After finishing my food in the room I cimed for myself at the supermarket, I gnced at my twig-like forearms and clenched my fist.
'Does the improvement go straight to the cells or atom composition? Or maybe even the atoms themselves?' Crow pondered aloud, trying to sound reasonable. 'If that’s the case, then fat people would have a harder time losing weight—and people like me, it’d be just as hard to gain anything.'
Thirty-five minutes had passed. I wanted to keep the conversation going, to have a more independent dialogue about it. But Crow interrupted me.
'Yeah, like we can change anything by just knowing it. Just sleep for now. I know it’s not easy to fall asleep just because you want to, but we need to.'
With his help—by not distracting me and guiding my focus—I convinced my brain I was already asleep. In just over ten minutes, I was out.
Crow sat up from the bed, now in control, cracking his knuckles as he tested his grip.
"It's really uncomfortable not being able to move your own body... even worse when you can't control where you're looking," he muttered, stretching his arms. "Maybe that whole third-eye stuff is real. If it is, at least it would give me a separate viewpoint."
He stood, took a deep breath, and muttered to himself, "Okay, let’s start with the zombie body. I need to figure out how to spread that infection ability through my entire body."
Stretching out his palm into an open part of the room, a headless Tank Zombie suddenly materialized—retrieved directly from his spatial storage.
Crow stared at it for a second. "Wait... what if I don’t need the whole body? What if just the Core is enough?" He clicked his tongue, feeling stupid for not thinking of it earlier.
He pressed his hand against the corpse and activated [Decompose] skill.
---
> Ding!
+50,000 kg of atoms
+10 Ability Points
---
He picked up the Core—no bigger than a pinky nail. It looked the same as usual, though now it appeared about one-fourth empty.
"Now let's see how long I can use this thing," Crow muttered, a sense of accomplishment in his voice. He pinched the core between his thumb and pointer finger and activated [Infection]. A strange coating spread around his fingertip, and the top of his finger opened up, absorbing the core.
As the core was slowly consumed, Crow felt the absorption process intensify. Once it hit the halfway point, something snapped—the coating spread further, now covering half of his finger. It had taken about ten minutes to open that much.
Wasting no time, he continued feeding the core into his finger. When the core was finally depleted, the st segment of the finger opened up. It seemed that consuming half the core was required to fully unlock the finger. He stared at the now-empty core, thinking of what to do next.
Then, an idea hit him.
He focused, doing the process in reverse. Activating the ability, he channeled the coating back into the core—into the exact spot where the absorption had started.
It worked.
The core began to refill, and in ten minutes, about a quarter of it was restored. Encouraged, he increased the flow—doubling the strength.
But then—crack!
The core shattered into dust.
"Looks like too much input shattered the core," Crow muttered, sounding disappointed. "But at least I know I can recharge it… still, it's time-consuming."weighed both the pros and cons of the item.
Taking a deep breath, he pulled out another tank zombie corpse. This one was intact except for an axe wound straight through the forehead, the gash opening like a grotesque flower before everything turned into a mess. Without wasting time,activated [Decompose].
---
>Ding!
+50,560 kg of atoms
+10 Ability Points
---
Holding the full core between his thumb and pointer finger again, Crow shifted focus to his thumbnail, which was already coated like the pointer finger.
Unlike before, this time it wasn’t just a fingertip—the entire thumbnail was involved. As he began feeding the core, he noticed the difference: where the pointer only needed a quarter of the core to unlock, the thumb required half.
It took less than twenty minutes to open.
Looking at my two fingers, I muttered, "Interesting… is it because one finger has three joints and the thumb only has two?" Crow examined the difference.
I made a quick mental note and continued the process until the entire thumb was coated, taking another 20 minutes.
With the core now empty, I began refilling it. Since I could use both fingers, I opened up two flow points to recharge it faster. Even so, it still took 20 minutes to fully refill.
“It’s really not that fast, even with two points open—and at least I didn’t shatter the core this time,” Crow muttered, feeling a bit disappointed. He moved on to the middle finger, which took another 40 minutes, just like the others.
Now holding another empty core in his hand, Crow took a deep breath and began refilling it—this time opening three points at once. But the very next second, the core disintegrated instantly, without even making a cracking sound.
“There goes my st freaking core…” Crow muttered in a depressed tone, taking repeated deep breaths to calm himself and avoid waking up the body.
“In the first pce, these cores were meant to be consumed—not used like some kind of rechargeable battery. And when consumed, they have a healing effect for low-level creatures,” Crow mumbled, trying to make himself feel better.
