“[Notice, it is advised that host doesn’t let the Mana drop to these levels often, or if done, that Hosts prepares or sets up defenses ahead of time.]”

It hurt, her head hurt, her chest hurt, her mouth was dry and she was having trouble seeing.

“Main Core? Status report.” Ale said as she tried to stand up, her body was heavy, more heavy than it should be. She could not feel the ground, actually, she was not feeling anything much.

That was a problem, she should be feeling at least something, or…more like she was feeling something? Only it wasn’t the floor. It was kind of smooth and cold, also it seemed to be hard. It had some resistance when she attempted to move her fingers, and it was covering her whole body.

Quite snuggly at that.

“[Host experienced a loss of consciousness, the Consciousness Stream was not affected and it was deemed to be a problem with the hardware that Host is running in. Current functions of Ai Core weren’t compromised, no future actions were deemed necesary. Time lapsed since problem, five hours, twenty-seven minutes and fifty-nine seconds.]”

So roughly five hours and a half? That…was quite long for a loss of consciousness that didn’t affect her [Consciousness Stream], so what? Alexa was seeing her? or was it P4? What was the true origin of her Consciousness stream?

She….hurt her head too much to think straight.

“Where are we?” Ale asked trying to stand up again.

“[Host has not moved during this period of inactivity; most biological functions have been taken care of by Nanite swarm. Host lost control of most, if not all, its biological functions.]”

…What?

“[Stomach, intestines and bladder have been emptied to prevent further problems, contents tried to vacate host, and while host was unable to move this could have caused health issues, so its materials were assimilated and distribuited as best as possible.]”

“Main Core? What did you do?” Ale asked, trying to turn around her body to end with her back against the floor instead of staying face-planted like she was.

“[Materials got sent into the Banked Area with help from Mk1 Swarm. What was not useful was instead ejected by the use of Pounce Arm-mament equipment.]”

….She….wanted to ask what materials got ejected, but also didn’t want to know.

“Fine…so…why can’t I see anything?” Ale asked as her body somehow managed to flop itself looking up.

Even so, she saw black.

“[Turning on Visor of the Nuzzler Helmet Mk1]”

….She…was not sure if she was happy with the fact that her helmet was called Nuzzler instead of Pounce.

“GYAAAH!” But what she was sure, was that Main Core had done that on purpose. Her helmet opened and a bright light flashed down on her face

The helmet visor seemed to account for the bright light and dimmed the input after a second or so, but it was too late, Ale’s pupils had been dilated all the way to take in more light and attempt to see.

This had backfired greatly.

“[Host is adviced to remain a few extra minutes while the body finishes regenerating.]”

“Yeah right…Open this thing.” Ale said, and sure enough, her mouthpiece opened, letting her feel the fresh (Stale) air of this room. “Status.”

Mana: 10/21

“...Main Core, we know the blueprint for that tofu burger?” Ale asked, trying to remember the composition of what she had eaten before.

“[Blueprint of it was not stored, but it is possible to reproduce it so long the materials are available.]”

“Use the [Banked Biomass] to reproduce one, the target area for construction will be my hand,” Ale said while extending some tendrils from her back, the…

New Blueprint finished:

Pounce Armor Chest Piece Mk1:

The central piece of the Cat Girl Pounce Armor Mk 1 has space on the back for modular equipment, be it more pressurized canisters, point defense guns, or a friend riding piggyback. The main material from this part was one of the most sturdy yet durable materials (Durasteel). Some Adamantium was used in places where a normal human would have his heart, so it is advised that the host either move her heart there or use it for other things that she wants to keep safe.

Arm-mament gauntlets Mk 1:

No modification was made besides adding guard plates to the arm and adding some protection (And meshing the design to match the rest of the armor), Arm-mament was already a fine blueprint, what was added to the rest of the arm was a delivery system to add electricity to the claws and a delivery system in case host decides that she wants to release some flammable gases through her claws making fire-based attacks. Just in case.

Nuzzler Face Mask Mk1:

A snug face protection, it includes a rebreather to increase the O2 available to the host, based on the Haephestus' Forge Minion mask, transparent polycarbonate was used to make the lenses and the mask can be connected to the chest piece to provide fresh O2. The helmet has openings on the top, back and front that can be opened and closed as needed. The helmet is graded for high protection thanks to the material used to make it, and it is somewhat mana conductive.

Of course her armor chest piece would be part of the pounce armor set, at least her [Arm-mament] hadn’t changed name to something on that trending type.

So extending some tendrils from her Pounce Armor Chest piece she made herself sit straight.

“[Unsure of host objectives. Construction in progress.]”

Even while not understanding why, Main Core still did its work, after barely a moment Ale felt the weight on her right hand grow heavy as a reproduction of the Tofu burger manifested on her hand.

“Just to be sure, but everything was made up to what we ate before right?” Ale asked as she stared at the creation. She knew what Material had been used, from the composition to what they had turned.

“[Affirmative, creation of this reproduction consumed roughly 3 kilograms of biomass of diverse make.]”

