"Do I look taller, or is it just me?" Thairon asked. He was inspecting himself before a mirror. He was exactly one meter seventy-five centimeters in the official records, the shortest in his family of twelve.
Now he was two meters tall, and every part of his body had grown to fit the mold.
"All that extra food had to go somewhere," Nax mentioned, appearing next to him in his usual square form.
Checking the nanobot hive revealed the reason behind the sudden growth spurt. "The health precepts. Rather than let it turn to fat, they made me taller."
The hive was programmed to keep him alive and well, with the protocols for every possible scenario embedded in it. He was never a voracious eater, but the health precepts were to use the excess nutrients to repair his body.
Without anything to repair, the nanobots instead activated the second part concerning bodily improvements. An unmodified body would not be able to handle these improvements in eight hours.
The shock of it would be fatal to anyone.
Now, the hive considered the new state of his body and implemented the improvements on a small scale as a test. Once successful, Nax had then ordered it to give him a full-body remake.
He didn't mind it, but the neural extensions would have to be educated on the concept of permission.
"Seems right. You know, consume more protein, and we can give you the physique of an Adonis." The square form grew muscled arms and legs in addition to a six-pack as one of the square eyes winked at him.
"Later," he muttered. Combing his hair was the least of his worries, but it had grown back to his neck in eight hours. The chocolate brown color hadn't settled in yet, resulting in an appearance far older than he was.
Selling that alone would be worth a fortune.
"I actually like the look of it,"
"White? Going for that wise old man look, are we?" Now, the square form grew a balding head, a long mustache, and a beard. There was also a cane.
"No. I was thinking more like a bright silver," he replied. He waved his hand for the holographic projector. It turned his head to the color he had imagined.
It looked especially fitting with his gray eyes.
"Genetic modification for silver hair is possible if you want to spend days in the tank," Nax said.
One would think his creator had enough of lying helplessly in the tank.
"We can find a way to decrease the length of the process. For now, let's put this body to the test," he grinned.
His physical condition was always ordinary, but the modifications changed things.
—
"Test 1: speed."
One of the floors was a dedicated, fully fledged gym that he did not have the time for. His brothers, whenever they visited, made use of it, which was the reason he had it built in the first place.
Today, it would be useful to him as well.
Walking onto the treadmill, he started with a light jog and slowly sped up. Nax announced his speed at certain intervals.
Ten kilometers per hour. Fifteen, twenty, twenty-five.
"Heartbeat slightly elevated, vitals below the usual range for the current speed."
He didn't feel strained at all and kept pushing himself.
Thirty, thirty-five, forty, forty-five.
"Fifty kilometers per hour. Heart rate at seventy BPMs."
"I can do more," he thought. His legs blurred, breaking the speeds of what even the most successful athletes were capable of.
Fifty-five, sixty, sixty-five, seventy.
"Seventy-three kilometers per hour top speed, heart rate at ninety BPMs."
"Keep running; let's see how long you can last."
He continued to run. The genetic modifications had increased the ceiling of his physical limitations. It made him superhuman but still a human.
"Ten minutes at seventy-three kilometers per hour, heart rate still at ninety BPMs," Nax announced. He started to slow down gradually. Done with the run, he took a deep breath.
No burning lungs or legs, no noticeable increase in body temperature, and he didn't even sweat.
"The energy production and delivery processes of your body had to be sped up by a factor of twenty to accommodate your brand-new consciousness. In addition, muscle density increased three hundred percent due to the new, shall we say, durability the modifications gave you," Nax explained, projecting the charts of his body.
"A limitless energy source for the nanobots to work with," he grinned. His mind was half addled due to the neural inhibitors to reduce the constant pain, and he might have rushed with the modifications.
But it had worked beyond what he expected.
"All those modifications I tested on the flash-grown clones. This temporal loop can solve the energy problem," he said. The result of the modifications, which some would describe as superpowers, appeared on a separate screen.
"Yes, but the loop itself creates a steady amount of chronon radiation. In high enough amounts, it will lead to reality-shattering problems."
