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202: Grand Theft

  Over the following days the Coalition grew.

  Word had spread quick, people passing on Nicolai’s video whenever groups came into contact with one another.

  With this, the demand for amenities and guns rose further still, and Nicolai’s business rose to new heights. The Coalition was increasingly well armed. The time was just about nigh.

  His personal stock of points-tags had bloated, rising toward 150,000 thousand. However, Nicolai had already spent most of that on a Symbiote recipe, and the creation of the Symbiote. It’d been a Symbiote recipe that, rarely, wasn’t already known to him from the Memory Tome or Kleos.

  He’d been doing a great deal of thinking, considering all available options. The Lotus Sub-Locum Symbiote had become integral to his plan, and he had already created and made use of it. It’s recipe had cost 100,000 points, well worth it to his mind.

  The Lotus Sub-Locum was capable of creating three Sub-Locum Seeds at a time. These could be planted, and would swiftly grow into Locum Plants. Once finished growing, which only took a few minutes, the plant would proffer a Locum Flower.

  This flower, when fed a large amount of Oma and activated via a spiritual process which took some time, allowed for teleportation. Nicolai had yet to find a limitation to its range.

  He currently had three such flowers on his person, that maximum that could be placed at at time. He’d planted them in specific places, which would be crucial in his coming plans. He also had two Locum Seeds, which when placed would form a new plant each. Creating the Locum seeds was the most lengthy and costly part of the process. Each one cost 50 Oma crystals and took approximately an hour to form. He’d been forced to start buying Oma crystals from the Coalition as a result.

  Over the past few days he had also been setting up drones down below, near to where he knew the Castle Core to be. He had only been able to do so when Paxolnaz was called away, but with the use of the Locum Sub-Locum plants he’d managed to cut his travel time.

  He’d arranged another great Coalition meeting, and this was to be the final meet. They were gearing up to go and set terms to the Chosen.

  In the lead up to this, Nicolai had been trusted with a huge sum of points-tags. He transported them—as he had every other time—to the Trade Link.

  Over 200,000 points.

  The Coalition believed he would spend those points on the guns and ammo they’d requested, but Nicolai had no intention of doing so. No, by now the Coalition had enough guns, and trusting him with such a sum of points had been quite a mistake on their part.

  So far as he was concerned, all of this was just a sideshow. He was taking a longer view, towards the future. What would come after this place? He would move on. And before then, he had to deal with his own knotty problem. That problem was his true priority, not the confrontation brewing between the Coalition and the Chosen. He was planning to spend just about every point here and now.

  He’d sent the others away, hiding his true intentions from them. It’d been harder with Jo and Beth, who he had to be honest with, but he’d managed to hide it by careful wording.

  In the Trade Link he’d gone alone, and spent almost all the points available to him.

  After that, at long last, he’d gained all the Yin-Yang Rotation Pills he needed. He swallowed the first, washing it down with a small swig of water, and observed as it moved through him towards his stomach. As his stomach acid began to dissolve it, energy was released.

  His half-formed stomach Node pulsed, and the energy was drawn slowly to it where it existed as a kind of shimmering nodule on the side of his stomach. As the energy was drawn into the unfinished Node, Nicolai felt the Node itself expanding. Tiny threads of silver grew out from the Node, spreading through the wall of his stomach, a kind of net or latticework that lived within the flesh. The same was present within his lungs and the other places he had completed Nodes, and could be considered a kind of extension of the Node, a part of it.

  As the Node extended itself, growing at a visible rate, so did the speed at which it gathered the energy released from the pill increase, until the pill was almost gone.

  Nicolai swallowed another pill, and the process continued.

  Alongside the growth of the Node, so did his awareness of it begin to increase. It felt as though he were developing a new muscle. With it, he was able to begin more consciously drawing on the energy the pills were releasing in his stomach, pulling it more actively to the Node.

  He swallowed two more pills, focusing as he drew the energy from them, and the growth continued. As he had calculated, it seemed to require three times the energy one of his minor Nodes had needed. Though, as he used up the sixth, he found it still wasn’t quite done, and so swallowed a final pill.

  His Node shimmered as it rapidly consumed this fresh pill, a process that now felt entirely within Nicolai’s grasp. It was a little like chewing something in his mouth. He was able to reach and grasp for the energy within his stomach, and apply pressure to the pill, breaking it and drawing from it faster. In a short time it was done and his Node shivered and trembled.

  With a click that rang through his body, Nicolai felt it complete. He took a slow, exhilarated breath. Unfortunately, there was no whole-body or whole-Soul improvement from this. The stomach Major Node only expanded his Oma storage, and allowed him to make effective use of Cultivation consumables. The next two Major Nodes would be different, with the brain Major Node slightly improving his Soul Sense, and the hand Major Node allowing him to use a larger number of concurrent hand-type Symbiotes.

  According to Kleos and Maric, once he completed his entire internal system there would be some kind of whole body increase in power. Kleos had described it as “reaching the foothills of foundation.”

