A Trash Novel's Only Reader-Chapter 41: System Rewrite

The claim thread jerked in his chest like someone yanked it from the other side. Shu slammed his hand against the wall to stay upright while the heart’s light turned darker and started pulling back.

[Claim Progress: 74%]

[Claim Progress: 69%]

"No, no, no," he hissed, forcing his feet wider so he would not collapse. "You don’t get to take it back now."

Red arcs jumped from the core-node to the chains, then snapped toward him with enough force to rattle his teeth. He tried to hold the channel steady, but every pulse felt like two people tearing him apart from opposite directions.

[External claimant is contesting ownership.]

[Current state: Authority tug-of-war.]

’Right, this isn’t about raw mana,’ he thought, breathing hard through blood. ’Authority is rule-right, so this is about who has the stronger claim.’

Another surge hit and dropped him to one knee, but he refused to let go of the bat. He planted it harder into the floor and stared at the heart while his vision shook.

’My Authority is Domain-linked,’ he thought, jaw tight. ’Domain means control, ownership, and protected territory.’

He dragged in a rough breath and spoke through clenched teeth. "Domain," he said, voice low but firm. "Enforce ownership. The energy in this channel is mine."

The system flashed, then a blue ring spread out from his feet and locked around the claim thread.

[Authority assertion accepted.]

[Rule imprint applied: Local ownership priority.]

[Counter-claim resistance increased.]

The pull from the other side surged in response and nearly folded him again. A cold pressure crawled up his spine, and a faint whisper hit his ear with no source he could track.

"Yield."

He flinched from the command pressure, but Unwavering Spirit held the panic down long enough for him to keep focus on the channel instead of freezing.

[Unwavering Spirit Lv.2 stabilizing mental load.]

"Try someone else," he muttered, spitting blood to the side.

The heart cracked louder and the claim meter finally stopped dropping. For one second it stayed frozen, then it climbed.

[Claim Progress: 72%]

[Claim Progress: 77%]

[Claim Progress: 82%]

He laughed weakly and tightened both hands around the bat.

’Almost there,’ he thought, teeth chattering from the pressure.

The opposing pull hit one last time, hard enough to blur everything into white for a heartbeat. He roared, shoved his will into the channel, and forced the blue ring to expand until it swallowed the entire thread.

[Claim Progress: 91%]

[Claim Progress: 96%]

[Claim Progress: 100%]

[Counter-claim rejected.]

[Forced Seizure complete.]

[Domain Heart Energy secured.]

The chains dropped at once and the red arcs snapped out of existence. Silence crashed over the chamber so suddenly it made his ears ring.

He stayed bent over for a second with one hand on his knee and the other still wrapped around the bat. His whole body shook from the claim, but the pressure from the heart was gone now, which should have felt like good news.

’Please let that be over,’ he thought, dragging in one rough breath after another. ’I am way too tired for another surprise.’

The system ignored him immediately.

[Authority threshold reached.]

[Authority skill cannot level further through normal progression.]

[Evolution required.]

He lifted his head slowly, blood still drying along one side of his face. "What do you mean evolution?" he muttered, staring at the text with a very bad feeling in his chest.

Another panel slid open under it.

[Authority Skill Evolution in progress...]

[Previous Authority: Domain-linked Authority]

[Evolved Authority: Admin]

He blinked once, then twice.

"Admin?" he repeated, sounding so thrown off he almost got annoyed at himself. "What kind of title is that?"

The blue ring at his feet did not fade this time. Instead, it spread across the chamber floor, then folded back in thin streams that all sank into his body at once.

The second they did, a colder screen opened in front of him.

[Admin access acknowledged.]

[Authority has entered the user’s system.]

[Internal structure scan initiated.]

His face changed right away. "Hold on," he said, straightening a little despite the pain. "Why are you inside my system now?"

It answered him before he could curse again.

[Scan complete.]

[Warning: Host body is storing energy beyond current structural tolerance.]

[Detected stress sources:]

[ - Domain Heart Energy]

[ - Artificial Mutation Core residue]

[ - Unstable authority feedback]

His grip on the bat tightened. ’Beyond current tolerance?’ he thought, reading the warning again while his heartbeat started getting ugly. ’So basically my body is overloaded right now?’

