Mind Magic Affinity has, thanks to my constant use and heavy focus, also managed to rank up to Enhanced Mind Magic Affinity. I eagerly checked my available Skills the moment after I made the purchase, but no new Magic Affinity options were available, sadly.
Along with two Levels, those were my total gains.
All this heavy battering has helped take my mind off the suffering my core is currently inflicting on me. After Levelling a couple of times, the pain has noticeably receded, but is still quite intense. It’s going to be a long-term project to complete the absorption of that stupid rare core. The evolution I receive had better be absolutely amazing to have endured all this suffering. Level forty is still a long way away, so hopefully by the time I get there, I can complete that task.
Rather than spend my points and mutate here and now, I spent some time working on core manipulation. Tiny carefully places the six small, spherical gems on the floor before me, where they glitter beautifully. One by one, I activate Core Surgery and take a good look at each core, confirming that the information encoded within—the monstrous DNA, if you will, is the same for all of them. Indeed, they’re almost identical in the basic details. Only the individual mutations, Skill Levels and a very minor stat variance exists between them. These should be the ideal circumstances to attempt the core fusion I want.
In essence, I want to take these cores and meld them together, retaining the general shape and form of the creature within, preventing the data from overwriting or scrambling during the process. Hopefully, I’ll be able to combine these cores and create what is basically a large aphid with more potential energy to play with. From there, I’ll be able to manipulate that blueprint and form the Aphid Queen from which my species of docile farm animals will spring.
Okay, here we go. Deftly rolling the first two gems into position with my antennae, I tap them with one antenna each and activate the Skill, gently pressing them together as I do so. Immediately, the pressure on my brains explodes in magnitude as the cores resist my attempt to fuse them.
So far, so good. This bit is perfectly normal and I’ve done it dozens of times already when making special cores. Though, it’s different this time. All I had to do before was overcome the resistance of the cores and squash them together. Now I need to do that whilst simultaneously ensuring the information contained within forms a harmonious whole. The new data sliding neatly over the old.
In order to achieve this duality, I task my sub-brains with the fusion itself, whilst my main mind is dedicated to ensuring the information within the core maintains its integrity. Deliberately slowing down the fusing process, my mind reaches into both cores at once and attempts to get a clear picture of the information flowing between the two.
Almost like individual brush strokes of an artwork, each piece of information is part of a complete whole, only making sense in the context of the strokes around it. The colours, the forms, width and depth, all layered on top of and around each other to build a cohesive image. In fusing the two cores together as I did in the past, I’m basically taking two art works, melting one down into a bucket of paint and throwing it at the other.
Naturally, chaos was the result!
I’m getting a bad feeling about how this is going to have to be done.
I can’t take all of the paint and throw it together haphazardly, it needs to be done just like painting a picture would be—line by line, stroke by stroke. Which means this is going to suck.
With sheer force of will, my sub-brains cooperate to hold the cores in a state of near fusion, just on the verge of melding together. Then, I reach into one of the cores with my main mind and strip away a single piece of data, a single brush stroke of the image. I hold it delicately with my thoughts and transfer it over to the second core, carefully laying it over the top of the same data, melding the two pieces together.
As the strips of data merge flawlessly, satisfaction fills me, along with weariness. Such delicate work is tiring on the mind, and my sub-brains are already straining against this constant effort.
I’m going to be wrecked by the time this is done…
36. My Finest Creation?
Holy moly… I’m completely wrecked. Each of my brains feels like seared mush, soft and jelly-like, yet wreathed in hot, hot flames. I managed to gain two whole Levels in Cerebral Endurance in just under two hours. That’s how mentally intensive this work is. However, I have been successful.
I have triumphed!
Despite being some of the most draining and mind-bogglingly difficult mental work I’ve done, I managed to complete the project as well as I can. It was enough to gain me three Levels in Core Surgery. Just goes to show how difficult what I was attempting actually was. Each of those Levels helped significantly with the task at hand. I can only be grateful in the end.
In front of me sits a gleaming special core, plump with energy, ripe with the encoded information of my artisanal hand-crafted creature, ready to be instantiated as a pet.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to make a heap of edits to the creature I’d created after successfully fusing the cores together, so I hadn’t gone crazy with it. Though, I was mostly able to hit my goals. After the fusion was complete, there were a few oddities that had slipped into the design. Such as the one leg that somehow lost its knee joint, but managed to gain two extra feet. Fixing these took a bit of a toll, but I was able to have the finalised creature I’d hoped for: an oversized aphid, roughly the same size as myself, stuffed full of spare energy.
Naturally, I used that energy to shape the egg production pathway, something that took a heck of a lot more potential than I thought it would. The egg production organs are expensive. Luckily, I had enough budget after fusing the six aphid cores together. Then it was a simple matter of neatening up the edges.
I lowered the creatures’ Cunning a little. I want them to be dependent on their ant masters, after all. Took away the poison gland. Overall made them a little weaker, and gave their Biomass production organ a mutation that increased the amount of Biomass they could produce straight out of the gate.
If all things go according to plan, once reconstituted, this core will give rise to the first Aphid Queen. Let’s call her Aphy. The colony will care for and raise her until she’s mature and can start producing her aphid offspring, which the we will nurture and use as our own Biomass-producing herd. This should work out well. By the time Aphy is producing eggs, the colony should have the numbers and Levels to launch raiding parties into the Expanse itself, and with a little clever planning, the aphid-farming project could go into action at that point.
Nice work, Anthony!
I’m quite proud of myself, I have to say. This was a lot of effort and could prove to have a major effect on the colony going forward.
Weary but satisfied, it’s time to retreat back to the colony. We’ve been gone for roughly a day, which isn’t as long as I thought I’d be on this particular excursion, but I’m chasing a rest and I want my aphid core to begin its life as a loyal pet of the colony. Something I can’t really do down here.
The three of us battle our way up to the surface via the shortcut and make our way across the land toward the ant hill. I can’t wait to nestle into a nice chamber and get some sleep!