Limitless Evolution As a Snake

Old Mate offered me invisibility, portals, and a deeply irresponsible confidence upgrade while I was trying to work out who planned to steal my club’s refrigeration.

I had followed the marked service route after the qualifier and confirmed its connection to our utility approach. Lyra waited beside me on the dry inspection platform, while Bridget photographed the gate and sent Cherry the practical information.

The race was over, the immediate threat had stopped, and the next decision apparently involved my genitals.

[System: You asked for fresh options, mate. Ten IP rerolls the shop offers, and before you ask, that old free token’s already gone. I don’t keep giving you coupons because you look like a sex toy that learned to threaten people.]

I wanted something useful for moving through this mess, although I resented the accuracy of your sales approach.

The ten IP came off first, leaving three hundred seventy-five. Three new cards replaced the unused offers, and my attention became a serious medical concern.

The first was You Didn’t See Shit, Rank B, seventy IP. Thirty seconds of visual invisibility, broken by attacking or using another active skill, with a five-minute cooldown. It didn’t erase sound, footprints, scent, or my talent for announcing a terrible idea before performing it.

The second was the Backdoor Bludger, Rank B, ninety-five IP. Two connected openings, each up to two meters wide, placed in visible empty space no more than twenty meters apart. They stayed open for eight seconds, followed by a three-minute cooldown.

Momentum continued through. A body crossing prevented the edge from cutting it when the timer ended, and the skill couldn’t connect different pressure zones, flood an air room, or create a surprise doorway inside somebody’s organs.

The third card was called The Compensation Package, Rank C, forty IP. It offered voluntary cosmetic size adjustment, no combat benefit, no increased charm, and absolutely no promise that anybody else would be impressed.

I read that last line twice in case repetition improved it.

[System: Don’t get shy now, champ. You’ve stared at that card long enough for it to qualify as a bloody relationship.]

I was checking the limits, which seemed responsible given your previous contributions to product safety.

Old Mate appeared beside his bar wearing a salesman’s tie that didn’t reach past his koala belly. He tapped the third card with a claw and grinned like he had finally found the one lever that could move every part of my judgment at once.

[System: Think of the confidence, mate. You could enter a room with the sort of swagger usually reserved for blokes who reverse trailers on the first attempt.]

The card specifically said nobody had to be impressed.

[System: That’s because the legal department has met your girlfriends.]

Lyra watched me with growing suspicion. ”You’re choosing skills again, aren’t you?”

I explained the three offers aloud, including the stupid one because hiding that part would have been obvious from my face.

Bridget looked at the gate, then at me. ”You have the chance to open doors through obstacles, and you’re considering buying a worse conversation starter.”

”He already has several,” Lyra said. ”I would like the doors.”

Cherry joined the call from the club and asked whether portals meant never waiting behind a slow customer again. I explained the visible range, the eight seconds, and the shared replacement before she developed ambitions involving every store in the city.

The three girls would gain the purchased ability in their own bodies and lose the same replaced skill. They wouldn’t receive separate shop money or a second drunk koala, which everyone would have considered an improvement if they knew the possibility existed.

I chose Hold My Bloody Beer as the skill to replace. Catching one projectile was excellent, but moving us through an opening could serve more purposes if I remembered it wasn’t a shield.

The last Beer use was yesterday. No remaining timer vanished with the purchase, and nobody got a free emergency reset.

I hovered over The Compensation Package long enough for Old Mate to begin a victory speech, then selected the portals.

[System: You sneaky little gutter hose, I had a whole announcement prepared. Ninety-five IP, Backdoor Bludger equipped, Beer permanently gone, and you’re down to two hundred eighty IP with your vanity tragically underfunded.]

I could disappoint you and improve access to my girlfriends’ snack cupboards with the same purchase, which made the value impossible to ignore.

Cherry wanted to know whether she could place one opening beside the milk tap and the other above her cup. I explained that she still needed to see both positions and would waste a three-minute cooldown on a drink. She considered that a personal choice rather than a drawback, which made me feel wonderfully understood and slightly worried about what we had given the household. Bridget said she preferred us to practice with something that wouldn’t stain the floor.

We tested it between two empty spots on the dry platform, well away from the rail. I could see both positions, the pressure matched, and nothing occupied the destination.

One opening appeared beside my nose, the other several meters away. Lyra tossed a soft practice marker through first, and it continued out the second with exactly the speed she had given it.

I followed, emerging where I expected instead of inside an argument with physics. The openings waited until my tail cleared, then closed when their eight seconds ended.

My three-minute cooldown began at activation, leaving me temporarily unable to repeat the trick. Lyra had her own use available after receiving the skill, but we didn’t waste it proving we could queue badly in two places.

Lyra watched me check the timer and told me she liked this choice better than the one I had nearly made. I accepted the praise without explaining how close vanity had come to winning the budget.

The foreman on the far gantry had watched the whole test.

He closed the ordinary gate behind us and raised a collection order on his device, while two armored recovery workers stepped out beside him. The paper listed the leased machine as an asset, and somebody had added its living passenger as included contents.