The bolt of fire sailed past me. I get up from my position and start to back away while keeping Emir in my field of vision. I see some mana start to concentrate on his hand and ready myself for another projectile. This time it was a ray of light that was fired at me.

I dropped on my face and rolled away to the side. I get up to see that a line of soot covered the path of my roll. I try to summon an orb of mana in my hand but I fail as my concentration breaks from having to dodge another firebolt.

Then I remembered that my body had a new autopilot mode. I try to give my body the command to dodge the attacks and feel the body start to move on its own. I wait a bit to see if my body can dodge on its own and find it doing a good job at it. I start to concentrate again to summon an orb of mana in my hand and I pump about 75% more mana into it. It feels like it will become unstable if I give it more mana. So I concentrate on the runes I will give it. I finally decided on Adaptive, Assimilation and Shield for the runes and started to chant, "Come forth, Aegis Core".

As I finished the incantation the spell activated. The orb of mana became a floating misty wisp. I suddenly realized that when I started chanting I stopped the autopilot of the body and was standing still. I saw a force bolt coming right at my face. Suddenly the wisp goes into the projectile path and blocks it with its body.

The wisp exploded into the mist but quickly collected itself back, this time it was smaller than before. It came back to me and created a 1-foot square pane of force between me and Emir. I saw his smile wider. Then he fired a beam of light that went through the pane of force as if it wasn't even there. Before the beam hit me the wisp moved into its path. When the beam hit the wisp, the light was absorbed into it.

Suddenly the pane of force took on an iridescent sheen and the beam of light was reflected by it. The light beam struck the pane and got reflected to the side, away from me. Then he sends a firebolt at me, which just splashes on the shield. Seeing his attack ineffective he launches a barrage of different kinds of projectiles. They kept hitting the shield as the wisp intercepted them, this was taking a lot of mana as it didn't have a true physicality to block the attacks with. I looked over and saw that the fungal growth was still standing, an idea bloomed in my head and I took off toward it.

I turned my head away from Emir and vaulted over the fence to reach the fungal wall. The projectiles kept coming but the wisp managed to shield me through it. It was now the size of an eyeball, so I had to hurry. After what felt like minutes I reached the wall and cowerd behind it as I pushed the wisp into it.

Just as I had feared the pane of force and light winked out of existence. But before the next barrage came the wall shifted and grew bigger but also thinned out. It also has an iridescent lustre to its form. Then I heard Emir laughing.

Suddenly I beam of black light, no utter absence of light hit the wall and cut a hole right through it to the right side of me, clipping my elbow slightly. I didn't even feel my elbow getting cut, one second it was there, the next not. Then the wall just started to crumble into nothing. The beam shut off just after a second. I stumbled trying to get away from it and landed on my butt.

The pain quickly followed suit. I quickly relinquished the body to autopilot, to dull my sense of pain. And it surprisingly worked. I quickly summoned a big glob of mana and imbued it with runes of Healing, Complete and Form. Then I quickly used elementalism to manipulate my blood into the rune of Sacrifice. I chanted, "I sacrifice my Blood to mend my Self."

I saw the blood break into the motes of Natura and cover the injury. Then the spell fully activated and I felt a burning agony as the spell the surrounding flesh, bone and other physical or spiritual parts to mend the part that makes my form incomplete. Suddenly in the middle of the agony, I felt everything that was Me just squished into a single point, the pain rose to a level that should not even be possible, and I just fainted after that.

*************

I wake to a mind filled with fog, clouding everything with an afterimage of the agony I had gone through. Suddenly the fog cleared and I got a perfect recollection of the previous events. I opened my eyes or tried to, at least, but I couldn't feel my eyes. I couldn't even feel my body! No limbs, no eyes, no ears, no skin, no ..., no....no...no.......

Suddenly a voice cut through to my mind, "Summoner! You are awake! You were asleep for two days! Did you know Longears had a basket of shiny nuts!? They were delicious! They even made my stars shinier!............ Oh! And when will you hatch?" Noctaru kept blabbering about what he had done during the two days I was 'asleep', but his talking did calm me down a little. But when he said the last part I went through a range of emotions from confusion to anger to fear and lastly ended at confusion.

I focused back on my connection with Noctaru and told him to come back with Emir. He should be able to communicate with me via a telepathic link. I got the impression of acknowledgment through our link and put it aside. I suddenly felt fear creeping back in, so I quickly turned my emotions off. Then I opened my status to see what was going on but got bombarded with a bunch of error messages. I quickly dismissed them and tried opening my main status, but I got notified that I had to choose something about Race Ascension from a previous message. I just mentally sighed and opened my System log.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

[Ritual of Ascension completed successfully.....

Error.... Soul Matrix maturity (Tier 0)

Error.... Excessive Energy found

Error.... Monster Core Not Found

Searching for the credential value of Entity

System support rating (3.7)

Requesting Administrative Overview.....

Admin 002 has answered

Admin 002 reviewing Entity status

Admin suggestions given—

-Create Monster Core (tier 0)

-Awaken Bloodline

-Optimize / Awaken Traits

-Initiate Racial Change

Implementing Suggestions.......

Creating Trait {Monster Core}.....

Found compatible Trait {Core of Magic}...

Initiating Upgrade...... Completed

Searching for Dormant Bloodline....