The next panel made his chest go cold.

[Risk Assessment: Internal collapse highly likely.]

[Emergency restructuring required.]

"No no, wait," he said at once, taking half a step back. "What do you mean collapse highly likely? Explain that first."

The answer came in the same flat tone.

[Current host capacity is insufficient.]

[Energy partition is now mandatory.]

[Generating auxiliary cores.]

His eyes widened so hard they hurt.

"Generating what?"

The first pulse hit before the panic could spread any further.

It felt nothing like normal core integration. Instead of one violent surge tearing through him, several dense points inside his body lit up at the same time and compressed so hard he nearly dropped the bat on the spot.

"Ghk-!"

He doubled over and caught himself on one knee, one hand clawing at the floor while the other pressed hard against his chest. The pain was heavy and crushing, with his insides feeling like they were being forced into new shapes against his will.

’What the hell is it doing to me?’ he thought, breathing in broken pulls. ’This feels wrong, this feels really wrong.’

The system kept going anyway.

[Auxiliary Core 1: Forming.]

[Auxiliary Core 2: Forming.]

[Auxiliary Core 3: Forming.]

He actually froze for a second after reading that. ’It is making more cores inside me?’ he thought, his jaw going slack before another pulse of pain folded him lower. ’Who even does that?’

The answer, apparently, was his own evolved Authority.

Pressure drilled through his chest, dropped into his lower abdomen, then burned through his back in one connected line. This time he could feel them clearly, three dense points taking shape inside him, not loose energy or simple mana flow, but actual structures settling into place while his body fought the change and slowly lost.

"This is insane," he choked out, spitting blood onto the floor. "You don’t just body-mod people like this without asking."

[Emergency restructuring has priority over user preference.]

[Auxiliary core generation complete.]

For one horrible second, relief almost came.

Then the next line appeared.

[Warning: Newly generated auxiliary cores exceed current safe release threshold.]

[Applying lockdown.]

"Wait-"

The seals snapped shut before he could say anything else.

Pain hit deep and all at once, every new core inside him getting wrapped in something colder and denser that clamped down layer after layer until the wild pressure behind them dropped to a low brutal hum.

Shu screamed because there was no way not to, his voice crashing through the chamber while his whole body trembled from the force of it.

He could still feel the new cores there even after the worst part passed, three heavy points buried inside him with absurd amounts of energy sealed behind them. Whatever this Admin thing had done, it had not removed the danger, it had just chained it down inside his body.

[Core Lock Protocol complete.]

[Primary core stable.]

[Auxiliary cores: Sealed.]

[Unauthorized release denied.]

He stayed on both knees with his head hanging low, blood dripping from his nose and chin onto the ground. His chest rose and fell in ugly pulls, but at least nothing inside him felt ready to burst open anymore.

’Haaa...’ he thought, staring blankly at the ground. ’I hate this world so much.’

Then his left arm started burning.

He jerked and looked down fast, half expecting a fresh wound, but this was different. Dark blue lines were surfacing under the skin from his wrist upward, thin at first, then spreading in sharp clean paths across his forearm.

"What now?" he asked, his voice rough from screaming.

The lines kept climbing while he watched, wrapping around his arm in a pattern that looked half like veins and half like carved script. They passed his elbow, slowed, then settled into a heavier symbol near the outer side of his forearm, too deliberate to be random and too clean to be a scar.

The Admin answered a second later.

[Authority stabilization complete.]

[Visible seal generated.]

[Designation: Ruler’s Mark]

He stared at the words, then at his arm again.

"...Ruler?" he said quietly, because his brain had no better response left.

The mark pulsed once with faint blue light, and the sealed cores inside him answered with a low heavy throb. He felt it all together then, the Admin sitting inside his system, the extra cores locked behind internal seals, and that mark on his arm acting like proof that whatever he had just become was no longer normal even by Zoxhia standards.

A new panel opened in front of him

[Ruler-class qualification acknowledged.]

[Admin access remains active.]

[Further functions locked pending growth.]

