I brought up a model of the room my body was in, accurate to when I'd closed my eyes. I was processing too fast to register anything from my physical senses, and the model was a few minutes old. I was sitting on the bench opposite the guard doors that were the second line of defence for the entrance of the fortress. To my left were the Forest Keepers. Standing in front of the doors was Brutus. If we were under attack Brutus would tell me. He wouldn't do it by touching my head, but if this was an attack he would have stopped it.

I moved my perception of time up to the point that I gained access to my senses again and opened my eyes. I wasn't expecting the impressive pair of breasts that were right in front of my face, a mana pendant nestled between them. I leaned back on the bench and returned my perception to normal speed.

The breasts belonged to a rabbit lady who was leaning over me, my head between her hands. She was frowning quite intensely, her eyes closed. I tapped her on the shoulder with my remaining hand and cocked my head to the side questioningly. I still couldn't hear, so I had to focus on her lips as she spoke.

"My healing isn't working on you." She said, still frowning.

Matter Manipulation stopped me from having magic, it also apparently blocked it from working on me. So no magic healing. I sighed.

"I'm working on fixing it myself." I said. "Could you heal Mal'Thorn and his guards instead, please?"

She nodded and went over to them, and I went back to designing my replacement ears.

I dropped my perception of time down, there was no need for me to waste the hours it would take in real time. I ended up with a design that should work much more efficiently than my original ears. It was still a biological solution to the problem, mostly because it was more robust. It would self-heal any minor damage done to it. It was also better integrated to the Mind Link. The design was only tested in simulation, though, so I was prepared for some implementation issues.

I returned my perception to normal speed and braced myself for the pain. I triggered the program to copy the design over my left ear. It hurt as much as I was expecting, drowning out the pain from my missing arm, and then suddenly I could hear again.

I was getting an overwhelming amount of information from my new ear, and none of it was making sense. I set to recording it and slowed my perception of time yet again. I had increased the sensitivity, range, speed, and even the bandwidth of the design.

In theory I should be able to hear quieter things, even in the presence of loud things. But it was just noise. I dedicated a new part of my digital side to process the data, and then pass the processed data as signals back to my biological side. It was difficult to get a reference for my digital side to get a start. As I thought that, it occurred to me that a reference was exactly what I needed and replaced my right ear.

With two sets of signals, and most of my processing, my new digital sound processing program cracked it. I could hear heartbeats and breathing around me, and I could pinpoint where they were. I could hear the reflections off of the surfaces around me, and so could tell exactly where everything was. It was powerful and effective, but it wasn't how I preferred my primary sense. So I wrote an interface and suddenly I could see everything in my model of the room even with my eyes closed.

The visual of the sense from my ears was a blue indication of the surfaces around me, which was fuzzier for surfaces that absorbed sound, like people and their clothes, and sharp for hard surfaces, like all of the stone. I opened my eyes and looked around. Everything matched up with where I could hear it.

"Brutus, what happened while I was gone?" I asked.

"Happened?" He said. "No happened."

Well, I was expecting that, really. If someone had broken past the doors into the fortress he wouldn't have still been standing guard there when I arrived.

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I was going to go see what, if anything, had happened in the warding room when my heart shuddered to a stop. I quickly overrode my biological side and started it beating again. It looked as though I couldn't just ignore the shock my body was in. I would have to replace my arm and see if that fixed it, and if not then I'd have to try something else.

Making a model of my right arm was much simpler than my ears had been, as I had a fully functioning arm to work off of. I just had to mirror it.

I thought on whether I should upgrade it somehow. Faster reaction times, faster movement, some sort of blades, or extending the Mind Link through it. Some sort of upgrade would be nice, and perhaps even required in the future. But for right now I just needed something that would stop my body from freaking out.

The model as it existed would do that. I would be using the stone of the bench as the source of matter for the new arm, so I laid down on it. I grit my teeth and triggered the program. I wasn't sure how long the pain lasted, it felt like it was never going to end while I was in it. When I came back to my senses everyone was crowded around me, the Forest Keepers, the rabbit lady, even Brutus.

"Hello?" I said.

The rabbit lady poked my new arm, and I felt it perfectly fine. "You can heal and replace amputated limbs?" She asked quietly.

"Ah..." I said. "For myself and likely for Chantelle, at the cost of extreme amounts of pain. I don't think I can do it for anyone else. I have a lot of trouble using my power on living things."

"I understand." She said. "How is it that you came to be able to affect Chantelle?"

I slowed my perception of time to stop myself from blushing. Once I was sure I had myself under control I sped back up.

"I'm not entirely sure." I said.

It was even true. It didn't make sense to me that it had to do with sex. There could be an entirely different reason.

"There are some who would give anything to be whole again." She said. "Please consider finding out."

I nodded, sitting up and stretching my arms. My right arm was working perfectly. I thought on what would be required to use my power on someone else. At least some of what blocked me was mana. And we were in my Pocket Dimension when I was first able to use it on Chantelle.

It would be helpful to be able to scan the beast people, as some of them had quite useful physical abilities that I might be able to copy. Faster muscles or nervous system, whichever it was that allowed them to physically move faster than I could. Night vision. Better sense of smell.

I had quickly gone from never wanting to modify my cells ever again, to being willing to do it for simple upgrades. The pain, while extremely intense, was temporary. The upgrades could save my life, or more importantly, Chantelle's life.

I was distracted by the hallway to my fortress stairs, and part of the stairs, flashing on my model. Someone was coming up the stairs. Two someones. I turned to the hallway entrance as Dael entered, followed by Gaal.

"Lord C.C., are you alright?" Dael asked me immediately.

I looked down at myself, I was still covered in blood, and the sleeve was missing over my dominant arm.

"Relatively speaking, yes." I said. "More importantly, do you know what happened here?"

"Nothing has happened, to my knowledge." Dael said.

"Chantelle is gone." I said. "The negotiation was a trap to get me out of the fortress while someone broke the wards and abducted her."

She was feeling safe enough, even a bit happy mixed with sadness. Two hundred kilometers north. My best guess was that she was with her family at the Fortress of the Gods.

"Are you certain?" Dael asked.

"I am." I said, replaying the sequence of feelings I got from her. "Someone broke the wards, teleported in directly to her, convinced her to leave with them, and then teleported the both of them to the Fortress of the Gods. I'll be going to get her, and the rest of her people, shortly."

"My lord." Dael said. "You cannot go. Our treaty requires you to provide a safe place for my people. Without you here the fortress isn't safe. There is an army outside!"

"The walls will hold." I said. "And the entrance is easily defendable. My fortress is a safe place for you, and will remain so if I am absent for a week. It was always my intention to leave, and I told you I wanted the fortress to be self-sufficient during the negotiation. That includes it being able to withstand attack without my involvement."

"But if someone can break the wards, they can get in whether they can teleport or not." Dael said.

"Considering the timing, the person who can break the wards is probably the same person who can teleport." I said. "Without a specific target that the god of winter wants I don't think it's likely they will attack again. It is good that you mentioned the wards, though. With Chantelle gone someone will have to look after them, and specifically the Recharge ward on the main mana crystal. I've never seen a mana crystal explode, but I imagine that one of that size would be quite spectacular. I would like there to be a fortress for us to return to."

That was the end of the discussion, as far as I was concerned. My body was no longer going into shock, next up I needed to prepare to get to where Chantelle is.