Chrysalis

How could a person describe their connection to the System that governed Pangera? It moved through them, existed within them and all around them. It had been part of their lives from the moment they were born. Only those sapients who existed at the moment of descent could have told you the difference between the before and the now. It was an inescapable, unchosen overseer that applied its rules to all creatures it chose to invest itself in. Yet there were times when the System responded to the people, rather than the other way around. It was an entity of adaptation in many ways. When the world changed around it, it shifted to better represent the circumstances it found itself in.

This change could come as a response to technology, equipment or tactics. The Abyssal Legion is one such example, their members undergoing such drastic changes and using such specialised arms and armour that numerous new classes became available to them. Many other cases were known, and many more unknown, across the societies of the world.

What was more rare, was the System responding not only to circumstance, but to will. Those few occasions when the Sapient people of Pangera were able to effect change in the System based on their desires, altering reality to better suit themselves, rather than the other way around. This phenomenon was so rare, no scholar would be able to find a reliable example of it occurring throughout recorded history. Such things were simply not written down. It was too personal, too spiritual for that.

Such an experience took place inside the Church of the Great One. That indescribable feeling, built within Beyn and his closest followers. They could feel a powerful emotion building within. An uplifting, a changing, a becoming. Each of these humans felt the same thing, but none of them could describe it. How could someone find the words to discuss this feeling? It was as if the hand of god reached down to alter their DNA. As if the fundamental pieces that made up their existence were altered by an unseen force.

And then it was done.

[You have met the conditions for a new Class: Antmancer. You can change your Class through the System prompt.]

All of their eyes flew open at once to stare in shocked incredulity at the person opposite to them, only to find that person looking back with the same expression. In an instant they knew that each of them had received the same message from the System. In the next second all eyes flew to Beyn.

lightning. His nerves wouldn't respond, they were jammed. He couldn't even think about wanting to think. So immobile was he, no breath moved in

in an instant, each of them openly sobbing with joy. When recalling later, Beyn couldn't say at which moment he had changed his class, and neither could the others. Somehow during the outpouring of

Class change was when they smelled something odd inside the

"Lazy," it said.

to stop his fall, only to realise at the last second he only had one hand and face planted on the ground. With pain racking his body, he looked up from

do?" The ant huffed before

stunned, as did the congregation

did you… hear? Or… smell? What I just

of his head as he

said. Then

"I DID!"