Born in apocalypse

’Well, I almost died once again, didn’t I...’ Dhruv thought, trying to remember how many times he was this close to dying. To his surprise... or perhaps to not his surprise the number was far more than he would like it to be.

Not having that much time to reminisce over the past Dhruv forgot about the matter and instead focused on the panel shimmering in front of him.

’[Fused Elemental Archon (Legendary)]’ A smirk appeared on his face as he read the name of this new evolution.

Fused... Fusion

The idea of fusing all the evolutions hadn’t come spontaneously to Dhruv... no, it was in the back of his mind from the second evolution.

After being successful in fusing earth and water manipulation into mud manipulation, he always wondered about the limitations of fusion.

After that, he had tried many times... he succeeded in most but tasted defeat in others as well. Even in defeat, he knew the reason was his inability to perfectly control the skill.

He had many subjects and performed many fusions, but there was one thing he was always curious about... could the fusion be used to merge the evolution options?

Maybe it wasn’t possible...

But even if it was... then what would happen?

Will he get a good result...

Or will he mess up my future...

All sorts of questions had formed in his head, but he couldn’t solve them at that time. He had to wait for the right moment.

And when it came, he acted upon his curiosity without thinking twice....

If he were to be honest, even though he had acted upon it Dhruv didn’t have much trust that this idea of his would work... after all, evolution is something fundamental, something that should be unbreakable in the cosmos.

But to his surprise, his idea was right... but the execution was horrible. In no dream of his could he have imagined that using the fusion could be this dangerous?

There were a few things that made it more horrible.

If he were in the real world, Dhruv was sure that the fusion would’ve stopped because of him not having mana. But here... for some reason, there was unlimited mana... Not exactly unlimited.

The second, his core was absorbing it almost at the rate at which it was getting dried. The combination of these two placed so much burden that neither his body nor his core could tank it.

’Sigh! But in the end, it was all worth it...’ Dhruv thought, looking at the description.

...

[Fused Elemental Archon (Legendary): You are the creator and the first member of the species Asteri. Having the power of fusion, you decided to challenge the rule of the cosmos, bending it with your sheer power. In front of this new power, everybody will have to bow.

With this evolution, the knowledge you possess over illusion, fire, metal, fusion, and melee combat will increase extremely.

As a progenitor, you will be given the affinity to the concept of Authority. With the affinity, you can use the [Authority magic]. Your rank in Authority magic will be set to ’SS’.

+259 Magic Power, +98 in Stamina, +88 in Strength, +77 in Agility, along with the organs [Phantom Cortex], [Ethereal Eyes], [Arcane Reservoir], [Lava Lungs], and [Steel Heart] will be given as a reward with this evolution.

You can have a single organ for free and get a discount of twenty-five percent on all other types of organs.]

...

’Whoa! It increased in rank... legendary. Now that’s nice.’ Dhruv thought, learning yet another rank of the evolution.

From what he has collected the rank of evolution goes like this, Common.. Uncommon.. Special.. Rare.. Epic.. Legendary. He doesn’t know what comes after legendary yet.

"Holy shit! More than an increase of 500 stats in a single evolution. Ahhhh! I like it. I like it very much," Dhruv muttered, surprised by the stat bonus he was getting.

Even though he was getting this much increase Dhruv couldn’t help but notice that the number was not right.

’I think some of the stats are lost in the fusion...’ he thought after cross-referencing the stats given here and the total stats from all six evolutions separately.

’Well, I’m still not strong enough to control fusion perfectly...’ Dhruv thought, remembering how he had gone to do the fusion.

During the process, he selected the Asteri progenitor as the base.

After that came the Great Illusionist, and then surprisingly he chose the steller battlemage. Flame Enchanter was the fourth, while Starlit Steel Vanguard and Warrior Ascendant were the fifth and sixth.

As he read the description further, Dhruv realized that the stats weren’t the only thing lost here. [Ignition Core], [Battleborn Heart], and [Enhanced Muscle Fiber] were gone as well.

While reading and understanding the description, Dhruv understood a pattern.

’So, I get almost all the rewards from progenitor and illusionist, and after that, parts of the evolution began to get lost. Hmmm! I think I didn’t get anything from Warrior Ascendant,’ he thought, nodding his head.

’Well, there is no point crying over spilled milk. Let’s be happy with what I got and move to the next part of the evolution...’ he thought, excited about manual evolution.

Unlike last time when he had no clue what was going on, this time Dhruv was prepared for manual evolution. He even had a list of organs he wanted to make mutable while also knowing what he was going to buy.

Not wasting any more precious moments, he clicks on the screen in front of him.

[Do you want to select Fused Elemental Archon (Legendary) as your evolution for Tier IV?]

"Yes, why even bother to ask? This is the only option I’ve got," Dhruv whispers with a sarcastic tone. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Nodding his head, he clicks on the ’Yes’ button.

[Congratulations! You have reached Tier IV and can perform manual evolution. Would you like to continue?]

He nodded once again.

Just like that, tens of panels opened in front of him once again. Not paying any attention to any of that, he looked at how much budget he had to spend.

The moment his eyes lay on his evolutionary energy reserve, he cried out, "WHAT???"