What the fuck!

Solid core detected.

Beginning analysis for installation compatibility of Cultivator Nano-Enhancement protocols.

Progressing, please wait….

"No, no, no, stop. Cancel. Uninstall. What the hell!". Quan bolted to his feet as he yelled at the green text, but nothing changed as he yelled. There was a progress bar showing the program was processing.

What did you put inside me, Jarel? Nanobots, he bloody told you. They were supposed to be dormant, only holding a message!

Suddenly he had images of Asha pointing and laughing. A cartoon version was sticking her tongue out and saying I told you so while dancing around him. Oh God! Is this how he takes over my body!

This is alien tech. Why is the text in 80's computer font? Fuck that. Why is it in English?

His front door burst open as Asha slammed through it. "What happened? I felt your aura blast a wave of panic and fear before I'd gone two dozen steps" When she saw nothing dangerous happening, she sharply commanded, "Control your aura before your neighbours notice."

"My aura? How the hell do I do that? I have bigger problems right now." Quan said quickly. He tried to use his senses to look inside himself, but he'd never been able to detect things as small as nanobots with it. His core seemed fine. Powerful even.

"Scan me with your master powers and tell me what you can see. Around my core, I think.". Quan felt her aura wash through him.

"I detect nothing out of the ordinary."

"Okay, well. Don't be mad. But the other shoe is dropping from my remnant encounter."

"Shoe? What are you talking about."

Quan could see the progress bar moving along as they talked. "Wow, okay. Remember I mentioned computers from Earth? They are machines that help us do things. Math mostly, cause at its base level everything is math."

"Right," Asha said uncertainly.

"But they are smart, so while it's just doing math, nothing looks like math. It looks like chat with mom, games with friends. Or it builds a wall, prints a page or any of a million tasks. Okay, so make the machine super smart and super small. And we call these nanobots. You can't even see them with the naked eye. Well, maybe your eyes can. Anyways, the remnant put some in me. But they were supposed to be off. Just holding some report to be retrieved."

Asha scowled, but this was basically what she'd been told before. "Go on."

"Surprise! Not so dormant now. It detected my core. They woke up, and it's now showing me messages and analysis and I think going to install or uhmm expand." Quan said with a bit of panic.

Compatibility Analysis complete.

Core quality - S tier.

Compatibility- 100%

Initiating full install.

"And the remnant said this wouldn't happen?" Asha asked. She gripped him by the shoulders and made him look at her.

"Oh, isn't that nice? It graded my core as a top tier." Quan said. "Now it's moving on to step 2!" A touch of giddiness rode his voice now.

"Quan, I have no idea how to remove something like this. No one does." Asha said. "Can you control it with your spirit or aura?"

"Okay, hold on. Deep breath." Quan said aloud as he tried to do exactly as he said. "I'm thinking back. The remnant said it might be of some benefit had he preserved more of them. Maybe he had saved enough after all. Maybe this is a good thing!"

"Computers help us. As long as it doesn't decide I'm an enemy or thief, and it's not a delivery system for Jarel to take over a new body, I'll be fine." Quan looked at Asha. "Ya, I'll be fine." His voice was in no way certain.

"Okay, I'm going to close my eyes and try and see if I can interact with the program." Quan said. "If someone else starts talking out of my mouth, kick the crap out of them. Don't kill me though! No extreme measures!"

Okay, you nano bitches. You scared the shit out of me there. Messages out of nowhere, but I'm calm now.

The installation progress bar was still moving along. Quan tried pushing a few thoughts at it. He moved his hands to try and touch the text floating in front of him, but that did nothing.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

A minute later, the text updated.

Installation complete

Core quality - S tier.

User status - Meridian development stage.

Would you like to personalize the interface? Y/N

_

A blinking cursor flashed, awaiting input.

Seriously, not even a GUI?

Yes. He thought and attempted to push the thought towards the interface.

Enter user name

_

Okay, so it responds to thoughts. Good.

Hoon Quan.

Choose cultivation standard.

This time there was a drop-down list. When Quan directed his thoughts to it, he realized there were thousands of options. Curious, he immediately checked to see if any had Earth in their title. It did not. Not knowing the difference, he finally left it on the default of Galactic standard rankings.

Quan had options to change the display format, but for now, he left that alone. The program seemed to have picked this from his subconscious already. Are you an ai or just a program? There was no response which Quan decided meant a program, probably. Maybe!

Okay, so what have we got here. Status Screen.

User name: Hoon Quan

Status:

Physical:

Body Foundation - B Tier

Status - Healthy

Core:

Foundation - S Tier

Elemental affinity - none

Specials - none

Condition - full

Meridian Network

Foundation - developing

Developed - 0%

System status: CNE version 678.2342

Nanobot swarm: 24% - replicating.

Modules:

Combat - Not Found

Healing- Not Found

Defence- Not Found

Aura Manipulation- Not Found

Botany- Not Found

Alchemy- Not Found

Pill making- Not Found

Navigation- Not Found

Perception - Not Found

Recreation- Not Found

Cooking- Not Found

Arrays- Not Found

Blacksmith- Not Found

Advanced weapons- Not Found

Arts library - Not Found

Absorption- Not available at the current stage

For these or other enhancements, please contact your nearest CNE dealer!

Well, now aren't you a tease. He thought, looking at all the options not available to him. This is probably what the remnant meant by not saving enough.

Quan opened his eyes and was now able to dismiss the messages. "I think it's okay. I appear to have the bare minimum of a system meant to help cultivators, but all the really good parts are missing."

Asha raised an eyebrow at him. "You seem calm for a guy that was panicking a moment ago."

"Ya well, It scared the shit out of me. Glowing green words don't usually appear. I thought your worst case scenarios were about to come true."

"It proves one thing, though." Quan smiled. "There is a way to have the technology of my world and the cultivation of yours! Now I need to find the path to it. Life Quest updated!" He laughed. "Good night again, Master," He said as she left once more.

Begin Meridian development procedures? Y/N

Quan promptly choose no. It was time to meditate. To shore up the strength of his new core and open up Manu's gift to see what it suggested next.

Quan was quickly able to see the next step. He needed to push energy into his center Meridian. Keep it solid and flat like a disk to push out the natural decay of never using it as a child. Then the arms using a twisting corkscrew method. Finally, by pushing a string of Ki all the way through, the legs then use that to hollow out the rest. This would clear out the basic body meridians before he attempted the more dangerous one to his mind.

Now with a computer judging his performance. Also, B Tier body? Time to get to work.