Chapter 37; Investing into Future

  “Practice,” I said calmly and took out one of the weack cores. “I know the forms and I know what I have to do, but I’d be glad if you guided me…”

  Simona stared off into the distance.

  “Professor?”

  She yelped. “I’m so sorry, I got distracted. What did you want to do?”

  I put the core on the table. “I want help with trait crafting.”

  Simona nodded fast and made a form with her hand. “Do you need a primer? I have some good recommendations.” Her smile widened.

  I pulled out the little jar from my pocket. A piece of flesh was floating in the green goo. “Will this work for a beginner?”

  Her eyes narrowed, and with slow movement, she poked the jar. “Nope. I’ll get you some cragskin to work with.” Before I could say anything, Simona slithered away towards one of the shelves filled with primers. She took out a different, bigger jar. “Cragskin is the best primer for beginners, it only has one viable concept that’s super easy to detect. I had a student who learned how to make count-level durability traits with it. I think he makes them to this day.” She shook the bottle. “Here you go.”

  “Thank you…” There was a flat rock in the jar. “Do I just start the Trait Creation Ritual?”

  “Yes, yes, yes. If you are confused, call for me, I’ll be right here.” Her voice echoed, for she had already slithered away back to her hologram shenanigans.

  I took one of the tables in an empty row. The biocrafting desk looked simple at first, but it was a powerful piece of machinery. A holographic projector was positioned in the back; it transmitted information about the biological properties. There was a slot on the left in which I inserted the jar. A hologram appeared – it showed a long string of genetic information that was coupled into boxes that showcased their properties, specifically the genes.

  For the final thing, I put the Weack core right in the middle. The holographic interface changed immediately. All the gene boxes were sorted on a self-organizing map. It understood I wanted to craft a trait.

  The more I looked at this three-dimensional compression of the spiritual dimension, the more my head hurt. It used color and three other dimensions to signal exactly what sort of coordinate the specific genetic property was placed at, and it was confusing.

  Then I moved the hologram. It turned into a kaleidoscope of colors, the images spun around, and numbers floated all over the place. Starpower and Its Nature presented many of the spiritual coordinates, but now I realized that it was holding a lot back.

  The spiritual dimension was fractal, and within each line and color, there were many more. Courage contained bravery and three other properties: bravery unfurled into fear, inversion, will, and at the same time, overcoming, confidence, and nature. What was right in the Starpower and Its Nature was that it was impossible to study truly objectively. The coordinates existed, but how exactly they manifested depended on the viewer.

  This hologram wasn’t just showing me an image, but creating a personal illusion for me to see. I spent enough time wondering about coordinates and gazing into the unfathomable spiritual dimension; now it was time to get serious.

  “Focus: Persistence.” The image spun around, twisting and turning, until it showed me a huge green sphere, constantly wobbling and twisting. Occasional black and white spots appeared, glowing like the sea.

  Right on the surface, the hologram plastered a huge circle, marking it as the gene that granted durability. My goal was to examine as much of its surroundings as possible and find other coordinates through which I can connect to it.

  It was easy. Throughout the surface of perseverance, needles of ambition found their way, and some were in the circle where the needed gene resided. It helped that the gene covered nearly a third of the sphere’s surface.

  With my access point memorized, all I had to do was the actual ritual. I took a deep breath and extended my palm above the cragskin primer. The metaphysical stability form didn’t use rapid movements; it required soft lulling of the starpower. It required stillness of ideas, and so, as recommended, I thought only one thought.

  Stabilize. A tiny twiddling vortex of starpower descended from the palm and slowly suffused the cragskin. I couldn’t see any changes in it, but the hologram showed the truth. The ebb and flow of the noosphere ceased. I kept going. For my first time, I wanted to have at least ten minutes to truly get a feel.

  When the cragskin was filled to the brim with my starpower, I stopped. I wiped a drop of sweat from my brow and started practicing the movements of the trait imbibing ritual.

  It was deceptively easy to perform with one movement flowing into another. I wasn’t confident, but I had to try. I flared my starpower to the limit and switched to a different form. A construct appeared in my hand, a tiny starpower drill.

  One hand, I pressed on the jar and the other on the gem. I curved my fingers and slammed the drill of starpower into the primer. Memories flooded my mind. Ideas that were vaguely related to what a cragskin is.

  Desire to survive in the wild, hunger for plants, yearning for a mate, but the strongest one was the urge to persevere. Simona said I had to convince the useless ones to leave.

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  So I tried that – the hunger for plants was squashed when I wanted a steak, yearning for mate was overshadowed by the threat of death, desire to survive in the wild ceased to exist when I thought about this artificial station. The hologram twisted too, as my drill pushed sectors around spikes of ambition down.

  The connection was direct, so I didn’t need to argue more. Now I just had to claim my target. The train of thought was simple – to reach my goals, I needed to be durable. The area rose.

  I repeated that thought, again and again, coming up with different reasons in which durability will fuel my ambition. The sphere stretched out like a balloon, but no matter what I thought, it simply didn’t want to be ripped out. I asked it to, tried to argue that it should leave, but the trait remained silent.

  I groaned. The frustration got to me. “Get out of there, you little bastard-” The trait launched off from the surface and got sucked into the trait harvest form. My heart beat fast, I didn’t hesitate, and stuck the drill into the gem.

