Beatrice had never had an evolution. Then again she hadn't exactly had a good grasp on what her class was for the longest time.
Yet despite having no baseline she was extremely surprised by her evolution.
Your Class has evolved
Warlock → Holy Contracted (D)
Your HP and Mana capacities have grown.
HP: 55 → 80.
MP: 102 → 250.
You have obtained a new skill.
Touch of Blessing (D)
15 Mana
You gain the ability to change the current contract holder to an ally you touch for 20 seconds, allowing them to use the power of one of your contracts.
Heavenly Devotion (D)
Passive
Pacts you have made with Angelic beings are reinforced and have their power increased. You gain the innate ability to sense the spiritual alignments, or what spiritual beings pursue someone.
Your Contract: Pact of Primrose has grown
Your Contract: Pact of luck on a bad day has grown
Your Contract: Pact of shared umbrella has grown
From it a few things happened, though the most noticeable were Sera, Mal, and Mari.
Before they had been small, no larger than an acorn with small little heads and features, they had even looked like small little light balls to anyone else who would see them.
Now they were each as tall as her elbow, with more distinct features that even others could see.
Sera's dress was longer and had an accentuating sash of vines and flowers. Mal's suit was more detailed, but also seemed constantly damp like he had been splashed by a puddle. Even Mari's umbrella had become larger and her clothes more refined and elegant.
Others still couldn't understand what they said, but if Jax having a strange reaction to Mari's manic writing in her notebook about "Juicy material" was anything to show for it, they could see much more than before.
Though they wern't the only ones.
Everyone seemed to be changing.
Thalia seemed to have obtained a skill that let her turn her body into strings, and was practicing the limits and abilities of it.
Liora had gone rocketing off to "scout" and was bound to return in the next couple of minutes.
Aiden was in a rage because a new skill he got let him analyze a herb to potentially learn a new recipe from it, but he had to stare at the herb for an hour for it to work.
Jax had learned a skill that made several trees fall on him when he used it, and otherwise had been distracting Aiden making him have to start over again several times. Really the only one yet to see a significant change was Selene, though that was because she was yet to pick a class, having spent practically the entire day boring a hole in her system with her gaze.
"Dang girl, you're not even a little jealous that the glasses boy is getting all your man's attention?" Mari said with a smug smile.
"Dang it Mari, you're going to get her started again." Mal barked annoyedly, but Beatrice ignored him and snapped her head up to Mari.
"I keep telling you, I am JUST helping him with his obsession problem, nothing else. Why is that so hard for you to understand!?"
Mari chuckled and mentioned a term that Beatrice had never heard before "Tsundere".
She didn't know what it meant but felt annoyed that she had brought the same topic up again.
In a small act of defiance she walked over to where Thalia was, she had thrown her forearm and was now focusing on winding it slowly back to her elbow where it laid on the ground, the fingers occasionally moving.
Beatrice would like to say she had come over out of curiosity, but in actuality she wanted to test her skill Heavenly Devotion(D).
The skill said she would feel connections, but that feeling wasn't very thorough. Really only three members of the party had a strong feeling.
Selene gave off a feeling like an eerie dampness, like whatever Beatrice was feeling had something to do with mist or smoke.
Liora gave off a feeling like static and storms which seemed to point towards something stormy.
Yet Aiden believed it or not gave off a bunch of different feelings.
From him there was a feeling of strong repulsion, like a demon had its eye on him, yet that was only just the start. From his bad a strange stone gave off a burning sensation, not unlike how Liora felt wind around her. Though by far the repulsion was the strongest feeling.
Beatrice didn't know exactly what this meant, but from what she had gathered about skills, touch greatly helped with some skills.
As she passed she let her tail brush against Thalia's heel.
Thaia didn't have anything strong, so she was being used as a testing point of sorts.
From that small contact she could tell, spiritual beings didn't seem drawn to Thalia. It wasn't unexpected.
Heck it was pretty common from what Beatrice could feel from the animals around their small camp and from the small group of adventurers they had passed a mile or so back.
It was in this that she became even more curious about her three party members.
Thalia spared a small glance but continued working as Beatrice made her way to the ATV where Selene sat in the passenger seat boring a hole through her system screen with her eyes.
She made a motion as if to prop herself up by leaning her paws against Selene's leg to look up at her better.
