Immediately, Ryder felt a surge of excitement.

It was done! His first enhancement was finished.

He instantly went to the nearest mirror to check on his eyes. However, the only noticeable difference was a slightly enlarged pupil and a barely noticeable glow in his irises.

However, he didn’t mind since what mattered the most was the abilities of his newly strengthened eyes.

He turned the lights off in his chamber, plunging himself into darkness. He held his breath, waiting for his eyes to adjust.

To his amazement, the room gradually became clearer. Shadows became distinct shapes, and he could clearly see outlines of objects that wouldn’t be possible if it were his old eyes.

Although his vision in the darkness wasn’t comparable to his vision in the light, it was enough.

Satisfied, he then went to test his ability to process visual information. He walked into a random storage room before glancing around rapidly, focusing on various objects and how quickly his brain processed the images.

In just the span of a few seconds, Ryder already captured the images of all the objects in the room.

Excited by the success, he knew this was just the start and there were just so many other possibilities.

He then thought about what other senses he could enhance.

Sight is one of the more important senses, not saying that the other senses aren’t useful, but it could potentially allow him to escape danger before it even reaches him.

Ryder weighed the benefits of enhancing the other senses and eventually settled on all of them: taste, smell, touch, and hearing. What’s the point of only enhancing one without accounting for the rest?

Thinking for a bit, Ryder commanded Epoch to split the horde into specialized teams, each focused on a different sense.

This time, he didn’t want the amplification to be as much as his sense of sight, since there weren’t as many benefits. Enhancing their functions by just a tad bit would suffice.

Nanobots tasked with enhancing hearing targeted the hair cells in his cochlea. This would increase their sensitivity to sound vibrations.

For taste and smell, the nanobots only needed to target his olfactory receptors and taste buds. But Ryder told them to only enhance them by a little.

Touch was enhanced by increasing the receptors in his skin, allowing him to feel textures much more clearly.

The amplifications didn’t take as long this time since the tasks weren’t as big. However, he went to Brigitte to recharge his mana again just in case there weren’t enough for the next enhancements.

He was content with the improvements made on his senses and he planned to stop there. He could always amplify them more if needed later on.

But what Ryder didn’t notice until much later was the fact that enhancing his five senses gave birth to his sixth sense, which is the sense of body positioning and kinesthetic.

While getting his mana recharged by Brigitte, Ryder started to think about his next steps.

Increasing the number of nanobots is still out of the picture since he had heard from Epoch that it could barely command any more nanobots with the limiting quality of the rune.

Increasing the quality of the rune is also out of the question since not only would that require more mana, which would burden Brigitte even more, but it would also mean having to take in more mana into his body, increasing the risk of danger.

Somehow, Ryder knew he needed to obtain another source of mana for Epoch.

That source also had to be portable and able to follow him wherever he was going, which was something Brigitte couldn’t do.

If he were to escape from the lab, no way was Brigitte going to abandon her research to follow him.

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He looked behind him at Brigitte, who was mindlessly humming while placing her hand behind his back. Feeling his gaze, Brigitte looked up at him and smiled.

‘Yeah, no way.’

He thought about other solutions, where one was to develop some kind of extension onto his body where the nanobots could access easily to obtain mana.

But the extension couldn’t be connected to his body since that would be deadly and it also needs to be able to store mana.

It seemed plausible, but Ryder didn’t know which materials to use nor what kind of extension he would need to develop. A tail? A wing? Or hell even spikes on his back seemed cool.

Although the ideas did entice him, Ryder knew he did not have nearly enough information to back them up.

After receiving a recharge from Brigitte, Ryder wanted to take a break to familiarize himself with his enhanced senses.

Following the sudden amplification, it was like he was now in a different world.

His enhanced touch allowed him to have a heightened awareness of his surroundings, and coupled with his vision, enabled him to see things he would have easily missed before.

Now, he could even see specks of dust on equipment that would be considered invisible to the naked eye.

This made Ryder wonder, what if he were to enhance his vision even more, would he be able to see things on the nanoscale level?

He would have to experiment with that much later when he has more advanced nanobots.

His newly enhanced hearing let him hear conversations that occurred meters away. Although it was sometimes annoying since he was constantly bombarded with the sounds of equipment running.

Taste and smell were by far the most useless amplified senses as of now since Ryder didn’t have any uses for them besides food, which was really bland in the lab.

He rarely had breakfast, and lunch consisted of a sandwich made from who knows what. Dinner was a bit better with soup and bread.

Albeit smell allowed him to distinguish between chemicals, Ryder didn’t need it since there were labels everywhere.

Ryder experimented with his senses for just a couple of more days and noted down anything unusual. Finally, after getting accustomed to his senses, it was time to enhance the organs.

There was no point in enhancing all of the organs, as that would not be of much use. Ryder instead came up with the main organs to enhance: heart, lungs, bone marrow, thymus, digestive system, and brain.

Each organ served a major purpose in the body, and by enhancing them, Ryder would essentially become a more advanced being.

Again, Ryder commanded Epoch to split the nanobots into teams to enhance the organs they were tasked with.

Some of the organs were easy to enhance, while others were not.

For example, the bone marrow and thymus only needed a boost in their functions to improve Ryder’s immune system.

All the nanobots needed to do was ensure more efficient production of white blood cells and T-cells in both organs to strengthen Ryder’s immunity.

For his digestive system, the nanobots needed to optimize the function of the connection between his stomach and intestines, ensuring that his body received the maximum possible nutrients from the food he ate.

That way, Ryder wouldn’t need to eat as much compared to before.

His lungs needed a bit more thinking, and Ryder eventually decided to make the nanobots enhance the lung’s ability to exchange gases.

In other words, he aimed to increase his oxygen intake and carbon dioxide expulsion. His respiratory system would experience a huge boost, thus increasing his stamina.

Of course, this was just Ryder’s estimate for the benefits he would gain in the future. The nanobots will need time to enhance the organs.

Now, Ryder was left with the trickier organs, the heart and the brain.

The slightest mistake on either organ could disable or even kill him.

To be extra cautious, Ryder decided to use smaller teams of nanobots, even if that meant a longer enhancement period.

He first started on the heart, where he strived to improve his cardiovascular efficiency.

This would further benefit his stamina and also help him sustain strenuous activities for longer periods.

To do that, he made the nanobots improve the circulation of the blood in and out of the heart, enhancing the heart’s pumping efficiency.

He also wanted the nanobots to reinforce the blood vessels in his heart to make it stronger. A stronger heart means pumping out a greater volume of blood.

Next was the brain, which Ryder considers the most crucial organ of the body.

It dictates what the body will do and serves as the body’s control center.

First, he wanted to enhance the neural connections within the brain for faster transmission of information.

This will be most useful for memory and learning. It doesn’t necessarily mean it will raise Ryder’s IQ, it just means he will be faster when it comes to thinking and processing.

Another benefit is requiring less sleep due to the brain’s improved ability to perform waste cleanup in the brain.

This was what Ryder wanted the most, since now there was more time in a day for him to use. Time he could use to gain even more knowledge and power.

Thrilled at that thought, he quickly commanded Epoch to give these tasks to the nanobots.

To be safe, he even went to Brigitte’s chamber in case he ran out of mana.

However, before an hour could even pass, Ryder laid unconscious on the ground.