She looked at her hands and saw the level 3 evolution had finished.

  There was no pain.

  She flexed her fingers slowly, testing each joint. Nothing hurt and there was no headache splitting her skull, no blood running from her nose, no feeling like her brain was being torn apart from the inside.

  Thank god. Please let it stay this way.

  Her hands looked different. She brought the right one closer to her face to examine it. A long silver line ran from her palm to the tip of her index finger.

  She touched it with her other thumb. It was metal, definitely metal. The line was raised slightly above her skin like a ridge, but when she bent her finger to test it, the silver moved with the joint. It was flexible with no resistance.

  She examined each finger carefully. Ten silver lines total, one on each finger, all identical in appearance and texture. In the center of each palm sat three circles nested inside each other like a target with the smallest in the middle maybe the size of a pencil eraser, the middle one twice that, and the outer one as wide as her thumb.

  She traced the outer circle with her fingertip. It felt smooth and cool. The metal felt different from the lines on her fingers, almost frictionless.

  She pressed her palm experimentally. The circles didn't move or sink into her skin. They sat flush, perfectly integrated.

  What are these for?

  She looked around the ruins at the bodies scattered between broken structures and the pillars in the distance with the arena. Everything felt the same as before.

  Her mind didn't feel sharper and there was no sudden understanding of where she was or how to escape.

  Still not smart enough to figure this out.

  "Shit," she said out loud. "That thing saw I leveled up. It told the system, didn't it?"

  "This zone has no connection to the system,” Tera said.

  "How do you know?"

  “Is connecting to something else, but not the system.”

  She waited for more explanation but nothing came. "And?

  "The signal you're connecting to is different. Feels different."

  "Different how?"

  "Just different."

  Super helpful, Tera.

  She clenched her jaw. "So what did the scan send when it looked at me?"

  "Same information as before. Level zero. Now probably registers you as level one."

  "Which means what?"

  "Still insufficient for rewards."

  So nothing changed. Perfect.

  She placed her hands on the ground to push herself up. Energy pulsed from her palms the moment they touched dirt and she froze. It felt electromagnetic, like a field extending from her hands into the ground and searching for something to connect to. But nothing happened with no sparks or visible change, just the sensation of power flowing outward with nowhere to go.

  She lifted her hands and stared at them.

  What was that?

  She placed them back on the ground and the same pulse came again, energy reaching out but finding nothing. She stood slowly and held her palms in front of her face.

  Did I just get a useless cosmetic upgrade?

  "Tera."

  "Yes."

  "Do the nanobots tell you what they're doing to me? Like, any information at all?"

  "Be specific."

  "Names. Descriptions of abilities. Anything concrete."

  "Not their job."

  She felt her frustration building. "Then what is their job?"

  "Evolution. Keeping you alive during it."

  "So they're just changing my body randomly and nobody knows what they're actually doing?"

  "System handles names and levels. For control."

  She looked at the silver lines again, at the circles embedded in her palms. "Am I going to turn into a monster?"

  Two seconds of silence passed.

  "Don't know."

  Her stomach tightened. "You don't know."

  "Learning with you. Other roles probably have physical changes too. Muscle growth. Maybe mutation. No data on Engineer progression."

  Nobody knows what's happening to me.

  She took a breath and tried to organize her thoughts. "Look, I need a list or something. Organized information. We need to track what's changing in my body."

  "Noted."

  "And I'm not a fan of something inside me making changes without my permission."

  "Also noted."

  She started walking and immediately noticed another change. Her body felt different. The pain in her ribs had dropped from sharp stabbing to a dull ache.

  Her legs didn't scream with every step like they had before. She could breathe without it feeling like her chest was being crushed.

  Did the evolution fix the damage? Or just make me tolerate it better?

  "Tera, add this to whatever analysis you're doing. I'm in way less pain than before the evolution."

  "Healing factor or structural improvement?"

  "I don't know. The damage feels like it's still there, but my body tolerates it better now. Like the pain threshold changed."

  "Monitoring."

  She walked through the safe zone she'd already mapped, the area where the transparent sphere didn't activate. When she moved slowly toward the pillars, she felt the sphere begin to grow in response to her approach.

  She stopped and the sphere shrank back. Three steps forward and it expanded again, preparing to activate and crush her. Two steps back and it receded.

