Limitless Evolution As a Snake

[System: Yep. Bite something, grab something, bump into a wall like a drongo, poof, you’re visible again. So don’t be stupid with it.]

I let out a breath through my nose, or whatever passes for a nose on this body now, and glance down at Cherry’s broken horn stumps poking out from under the blanket. Three minutes of not existing sounds pretty good most days, honestly. Not just for combat.

Can I use it to avoid awkward conversations?

[System: Mate, if I gave you a skill that let you avoid awkward conversations, you’d never level up again. You’d just vanish every time Lyra looked at you funny. Nah, this one’s combat and escape only.]

I’m not saying no to it; I’m just saying it’s suspicious.

[System: Everything about you is suspicious, mate. Pick a skill.]

What’s next then?

Molt Reflex (Rank D)

IP Cost: 50 IP

Description: Passive skill. Triggered upon taking a blow that would cause fatal or crippling bodily damage. Instantaneously sheds the affected section of scale and muscle, allowing you to slither free while full tissue regeneration completes in under sixty seconds.

Note: [System Note: Basically an ”oh shit” button stapled straight to your spine. Leave a dead skin suit behind and let the other guy brag about killing an empty jacket.]

Cool down: None. Spam it.

I read it twice just to make sure I’m not missing something.

Hang on, isn’t that just what already happens when I get hurt bad enough? Like, dying hurt?

[System: Yeah nah, you’re spot on mate.]

So it’s the same thing.

[System: Basically, yeah.]

But now if I get this skill, I can trigger it?

[System: Bloody oath you can, you can even spam it.]

It already happens automatically. That’s like the whole point of shedding. I don’t got a choice in it now, do I? Something rips my arm off; I regrow the arm. That’s just another day for me.

[System: Yeah, nah, that’s the base kit. This here’s the deluxe version. Same shed, same regen, except now it’s got a name and a price tag on it.]

So I’m paying fifty IP to keep doing something I already do for free.

[System: When you say it like that, it does sound bad.]

”It sounds bad because it is bad, this is like selling someone a button that makes their heart keep beating—okay, nope, skip it. Next option.”

[System: Option Three. Last one, so pay attention.]

A new box pops up in front of me, red and gold like a slot machine.

Snake-Eyes Gamble (Coin Flip Buff/Debuff)

Rank: Epic (Rank C)

IP Cost: 42 IP

Info: Flip a System coin. Heads, you get plus one hundred per cent luck for three minutes, guaranteed crits, perfect dodges, the whole nine yards of main character energy, but land tails? You lose my mind and turn into a feral murder machine with zero pain response for three minutes.

[System Note: Absolute casino hours, ya drongo. Either you become the luckiest armed red salami alive, or you turn into a cold-blooded apex butcher who doesn’t care whose feelings get hurt. Don’t flip tails around your girlfriends unless you want a real bad time.]

I read the description again, my brain stalling for a solid ten seconds.

That’s a coin flip for my entire personality?

[System: Yep.]

Fifty-fifty odds on becoming either a god of luck or a guy who bites his own girlfriend’s face off.

[System: When you say it like that, it does sound bad.]

Okay, let’s actually think about this. Heads is busted good, right? Guaranteed crits, perfect dodges, environmental luck, that’s basically god mode for three minutes.

[System: Bloody broken, yeah. You’d walk through a wood chipper and come out the other side holding a trophy and someone’s wallet.]

And what is tails, exactly? Like, define feral for me. Am I still me in there somewhere, or am I just gone?

[System: Gone, mate. Lights on, nobody home. Higher brain function’s purged, so no empathy, no impulse control, no ”oh wait that’s my friend” moment. Just pure aggression and zero pain response till the timer runs out.]

Huh, let me think about it, I guess?

[System: To be fair, fifty-fifty’s still better odds than most things you’ve survived so far.]

That’s not exactly the endorsement you think it is.

I keep chewing on it though, because the thing is, the heads side is stupid good. Three minutes of perfect everything could turn a losing fight into a joke. Could turn me from the bottom of the food chain into the guy who doesn’t miss, doesn’t get hit, doesn’t lose. That’s not a small thing down here where losing usually means dying, or worse, ending up under a blanket with your body cut up.

And the tails side, yeah it’s scary, but I’m already small, weak, outnumbered in basically every fight I’ve been in since I woke up in this body. Maybe a little feral butcher energy isn’t the worst backup plan when the alternative is getting stomped into paste by something three times my size.

Cherry doesn’t even stir under the blanket, chest rising slow and even, and I feel kind of bad for being here, weighing whether to gamble my whole personality while she’s out cold.

So I just gotta pick this thing and hope for the best; no way to weigh the odds or anything.

[System: Nah mate, coin’s a coin. Fifty-fifty, no loading it, no cheating, that’s the whole point of a gamble, just like your bubbles, and remember that worked out so well! Oh, and quick thing, if you buy it, gimme a squiz within twenty-four hours and actually flip the bloody thing, I’ll toss in a fifty IP bonus. Straight up freebie for testing the merchandise.]

Hang on, you’re bribing me to gamble with my own brain.

[System: Yeah nah, incentivising. Sounds better with the fancy word.]

That’s not better; that’s the same thing with a tie on.

[System: Fifty IP’s fifty IPs, mate. You gonna say no to free stuff now?]