The moment I accepted the choice, the world turned against gravity. My knees gave way as something inside me snapped loose. My breath caught mid-motion. Light erupted from my skin, streaming in waves of green and silver. Everything vanished beneath that glow.
I never hit the ground.
Before I could fall, the light formed around me. A cocoon of hardened mana closed in from every side. Warm. Dense. Alive. The air inside pressed against me like a second skin, filled with magic too heavy to breathe.
My muscles twisted. Bones bent and shifted. My spine stretched until it cracked. I tried to move, but nothing responded. Every nerve burned with quiet fire. My skin itched, tore, then smoothed. My lungs emptied and refused to fill. I felt death. And I felt something beyond it.
This wasn't just evolution. This was rebirth.
When I finally gasped, I didn't breathe air. I breathed mana.
Time lost meaning. Then came silence. Deep and absolute.
The cocoon cracked.
My fingers twitched first. Then my arm. A low, brittle sound followed as the shell split down the middle. I stepped forward, the cocoon breaking away like dried bark.
The air outside stung my new skin. The wind cut sharper. I could feel the shift in temperature with perfect clarity. The forest no longer felt like a blur of shapes and sounds. I could sense it breathing with me.
I made my way to the pond. It sat still beneath the roots of a fallen tree, its surface unbroken.
I leaned closer.
A stranger stared back at me.
I had grown taller. The height of a human teenager now. My body had reshaped into something lean and structured. No longer goblin-hunched or misshapen. Muscle ran beneath my skin—not oversized, but clean and deliberate. My face was sharper. My jaw tighter. My cheekbones visible. My eyes were green, glowing faintly like glass under starlight. Black hair fell across my forehead in uneven strands.
I still had green skin, but the shape of me was different. Less monstrous. More human. Something caught between two worlds.
The System responded.
Evolution CompleteNew Race: Goblin Spellblade
Status
Name: [Unnamed]Race: Goblin SpellbladeLevel: 1 / 50HP: 180 / 180MP: 530 / 530
Strength: 30Endurance: 32Agility: 30Intelligence: 53
Skills
Acid Resistance – Level 2
Corrosive Resistance – Level 1
Burn Resistance – Level 3
Lesser Regeneration – Level 1
Basic Fireball – Level 1
Intermediate Magic Manipulation – Level 2(upgraded from Mana Recovery and Basic Magic Manipulation)
Intermediate Spear Mastery – Level 1(merged from Basic Spear Mastery and Stone Throw into Spear Throw)
Instinctive Perception – Passive(merged from Basic Survival and Low Light Vision)Grants passive danger awareness and low-light vision, plus spatial awareness of movement nearby.
Spellblade Skills
Weaponsmith (Passive): Combine magic into a single cast or weapon.
Overchannel (Active): Condense full MP into one destructive release. Weapon type determines form.
Arcbound Core (Passive): When casting, body and weapon strength are enhanced proportionally.
Unique Skills
Infinite Evolution
Domination
System
I stood still, staring at my reflection. Then I looked at my hands.
Magic no longer ran beneath my skin. It flowed through every breath. It shaped every twitch of my fingers. This wasn't just a power boost. Every part of me had changed. Physically. Magically. Mentally.
When I became a Goblin Shaman, I could barely sense the magicules around me. Now I use them freely.
Every stat had risen far beyond what any wild goblin could achieve. This wasn't evolution. This was ascension.
The System hadn't simply given me more strength. It had fused my skills. It had rewritten what I could do. Everything I had once trained slowly was now fluid, compact, instinctive.
The question that came next wasn't new. I had asked it before, but now I finally had an answer.
Where did I stand on the power scale of this world?
I remembered the structure Rimuru had used in the anime and the novel. The ranks went roughly like this:
F-rank: Normal goblins and weak animals
E to D-rank: Hobgoblins, small ogres, large monsters
C-rank: Named monsters, powerful beastmen
B-rank: Elite ogres, mid-tier named beings
A-rank: High ogres, archdemons, evolved named warriors
S-rank and above: Demon Lords, Veldora, Milim, and beyond
At the Goblin Shaman stage, I was low D-rank, maybe touching high D-rank thanks to my stats and skills.
Now?
I was easily a B rank. Spellblade wasn't just raw power. It gave flexibility, weapon crafting and physical force. Few beings below could survive a full-force Overchannel.
I still wasn't anywhere near Demon Lord level, but I was closing the gap. More importantly, I was evolving faster than anything this world had seen in centuries.
I looked toward the trees.
Rimuru wouldn't arrive for another year.
That gave me time.
Time to train. Time to hunt. Time to rise.
The moment he descended on this world, I wouldn't be hiding in the forest like the others.
I would meet him as something greater.