Chương 19: Mid-Tier Evolution: Going Magical

It continued on like this for what Andy guessed was several weeks. Early morning training with Teeth. Snacks and testing with Ranger. Afternoon hunts with Teeth. There were some days in which the Ranger did not come, they seemed to come with a predictable frequency so that Andy (in his autobiographical story could keep track of time.) referred to it as a Monday. On one such Monday while his fox was napping and Andy was trying to push through the boundary of eighty-six percent gallop efficiency it happened.

He finished his speed trial, sides heaving when the System decided to make an appearance. [XP: 1508/3000] [GALLOP EFFICIENCY: 87%] [MID-TIER BRANCH POINT AVAILABLE] [YOU HAVE MET THE REQUIREMENTS FOR A WITHIN-TIER SPECIALIZATION.] [THIS IS NOT A FULL EVOLUTION. YOUR TIER REMAINS AT 5. THIS IS A REFINEMENT OF YOUR CURRENT BODY PLAN.] A branch point? A specialization. One step close to being mythical. He rubbed his proverbial hands together in anticipation as he found a shaded spot beneath a tree.

He chewed on some clover while he read the options. [Equidae (Horses, Zebras, and Donkeys)]- Several of these species diverge into a magical creature classification. REQUIREMENTS: Life Magic Affinity (MET). Purity Affinity (CHECKING…). Enhanced magical capability. Partial magical body conversion. Leads to: Magical equine forms at Tier 6. NOTE: THIS PATH IS REQUIRED FOR MYTHIC CREATURE EVOLUTION AT TIER 7. [Rhinocerotidae (Rhinoceroses)]- Continue on current evolutionary trajectory. No additional requirements.

Gradual improvement in speed, strength, and endurance. Leads to: Rhinoceroses. Rhinoceroses gain a bonus for Horn Attacks [Tapiridae (Tapirs)]- Continue on current evolutionary trajectory. No additional requirements. Gradual improvement in speed, strength, and endurance. Leads to: Standard Tapir forms at tier 6. Andy stared. System, this isn't a choice at all. You know I'm aiming for horse. [PURITY AFFINITY: CHECKING…] What is purity affinity. The System is checking purity as a stat? What does that even mean.

Somewhere in some invisible spread sheet governing his entire life is a column that assigned a value to purity?

"What is purity affinity?" Andy asked the System quite wearily as he was afraid he knew the answer already. [PURITY AFFINITY: A MEASURE OF AN ORGANISM'S SPIRITUAL INTEGRITY. CONTRIBUTING FACTORS VARY BY SPECIES AND INDIVIDUAL. THRESHOLD FOR MAGICAL BEAST PATH: MODERATE.] What surprised him more than anything was that this was an actual answer.

Content and a definition that was so uncharacteristic by now that Andy almost missed the next notification, which arrived half a second later with the timing of a really really good punchline. [PURITY AFFINITY: DETECTED.] [SCANNING CONTRIBUTING FACTORS…] [CONTRIBUTING FACTOR 1: GENUINE COMPASSION FOR OTHER LIFEFORMS. SOURCE: BEHAVIORAL PATTERN ANALYSIS ACROSS 4 EVOLUTIONARY TIERS. STATUS: STRONG.] It had been watching him be nice to things. And counting it.

The photosynthetic colony he had protected as a jellyfish. The insects he had thanked silently for their XP. The fox. The ranger he had let touch his horn. The persistent, stubbornly human tendency to care about things even when treating them as resources would have been easier. It had been keeping score. [CONTRIBUTING FACTOR 2: VIRGINAL STATUS. SOURCE: BIOLOGICAL AND SPIRITUAL ASSESSMENT. STATUS: MAINTAINED.] Andy stared at the notification.

This was the same way he imagined someone who had just gotten a (deserved) traffic ticket might stare at it. With acceptance but also indignance and embarrassment. His virginity. His virginity which he had been embarrassed about for as long as he could remember, was actively being tracked. It continued forward through many asexual bodies, through two bodies that had zero zero acceptable mates within in range. He'd believed it to be cosmic mockery.

But, this stat was maintained, whether coincidence or some kind of System fuckery his virginity was maintained. The most clinical, politically correct, devastatingly accurate way anyone had ever described the fact that Andrew Snodgrass had never gotten laid.

