Limitless Evolution As a Snake

[System: reckon ’winging it’ implies a lack of structure, which isn’t fair. I’ve got systems in place, rules and frameworks. They’re just... flexible.]

Flexible, huh?

[System: adaptable.]

ADAPTABLE.

[System: listen, mate, it’s not like I’m completely in the dark. The core mechanics work. IP accumulation, evolution pathways, the bonding branch, all of that’s solid. It’s the finer details that get a bit creative. Skill descriptions, commentary, the occasional evolution option that might not be strictly orthodox.]

MIGHT NOT BE STRICTLY ORTHODOX.

[System: you’re repeating things again, it’s not helping.]

I coil tighter, which hurts my cracked scales, which makes me angrier, which makes me coil tighter. It’s a vicious cycle of self-inflicted pain and existential fury.

So let me get this straight.

My voice comes out flat, cold. Inside, my gut is a knot of ice.

My entire existence, my evolution, my skills, my bond with Lyra is being run by a drunk Australian kolala who’s making shit up as he goes.

[System: when you put it that way, it sounds bad.]

Bad? Because that’s what it sounds like. Bad and profoundly, cosmically terrifying.

[System: look, it’s not that terrible. The framework is solid. I’m just... interpreting the user experience with a certain degree of artistic license.]

Artistic license. You gave my bullet mouth a fifteen-second cooldown because it sounded balanced, didn’t you?

[System: twelve seconds, actually. Fifteen felt too weird.]

I want to scream. I want to find a wall and headbutt it until either the wall breaks or I do. Instead, I just sit there, in my dry cubbyhole, with my cracked scales and my new hypnosis skill and the growing certainty that the cosmic force guiding my serpentine existence has the professional competence of a middle manager at a failing startup.

Are the evolution paths even real? The C-Tier options you showed me Crimson Constrictor, Homunculus, Elemental Catalyst are those actually things I can become, or did you just make those up because they sounded cool?

[System: they’re real. Properly documented evolution branches, straight from the manual. Well, the bits of the manual that aren’t glitched into oblivion. The Homunculus one is a bit... interpretive. The manual calls it ’incomplete anthropomorphic transition,’ which is too administrative for ’you’ll look like a nightmare,’ but the functionality checks out.]

And the skills? My venom? The wings? The bullet mouth?

[System: all real. Certified, documented, proper snake shit. I might’ve jazzed up the descriptions a bit. The manual is very dry, mate. Reads like a tax form written by someone who hates joy.]

I slump against the cubbyhole wall. The concrete is cool against my scales, which is the only pleasant sensation I’ve had in the last five minutes.

So what you’re telling me is that the System is real, but you’re basically the guy reading the instruction manual aloud while missing half the pages, and occasionally ad-libbing when you hit a blank spot.

[System: that’s... yeah, that’s about the size of it. However, I resent the implication that my ad-libs aren’t premium content. That hypnosis skill you just bought? My description. The manual just says ’ocular influence protocol.’ Boring as batshit.]

I close my eyes. Or I would, if snakes had eyelids, which we don’t, so I just kind of stare blankly at the tunnel wall while my brain short-circuits.

This should be devastating. This should be the kind of revelation that breaks a person. The System that pulled me from death and stuffed me into a snake is just some bloke doing improv with a broken script.

And yet, it’s the most on-brand thing that has ever happened to me. Of course my System is winging it. Of course the manual is a wreck. Of course the cosmic entity in charge of my evolution has opinions about my love life and speaks in Aussie slang.

Nothing in my pathetic human life ever went according to plan, so why the hell would my reincarnation be any different?

I start laughing. It’s not a healthy laugh; it’s the kind of laugh that comes out when something is so profoundly stupid that your only options are to scream or chuckle, and screaming takes too much energy.

[System: you alright there, mate? This is usually the part where humans have a proper meltdown. Laughing’s new. Concerning, but new.]

I’m fine, I’m great. This is perfect. This is so fucking perfect I can’t even...

[System: right. Well, while you’re having your nervous breakthrough, reckon I should mention something.]

What.

[System: you should probably head back to the penthouse. Lyra’s been worried about where you’ve been for the past three hours, and when she woke up all she could find was the scribble drawing you drew. Which, given where she woke up, is going to make her really anxious.]

The laughing stops.

Oh shit.

[System: yeah, oh shit indeed.]

I uncoil from the cubbyhole and immediately regret every life choice that led me here. My cracked scales pull and pinch in a dozen different places, each one filing its own complaint. My left wing is still not sitting right in its pocket; there’s a click every time I shift, like something’s caught, and my throat feels like I’ve been gargling industrial bleach.

But Lyra’s worried. That fact sits in my chest heavier than any physical injury.

So I move.

Slithering through the Undercity with busted scales is like trying to run a marathon with a nail in your shoe. Every shift of my body grinds the fractured keratin against itself. I favour my right side, which means my slither pattern is lopsided, curving gently to the left like a badly aimed bowling ball. Not my most intimidating look.

The tunnels feel different on the return trip. Before, they were just tunnels, wet, dark and full of things that wanted to eat me, but ultimately just infrastructure.

Now, after the gator, after the System revelation, they feel... real, actually real. Not a game level, not a dungeon crawl, but a place where things live and die according to rules that don’t care about my self-image.

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