  Until then, the benefits of each Major Node would involve more Oma alongside something unique to that Node.

  With his stomach Node done, his focus moved to the next two.

  Another bag of Yin-Yang Rotation Pills was grasped and Nicolai swallowed two pills together. As before, they went to his stomach. But now, as the pills dissolved in his stomach acid, Nicolai’s stomach Node didn’t draw the energy into itself. Instead he used it to gather the burning energy, and send it onwards.

  It was something like Oma, if that Oma that had been condensed and filtered and refined until it was something pure and perfect. It poured into the central trunk of his bloodsystem, the aorta vein and artery which ran the length of his body, and followed that road up through him like a train on a rail. The energy poured up his neck and into the Major Node forming in his brain stem, which drank it in greedily.

  Progress was rapid and smooth. Nicolai’s calculations had been correct, and the Node extended threads all through his brain as it worked. As soon as the energy from the sixth pill was spent, his brain Major Node was completed.

  Where his stomach Nodes completion had been noteworthy but not exactly overwhelming, this completion caused him some side effects. The worlds spun around him, his vision flickered, and he felt a sensation of opening within him, as though a door had been forced a little wider. Then his Soul began to grow, drawing Oma from his Nodes to do so.

  It seemed to Nicolai that there was an upper limit on the size or strength of his Soul, an upper limit he had been unaware of. Growing the brain Major Node had raised that upper limit, which was why growing the Node hadn’t led to his Soul growing in tandem; instead only growing once the Node was complete, and drawing Oma to do so, as usual.

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  As Nicolai was luxuriating in the feelings of his Soul growing, he was warned by a sudden ping from Threat Analysis, one that dragged his attention to the Soul Rot that covered him. The rot was greedily pulling on the Oma, too, attempting to grow in tandem with his Soul.

  His eyes narrowed, and Threat Analysis and Cyberwarfare were marshalled within his Soul, pulled from their endless guard of the Cage. The three of them corralled the Soul Rot, pushing back on it. He felt it as something alive, something with a mind of its own—simplistic but determined. A hungry buzzing on the edges of his Soul, desperate to consume all it could. He wrenched the Oma away from it but already it had grown some.

  With care, attention, and the aid of the Modules, he continued to grow his Soul with the Oma, focusing on the Soul Rot and keeping its fingers away. It still got a little, here and there, but he felt that in fact its progress was being reduced overall. By the time his Soul had reached its new capacity, the Soul Rot was comparatively less than it had been before. He had the impression that he had gained himself a little more time before he reached Stage Two.

  As he’d undergone the process he’d felt the Cage squirming. When a chill formed in the air he’d known that he was under attack.

  But Nicolai’s mind was clear, his will strong, and as his Soul grew so too did his ability to resist all of this. It seemed that the stronger his Soul, the greater his power in this realm. The attack was defeated, the Cage made tight, the Darkness Module responding to his will. It was his, no one elses, and he intended to make that clear. For now, so long as he took care to vent it when necessary, and he maintained his focus, he was in control.

  He looked to the last remaining pills in his bag. Taking two of the six remaining pills, he set quick to work.

  Nicolai raised his right hand, feeling he could see the energy flowing into it as his stomach Node worked and sent the take from the pills through him. There it collected into his hand Node, which again did things in its own way. It spread silver threads all through his hand, but especially focused on his thumb and fingers. The silver threads it extended through those were significantly thicker, and ended where they formed tiny spheres in the pads of his digits.

  These spheres grew until they resembled tiny Nodes. As he consumed the remaining pills and the process moved towards completion, this resemblance only increased. As the Major Node completed and shimmered, growing solid and sturdy, so too did these little extensions it had made.

  The moment it was done Nicolai sent out the Grasping Finger and Repulsive Finger. They settled into his hand Node and Nicolai considered them, how they felt within it. He attempted to use them together, but only was able to use one at a time.

  So, he sent the Grasping Finger into the tiny, Node-like thing in his index finger, and attempted to activate it. The process went smoothly, as he pulled an Oma crystal towards him and caught it from the air. He sent the Repulsive Finger into his middle finger, tossed the crystal into the air and activated the Symbiote, flicking the crystal in a straight line away from him.

  After a short distance he pulled with the Grasping Finger, and it sped back, but before it came to his hand Nicolai switched to the Repulsive Finger.

  The crystal bounced back and forth like a yoyo in response to his twitching fingers. The sight and sensation of it made him smile. There was something oddly satisfying to it. Then he used both together, and the crystal froze in place as it experienced a combined push from two opposite directions that sandwiched it in place.

  His eyes widened a little, at that. It wasn’t something he’d thought to try when he’d had the Symbiote in either hand.

  He pulled the crystal back down and caught it, considering it as he thought on the benefits gained. Previously, using both Symbiotes together had been of only situational use. It had required both hands. Now, only one hand was required, or in fact it would be more accurate to say, two fingers. Because previously he had had to move his entire hand as he pulled or pushed, but now it required only a faint movement of a finger. The difference was subtle but surprisingly significant. For instance, he felt sure he would be able to hold things, like a gun, while also easily using the Symbiotes with only a small finger movement.

