Ves did not know how long this lightning baptism was supposed to last.
He had the vague idea that it was far from done with enacting retribution for his many alleged misdeeds, but he could not guarantee that it would last long enough for him to go through his entire wish list.
This forced him to structure his list so that he could realize his most essential augmentations.
In order to do so, he first had to figure out what he wanted to improve the most.
“I’m a mech designer, so it makes sense that I improve my ability to design mechs.”
This could be done through many ways, from inducing his altered Archimedes Rubal bioimplant to elevating its technical capabilities to installing a second cranial implant into his head!
However, Ves did not use the tools he retrieved from his Unending Regalia to drill a hole through his skull right away.
As much as he trusted in the lightning baptism to fix any damage that he inflicted on himself, he was not sure whether he could get back everything that he lost.
“It’s like replacing a memory chip. If I destroy the chip, I can put it back together, but I won’t be able to retrieve the data that it used to store.”
What if poking around in his brain resulted in the loss of essential knowledge? What if he lost entire Skills and Sub-Skills because of his reckless actions? What if he lost the motor skills that allowed him to work with the tools he used to craft his mechs and products?
Ves couldn’t afford to impair his mech design capabilities in any way, so he shied away from executing any plans that centered around manipulating his brain and spine!
It was disappointing for him to rule out the improvements he needed the most, but he recognized that he shouldn’t be too greedy.
The ongoing lightning baptism had already boosted his design and research capabilities by a substantial degree. He was so far removed from the level of a typical Journeyman that there was no proper word to describe his current state.
He thought about other essential improvements that he could apply to himself. They had to be useful enough to matter but safe enough to avoid any permanent damage or reduction in capabilities.
He looked down at his missing lower left leg. Ves had repurposed a portion of his biomass in order to supply the organic parts for his cyborg cat, but who said that the sacrifice had to be permanent?
He originally intended to wait until the crisis back in reality had blown over before he commissioned a replacement leg from the Larkinson Biotech Institute.
However, now that he entered a unique situation where he had access to a constant supply of extremely high-grade creation energy, he was convinced he could do better!
“The question now is what I want in place of my missing lower leg?”
He could try to redirect the creation energy to regenerate his original leg. This was great for pretending that nothing had happened once he finally exited the System Space.
He immediately shook his head. “This is the most boring option.”
He would much rather augment it in a way that made it much more powerful and much more useful than before.
“The only question now is whether I want to make it mechanical, biological or both.”
A biological leg would complete his body in a way that allowed his entire physical structure to improve in ways that corresponded to the evolutionary processes of the indigenous alien races.
The phase whales came to mind as they eschewed conventional technology in favor of biotechnology.
“There are good reasons for that. This is probably the orthodox method of transcending into godhood in the tradition of the Red Ocean.”
Did he want to follow the indigenous tradition? Not really. It was foreign to him and did not match his inclinations. He was a mech designer, not a phase whale, and he needed to remember this essential truth.
When he listened to his heart, he developed a much more different idea on what he should do about his missing limb.
He glanced up at his cyborg cat that was still absorbing lightning attacks like a champ.
“The fusion between flesh and metal can often produce better results than sticking to one of them. The synergies that I can produce by combining their advantages of both may be a lot more useful to me. I just have to decide the focus of my cybernetic leg.”
He wanted a limb that could aid in battle.
He wanted a limb that could help him survive difficult encounters.
He wanted a limb that could provide helpful assistance in his attempts to either design or build his works.
“I know what to do.” He declared.
He wasted no further time. He picked up his tools and began to rip off armor plating and other parts from his Unending Regalia.
He tried to take away as little as possible. He did not take away too much material as he just wanted enough to be able to set a direction.
“Now for the biological ingredients.”
He no longer needed to use his knife to cut away parts of his flesh anymore. Part of the evolutionary process that he had undergone was gaining much more active control over his body.
He concentrated hard to the point where the stump of his left leg started to squirm.
“Ahhh. This hurts!”
A leg bone slowly poked out of his stump as Ves tried his best to cannibalize his own biomass to regenerate his leg piece by piece!
Even though he only possessed a shallow understanding of how a human leg and foot was put together, Ves only needed to supply the intent in order for the creation energy to shape the available biomass into an intricate biological structure.
As for the flesh and bone that Ves had cut away from the existing parts of his body? The creation energy that coursed through his flesh and bones slowly regrew the parts he had taken away.
“Hahahaha!”