"Hows it going on picking the class you wa-"
Beatrice paused mid sentence as the feeling of dampness expanded around Selene and caught her by surprise.
She took a moment to look around the ATV, momentarily stunned by the feeling of being surrounded by mist as a noise that was so quiet it could have been a trick of her mind echoed from the mist.
It was like hundreds of snake flicking their tongues, a dull but prominent hiss on the edge of her senses.
"Uh Bea, you ok?"
Hearing Selene snapped her back to her senses as Beatrice met Selene's eyes.
"Yea, sorry, my evo gave me this weird sense that I'm still getting used to, how are you doing on picking a class."
"Well, i-in many ways it feels like I should take Monster from the Mist, but I'm also curious about Titanhide."
As Selene spoke, the quiet hissing seemed to rise a bit as if in small triumph when she said Monster from the Mist, and recoil, as if feeling rejected when she said Titanhide.
Beatrice wasn't sure what that meant, but it also didn't seem to be something she should mention if she wanted Selene to pick any time in the next month considering her indecisiveness.
Beatrice nodded, hiding the reactions from the weird hissing noise and walked under the ATV towards the rest of the group.
"Hey Sera, do you have any Idea what that hissing was?"
Sera floated by, partially in the ground due to the somewhat crampedness of the ATV.
"Kind of, it didn't feel angelic or demonic, so maybe there's a divine curious about her?"
"A divine, which one?"
"No idea?"
"You don't know?"
"Nope, believe it or not angels don't work for gods, same with demons. They are separate factions."
"Really? Then what exactly do angels do then?"
As if taking the que, Mal jumped in before Sera could answer.
"Can't say much, but working with Warlocks and stuff is basically job scouting and paid time off mixed together for us."
Beatrice made her way out from under the ATV trying to wrap her head around what Mal had said when she walked over to where Aiden and Jax were.
Walking over Beatrice reached a paw up and tapped Aiden on the shoulder. Both being her making contact, and trying to get his attention to ask about the hissing.
The feeling of rejection exploded as Beatrice felt a wave of sulfur and brimstone sting her nose. Feelings flooded her body as if fighting for who got to rise up first. They were so twisted and tied together she couldn't explain, or even identify them.
It was only when her eyes stung she realized she had fallen on her back and both Aiden and Jax were around her asking if she was ok.
"By the heavens, with that much demonic interest you would think he's a Hollowcreek."
Beatrice turned to Mal where both Sera and Mari nodded earnestly.
She began to open her mouth and ask what being a Hollowcreek had to do with being sought by demons when yelling caught everyone's attention, both Liora's voice and someone else's.
"For the ninth time, LET GO OF MY FOOT!"
"Oh Liora my darling princess, for why does thou reject me."
"WE ARE GOING TO CRA-"
Liora was cut off by the sound of a heavy landing as she went sprawling and someone else went flying in a different direction.
Everyone quickly put a pause to what they were doing as they jogged over to the botched landing site.
"DAMN IT Whinry, you made me crash!"
Everyone turned to see the other figure being a human woman with pink hair with black endings wearing a simple and well worn brown apron and bonnet over her hair.
"Oh my, shouting early on in a relationship is so hurtful."
"Wasn't she just-." Jax began to ask before Liora jumped to her feet.
"I wouldn't be shouting if you didn't make us go flying face first into the ground at broken bones speeds. Do you know how much mana I just spent to cushion us!"
"SO you admit we are in fact in a relationship!"
As she stood and brushed herself off Beatrice found herself latching onto a strange detail.
Gone was the apron, and she was now wearing a set of very short denim shorts, and a crop top shirt. This was surprising because she had somehow switched entire outfits in the span of a second before everyone turned back to her.
"Seems you picked up a straggler." Thalia said before Liora could retort the new girls comment.
"Yes, it's a long story." Liora said before the girl cut her off.
"Yes, a long story. Filled with equip quests, adventure, and plenty of romance." The girl said somehow switching costumes to a suit of armor when she said quests, travelers clothes and a large backpack when she said adventure, and a beautiful ball dress when she said romance.
Beatrice might have been slightly more attentive to this if she hadn't been distracted Mari who seemed to have plugged both nostrils.
"Fuck, I love this assignment." She said in a deep voice, practically panting as her arm moved in a blur to write down details.
Beatrice, Mal, and Sera made a silent agreement and slowly began to inch away as Liora began to give her report from scouting.