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    There were a lot of reasons to avoid racial traits. One was similar to the reason most people didn’t follow a god’s Path after they had taken it if they wanted to advance. Sharing your renown with an entire species was a bad way to get lots of attention. Another was because it made creating a Solid Path harder, because the Path needed to be anchored to the racial trait instead of to a normal ability, and the process was much more complex.


    The one I had NOT known about was the fact that it was fucking AGONIZINGLY painful. Even I, who had spent the last three months being essentially tormented to the very edge of breaking, winced at the pain Jessie was clearly going through as she transformed into a Thirionad.


    I suspected if not for the absurd Vitality and her frankly broken power, she might have died early on, and as it was, I had to trigger Zagan and start pumping life force flame into her to carry her through the process. Not only that, Callie and I had to pin her down to prevent her from injuring herself, and I ended up shoving my hand into her mouth to bite down on so she didn’t bite off her own tongue.


    On the upside, as I triggered Dantalion to observe the changes, I did get a pretty good look at what was happening, and it was pretty fascinating. Unlike the Dryads, Jessie’s surface appearance didn’t change too much. No fur on her skin, though she did grow a pair of rounded black bear ears on top of her head with swirls of green in them, and her hands warped as her fingers were remolded to contain absurdly large and sharp claws that could retract back under her nails.


    Subdermally, her muscles became denser and shifted in composition, optimizing more for prolonged force output and stamina than explosive force, albeit with enough output to make the difference pointless at lower levels.


    Her bones became denser and heavier, becoming something a bit closer to stone, though still living, and her spine thickened, joints reinforcing across her body in a way that would allow her to maximize her new weight advantage by firmly locking herself in place to withstand a charge that would knock over basically anyone else her size.


    When she finally stopped twitching, I pulled my hand out and channeled Zagan’s flame to my hand to repair the bloody teeth marks she’d clamped into the web of my thumb, sighing in relief as it faded. After that, we just had to wait for her to wake up.


    It didn’t take long, her eyes flashed open, a swirling green that flickered with the force or primal life, and she sat up with a bonerattling roar that seemed way too big to have come from someone her size. Callie, looking unamused, reached up and wiped a fleck of spit from one cheek, glaring at our healer acidically.


    Jessie, having noticed what she’s done, flushed and cleared her throat. “Sorry. That’s…sorry. I just feel…different.”


    “I’d imagine,” I told her bluntly. “Because you just got about ten thousand Might from that transformation. I knew there could be multipliers, but I didn’t know you could just inherit stats like that.”


    She grimaced, shaking her head. “It’s…more complicated than that. Much like Dryads, I gained a lot from Randall. There was some extra synergy because I evolved him with my power, which means my species inherited some attributes from him. I’m not a Thirionad, I’m an Undying Lifestorm Thirionad. Ten thousand Might and another ten thousand Vitality. ”


    “Well, that sounds pretty fantastic,” I admitted. “Why do you seem unsure?”


    “Because the binding is…different. Trees last a long time, but beasts don’t always live full lives. If Randall dies, it could cripple me, and the same for him if something happens to me. Plus I can’t rank up unless he does, which means even if I hit the peak of E-rank he’d need to hit D-rank before I could break through. Even if it takes a thousand years, I can only wait.”


    Those were some admittedly steep drawbacks, but not as bad for Jessie as for some others. She loved Randall, and would have been destroyed if anything happened to him, so she would never let that happen. As for him ranking up, she had me around. She could wish for stats for the big lug whenever she wanted. I said as much to her, and she nodded after I finished laying out my points.


    “Yeah, you’re right. It’s just kind of intense right now.” She giggled nervously. “It’s an odd feeling being so connected to another creature.”


    “Gee,” I said blandly. “I can’t imagine what that might be like. The idea of having my very soul linked to another person is a completely alien and confusing idea to me, and I can’t understand anything about how you may be feeling.” The sarcasm in my tone was so evident by the end that Jessie was having trouble holding back a laugh.


    My wife rolled her eyes. “What my idiot husband is saying is that we’re here to help. We have experience with a bond like that. I know you had your beast bond before, but I think this is probably a much more profound connection, isn’t it?”


    “It really is,” Jessie nodded. “It’s like…well I imagine what having a twin is like.”


    I shrugged. “I don’t think the twin thing is as exaggerated as most people say. Chelsea and I don’t have any sort of mental communication or whatever.” Then I paused. “Though I have met lots of twins who have. So…hard to say. Maybe Chelsea and I should train together. Especially with her full powers available.”


    “Put a pin in that thought,” Callie said with interest. “Adding her to a formation or something could be really interesting. But for now, we should check Jessie’s stats. Not just the boost from the racial trait, but also months of healing and building her rep enough to make that huge amount of money. I’m curious to see where she’s at. We didn’t really compare notes while you were gone, I mostly just trained, worried, and talked to you when I could.”


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    I smiled softly at her, taking her hand in mine and squeezing. Jessie, meanwhile, nodded proudly, grabbing some paper from her ring and writing out her stat sheet.