Found #@£ Bloodline...

Awakening Bloodline....

Seal found.... Requesting Overview.....

Suggestion received— Prime Bloodline for Awakening on the breaking of Seal

Implementing Suggestion... Completed

Optimizing Traits......

Fusion of Compatible Traits—

Traits (Core of Magic), (Core of Nature) and (Core of Technology) are fusing into Trait (Central Core)

Admin suggestion— Initiate Racial Change first

Implementing Suggestion.........

Host not responding.........

Host consciousness detected... Giving Racial Change selection......]

Then the log turned off and I got transported to a white space, not unlike the first I had entered when coming to this world. In front of me were three pedestals that were holding spherical things. I then felt that my point of view was lower than usual or these pedestals were 6 feet tall. I tried to look at myself, finding that I couldn't move my head up or down, just left or right.

Suddenly a square mirror appeared before me, and I saw a spherical veiny pulsating thing with wires, crystalline latices and wooden or fungal growths on it. But despite having so many things on it, it didn't look ugly. Then it hit me that the veiny thing was me. I was looking at myself in the mirror. It seems like I got compressed into the nanite core.

It was a good thing that I had turned my emotions off or I would most like be freaking out. I look away from the mirror and take full stock of what choices I have in my Race selection. It seems I was wrong and I have five choices.

I focus on one of them. I see that it's a seed covered in crystalline structures which shimmer in an iridescent glow. Then a system message pops up

[Dryad seedling (Prism tree)]

[A seedling dryad linked to a prismatic crystal tree seed.]

I tried to ask more questions about what would change but I didn't get any answers. So I looked at the next one, which was also a seed. But instead of crystal, this one was covered in fleshy veins.

[Dryad seedling (Flesh Tree)]

[A seedling dryad linked to a flesh tree seed]

I then noticed that a line of these seeds was behind the first two. It seemed like there weren't just five options, but five categories of options that I got to choose from. I turned away from dryad seeds as I didn't want to be stuck in one place my whole life when I had a whole new world to explore.

The first of the next category was a fully crystalline orb that was changing colours rapidly.

[Magic Elemental]

[Magic given a physical manifestation]

Behind it were a lot of different coloured crystal orbs which were likely different elemental cores. I kept this one in mind and looked at the first of the next category, which was a crystal clear orb covered in a thin layer of some kind of jell.

[Clear Slime]

[A colourless, slime that can imprint on any affinity and evolve into a multitude of creatures]

Behind it were a bunch of cores of different colours. I thought about being a slime, and I liked it more than being an elemental. But I left it for now and went to the second to last option. It was a ball of wires and crystal chits.

[Basic Mechanite Core]

[Basic core of a mechanite foundry which produces and controls mechanical nanites]

Behind it were a multitude of mechanical or bio-mechanical automaton-type cores. I think a bit about the bio-mechanical automatons but find that the slime has more potential. I look at the last option and find that it is a lot like what I am but with the addition of small eyes, mouths and other small extremities.

[Experimental Chimera Core]

[Blessed by the God of Monsters, this race evolution is an experimental race created as a way to create a truly masterful monstrosity.]

There were no variants behind it as it didn't need any. It was just perfect as if created specifically for me. I reached out and tried to hold it before realizing that I didn't have any hands. But I got a prompt instead.

[Do you want to change your race to (Experimental Chimera Core)?] Y/N?

I contemplated the choice for a while, but in the end chose yes. I saw the pedestals with the race choices vanish into the white room and a prompt came up.

[Congratulations! Your core has changed from (Chimera) to (Chimera Core)]

[You have gained the following from class change—

-Trait {Deconstructive Absorbtion}

-Trait {Assimilation}

-Trait {Reconstruction}]

[You have gained the Achievement {Perfect Form}! From successfully doing an Ascension Ritual that reconstructed your form to match your Self. This Achievement has been upgraded due to gaining this Achievement in tier 0]

I was a bit surprised at that but I opened my main status.

[Personal status:

Name: Anavrit Toho

Health: Optimal

Mana: Full

Race: Chimera Core

-Evo Human

-Human????

-Biomechanical nanite core (Control/ Forge)

Traits:

-Chimeric Form

-Modulator

-Adaptive

-Malleable

-Central Core

-Deconstructive Absorbtion

-Assimilation

-Reconstruction

Affinities:

-Nature/ Technology (80%)

-Illusion/ Knowledge (66%)

-Arcane (54%)

-Mental (12%)

Achievements:

-Bridge between (Epic)

-Abyss blinked first (Epic)

-Otherworlder (Unique)

-Marked (Unique)

-Father of Prismatic Aether (Unique)

-Figment made Real (Unique)

-Grand Ritualist (Epic)

-Father of Monstrosity (Unique)

-Name Giver (Very Rare)

-Family-er (Rare)

-Soul! Where did you get that! (Epic)

-Catalyst of Confluence (Rare)

-Perfect Form (Unique)

Titles:

-Phantom Thief (Legendary)

Cores:

-Main (Tier 0)

(S)-{Domain Nexus} LV 5 > 8

(S)-{Wellspring of Knowledge} LV 4 > 5

(S)-{Synchronic Mind} LV 8 > 10

(S)-{Transmorphic Bioforge} LV 11

(S)-{Sensory Amalgam} LV 6 > 10]