A blue, transparent panel shimmered into existence before Kane's eyes, its sudden appearance almost sending him tumbling backward in the shower.
"Fuck! Give me a warning first," he muttered, though a jolt of excitement coursed through him. The letter was real, not some hallucination from a post-alcoholic haze.
'Come to daddy,' he thought, a smile playing on his lips.
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[Welcome to the Absorption System! There's no limit to how strong you can get. You just keep absorbing, keep growing.
Core System Mechanics (Passive)
These are the always-on parts of your ability, working in the background.
• Smart Merging: Your system intelligently takes new abilities and blends them with what you already have. Stronger traits take over weaker ones, and complementary traits work together to make you far more capable.
• Human Form: Even as you gain immense ability, your body stays looking and feeling human. The system improves your human biology; it doesn't turn you into something non-human. You might temporarily show traits like claws when you need them, but your skin and overall appearance remain human.
• Constant Growth: Your system is always learning and getting better. It finds new ways for your abilities to work together, constantly pushing your body to its perfect form.
Abilities & Traits Panel: This screen lists all the abilities, traits, and skills you've absorbed.
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Absorption Methods (Active Skills)
Basic Methods These methods are available from the start.
• Touch and Take: Just touch something, and its qualities become yours. Touching a rock can make your skin tougher. For normal things, this takes a few seconds. For supernatural sources, it can take seconds, minutes, or even hours of direct contact, depending on how strong the source is.
• Eat It Up: Eating a part of something powerful gives you a sudden, strong boost. It's raw, but effective, giving you a near-instant surge of ability.
• Focused Absorption: You can pick one specific trait, skill, or even a piece of knowledge to take. By focusing on it, like a cheetah's speed, a fighter's skill, or a specific memory from a person, your system works faster, so you get that trait quicker.
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Advanced Methods (Locked)
As your ability grows, you'll unlock these specialized ways to absorb.
• Soak It In
• Conceptual Assimilation
• Radiant Absorption
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Benefits & Evolution (Passive Gains)
Every time you absorb, you change, and your ability keeps growing with you.
• Acquired Traits & Skills: You immediately gain new physical traits (like claws or faster healing) or instantly learn new skills (like a fighter's moves or a mage's spells). You don't learn; you just can.
• Breakthroughs: Sometimes, after absorbing something truly unique, you'll have a Breakthrough. This unlocks entirely new abilities or greatly improves ones you already have.
• Supernatural Abilities: Absorbing something truly strange, like part of a ghost or a broken dimension, gives you unique, unpredictable abilities no one else has.]
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Kane held a bewildered look, his mind blank as he struggled to comprehend this 'wish' he had been granted.
The sheer possibility of simply absorbing learned skills and knowledge from another person felt more expansive than he could conceive.
'I... I could do anything with this, right?'
Turning off the shower and stepping out, Kane slowly toweled his body in front of the mirror, his eyes scanning for any immediate changes.
Standing at 6'3", Kane's physique was tightly corded with lean muscle. Through years of sports and proper nutrition, he had honed his body into what felt like a perfect machine.
Green eyes sparkled in the dimly lit bathroom, his wavy, medium-length black hair always held a degree of wildness. Full lips, a strong browline, and a sharp jaw added to his overall appearance, firmly placing him in the 'Instagram-worthy' category.
"At least I can say I built this body myself," he murmured, tossing his towel into the dirty clothes basket before exiting the bathroom and then the bedroom.
Walking down the hallway, his eyes traced the luxurious paintings on the walls before he turned the corner and entered his office.
The office felt cozy, centered around a big, solid oak desk. To one side, tucked between two well-stocked bookcases, sat a comfy, worn leather couch. A faded Persian rug softened the floor, and the walls held a few abstract prints that caught the eye.
Little potted plants dotted the windowsills, adding touches of green to the space.
Eyeing the stack of diaries on the desk, Kane opened the closest one and read one of the entries.
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{June 18th, 1999: These weird dreams keep happening, every single day since I could remember. Books that hadn't yet been created, I held clear memory of their contents. Movies, games, even stock prices... it feels like I can see the future, but it must be the early stages of mental decline.}
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Snorting, Kane tossed the diary back on the table. 'Not insane,' he thought, before stretching out on the leather couch.
"System, can you interact or respond to me?" he spoke aloud. Kane had grown used to vocalizing his thoughts, a habit formed from living alone for the past couple of years.
The silence in the office was broken only by the sounds of traffic emanating from the open window behind the oak desk.
"Okay, no real sentience," he mused, ticking off another item on his mental checklist. "Maybe it only replies or gives prompts when questioning the System itself."
Mentally commanding the panel to reappear, he reread each ability, both passive and active, and began formulating a test. This time, he tried speaking in his mind.
'Can you explain how it's possible for me to gain the traits, skills, abilities, or knowledge of anything I touch?'
[The Absorption System isn't a physical schematic, but rather an intrinsic, highly advanced biological and mental protocol embedded within the user.
It's the fundamental operating system that governs how absorption occurs and how capabilities are integrated. Simply called, the "Blueprint".]
Kane pondered the System's explanation, the gears in his mind turning as further questions began to bloom.
'Can you explain this in more detail?' he queried.
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[How the Blueprint Works:
• Instant Scan: When you absorb something, the blueprint immediately scans it. It's not just copying; it quickly understands the main idea behind what makes that trait or ability work, whether it's biological or something more abstract.
• Smart Translation: It then figures out how the new trait functions – like how tough skin grows or how a complex skill works in the mind. After that, it translates these workings into a way your body and mind can easily use.
• Seamless Upgrade: Its main job is to blend and improve. It doesn't just add new abilities; it makes them better. If a new trait is stronger than one you have, it intelligently replaces it. If traits work well together, they combine to make you much more capable. This happens at a deep level in your cells and thoughts, ensuring everything works in perfect harmony.
• Human First: A key rule of the blueprint is to always keep you human. All absorbed abilities fit into your human body, making it better without changing your core species. You might temporarily show things like claws, but your overall look and feel will always remain human.
• Always Learning: The blueprint itself is alive and constantly evolving. Every time you absorb, it learns, gets faster, and improves how it integrates new traits. This continuous self-improvement is what leads to "Breakthroughs," unlocking entirely new types of abilities or greatly boosting ones you already have, making your growth even faster.
Essentially, the blueprint is like your own ultimate biological computer. It's always scanning, understanding, combining, and optimizing everything, all to make your human form the best it can be through endless absorption.]
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Releasing a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, Kane opened his eyes, the System's words fully sinking in.
'Essentially, I can become the ultimate being,' he thought. 'Absorbing anything and everything to continue to grow stronger, more adaptable, more resilient. I'm like the ultimate bacteria.'
Sitting up, Kane brushed back his loose hair and stared at the computer on the desk.
"I should research some animals... who knows how strong I could get by walking into a pet shop."
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A/N - 2/3 Released Today.