    Jessica Evans- E-rank. Ability: Expert Thirionad Racial Triat- Undying Lifestorm variant. A spirit of the wild, bonded deeply with the Undying Lifestorm Ursa Randall. The beginning of a line.


    Might-15,625


    Impact-65


    Fantasy-2758


    Vitality-59,587


    Focus-3755


    Perception-4765


    Creation-5958


    Progress to next rank: 92,513/100,000


    Path:Path of the Green Sun


    Lifebound partner: Undying Lifestorm Ursa- Randall


    Soul strength: Sapphire Soul Body


    Skills: Expert Lifeweaving, Intermediate Horticulture,Intermediate First Aid, Minor Herbalism, Minor Flower Arrangement, Intermediate Beast Taming Mastery


    “Huh,” I said with an impressed whistle. “Beast bonding is gone, and so is shape of the wild. Consumed to fuel the transformation maybe? I hadn’t know that was possible, but then again this was kind of treading new ground to start with. You got about forty thousand points. Granted a decent chunk of those was probably from three months of training, but still, that’s pretty impressive.”


    She grimaced. “My Lifeweaving is a Skill now. So it won’t rank up when I do. Plus I STILL haven’t made it to D-rank. I’m still eight thousand short, and that means Lifeweaving is stuck at Expert even after I hit D-rank. Grinding it higher is going to be a nightmare.”


    “True, but it’s not locked to your rank anymore.” I pointed out helpfully. “Which means you can rank it up even further. You could reach Grandmaster level with your Lifeweaving and be an even stronger healer, plus all the advantages of your new racial trait, which I’m betting are substantial.”


    She grinned proudly at that. “Double the effective Might and three times the effective Vitality. Which considering what my base is for Vitality is nothing to sneeze at.”


    “I should say fucking not,” I laughed. “Your effective Vitality is higher than mine and Callie’s put together.” I paused. “Actually your BASE Vitality is higher than mine and Callie’s put together.” I glanced at my wife reproachfully. “You’ve got to get on the ball with that one. I know you like to concentrate your stats into a few key values, but less than ten thousand Vitality as a D-ranker is pretty awful.”


    Grimacing, she nodded. “It’s actually higher now, but still pretty low. I’ll share my status with you later. Right now is about Jessie. I’ll pass you some of my scrolls, but it’ll still take time to boost Randall up to D-rank. You might be stuck in E for a while. You ok with that? I imagine if necessary we could still reverse the process. Wishing or even a Life Nova could probably purify the catalyst, at least considering the rank difference.”


    My abilities had an outsized effect on things below the watershed, which meant I could probably create a technique to return her to human, assuming I had her permission. Purification was finicky, and the positive connotations would make it impossible for me to forcibly remove someone’s changed nature against their will, unless it was something particularly dark and twisted. Animal nymph definitely wouldn’t be on that list.


    Honestly, if it hadn’t been reversible I probably wouldn’t have agreed to grant her the wish. A change like this was huge, and only the fact that she could walk it back if she didn’t like it made it at all a responsible choice to allow her to try it.


    She was having none of it though. She shook her head quickly. “No! I don’t want that at all! I really like this. It might take me longer to get to D-rank, but still, I think it’ll be worth it long term. I’m on a Path that no one has ever seen before, and I’m excited for it. Plus, once I get a sizable head start I was thinking about expanding. I might like to see other Thirionads. It would be cool to be the mother of a whole new species.”


    “Well, as long as you’re keeping your goals manageable,” I said dryly. “It says a lot about your state of mind that you’re not going crazy with ambition and coming up with impossible end goals.”


    “You’re trying to become a GOD,” she laughed as she rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to hear about manageable goals from you.”


    I shrugged. “I never said my state of mind was good. But yeah, that’s fair, Ascendants are all crazy. Speaking of crazy, where if that grumpy old bear? I know you bonded with him through your beast bonding Skill, but I thought he was with you still, just hiding in your hood.”


    “Nah, he’s outside,” she said with a laugh. “He hitched a ride out with Alyssa when she left. She feeds him way too many snacks, so he tends to follow her around. I felt him turn around to come back when I drank the potion, but he’s waiting outside because the process reversed his shrinking enchantment so he’s full sized and won’t fit through the door.”


    Walking to the exit, I opened it, peering out to find a glowering black and green bear flopped down on his belly on the grass outside. When he saw me, he snorted derisively and looked away, and I rolled my eyes at the bear. “Yeah, he’s out here,” I told them over my shoulder. “Just as bad an attitude as ever. Speaking of which, do you want to meet MY companion?”


    Archie was with Bella at the moment, but a quick mental tug on our bond had him winging toward us. Jessie’s face lit up, her new bear eyes wiggling happily, and I couldn’t help but laugh and ruffle her hair. She scowled and batted at my hand and Callie giggled at her expression, and I had to admit, it was really nice to be back with my family.