The hatch was shaped akin to a secure vault, but perhaps because of where it would have been in the interior of the ship, it hadn’t been constructed with solid titanium.

  The large cenote had likely been main the interior of the ship after all, and while Justin couldn’t see exactly how large it was in totality from the inside, the circuitry beneath the crystals he had caught sight of lent evidence to the fact there had once been a series of rooms occupying the now vast and open space.

  ‘The starfish probably wiped all of that out as it grew.’

  He wrapped his tentacles around the hatch’s discolored siding. The erosion of the metal there gave away the years it must have spent submerged under the tonnes of water that had filtered in from the ground after cracks had formed. With the strongest part of Justin’s body, he was able to tear the circular door away from its hinges by exercising his tentacles.

  An act which immediately resulted in Justin being rocked from his position. A sudden influx of water was sent around his body and downward into the hatch, immediately causing him to panic.

  ‘Shit! It was sealed!’

  The hatch, as flimsy as it was before Justin, had apparently been enough to keep out the water for all of these years. That meant Justin, under the assumption that the other side was just as flooded as the cavern, may have just ruined his only chance to escape his surroundings.

  ‘There’s still light, so maybe not all is lost.’

  Justin descended through the open hatch. What met him was a modest-sized room, for the first time lit by more than just salt-crystals, Justin could actually see around himself for once. He thanked his luck that the lights were still running. There must have been a generator buried somewhere in all of this rubble, he supposed.

  Justin stretched out into the water, for the first time catching a proper look at his own flesh after the evolution. The transformation in his appearance shocked him.

  ‘I’m grey?’

  Not only that, but as Justin checked out the rest of his body, including his torso and his feet suspended in the water, he realized there were other less minor differences.

  ‘The tips of my fingers have been sharpened to nearly claws. Even my kneecaps and toes bear some kind of…what is that, plating? I have armor now?’

  Nevermind the change in hue, which was normal enough for many humanoid species, his body now bore features that were just straight-up daemonic. He was glad enough to be rid of the tentacles coming from every part of his body, but no human he had ever encountered had predatory features even to this degree.

  He already knew the situation on his back, but the thought of finding a mirror to look at what may have been done to his face formed a lump in his throat.

  Thankfully, the little guy was still safe. He didn’t know what he would do if he had lost that.

  ‘What am I even thinking about? These are all just trivialities in the face of survival. How can I let myself be distracted at this point?’

  Justin reminded himself of his vow to avoid ever being powerless again, and returned to a rational line of thinking in short order. Taking stock of his current surroundings was far more important than worrying if his model career was over. There could be something hidden here that could help his situation, after all. Everything had been untouched until the water had rushed in, but even then Justin realized not as much had been damaged as he had thought.

  ‘Thankfully the lights are still working, and it looks like this room was mostly sealed containers. I don’t see any doors, which means this room must have been kept behind a seal for a reason.’

  Storage was the first consideration that entered his mind, but even for an early spaceship a separate hatch was a little overkill. Justin went to the cabinets that were affixed to the walls to answer that question. Their contents might inform him further, if he could recognize them.

  Justin started by slowly opening the first container near him, careful to let the water in slowly. What he saw didn’t immediately make sense to him.

  ‘Containers of some kind? If only my suit were still intact.’

  The translator in his suit had been valuable for understanding the soldier’s conversations, but when paired with a working visor it could even translate written language. Both functions were long lost to Justin now of course, as the mechanical suit had been scrapped when he had evolved.

  A certain group of skills could help out as well, called Inspect-skills due to their commonality across multiple classes. But Justin had even lower hopes to attain something like that. He had known the cleric Markus to have one called Eyes of Ambush that allowed him to see status information on distracted opponents, but Justin had never gained a similar skill in all his years as a pugilist.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  That meant it was entirely on Justin’s reasoning skills to figure out what use the room could have for him, which so far was dubious.

  He curiously took the first container out from the cabinet’s rack. The cylinder was of a size that would normally necessitate two-handed carrying, but as Justin had recognized the recent enlargement of his body it fit comfortably in his single hand. It was made from some kind of metal, and felt fairly secure as he observed it from all sides.

