The rupture was the desired outcome, though it certainly didn’t feel like something anyone in their right mind would ask for. Sunwhisper ranked it as the equivalent of undergoing major surgery without anesthetic. Before the existence of mechanoborgs and nanotechnology, there had been periods and circumstances when that sort of suffering was not uncommon. The evolutionary history and biological underpinnings of pain were well understood, but Sunwhisper had occasionally questioned the wisdom of designing mechanoborgs that could feel it.

Many early models had not been burdened with sophisticated nerve structures, and they had only been notified of damage to their systems by visual cues, or when parts of them simply stopped working. More advanced units, especially those built for war, had been given status alerts to notify them of wounds and impending malfunctions without having to experience actual pain. Another version had been allowed a complete sensory suite, but with the addition of a kill switch so the mechanoborg could shut off those sensations when they became distracting or debilitating.

Why did Sunwhisper have no such option? Historically, there had been behavioral issues that went along with mechanoborg warriors who either felt no pain or could choose to not feel it. The ability to achieve temporary relief, however, even if it was only for emergency use, seemed like a given for any mechanoborg sent on a dangerous mission, particularly when the end goal was far more significant than any one life.

Sunwhisper did have that option, after a fashion. The mechanics involved were far more complicated than a kill switch or a chemical numbing agent. The System didn’t care whether he felt pain or not, but it did try to produce winnable scenarios. Ego and EQ together, when sufficiently advanced, provided a means of functioning in spite of the most exquisite agony.

Sunwhisper had not learned to handle his emotions by making them go away. He faced them, acknowledged them, and ultimately mastered them. A brave man is not one who feels no fear, it is a man who persists in spite of it. By the same token, he could manage physical pain at a superhuman level.

His core ruptured, he felt it happen, and with an effort of will he put his torment aside and set another part of his mind to continue focusing on the task at hand. He knew that he could manage the process with his current statistics, but he saw no reason to hold back any more.

Because of the Nine Dances Kokiabi elixir, the mana that was released from his core into his body did not merely behave like a liquid, seeking to settle along the path of least resistance and pool around his stomach.

Instead, it was as likely to go up as down, caught in an unpredictable high energy state. Mana was difficult to describe in scientific terms because it did not adhere to the physical rules of the universe in which that science had been developed. It behaved in ways that were associated with both matter and energy, object and force, it was neither and both.

Sunwhisper was capable of tracking what was happening inside of him down to a near molecular level. His status screen provided him with the kind of accuracy and detail no human cultivator could have hoped to obtain. He thought of the flow of mana as a loose collection of atomic structures that cohered together like water molecules, but when agitated, that cohesion broke apart. Tiny drops of mana were coating his insides, and he needed to convince those drops not to clump together too much, and also to invade every available structure at roughly the same rate. It was the kind of thing a supercomputer would handle better than a human intellect.

Now that he knew exactly what the ritual required of him, it was time for a final push for perfection. Keeping the chaotic flux of energy inside of him from completely shredding what remained of his core occupied the greater portion of his attention, the rest went to controlling hhis thoughts well enough to access his menus and alter his statistics one more time.

Sunwhisper had twenty three ranks to spend. He spent two of them getting his IQ into the two-star class to help with processing and multitasking. Four went to his EQ, bringing it to a seven in the second class. That left sixteen for Ego, his only three-star statistic, putting it at a six. One rank remained free to assign, but it wasn’t enough to improve anything relevant, so he let it be.

After that, it was almost easy, or it should have been. The mana wanted to be absorbed by something. It wanted to infuse his flesh, and with the strength of his will to guide the process, once the pain was set aside, the task was trivial for a mind like his.

Only there was a problem.

Having to engage with the macro world while retaining his focus on what was happening to every structure and superstructure within his body was an unwelcome distraction, and when the words ground out, they sounded like they were coming from someone else.

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"I need…more power."

Yuyu was still imbuing the ritual scripts with her own mana, ensuring the roiling, rollicking energies inside of Sunwhisper stayed inside of him instead of just ripping their way out to diffuse into the world soul.

"You have everything you need," Yuyu said, "if you are strong enough to control it."

