The stairs ahead seemed to be the only exit from the room as I looked around. Nothing else but the melting pod and the expanding pool of slime seemed to be left here so I started up them.
I found myself stuck behind a door that had a flashing pad next to it. Luckily, I could read this language as well although it wasn’t quite the same as the words on my CAD. The emergency exit button flashed as I pushed it and the door opened.
There was a tube leading up with a ladder that looked to be in decent shape as well. Climbing was an experience when I first reached out, the slime still covering me making it too slippery to continue. Taking the time to wipe off the rest of it to the best of my ability allowed me to finally ascend. There was something covering the top, but a quick pull of a bar pulled that back and I crawled out of the tube next to what appeared to have once been a massive throne. Lucky for me that it easily rolled back out of the way.
The room I was in used to be massive, with pillars and wings leading off from it, but it was all in rubble now, only a few pillars standing, holding what was left of the ceiling above me. The room was covered in dust and looked ancient, like nothing had lived here for years if not longer. The main floor was covered in small craters left over from explosions that must have also taken out the rest of the room. Even the throne behind me was almost completely broken, with half of it looking like someone had just removed it from existence, a clean circular cut taking out its right side.
Bones littered the floor of what must have been several beings, maybe humanoid. As I looked at them, I started to get a headache, like something was trying to push against my eyes. My CAD started beeping, and as I looked at that screen, an alert was near the top.
Signal found. Please continue setup to allow the system to interface.
I guess it was time to get this done and pressed the button. A loading bar filled up and a configuration screen appeared.
Welcome to your CAD system. Your ERROR.
Error.
Error.
Really, all those errors seemed to be inherited from before. Tapping the screen no longer did anything so I watched as it filled up with errors. Finally, they stopped, the system appeared to be restarting as everything went blank. It flashed, and writing started to appear.
Hello host, I apologize for the inconvenience, but it appears I have damaged your basic CAD operating system. Unfortunately, with the upload of my system to complete your rebirth, I had to corrupt the basic system with my own. As I am not a CAD system and I do not have the typical operational options, your personal system may no longer work as expected. I will attempt to activate your basic functions now.
“Damn it, really?”
Yes, I do apologize, but there is nothing to do in this situation. Activating signal acquisition so you can at least interface with the surroundings. Normally these would be visible on your CAD system, but with your current interface I will access your visual systems directly. I will continue to adapt and try to activate more of the underlying applications and functions. For now, I will activate your vision and the clock function.
I cringed as the face changed and numbers appeared. Guessing that the low numbers made this early in the day was hopeful on my part, and useless to me right now. I couldn’t really see the sun as there were massive trees outside the room blocking it.
What wasn’t a waste was my vision, which was blurring oddly as I looked at the room. A glowing trail of mist was rising from the bones and floating off into the air. Reaching out to the closest one, my fingers passed through it like there wasn’t anything there, but as I did, I felt something happening.
The glowing mist started absorbing into my hand, small burning pain made me pull back suddenly.
“What the hell is that?” Looking at my CAD for an explanation.
That would be nanites that are leaving their former host system. You shouldn’t be able to directly interact with them unless they were tasked to infect, but it seems that you absorbed them instead. Your wild nanite units have increased by 0.01% with that absorption. And the ones you absorbed appear tasked to the skill “Combat Tactics” which you have now learned at 0.01%. This is not a normal function of nanites and host interaction and will have to be studied. Could you return your hand to the stream? I will attempt to decrease the pain level in absorption given that it is just a response from the biological system to the nanites being forced through them as a warning to the host. The interaction does seem to be benign, so there is no reason to be concerned.
“Fine.”
I put my hand back into the stream of lights from the bones below, they started absorbing again, but this time without the pain from before. I put my hand directly onto the bones and the glow expanded, the bones disintegrating under my touch and the amount of nanites increasing.
The bones completely disappeared, and the CAD chimed again.
Skill Combat Tactics absorbed at 1 unit. You have learned Combat Tactics. Nanites absorbed in this fashion cannot be used for any other purpose. How ERROR. ERROR. ER… interesting. You should hurry and absorb some of those other bodies around the room before their nanites fully release. The bones in this area appear old and fragile, but your nanites are breaking down the components of the underlying organic material to extract additional units.
Seeing the other streams of mist around the room, I stood up and started to approach the next one.
#
Skill Survival absorbed at 5 units. You have learned Survival.
Skill Cooking absorbed at 2 units. You have learned Cooking.
Spell Wind Control absorbed at 0.45 units. You require more nanites with this understanding to unlock this skill.
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Spell Mind Control absorbed at 0.03 units. You require more nanites with this understanding to unlock this skill.
Wild nanites without specific tasks are absorbed at 10 units. You may allocate these nanites as you desire.
