The Rebirth of Evelyn Knox

Evelyn was a little disappointed that the system really couldn't glean any further information on the 'Chaos Essence Bead', and it wasn't just being hidden from her, unlike the details of people's affection levels.

"But it doesn't look like there's much risk. Lightning essence is unlikely to be harmful, and all the energy inside is already supposed to be purified. Um, should be fine."

When she had first gotten her hands on this thing, Evelyn had never thought that she would be able to make use of it so soon. After all, level thirty had seemed so far away at that time. Even Cecilia, who was two years ahead of her, had the same physique, and was considered the 'brightest genius of the Lavinian Empire' was only level thirty-one.

If the news got out that she was already close to surpassing Cecilia at such a young age, she could imagine just how much havoc it will cause in the academy. Perhaps even Craig's reputation would be shaken. And this wasn't even taking into account that her raw stats were far above what she was supposed to have at her level.

Of course, Evelyn never considered her 'peers' as her targets. After all, the foes she was going to face wouldn't be courteous enough to send children her age to take care of her, right?

She didn't hesitate anymore, and directly swallowed the Chaos Essence Bead.

Almost immediately, she could feel an explosive force barreling through the vessels that carried her spirit power, almost threatening to tear it apart. Thankfully, these vessels got sturdier with every level up to accommodate for the increased spirit power, and as she was at level 46, it was well past what she needed to survive the havoc caused by the 'Chaos Essence Bead'.

Evelyn breathed a sigh of relief as the explosive force slowly lost its momentum. If she had really only been level thirty, perhaps this would have been an extremely painful ordeal, and she might have barely survived. It was lucky that she had shot so far past that level now.

After the initial 'flooding', Evelyn could clearly feel the energy in the chaos essence bead slowly merging with her own. Even compared to her spirit power, this form of energy felt 'purer' somehow.

"Could it be because it was purified by the Qilin bloodline, or something else?"

Evelyn didn't know what it was, but she still carefully observed the strange form of energy as it slowly merged with her own.

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-Chaos Essence is being absorbed!

—Spirit Power +10

-Chaos Essence is being absorbed!

—Spirit Power +10

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Such notifications continued to ring out fifteen times in total, and Evelyn ended up gaining a considerable amount of spirit power in the end, pushing her from less than four hundred to past five hundred points!

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—Spirit Power: 370 → 520

-Final dimensions of the inventory space changed:

From

60.8 meters long x 60.8 meters wide x 60.8 meters high

To

72.1 meters long x 72.1 meters wide x 72.1 meters high

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Over five hundred points of spirit power was already a sign of someone having breached past level seventy!

Even for Evelyn, she would have only reached this point normally after breaking past the level sixty milestone.

And that wasn't all. Using her increased privileges to observe the 'logs' of the system, she also realized that a notification mentioning 'Preliminary Understanding of Chaos Essence: 3%' was hidden from her view.

"Interesting… This thing seems to be the more potent version of spirit power, um, but I could be wrong."

Evelyn thought about it for a while before nodding. "Doesn't matter. It could have only come from either the 'Thousand Eyed God' itself, or Bree's purification process. If it's the former, getting my hands on more could be tough, but if it's the latter, I might be able to test my theory out soon enough!"

Regardless of what it was, she would know the results once she found a 'contaminated' type of beast, which shouldn't be too difficult in the 'Wonderland of Doom'.

Evelyn thought that this would be all she would get from the 'Chaos Essence Bead', however, the moment that the bead finished dissolving a strange sensation flowed through her body, as if something 'new' had been created deep inside herself.

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[ Ability Acquired: Chaos Incarnate ]

-Grade: Unknown

-Source: Calamity

—Convert Spirit Power to Soul Power with a ratio of 10 : 1 

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It seemed simple enough on the surface, but the effects were shocking.

"Doesn't this mean I now have a way to refuel my soul power?!"