His eyes shifted to his ring finger. “Now I’ve learned something. It’s not just about collecting—it’s about how we collect,” he said, thinking aloud. “First, fill the nail completely. When it’s coated—seal everything around it. Then imagine how an injection works: one end pushes, the other opens. But in this case, just open one side to suck in the infection through a single point… then boom.”
In the next second, the tip of his ring finger coated itself. “F**k yeah, it’s a success—and it only took a minute,” Crow grinned, feeling like he’d just hit the jackpot.
Next reapeted the process to fully coat the whole Ring finger it took another minute for the second joints and almost 2 min the st part and took almost 4 min the hole ring finger.
Still not satisfied with the speed, Crow tried widening the suction point on his left hand. But then—something snapped. The coating’s hold colpsed, the progress reversed, and everything became harder to open again.
“F**k, I thought it wouldn’t end up like this—but I was wrong. It’s like I touched a different barrier altogether,” Crow muttered, a mix of amazement and frustration in his voice.
He gnced at his fingers. All of them were coated—but only by sensation, not by sight. It felt like a thin yer of something clung tightly to each one. Despite the difficulty, a sense of accomplishment and awe filled him. It had taken twenty-five minutes to coat every finger on his left hand, longer than expected due to failed attempts at rushing the process. Over two hours had passed in total.
He flexed his fingers, swiping left and right to test for changes. “No added strength. No extra speed. Just... the coating.”
A bit disappointed, he shifted his focus to his right hand and began collecting again. Concentrating on his palm, he used one finger to open a passage to the center. To his surprise, it opened in just five minutes—but just as quickly, it shut again.
“What?” he muttered, confused. “What the heck happened? Should I ask the system?”
He hesitated, then dismissed the thought. “No… that’d ruin the fun. It’s more satisfying figuring it out myself. Besides, the system always demands energy for answers—like it feeds on it.”
Thinking about it more, he asked aloud, “System, do you need energy to survive?”
---
> Ding!
Host, the system does not require consumption to survive. As long as the host lives, the system will persist.
---
“Then why do you always ask for energy?”
---
> Ding!
It is simply a requirement—like payment—for the convenience of the host relying on the system.
---
Hearing the blunt response, Crow groaned. “F**k, did you really have to be that direct? You could’ve just said the first part. That second part’s giving me a damn headache…”
Calming myself down, I stared at my right palm. “It doesn’t feel the same as the failed attempts with my left fingers… back then, the progress reverted and it became even harder to open up again.” To confirm, I repeated the process. Just like before, it took five minutes—but it still reverted the same way.
Then an idea popped into my head.
I looked at my whole hand and tried opening each finger in succession, one at a time. “It’s unbanced… maybe some fingers are naturally better at collecting than others. That’s why it feels off,” I muttered, noticing something different this time.
Ten minutes passed. The pointer finger opened first, followed by the middle and thumb at the same time. Next came the ring finger, and finally the pinky opened a passage to the palm. But before the ring finger even finished linking to the palm, the pointer finger started closing. By the time the pinky opened fully, the thumb and middle finger shut down. A second ter, everything was closed again.
I wanted to curse loudly—but held myself back and took a deep breath.
“I just wasted another thirty minutes… and if I’m not mistaken, I’ve got less than two and a half hours before I can control of this body again,” I muttered, frustration creeping in, the pressure of time bearing down on him.
Repeating the process, I didn’t open all the points at once. I started with the pinky finger, then the ring finger, followed by the middle and thumb, and stly, the pointer finger. After 10 minutes, all five opened a pathway to the palm, and the collection continued until the entire palm and fingers were fully coated—it took another 5 minutes.
“Whew,” I let out a sound of accomplishment. I gnced at my other hand and swallowed hard. “First, find the right sequence, then repeat the process just like the other hand.”
After 16 minutes, both hands were fully coated. I looked at them with a sense of achievement.
“Now that I’ve reached this point, what’s the actual use?” Crow muttered, letting out another deep breath. “The system said skills are like factories that process energy… Standard zombies had [Shift], and the tank had [Self-Regeneration]. The note even mentioned they used the [Infection] ability to create those skills.”
He paused, rubbing his coated fingers together as he paced slowly.
“Do they actually have the [Infection] skill, or is it just hidden? Maybe they can’t infect others because they don’t have a way to gain new skills like I do… If it’s hidden, that would be weird. The system should still detect it.” Crow clicked his tongue. “Guess I’ll have to run some tests ter. Need proper proof.”
"Now it brings me back to the real question—how do I turn this raw power into something usable?" Crow muttered, staring at his hands as if he could see the invisible coating wrapped around them. An idea sparked, and he began snapping the fingers of his right hand—middle and thumb—again and again.
