I asked Emir what were we going to do next but he shook his head and told me that it was already night and I should rest to acclimate to my new body. Then he went out of the room and I was left alone with my thoughts. I decided to enter my domain core and chose the next quirk for the two skills that fully levelled up.

When I entered my domain core I didn't find any changes. I went to the (Syncronic Mind) room and found that the sack-like growth was now the size of my head. I opened the status and chose to stage up this Skill.

[Choose one of the following quirks--

-Fortitude

-Instinct

-Memory

-Efficiency

-Coordination]

Hmm. Efficiency and Instinct were still there from the previous selection but I dismissed them, as in tier-0 they won't give me very much in the way of improvement and I would much like a tech-based aspect for Efficiency. The same goes for Memory as it is natural for someone to forget something. That left Fortitude and Coordination. I was guessing that my mental breakdowns gave me the Fortitude and my dealings with the nanites gave me the Coordination. As I was going to need to deal with the nanites from now on for everything, every bit of improvement helps. I chose the Coordination quirk.

After choosing the quirk I saw a small porous coral-like structure grow from the ground beside the main brain. On top of it grew an antenna-type thing that started pulsating. The golden crystal also started pulsing in the same rhythm as the bone structure. I suddenly felt something happening to my body and quickly got out of the domain core.

When I got out I felt an itchy sensation on the top of my core. It felt like something was growing there. As I didn't have any eyes there I sent some nanites there to see what was going on there. When the nanites got there the itching started to lessen slowly and it felt like there was a small bump there but couldn't get a good feel for it. Then thought if I could do something with magic.

I channelled a string of mana out of my core and found that I could channel through the nanites easier just like my old body. I made the nanites hold the legs up with the tips touching each other and found that they were less clumsy than before, it was minor but it was there. When I started to channel through them I remembered that couldn't move more than one string of mana and returned the nanites to their leg duty.

I made an orb of mana on top of my core and imbued it with runes of Mind, Model and Form, with the intent of showing me a 3d model of myself. I activated my spell and felt a pulse of mana go out from it. Then the orb dissipated and I felt a picture form in my head. My core looked just like the one I had seen during the race selection but it also had some tiny gems around the body and the small bump on my head was a small crystal. And not to forget the nanites that also got captured in the model.

It seems that the crystal grew because I added a new quirk to the Skill and my monster core added a part to my body to represent it. Suddenly the itching stopped and I felt something click in place in my mind. I felt that I could control the nanites more intuitively now. I guess this is what Emir said about getting more power from my Skills and Abilities. I again dove back into the Domain core and went to the (Sensory Amalgam) Skill to choose the next quirk.

[Choose one of the following quirks--

-Amount

-Precision

-Mana

-Natura

-Magic]

I almost chose Precision until I thought about how my new trait links the Skills to my body. Then after some thought I chose Magic. After choosing the quirk I saw that the gems that the sensory construct had gained previously started to glow and twinkle with their light. I also saw that the yellowish liquid that it was producing before had some purple stripes mixed in it.

When I opened my eyes in reality I noticed that I could see the affinities of different energies better and that the gems on my body started to glow a bit purple. After the glow stabilized the clarity of my energy sense got better.

After some looking around the room with my new sense of magic I found that the light crystal on the ceiling was not enchanted but glowing on its own by absorbing ambient mana and natura, then attuning them to the light affinity. That was how a single crystal gave the whole room perfect lighting. Then I tried to look at the enchantment that regulated its power level but dozed off somewhere during that.

I jolted awake in perfect clarity when I felt something rock me. I opened my eyes to Noctaru pecking my new spider legs slightly and watched as the moved nanites rushed back into their place. When I opened my eyes he quickly turned to me and said out loud, "Summoner! You hatched! Now look at what I learned!" After saying that he went into concentration. I saw him cover his plumage in and then push the mana into the features. The stars on his body then started to float out of his feathers slowly and brighten, illuminating some of the room as the light crystal was still in night mode. Then suddenly the stars reversed and started flying back to him, entering his feathers once again. He then looked at me like he wanted to be praised, puffing his chest in pride. I chuckled inwardly and told him through our connection that he did great.

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He beamed and started to do a happy dance by hopping about on the table. I then remembered that I had not made the inspection type Ability yet. I try to think about how I could go about building it. After some minutes I landed on the form of a computer-like device which would go through the senses and point out the points I should focus on. It would have a passive and active mode, in the active mode it would focus on just the thing I am focusing on and not my surroundings. I nodded my core at the design and found that the room was already well-lit when I came to from my thoughts.