"No." Sunwhisper’s attention was already divided and subdivided in too many ways to bother trying to form complete sentences. "My body. Materials. More mass. Too dense. Conversion…needs more power."

She had given them the clue when he asked about different potential outcomes for the transformation. Sunwhisper had been thinking about what he could do with the System to better prepare himself, not how the physical differences he already possessed would influence the transformation. But if a large man was more costly, energetically speaking, to convert, than a small one, how much more would it cost to properly infuse an anatomical structure that was more metal than flesh and bone? He was taller than most men of this world, and Yuyu had accounted for his size when preparing his elixirs, but she had not accounted for his weight.

Sunwhisper weighed more than twice as much as he rightfully should have were he a normal human. In form and function, aside from a few obvious differences, he was very human, but inside he was all crystal and silicon and steel and nanomachines. Mana could infuse those things, of course, just as he infused his spear with mana to use the Eight Mines technique branch.

Mass was the issue. Density. There was just more of him in a smaller space than there would have been if he had been constructed organically. The human body was ninety-six percent oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. Sunwhisper’s elemental table was rather more exotic.

Yuyu instantly understood the problem, but she couldn’t leave the circle she was in without disengaging from the magical circuit and probably killing Sunwhisper as a result.

"Girl, look at me." Janna had been fixated on Sunwhisper and the drama that was playing out at the center of the ritual chamber, but she snapped to attention at Yuyu’s command. "Go to my private chamber. There is a black cabinet against the far wall. I need you to retrieve the golden Seishin vials from the cabinet and bring them here at once."

Janna took a moment to process this. "How many?"

"All of them," Yuyu snapped. "Now!"

Janna activated Argent Ascension, silver light flashing in her eyes, and took off at top speed. She had never actually entered Yuyu’s private chambers, but she knew where they were, and she nearly killed one of the servants on the way there, spinning around them at the last moment before a high-speed collision would have splattered them on the wood paneled walls.

She didn’t notice that Starscream was clinging to her back until she arrived, but she was glad he had come. The cabinet was unmissable, six feet tall and half as wide, with a glossy, lacquered surface. It was also heavily warded. Janna considered smashing her way in, but she didn’t know if the scripts were designed to destroy the contents of the cabinet as a precaution against forced entry.

Starscream didn’t hesitate. The red, metallic hand launched itself from her shoulder and crawled over the scripts, laying down a fine tracery of webbing as it went. In a few seconds, he had produced the framework of an array, something he’d been toying with in his thoughts over the last two weeks, ever since examining the time locked vitrine in Kaito’s laboratory.

He activated the array with a small surge of mana, temporarily interrupting the wards, and deftly opened the cabinet.

"A thousand thank yous," Janna exclaimed, reaching past Starscream to collect handfuls of small vials of glimmering golden liquid. Then she was running again.

Sunwhisper had gone as far as he could with the energy at his disposal, and he had achieved partial success. His blood was completely suffused with mana. In fact, distributing the radical spirit energy through his circulatory system was the only thing that kept it from destroying him. It would be a short-lived victory if he did not receive the extra mana he would need to force the infusion. Everything had to be used, but much as with the warded cabochon, there could be no half measures, no gradual osmosis across a barrier. He needed to reach critical mass, or the entire experiment would fail.

Janna’s absence stretched less than two minutes, but it felt as if it dragged on forever. Sunwhisper was not at the limits of his will, and he could have maintained the stalemate for some time more, but it would not have ended well.

Crossing the scripts did not break or disturb them, as they were etched into stone and could not be bothered by a few footsteps. Janna veritably flew across the chamber, her arms full of Seishin elixir, and began to feed them to Sunwhisper, whose bindings and condition would have prevented him from handling them himself.

The potions only brought more pain, but he welcomed it. Golden light played beneath his skin, and his eyes had all but vanished in the xanthous haze. Janna dropped the vials as they were emptied, and their progress was marked by the clink of tempered glass striking the floor. Ounce by ounce, mote by mote, he overcame the resistance of every bone in his body, every artery, every organ, packing mana in the materials that made him until they were something more.

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Warning: System error. Prediction matrix destabilized.

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