"My virginity is a stat. A STAT." Andy projected at the System.

"Every party when I was a human and someone asked, "have you ever…" And I changed the subject and went to get a snack. Every time I felt like less of a man because I hadn't done the thing people had been bragging about doing since their teenage years. The long nights of staring at the ceiling thinking, "Am I going to die a virgin?" (Yes, as it turned out he had–if you missed that part you really should have started at chapter one). The entire evolutionary chain up until this point.

My inability to get laid is a FOUNDATIONAL ASPECT of my UNICORN BUILD? And you didn't tell me?" [WHY DID YOU NEED TO BE TOLD?]"So I wouldn't have screwed it up and lost my purity of course." A devastating amount of time passed before the next notification showed up. [CONTRIBUTING FACTOR 3: AUTHENTICITY OF EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION. SOURCE: PSYCHIC COMMUNICATION ANALYSIS. STATUS: STRONG.] So wearing his emotions on his sleeve (horn) was a feature not a bug. Broadcasting his loneliness, his joy, his infatuation.

All of that was pure? Pure expression of emotion. Unaltered. He was really going to become a unicorn because he couldn't hide his feelings and he was a virgin. Cool. Cool. The universe's commitment to the bit was, at this point, genuinely awe-inspiring. [PURITY AFFINITY: THRESHOLD MET.] This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. [HORSE MAGICAL BEAST PATH: AVAILABLE.] [SELECT? Y/N] Yes, Andy selected without hesitation.

What would be the point of any of this if he didn't select yes. [HORSE MAGICAL BEAST: SELECTED] [INITIATING MID-TIER SPECIALIZATION…] [NOTE: THIS IS A REFINEMENT, NOT A FULL EVOLUTION. CHANGES WILL BE INCREMENTAL. CONSCIOUSNESS WILL REMAIN ACTIVE THROUGHOUT.] Andy shifted and grew slightly. His fur lengthened along his neck into a bristly mohawk. His three-toed hoof claws took on a slightly 'hoofier' look. His legs grew thicker and longer.

His tail, sad and rat-like that it was, shrank back to a stubbier tail with that same bristly thick hair that his mohawk had. [MID-TIER SPECIALIZATION: COMPLETE] [SPECIES UPDATED: PROTO-EQUINE (MAGICAL BEAST)] [ABILITIES UPDATED:] [LIFE MAGIC AFFINITY: ENHANCED. PASSIVE HEALING AURA NOW EXTENDS TO NEARBY ALLIES.] [PURITY AFFINITY: ACTIVE. PASSIVE EFFECT: NEARBY ORGANISMS EXPERIENCE MILD CALMING INFLUENCE. ACTIVE EFFECT: PURIFICATION (MINOR). REMOVES MINOR TOXINS AND CORRUPTION FROM ORGANIC MATERIAL.] [MAGICAL BEAST CLASSIFICATION: ACTIVE. XP MULTIPLIER: +10% ON ALL SOURCES. MAGICAL DETECTION: YOUR MAGICAL SIGNATURE IS NOW STRONGER AND MORE DETECTABLE.] [HORN (EQUINE/MAGICAL): ENHANCED LIFE MAGIC THROUGHPUT: +25%. PURITY RESONANCE: ACTIVE.] Andy stood in the dappled light beneath the canopy taking stock of his new body. He was larger. Maybe doubly so if he were guessing. What would the Ranger say? Would she recognize him?

Andy had just become an unmistakable magical beast if he were teetering on the edge before. His fox woke up. She opened her golden-amber eyes, looked at Andy." What did you do to your hair?"

"Mid-tier evolution. I'm magical now."" Oh, is that all?" the fox closed her eyes again, settling back into her nap when she sat up suddenly." Wait. You're at halfway already?"

"Yeah, is that strange?"

"Strange? Yeah. It takes most years to make it through tier five. If they ever do. Oftentimes there are requirements that softlock progress."

"Yeah, I met the requirements." Teeth sat staring at Andy. She blinked and projected disbelief. Then she sent, You look ridiculous. Teeth and Andy trained far into the evening. He could almost catch her on the speed runs now. Almost. He pushed harder than he had up to this point and pushed his gallop proficiency to eight-nine percent. They shared a meal together and Teeth continued to look at him strangely all night. Looking back on it years later, Andy told himself, he should have asked why.

