Worldwide Class Change: Minimal Effort, Maximum Reward!

Lin Yi activated Heaven Step.

The skill converted Spirit energy directly into spatial momentum, generating no vibration signature on activation, carrying him across the gap between island clusters in a single transition that covered a distance Phantom Void Step’s individual step could not match.

At Spirit 4,818, the effective range per Heaven Step activation was substantial. He chained three consecutive uses, the Chain Void Step skill removing the individual cooldown windows between activations for the five-second window it provided, and crossed what would have been thirty minutes of traversal on foot in approximately eight seconds.

He landed on a transit island, let the chain window expire, and looked ahead.

The expanse opened up in this direction more than the cluster-dense zones he had been working through. Wider gaps between island formations, the ambient energy currents more visible in the open space, the astral rivers running thicker and brighter through the upper atmospheric layers.

Somewhere in the distance, a dense concentration of island formations was visible as a darker mass against the general haze, the kind of density that indicated high monster population and, potentially, another cluster guardian.

He assessed the route and began planning the traversal path.

The Greater Qilin had landed beside him during the three-step chain. It had kept pace across all three transitions without difficulty, which he had noted and filed without particular comment.

The qilin’s traversal capabilities post-evolution had exceeded its pre-evolution movement in every dimension, which was consistent with the general pattern of the transformation.

He activated Heaven Step again.

Two more activations in sequence, covering the first significant gap in the traversal route. He landed on a mid-route island, scanned the terrain ahead, and was about to chain the next two steps when movement in his peripheral awareness stopped him.

The Greater Qilin moved. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

The air around it distorted in a way Lin Yi recognized immediately, the specific spatial ripple of a step-based movement technique, the signature of space being momentarily bent rather than physically crossed.

The qilin crossed forty meters in an instant.

Forty meters the way Heaven Step covered forty meters. The spatial bend, the non-vibration signature, the precise arrival at the destination point rather than the trailing deceleration of physical speed.

Lin Yi stood on the mid-route island and looked at where the qilin had arrived.

It looked back at him.

He looked at the space between where it had been and where it was now. Then at the qilin. Then at the space again.

He walked across normally to where it was standing and stopped in front of it.

"Do that again," he said.

The qilin did it again.

Forty meters. Spatial bend. Non-vibration signature. Precise arrival.

The same movement pattern Lin Yi had been executing with Heaven Step for the past several days, repeated back to him by a creature that had not possessed any equivalent technique when he first encountered it, and had not possessed it in any form when it completed its evolution.

He stood there and let his mind move through what he had just observed.

It learned it.

Not through a skill core. It watched. It observed closely enough and long enough that whatever cognitive architecture the Greater Qilin operated on absorbed the pattern and reproduced it.

How many times have I activated Heaven Step in the past days? Hundreds. Across every island gap, every traversal route, every approach to a new cluster. The qilin had been present for all of them. At my side or within close range for every single activation.

The evolution had done to it. The celestial jade absorption had not just increased its size and refined its physical form. The eyes were the clearest evidence of that. What had been calm and present before was aware and engaged after. Something in the cognitive structure had developed alongside the physical. It was not operating at the level it had before.

A spirit beast of sufficient intellect, in close proximity to a skill being executed hundreds of times in a high-dao-density environment, over several days of continuous observation.

The Allheaven Expanse was saturated with ambient dao energy. The Dao Integration passive he had absorbed from the skill core responded to that saturation by accelerating his own growth. If the same principle applied to the qilin, and why would it not, the environment was feeding its development the same way it was feeding mine.

It had watched me use Heaven Step until it understood the pattern. Then it had reproduced the pattern. And then it had done something I had not anticipated.

The version it had used was not identical to mine.

The spatial bend had been slightly larger. The arrival had been slightly smoother. The energy cost, based on the aura fluctuation visible around it during the activation, had been slightly lower per distance covered.

It had not just copied the skill. It had improved it.

That was not what I had expected from a spirit beast, even an evolved one. Reproduction without understanding was mimicry. Reproduction with optimization was comprehension. The qilin had not mimicked Heaven Step. It had understood it and applied that understanding to produce a more efficient version.

The celestial jade energy that had driven the evolution contained dao insight. That was what the jades were, fragments of the Heavenly Dao’s understanding encoded into physical form. The qilin had absorbed those fragments as the mechanism for its transformation. The insights had not just reshaped its body. They had reshaped its mind.

Which meant it was operating on a level of comprehension that matched or exceeded what most hunters took years of training to develop.

And it had been watching me constantly for days.

*****

A/N: Thanks for everyone who is reading, I have listened to every complaint and amended any inconsistency. I’m planning a mass Chapter release, if you want to support the effort, gifts and golden tickets will be appreciated.

For gifts:

1 Dragon = 5 Chapters

1 Magic Castle = 10 Chapters

Above Castle = 15 Chapters

Also reviews will be appreciated, and I don’t delete reviews, I read them and improve