avery was definitely someone he respected.

Avery moved forward a bit more and got closer to Derek and Edgar. In a light whisper that everyone could still hear, he said, “That’s not all, either. I got another Achievement, too. It’s another one off.”

“Really? What is it?” Edgar asked.

“That… you will have to find out yourself. I suspect you will be getting the same Achievement when your wyvern breaks out of its cocoon.” Avery laughed, then ran back to Lyra and jumped. In just a moment, he was standing on the back of the amphithere, and Lyra let out a roar before flapping her massive wings and shooting off into the distant sky.

“Holy shit!” Edgar cried. “That’s fast!”

“Indeed.” Derek agreed.

Derek sighed and went back to his chair and sat down, as did Edgar and the other two. Tara and Jasper hadn’t said anything while they were discussing the Achievements, but they had obviously been listening attentively.

After around ten minutes of silence, Tara broke it. “Do you think… I would be able to contract with an Amphithere?”

Everyone turned their heads and looked at the elven mage. She had stars in her eyes, she had clearly been taken aback by Lyra.

“What is your class’ rarity?” Derek asked.

Tara lowered her head. “It’s epic.”

“If you were able to fight the beast alone, you would have the same chances to tame one as Avery did,” Edgar answered. “But as a support class, I suspect that would be hard. Very hard. Do you have many debuffs and crowd control skills?”

Tara shook her head slightly. “I mostly focus on buffs. I only have a few debuffs and crowd controlling skills, and they are from earlier classes and not very powerful.” She sighed.

“One of the curses of support and healing type classes,” Jasper said. He was also a little down about not being able to contract with a creature of his own.

“Jasper,” Derek said. A modicum of an idea forming. “Do you have a lot of different healing skills and spells?”

“Of course,” the healer responded.

“You know, and this is on the off chance that this trial isn’t going to end when our resting time is over, if there are more lesser dragonkin coming it, there is a good chance that one of them is undead, or death attuned. They may be susceptible to healing magic, you know?” Derek smiled as Jasper’s eyes widened.

“I didn’t think of that!” the healer nearly jumped out of his seat.

Unfortunately, while it may actually be possible for the healer to find himself a companion, Tara was sulking even more. Derek felt sorry for the mage. Maybe I should tell her about the wonders of horned rabbits.

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