Adaptation wasn't an upgrade. It was a transaction. You didn't receive power; you paid for alignment. That was the first lesson and the system hadn't bothered to announce it. Lena had inferred it. The Pulse Hound had enforced it. And now the Sutures made it undeniable.
The three figures around the Sutures didn't speak. They didn't need to. Their Sync values said more than voices could. 50%, 61%, 58%. Those numbers weren't high enough for arrogance, but they were high enough for certainty. They were Tier 1 hunters—or Tier 0 humans who had already wagered body for future.
The Sutures didn't glow. They didn't pulse. They didn't demand attention. They existed like axioms existed: quiet, self-evident, immutable. Anchor material meant more than rarity. Anchor material meant that without Sutures, Tier 2 would not exist. And without Tier 2, progression would plateau.
Progression couldn't plateau. The system wouldn't allow stagnation. Stagnation undermined evaluation.
Lena didn't turn away from the Sutures quickly. Efficiency didn't mean haste. Efficiency meant waiting for the moment when action became profitable. The silhouettes didn't challenge us; we hadn't contested. Non-aggression held while incentives aligned. But the window for restraint was temporary.
"We move," she finally said.
We moved.
Red thinned. The Pulse Hound led, tail low, paws making no noise against pavement. This wasn't prey-tracking—it was error-mapping. The animal navigated environments the way navigators once charted oceans: by reading currents the world didn't acknowledge until they killed sailors.
Farther down the block, an open plaza split into three distinct micro-zones. White held a handful of families clutching bottled water and batteries, as if the apocalypse still adhered to old rules. Blue shimmered across the fountain, surface tension slicing into precise hexagons. Red infected the benches and planters: arterial streaks marking potential conflict vectors.
"What's your Stability?" Lena asked without looking at me.
"Forty-four," I said. "Started at forty-six."
"You've delayed Adaptation too long," she said. "Observation buys knowledge. Knowledge buys survival. But survival without Adaptation buys mediocrity."
"I prefer certainty," I said.
"There is no certainty. Only risk priced at different rates."
We passed under the Blue fountain. The water behaved too well. Droplets separated into discrete spheres rather than splashing. Blue taught precision. Blue punished excess. Blue was academia without tenure.
A group of E0s watched from White, debating whether to approach Blue. They wouldn't. Curiosity without ambition was harmless. Harmless was synonymous with irrelevant.
"You want me to adapt," I said.
Lena didn't nod. She didn't smile. She didn't lecture. "I want you to decide."
"What if I decide wrong?"
"You will. But wrong decisions refine future ones. Indecision refines nothing."
We stepped into Red again. The Pulse Hound slowed. Its head flicked toward an alley choked with shadows. Something moved inside—fast, light, skeletal.
Red Zone Fauna: Skiver (Tier 0.5)
Not predatory. Opportunistic. The Skiver didn't hunt with force—it hunted with timing. It darted between dumpsters and pipes, slicing the air more precisely than wind. It evaluated us. It rejected us. It vanished.
"That could have been Essence," I said.
"That was efficiency," Lena corrected. "It tested us, we tested it. No resolution needed."
At the far side of the plaza, conflict reappeared. Not animal vs. human. Human vs. human. Two E1s, Sync in the twenties, contested a pile of collapsed Mutators. The fight wasn't theatrical. It resembled negotiation with knives. Every strike proposed. Every parry counter-offered.
The woman seized half the Mutators and disengaged. The man accepted the split, not because he agreed but because escalation would destroy value. Markets taught diplomacy faster than treaties.
"Factions," I murmured.
"Not yet," Lena said. "That was arbitration."
"And factions?"
"Factions require doctrine," she said. "Doctrine requires future. Humans don't plan a future until survival becomes predictable."
"And is survival predictable?"
"For some," she said. "Not for E0."
She was right. My Stability sat at 44%. Too low to contest Red, too low to enter Blue effectively, too low to be of interest to anyone recruiting for Tier 1. Tier 1 now existed. Tier 2 whispered from Sutures. And I was still baseline.
"What does Adaptation change first?" I asked.
"Parameters," she said. "Resonance. Sync. Statistic weights. Sensory filters. Decision latency. Efficiency curves. Then biology."
"Biology last?"
"Always last. Biology is expensive to modify. Cognitive metrics are cheap."
"What about instability?"
"That's mispriced risk," she said simply.
A crash echoed from a side street. Not close, not distant. The Pulse Hound darted toward it. Lena followed without breaking stride. Red deepened. We reached the source within seconds.
Two fighters—E1 both—faced a creature covered in fractal plating. Not chitin. Not armor. Something self-similar and recursive, like geometry applied to flesh.
