Before I could even finish that hopeful thought, the impenetrable darkness before my eyes began to crack. The void was repced by a blinding gre, followed immediately by the familiar chime of a system notification.

  [NOTIFICATION]

  [Effect “Curse of the Shadow Queen” has been deactivated.]

  I squeezed my eyelids shut, a sharp pain ncing through my head as my brain struggled to process the millions of colors and shapes it had been deprived of for the st twenty minutes. When I finally dared to open them, the world spun.

  Everything felt too bright, too sharp. The first thing I saw was Lilith - still in her bck ce lingerie, which emphasized her perfect curves in a mercilessly distracting way.

  Despite my sight returning, she didn't stop drying my body.

  She did it with such natural ease, it was as if the curse had never happened. When she finally set the damp towel aside, she straightened up and remarked casually:

  “Tell me, sweetling... did you manage to activate the passive skill [Perfect Skin] after that bath?”

  I froze. I looked at her with pure, unadulterated disbelief.

  My heart leaped into my throat. “How... how did you know about that, Mistress?” I choked out, feeling my worldview start to wobble.

  Lilith let out a melodic ugh, her breasts trembling slightly - a sight that, at this distance, was almost overpowering. “Oh, kitten... That was my own discovery. I developed the specific conditions and the mixture of astral essences to force the acquisition of that skill. How could I not know about something I created myself?”

  At that moment, a red fg went up in my mind.

  A sudden chill hit me that had nothing to do with the temperature of the bathhouse. If she knew about that... if she understood skills... “Do... do you have the System too, Mistress?” I whispered, terrified by the prospect growing before me.

  Lilith went still. She looked at me strangely, as if I’d just asked if the sun was bright.

  For a few seconds, her eyes held nothing but confusion, but then she smiled, seemingly remembering my amnesia. She snapped her fingers, her ring fshed, and a plush, pink bathrobe appeared in her hand.

  She immediately began to dress me in it.

  “Of course I do,” she replied calmly, tying the sash around my waist. “Every living being in this world possesses a System. It is the very foundation of our existence, sweetling.”

  I felt like someone had just let all the air out of my lungs. The softness of the robe and its luxury no longer mattered.

  My brief, proud thought that I was unique - that I had a "Golden Finger" or a special power that would make me the hero of this world - crumbled into dust.

  I wasn't the Chosen One. I was just another system user in a world full of high-level creatures.

  Lilith didn't care about my existential despair. With a flick of magic, she summoned her own robes and dressed herself in a split second before heading for the exit.

  I followed her like a programmed robot, my feet moving mechanically across the jade floor. My brain was still stuck on loop: I don't have cheats.

  Lilith looked through a massive, stained-gss window at the light of the sun, checking the time. “It’s time for me to go. Duty calls,” she said, gncing at my dazed face. “Elene should be along shortly to look after you.”

  I nodded, still lost in apathy, until I saw something flying toward me out of the corner of my eye.

  Instinctively, I reached out and caught the object. It was a heavy book, bound in ancient leather.

  Lilith was already walking away with the grace of a queen. “If you truly wish to know more about how this world and the System function... read that in your spare time.”

  I let out a long, heavy sigh, still clutching the old volume.

  My hope of being a "Chosen One" with a unique system had died as quickly as it had appeared, leaving only the bitter aftertaste of mediocrity.

  In this world, I was just another cog in the machine - only with a tail and a pink outfit.

  Pulling the soft pink robe tight, I went to the massive bed and colpsed onto it, devoid of energy.

  Every morning in this castle seemed heavier and more exhausting than the st. I y there for a moment, staring at the ceiling, before gncing sideways at the book.

  Even if this system doesn’t save me, I still need to know what I’m dealing with, I thought, rolling onto my stomach and resting my chin on a rge, downy pillow.

  Slowly, I opened the heavy cover and began to flip through the first pages. My face immediately twisted into a grimace of pure frustration. Instead of letters I could recognize, the pages were covered in dense rows of strange symbols, sharp characters, and incomprehensible hieroglyphs. I flipped through the pages faster and faster, panic rising in my chest.

  Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I couldn't read a single word.

  “I can’t even read...” I groaned pathetically, thumping my forehead against the pillow.

  I was illiterate in the demon world. Just one more reason for Lilith to ugh at me.

  Resigned, I reached the very end of the book, intending to just close it. But then, tucked between the st page and the back cover, I noticed something in a leather slot. It was a strange letter covered in more incomprehensible writing, and a small, circur gss lens framed in thin, bck metal.

  I held the gss up to the light, squinting. It looked like a monocle, but I didn't see any difference when looking at the room or the furniture. I was about to put it down as another useless trinket when the lens hovered over a fragment of the letter.

  I froze. The letters beneath the gss twitched, blurred for a split second, and suddenly... became intelligible.

  I held the lens close to my eye and grabbed the letter with a trembling hand. The characters that had been gibberish now formed into readable sentences written in Lilith’s elegant, predatory script.

  “To my little, illiterate slut...

  I predicted that your miserable human brain wouldn't be able to handle the demonic script, so I have included this artifact. It is the [The Gss of Truth and Transtion]. Without it, you are just a pretty, stupid little pet who can't even read.

  Happy reading, sweetling. Your Mistress, Lilith.”

  I felt the heat rush to my cheeks. Even in a letter, she found a way to degrade me, but this time I didn't care. I had the key. I had a way to understand the rules of this game.

