Unfortunately, after the evolution Michael didn’t have enough points remaining to do anything significant. The recent consumptions had hit his accumulation hard, and looking at what was left sitting in his reserves, the options were limited.
Unless he went after the corpses still lying in the city from the recent chaos and devoured them for evolution points, he could only wait for his daily accumulation to refresh.
But Michael couldn’t help but feel a little greedy after the successful evolution of the undead demonic supernatural.
He had just evolved the demonic supernatural to High Human and already he was looking at the next step.
True Human.
Thanks to the concealment technique Jester had given him, Michael felt a degree of boldness.
Though he could not yet accurately gauge the ceiling of Rank 4 power, one thing seemed reasonable to assume. A True Human undead at Rank 4 would not be ordinary. The gap between High Human and True Human was not trivial, and applied to something already operating at that level, the result would be something genuinely difficult to account for.
Michael found himself thinking about his own case. He was a True Human himself, and within his rank he was already something that didn’t fit neatly into normal expectations. Perhaps a True Human undead at Rank 4 would carry a similar quality. Something almost invisible to others operating at the same rank.
The expectation for the future was not small.
Michael looked at his daily refresh timer and decided he should be patient.
As for the Drakeblood undead, Michael had already given its situation some thought. Dragon blood ran through its veins, but that did not classify it as a monster. Then again, dragons themselves were not classified as monsters either. They occupied their own category entirely.
Out of curiosity more than expectation, Michael checked whether he could apply an evolution to the Drakeblood with his current remaining points.
He couldn’t. Insufficient points, even with a few hundred evolution points remaining.
But that was not what caught his attention. What caught his attention was the threshold itself. Since a few hundred points couldn’t do anything, it likely meant the Drakeblood was not sitting at the same baseline as ordinary members of its race.
Michael turned the implication over in his mind.
If the demonic supernatural had been an ordinary human requiring one hundred points to evolve to High Human, and the Drakeblood’s evolution cost was already beyond what he currently had, then the most reasonable explanation was that the Drakeblood was likely already what could be called a High Drakeblood, or whatever the equivalent classification was within its race. The terminology might differ, but the structure was probably the same. Ordinary, High, True, each step a meaningful leap above the last.
Which meant its next step was probably True Drakeblood.
The thought made Michael rub his palms together like a thief.
A True Drakeblood at level 90. Michael did not have the numbers to calculate exactly what that would look like, but he had enough context to understand that it would not be something easily categorized alongside normal Rank 4 power. The Drakeblood was already the strongest undead he had. Evolving it upward from its current position was not a minor upgrade. It was potentially something that crossed into a different tier entirely.
Michael exhaled slowly, a faint smile forming without him fully intending it.
For the first time since entering Rank 3, he found himself genuinely entertaining a thought he had not allowed himself before. Perhaps he might actually reach the point where the power under his mand spanned two full ranks above his own.
The expectation for the future was not small at all.
With nothing left to do in the coffin space, Michael knew it was time to leave for the Land of Origin.
Either Beginning or Lily needed to advance in rank, and that process required his full attention and presence. He had delayed it long enough. It was time to move.
Before leaving though, he made sure to check on Jester.
Jester had reinserted itself back into Michael’s clone body. From the outside, the body looked exactly as it always had. Michael’s face. Michael’s build in a younger form. The same appearance that had been causing chaos on streaming platforms for months.
But inside was a Rank 3 mind operating behind that face.
Michael looked at the clone for a moment. "Feels like I’m making some kind of chimera."
Whether he thought of his Genesis skill and the plans he had for it, Michael couldn’t help but think this way. It was the same feeling that surfaced whenever he saw Jester inhabiting his body. The more he thought about it, the stranger it became.
"...Does it feel any different?"
Jester’s green eyes shifted toward him.
"No," Jester said. "My original body is stronger now, but that does not affect my control over this one. If anything, I can do more with it than before."
Michael looked at him. "More how?"
"The precision is better. The ceiling of what I can push through this body has risen." Jester paused briefly, as if running through something internally. "My previous calculations also need to be revised."
"I had estimated a certain timeline for advancing this body to the next rank. At the current rate, I may only need a month."
Michael stared at him for a moment.
"...Try not to push past your limit. Act with caution."
Jester’s green eyes held his gaze with an expression that municated absolutely nothing reassuring.
"Yes, Master."
After returning Jester to Aurora, Michael placed his full attention on his other body in the Land of Origin.
Michael actually didn’t need to switch his focus anywhere since after his advancement to Rank 2 he could simultaneously control both bodies.
The only reason the other body was currently unable to do anything was because the Damaged Coffin of the Forgotten was being used by Michael’s origin body, and though it was bound to his soul, only one body could use it at a time.
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