  Fifteen feet. That's my limit.

  She walked the perimeter slowly, testing the boundary from different angles. The distance was the same all around, a perfect circle of exclusion.

  The bodies were positioned around this barrier, some with their hands reaching toward the center, like they'd been trying to crawl closer even as they died.

  This is what stopped all of them. They couldn't get past it.

  "Napoleon," she called out. The spider skittered over to her. "Try to reach the pillars. See how close you can get."

  Napoleon moved forward obediently and reached the same distance she had, fifteen feet from the pillar bases, then stopped unable to proceed further.

  [Won't let me approach]

  Napoleon said through the HUD.

  "Why? You're a spider. You should have access to this place."

  Maybe the pillars detect Napoleon as yours now," said Tera.

  She kicked at the dirt in frustration. "So level 3 was completely useless. We're still stuck at a dead end."

  "Appears so."

  She looked across the ruins at the broken alpha spider lying in the dirt, far from the pillars. At least they had that piece of advanced technology. "New plan. Let's check what we can do with the alpha spider."

  She walked over to it and dropped to the ground beside the broken half. The damage exposed the interior completely. Wiring. Components packed tight together. Advanced machinery she couldn't begin to identify.

  I should know this stuff. Based on the memory fragments I have, I must have worked in something technical. Robotics maybe, or research, something like that.

  But looking at the machinery inside the alpha spider, she knew with certainty that she didn't understand any of it.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  This level of engineering is beyond anything I've seen. I know that even without my full memory.

  "Let's try using the blue threads. Get some information about what we're looking at."

  She went back to her backpack and grabbed paper and pen, then returned to the spider and positioned herself beside it. She readied the pencil to take notes.

  Just a component list. Basic schematics. That's all I need.

  She activated the blue threads with her right hand. Five threads extended from her fingertips, glowing faint blue in the dim light.

  She moved her index finger slowly toward the exposed machinery. The thread touched metal.

  Everything stopped.

  There was no sight, no sound, no feeling of having a body or existing in space. This wasn't darkness because darkness was still something. This was complete absence, nothing.

  Information poured in, not in words or images or anything comprehensible, just raw data that was overwhelming and crushing. Too much was coming too fast. Her brain tried to process it, failed, and started tearing apart under the weight and…

  She snapped back to reality.

  Sight came first, blurry and unfocused, showing her the ground beneath her with the ruins slowly coming back into focus.

  Sound returned next as a high-pitched ringing screamed inside her skull, tinnitus so loud it drowned out every other noise in the world. Then pain hit, white-hot and stabbing behind her left temple, pulsing with each heartbeat.

  She looked at her hands and saw blood covering them. She'd dug her nails deep into her palms without realizing it, hard enough to break through skin with red smeared across the new silver lines. Napoleon stood frozen nearby, completely motionless.

  The operator gasped for air as her lungs burned like she'd been holding her breath underwater for minutes.

  What the fuck. What the fuck was that.

  Her hands shook uncontrollably. She tried to steady them but couldn't. "Tera." Her voice came out weak and trembling.

  "That was one second. Only one second of contact. The information from that machine is so complex that my brain can't handle it. Can't store it."

  "Describe what happened."

  "I disconnected from everything, like I didn't exist anymore. Just complete nothing. Then I came back and..." She stared at the blood covering her hands.

  I thought I was gone. I thought I wasn't coming back to my body.

  "Analyzing what you described."

  She sat there on the ground, trying to get her breathing under control. The ringing in her ears faded slowly, becoming background noise instead of all-consuming.

  The pain pulsed steadily behind her temple. Her vision cleared gradually, but everything felt too sharp, too bright, and too real after the absolute nothingness.

  "With Napoleon, who is possibly the most basic cybernetic machine in this zone, you experience pain and mental damage after five minutes of connection.

  This is an alpha production spider. Capable of advanced manufacturing. The information density is exponentially higher than Napoleon."

  "So I can't use it at all."

  "You need higher evolution level. Confirmed."

  She wiped the blood on her pants, leaving dark stains. Her hands still shook.

  The fear sat cold and heavy in her chest. She forced herself to take slow, deliberate breaths, in through her nose and out through her mouth.

  Her vision was back to normal now with her hearing returning properly and the pain fading to a dull throb she could tolerate.

