CHAPTER 270: GOING BACK TO THE BASICS

The apartment had fallen quiet again.

A different kind of quiet than last night—this one flavored with the faint scent of coffee grounds and morning dust, the creak of cooling pipes, and the slow, steady breathing of a team finally at rest. Alexis hadn’t stirred since collapsing. I’d managed to lay her gently across the couch and pull a blanket over her without waking her. Every now and then, she muttered fragments of theories in her sleep, which I chose to interpret as endearing instead of deeply concerning.

I stood alone in the hallway, bathed in the pale gold light leaking through the tall windows. My reflection hovered in the glass—exhausted, upright, and alert. No shaking. No overstimulation. No sense of imminent combustion in my blood.

Just stillness.

It was intoxicating.

For the first time in weeks, I had a choice. A real one. No time bomb in my bones, no threat of collapse if I pushed too far. The old me would’ve charged straight into a new job acquisition. After all, the System always had more to offer.

But...

I didn’t need more just yet. Not when I hadn’t mastered what I already had. There was something satisfying—almost grounding—in sharpening the tools I already carried instead of adding more to the belt.

Still, a small part of me itched.

The same part that never stopped hunting for edge, for clarity, for control.

And that’s when I remembered.

Absorb.

Not Copy. That skill had a 24-hour cooldown and started every borrowed skill from scratch. Absorb was different. More precise. More dangerous. A single use could grant me a skill already half-formed, leveled, lived in. If I was careful about the target, I could gain something not just new—but powerful.

I leaned against the wall and scanned my mental list.

Evelyn.

She was the obvious choice.

Her role as an Evaluator came with critical decision-making, body-reading, and battlefield-level analysis. If I could borrow even a fraction of that precision, it would be worth hours of solo training. I remembered the way she moved during the scout ambush—cold, fast, surgical.

I also remembered her distaste for small talk.

Still.

I crossed the apartment in measured steps and knocked lightly on the door to her room. It took a moment, but her voice came through, even and composed.

"You can come in."

I opened the door.

She was seated at her desk in a fitted gray shirt, arms folded. A fresh blindfold was tied around her head—slightly off-center, like it had been thrown on hastily. Her posture was straight, as always. Efficient. Still and silent, like a blade waiting to be drawn.

"You put the blindfold on just for me?" I asked.

Her lips twitched. "I put it on for your safety."

"Touché."

I stepped inside and closed the door gently behind me.

Her room was... exactly what I expected. Neat, sparse, almost minimalistic. There were exactly three photos on the wall, all landscape shots. Her bed was made with tight corners. There was a single plant on the nightstand that looked suspiciously artificial. A narrow digital calendar ticked silently through her next three days.

She gestured toward the opposite chair. "Sit."

I did.

"I need a favor," I said.

"I assumed." She tilted her head slightly. "You’ve never visited me without one."

That was fair.

"I want to use Absorb on one of your skills."

A long pause.

She didn’t say no.

"Which one?"

"Situational Analysis."

Her brow rose slightly beneath the edge of the blindfold. "That one’s not passive. It’s constant processing. You sure?"

I nodded. "I’m done playing catch-up. I need to be smarter before I’m stronger."

Another beat of silence. Then a nod.

"You’ll need context, not just contact. I’ll have to walk you through usage, not just theory."

"I figured."

"Touch my hand."

I reached forward, fingers brushing hers. The connection was immediate—heat, resonance, something like a distant current vibrating under the skin. A prompt bloomed behind my eyes:

[System Alert]

Would you like to commence Absorption of skill Situational Analysis (Lv. 6) from Individual Evelyn Mercer (Government Evaluator A-Rank, Firefighter B-Rank, Detective B-Rank)?

[YES] | [NO]

I clicked on Yes mentally.

It felt like swallowing sunlight.

Not warm—hot. A flare behind the eyes, a spike of cognition, like my brain had just tried to tabulate every potential outcome of sitting in that chair from every possible angle. I gasped and blinked fast. Evelyn didn’t react. She just leaned back and began to speak, her voice like steel wrapped in silk.

"Situational Analysis isn’t just logic. It’s relevance prioritization. It categorizes threat levels, detects behavioral patterns, and recalibrates your awareness based on your role in the situation."

She walked me through examples—past missions, field evaluations, even one brutal interrogation where reading the foot placement of a lying suspect had given her a tactical advantage. For the next hour, she guided me through calibration drills, slow simulations, and real-time tests using background noise and subtle movement shifts in the room.

Every adjustment sharpened the clarity.

The System hummed softly in my mind.

[System Notification: Absorption Complete!]

[Skill Acquired: Situational Analysis (Lv. 3)]

I leaned back and exhaled.

"...That’s going to be useful."

"Most people use it to avoid stepping on social landmines," she said. "You’ll probably use it to survive fights you shouldn’t win."

"I tend to collect those."

A pause.

Then Evelyn—ever so slightly—smiled.

"I’m surprised you didn’t go for something flashier. My Keen Observation is better leveled. Or Authority Presence."

I shrugged. "I trust my gut. I needed something to let me listen to it better."

Another pause.

Then she tilted her head.

"Your aura’s different."

"Different how?"

"You’re still. Not like before."

"That would be Alexis’s doing."

"She dosed you?"

"Willingly. Barely."

She gave the faintest smirk. "That explains why your brain is slightly calmer. Though you still seem distressed."

I stood.

"Thanks for the lesson. Really."

She nodded once. "You’re welcome. But if you need any of us them make sure to tell us. We want to help you just as much as you want to help us."

"I don’t have the best record of keeping these types of promises, but I’ll try."

She gave a small, amused exhale and turned back toward her desk, reaching for a report.

I slipped out of her room and back into the hall.

The apartment was still peaceful.

But I wasn’t ready to sit still again just yet.

I needed air. Movement. Memory.

I grabbed my coat and keys, pulled the door quietly shut, and stepped outside.

The city greeted me like a familiar song.

It was late morning by the time I stepped outside. The city had shaken off its quiet, and in its place came the usual tide—commuters threading through intersections, delivery drones humming above their designated lanes, the rhythmic pulse of urban life moving like clockwork. The wind had picked up, carrying the smell of concrete dust and street food.

I walked without any real destination at first.

A few people glanced my way. Not many approached. Word had gotten out about who I was—what I was—but most still didn’t know what to do with that information.

But fame was a funny thing.

A-Rankers weren’t common. Not even in cities like this. You might spot one in the news, or catch a glimpse of their name on a sponsorship board. But face to face? That was still rare. And most people couldn’t tell who we were unless they were paying attention.

I liked it that way.

Camille once joked that I was allergic to fame. I think she was half-right. I didn’t hate being known—I just hated being recognized in the past due to potential conflicts with the government.

Today, though, I wasn’t looking for attention.

I was looking for memory.

I found myself thinking about the jobs I’d held. The first ones that the System gave. The ones that taught me what effort felt like.

The construction site.

The fire station.

The police center tucked between a laundromat and a pawn shop.

Places where the work had been real. Where skill hadn’t meant numbers—it had meant sweat. Instinct. Staying awake when your body wanted to shut down. Listening harder. Holding heavier. Moving faster, not because you had a speed buff, but because someone’s life might depend on it.

One by one, I thought about going back to each of them.

But in the end, my feet carried me east.

Back to where it started.