One.
Four rewards.
One selection.
The System said nothing about the other three.
I focused on Hardened Shell.
The list faded except for the first option.
[Passive Ability: Hardened Shell]
[Effect: Increases shell density and resistance to minor physical damage.]
[Cost: Additional mass reduces Agility and makes balance more difficult.]
I looked at the ledge I had nearly failed to climb.
More weight.
Excellent.
The ability might let me survive a bite that would otherwise split the shell. It might also turn every slope into a wall and every overturned position into a slow execution.
My shell already pulled against me whenever I climbed. I did not know how the System converted Vitality into actual durability, or what it considered minor damage. A falling droplet? Mandibles? Being stepped on by whatever had crossed the broad trail?
Probably not the last one.
I moved beneath the edge of a moss-covered stone. The reward screen followed my vision without shifting against the world.
The shallow space was not much of a shelter. It covered my shell from above and left both sides open, but the stone held moisture. The irritated part of my foot still burned whenever it contracted.
I focused on the second option.
[Passive Ability: Acid Slimy Trail]
[Effect: Mucus becomes corrosive to organic tissue and may damage creatures that cross or follow it.]
[Warning: Prolonged contact may also damage the host.]
I looked down at the fresh mucus beneath my body.
I was a snail.
I could not move without touching my own trail.
The ability could stop another creature from following me. It could also turn resting into self-harm and contaminate any shelter I used more than once.
Maybe I could control when the acid activated.
The description did not say that.
Maybe the warning was exaggerated.
That was not a theory I wanted to test with one Health Point.
I focused on Heightened Sense of Smell.
[Passive Ability: Heightened Sense of Smell]
[Effect: Increases chemical sensitivity and extends the range at which scents can be detected.]
[Warning: Strong or concentrated odors may cause nausea and sensory overload.]
I stayed on that option longer.
Information.
I could barely see. My hearing was mostly vibration. Smell could warn me about predators before they reached my mucus trail. It could locate water, food, toxins, and anything decaying nearby.
Five useful seconds of warning might be the difference between reaching shelter and becoming part of the moss.
The problem was what came after the warning.
I was still slow.
Detecting mandibles from farther away would not make my body move faster. And if the environment smelled anything like it looked, increased sensitivity might leave me too sick to move at all.
Still, it was good.
Possibly the best choice.
I focused on Omnivore.
[Passive Ability: Omnivore]
[Effect: Adapts the digestive system to process biological materials outside the natural diet of the current species and extract nutrition from compatible matter.]
[Warning: Digestibility does not prevent external harm.]
No direct defense.
No speed.
No warning before something ate me.
Only food.
My hunger tightened as if the word had reminded my body it existed.
There was moss everywhere, but I did not know how much of it I could live on. The soft patch I had scraped earlier had taken too long to eat and had done little beyond making the hunger less sharp. The dark crust had burned me. The fungi might be food, poison, or both.
Omnivore would increase the number of materials I could test.
It did not promise they would be safe.
It did not promise they would be useful.
It did not even define compatible.
I focused on the word.
Nothing changed.
'Define compatible.'
Nothing.
'Can I control Acid Slimy Trail?'
Nothing.
'How much does Hardened Shell reduce Agility?'
Nothing.
'What is the effective range?'
The System gave me nothing.
A faint vibration moved through the stone.
Not close.
Still enough to make my lower tentacles pull inward.
I dismissed the screen.
The four choices vanished.
'Rewards.'
They returned.
Good.
I crawled farther beneath the stone lip.
The list remained.
So I could move, dismiss it, and reopen it. That did not prove the choices would wait forever.
'Is there a time limit?'
Nothing.
'Will the rejected rewards appear again?'
Nothing.
'Can I delay the selection?'
Nothing.
I waited.
The screen stayed open.
That proved it could remain for several seconds.
Nothing more.
Another vibration passed through the ruins, weaker than the first. Dust or dried fungal matter shifted from the underside of the stone and landed beside my shell.
The stone above me shifted but held.
I returned to Hardened Shell.
It was the best immediate defense, but its cost attacked the one thing I already lacked. My Agility was negative three. I did not know whether another reduction meant slower movement or no useful movement at all.
Acid Slimy Trail was a weapon I could not move without touching.
Heightened Sense of Smell gave information. On Earth, I would have chosen better instruments before expanding the sample set.
On Earth, I had hands, equipment, clean containers, and the ability to move faster than growing moss.
Here, information about food would not help if the food remained impossible to digest.
