Chapter 24: The Induction starts! (Patreon)

“ASDASLDHKASDFSFD.” Alexa woke up trying to dodge to the left. “OUCH!”

Only to find herself with a wall, she of course wouldn’t let herself be stopped! Instead, she tried to dodge to the right! 

“AGH!!!!” Only to find more of this cursed wall!

She was besieged on all sides! Main Core! Battle stations!

“[Host….You are currently within the den you built. Please look into the logs.]” Was the answer her [Main Core] gave her.

The stupid thing! They were under attack! No information in…her…logs….oh.

Right, there was a mention and some vague recollections of doing that, her memories seemed to have saved the information on her biological side, and her mechanical side only seemed to hold the more factual information. And she had perused that one first, then the biological one. Her Logs only held timestamps for her to check and locations within her biological memory to read and find information.

Not accessible with the same veracity that she had the more mechanical ones, but still available to her, the biological memory seemed to refresh itself with each read too…no.

She was just overwriting the older memory with a new one about her reading it? Why would it work like that? She was essentially rewriting the thing with the same exact information!

That was one weird design choice…But who she was to complain, if it worked…it worked right?

She wasn’t sure, but for now…she extended her hand towards the net-like mesh of a wall that separated her from the bigger part of her new den and opened it, it took but a second to extend her Nanites on the thing and deconstruct it, she had left a few cables to expedite the process she only needed to destroy their foundations and that was done.

When she got into the bigger part of this new den she took stock of her current status, her den was still fine. New biological waste had arrived and was starting to release a new batch of noble gases…That was a problem, she may need to purge the atmosphere later. 

Her body….was bruised all over the place, as if she had spent most of the sleep cycle fighting or something, had her body fought? She didn’t find any record on her logs about it, but her more mechanical part had been suspended…And her biological half…

Didn’t hold records or not legible ones, but she had a few ones that seemed to record her exploring and eating P-series subjects in the form of the spheres full of dextrose and that weird flavor… But surely she hadn’t done that before, where had that memory come from then?

Weird, the wounds in her body matched some movements she had done in that record, so perhaps her body had reacted to the acts she did in this recording? But why would she even see this? Had her integrity been breached?

“[No evidence of tampering, biologicals side functioning up to expected levels. Evaluating…leaving a note to monitor next sleep cycle.]” 

Right, she couldn’t do anything, for now, checking on her clock…She was late!

Or not, she had like, 22 minutes and 54 seconds? But it was late!

The woman [Eleanore] had said that good pretty girls arrived 10 minutes early! And she was beautiful! 

So she was like, two or three times more pretty than anyone else!

She eyed the biomass on the mysterious water…and while she could use it with a restock (She needed to burn some biomass to heal herself) she couldn’t find herself eating that now. Perhaps she would let it fester and accumulate some more first, or perhaps she could be attacked by another [Human] on the way out!

That would work out just fine, yes. She would see if someone else came and attacked her!

She needed to verify if the previous [Human] had been weak or not. So with a step on her, she went forward to the location in the [Invitation]!

With hopes of being ambushed with breakfast!

—----------------------------------------

She did not eat breakfast. And now she was hungry and angry, what would be the word to mix these two states of mind? Main Core?

“[No word in current dictionary found.]”

Right, Hangry was the word, thank you main core!

“[Hangry is not a word…]”

This was the epitome of knowledge here! The correct word to express her current mood! And if that wasn’t enough, for some reason the people that gave her those weird rock candies weren’t giving her anything! They just greeted her and asked if the girl yesterday was her sister!

Who was it?!? Who else took her rock candy!?!? She would kill her!

The description they gave her was similar to her [Child Stage] form, but that surely was a misunderstanding! No way she stole her own rock candy….right? Perhaps that weird memory had more to it? Had she come while her mechanical side was in rest mode, stole candy, ate, and wasted the energy and biomass from it? Return to her den, wound herself, and sleep. Only to hide the evidence?

Her biological side was a fearful thing if it did all of that.

But that was that, and this was this!

She would find something to eat later, for now, she had a [Induction] to attend! So she went to the [Address] she had been given, it pointed to….A weird place, like most structures the [Humans] made, this was a square building, unlike the others thought. This one was covered in a bright purple color and had some weird name stuck to it.

“[The Emporium of Jackets, Pants, and all the fun clothes for your more exotic needs.]”

What else did she notice? There were several [Humans] eyeing the building, how did she know this? Because when passing on the front of the building to scout it, several eyes turned to her for a second before looking elsewhere. Her biological half may have missed it, but her more mechanical side took notice of it.

What she noticed was that after this, was that some of those observing would walk in….and don’t leave. Other people seemed to just observe and nod at the people near them. What she did notice was that if someone of a certain size walked in front of this place, the people observing would write something. And people below that certain size would not elicit this change.

Alexa…was not of the correct size, if she was measuring her estimated height at different [Stages], this would be the height she would had around Age….Okay, she would never get that high…But the bulges on her chest….Okay maybe she wouldn’t get them that big either (Not without some input from her at least!)

