Matt had no idea how long had passed before he became aware again. He tried to open his eyes, but they didn’t respond to his orders. Why couldn’t he open his eyes? Why couldn’t he feel his eyes? Did they mess up his brain, and now he was paralyzed completely? Fear started to bubble up and take control, but he remembered the ability that he had felt during the surgery. He had been able to feel everyone in the room around him. He could feel the doctors and nurses moving. He tried to put himself back into that feeling. He went into that internal space that had pulled him in at the end.
Does someone need to change the batteries in the chip? Why is it so much different?
He peered at what was once the miniature blue galaxy. Now, it was just a fragment of its former glory—a singular blue orb that was very small. Only a few threads of blue wisped around it. If what he had before could be compared to the entire galaxy, what he was looking at now would be Pluto.
He could still feel the energy coming from it. It wasn’t the overwhelming incinerating energy from before, but it was still there. Now, it was comforting, like a warm blanket.
Matt pulled on that energy and expanded it until it mimicked the feeling of his previous sphere.
The dimensions were off. Earlier, he could sense his body and everything in the room. Now, all he could sense was a couple of feet around him, and he didn’t sense his body.
Where was his body?
He focused on the image he was sensing and worked slowly to decipher what was happening. He could ‘see’ the processor on an acrylic stand where his body should be lying. It appeared that it was on a shelf, as there was a computer monitor at the bottom of the sphere. There were only empty glass beakers on the shelf with the processor. Above, there was what appeared to be a cabinet with various papers and instruments inside.
What was going on?
A million questions went through his mind.
Mind? Did he even have a mind anymore? Was he dead? Was he the processor now? What was he going to do?
His anxiety took over, and he gave in to sheer panic. He wasn’t so much scared of not having a body or being unable to move as he was already accustomed to being trapped in the body of a quadriplegic. His fear was more of being alone, where no one knew where he was or that he was even alive. He wasn’t even human anymore!
This period of terror and internal screaming lasted hours. He didn’t need a bag to hyperventilate into because he didn’t have any lungs. He couldn’t have a heart attack because he didn’t have a heart. There was nothing to stop his panic attack. The only question that repeated in his thoughts was, ‘What am I going to do?’ The feelings built and built until he couldn’t take it any longer.
With an internal scream, he pushed out.
The glass beaker on the shelf with him shattered.
Matt paused, trying to process what had happened.
That was interesting. Did he break the glass? Could he interact with things around him?
That was more than he had been able to do in years. He had had to stay a prisoner in his own body. He couldn’t touch anything, move anything, or feel anything. Just now, though? He had shattered glass. He forgot all about his fear; all he could feel now was hope.
No one could understand what it was like to be unable to do anything unless forced to live it. He would give up his body gladly if it meant he could do something. Anything.
Let’s try that again. Matt reached out with his consciousness. He was wary because the last time he used his consciousness to manipulate something, it put him in this situation. He nudged the glass shards and tried to push them off the shelf. The shard of glass wobbled slightly.
“Okay. Matt, you can’t sling glass. Gotcha. But at least it moved,” Matt said to himself, trying to alleviate the tension.
So, it wasn’t as easy as reaching out, applying force, and winning. He would have to practice and see what his limitations were. He had delusions of wielding ‘unlimited cosmic power’ but had been let down during practical application.
He would get there. He just--
The glass shards started to rattle as they vibrated toward the front of the shelf. The entire shelf shook violently, threatening to toss him off his stand. He could feel his little stand give in to the turmoil and move closer to the edge. Right before he thought he would tumble off the shelf, everything disappeared.
Oh no! What did I do? Did I break something? I knew I shouldn’t have…
Matt’s thoughts trailed off. All he could see around him was emptiness. To him, it was void of everything except for himself. Even his stand was gone. He was a little bitty processor hovering in a vast sea of darkness, but a voice broke the tension before he could repeat his earlier panic session.
“My, my, what do we have going on here?” a voice asked, seeming to come from everywhere.
Matt clung to that voice. A voice that could hear him.
“I d-don’t k-know,” Matt stammered.
The voice chuckled.
“You seem to have found yourself in quite a predicament.”
‘Predicament’ was an understatement. He was a human trapped in a computer chip. All he could do was make glass wiggle unless he got scared.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” Matt said.
The voice chuckled, and a man appeared. He walked over to stand in front of Matt. The man looked to be in his fifties and well-groomed. Gray peppered his black hair, and his mustache-goatee combination was perfectly symmetrical.
It was only then that Matt realized that he could sense him. Although he was outside his sphere of perception, he could sense him as if he were standing within inches.
“I imagine not. You seem to have gotten pulled into a strange variation of a soul gem. Give me a moment to review your past”, the voice said.