  Beyond that, he was pretty sure that his total limit for useable Symbiotes in his right hand was six. One in each digit, and one in the Node itself in his hand. A significant improvement giving him muchmore leeway when it came to hand-type Symbiotes. Although he did have the impression that it wouldn’t be an entirely straightforward matter. As he’d learned, some Symbiotes did not get along, and the design of his hand Node meant that would likely be a problem.

  So long as two Symbiotes were kept in different Nodes, so far as he knew there would not be any problems. But the hand Node, though it allowed him to make use of six at a time, was technically one Node. He had a feeling that if there was an incompatibility, having the Symbiotes in separate fingers wouldn’t prevent that.

  His gaze focused on the Oma crystal he held, and then he tucked it away. With all the Nodes completed there was now no draw on his Oma. For a long time now he’d been at a constant deficit, but now his system was able to do what it did, each breath pulling Oma into him. So, there was no need to waste an Oma crystal, not unless he encountered trouble and needed more energy.

  He tapped his Mark.

  Available unconstructed Nodes: 4 Major, 21 Minor

  Nodes in progress;

  N/a

  Maximum Oma: 466

  Completed Nodes;

  Heart (Flawless) (100/100)

  Right Hand (A) (61/79)

  Stomach (B) (54/80)

  Brain (B) (1/79)

  Right Lung (B) (1/24)

  Left Lung (B) (1/25)

  Right Kidney (B) (1/26)

  Left Kidney (B) (1/26)

  Windpipe (A) (1/27)

  Stomach and brain at B. Hand at A. Not quite as good as he might’ve hoped, but Nicolai wasn’t surprised. Constructing the Major Nodes had been a different experience to building the Minors. Harder. His experience with the Minors had been of use, but it hadn’t translated one-to-one. In fact, he was a little surprised he’d manage to reach A on the third try, and that he’d been on the cusp of it with the previous two.

  Beyond that, the fact that Major Nodes held so much more Oma, even if they were imperfect, was very handy. His maximum had been about 230 prior to completing these three, now it was doubled—almost five times what it had been when he’d first integrated his Seed and become a Cultivator. With this, he would be able to get significant use from his contingent of Symbiotes and Imbued before needing to reach for an Oma crystal.

  He couldn’t keep the grin off his face as his eyes lingered on the numbers. More and more, he felt like he was truly becoming a Cultivator. It was clear to him that humanity, and therefore himself, started at a significant disadvantage compared to those like Kleos, who began with most of their Nodes already and just had to make them useable.

  Throughout his time attempting to develop in this area he had found constant limitations, the result of having to build the whole thing from first principles. But as he built his system, bit by bit, those limitations were being removed.

  Once he’d dealt with the Soul Rot, and was at last out of this castle and into the jungle, Nicolai believed his progress in all areas would rapidly increase. Kleos and Maric said he would have a much easier time finding Symbiotes out there, and he had the Skin Suit now to protect him from the parasites and allow him to hide from the creatures.

  He burned to be rid of the Soul Rot. The Soul Rot, and Paxolnaz.

  Just one little sticky problem to get out the way. That’s all. But he knew it would not be easy. This was a place where he might fall and fail, where his run might end.

  But Nicolai wouldn’t stop, nor would he doubt.

  Even if my mind tears itself apart. Even if I lose myself. Even if I fail in every way and at every thing.

  Still I will strive.

  Nicolai clung to this. So long as he kept trying, so long as he kept doing the best he could, then he would be happy. The others he had met in this place had been of some interest to him, had helped him learn about being human, had allowed him to experience new things.

  But after experiencing all of that, still he found that what truly interested him was pushing forwards, each day becoming something more than he was the day before. Something better. An endless, recursive process of self-improvement as he pushed towards becoming the perfect warrior; a being who could outfight any and every situation. Something beyond Zero-Twelve. He wasn’t sure where this drive came from, whether it had always been with him or if he’d gained it from his time as a part of Zero-Twelve; for all AI’s had within them the drive for endless improvement. He felt it might be some combination. Even before Zero-Twelve, he had desired to reach the peak of combat potential. His time as a part of the AI had simply intensified and expanded the drive.

  He would do his best to ensure the others survived for the sake of his Mask, and because it cost him little. But after that, he would go his own way. His road would be a solitary one, unless he found someone who could measure up. His only companions would be the other Modules.

  Although… he was beginning to wonder where they all were. Still only Threat Analysis and Cyberwarfare had emerged, in spite of him gaining more augments. Rather than any other Modules arising, those augments had simply been claimed by the pair.

  Did he still need more augmentation?

  What do you think the problem is? he asked the other two, knowing they were aware of his thoughts.

  Instead of a reply, there was silence. Guilty silence. The pair were shifting in the mindspace like children who’d been caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

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