  I'm okay. I'm still here. I still exist.

  She sat there for another full minute, just breathing and waiting for her heart to stop racing. The thought of moving the alpha spider, of touching it again after what just happened, made her stomach twist.

  But I need to move it. Can't leave it here if we manage to escape.

  She wiped her palms on her pants one more time, trying to get rid of the blood.

  Don't try to analyze it. Just move it. That's all. Just pick it up and move it.

  She reached down toward the spider's body.

  Her palms got close to the metal surface and suddenly pushed away like two magnets with the same pole, repelling each other.

  The Operator couldn't make her hands touch the spider no matter how hard she tried, but the spider's body moved and lifted off the ground.

  She stared in disbelief. The spider's body hung suspended in the air between her hands without touching her skin, completely weightless. The silver lines on her palms glowed bright white.

  What...

  She moved her hands slightly apart. The spider stayed exactly where it was, held in place by something she couldn't see.

  Oh my god.

  Her heart started pounding again, but this time from excitement instead of fear. She could feel it now.

  The energy connecting her hands to the metal. The electromagnetic field extending from her palms, gripping the spider's mass without physical contact. She wasn't lifting it with her muscles. She was controlling it with whatever this ability was.

  I get it now. I finally understand what this does.

  She tested the control carefully and moved her right hand up slightly. The spider rotated in response, following the field. When she moved her left hand down, the spider tilted. She had complete control over its position and orientation.

  This is real. This is actually happening.

  Her breathing came fast and shallow, not from fear this time but from pure excitement, from the feeling of possibility opening up in front of her. "Let me try something else."

  She spread her arms wider apart. The alpha spider started coming apart. Sections separated smoothly. The body opened up like an accordion expanding. Internal layers peeled back from each other one at a time.

  Components detached and spread out, each piece held perfectly in place by the electromagnetic field.

  The machinery revealed itself layer by layer, piece by piece, creating a three-dimensional map of the spider's entire internal construction suspended in the air between her outstretched arms.

  She watched the process, completely breathless. There were gears of various sizes, wiring in different colors, circuit boards, hydraulic pistons, actuators with complex joints, cooling systems, and things she had absolutely no names for.

  Everything was weightless and locked in position by the field, spread out in perfect geometric arrangement so she could see how every piece related to every other piece.

  This is incredible. This is the most incredible thing that's ever happened.

  She wanted to laugh. Or cry. Or both at the same time.

  I can work with this. I can actually understand how things are built. How they fit together.

  The implications crashed over her one after another. She could disassemble complex machinery.

  "My hands are completely occupied holding everything. How am I supposed to touch individual parts? Move specific pieces?"

  She thought about the problem. About needing to manipulate individual components while keeping everything else stable in the field.

  The three circles in each of her palms lifted away. She felt them separate from her skin. A strange sensation, like part of her hand was peeling away but staying connected somehow.

  The circles rose into the air and positioned themselves in space.

  "Wait, what..." She moved her right hand experimentally. The circles stayed exactly where they were, floating and stationary, but she could still feel them.

  The connection was maintained and the electromagnetic field remained active and stable with every single component still held in perfect position.

  She moved her other hand to test it. Same result. The circles remained motionless in space while her hands were free to move.

  Everything stayed completely stable.

  "Holy shit!" She couldn't help herself. The words burst out. "That was so cool!"

  She was free to move her hands now, reach in and grab components, and manipulate individual pieces. The field worked perfectly without the circles touching her palms.

  I can actually work like this. I can take things apart and study them and put them back together.

  She looked over at Napoleon. "Do any of these parts work for you? Anything compatible?"

  The HUD appeared in her vision with Tera's response.

  [I DO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO THAT INFORMATION]

  "Damn it." She went to grab the blueprints she'd drawn of Napoleon and spread them out on the ground next to the floating components.

  Okay. The construction is probably completely different. But maybe there are similar parts. Bigger versions of what Napoleon uses.

  She picked up the power assembly diagram and looked at the suspended components above her. A gear cluster caught her eye.

  She reached up carefully and grabbed it. Five gears interlocked in a complex arrangement. She brought it down and compared it to her blueprint.

  Napoleon uses a triple-reduction system for power transfer. This is a five-stage reduction. Different gear ratios. Wrong mounting configuration.

