Back in his chamber, Ryder checked on the progress in the vial and noticed that all of the PEG solution and the other nanoparticles had been used up.

Now, suspended in the vial, was Epoch surrounded by the horde of nanobots. They all looked ready to take on another command. He couldn’t count all of them, but the horde was massive.

Ryder transferred the vial into a syringe preparing his shot. He braced himself for what was to come. He couldn’t test the safety of these nanobots since he didn’t want to harm others and it would also be near impossible to get all of the nanobots out of one's body with the current state of technology.

If he were to inject the solution into himself, Ryder would have to risk having the nanobots inside of him for forever basically.

But it was a risk he was willing to take. It was better than being vulnerable in a world where anything could happen anywhere.

He would rather die trying than die doing nothing.

Taking a deep breath, Ryder found a vein in his arm, cleaned the area with an alcohol swab, and then plunged the syringe down.

Immediately, he felt the solution enter his bloodstream. The solution, from hundreds of thousands to as many as millions of nanobots, disappeared into his body. His heart raced with a mix of fear and anticipation, but he could only wait for the nanobots to settle in.

After injecting the solution, Ryder removed the needle and cleaned up the punctured area. He needed to ensure nothing in or out of his body was contaminated.

While he was cleaning, however, Ryder suddenly thought of something. Since Epoch and the rest of the nanobots were inside of his body now, could he command them using his thoughts?

To test this idea out, he grabbed a small knife and made a small cut on his thumb.

‘Epoch, please heal the wound on my thumb.’ Ryder commanded through his thoughts.

He sat down and waited, hoping to feel some kind of change. Before long, he felt a strange sensation in his thumb. He looked at the cut on his thumb to see the cut closing rapidly.

Ryder was surprised, that only took a couple of minutes. Back on Earth, a wound of that size would still take hours to heal even when using nanobots.

‘Seems like magic plays a huge part in this.’

Now that he knew Epoch could listen to his thoughts, communicating will become a lot easier.

Setting that aside, what Ryder needed to do now was set up some rules for using Epoch and the nanobots.

First, he commanded Epoch to notify him whenever the rune was close to running out of mana by making his nose bleed. It was the simplest solution he had. Not only are nose bleeds easy to cause, but they also aren’t harmful to the body.

That way, whenever he had blood running out of his nose, he would know that Epoch was running low on mana and needed a recharge.

Right now, he could only rely on Brigitte for mana, but he knew he had to come up with another way later on. What if she wasn’t there in an emergency?

After figuring that out, Ryder wanted to test the full extent of the nanobot's capabilities.

Since fixing a small cut took several minutes, he had a rough gauge of their healing ability.

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Next, he tried to harden his skin with the nanobots by integrating them into his skin cells. But he only managed to cover a part of his hand before running out of nanobots.

‘Seems like I will need to increase the amount in the future.’ Ryder thought while looking at his now black, hardened hand. It looked like a layer of iron was cast over his skin.

However, it was barely after a couple of minutes that Ryder’s nose started to bleed, and he quickly commanded Epoch to withdraw from the skin.

He felt a mix of confusion and disappointment when this hardened state only lasted for a few minutes. Why was the mana usage so high? Ryder knew he would have to figure this out later.

After replenishing the rune’s mana with the help of Brigitte, Ryder wanted to test whether the nanobots could activate his bloodline genes. The problem was, he wasn’t able to locate any of his bloodline genes.

Furthermore, he had too little knowledge about these genes and wasn’t able to direct the nanobots to the genes’ location.

Forced to abandon that thought, Ryder set it aside until he had more information about the bloodline genes.

Now, it was time to focus on increasing his survival capabilities.

He knew he had to enhance his power in order to survive. Since he still didn’t know the full extent of Epoch and the horde’s capabilities, he went for basic enhancements like cognitive or physical changes.

Ryder is an experienced biotechnologist, meaning he is a very technology oriented person, someone who’s an expert in physics, chemistry, biology, and so on.

That means he also knows the body extremely well since he already studied molecular biology, cell biology, and microbiology. That also meant he would be able to direct Epoch and the nanobots to specific areas of his body in order to modify and enhance them.

Thinking for a moment, Ryder decided to try and amplify his vision first. The benefits of this meant he would be able to locate danger quicker and also react faster. The physical enhancement will have to wait since he didn’t want to expose himself getting stronger in a lab.

For his vision, Ryder brainstormed several plans to enhance it. First, enhancing the vision didn’t mean he had to directly target the eyes or its components such as the lens and pupil.

Instead, he identified the areas where enhancing them would have the most significant impact. For example, he first wanted the ability to see in the dark, so he decided that one area to enhance would be the photoreceptor cells.

He planned to have several thousand nanobots integrate with these cells to boost their sensitivity in order to see in darker settings.

Next, he wanted the ability to process visual information rapidly, so the next area of enhancement would be the visual cortex. He also wanted to strengthen the connection between the optic nerve and the brain to boost faster transmission of visual information.

This was all done by the nanobots, meaning Ryder will have to guide them step by step until they get used to it.

Of course, these enhancements won’t be finished immediately, and will most likely take days or even weeks to finish depending on how quickly the nanobots use up the common rune’s mana.

Rushing the process would be dangerous since it could potentially overwhelm his eyes. That would be a disaster since becoming blind in this world is tantamount to death.

But he also didn’t want it to take forever. To ensure efficiency, Ryder commanded Epoch to split up the horde into teams. Where each team will be responsible for an area to enhance: photoreceptor cells, the visual cortex, and the optic nerve.

And with that, he also commanded Epoch to regularly update him on the progress of the enhancements by notifying him through his brain. That way, Epoch had some influence on his thoughts.

During these days, he planned to take it easy and not engage in anything stress related.

In the course of his break, he occasionally went to visit Brigitte and the hybrids. The hybrids were still in the nutrition tanks but had grown to the size of a human teenager.

An excited Brigitte said it was almost time for them to wake up and exit their nutrition tanks.

Next, he started his first day as Kade’s assistant, where he basically just adhered to Kade’s instructions.

For example, if Kade needed a tool, then Ryder would give it to him. If he needed a clean up, then Ryder would clean up the table efficiently.

His other tasks include maintaining the equipment used by Kade and also documenting his activities. Ryder’s only complaint was not being allowed to touch the runes, but he could understand why.

One of the main benefits of working as Kade’s assistant was watching him continuously etch patterns and symbols onto the runes.

Ryder didn’t understand what was going on, but it was still fascinating. He could also feel his vision improving and being able to take in nearly all of Kade’s hand movements.

Finally, after around a week, Epoch notified him that his visual enhancement had been completed.