“Okay then.” Ale said and using her nanites to interact with her Pounce Armor Chest, she made her hand and arm move towards her mouth.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

And took a bite!

“[...Host? This is a highly inefficient way to restore the calorie intake.]”

“Shut it Main Core, you just told me my stomach was empty, start using the calories and biomass I am consuming to kickstart and accelerate the regeneration!” Ale said as she continued eating her Tofu burger.

Of course she could just funnel the materials straight into her body, but this had several reasons for being done like this.

Mana 15/21

Health: 18/22

For starters, doing this hadn’t consumed any Mana, and if anything her bar seemed to be moving towards being full again.

“Okay, what can we do with these…” Ale said after she finished eating her Tofu Burger, halfway through she started funneling some biomass into her body straight up to fuel the regeneration.

Sincerely she didn’t need that much, but she wanted to make sure these activities didn’t waste [Mana]. They did not, taking or using biomass from her [Banked] didn’t consume Mana. Only making it from nothing, or attempting to make these exotic materials did.

“What about storing?” Ale said aloud.

Notice:

As long the material is mundane, storing it costs no mana. Only storing things that have inherent Mana weaved into their make consume mana to store. The amount of mana is directly correlated with how much mana the object has.

There are exceptions to this rule, such as things made by host and things that host doesn't want to alter going in or out and if these things had been stored before.

That was good to know, so she could store the armor as [Material], so long she didn’t use them for anything else. The identity of this [Storage] was quite confusing, she had thought it was closer to a place to throw stuff for later, but now she could use it to store this?

Could she then store her [Phone]?

No: Not possible, [Phone] is a complex machine made by someone else as was the [Blueprint] host is using, to store it. The object would need to be used as material to make something else or be something made entirely by host, not mere changes, but something truly made by host.

“[Answer is not logical.]”

Your mother is not logical.

….

"Okay, let’s store the Pounce Armor for now,” Ale said as she felt the weight on her body disappear; what was left behind was… “....Main Core? Please return my clothes.”

“[Clothes were used as material on the base design, taking materials from Banked Storage to make new clothes.]”

“...thank you.” Ale said as the new set of clothes grew atop her body. It was good that no one saw her, and no one would ever find out about this event. “Now next, we have core fusion right? Let’s start that then.”

Ale’s next point on her agenda was just that. She had gotten some new blueprints, and also a new option for her [Core] Shenanigans.

“[Affirmative, it is possible to fuse now some cores to get new results. Currently available Cores are stored within Core for perusal.]”

“...Right, since these are just mostly Crystal material.” Ale said as she made a new [Core] atop her finger and noticed the [Mana] counter go down by one unit.

That was…worrying, she hadn’t worried about it before since she had only done it once in a while, and surely that had regenerated by the next time she did it, but it put things into perspective, if she lost control or started making them in a batch…And it happened while in combat…

Yikes, that could have been quite catastrophic.

Core Fusion options:

Cat Core + Beast Core: Normal humanoid form with cat traits.

Rat Core + Beast Core: Normal humanoid form with rat traits.

Mutant + Base blueprint + Beast Core: This is a mutant version with unexpected results. The host is advised to pick this only as a last-chance effort.

Broken + Anything: Corrupted result, no data available. Danger.

Cat + Cat Core: Cat blueprint.

Mana + Anything: More data is required before a viable option is available.

Human + Mind Core: More data is required before a viable option is available.

Truth Core + Information Core: Data inconclusive, result unstable. Fusion is not available.

[It is possible to control to some degree the amount of influence each component of the fusion has on the result.]

…These were quite the options.

But why had they been put like that? She…didn’t quite like those options that much.

And it worried her that most of those had a label warning at the side, why was only one option free of warnings? And what did it mean that she could control the degree of fusion? Wasn’t the discussion over once it was done? Why did it matter if she allowed it to go more to one side or the other?

“Okay, let’s start easy with this then…” Ale said mentally selecting the option she would test first, “[Beast Core] + [Cat Core].”

One of the only ones she had fully, the other option was of course the [Rat Core], or the [Giant Rat Core], but she felt that both would end in the same type of result. And since Sam had said for her to never go that route again…

Yeah, she ended with the [Cat] route. Surely it would end well, [Skye] had said that these were the best option after all.

She felt a warmth feeling on her chest grow as she paid attention to her [Mana] meter.

“[Notice, new Core requested access to Banked Storage, or a source of Meat.]”

“Approve it.” Ale said as the hunger she had started feeling slowly diminished, then her access to the [Banked Biomass] opened and she felt her whole body start to change, not in the same way that it changed when she used her Nanites to alter it, it was more like…Her body was evolving.

Her muscles changed from the base design to a new design, stronger and somehow more nimble, her bones changed to a more lithe design, and some even turned flexible. She could see her joints turned into a design that allowed her to snap the bones and rejoin them later by merely flexing her muscles.

That would surely be quite interesting; she noticed her hands and feet changed too; her feet grew some weird kind of…squishy thing at the bottom. Some sort of…pads? Alexa wasn’t quite sure how to refer to them, but these seemed to be designed to soften the falls?