  The most notable thing on the surface of the container was a printed label, but to Justin who couldn’t read it the small transparent slide above it caught his attention. Through it he could see a dark green liquid sloshing back and forth as he held it, like the bubble in a spirit level.

  ‘A vial of some kind. Far too secure for merely medicine, or research samples. This looks like a finished product, whatever it is.’

  The technology of the item in his hand seemed to be out of place with the technology of the ship surrounding it, and not in the way one might think.

  Justin had a vague idea of what he was holding, but if he was right then it didn’t make sense for the civilization that had built this ship to have. The vial was more advanced than the ship.

  ‘If I’m right, this vial is temperature regulated and self-sealed. Anything could be in here. Gary or Harriet would know better, but I swear I’ve seen something like this somewhere else.’

  He could wait until the answer dawned on him, but it would be wasted time. The real question was how could this thing help him?

  ‘If I have to open it I should move away from the starfish.’

  He couldn’t read the label so he’d have to open it like a brute to understand what it was.

  If something went wrong, he didn’t want this place to be damaged any further.

  It would be best to do it far away from the beast’s senses.

  …

  So he returned to the far end of the caverns, the first cave that the lake had drained into.

  Justin knew from when he had researched the cave system that the lake’s water had already stopped draining, but by now the water surface had fully calmed.

  The patch of dry space at the edge of the cave was even smaller than it had been at first, but it still existed.

  It was standing there, amidst the open space, that Justin would conduct his test.

  ‘I don’t see a twisting mechanism anywhere here, how am I supposed to open it?’

  Justin cautiously turned the vial over in his hands, which was hard to see in the dim lighting he had returned to. It occurred to him that there must have been a machine in the container room for opening the seals, but that was on the other side of the cave system now so he would just do it himself.

  Putting the metal canister between his palms, he pushed with the force of thirteen points in strength, plus his body’s natural physicality.

  Relative to other E-Grades who specialized in strength, that wasn’t much, but it was still more than several adult men combined. It was also apparently more than the metal container was built to endure.

  So as the vial was easily ruptured between his clawed hands, viscous green liquid spread in all directions.

  ‘Ah!’

  He realized he had definitely been too overzealous, as a large portion of the liquid splashed onto his legs and lower torso.

  Before he could react, his exposed flesh down there started to release steam, and Justin cringed from the burning sensation.

  He quickly wiped the substance from his body with his tentacles while cursing internally.

  [Health: 14 / 15]

  The liquid was incredibly thick, and stuck to him like glue. He kept a glance on the system screen as he ferociously swatted the rest of the gel off of him.

  Though Justin couldn’t observe it so closely in the dimness of the cave, what he scattered off from his body ended up rejoining the pile released onto the surface below him, which all started to slide toward the salt wall of the cave.

  ‘It’s corrosive and damaging, but not nearly as big of a threat as the starfish.’

  It was unpleasant, but there didn’t seem to be other effects. Was it a weapon stored in the vial after all? Some kind of acid?

  ‘Wait. Where did it go?’

  Justin looked around after he was finished picking it off of his skin. It had disappeared as quickly as it had spread out like it had a mind of its own. It hadn’t slid back into the water had it?

  Justin turned. No, it hadn’t.

  The green gel fell against the wall of salt crystals. A few seconds later and it had already enveloped several salt crystals bigger than Justin’s head. The light from those crystals dimmed even faster, before Justin witnessed their shrinking and subsequent absorption right in front of them.

  The blob of gel began to undulate, coming away from the exposed stone window into the salt wall. Sparks of light flashed within it, connecting and dividing visibly to Justin, like neurons being formed.

  Within a breath, a vibrant green glow began to spread out from its center point, reaching the ends of its form in a flash.

  Justin’s eyes widened even further when the glowing gel began to rise unassisted. With no support structure, its form began to elongate and divide, hardening into a warped shape that was familiar enough for Justin to feel chills run down his spin.

  Seconds had passed, yet that breath of time had been all the gel needed to stabilize into a solid form: the close resemblance of a bipedal creature Justin knew well.

  ‘Is that…Heinrich?’