Fifteen minutes passed by before the man spoke again.
“Ah, I see. Yes, the process is very similar to a soul gem, though you have remained autonomous like a system core,” the voice said, sounding like he was talking to himself.
“So you can help?” Matt asked.
“Can? Yes. Will? Hrmm”, the voice seemed lost in thought for a moment, “I’ll give you a choice. I can kill you now and send your soul to the afterlife. I can turn you into a soul gem, and you’ll lose all awareness, or I can connect you to the system and make you a system core. Which will it be?”
What kind of options were those? Matt didn’t even have to think. The choices were death, coma, or a chance at something. Matt would choose the chance at something.
“I want a chance. I choose system core”, Matt replied and, after a moment, added, “What’s a system core?”
The man chuckled.
“I figured you would choose that, and to answer your question, a system core could be described as a dungeon core from those stories you liked to read. Though not exactly, You aren’t a prisoner who has to remain underground. However, there is merit to that strategy. Finding a domain and staying there is smart, but if you have to leave, you can always have your creations take you elsewhere. There are other differences that I won’t go into here. I created system cores to train soldiers and give sentient species a common enemy. Are you sure you want that burden?” the man asked.
“Created? Are you a god? And yes, I will take that burden when the alternative is death”, Matt said.
“Yes. I am a god. My name is Valdek,” the voice answered as if it were nothing out of the ordinary.
Valdek then pressed his hand against the metal of Matt’s processor.
A pressure fell on Matt, and he could feel himself change. There was no pain. The sensation continued until a screen popped up in his perception.
General Skills
Name: Matthew Cohen
Species: Core (Variant)
Affinities: Unknown
Level: 1
Level Progress: 0%
Mana: 10/10
Mana Regeneration: 0.01 per hour
Core Absorption Level 1
Core Creation Level 1
Matt was torn between the new information and the fact that he was in the presence of a GOD! That revelation would turn Earth upside down. Wars would be fought. Ermm. There would be a lot of death. Okay, maybe he would keep it to himself for now.
“It is done, but I don’t know if you should be thankful or scared. Life is hard for a system core on fully integrated system planets. Your planet won’t be integrated for another million years or so, depending on when or if they discover mana, though your presence could potentially change that. Here, let me send help with you. It won’t be able to protect you much, but they should be able to answer questions,” Valdek stated and waved his hand.
Next to Matt’s core, a miniature version of Kate, the nurse, appeared. On her back were wings that resembled what Matt could only describe as translucent blue fairy wings. As soon as she was fully formed, her wings started to beat, and she flew gracefully around Matt’s core.
“Hello, Matt,” the fairy said, her voice an exact copy of the patient nurse who had taken care of him.
“Hello there, um, Kate?” Matt said.
“Kate will do just fine,” the fairy said, smiling at him.
“Kate was created for you, Matt, and is bound to you. If you die, she dies. Now, you will be on your own. That is what it means to be a core, and even more so for you because there will be no other cores on the entire planet. As you get stronger, more doors will open for you and have imbued knowledge relevant to you in your fairy. Good luck,” Valdek smiled one last time.
Everything instantly reverted to the lab. He was still dangerously close to the edge of the shelf and could sense more of the computer below him, this time able to make out part of a keyboard. What was different this time was that a six-inch Kate hovered next to him.
“What is this planet called?” Kate asked, looking out across what Matt assumed was the room.
“Earth”, Matt replied.
Kate nodded and continued, “What is this place’s purpose?”
Kate gestured around her as if Matt could see it.
“I don’t know where we are. I can only sense about two feet around me”, Matt said.
“Oh right, new core,” Kate said, shaken from her questions, “Let me explain the basics.”
“As a core, you are limited to your interaction with the world by your area of influence. This influence is caused by the density of mana within your core. It spins inside of you and emits a mana field. The denser it is, the larger your field and the more area you can perceive and work with. Do you follow?” Kate said.
“So the range of my senses is this influence you described?” Matt asked.
“Correct! To improve your range, you will need to refine and condense your core, allowing you to hold more mana”, Kate answered, “Next, you will have two basic abilities as a nascent core. Absorb and Create. You can break down material within your influence and convert it to mana. Doing this will also allow you to understand how the material is formed. Then, using the ‘Create’ skill, you can recreate it to your will. Creating something will always take more mana than you get for absorbing it. This is a very rudimentary explanation, but I’m sure you’ll get it with time, " Kate said as she flew over and lit on top of his core.
“How do I absorb something?” Matt asked.
“Reach out with your mana and surround the object. When it is properly saturated, your instincts should take over, and you will have the desire to pull at it. This is breaking it down on a molecular level, converting it to mana that your core can ingest,” Kate answered.