But that hardly mattered! What mattered here was that it seemed that this part of the test at this [Induction] was taking place, and she wasn’t sure if she was getting the right notes or not, but the only thing she could do…Was walking into the building.

The inside was…more normal than she expected, it was decorated with multiple types of clothing, from pants (Bottom cover armor) to blouses (Top cover armor) and everything between the exterior and her skin. They also had some extra accessories like the ones the [Humans] at the den had used to carry around, small bags-like things to carry things.

Alexa did peek into one to see if there was something, but nothing was there (They cheated!).

“Here for this.” And while she was looking around and simulating how she would look with different types of these clothing (She would look cute no matter what she used!). 

Someone walked into the building, it was what seemed to be a [Human Young Adult Stage - Male], the [Human] at the desk just pointed him to one of the rooms with a fabric to prevent people from looking inside, and he nodded at him, walked in and….didn’t leave.

Well, that was interesting, she didn’t see nor feel much of a change in this place, most of her sensors returned nominal status, and while her [Human] form did have most of the sensors she had in her crab form…It couldn’t detect micro changes as well as her other most powerful form.

So what to do…

“[Suggestion, thread with caution, increase the margin of samples…]”

Right, good idea Main Core!

“Excuse me, I was given th-” She started speaking while bringing the [Invitation], only for the other [Human] to speak before she finished.

“Walk into the changing room, put on the mask given, and enter the induction site.” The [Human] said, and then proceeded to ignore her.

Rude!

But okay!

See Main Core, it was easy!

….No answer? Heh, who is the smartest one now?!?

“Thank you!” Alexa beamed at the [Human] who did that weird shake with its head and smiled at her.

“Move along kid, don’t regret it.” The [Human] said while throwing something at her.

Combat!

Alexa prepared for combat, first, she started generating the new chemical compound to accelerate her mind processing speed, she could overheat her mechanical side easily enough. But doing so may increase the damage to her organic half. So instead she would use the biochemical compound to accelerate her thinking!

This would prevent extra damage, and since this [Human] didn’t seem to be that dangerous and the speed of the projectile was slow, this would be a good litmus test!

Now, what was the project….Was that rock candy?

ROCK CANDY!

MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE!

Alexa jumped (Figuratively speaking) at the candy and without peeling the paper she ate the thing in one bite.

“Wooh, easy there kiddo, you will hurt your stomach if you eat the paper.” The [Human] said, did he want the paper?

“Here,” Alexa said while making her nanites recreate the paper covering of the rock candy and pulling it out from under her closed arm, the [Human] took the paper and looked at it.

“Nice trick, now move along kiddo, don’t make me regret letting you pass…If Eleanore hadn’t called in advance…” The [Human] mumbled while Alexa enjoyed her rock candy, she walked into the same changing room as the previous [Human].

And as soon as she walked in and closed the fabric curtain, a mask popped up from the floor, it was ivory white and didn’t seem to have eye openings for her to see, not like that would stop her, she could just create a few extra light sensors elsewhere. But placing that thing on her face she noticed that it had a few latches for her to use, pulling at them made a nice and comfortable string to pull, and using that she could make sure the mask would stay in place.

As soon as she had that on her face, the whole room she was started to lower, but she was more focused on another thing, like for example how she was able to see!

The thing seemed to be projecting what was happening around her in multiple screens in her vision, and at the same time, it allowed her to see from the same spot her eyes should be. She did notice that there were some instructions on the side that would help her take out the extra displays that were projected in her vision.

She of course ignored those instructions and dismissed them, she wanted to tear open this marvel of technology….But memories of what had happened the last time she did so prevented her, not even purging all the data in the main core of the cellphone had helped it to work again, whatever type of internal check it used, it evaded her probes. Neither remaking the hardware worked, and the software was…well, it escaped her. She did try inserting part of her own OS into the thing, but that only made the cellphone break even faster and while she managed to forcefully make it run, it still displayed the same message.

So in the end, Alexa just grumbled with the mask on.

The weird room eventually slowed to a crawl and finally settled down, on the opposite end of it a pair of doors opened and Alexa followed the instructions on her mask, it told her to walk in that direction, so she did just that. She finally understood why Eleanore had been so insistent in her learning to read. 

What she did wonder was how this marvel of technology could react to what she was thinking, as far as she was aware this mask wasn’t interacting with her [Core] nor her brain in any way, no probes had pierced her scalp, nor it seemed to send any type of signal. So how could it react to what she wanted?

As a test, she even tried to flick through all the menus, and found one that transmitted sound instead of words!

So she would have been okay even if she didn’t learn how to read!

Even so, the sound didn’t seem to travel very far, she grew a hearing sensor in her shoulder and it couldn’t detect the sound waves, as far as she understood the process, the mask seemed to send vibrations into her scalp, and her ears were interpreting these into sound…somehow.

She didn’t like the fact that the mask was sending a type of signal into her head so blatantly, so she turned that one off after messing around and finding that her understanding of the written word was up to standard. 