If she was to jump without using boots, shoes, or sandals, she assumed these would be useful to help her land without hurting herself and to diminish the sound she produced when walking. She would see later to integrate it more into her normal design.

Her feet seemed to change to allow a larger range of motion, but that wasn’t the biggest change.

No, going a little above she found herself with…a tail.

A long dark tail had grown from just below her waist; the thing seemed to react as if to help her balance herself, which was quite useful since her body now was way lighter than before, and while her body was self-balancing itself thanks to her nanites, the tail helped her with this.

Also she had the feeling that with some effort she could even use it to attack…after some more modifications of course.

The next change occurred on her hands; her fingers had turned…sharper, the fingers more nimble, and she had a feeling that if she wished for it, she could grow the same pads that she had on her feet on her hands.

She would not, since it would look weird, the next thing was that with flexing some muscles on her wrist she could now make her nails grow into claws, not so different from her [Arm-mament], only these weren’t made from metal but from bone.

Also these were easier to hide. That would be useful.

After that what followed was on her chest, she had a burning sensation on her chest, just somewhat above her heart was now a Yellow crystal.

Beast Core - Cat:

It grants the host the body, instincts, and characteristics of a house cat. Changes the biology to a certain degree according to the host's wishes.

[Nimbler body.]

[Flexible body.]

[Heighten senses.]

[Heighten insticts.]

[Agility enhances.]

[Retractable claws.]

Interesting, so that meant that she was officially a [Beast Core] User?

She would check later if those weird scanners would identify her as a [Beast Core] or not. Looking up she pulled out her [Phone] and turned the camera to look at herself, she could of course grow a tendril with an eye too, but if she could save on biomass…why not save on it?

“Fangs?” And what she found was that her face…hadn’t changed that much, her nose seemed to be sharper, her eyes now had a slit instead of a normal pupil. She could control it to expand or narrow…

Something she was already able to do, but this time, she was doing it without using Nanites to alter her make, so that was cheaper. The next change was the fact that she had some whiskers on her face and her mouth showcased a pair of fangs.

“....Nyaaa?” And opening her mouth she found that her tongue now seemed to have small spines that faced backward, of course to her normal eyes these weren’t visible. But her Nanites could see them easily enough.

That would make anything she licked feel as if something rough was licking it…

“And why do I care if anything that I lick feel it rough?” Ale asked suddenly as the thought of licking people came to her mind, along with the thought of licking herself clean…Which was weird since her Nanites made sure she didn’t need cleaning herself, besides taking some baths to spend time with Commodore Soap and Mister Squeaky…

*crack*

And without knowing how or why, Ale turned her face to look back as she did a small jump; something had made a sound at the far end of the room. A piece of wall had fallen, perhaps after her previous net of tendrils compromised the make of the wall?

But the stone that fell was too small for her to notice, and yet she had heard it?

Turning to look again at her Phone she noticed something atop her head…

“Ears? Why do I have an extra pair of ears?” Ale asked as she saw the fluffy ears atop her head, these seemed to react automatically to the sounds around her, Ale was now even able to lock in to the sound of the ventilators that helped keep the air circling around in this place. She was even able to find the parts that worked to pull in the debris that floated around.

“This is quite interesting…” Ale said as she noticed how her body had changed, she…didn’t found any problem with her new body, if anything this seemed to be more like an upgrade instead of a downgrade that most of the [Beast Core] seemed to imply.

If anything she thought this could be a good new base state. The problem was that she could only make two of these thanks to she only had two [Cores] of creatures, well, she could make a [Human Core] since she had those…But that would need more experimentation later, perhaps if one day she wanted to take on a more monstrous form to keep herself grounded.

“Well, now that this is done what do we need to do?” Ale said as she stretched. She found it interesting that she was more nimble than ever, perhaps even more nimble than Alexa was on her base form, and that was the form with more agility of them all.

Yeah, that checked up. So that was why she felt like this? Then why would she would need to return to her other form?

“[Notice, perhaps there could be a backlash from social interactions as most Humans know host to be a base human and not a Beast Core User.]”

…Yeah, that was right…Then she could use it while using her Pounce Armor Mk1.

…was that why [Core] gave it that name?

“*Sigh* Fine, it was fitting.” Ale would need to re-evaluate the amount of information that [Core] was giving her, had it predicted the successful core fusion? Or why had it given her an armor that was so obviously inclined towards acting like a cat?

*Prrrrrrrrrrr*

She would need to really check on that, but for now she would return to her apartment to prepare and check on other stuff.

*lick-lick*

“....I am quite tasty if I say so.” Ale said as she finished cleaning her hand, it was meaningless since her hand was already clean, but she would need to find a way to rein in these weird cat instincts, maybe she could add a [Human Core] into the mix?

Move from [Beast Core - Cat] to maybe [Cat Girl Core]?

She had vague memories of some members of her former [Den] attempting to nudge her towards that, so perhaps it was possible? This would require more data.