So what if he didn’t have access to any ingredients? As long as the supply of creation energy remained intact, he could generate as much raw materials as he needed!<.com>
Of course, the speed of production left a lot to be desired. Converting energy into matter was always a difficult and lopsided transaction. It took a humongous amount of energy to create a tiny bit of matter. If not for the fact that creation energy was so powerful and high-end, it might have taken weeks or months for Ves to regenerate all of his missing biotissue.
Ves even developed the notion that if this lightning baptism went long enough, he could essentially form an entire biomech by continually cutting off pieces of himself!
“I can think about that later. First, I need to make more essential improvements.”
Although he did not have a solid and precise design in mind, he had intent, and that was enough.
He copied many of the concepts and design solutions that he applied to his cyborg cat on his new limb.
By growing an organic inner core before surrounding it with a metallic shell, he would be able to reform just enough of a complete body to make his blood circulation whole again.
If he resorted to a limb that was 100 percent mechanical, then his blood circulation would stop short of reaching it. That would be bad because his metallic leg would be treated as a foreign object instead of a core part of his body.
Once enough flesh and bone had grown out of the original stump, he tried to restrain the creation energy as best as possible.
The autopilot that was directing its work tried its best to ‘complete’ the regeneration of his lower left leg, so Ves wasn’t able to stop its efforts for long.
“It can’t go against its own nature!”
He had to work quickly. He began to pick up lots of different internal parts that he had taken from his Unending Regalia and placed them on different spots of his half-regenerated leg.
The creation energy smoothly attached them to his naked flesh, just as he expected.
Not only that, but the parts themselves also changed and expanded as he continued to direct his intent towards the process.
Although he had no certainty that his attempt to construct a working cybernetic leg was proceeding correctly, he just had to trust in the process and have faith that the creation energy would fill all of the gaps that he was missing.
“Ugh, this is definitely the most haphazard design project that I have ever embarked upon. I still don’t have a good idea what I will get at the end!”
Ves had to think on the fly and come up with new ideas and design applications on the spot.
He found out that while he was limited by the quality of the parts and materials he had available, that still left him with plenty of possibilities.
In the following hour, he stuffed lots of different miniaturized systems into his cybernetic leg.
He first added a redundant computing system. He wanted a part of his leg to function as a substitute or supplementary data processing and data storage system.
This not only multiplied his ability to process data or retrieve information that he had stored in his body, but also provided him with a backup option in case someone disabled his cranial implant.
It should be a lot harder for outside influences to disconnect him from his Archimedes Rubal bioimplant now that the creation energy had upgraded it and deepened its integration into his brain.
However, Ves could not rule out every possibility. What if an assassin planted a gauss round in his head one day?
“Wait, why leave it there? Why not not create a backup of my brain while I am at it? It’s a genius idea!”
It was practically impossible to integrate a redundant brain in a human body without turning the patient crazy, but Ves didn’t have to worry about screwing up the procedure under these exceptional circumstances!
“I don’t need to make a backup of my entire brain. I just need to add enough brain tissue to store my most important memories and whatever else is essential.”
It was a great redundancy plan. Although a part of him was already transitioning into an energy-based life form that had no need for brains to maintain his cognition, he was still a long distance away from reaching the end of this transformation.
His brain still played an essential role, and it was quite dangerous for him to rely on a single point of failure.
“Let’s grow a second brain, then!”
Ves had to be clever about it. He not only had to free more space inside the organic part of his cybernetic leg, but also find a way to protect it against damage.
Somehow, he managed to squeeze in enough brain matter to include the elements he wanted the most.
“Oh, I also need to make sure it doesn’t develop an independent consciousness.”
He did not want his body to get taken over by an alternate Ves that was rooted in his backup brain!
Ves applied changes to his brain matter that hopefully ruled out that possibility.
Once he was happy with this addition, he proceeded to add other features to his leg. Some of them were mechanical in nature while others were based on organic components.
The most interesting additions were those that made use of both flesh and metal to accomplish a unique job.
For example, Ves added a kinetic weapon system to his ankle.
In order to make it as powerful as possible, Ves had to make most of it out of mechanical components.
What was different was the ammunition. In order to make sure he could always generate ammunition in the most remote places, he created a mechanism where his own body would grow and accumulate small spikes made out of organic bone.
This way, anything he ate and digested could be used to replenish his ammunition reserves over time!
The quality and performance of his hidden kinetic weapon would vary depending on his nutrient intake.
In order to make sure he could grow stronger bone spikes, he even went back to his digestion system and made sure his stomach could ingest and process raw metals if necessary!
As he carefully went to work on modifying his own stomach and guts, he momentarily froze as he made a shocking realization.
“Wait… am I turning myself into a humanoid version of Lucky?!”
