Chapter 363: Apparently I Needed an Instruction Manual

The diner owner called the barrier a safety feature, which sounded less convincing while it separated us from the road instead of separating the road from us.

Lukas kept the crawler running. I asked what happened if we decided to eat somewhere with fewer questions about our performance history, and the owner pointed toward a pedestrian gate beside the building.

"You’re welcome to leave whenever you like, although the vehicle lane stays shut during a presentation."

That statement produced no warning. The fact he could tell the truth without becoming helpful annoyed me more than the earlier lie.

He went inside to fetch menus, leaving us beneath a camera that continued admiring my left side.

Before you suggest anything, tell me exactly what I have available.

Old Mate lowered his drink and stared at me across the private bar.

[System: You’ve got more attachments than a Bunnings receipt, mate, and you’re finally asking what they do. Somewhere a bloke who writes instruction manuals just felt a disturbance in his bloody chest.]

I wanted the useful version, preferably before the breakfast developed an opinion.

The display opened with my form: Scarlet Slimewing Serpent, Rank B. Six feet four normally, twelve feet available while swimming or flying, with one head and no legs. Glossy red slime held its shape around scale-like patterns, floating tendrils and black wings threaded with red. Looking expensive didn’t supply free healing, and I still carried the soreness that proved it.

My EXP remained zero of two hundred thousand. I had four hundred thirty-five Indulgence Points, exactly where the evolution had left them. Harden’s death had awarded nothing.

[System: Four equipped skills, two new built-in functions and the old body tricks you kept, you industrial power cable. Try not to confuse a shopping list with permission to survive everything.]

Post-Noodle Galaxy Brain came first, still Rank C. It cleared mental interference, processed available information quickly and helped me learn or predict movement. Psychic attacks, illusions and brainwashing lost their hold, but my body didn’t become faster simply because I understood how badly somebody was about to hit it.

It couldn’t invent facts I hadn’t learned. There was no new timer or repeated charge attached to thinking clearly, which was fortunate because I already resented paying for water.

Aggressive Bio-Recall remained Rank S-minus, with a fifteen-minute cooldown. Actual eye contact and qualifying unnatural mutations mattered. Once those conditions were met, armor and ordinary health didn’t save the target from becoming the world’s worst packed lunch.

[System: An unfamiliar species isn’t automatically a mutant, champ. Otherwise you could turn half a shopping center into smoked sandwich filling because nobody looked like your old accountant.]

The accountant had looked unnatural, but I understood the distinction.

Mine Now, Dickhead remained Rank B. I could move one visible nonliving object whose center was within three meters into a fitting space touching my body. It kept its weight, size and momentum, then the skill needed forty-five seconds before another use.

No living target, bottomless storage or free lifting came with it. Stealing something heavy still meant introducing myself to something heavy, usually with my tail.

Backdoor Bludger was the other Rank B purchase. Two visible empty endpoints could sit no more than twenty meters apart, with openings up to two meters wide. They lasted eight seconds, and the three-minute cooldown started when I activated the pair.

Momentum carried through. Both ends needed matching pressure conditions, so joining the diner to the ocean wouldn’t become an exciting plumbing option. The edges couldn’t cut people, openings couldn’t appear inside bodies, and the doorway waited for a crossing body to clear before closing.

[System: You bought a shortcut across a room, not a bloody international airport. Your missus still lives more than twenty meters away, regardless of how optimistically you measure it.]

The new Bollocks Detector checked knowingly false literal statements addressed to me within ten meters. It didn’t read thoughts, reveal missing details or prove someone dishonest when they were simply wrong. Unclear wording could stay unclear, which explained how the owner had remained irritating after I caught him lying.

Devour needed ten seconds of continuous contact with dead or fully incapacitated hostile organic matter no larger than twice my mass. Its cooldown lasted ten minutes. A struggling fighter didn’t qualify, and absorbing a body didn’t award memories, copied powers or another payment for a kill already counted.

My retained abilities covered flight and hovering, jet-assisted movement, underwater breathing, thermal vision, smoke and tendrils. Current Sense detected nearby moving water, while controlled light and my own buoyancy remained useful. The coastal pressure tolerance had limits; the bottom of an unknown trench wasn’t included because my wings looked dramatic.

I still wasn’t bulletproof, despite Old Mate’s growing collection of names suggesting otherwise.

Lyra, Cherry and Bridget shared the usable abilities in their own bodies, each with her own cooldowns. They didn’t receive my species, private System, phone, senses or point balances. Lukas received none of it, which he considered worth mentioning when I explained the important parts aloud.

"So if you confidently say we’re protected, I should ask from what?"

"That would be sensible, although I would appreciate you asking before the impact."

I sent the same refresher to the girls through the diner’s working relay. The removed skills stayed removed: Nuh-Uh, Multitude, Gamble, Doppelganger, Red Light and Hold My Bloody Beer. No emergency nostalgia would put them back.

The owner returned with menus and explained that the breakfast was free, but seating, plates and compulsory sauce cost extra.

I ordered additional potatoes out of spite, which he misunderstood as approval.

Inside, screens showed previous visitors laughing beneath the same camera. A kitchen timer sat beside a large red switch, and every table had been placed with a generous view of the serving window.

Lukas watched me watch the switch.

"Please tell me you’re thinking about leaving."

"I was thinking about the potatoes first, but the order remained open to discussion."

Something struck beneath the kitchen hard enough to lift my plate, and every camera in the room turned toward me.