The whisper hung in the air between them.

Damon looked at her for another long moment. The dark eyes, the red lips, the arms still around his neck, the particular stillness of someone who had said the thing they wanted to say and was now waiting to see what he did with it.

Then, his hands moved onto her slim waist.

As much as she didn’t want to show it, her body shivered slightly from the excitement, her red lips curving deeper into a smile.

"Made up your mind?" she asked, leaning into him as her lips brushed against his.

It was slow, slower than necessary and exactly the pace they wanted. Their lips met in a series of slow touches, each one just a split second longer, as if both of them were holding back or rather... as if both of them wanted to take their time.

But then, just as Eve wanted more than just a slow brush of their lips, Damon suddenly pulled away.

"You’re weak," he said in a tone so flat it sounded almost comical given their situation.

Eve blinked. "What?"

He responded without skipping a beat. "I’m guessing your class is the kind that is strong in the very beginning but falls off rather fast. If someone is fast enough to evade your bullets, then you’re rendered useless and unable to fend for yourself."

Despite the harsh sound of his words, the statement came from a good place. The images of her and Nyla’s exchange against the man in the warehouse were stuck in his head, the way he easily dealt with the two of them. If Damon wasn’t there, he wasn’t certain that the girls would’ve survived.

"I’m well aware of that," Eve replied with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. Her arms, which were still coiled around his neck, tightened, but not in a romantic embrace, but rather something closer to the girl debating whether she should strangle him.

"Don’t you want to change that?" he asked.

Eve tilted her head as if he said the most ridiculous thing. "It’s not like I can change my class, can I?"

A faint smile crept across Damon’s face. "What if you could?"

***

Moments later, Eve was laying flat on her back while Damon sat beside her. His hand rested on her abdomen, feeling the presence of her core inside her.

"If this is some sort of a joke, I will have my payback," Eve said, shifting slightly as she found herself a little too vulnerable for comfort.

Damon, however, didn’t respond.

There was no certainty whether what he was about to do would work. He only did it once, and it was to himself, so there were a lot of things that could go wrong. But given their situation, the looming war against the citadel they know little about, he needed his people to get stronger, strong enough to fend for themselves.

Without wasting much time, he used his newest ability and began to inspect the girl’s status screen.

[Name: Eve]

[Level: 43]

[Class: Gunslinger]

[Abilities: Revolver, Ammo]

[Stats: ...]

Reading through the girl’s status screen was even more disappointing than Damon expected it to be. He knew that most people would not have as many abilities as someone like him, but still. Seeing only two abilities with no attributes made it surprising that she even managed to keep up with everyone else for this long.

Without wasting any more time on pointless lines of text, he closed Eve’s status screen and activated Absolute Comprehension.

The familiar feeling of rushing thoughts hit him almost immediately. He closed his eyes as he drew a long, slow breath and began to focus on the girl’s core.

Just as he had anticipated, a bundle of threads manifested before him.

Other than the size difference, the first thing he noticed was the immediate draw on his core. His mana was depleting at an extraordinary rate.

He moved quickly, focusing on the girl’s Revolver ability first. He began weaving the threads of power almost instantly, expanding upon existing patterns and clicking them together in place before moving on to the next target.

Unlike when weaving his own threads, there were no system notifications to tell him his ability or class had evolved. This made things a little trickier since he had no idea when he had made enough changes to force evolution, but he simply had to go with his gut.

[Your Comprehension of *Gunslinger* Class has significantly increased!]

He ignored all the notifications ringing in his head as he clicked the second ability in place. Now what was left was to connect the two and force her class to evolve.

Damon took more time for the last time, allowing his mana to deplete to a dangerous level as he made sure every single thread was in the right place before finally connecting the last thread.

[Your Comprehension of *Gunslinger* Class has been complete!]

[You have received a Class: Gunslinger]

[Your Comprehension of *Soul Shooter* Class has been complete!]

[Your class has evolved!]

[Gunslinger -> Soul Shooter]

A series of notifications rang in Damon’s head, confirming that not only did he manage to evolve the girl’s class but also comprehend it entirely, adding it to his arsenal.

The second he deactivated his Absolute Comprehension, his consciousness snapped back to the girl’s bedroom, where Eve lay beside him with a perplexed expression on her face.

"H-How?" she murmured, disbelief clinging to her features.

He ignored the question and instead inspected her status screen.

[Name: Eve]

[Level: 43] 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

[Class: Soul Shooter]

[Attributes: Soul Damage]

[Abilities: Revolvers, Endless Ammo]

[Stats: ...]

Immediately, he saw the new entry on the list and checked the description.

[Soul Damage: Your mana can inflict damage directly onto one’s soul]

Now that was something worth his attention. Being able to directly damage one’s soul with each of her bullets was a terrifying idea. With this, no matter how strong defensively her opponent was, she could still inflict damage.

Of course, that wasn’t the only change on the list.

He ignored the Revolver ability, which only had an ’s’ added at the end, already realising what it meant, and instead he focused on the Endless Ammo, which sounded a lot more interesting than the previous Ammo ability.

[Endless Ammo: +20% Mana]

The description was simple and yet even compared to the girl’s Soul Damage Attribute, he wasn’t sure which was one better. A passive +20% mana increase was a crazy boost, which, as it happens, he now had after he comprehended the girl’s class.