I saw that Noctaru was off to the side of the room, preening his feathers. I noticed that with my current form, I could easily latch onto him with the nanite tendrils and ride him. I called him to me through our mental link. When he heard my voice he looked at me and landed a bit to my side. I explained to him that would try to get on top of him and not freak out. He seemed excited and curious about how I would do that but held still. I scuttled over to him and commanded the nanites to get me on top of him.

The nanites broke off from the leg shapes and slithered across his legs while dragging me along. The nanites had a bit of a problem taking me on top of Noctaru but seeing them struggle he sat down which made taking me on top of him a lot easier. When I was on his back I told the nanites to make a harness to hold me on his back firmly.

When I got secured on his back I told Noctaru to fly to Emir. He cawed happily and flew off. When he first took off he wobbled a bit from the new weight on his back but stabilized after a bit. When we neared the door it opened automatically. We flew out of the room into a hallway. Then down a flight of spiralling stairs into the same living room where we were having dinner that night.

Emir was in the kitchen making breakfast. Noticing Noctaru coming down he turned to Noctaru and said, "An ingenious way to get around your mobile issue for now. But you will need a humanoid body if you want to go to most of the towns as most people don't like monsters not bonded to someone, though mostly the adventures get ansty and might attack you. For today we will go to meet the Forest Guardian who looked over you for a chat after breakfast. For you, I have a batch of the materials you need to make more, but I couldn't procure more as tier-0 ingredients are hard to come by as most don't keep those in stock." Saying that he waved his hand and a bunch of things materialized on the table.

From just a glance it looked like I could make around 10 cups of nanites from the ingredients. I quickly told Noctaru to land near the ingredients and hopped off or more like slithered off his back and onto the table. The nanites took the shape of the spider legs again and scuttled up to the ingredients. Then I told the nanites to only eat enough for one batch at a time and started producing nanites. My body started to shimmer and a small stream of scarlet nanites poured out. They also joined the previous nanites in their feast.

After converting all of it into nanites I had a total of about 3.5 liters of nanites. I had more than I expected as the ingredients Emir gave me made 12 batches and I accidentally used the mangled corpse of the baby spider and found that it had a pseudo core by using its full corpse I made about half a cup. I told Emir that I could use tier-1 materials as a substitute and he sighed in relief at that.

After Emir and Noctaru had eaten their breakfast I told Emir that I wanted to make my first Ability before going and he nodded at that. As I explained what I thought I could add to my Ability he smiled and told me, "One thing you should know about is the 'Law of Guilded Chains'. This dictates that if something has a more focused use or is more restricted then it will have more power, the inverse is also true. It means that if you want your Ability to have both a passive and active mode it will lose effectiveness. You thought in the right direction that focusing on how much the Ability processes in the active mode will give you back the effectiveness. But you should add a part where you can give it some of your maximum mana capacity or mana regeneration to boost the Ability." I nodded at his explanation and entered my core to create the Ability.

I opened my eyes to see that I was right next to (Sensory Amalgam) Skill. I went under it, into the room of the metal labyrinth below. I imagined the shape of a server rack with crystals and fleshy bits. As it was materializing I gave it the concepts and intentions of the parameters that I set for the Abilities.

When all of the energy fully condensed and the structure materialized, I saw a 3-foot cubic metal structure covered in runes, brain matter and crystals. I felt it asking for a source of information that it could connect to. After thinking I connected it to the Nexus Skill. I saw some of the crystals on it pulse as a root of the (Domain Nexus) plugs into it. Then the crystals started to turn into a variety of colours. And finally, I got the system message.

[Congratulations!! You have created the Ability {Perseption Processor}].

When I returned to the real world I noticed that something was blocking me from seeing Emir or his possessions' energy signature. I guess the Ability was already doing its work as it already pointed out something that I had missed. I looked around for something that I might have missed.

Seeing me looking around Emir chuckled and said, "We should go now." I nodded and went to the edge of the table, ready to jump down. But as I came close to the edge I saw a big disk float up to me. I hesitantly put two of my legs on it and pushed down. When it didn't buckle I gingerly went on top of it. Then I saw a rune in the centre of it that had 'Control Rune' written in small letters that I might have missed. I move some nanites to create a tendril to it. Through the tendril, I used a string of mana to connect to it.

It was easy to control as I just needed to tell it where to go and it would move accordingly. After seeing me move around on it Noctaru also landed on it. Then I followed Emir as he went out the front door. Emir led me to the pond where I had came through the portal on the lotus. I saw a portal was active on it and Emir told me to go through it. When I went through it I was hit by a wave of nausea.