  Ignoring the insults in my heart, I flipped the book back to the first page. I pressed the lens to my eye, feeling the metal rim bite into my skin, and began to absorb the opening sentences of the book.

  The symbols that had looked like a mad demon’s scribbles began to organize into logical, bluish lines of text.

  The first few pages were simple - suspiciously so. The book started with things everyone "knows," though it was all news to me. It expined that every being in this world possesses a System - an invisible interface tied to the soul, active from birth to death, recording growth, decisions, abilities, and one’s pce in the hierarchy.

  I stopped at the Status diagram. It was id out like an official form, but instead of taxes and stamps, it was about system.

  Name

  Race

  Gender

  That was obvious, but below that, things started to get interesting.

  Css

  Attributes

  Underneath were the five main coefficients that the book expined were the foundation for every being’s development, whether they fought, cooked, traded, or cast spells:

  Strength - Physical power, damage capacity, carrying weight.

  Vitality - Life force, bodily resilience.

  Agility - Speed and reflexes.

  Intelligence - Mana control, learning rate.

  Charisma - Influence over others and appearance.

  I read it again, more slowly. It was sinking in that these weren't just abstract numbers - they were the real skeleton of who you could become.

  Further down, the book expined that the Css was key. It decided not only the growth rate of attributes but also the maximum Rank you could achieve.

  The chapter on Csses was denser, more technical. It broke them down by rarity and potential:

  Common → Advanced → Rare → Epic → Legendary

  Beside it was a table of Ranks from F to S. The footnotes expined what this meant in practice.

  A Common Css could only reach Rank E at most. Advanced went to D, Rare to B, Epic to A, and Legendary reached all the way to S - a level most people could only dream of, and never reach

  I huffed.

  It was the first time I’d seen it written so bluntly: the ceiling over your head is set from the beginning. In many cases, it doesn't matter how hard you work if your Css is low.

  The book got more practical after that.

  A Mage develops Intelligence at the cost of Strength.

  A Warrior grows in Strength and Vitality but slower in Intelligence.

  An Archer dominates in Agility.

  The System, as the author wrote, favors development aligned with the nature of the css. You can train other things, but it takes many times longer.

  I turned the page, resting the book on my knee, fascinated.

  When advancing a full Rank - from F to E, E to D - the System grants a special Skill suited to the css. Not at every level, but at every major jump. A Warrior gets a combat technique, a Mage a spell, a craftsman a production ability.

  Then I reached something I read even more carefully: Css Change.

  There were two ways.

  1.Evolution - You develop your current css to its limit and then transition into a higher, specialized form. For example, a Mage becomes an Elemental Mage, with a higher Rank limit and a different stat distribution.

  2.Total Recssification - Changing to a completely different css, independent of your previous path. It’s possible, but the cost is gargantuan: your Rank, no matter what it was, drops to F+, and you start from zero according to the new growth rules.

  I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to imagine someone of a high rank voluntarily resetting themselves just to change their path in life.

  The next pages expined the pace of advancement. Every css develops fastest through actions consistent with its nature. A warrior by fighting, a mage by using magic, a cook by cooking. The higher the Rank, the harder it is to reach the next, as requirements grow exponentially. Moving from F to E might take months, but B to A could take years or decades.

  Finally, I reached the st section.

  Talents...

  The first paragraph changed tone, as if the author were writing about something they didn't fully understand.

  Talents are the rarest element of the System, completely dependent on the individual, not the css or rank. You can be born without any. You can have one.

  Very rarely two or three. They cannot be trained. They cannot be acquired. They cannot be learned.

  Their number is fixed at birth and does not change throughout life.

  Only a footnote at the bottom of the page added an exception. Special World Events, during which an individual evolves into a higher type of existence, can result in being granted new Talents.

  Demon Kings were cited as an example - beings who, after official recognition by the System, receive unique Talents individually tailored to their nature and their path to the crown.

  I closed the book with a heavy thud. Dust from the ancient binding rose into the air, tickling my nose.

  I was frowning so hard my temples ached. My tail, living its own life as usual, instinctively nuzzled into the cool bedding, seeking comfort in this chaos of information.

  One thing was sticking in my brain like a splinter.

  “The number of talents does not change throughout life...” I whispered to the empty room, summoning my Status window again.

  The bluish glow lit the gloom of the bedroom. I stared at the Talent section, squinting: [Cute], [Submissive], [Sweet essence], [Delicate Prey]. Four. I clearly saw four talents.

  I remembered perfectly that when I woke up in this world, there were only the first two. Yet, in just two days spent in this world, my list had grown.

  I bit my lip. According to this book, I was either a miracle or a complete system error. Unless...

  “Did the System really count that torture and Elene’s punishment as a ‘Special World Event’?” I muttered, the absurdity of the thought washing over me.

  The vision of the System recording the fact that some stern Head Maid forced me to stand in heels as an “evolution into a higher type of being” was so ridiculous I almost wanted to ugh through my tears.

  Was my suffering so intense that it broke the ws of the world?

  I began to analyze it further, almost forgetting my surroundings, when suddenly...

  CRASH!

  The sound of the door smming against the wall tore through the silence like thunder.

  My cat ears shot straight up. Driven by pure animal instinct, I jumped on the bed like I’d been scalded. Gravity, however, was not my friend. I got tangled in the folds of the pink bathrobe and, with a pathetic squeak, tumbled straight onto the hard floor.

  “Ow...” I groaned, massaging my aching backside and looking up.

  Elene stood in the doorway.