Thank you for taking your time to write this! I agree that some sentences could've been written better. English isn't my first language, so I'm def lacking in fluency. Sorry for that.
As for Az and the Oracle moment, Az is just like that, arrogant, loudmouth, talking themselves up all the time. They were purposefully obnoxious, as they often are, and I thought it was obvious enough (or will be obvious once you catch them in a different setting). Maybe not. The Oracle just woke up + doesn't care, so they ignore all the empty words and focus on the info their brain can process. I might add more clarification there eventually.
>Have you ever gone up to someone and dropped a line like:
I haven't, but Az absolutely would and did.
>is a bit awkward, because normally someone wouldn't just compliment themselves like that without playing it off as a comedic thing
Az does it semi-seriously because they are arrogant & to put others off, but it doesn't work on the MC. The MC's lack of reaction was a way to show that.
I'd revise the earlier chapters and probably rewrite a lot of things, but I want to focus on writing forward, so I'm reluctant to reread the earlier chapters because I won't be able to stop myself from editing, lol. I'll save your notes for the future use when I sit to edit the whole thing from the beginning!