Evelyn already 'knew' there was supposedly no way to restore soul power except for self-recovery. At least, this had been true even to the best of the headmistress's knowledge, and she was already a 'top level' character of her time, not counting the 'thrones'.

However, refueling 'spirit power' was far easier.

The first method was, of course, natural recovery. Whenever it was not being used, spirit power slowly recovered depending on the person's total capacity, and most people took around eight to twelve hours to go from almost nothing to full.

That is, in most cases, a good night's sleep was enough to refuel spirit power.

However, if someone really needed it, they could also use 'external sources' to refuel their spirit power.

The most common 'external source' were, of course, spirit stones. This was why they were so 'valuable'. Higher tier stones, such as spirit cores, contained vaster amounts of spirit power, yet took the same amount of time to absorb as any other spirit stone.

There were a few restrictions to using external sources to restore spirit power, though, but those mostly applied to lower level people being unable to use higher level stones.

A top level powerhouse wouldn't cycle through spirit fragments for hours just to restore some of their spirit power, would they?

But even these 'top level' powerhouses would spit out blood if they found out someone could just as easily restore 'soul power' now.

This was definitely not a skill that 'humans' were supposed to have! Perhaps even among beasts, such an ability would be considered unique and monstrous.

Quite fitting for the 'Thousand Eyed God', perhaps.

And for such a thing to fall into her hands now…

"I-It says the source is 'calamity', which means…"

Evelyn slowly thought back each step of the way, and came up with a theory. And the more she thought about it, the more she realized it made sense.

"I can't believe it… to think that when Bree messed up, she actually ended up 'linking' our souls together! And now that she's bound to me, and her own innate abilities of purification and absorption are combined with my 'Calamity'!"

This was… a new way to make use of the calamity skill!

Perhaps only when a pure-blooded Qilin learned the primordial ability 'Calamity' would they be able to do what Evelyn had accidentally already accomplished. Though the 'price' had been equally disastrous in the form of almost crippling and killing Bree, the rewards were equally sky high.

The only thing she didn't know was if the ability Bree had brought out was the one would have gained if she had defeated the centipede, or if it could extract any of the many skills the centipede surely had. Too bad, if not for the vast difference in their stats, she would have been able to view the centipede's details to know if her guess was correct.

Evelyn couldn't help but jump around in excitement, making both Bree and Ruru look at each other in confusion. "If just a few tentacles could be formed into an ability like this, then wouldn't it be a huge jackpot if I could completely chop that 'Thousand Eyed God' into a thousand little pieces?!"

But she soon calmed down as she realized how absurd that thought was. She was lucky enough to have chanced upon a situation where she could nab a few already severed tentacles before escaping. By herself, even after her numerous 'power ups', she probably stood no chance at all against a foe of that level.

Yet.

To completely chop it up, she would have to be at least much stronger than both the sentinels combined. And that was already a level that would be able to effortlessly conquer the continent.

It sounded impossible, but Evelyn didn't think so. After all, eventually she would have to be strong enough to fight the 'Thrones', and they should already be stronger than that, right? But even if she could reach that level, that was far into the future.

Evelyn put 'chop the Thousand Eyed God into a thousand pieces' aside as a 'future plan' and nodded to herself. "I should first test it out with a few decent high-level beast materials. Um, Bree will have to come with me to the Wonderland of Doom."

Bree squealed excitedly. "Bree will go with mama!"

The pink haired girl nodded.

Of course, that meant she would have to be more careful. Protecting Bree while being out in the Wonderland may not be easy, after all, but together with Ruru it shouldn't be impossible either.

Moreover, it was possible that this would also allow Bree to recover faster!

Evelyn knew her own limits, though, and knew that what she could take care of couldn't be on the same level as what she had gotten for Bree's 'treatment' last time. But every little bit helped, right?

Not to mention that if she could repeat what happened with the 'Chaos Essence Bead', she would undergo an all-around growth with each kill!

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~ To be continued ~

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DustyDream:

Thank you for all your support!