Chapter 22: CURSE YOU KIDNEYS! (Patreon)

He was dead, no life signs could be detected in the [Body], and the blood kept pooling under his body even as Alexa walked towards that [Body] with caution and trepidation.

It had been...too easy, too fast...Too....

"[Boring.]"

It wasn't like the fights she had on the [Testing Chambers], well, it was in a sense, at the latest point most of the fights had ended quite fast too, but not because they were against weaker creatures.

It was because every move had been carefully planned and accounted for, they were fights where everything was choreographed. Everything was created and done in such a way that the outcome was decided after the first move, so she had needed to predict and move while also anticipating what her opponents would do.

She had plenty of information about what most of the other entities within the [Testing Chambers] would do, since most fought under the same rules that she did, grow, eat, evolve.

But here? The rules were different, the precepts were different, and while the base of the [Blueprint] may be the same, she barely understood what the [Human Body] could do.

So while fighting she had used most of what she could incorporate into this body while keeping it mostly [Humanoid] in nature. In this way, she hoped to find out more about what a [Standard Human] would do.

Case in point, her attack and retreat movement. It was the standard way a [Bio-Weapon] would do when finding a new subject that didn't have information about. It was what most of the other test creatures did when fighting her for the first time, hell, most biological samples did that when fighting her since rarely anyone survived.

And this [Human]? Perhaps he was on the weakest side?

She wasn't sure if she should wish for more [Humans] as weak as this one, or if she should wish for stronger ones. She knew as a fact that there were strong [Humans], case in point: [Scorcher] and [SuperForce]/ [SuperFarce].

The [Male] and [Female] that showed extreme types of abilities, one capable of controlling [Fire] and [Energy type] attacks, while the other had shown the ability to manipulate objects somehow without touching them. Case in point, how that [Male] human managed to stop her traveling through the air without hurting her by encasing her in some kind of weird [Energy].

But either way, for now, she had more important things to do. Like...

"[Morphing of internal organs done, re-created internal dismantling system. Moving and reassigning internal structure to hold new biomass and categorize it completely. Proceed to dismantling.]"

[Main Core] finished changing her internals and her externals, her arms and legs returned to her normal form, and the fabric of her [Clothes] was flooded with [Nanites] and these worked to mend her clothes to normalcy once more. She walked slowly and with caution towards the [Dead Human].

The [Human], didn't react to her approach, with caution Alexa extended her arm and touched him at the head from one meter away. It was somewhat wasteful using so much biomass to increase the length of her arm, but she still was wary of him.

When the [Human] still didn't react to her touch she reeled her arm back as she walked towards him, always keeping contact with the base of his [head]. 

"[Main Core], prepare for deep analysis," Alexa commanded inwardly as her fingers sank into the head, the tip of her fingers shifting into small maws breaking the skin and puncturing the skull. 

What her new tendrils reported as soon as they broke through was...

"[Found Brain mass, preliminary scans report similar base form to current brain, detailed analysis will require controlled environment.]"

Yes, the [Brain] within that head was similar enough to hers, besides the presence of the multiple drugs the [human] was using that is. But this confirmed the hypothesis that the [Human] was truly dead.

So without wasting an extra second Alexa shifted her right and left arm to increase the muscle mass (This time not to the extreme she had done before) and gave the fingers a serrated and metallic end to tear apart the flesh.

"Thank you for the meal ♪." The [Book] had said that one should always say as such when eating, so she said it aloud, she wasn't sure if anyone could hear it or not, but precaution was never a bad thing.

And ripping open the head of the [Human] Alexa started shoving the gray matter into her mouth, the first thing that she noticed was some kind of instinctual reaction from her [body] trying to eject the biomass that was in her [throat]. She squashed that reaction immediately by shifting the taste sensors in her [tongue] off, it seemed that the [human] blueprint had some innate lock that made it so she wouldn't [Prey] on [Humans]...

She didn't care about it. All she cared about was that she was hungry and that her meal was in front of her, so she ate, she slurped, and when that wasn't enough she viciously cut at the base of the neck of the [Human] and brought the head up to drink the remaining that were inside. Any speck of blood that fell outside her mouth was absorbed as soon as it touched her body, the Nanites within working extra hard so nothing would be wasted.

"[Analysis running from sample, please proceed to next target.]" Main Core said at the back of her head.

So she followed suit, crushed the head, and bit the crunchy bits that remained, she felt the amount of calcium she could manipulate within her body reserves increased. Also, other miscellaneous materials were added to her reserves.