Matt scanned everything in his influence and settled on the broken glass from the beaker he had broken earlier. He stared at it for a long while, trying to figure out how to surround it with his mana. He reached into the blue core that rested inside him and used the energy that it emitted. He sent out a translucent appendage and wrapped it around the glass shard. Kate was right. The second he surrounded the object with his mana, he instinctively knew how to absorb it.
He was encouraged and pulled the glass apart. It started slowly at first, but eventually, little motes of blue light floated away from the glass and into his core. Matt could feel the motes nourish him, and he kept up the effort. Eventually, the shard of glass was gone, and Matt felt….full.
New Resource Blueprint Learned - Glass
Matt did not feel well. He felt like he had eaten way too much food from a sketchy Chinese buffet. He felt like he needed to purge his stomach—if he had had a stomach to purge.
“Kate, I don’t feel so well,” Matt managed to get out after a moment.
“Oh crap, Matt, you were already full on mana and absorbed more. You need to condense your core. Look inside yourself for your mana and squeeze as hard as you can. It will hurt, but it is how you make room for the extra mana.
Matt did as she said and looked at the tiny faintly blue marble she called his ‘mana core.’ It was amazing that it allowed him to do so much, as it was barely the size of a grain of salt. A wave of nausea overtook him and snapped him out of his distracted thoughts. Matt reached out and surrounded the ball with his will and pushed. He probed the ball and felt it give a little ground before it started to resist his efforts. He put more and more strength behind the push, and the core began to give way. He almost faltered because as the mana gave way to his pushing, he felt it rip, and the pain reverberated through his core. Time passed, and he kept pushing. Whenever he thought it wouldn’t get smaller, he would push, and it would shrink a bit more. Each time he condensed the blue light, it felt like he was peeling his skin away. He pushed until he couldn’t take it any longer. He had nothing left of his will to endure anymore.
He let go.
The mana ballooned out once more, but to Matt’s surprise, it didn’t extend back out as far as it once had. It was smaller and slightly brighter, almost as if condensing it amplified.
Returning from his internal struggle, he looked to find Kate still seated on top of him with her legs crossed.
“Good. Now look at your status screen”, Kate said when she noticed his attention.
Matt did, as she said, curious about what he would see.
General Skills
Name: Matthew Cohen
Species: Core (Variant)
Affinities: Unknown
Level: 1
Level Progress: 50%
Mana: 7/10
Mana Regeneration: 0.01 per hour
Core Absorption Level 1
Core Creation Level 1
Blueprints
Resources
> Glass
Matt was half-deflated. That had been agonizing, and he had only made 50% of the progress needed to get to level 2. He didn’t know if he could handle doing that anymore.
“That sucked so much,” Matt stated.
Kate laughed and patted him, trying to comfort him. “You did a lot all at once for your level. You should do it little by little, and the pain won’t be so bad. Your life will be all about balance—when to create, when to condense, when to move, and when to expand. You do not need to rush anything. Plus, at a higher level, the way you advance changes. Right now, you are building the foundation.”
“I put everything I had into that, and it only used three points of mana to condense,” Matt said, deflated.
“Five. You used five mana to condense your core. The shard of glass gave you two when you absorbed it. That sick feeling you felt was your core being overloaded with mana. A good rule would be to never be at your mana limit; always be regenerating a few points”, Kate explained.
It made sense. The same logic applies to video games that utilize energy systems to progress. You always wanted to use some so that it could be regenerating back to full. Energy not used was energy not being used to progress. Matt imagined this was the same.
“Okay, if it took five points of mana to get to 50%, then another five will take me to level 2”, Matt said.
Once Kate confirmed, he returned to his internal landscape and looked at the blue mana core. Even though it wasn’t what it was initially, it was still beautiful and mesmerizing to watch. It was like a miniature solar system, blue wisps of energy orbiting a bright blue sun. Matt sighed, wrapped the mana with his will once more, and tested by pushing again. It instantly resisted. Figuratively gritting his teeth because he didn’t have teeth any longer, he pushed hard, and a sharp pain shot through him. He let go and let the mana flow back into position. He came out and checked his progress.
Level: 1
Level Progress: 60%
Mana: 6/10
He could do this. That felt more like ripping a hair out than ripping his soul out. Matt hoped he wouldn’t turn into a masochist from having to self-harm like this, but he went and continued anyway.
After an hour, he came to the last compression. The one that would send him to level 2 and increase his mana pool. He pushed with everything he had. The resistance was almost insurmountable. It felt like pushing against a wall. He strained and strained, making progress inch by inch until it would go no further. When the core he was pushing against glowed bright, he let go, worried it would shatter. He grew even more concerned as the brightness got even brighter and just as he thought everything would be burned away from the light.
The core exploded outward.