Change in the System

Mat helped me out of my wheelchair as I looked back at the new hospital wing of the clinic. This street was quickly becoming a go to location for hunters to prepare or recover from the towers. It was amazing how the locations of the towers completely transformed the place.

No one wanted to live near them unless they were a hunter. So businesses and civilians relocated to other parts of the city. It benefited the city, because they could rebuild and tailor towards the hunters.

"Are you sure you want to walk? I can call a car for you."

I pushed Mat's hand out of the way and took my first breath of fresh air. Sitting inside all day at the hospital had made me miss the outside. A part of the remodel of the streets was to add gardens and trees.

It was nothing like outside the city, which had become some sort of desolate landscape due to the monster waves. Crystal City was its own paradise, in that damage was kept to the minimum. Even talks of making it the new Capital were underway.

I had a lot of time to catch up on news in the hospital. The reputation for Crystal City was leaps and bounds over its previous reputation due to the changes in history I had noticed. It felt so… artificial.

I had no plans to get involved with politics, so it was better to just let sleeping dogs lie. I was too busy enjoying the faint breeze on my skin and the fact that I was still alive.

"Callie, lets visit that new food place you were talking about."

"Yay!"

Mat looked worried, but his worry was immediately drowned out by the cheers coming from Callie's direction. He did relent in the end, but hovered over me like I could collapse at any minute.

It was midday, but I was still hungry from lunch. So we traveled down the street until we came across a new restaurant named, Monster Munch. It certainly was a unique name. I wonder what types of monster meat they sold here?

We found a table in a corner and looked down at the menus. I was surprised to see the tiger from Floor 2 of the Crystal City Tower among the choices. I guess it was easy to procure a steady supply of tiger meat. I had heard that regular tigers did not taste good though.

"I wonder if that will even taste good?"

Mat looked over to where I was pointing.

"Surprisingly, it tastes like pork."

"How does that make sense?"

"I don't know."

Was the system glitched in a way that the monsters or rather the loot we collected tasted like things we knew? I saw that there were various effects listed next to the dishes.

After scanning the entire menu I decided to go with the tiger meat dish. It had an effect that boosted your awareness. It was a pretty vague description. I wonder if that helped hunters detect enemies or something.

After we ordered and received our food I looked at the cubed meat in a stew. It looked like regular beef stew. I took my spoon and scooped up a piece of meat. The meat was similar to beef in texture, but it tasted like a pork chop.

"What a strange taste."

"I felt the same way too after I first ate it," Mat replied.

This would also taste good as skewers. I wonder if anyone sold it like that. It felt like more and more items were being replaced by the materials we could get out of the towers. Almost as if life was always like this.

"Are you sure you want to go into the tower today? You just got out of the hospital."

"It's fine. I just want to see if the system is back to normal. I don't plan on going into a dungeon today."

"Then let us go with you. I'm worried that something will happen again."

Mat was being very insistent on joining me in the tower, so I let him come with me. Ever since I ate the tiger stew from the restaurant I seemed to be aware of everything around me. I knew how many people were surrounding me and whether they were hostile or not.

Since we were surrounded by a lot of people on the street leading to the tower, my head hurt a bit from the overflow of information. The restaurant packed lunches for hunters, so I thought that it wouldn't be bad to buy a variety of things and put them into my bag for when we hunted in the towers.

I waved goodbye to Callie, who had some errands to run. She needed to visit Dyno at his shop as well. It seemed he was fixing up her armor and weapons for when we went back into the tower.

There was a long line waiting to go inside the tower. I felt nervous as I looked up at the tower. There were lights that stayed illuminated constantly that changed color in set intervals. With my new awareness, I felt a huge surge of energy from the tower each time someone went into the lobby.

The energy surged from the bottom to the top like some kind of beacon. It made me have even more questions about the towers and why they existed. On one hand my suspicions that the towers were actually teleporting us elsewhere was right on the mark.

Still that technology felt foreign and the questions about why this was happening and who was behind this made my head feel dizzy. I felt myself unintentionally step back from the energy once we were next in line.

"Are you okay?"

Mat placed his hand on my back at my hesitation. I must look strange right now. The effect of the tiger stew was a lot more potent than I originally thought. I formed my hands into fists and took the first step into the lobby of the tower.

It felt dangerous to step onto the pure energy of the teleportation circle, but I acted as if it was the same as normal. The energy surged around us and the bright light filled my vision.

"Um… Kai?"

Mat's nervous voice brought me back to myself as I realized I had grabbed his arm. I needed to control myself. I removed my hand from his arm and coughed nervously.

"Sorry, I must be remembering the last time I was here."

Mat's eyes softened and I suddenly got the feeling that he was misunderstanding something.

"I'm here if you need anything."

He held up his arms expectantly. He was definitely misunderstanding something. How did this turn into me needing a hug? I narrowed my eyes and chose to pretend I didn't see him.

I walked to the blinking screen. Amo never seemed to want to mess with me when others were with me. The text was white as usual.

"System, do humans change biologically by going into the towers?"

[Hello player. Welcome back! Please be more specific with your question.]

Something about the system felt different. Like it had undergone a personality change or gained a personality. I wonder if it was 'his' influence.

"Do the towers or dungeons influence changes to DNA?"

[It is not that the dungeons change the DNA, but the acquisition of skills and abilities that require changes that influence evolution.]

"Humans evolve in the dungeons?"

[Yes, player. You have evolved as well. Currently there is not enough data on your fighting direction to complete your evolution.]

"This is insane."

Mat was staring over my shoulder at the blinking screen.

[Would the player like to register your party mate as a user?]

"What does it mean to register someone as a user?"

[The party mate Mat has not met the requirement to unlock the system. However, since you, Player, have gained the status of being the first to unlock evolution and become the first player, you may unlock this feature for others so long as you are in the same party or guild.]

I rubbed my head at this information. If this were to get out to the hunter association, I would be swarmed by the people who wanted to take advantage of this system.

[Users can choose to teleport to other towers and to floors the player has already unlocked. However, all experience earned without the player is halved. Also, the difficulty of the tower they choose may be increased as a penalty for not unlocking the system yet.]

The system was surprisingly strict for basically unlocking a cheat.

"Why would their experience be halved?"

[By unlocking the system you receive an experience boost. Party mates receive the same boost as the person with the highest rank in their party. Your current boost is x2. So the party members would receive a detriment in the same amount as if they were receiving the boost.]

"That sounds confusing."

[Would you like to see a graph?]

"No, that is not necessary. Can I see my current skills?"

[I'm sorry. Your current statistics are locked by an administrator.]

"Locked?"

Did Amo lock my status?

"Who locked my statistics?"

[Processing… The System can not load this request.]

My fist went through the projection and I felt displeased with the lack of a physical screen to smash.

"Is there anything else that has been locked by the admin?"

[Yes. The admin has locked the statistics of your party as well.]

"Unbelievable. Why do you always have to make everything so hard?"

[The system only proceeds in a way that helps the player grow so that they may succeed in the tower dungeons.]

"The system helps players grow?"

[Yes. For instance, the system generates another level in a dungeon. Or the system increases the difficulty in a dungeon if the Player looks bored.]

"Don't do that!"

[...]