So she focused on eating and moved along, the rest of the body wasn't that interesting, to be honest. The muscle followed the same [Blueprint] that she had for herself, if anything it seemed that this [Human]'s muscles were worse than hers as they were less springy and seemed to be less used overall.

The [torso] held more interesting material to her though, she of course knew how the organs looked as she had the [Blueprint] to look at, the first ones she found were the [Heart] and [Lungs], the first one were mostly mush at the far end of the man's body. Since her hand had caved the organs inwardly. 

She still ate them though, getting a full extra [Blueprint] from it, and sure enough, they did the same function as what she was using them for, the heart working to pump blood across the cardiovascular system in the body. On the other hand, the lungs worked to separate the gasses in the atmosphere to their base components, the Oxygen being infused into the blood by the use of small tendrils within the lungs so that the blood would be oxygenated and fed into the brain. Down there she found the digestive tract.

The more important part as far as she knew, there she found the rest of the biomass the human had ingested before, mostly some remains of processed liquid with extra carbon in its making also a few pieces of vegetal biomass and organic biomass, it was in an interesting ratio as there was more vegetal biomass than organic one. It spoke about either preference of biomass or that this one had a harder time fighting off other organic entities, and as far as she was aware by his poor combat skills she could see how that was possible.

Following the nearby organs she turned her attention to the Liver, an organ whose only reason to be was to detoxify and the generation of the proteins within the [Human] body, this was part of the reason why she had thought they would have similar skills as hers and should be able to present a hard fight. He didn't live up to her expectations, and her current stage of development implied that the [Humans] in her age group weren't a threat.

Or that she was able to tap into more power than she should be able to.

The next spot was the pancreas, whose function was somewhat similar, instead of proteins this one produced enzymes and hormones that served to regulate the amount of sugar or dextrose in the human system (And the one at fault for her short circuit on her child stage).

It would be the first organ she would fight to increase its efficiency, it wouldn't be the kidney whose job was to regulate the excess water and remove the waste products (CURSE YOU KIDNEYS CURSE YOUUUUU). 

Nor did the spleen that served as a filter and store to the blood cells her Nanites used as transportation service, no. It wouldn't also be the gallbladder whose function seemed to be to produce some kind of acid? Did the [Humans] spit acid or something? Why did they produce acid then?

Humans were weird.

Either way, while she was eating the [Human] she kept cataloging the multiple organs she found and how they connected, she found some things that she wouldn't do as a design but didn't really find a good way to keep the same level of efficiency while removing them, it seemed the body was a closed system, and while it was one that had some organs that could do the functions of others. She couldn't really work at peak efficiency for long periods of time with some parts of it missing. 

It was an educational meal if nothing else, she found, however, and that there was one small problem.

"[Amount of biomass estimated at 80kgs, current host holds a body that can tolerate 40-50 kgs of biomass without deforming or shifting the body too much. Increasing the biomass would mean reducing the threshold of activities that host would achieve.]"

Her body couldn't hold all the biomass she was ingesting, granted. She could probably sneak in a couple dozen kgs of biomass, by increasing her muscle density and the bone density mostly, but the rest?

She would end up with bulges all around her body, and while (For some reason) creating for herself a couple of bulges on her chest and rear seemed like a good idea. Her calculations showed that the biggest bulge would go to her waist and arms, and somehow that didn't seem like something she could or wanted to do.

She hadn't seen many humans with that type of body type either, well, she did see a few going here and there, but they moved way slower than the average model, and they seemed to have a harder time breathing and seemed to waste way too much energy to be efficient about it.

So in a nutshell, that wasn't the right answer for her. But then again, wasting this biomass...What was she supposed to do?

That had come from nowhere "[Main Core] did you send this?" She asked aloud to [Main Core], the text style and words seemed to be in sync with what Main Core usually sent her in their conversations.

"[Negative, I have no access to audio-visual hallucination means to communicate with the external world unless host grants me access to a projector as before.]"

A projector? "You mean the speaker? The one that made you sound like a [Square-shaped entity]?" Alexa asked back.

"[Affirmative, perhaps host could try to interact with this new entity to determine its allegiance?]"

How was she supposed to speak with that thing? She only saw it once before when she got the...When she got the thing that allowed her to create her own [Nanite Swarm], the one that allowed her to take full control of [Main Core].

Didn't that thing tell her that she could summon it as she wished?

"Amm...Show Status." Alexa said feeling somewhat silly between bites, she had moved way past the torso and was currently gnawing at a leg.

She decided to ignore the sexual reproductive organs and turned them into paste while eating them. She felt silly for doing so, but something about that...worm-like thing made her feel [Embarrassed].