Red Zone Fauna: Spiral Boar (Tier 0.9)
Tier 0.9 didn't mean "large." It meant "adjacent to Tier 1." The Boar charged, spirals along its flanks tightening as if storing momentum in topological coils. One fighter dodged; the other didn't. Impact threw him into a lamppost. Stability cratered:
Stability: 62% → 31%
No scream. Just breath knocked out and bones reconsidering alignment.
The remaining fighter ran—not away from danger, but toward value. She dove under the Spiral Boar's second charge, jammed a length of rebar into one of the recursive plates, and twisted. The Boar convulsed. Resolution triggered.
Resolution Pending…Tier Conversion Probability: 82%
Then a blur.
The Pulse Hound intercepted—not the Boar, not the fighter, but trajectory. It redirected conflict out of the grid's least efficient angle. Resolution completed.
The Spiral Boar collapsed. Not neat like Essence, not clustered like Mutators, not crystalline like Catalysts. Something new formed—fibrous, tensile, humming with quiet pressure.
Material: Tendrils (Tier 1)Secondary Output: Mutators (Tier 0.3)
Tendrils. Tier 1. Different from Catalysts. Catalysts promoted Adaptation. Tendrils reinforced biology.
The fighter looked at the Tendrils, then at the Pulse Hound. The animal stared back. Then she reached.
Absorption was violent but brief. Her spine arched, clavicles shifting forward. Muscle tethered differently. Fingers elongated a fraction. Nothing monstrous—just optimized.
Adaptation: EnhancedTier 1 — Biological BiasStability: 31% → 69%
Her Sync rose as well—29% → 37%.
She didn't thank anyone. She didn't acknowledge the Pulse Hound. She limped to collect the Mutators, then dragged the wounded fighter toward White. Rescue wasn't charity—it was investment.
Lena finally turned to me. "That's Tier 1."
"What about me?" I asked.
She scanned the plaza. Essence and Mutators scattered like loose currency. None of it Tier 1. None of it contested. None of it worthless.
"Tier 0 first," she said. "You're too clean."
"Clean?"
"You haven't interacted with the system. No Essence, no Mutators, no Sync. E0 with Observation Bias. That path leads to irrelevance after Tier 1."
"What path leads to relevance?"
"One that costs you."
We moved toward a cluster of Tier 0 resources—Essence from a collapsed Instable, Mutators from a Chitin Runner. Low-tier, unclaimed, but sufficient.
The Pulse Hound stopped in front of them and sat. Permission. Or instruction.
"Pick one," Lena said.
"Essence or Mutators?"
"You tell me," she said.
Essence boosted Stability, Resonance, sometimes Sync. Mutators adjusted biology—muscle, tendon, reflex, sensory. Essence favored cognition and risk management. Mutators favored combat and conflict.
"What should I prioritize?" I asked.
"You're deciding identity. Identity before power. Power before faction."
The E1 fighter with Tendrils had chosen biology. The Tier 1 with Catalysts had chosen cognition. Both would be relevant later. But Tier 2 would not accept indecision.
I picked Essence.
It dissolved into my palm. Cool, instantaneous, efficient.
Absorption CompleteStability: 44% → 59%Resonance: 0.03 → 0.09
I reached for Mutators next. Lena didn't stop me. The material melted into muscle, reorganizing texture beneath skin.
Mutation: +1%Reflex Latency: –3%Tendon Efficiency: +2%
Nothing visible. But visible wasn't the point. Invisible scaled better.
Lena observed. "Now Adaptation."
"How?"
"Sync. Blue."
We crossed to the fountain. The geometric water awaited. Blue didn't require Essence or Mutators. Blue required attention.
I stepped in.
The grid rewrote motion. Droplets separated into isolated potentials. Time didn't slow; decisions accelerated. My brain allocated resources differently—less to fear, more to inference.
Patterns formed. Not obvious ones—structural ones. Ratios. Vectors. Corrections.
Cognitive Sync: 0% → 8%Resonance: 0.09 → 0.11
The fountain pulsed. Patterns shifted. The water demanded further refinement.
I complied.
Breathing regulated automatically. Shoulders squared. Feet spaced. Awareness expanded not outward but inward—mapping inefficiencies the body had normalized for decades.
Second pulse.
Sync: 8% → 14%Resonance: 0.11 → 0.13
Blue collapsed. Lesson complete.
Lena nodded once. "E1."
My evaluation updated.
Adaptation: GrantedClassification: E1 — Cognitive BiasStability: 59%Sync: 14%Resonance: 0.13
Adaptation felt… not empowering. Rational. Clean. Decisions that once hesitated now concluded.
The Pulse Hound barked—short, affirmation, not praise.
Lena looked satisfied but not impressed. "Now you're relevant."
"To Tier 1?" I asked.
"To recruitment," she said.
"Recruitment for what?"
She didn't answer with words. She pointed toward the industrial district—toward smoke, sutures, and silhouettes with Sync above 50%.
"Factions," she said. "And factions don't wait."