  The hologram of the noosphere faded away. Now it showed a huge ball of emerald light with a tiny patch of green durability in the orbit. I didn’t need the hologram anymore.

  I started the trait imbibing ritual by making a small wave of starpower press on the gem. The durability trait sank closer to the core. Once it gained enough speed, I put both of my hands around the core and pulled it apart, not hard enough to crush it.

  The ball of emerald energy got squished and spread out. With light taps, I channeled pings of starpower into it, starpower infused with my ideas of durability and persistence.

  “You have to be unbreakable.” A little needle of energy extruded from it.

  “You have to last for eternity.” A bigger one appeared nearby.

  “You have to make me durable.” The surface got covered with tiny hairs.

  The more affirmations I channeled, the more the ball of energy shifted. All the while, the green durability trait glided down like a feather. Right before it made contact, I grabbed the core and pressed it hard between my hands, sending a tsunami of focused thoughts and starpower. The gem shrank, and a dark green glow erupted from between my palms.

  It was done.

  Durability Trait

  Type: Trait

  Rank: Initiate (Excellent)

  Affinity: Emerald

  Description:

  I’m not going to tell you how I feel about this, but what others might see

  – Soul

  An artificial trait gem created to increase durability. The deep fusion between the nature of the primer and the geist of the core has allowed to raise the quality higher.

  -Wild Durability. Increases overall durability by 30%. Additionally, increases lifespan by 20 standard years.

  I exhaled all the pressure that was pressing on my chest and let myself smile. Truly, I was a natural-born wizard – destined for greatness. My first trait was excellent.

  Your SE has increased by 1. From 35 to 36.

  Metaphysical Stability Form learned at Initiate rank.

  Basic Trait Harvesting Form learned at Initiate rank.

  Idea Fusion Form learned at Initiate rank.

  Idea Infusion Form learned at Initiate rank.

  Trait Imbuement Form learned at Initiate rank.

  Trait Imbibing Ritual learned at Initiate rank.

  A mountain of notifications stretched in front of my eyes. Heat radiated from my chest, and I couldn’t stop smiling. Even if the last three of those forms were just a part of the ritual and basically never used separately.

  “Good work, Magnus. I knew you could do it.”

  “Thank you, professor.” I stared at the trait proudly and shoved it into the core pouch.

  “Should I try making different traits to learn faster or focus on one?”

  “That’s right. I should bring you more primers.” She grabbed the cragskin jar and slithered away.

  What was nice about trait crafting was that the primers are reusable. Once the metaphysical stability form ran out, the noosphere regenerated itself, returning the meaning.

  “Here you go. That’s willghis primer, good for speed and acceleration-related things, that’s goodut, it has some really nice support traits, and my favorite, the plasmoid – they have a trait that gives a direct boost to SE and some other things. You can practice to your heart’s content.”

  I scratched my head. “Are these compatible with emerald cores?” I scouted the jars, and Simona was correct.

  “Partially. You’ll need to really focus up on searching through the noosphere.” A loud noise resounded from the storage room attached to this one. “Oh no, I forgot to freeze the experiment.” She blinked rapidly. “Good luck.” And she slithered away again.

  I didn’t need to be told twice. After carefully considering my next trait, I grabbed the willghis primer and got to work. Stabilization was an easy step; I infused the primer with some extra.

  The harvesting was more difficult. I didn’t have a direct link from my spiritual coordinates to speed, and so I had to improvise. I used the hologram to trace the path from Intelligence to Thought to Speed. There was a very small intersection between the two coordinates.

  Trait harvesting form struck into the willghis primer, and I started my work. Somehow, I had to bulge out the intelligence towards speed, and it hurt my brain to think about it.

  I did my best, lifting the areas towards speed, and the more I stretched it out, the thinner the zone became. With a surge of will, I plucked out the zone where willghis’ speed resided. The cut was jagged and uneven, but I was more than happy with this.

  The trait imbibing was easier. Core’s potential easily surrendered to my manipulation, and soon the surface was ready for the merging. I forced the patch of speed inside, fusing the core and the trait.

  Results were… Disappointing.

  Speed Trait

  Type: Trait

  Rank: Initiate (Cursed)

  Affinity: Emerald-Sapphire

  Description:

  An artificial trait gem created to increase speed; however, the fusion relied on unrelated concepts, muddying the efficiency.

  -Unrelenting Haste. Increases agility and speed by 3% Increases thought speed by 15% May cause seizures.

  It wasn’t something I wanted to consume. While there was still time, I moved on to my third trait. The plasmoid SE boost. It was easier. The trait was cut off with a blade of ambition, extruding improvement, and this time the cut was cleaner.

  The imbibing ritual, not so much. Somewhere, I messed up and infused the wrong idea. I didn’t lose my cool and kept going. The trait turned out okay. It provided a flat boost of 7 SE, which seemed a lot, but for the levels I was going towards, it was nothing. Just some junk food for my future God’s Flesh.

  In these couple of hours, I had a lot of fun and got to 40/100 in trait crafting forms. But now it was time for more serious measures. I had to make a powerful technique - strong enough to kill Ivaldie.

  While the guards sneaking through the corridors occasionally gave me chills, I reassured myself that Varaxis had the Betrayer situation handled. The Archive opened up in front of me…