“Snap!”
“Snap!”
“Snap!”
Each time, he focused on where to apply pressure—soft snaps, hard snaps, rapid snaps, one snap per second, testing everything.
Five minutes passed. Then ten. Then twenty. By the one-hour mark, his patience was fraying with every sharp crack echoing off the room’s walls. At one hour and forty-five minutes, his middle finger began to feel numb. Even then, he didn’t stop.
He couldn't move it anymore. Still, he pushed forward, channeling the coating through his palm and down into the immobile finger, forcing the flow to continue.
---
>Ding!
Skill Created: [Finger Strengthening]
---
Crow stared at his middle finger, watching it draw in the coating aggressively like it had been starved. He snapped again.
“No need to ask what this skill does.” He grinned, feeling a bit smug.
But the next thought sobered him. “If I hadn’t drained the strength from my finger first, I doubt this would’ve worked. Meaning... this kind of skill might be impossible without wearing the body down first.” He clicked his tongue, the satisfaction now mixed with the weight of complication.
Looking at the time, I muttered, “Shit, only 20 minutes left. Well, nothing I can do about it—might as well try something else.” I tried to ease the frustration with a breath of self-relief and kept snapping my fingers, feeding the coating into my middle finger.
The more it absorbed, the sharper and louder the snapping sound became, echoing through the entire room. I opened my mouth wide, hoping to dull the noise, but the next snap hit with the force of a gunshot—
“CRACK!”
Crow lost control of the body. I jolted awake.
“Ahhh—!”
But before I could even yell, Crow took control of my left arm and smmed it over my mouth. It was barely 3 a.m.
Regaining control, I snapped, “What the fuck are you doing?!”
But before I could get an answer from Crow, the memories of everything he did while I was asleep came flooding in.
“Fuck… that was an amazing discovery,” I muttered, frustration bubbling up. “But why the hell do I have to deal with the consequences of your screw-ups?”
Crow’s voice came through, calm and slightly apologetic. 'Don’t be like that. We made progress—and without using the system to cheat our way through.'
Then he changed the subject. “Let’s just sleep, okay? System, shut me down and wake me at 5 a.m.”
“Fucking great. I’m just now waking up and you’re running away?”
I wanted more of an apology, but Crow was already out—shut down. I grumbled, “System, can you shut him down for a full day?”
---
>Ding!
Negative. Host cannot override sub-system autonomy. However, host may shut down their own body for 24 hours.
---
“Fuck no—I don’t want to sleep that long,” I groaned, gring at my thumb. It was starting to reconnect, so I focused and activated [Regeneration] to speed up the healing.
“Forget it…” I sighed. Whether it was the ability or the fact that it was still too early, even my anger couldn't stop the sleep creeping in.
I crawled back into bed. Five minutes ter, I was out cold.
---
Crow regained consciousness. “It’s 5 a.m.,” he muttered, checking the time to confirm. He was right. But in the next second, a memory fshed—Mark had requested the system to shut him down for a whole day.
“Oh? So this is payback,” Crow smirked, already cooking up a pn. “And it’s also the perfect time to test something... You wanted results, right? Well, here’s your perfect field test.”
“System, wake up the body—give him pain as a wake-up call,” Crow ordered casually.
---
> Ding!
Injecting pain to host body in 3... 2... 1...
---
Crow immediately lost control as a sharp jolt of pain surged through the leg—a full-on cramp.
Before Mark could scream, both of Crow’s hands shot up and cmped over his mouth.
Mark ripped them away. “Are you trying to start a war with me?” But just as he barked the words, the memories of Crow’s actions poured in.
“So this is your version of a comeback,” Mark hissed. “You broke my thumb, and you think this is ‘even’?”
‘Don’t be like that,’ Crow replied inside their shared mind, sounding half-apologetic, half-amused. ‘I thought the system would just zap us awake—not go full sadist with a leg cramp. Guess it’s smarter than we thought… Won’t even hand out free stuff.’
Mark gred at nothing, knowing full well Crow’s grin was smug behind the scenes. “In the first pce, you pnned that, didn’t you?”
''Don’t worry,' Crow said with a mischievous tone. 'We can always try other ways to wake you up. If we get zapped with electricity... maybe we can even develop some kind of electric-based ability.'
Mark coughed dryly. "Cough! Sure. Great idea. Next time, let’s just shove a fork i
n an outlet while we’re at it."
Crow ignored the sarcasm. 'Anyway, let's focus. We’ve got work to do. At 7, we’re meeting our new group—it’s time to move forward.'
Mark exhaled, already dreading the chaos Crow might cause before breakfast.
