Liam was shocked when he saw the floating screen appear in front of him with the strange write-up. A voice echoed in his head:
[Host current mission: Grow. Evolve.]
That was all it said. Liam was confused, but before he could ask anything, the screen vanished.
So he was truly transmigrated… and he had become a flame.
He didn't know what to think, but one thing was certain, he was now a tiny flame creature. He slowly scanned his surroundings. He could see everything within over ten meters, but he couldn't actually move or do anything else.
Then he remembered the books he used to read back when he was alive, light novels. His best friend, the same person who betrayed him, had introduced him to them. Many of them were about people being sent to another world, reincarnating as something strange, and gaining a system that helped them grow.
Could this really be what happened to me? Liam wondered.
If so, he decided to try the most common thing those protagonists did.
"System," he called out. Even though he had no mouth, he somehow felt like he spoke.
And just like that, the system screen appeared again.
Liam was stunned… then excited. He thought for a moment before trying the next line almost every story used.
"Show me my stats."
The screen changed.
What he saw left him completely, utterly shocked, and not in a good way.
[Name: — ]
[Age: —]
[Race: Lesser Flame]
[HP: 1/1 ]
[Mana: 1/1]
[Physical Stats: None ]
[Skills: Consume ]
[Skill Description: Burn through flammable materials to gather Heat Points to evolve.]
'…you've got to be kidding me,' Liam thought. His stats were shit, he had no physical attributes, absolutely nothing, and from the looks of it, he was generally weak as hell at this point. He might not know much, but he knew that one HP was extremely low.
But it made a lot of sense because he was a small flame the size of a candle, and if a single drop of water came on him, he would be quenched.
'Sigh, doesn't matter now, this is where I have found myself. I have to survive before trying to understand my situation,' Liam concluded and then looked at the wood beneath him.
"I guess it's time I burn a little bit," he said, and with that thought alone, he activated his skill.
[Consume has been activated]
Immediately, he felt the wood beneath him begin to crackle more than it was before. Before, the wood had been slow burning to keep him alive, but now it was actually burning down.
[+1 heat]
[+1 heat]
The messages began rolling in as he burned, gathering even more heat. He slowly started growing in size at a visible pace. And the moment he gathered ten heat, a new notification came up.
[Level up, +1 to all stats]
When Liam saw this notification, he was immediately elated. "Hell yeah," he said to himself. He had barely removed himself from that near-death state, and the feeling was immaculate. He genuinely felt filled with joy over one measly level up.
To keep the joy going, he began consuming more, pushing himself to burn even faster, and with the bigger size that he had now, he burned a whole lot faster, almost double the speed, and that wasn't all, as he also started getting double the heat from consuming the wood.
[+2 heat]
[+2 heat]
'Heheh, this is actually fun, I could keep burning for hours. Let's see if I can burn all the way to level ten,' he said with eagerness and started burning even more. The heat began gathering in his body, rising extremely fast, and before he knew it, he had become a large flame, spanning a foot and a half wide and tall.
[Level up, +1 to all stats]
After more than four hours of burning, he only made it to level five. Thankfully, he was a flame and he couldn't get tired like humans, though he was mentally exhausted from the whole process. But he could still go on for hours if he wanted.
But much like anyone would expect, he was already tired of this stationary-on-the-wood existence. He wanted to be capable of movement or something.
'If I want to reach those heights, I should try my best to evolve. The system did say I could evolve. Do I have to reach a certain level of heat or levels for me to evolve?
Tsk, I'll just give it my all and see what happens then. After all, I don't have anything else to do.' Liam decided to lock in and keep consuming. And so the hours slowly passed by, the heat points came at the same pace, but the levels became larger and harder to cross.
He spent more than twenty hours before he finally made it to the tenth level.
[Level up, +1 to all stats]
The system voice rang in his mind.
[Criteria met, Lesser Flame can now evolve]
[Available Evolution paths: Flame Wisp]
[Do you wish to evolve?]
Another set of messages followed after that, and it was the very ones Liam wanted.
"Yes, finally, arghhhhh, that was grueling, but finally," Liam spoke in excitement.
"Yes please, I wish to evolve," Liam said eagerly, and then suddenly everywhere went blank. He couldn't see anything anymore or sense anything, like something was covering it entirely.
[Evolution begun, Estimated time: 12 hours]
"Twelve hours? What the hell am I meant to do in that time?" Liam yelled.
[Does host wish to enter induced sleep state]
"Huh? There's something like that? I guess that's good, do it," Liam said, and immediately it felt like he was losing consciousness entirely, and before he knew it, he was off.
[.....]
[Evolution completed]
[Ending induced sleep state]
Liam heard the voice of the system again, his consciousness slowly returned, he could see his surroundings once again.
[Congratulations on your first evolution]
[Host current form: Flame Wisp]
[Check inventory for rewards]
The system bombarded him with a string of messages the moment he was up.