But her mussing and playing with this piece of technology didn’t last long, for she arrived at…a testing chamber.

It was similar to the one she had used before, the one that was used mostly for big combats between many P-series subjects, only instead of other bioweapons what she found was….[Humans], tons of them. All using the same type of mask as her.

Well, not all of them, some didn’t have masks on their faces and instead held them in their hands, they glared and [Smiled] at those who looked their way, making that people turn away. Then there were those that held the mask in place as if these didn’t have very useful attachments to make sure they stood in place.

Thought their mask wasn’t white but black.

Then some people that held half masks, either the top half or the lower half. But these people only had half of it!

Why? She didn’t know, but she wanted to know how they would use the map function if they only had the lower half of the mask, did they have another way to look at a map using their mouth? She wanted to copy that [Blueprint] if so!

And while looking around she noticed another thing.

They all were tall!

Taller than her too!

Alexa wanted to tweak her stature, but remembered that Eleanor had told her to go with this form, so this meant that this form had some kind of advantage…And so far she only could think that being smaller meant that she had a lower hitbox than the rest. But that was it!

As far as how the [Humans] stood, most seemed to group with others that had the same type of masks, then they further divided into body type, build, height, and so on. It was quite a complicated way to group, and at the very end of whatever algorithm they used was the fact that those with the same type of body movements stood together.

Those who stood confident were surrounded by the same type, and those who had faulty nervous systems (they shook too much) stood together. 

Alexa decided to walk towards one group that held the smaller and younger-looking group, since at least this way she could compare [Blueprints] and see if her current theory for the next [Stage] was correct.

“Is this all?” A voice spoke both in her mask and at the far end of the testing chamber, if she hadn’t tweaked her auditory sensors she may have missed the fact that this voice was in the chamber. “Well, it seems this will be the full batch for this induction.”

Most of those who only had the lower half of the mask turned their faces in the same direction as Alexa, and of those who had a full white mask like her, only one or two did the same.

“[Interesting, saving data for future cross reference.”]

“Congratulations on joining us in this Induction, you may already know this, but for those of you baby core users…My name is Gabriel, The Fallen Angel. Nice to meet you.” The [Human] who spoke had a weird blueprint.

At his back he had a pair of huge wings, these would serve no use since the P-series subjects that had wings could only fly because their bones were hollow and they had a lower amount of mass. And this [Human] was tall, almost two meters tall. Even with hollow bones, he had too much mass. 

Those wings would….

“Let me see you all, yeah, this is better.” The [Human] flew and stood in the air hovering as his wings flapped around.

“[Error, error, impossible. No blueprint should allow this…Error…Re-]”

She squashed that last line, Main Core wanted to reroll her thought kernel again, even though he couldn’t do it, but it still annoyed her.

“We are seeing this one flying, maybe it is more of this Core User nonsense, Frank The Bettle spoke about weird abilities, the same as SuperForce. We need to investigate this.” Alexa said internally.

“Now as you may have guessed I’m what some of you know as a Core User. Care to guess what my Core type is?” The [Human] said.

No one seemed to want to answer this, at least till one of those with the lower half of the mask laughed, “Obviously a [Beast Core], the wings tell us as much.” This [Human] had an extra pair of ears at the top of his head and a tail.

“Wrong”. Gabriel said smirking.

“An [Angel Core], probably of the weird type. Either that or a [Humanoid] one.” Another [Human] said this one was one of those with the full white mask as her.

“Also wrong, closer but still wrong.” The flying man said once more.

Then Alexa thinking about it, she raised her hand and said “You are a [Misc] type.” Most of those around stopped and looked at the flying man.

“Hmm….I want to say wrong, but technically you are correct.” The Fallen angel said, “Whoever taught you about that was smart, okay kiddos. The correct answer is…”

Everyone stopped speaking among themselves and looked at the flying man, “The types you are taught are wrong, and even though we know they are wrong, we still told the populace these, because it makes it easier for you to awake a certain typeset of powers.”

…False information…spread willingly?

This…This….

“[Blasphemy.]” 

Main Core was right, this was a horrendous thing to do, why would you misguide others? The mere idea of spreading wrong information was Anathema to her.

“We do this because if you all didn’t think that you could guide your core in a certain direction you would try to get everything, don’t get me wrong. A [Core] can get you about anything, but what you make is within a certain type.” Gabriel said as he landed himself in the middle of everyone.

Alexa too walked closer to listen to this, she wanted to listen to the excuse he would give for giving false information.

“A [Core] can go roughly in two directions, either physical or metaphysical. If you have the predilection for the second type, you can go nuts with what you get. The limits would be either energy or imagination. But if you go for the first…well, most horror stories about [Insect Cores] or [Beast Cores] can give you an idea of what can happen.” Gabriel said as a big square-shaped crystal entity (Television) descended from the ceiling. “Prepare yourself kiddos, it’s time for a class about the Cores and the Stupid decision those before us made.” 

<-Previous -Index- Next ->