Omnivore gave no immediate protection, but it carried no stated reduction to anything I already needed.
More importantly, it changed the environment from scenery into possible resources. Moss, fungus, dead tissue, strange biological growths—each could become food, bait, material, or something I had not thought of yet.
Could.
Not would.
Heightened Sense of Smell might keep me alive through the next hour.
Hardened Shell might keep me alive through the next bite.
Omnivore might do nothing before I died.
I hated that it still offered the widest future.
The stone shook again.
Closer.
I pulled farther beneath the lip until my shell touched the back wall.
There was nowhere else to go without leaving the only cover I had.
'Trial period?'
Nothing.
'Undo selection?'
Nothing.
No ethics board would have approved an irreversible biological procedure from four incomplete descriptions.
There was no ethics board here.
There was only me, the screen, and whatever kept shaking the stone.
I focused on Omnivore.
[Confirm selection: Omnivore?]
[Yes/No]
The prompt remained still.
I thought of the arthropod following my mucus, the crust it refused to cross, and the fungi bending under water.
So far, I had survived by noticing relationships before they killed me.
A stronger shell would protect the body I had.
Omnivore might make more of this place usable.
Each option would change my body again. I had only just learned how to move this one.
I could not prove Omnivore was the right choice.
'Yes.'
The screen vanished.
Pain crushed my mouth.
The rough ribbon inside it tightened so hard that my head pulled downward. My radula scraped against nothing. Tiny points shifted along its surface, not breaking, not exactly growing, but changing position while the muscles around them contracted.
I tried to pull into my shell.
My body made it halfway.
A second contraction moved deeper.
The narrow passage behind my mouth closed. Muscles through my body clenched in sequence. Something twisted beneath the shell, hot and slow.
I had no teeth to bite down on.
My body found other ways to suffer.
The contraction passed through my gut and returned.
I tried to shout.
Nothing human came out.
For several seconds, there was only pressure, heat, and the wet stone against my foot.
Then it stopped.
Not gradually.
One moment my body was folding itself around the pain.
The next, it released.
I remained half inside my shell.
Blue text appeared.
[Passive Ability Acquired: Omnivore]
[The host can process biological materials outside the natural diet of the current species and extract nutrition from compatible matter.]
[Digestibility does not prevent external harm.]
I waited for another line.
There was none.
'Health.'
[Health Points: 1/1]
'Mana.'
[Mana Points: 30/30]
No numerical cost.
That did not mean there had been no cost.
My mouth felt raw. My gut kept tightening in small aftershocks.
The hunger remained exactly where it had been.
The ability gave me no instinct, no list of safe materials, and no sudden desire to eat the wall.
Good.
I extended from the shell and found a soft patch of moss near the wall.
Control first.
I scraped it once with my radula.
The motion felt unfamiliar, but my mouth was sore enough to make that useless as evidence. I swallowed the small amount and waited.
Nothing happened.
No notification.
No sudden warmth.
No healing.
It tasted like the same wet moss I had eaten before.
Good.
The control told me nothing had changed enough to notice.
A dark line covered the base of the wall beside it.
The growth looked similar to the crust I had crossed earlier, though poor vision and a different location made that uncertain. It was harder than the moss and spread over the stone in a thin, uneven seal.
I touched the edge with one lower tentacle.
Pain pricked through it.
I pulled back.
Similar reaction.
Possibly similar material.
The warning had said digestibility did not prevent external harm.
There was a simple way to test both parts of that sentence.
It was also a stupid way.
I positioned my foot on wet moss, kept my body away from the dark growth, and lowered my mouth to its thinnest edge.
One scrape.
A bitter fragment entered my mouth.
Heat spread across the tissue around my radula.
I swallowed before I could reconsider.
My mouth burned.
The fragment moved deeper.
I waited for the heat to follow.
My gut tightened once.
Then again.
The sharp irritation faded into a heavy warmth beneath the shell.
No worse pain followed.
I checked my Health.
[Health Points: 1/1]
Not proof of safety.
Not proof of nutrition.
Only proof that one tiny sample had not killed me quickly.
I waited longer.
The warmth remained. My mouth still stung where it had touched the crust.
Digestible, probably.
Harmless, no.
I had gained an ability and immediately confirmed its warning.
Progress.
A faint sound came through the wall.
Scrape
I stopped moving.
The sound was too close to be the arthropod outside.
I touched the stone with both lower tentacles.
Nothing.
Then the dark seal beneath my mouth flexed.
Scrape
The sound came from the other side.