"[Embarrassed: To feel that a situation you are in is wrong because of something you did. This can be a feeling with no logical explanation.]"

Thank you [Main Core], she didn't see any reason to have an organ with so many nerve endings so exposed, but who was she to complain about weird design choices in other's [Blueprints]?

She was quite happy with her current design, even if it seemed that her bladder was smaller and for some reason, the original design gave her less control over the liquid flow...She would fix that one too.

Either way, the stupid blue thing didn't react to her asking for a status update. Then maybe, "Diagnosis, Check Up, Reboot, Power On, Operating System," she started going through the different terms she had found from her memories of the weird crystal-like objects in the room she landed.

In the end was the last one that made the reaction and purchase, and so, the stupid blue box showed itself once more. This time showing her more information.

Her name, the age of her current body...And more things.

That was a very arbitrary and weird way to showcase information about her, also what was that [Banking] thing for? How did that work? One couldn't just...Do that. It didn't work like that.

"...I want to bank the excess biomass, bank enough so that my current optimal body weight permits the most efficient fighting capabilities," Alexa said to the weird blue box.

At the same time however "Main Core, inspect my optical nerves, find what is that lets me see this thing." She commanded [Main Core], she wanted to know how this worked.

"[Optical nerves don't see the presence of this Blue Box, I only know of its existence from perusing memories after the first mention. And those memories disappear after an undetermined amount of time. This may have something to do with the Nanite swarm that seems to be generated from nothing.]"

The what? Wasn't her Nanite swarm made at the Nanite factory? Then why the heck was she keeping [Main Core] around, that Nanite factory was half the reason she allowed the thing to remain! (Also to automatize half her work)

"[Original Nanite swarm didn't come from Nanite factory, most Nanite swarms do come from it, but original Nanite swarm doesn't degrade like the new generations. So Nanite factory is indeed keeping the newest generations since they degrade over time.]"

Her body returned to her normal form, losing the extra biomass that had bloated her torso and arms, she sadly also lost the bulges on her chest, "You will come back. I promise." Alexa said as she patted her chest and a tear formed on her face. Her previous [Status] thing now reflected the change, with her weight going back from almost 120 kgs to 60 kgs. And her [Banked Biomas] growing to 30 kgs. She had only banked sixty kgs, leaving the other 20 kgs to reinforce her skeleton system to allow for more extreme movements. Her previous attempt at using those reinforced muscles had cracked parts of it. Also, she needed the extra biomass around to morph her body, if taking out biomass would lead her to lose half of it when she wanted to store it…Yeah, she would not be used willy nilly her biomass unless she could recover it as a fact after the act. For now, those 30 kgs would be her safety net. 

On the other hand…Why was she getting emotional over the loss of some fat in her chest?

"[Uncertain. Hormonal state is normal, mental state is normal, no chemicals in brain chemistry.]"

"You don't get girls [Main Core]..." Alexa grumbled, even though she also didn't understand herself either.

But this result meant that she could finish eating the [Human], and just in time, her internal clock (She synched it to the one Eleanore had shown) said that she was just about in time to initiate her [Sleep Cycle].

But before deciding where to search for a spot for her new [Den], she turned her attention to the parts of the human ensemble she didn't eat. The clothes....were a no-go, they [Stunk] and made her want to release the contents of her stomach, those she processed far enough to turn into emergency biomass. So instead she ordered her Nanite swarm to infest them and turn them into their basic components.

Same with the [Shoes], which left a leather-like square that held vegetal fabric-like objects and some plastic square-shaped objects, those she saved, the [Humans] seemed to love their square-shaped fabric cards.

Most of those said weird words like [Bank] and [Credit] or [Debit] at the side, also one said [Id] and had a picture of the human, and another said [Driver's License] and also had its face on it. She would check and maybe edit those to put her data into it. As far as she could infer these served as some kind of identification information.

The other ones....she would check on them later. She had more important things to do. The last object she had from the previous [Human] was more attractive to her, it was a square-shaped electric device, and she knew it should be some kind of information device.

Since part of the makeup of it was similar enough to some of the electronic components she used in her [Crab] form. So holding it in her hands she turned her attention to the cylindrical object on the floor, it was heavy, but not heavy enough that she couldn't lift it by pumping her arms with some of the extra biomass she had. 

Sure enough after lifting it she found a small [Tunnel] that seemed to be about two to three meters deep, her eyes shifted ever so slowly to allow her to take in extra information from another spectrum of light and she saw the floor at the bottom. So she went down the [Hole] with the square-shaped object in hand.

It was covered in some kind of rubber-like cover and had the letters [Smart Case for Cell Phones - Nonsellable.]

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