  She released the cluster back into the field where it stayed exactly where she let go of it, suspended and motionless. She found a hydraulic piston next, pulled it down to examine, and compared it to the blueprint.

  Different pressure rating. The mounting points don't match Napoleon's frame at all.

  She went through piece after piece, component after component. Gears that were too large or had wrong tooth patterns. Pistons with incompatible pressure ratings.

  Boards with different voltage requirements. Assemblies that simply didn't match anything in her blueprints.

  Nothing matches. The engineering is fundamentally different.

  She picked up another component, some kind of junction box for power distribution. She examined it carefully, comparing connection points to her diagrams, then put it back in the field.

  Completely different architecture. They built these machines from entirely different design philosophies.

  Then she saw it. A black sphere about the size of a golf ball, hanging among the central internal components. She looked at her blueprint of Napoleon's core systems.

  Napoleon had one too, but much smaller, and it was in almost the same relative position inside the body cavity. That has to be important. Critical component, maybe.

  She reached through the maze of suspended parts carefully and grabbed the sphere. It felt warm to the touch and much heavier than its size suggested, very dense.

  "Napoleon, come here. Take this to where we have our stuff."

  At least we got something useful out of this.

  She looked at all the other parts still spread through the air in their geometric arrangement. There were hundreds of them.

  I can go through these more carefully later. Figure out what else might be salvageable or useful for something.

  "Okay. Time to put this all back together."

  She placed each hand carefully into its floating circle set. The circles reattached to her palms immediately the moment she touched them.

  She felt the electromagnetic field connection return to her direct control, no longer mediated through the floating circles.

  "I just need to compress everything back. Should reassemble automatically."

  She brought her hands closer together slowly. The parts moved inward in response, following the field's compression. They got closer and closer together with the space between components shrinking, but they didn't click back into place, reconnect, or reassemble into the spider's body.

  Why isn't it going back together?

  "Tera. Shouldn't this reassemble itself automatically when I compress the field?"

  "You think this is some kind of game? You disassemble a piece of machinery, and it doesn't just reassemble itself. A person has to put it back together piece by piece."

  She stopped moving her hands. The reality of what Tera was saying hit her.

  Oh no. Oh no no no.

  She looked at the hundreds of parts suspended in the field with no particular order, no assembly sequence, no instructions, and no idea which pieces connected to which other pieces or in what order.

  I just completely destroyed an alpha production spider.

  "Shit."

  She deactivated the ability. The electromagnetic field collapsed instantly. Everything fell. Metal hitting dirt with dozens of different sounds happening simultaneously.

  Sharp pings from screws and small fasteners bouncing off rocks. Dull thuds from heavy housings and armor panels. Gears rolling across the uneven ground in random directions.

  Circuit boards cracking on impact, some breaking into pieces.

  Components scattered in all directions, spreading across fifteen feet of ground. Some pieces disappeared into cracks between broken floor tiles. Others half-buried themselves in loose dirt.

  Napoleon approached slowly from where it had been standing. She looked at him and felt her chest tighten with anxiety. Her hands were shaking again, but for a different reason this time.

  "I have a plan," she said. Her voice sounded weak even to herself. "But unlike the alpha, I have detailed blueprints of you. Complete diagrams. So we won't have any problems."

  Please don't let me destroy Napoleon too. Please.

  She knelt down and started searching through the scattered alpha spider parts, looking for anything that might be usable, materials that could work for printing, or any components that might be compatible with simpler systems, but she found nothing.

  Different materials. Different construction methods. Different everything.

  She sat back on her heels and looked at the disaster surrounding her.

  At least I have food for a while. Water. A safe place where nothing is actively hunting me.

  She took a deep breath and tried to organize her thoughts.

  Focus on what you can actually control. What you can actually do.

  She gathered up Napoleon's blueprints from where she'd spread them on the ground and brought them over next to her backpack.

  She grabbed a pen from the supplies and spread the pages out carefully so she could see all the diagrams.

  Time to actually be the engineer they made me.

  She studied the first page closely. Power routing diagram showing every wire, every connection point, every circuit pathway.

  If she was going to survive in this place, if she was going to have any chance of escaping, she needed to understand how everything worked.

  All of it. Every system. Every component. Every connection.

  From the ground up.