Another screen flashed, showing the steady amount of radiation from the loop gathering in his cells. It would take months for it to be an issue.
"A feedback mechanism, then. A DNA strain specifically created to absorb and use the chronon radiation as more energy," he theorized. That would not only be getting rid of the harmful byproduct but also increasing the energy his cells were producing.
"I'll start the simulations."
"Meanwhile, let's continue with the tests."
The maintenance bots had already prepared a barbell for him. Starting with fifty kilos, he lifted everything up to the two hundred and fifty mark without a strain. He managed up to three hundred and fifty kilos.
His limit for now.
The final test was to see how much this invulnerability extended. Cellular samples were exposed to lethal doses of radiation, heat, toxic gases, and blunt, sharp, and piercing force trauma, with no damage observed.
It was the most exciting part of the unintended side effects of modifications.
The nanobots isolated certain neurons in his biceps to cut all feeling. His arm fell slack, and he laid it on the table. He could easily regrow any missing or damaged body parts.
Not that the chances of anything going wrong were high.
The plasma cutter came down from the ceiling, warming up. A dark force field spread around the table, and the thin plasma line struck his arm with a whine.
For ten solid seconds, he kept it there. The timer reached zero with Nax shutting the plasma cutter down.
There wasn't even a single blemish on his arm.
Deactivating neural inhibitors, he flexed the arm, feeling no discomfort at all. The heat of the plasma was over ten thousand degrees Celsius, and if that did nothing, he didn't have to worry about anything short of a fission bomb going off near his face.
"Oh, this will be fabulous."
—
The fabricator was working; his maintenance bots were up to their previous numbers, and Nax had already seen to the coolant change.
He was free to dabble in genetic modifications, starting with the Neural Bypass Arc. It was a strain that allowed a person to fire bioelectricity through the fingers. It would allow him to connect to anything that worked on electricity.
Machine or organic.
Its speed would surpass the Neural Bridge, but the tests on clones indicated that it would lead to the consciousness being drained into the connected machine or person.
Not ideal.
Now, with a consciousness transformed into pure, limitless energy, the process would become viable.
—
Tens of millions of infection-strain nanobots swarmed the unconscious-looking body in the tank. They had one purpose: to modify every single cell in his body with the altered DNA strain, verify everything had worked perfectly, and cryptographically sign it.
The stasis beam stopped his body from going through any changes. His consciousness, now pure energy, would not be affected by the changes.
And it had the added bonus that he could move his mind with a neural link inside Nax' hardware and continue working.
He would create a synthetic body for any future modifications to take control of.
As there was nothing that required his immediate attention, he went through the news to see what he had missed.
Protests across the kingdom for an increase in civil rights were raging. His little brother, Skyler, was a part of it too.
Crown Prince Meran, as always, made some empty promises that no one believed. There was only so much his charm would work on the masses.
He certainly should have smashed that fool's face the last time they encountered each other.
Second Prince Leander was preaching patience and dialogue. He knew better, however. Leander wasn't any better than Meran. That little rat was no doubt working to sow discord among the protestors.
King Octavian was in negotiations with Chairman Oda for something top secret. Prime Minister Levin Peran was celebrating his daughter's, the so-called Princess, engagement to the son of an industrial tycoon.
If that was a loving relationship, then he was the ingenious mind that built the Lekonem tower.
On brighter news, his net worth had reached seven hundred sixty-eight billion aurels, making him the richest man on the continent.
All without selling a single share in the market.
He considered shutting down the company. His debts were paid, and wealth was just a tool that he needed less each day.
But the legal, economic, and political hurdles were too much. Not because he cared what the people or the government would say, but because he would definitely kill someone for meddling in his business.
What was he supposed to do with all that wealth?
"Nax, distribute the necessary amounts each year to the charities that actually do good work."
"Sure. Better than it sitting around, gathering dust."
There were also civilians and more than one government official that wanted to see the Scroll of Arrival. The high priestess of the temple had told everyone a kind but firm no.
