chapter 112
POV: Remi
Cough cough. It was so hard to breathe. Looking at my damage indicators, my right lung was completely done for, only shrivelled slag remains. My left still had a little bit of functionality, but only about 10%. My entire body was running on the backup air supply.
Consciously suppressing my need to breathe, which was still uncomfortable to do, I looked towards the temporary lab I had set up. It was currently billowing thick smoke out of the open door.
This was the third lab that I managed to burn down. The first one caused the entire factory to be filled with smoke, but now we had a stronger ventilator pulling all the smoke out.
“Are you alright?” I heard Bob yell. The only way I could answer back was by sending him a message.
“Not really, my lungs are toast, but otherwise yes. Can you handle the cleanup? I need to go into surgery?”
“Of course, Captain.”
I started to head towards the ship. Those damn mana circuits, they just don't work like they’re supposed to. I’m pretty sure I’m doing everything exactly as I need to, but as soon as I get close to finishing anything, the mana just starts doing the wrong things.
“Lola, I need new lungs. My current ones are done for.”
“How did you manage that?” she answered back through our bond.
I explained to her what happened. She had already warned me when the second lab went up to have a respirator on, it just didn’t work. The smoke just came through it. That’s the thing with messing with magic; it seems that it won’t follow the natural laws I’m used to.
“It will take a few hours to get the lungs ready. You’re lucky that we basically have every body part currently being made. By the way, how is your left hand? Has it by now assimilated fully?”
“Yeah, only the first day was uncomfortable. What also helped was mana circulation. Now it feels like it has always been a part of me.”
“So, only two days for full incorporation. The lungs will be a good next test, but if this pattern keeps up, we can most definitely upgrade our bodies in the future when we get better materials from stronger portals.”
“Right you are, Lola, but we should still be cautious. My body and yours might not act the same, but I think the chances are quite low that they won't.”
When I reached her workshop, she already had an operation bed ready for me. It would still be a while until the operation started, but it was nice to watch her work. Watching the machines that were currently making my lungs was relaxing.
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A part of them needed to be grown and then assembled. It took a lot more effort to make bio-cybernetics than just biological body parts or just cybernetics. The end result was on average better. It also mitigated a lot of the weaknesses of fully biological or cybernetic parts.
The equipment we have is barely capable of handling the current materials we’re working with. We really need better ones for the future, but the same problem remains, regular technology has too many limitations. There’s a reason why the stronger you are, the more likely it is that you start using mana tech or above, it becomes necessary.
Lola had the news on for quite a while. All they were talking about was the cult attack. FH did quite a lot of work figuring out the extent of that cult network. We, of course, didn't figure out all of it, that would be impossible without actively searching, but it seems that we had enough to help put an end to them.
At one point, I did have to order FH to stop investigating. Some things we can’t know; otherwise, it would bring even more trouble. Eventually, the newscast showed a room where it seemed another one of the ruling family members was killed.
Usually, those places they were shown looked like safe rooms, but this one didn’t look like that. Then I heard the name of the one who was killed here. Pretty sure FH suspected that he was the cult leader.
That made me focus more on the video of the room being shown. There seemed to be a lot of technical machines there.
“After further investigation, it was found that the safe room underneath this building wasn’t trapped, and the reason why they didn’t evacuate in time was because they were working on mana tech inside an isolation and mana hardening bubble.”
“A truly tragic outcome. Unfortunate timing is sometimes the sole cause for such endings.” The rest of it was just condolences, and after that, they moved on to the next tragedy. That cult really did get a lot of important people.
“FH, can you try to find out more about that isolation and mana hardening bubble that was just on the news on channel 7?”
“Of course, captain, I’m on it.”
The rest of the time, I just tried to relax as best as possible, as breaks were important. If I didn’t keep reminding myself of that, I’m pretty sure I would just work myself to death. Fortunately, I had people around who knew that and helped me with all of that.
The fact that I could somewhat turn off my pain receptors meant that I could be fully awake during the operation. It was weird watching those destroyed lungs be taken out and new ones installed. Lola was truly getting really good at this.
“How’s the research going for the type of body you want to go with?” I asked her through my bond while she was still there operating.
“Don’t interrupt me all of a sudden like that. This is still dangerous work.”
“Really, you make it look easy.”
“Thank you for the compliment, but I assure you it’s not. FH is helping me a lot in trying to figure out what kind of a body would work and what features it needs to have. There are biases out there; some species have more of some types of affinities than others, so I think there are ways we can stack the deck, so to say.”
“So you are certain you would try to go for the healing affinity?”
“Of course I am. It would fit perfectly with my current role, help me with my future research, and of course, I could keep healing you constantly so you could improve a lot of your skills.”
A shudder ran through me. It wouldn’t be too difficult to shift my body and have that scalpel of hers destroy my heart… but I don’t think it would kill me fast enough. One of her hands pressed down hard on my shoulder.
“Don’t you even think about doing anything stupid.” She lead in getting real close to my face with hers. “There is no escape.”
Damn, she can be really scary when she wants to. Perhaps I shouldn’t have taken her out of that body so fast; it might have made my life easier. I guess I chose poorly. That almost made me chuckle, but I stopped myself before any damage could be done.
The operation was soon finished after that. My nano machines were working hard fixing the cuts that were needed for the operation.
“Captain, I have something,” FH said and sent me a data package.
The more I read, the bigger my smile got.
“So that’s what I was missing. I need a skill that I can use to gain absolute control over mana in the area where I was making the mana tech. Thanks for this, FH.”
“It was my pleasure, Captain.”
I did try to make mana tech in a mana-empty environment, but then the circuit simply didn't connect properly. It needed to have raw mana surrounding it; otherwise, you just couldn’t finish making the proper circuits.
So my problem was that there was too much loose mana. In theory, perhaps in a few hundred tries, I would have been able to make one device just out of sheer luck, but if I can limit the amount and how raw mana reacted, it should mean that after a bit of practice, I should have a 100% success rate.
“Bob, I need a skill, and you can get it legally. I don’t care if anyone knows. I need something to allow me to harden mana around me. That will allow me to start properly learning how to make mana tech.”
“You will have it by the end of the day,” was his short reply, and I had no doubt that I would have a skill that would allow me to do that in my hands before this day ends.