He kept staring at the screen while blood dried along one side of his face. The chamber had gone quiet again, but now the silence felt different, heavier, with the whole place seeming to recognize the change before he did.

’This Chapter is getting way out of hand,’ he thought, flexing his fingers around the bat. ’What the hell did I just evolve into?’

The system answered before he could spiral too far.

[Admin Notice:]

[Host has survived emergency restructuring.]

[Additional authority functions are unavailable at current growth stage.]

[Current admin privileges are limited.]

"Limited?" he muttered, still kneeling there. "No, explain that properly, what can I actually do now?"

The panel shifted at once.

[Current privileges:]

[ - Internal status audit]

[ - Core lock monitoring]

[ - Restricted system access]

[Locked privileges will open after further authority growth.]

He read the lines twice and clicked his tongue.

"So I got turned into some ruler admin thing and all I can do right now is audit myself?" he asked, sounding offended on principle.

That came with no response.

His eyes drifted back to the mark on his arm and narrowed a little. It looked too natural already, like it had always belonged there waiting to show up, and that thought bothered him more than he liked.

’A mark of a ruler,’ he thought, rubbing his thumb over it. ’This is exactly the kind of dramatic nonsense that gets important characters killed in this world.’

The three sealed cores answered with another faint pulse when he touched the mark, making him freeze for a second.

’So it is linked,’ he thought, moving his hand away. ’Of course the creepy tattoo is linked to the dangerous sealed power packs inside me.’

Another notice appeared.

[Ruler’s Mark function:]

[Visible authority seal.]

[Stabilizes recognition between host, sealed cores, and evolved authority.]

[Tampering is not recommended.]

"I wasn’t planning to scratch it off with a knife, thanks," he muttered.

He finally pushed himself up, though his legs almost folded from how wrecked his body still was. The claim had ended, the evolution was over, and the chamber heart was gone, but that did not mean he felt any better.

If anything, he felt stranger now.

The Admin did not let him sit with that feeling for long.

[Admin Notice:]

[Current ruler stage permits one foundational skill rewrite.]

[Low-order skills may be consumed and evolved.]

[This privilege is one-time only at the user’s current level.]

He went still.

"Consumed?" he asked, staring at the panel with immediate suspicion. "No, say that in a less insane way."

The answer came in the same flat tone as always.

[Skill consolidation is recommended.]

[Current host skill set is fragmented, inefficient, and below ruler-class standards.]

[Admin will now begin administrative refinement.]

His eye twitched.

"Did you just call my whole build trash?"

That got no response.

Instead, the system windows for his skills opened one after another in front of him, floating in a full ring around his body. Slaughterer, Unwavering Spirit, Iron Stomach, Core Consumption, Arms Bond, Mutation Resistance, Monster Tamer, and Tyrant Break all sat there at once, each panel glowing with its own faint light.

He looked around at them and swallowed once. ’No way it is actually going to eat all of them,’ he thought, though at this point he really should have known better.

The mark on his arm pulsed, and the ring of skill panels started shrinking toward the center.

[Administrative refinement initiated.]

[Consuming low-order skills...]

"Hold on-"

The first panel collapsed before he could finish.

[Slaughterer Lv.4: Consumed.]

Purple light burst out of the skill window and got pulled into the center of the ring. Right after that, another panel folded in on itself with a sharp blue flash.

[Unwavering Spirit Lv.2: Consumed.]

[Tyrant Break Lv.1: Consumed.]

He actually stepped forward on instinct, like he could stop it if he moved fast enough, but the mark on his arm pulsed again and locked his body in place.

"Are you serious?" he snapped, looking from the empty space where the panels had been to the system. "Those were my good skills."

The Admin kept going.

[Iron Stomach Lv.1: Consumed.]

[Core Consumption: Consumed.]

[Mutation Resistance Lv.1: Consumed.]

This time the light that got pulled inward was darker and heavier, green, black, and deep red twisting together before compressing into a dense sphere at the center of the ring. His stomach turned just from looking at it, and something inside his newly sealed cores gave a low answering throb.

’Yeah, I really don’t like this process,’ he thought, jaw tightening. ’It feels way too much like watching my whole build get fed into a blender.’