It did not deter the masses or the greedy politicians.
He should visit the priestess to see if he could offer assistance.
As soon as his body was ready.
He stopped reading the news for the sake of his sanity. The lab was in good condition, but there were always improvements to be made. Such as to the energy grid.
A fusion plant was excellent; however, even the most advanced power plant on this planet sometimes failed to meet his demands. He long had the idea of creating a contained singularity for near-limitless energy.
With the temporal loop, he could build a perpetual motion machine. The immense gravity itself would consume the chronon radiation that resulted from the loop.
Clean, free, limitless energy.
—
The process was cut down by two weeks. The new nanobot models that he had designed while occupying the lab's hardware had seen to that.
He was itching to be back in his body.
Even as the cyberspace seemed limitless, he slowly started to feel trapped. Working on the new energy plant, and the new design for the distorter kept his mind off it. The breaks to see what else he could do did not.
—
Noah the First
Coincidentally, the modifications were finished on the first day of the month named after the first man to unify the continent.
The neural link drew his mind back into the body. It felt as if he was being squeezed down into a bottle, yet he never felt more at ease. The stasis beam shut down, the tank drained itself, and he landed on both feet.
A quick shower later, he dressed and stood in front of the mirror to appraise himself again. His hair needed a trim, but otherwise, he looked excellent.
"You should cover your face," his neural extension suggested. A maintenance bot brought a mask, a leftover from the New Year party two years ago.
The mask of a mudman.
Brown, with a square open mouth and a grimacing expression, Thairon took a deep breath to not lash out.
"Why is that?" he narrowed his eyes. Nax was getting too cheeky these days.
Two skimpy girls in bikinis were projected, draping over him, making cooing sounds. "The girls are going to jump on you to have your babies."
"Ha, ha. How amusing," he drawled, dismissing the projections. Nax definitely needed a tuning. Or a punishment; either would work.
"I am not joking. You look like a prince straight out of a fairy tale," and now, a plate armor was projected over him.
"Whatever," he waved his hand, cutting the AI's connection to the holoprojector. Nax had enough fun for a while.
"You should head to the temple first. I am catching chatter of a forced liberation of the scroll. It seems you caused more trouble for the high priestess rather than making her dreams come true."
He agreed, but the Space Distorter needed an overhaul. The gravity generator for the shaped gravitational space-time field that altered the metric tensor was fried.
The fabricator was already working on the new, improved design for a generator that would create a more precise field for moving to the exact location he wanted.
—
The Union of the Sun
The Temple of the Gates
He teleported his half-eaten sandwich first. When the satellites showed that it did not suffer any damage, he followed it to the alleyway between the buildings across from the temple.
Teleporting to the top of the hill had already created too much exposure. Thankfully, there were no cameras around, and most assumed the robot had merely flown to the temple.
While there were no cameras, the high priestess herself had a phone for emergencies. Sending her a message so the gate guards would allow him in, Thairon pushed through the crowd.
Followers of the God of Crossroads, Ekuna, rekindled by the return of the scrolls, were holding a small ceremony outside.
He ignored the people who were insistent on adding a divine meaning to a scientifically explainable phenomenon.
Flashing the purple crystal to the guard for identification, the man moved aside.
"The high priestess awaits you," the guard said with a small bow.
"My thanks."
Climbing the three hundred steps that led to the temple was enticing, but it was best to take the small elevator on the side.
No need to draw attention.
The doors closed around him, and as the slow ascent began, he had one thought in mind. The elevator could use a replacement.
The view, especially with the sun setting behind the temple, was relaxing. Enough that he leaned back to enjoy it. At the top, a priestess waited to guide him in wordlessly. She seemed hurried, possibly busy due to all the attention the scroll had brought.
Rather than the auxiliary kitchen, he was taken to the living quarters. The High Priestess Yumiko was kneeling on a cushion with two steaming cups of tea.
She looked weary.
"So, it appears you have succeeded in your endeavor," she said, holding a hand out for him to sit down.
Heh.