The next day the Ranger arrived right on schedule. Her scent preceded her by three minutes. Andy was in the clearing by the boulder, wind blowing through his bristle broom-like mohawk. His horn was glowing and singing it's morning tune la la lalalala laaaa. His heart was flip flopping with nervous excitement. What if she doesn't recognize me? What if she's scared? The System said humans don't evolve, maybe the whole process is something unknown to them. Maybe I should have asked.

But it was too late to ask because she emerged from the trees. She stopped in her tracks when she saw him. Both feet planted her hand went to her knife reflexively. Her entire body was still, Andy wasn't even sure if she was breathing. He could see the whites of her eyes, surprise, and fear were there but also something else, something he told himself was recognition. She recognized what he was. His form now more familiar to something she'd seen before. He looked like a really, really ugly pony.

He watched at the recognition moved across her face in stages. Everything stopped, her eyes widened, she lowered her hand from her knife, then her hand rose to her mouth, and then she uttered a single soft sobbing word. Her word carried gravity. He assumed it was a word directed at him, or to describe him. A classification she had heard or read but had never seen. She was shaking. Slightly, almost imperceptively, but Andy caught the tremor in her hands and in her legs. She sat down.

Not on the boulder where she usually sat, but on the ground right where she stood. Her legs seemed to have decided at that exact moment that gravity was no longer something they were willing to fight. Her books slid sideways out of her satchel. She looked at the horn, at him, his eyes, the unmistakable visual progression from 'mystery animal with a horn' to 'ugly pony with a horn' And a pony with a horn was only a skip and a jump away from something else. Something worthy of myths.

Her expression was one that he would remember all of his life. Tears streamed unnoticed down her cheeks while she looked on with an amazed childlike wonder. She believed. Andy stood in the clearing and let her move, this time at her pace. He let her believe whatever it was that she was believing. From the rock in the treeline, the fox sent, And so it begins. Andy responded, "What begins?"" Everything." She did not approach that day. She sat on the ground until the sun had begun its descent.

She sat there turning pages in her book and making notes in the margins. Then she was writing in her notebook. Making notes, sketching, and occasionally just sitting dumbfounded. When she left, she left the usual treats. She gave Andy a long searching look that Andy interpreted as, I'm coming back. You're special. I don't understand what you are but it matters. Andy ate the treats. The fox sent something gentler than her usual teasing amusement. She sent comfort and understanding.

"My virginity is a stat. My compassion is a stat. My emotional transparency is a stat." Andy took a deep steadying breath.

"I am on my way to becoming a mythical horse because I was too earnest, too virginal and too honest to be anything else. The universe seemingly believed that those embarrassing, uncool features are exactly what a unicorn is made out of. I am powered by virginity. My horn gets stronger the less action that I get. There is no version of this that doesn't sound like the world's most elaborate compensation joke. But–" He sent joy to Teeth.

"I feel seen. The things I thought were uncool about me. They aren't really uncool. I can be a weird, horny, self-deprecating person and still become something that myths are made of. I have felt pulled towards this decision every step of the way, and I believe that there is something more to this, something that I don't know. Something that made a woman fall on the ground and sob at the sight of me.

"Hmm. She probably sobbed because you look ridiculous." His horn glowed. With happiness, in appreciation of having a friend who would stick by him no matter what. [SPECIES: PROTO-HORSE (MAGICAL BEAST)] [PURITY AFFINITY: ACTIVE] [VIRGINAL STATUS: MAINTAINED] [CONTRIBUTING FACTOR WEIGHT: 23%] [PARTY MEMBERS: 2] [HERD BOND: COMPANION (VULPINE ADEPT)] [SOCIAL BOND: DEVELOPING (HUMANOID, RANGER-TYPE)] [XP: 1508/3000] [GALLOP EFFICIENCY: 87%]"Twenty-three percent," Andy thought.

"My virginity is twenty-three percent of my build. I am going to find whoever designed this System and I am going to GORE THEM WITH MY HORN." That's the spirit The horn glowed. And Andy, proto-horse, magical beast, twenty-three-percent virgin unicorn candidate, would be here. Glowing. Pure. Deeply, catastrophically, cosmically horny in every possible meaning of the word. Forward. Always forward. Even when forward led through the most embarrassing stat screen in the history of everything.