The last pair went next.

[Arms Bond Lv.2: Consumed.]

[Monster Tamer Lv.1: Consumed.]

He stared at the empty air around him after that, his grip tightening around the bat so hard his knuckles hurt. For a few seconds, the skill list in his head felt hollow enough to make his chest go cold.

"You better put that back in a useful form," he said, looking straight at the center of the ring. "If you turn all of that into garbage, I am going to be so mad."

The compressed lights at the center started spinning faster.

Purple, blue, red, green, and silver folded into each other in tight layers, then split apart into three heavier masses. They hovered in front of him for a second, each one pulsing with a cleaner pressure than the skills before.

[Refinement complete.]

[Evolution successful.]

The first new panel opened in front of him.

[New Skill: Massacre Engine]

[Type: Active]

[Effect: Activates a continuous combat state with no fixed time limit.]

[Effect: Damage, striking force, pressure, and kill intent rise the longer the skill remains active.]

[Effect: Large targets, armored targets, and enemies with higher mass are easier to break, stagger, and crush.]

[Effect: Fear suppression and battle focus remain active while the engine is running.]

[Cost: Core drain increases over time.]

[Risk: Aggression and bloodlust continue building until deactivation.]

[Inherited roots: Slaughterer / Unwavering Spirit / Tyrant Break]

His brows went up right away.

"No time limit?" he asked, leaning closer to the screen despite how tired he was. "And it just keeps ramping up the longer I fight?"

He read the panel again, slower this time, then let out a dry laugh. ’What the hell is this?’ he thought. ’This thing is busted.’

The second panel opened before he could enjoy that one too much.

[New Skill: Abyss Furnace]

[Type: Special]

[Effect: Allows the user to devour and process cores, abilities, skills, energy, poison, curses, corruption, and compatible foreign powers.]

[Effect: Consumed targets may be broken down into fuel, fragments, stat growth, or full inheritances depending on compatibility and resistance.]

[Effect: Weakened or damaged abilities may be stripped and eaten if contact and domination conditions are met.]

[Effect: Sealed auxiliary cores may act as processing chambers for dangerous material.]

[Risk: Higher-grade devouring carries higher rejection and backlash danger.]

[Inherited roots: Iron Stomach / Core Consumption / Mutation Resistance]

He froze after the second line and read it one more time just to make sure his eyes were not drifting.

"No way," he said, sounding a little hoarse now. "That doesn’t stop at monster cores anymore, it eats skills too?"

His mind immediately started going in bad directions.

’Hold on,’ he thought, staring at the words domination conditions. ’Does that mean if I beat something hard enough, I can just rip its ability out and eat it?’

That answer was so absurd he almost laughed.

The third panel formed

[New Skill: Living Arsenal]

[Type: Passive]

[Effect: Unifies bonded weapons, contracted creatures, linked summons, and future connected assets into one shared battle network.]

[Effect: Growth, battle data, and trait development can circulate through the network.]

[Effect: Linked weapons and linked creatures may be strengthened, fed, and evolved through shared kills, energy, and refinement.]

[Effect: Command response, bond stability, and remote awareness are greatly improved.]

[Inherited roots: Arms Bond / Monster Tamer]

This time Shu did not speak right away.

He looked at his bat first, then at the mark on his arm, and right after that he felt it, a faint thread running from him to the weapon in his hand and two much softer ones stretching far away toward the sealed eggs back home.

’No way,’ he thought, grip tightening around the handle. ’I can actually feel all three of them now.’

The bat answered first with a low pulse that ran up his palm. The two distant links came next, weak because of the distance but still clear enough that his chest tightened a little after feeling them.

"Okay," he muttered, glancing between the three panels floating in front of him. "I take back half the bad things I said earlier."

The Admin answered with another notice.

[Foundational skill rewrite complete.]

[One-time current-stage privilege exhausted.]

[Further administrative refinement locked until next growth threshold.]

"So this really was a one-time deal," he said, then looked back at the three new skills with a much better mood than before. "Yeah, fair enough, if you kept doing this every day the whole world would be cooked."

That wasn’t even a joke.