Limitless Evolution As a Snake

The new evolution preview gave me a glowing lure, which was apparently the System’s answer to a week of people repeatedly failing to notice I was a terrible idea.

I rested in the apartment’s cleared space while the girls checked the description with me. The last evolution had already moved me into a fish-linked wyrm form, and this one continued that route instead of suddenly installing legs or turning me into a dragon because somebody liked the word better.

Scarlet Undertow Lantern Wyrm, Rank C, looked considerably more impressive on the display than Old Mate’s immediate suggestion that I would become a sex-shop night-light with family issues.

I wanted him to explain which part of the description justified that comparison, preferably without inventing a department I had never visited.

[System: Red glow, questionable judgment and a strong chance of disappointing whoever switches you on, mate. I’m just reading the bloody product category.]

The form kept one head and no legs. My normal length remained six feet four, with the existing twelve-foot swimming or flying option available when I actually had space for it.

Flight and the jet-powered fins stayed. So did underwater breathing, thermal vision, Current Sense and the smoke abilities I had already learned to use without turning every maneuver into a surprise collision.

The new lure let me control colored light along a small flexible projection and parts of my fin pattern. It could attract attention by being visible, but it didn’t force minds, hypnotize enemies or make a guard forget that glowing criminals still carried bad intentions.

The other addition was adjustable buoyancy through the new form’s internal sacs. I could balance my own body in water more precisely, with no extra carrying strength and no magical right to lift a sinking ship because floating felt convenient.

The pressure tolerance improved within the serviced coastal depths shown in the description. It wasn’t permission to explore every dark trench on the planet, and I kept that limit in mind because I had recently acquired enough reasons to come home.

Bridget touched my face and asked whether I wanted her nearby. I said yes, then asked all three women to stay outside the marked space while the form settled so none of us discovered an extra complication by standing too close.

Sixty thousand EXP went into the evolution. Two thousand five hundred remained against the new one-hundred-thousand target, and my IP stayed at three hundred and ten because changing form didn’t secretly buy skills from the shop.

Heat moved through my scales as the smoke around my body thickened. I felt the new balance inside my chest and along my fins, then an unfamiliar tug above my face as the little lure unfolded into place.

The process hurt without turning into an excuse to forget the injuries I already had. When it ended, my side still ached, the fin dressing still mattered and the tail bruise remained committed to its role in my day.

I opened my eyes to find Cherry trying extremely hard not to laugh. Lyra had one hand over her mouth, while Bridget looked at the glowing projection with the expression of someone deciding how much honesty a loving relationship required.

”I assumed the silence meant I looked majestic, and I’d prefer everyone to respect that interpretation until I’d had breakfast number two.”

Bridget kissed my cheek, then told me the light had turned bright pink when I looked at her. Apparently control existed, but my first attempt at exercising it had been less private than intended.

[System: You’ve evolved a bloody mood lamp, champ. Best tell the aristocrats your third sun’s portable before someone asks why the king’s head looks like a nightclub special.]

I could switch it off, which already made it more manageable than most of your commentary.

I dimmed the lure, changed it to a dull red and practiced holding it steady while turning my head. The motion felt like learning an extra small fin, useful once I stopped treating every new body part as something the universe had installed to embarrass me.

The sharing link updated the girls’ usable abilities. They gained controllable light and buoyancy suited to their own bodies, without growing my organs, changing species or losing the forms that already belonged to them.

Cherry tested a glow along her fingertips, then brightened it enough to make Lyra tell her to stop pointing at people’s eyes. Bridget produced a softer light near her wings and watched it reflect in the window with quiet delight.

We practiced the buoyancy change later in the club’s contained maintenance pool. I adjusted my own depth, then watched the girls try it separately, keeping the test simple while we learned how much concentration small corrections required.

Nobody lifted furniture by thinking at it. The power helped a body hold position in water, which was useful enough without pretending it had secretly become another form of theft.

We repeated the small adjustments until each of us could stop without bobbing into the pool edge, which seemed a useful standard before trying deeper water.

By afternoon, I could hover comfortably beneath the surface without constantly paddling. I wanted to show Dazza, partly because he needed his next walk and partly because I suspected he would appreciate a glowing friend without reviewing the design.

The depot confirmed his pen remained secure and his appetite remained deeply unreasonable. The operator also mentioned that the neighboring survey gallery had reopened after yesterday’s freight mess, overlooking the underground territorial basin where the largest local creatures gathered.

There was a public camera connection available for licensed observation. I looked at the new light on my head, the balance in my account and the message describing ten-story beasts fighting over territory.

”Sweetheart, how strongly did you feel about me discovering a new business opportunity while walking the dog?”

Bridget closed her eyes for a moment, then asked whether the opportunity could eat people. Old Mate began laughing before I even considered how to phrase the answer.