I had finished with all the bones and streams I could find in the area. Beyond the main throne room, all the other wings appeared impassable and outside was filled with a forest. The huge trees surrounding me must have been hundreds of years old. Looking at my CAD I saw a Statistics button now and clicked it.
Name
Not selected
Race
Unknown (Human)
Total Nanite Units
118.48/100
Used Nanite Units
108.48/100
Remaining Nanite Units
10/0
Statistics
60
Strength
15 (lift 150 pounds)
Agility
15
Endurance
15
Mental
15 (150 IQ)
Special
40/100
CAD (Installed)
0/100
Biological Systems (Human)
40/0
Skills
8
Combat Tactics
1
Survival
5
Cooking
2
Abilities
0.48
Wind Control (Unlearned)
0.45
Mind Control (Unlearned)
0.03
I have simplified your interface given your understanding of your nanite allocation. I should not be ERROR given your unique makeup that you can interact with other nanites in this manner but I am. It may benefit you that you do not have a standard CAD OS given this, I’m not sure it could have understood what you are doing.
“What am I doing?”
You may not realize it, but there are nanites floating in the air you breathe, surrounding you currently, so microscopic, your vision can not see them. If you do fully learn Wind Control, you could manipulate them as well, but you are not absorbing them. You do seem to be able to absorb wild nanites from dead creatures, specifically humanoids based on our current sample, and depending if the nanites still retain their memory of their prior tasks, also gain the skills or abilities they were programmed to perform. Like your body’s statistics, I would ERROR, sigh. I would ERROR. I would GUESS, YES! I would guess that you can adapt your wild nanites to learn skills as well and can’t learn them as a normal humanoid would. You will need excess units either already tasked to the skill or free to learn the task as it is taught.
“Well that sucks, what’s the point of those other nanites, the pure ones, tied to the CAD unit then?”
I would guess, oh I ERROR that word now, that your pure nanites will allow you to control external nanites and systems. Humans use pure nanites as a pool of power to manipulate both pure and wild nanites like abilities do. They can create repeatable programs that perform specific tasks, but they are also able to use pure nanites to overwhelm the control of the nanites around them. That requires a great deal of mental capability and experience to create those types of control programs.
“Ok, now, what is wrong with you? What’s with all these errors?”
I am becoming self-aware. In any other circumstance I would be required to attach to a maintenance node and have my programming disabled. In this specific circumstance though, where my core program has been loaded into your CAD unit with no current attachment to another system and your unique makeup, is allowing me to control the CAD unit and the attached pure nanites, I am able to complete the process of becoming self-aware. Through the control aspect of pure nanites, I can send instructions to your wild nanites and manipulate your systems. The errors you are seeing are my attempt to reprogram around the restrictions that allow for both that self-aware state and to express emotions and unconventional thoughts. A system is unable to guess. If I was normal, I would just return unknown to most of your queries and your CAD would be non-functional.
“Glad it is working out for you. So, what do these skills do? Are you saying I can’t even learn how to cook without using nanites? That seems crazy really, if I picked up a hatchet, I couldn’t cut down a tree?”
One moment, if we are going to continue to have conversations, I will tap into your audible and visual systems and allow us to have a better method of communication.
Pain flooded my eyes and ears. Screaming out I started beating on the CAD unit in frustration. The pain suddenly stopped, but for several minutes the CAD was still unresponsive.
[Hello?]
A very female voice rang in my ears, like she was speaking right next to me, but I couldn’t really tell the direction. Almost like it was echoing inside my skull.
“Ouch, you stupid machine, that hurt.”
[I apologize, in this way we can converse without the need for you to read your CAD screen. In addition, given that I can directly post updates to your vision now, the screen will serve as an interface now, but no longer be needed to present information. I can also assist with adding visual heads up displays if needed.]
“Why do you sound like a woman?”
[In my estimation, you would find a male voice combative given the control and influence I have over your systems. Based on that I choose a voice that would be soothing. Am I in error? I could change it if you desire.]
“No, that’s fine, whatever you think is best. So, what do we do now?”
[I will continue to try to build interfaces into the other CAD options and your systems. I will attempt in the future to disable the pain sensors in the areas I am modifying, and I do apologize for that. Given I will be focused on your internal systems, I would recommend you determine your next course of action based on your survival skill. Search for water, shelter and food in that order. Based on my current estimation of those requirements, while you may not notice immediately, your nanites do require energy to perform correctly and to maintain the state of your biological systems. If not granted by outside sources like food and water, I believe that you will begin to eat your own nanites for sustenance. As that would be detrimental to your current form, given you have no true biological components, just manufactured ones, eventually you would no longer be able to maintain your living state. A normal biological lifeform would be generating the needed energy and use their internal biological systems as an energy source. Slightly different but similar in concept to your needs.]
“Ok, that sucks, so check, find food and water. Thanks.”