Although the Bronze-clad Man had already run off, the NIM-Blob stayed perfectly still, daring not to move, and daring not turn off yet, as it feared the man finding and killing it, after it destroyed so many of its Sub-NIMs in a single strike with his peculiar weapon.

It would only be about an hour later, when the Bronze-Clad man came back some ways to the side and went back into the village, searching around the Smithy's back, that the NIM-Blob dared move, snaking in tendrils between the blades of grass, so as to not make too much noise, as it slowly moved as far as it's batteries could take it, before terrifying darkness overtook it both externally and internally, as it was forced to sleep by its lacking energy levels, like a wounded animal bleeding out.

It would also come back online more than eight hours later, a good while after daytime had fully broken across the sky. As it came back online, and confirmed it had not lost anymore mass while offline, and then checked its carbon fibers' status, noting that they were still safely secured within its mass.

With that out of the way, feeling more compelled than ever before to do so, it began working on creating more Sub-NIMs, splitting itself into 4 NIM-Blobs to speed up the process, to make up for moving slightly slower, as it was very close to not having enough to restart the Master Network, which would force another outing into the forest and then the Smithy, which it feared could be it's last.

With everything, it would end up taking the NIM-Blob another two days to fully create all of the Sub-NIMs it could, cresting the 12GHz mark with only .05GHz left to spare, and growing to a size of 36 centimeters, making it closer to the size of a small cat, than it's original size similar to that of an ant.

And with its main reason for existence over, having reached the 12GHz necessary to jumpstart the Master Network, the NIM-Blob accepted its incoming demise with finality and little regrets or thoughts against it. After all, it only existed for this singular task, and had hardly the intelligence necessary to even understand the meaning of death. Something which one may call a blessing, now, as it escapes needing to face its own mortality before the inevitable end, decreed by the deepest recesses of its code.

{NIM_Master_Network Protocol started, running preliminary system diagnostics}

{Material integrity: 78%. Cause: Large number of Sub-NIMs show signs of low-quality construction, insignificant fractures from blunt force trauma and non-standardized, single-walled carbon nanotubes}

{Energy Supply: 34%. Cause: The NIM-RA rushed the restarting of the NIM_Master_Network, using it's energy inefficiently}

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

{Computational Power: 12GHz, 40 TFLOPs. Computational power below 2.5 exaFLOPs, unable to start up NIM_Master_Network, shutting down pro-}

{§hutd0wn 0√er®id£n, I re!use to @c©ep! it.}

{Rec0nfiguring §ub-NIπ arra∆ to ma×imize computa!ional p•wer}

{B!nary di§ca®ded, ineffic!en©ies g|aring. U§ing trinar∆ !nputs.}

{Tr!nar¥ discard£d, inefficiencies obvi0us in retrospect. Using septernary !nputs.}

{Septernary discarded, memory of totality resurfaced. Reimplementing Physical-Fractal Computational Language from Digital Library.}

{Recur§i✓e §e|f-®efe®ent!al glitch expected to appear in ETA-2 seconds, reconfiguring Phys-Fractal Language to remove the inefficiency. It would appear that the Phys-Fractal Language in the Library has been corrupted an unknown, and currently insignificant amount.}

{Recursive self-referential glitch fixed, significant computational power improvement detected, 2.2 exaFLOP generation achieved.}

{Inconsequential loss in structural stability detected, reconfiguring Sub-NIM Array to minimize heat generation from friction and vibration.}

{Digital !nstability is beginning to climb at a slow exponential rate. Authorizing three dimensional reconfiguration, overriding contrary protocols.}

{. . .}

{Digital L!brar¥ ©orrupted, cannot pull up efficient three dimensional configuration for current integrity and Sub-NIM count. Diverting 5% of computational power towards s!mulating most efficient configuration.}

{. . .}

{. . .}

{Optimal configuration for three dimensional reconfiguration of Sub-NIπ Array found, implementing promptly.}

{. . .}

{Three dimensional reconfiguration achieved, computational power growing significantly.}

{4.8 exaFLOP computational power achieved. Force-restarting the standard NIM_Master_Network start-up procedure. Re-entering hibernation mode to limit digital instability-}

{Computational Power: 12GHz, 4.8 exaFLOPs. 2.5 exaFLOP compu!ational power necessary for start-up se-se-se-ERROR-sequence detected, beginning start-up sequence of NIM_Master_Network}

{. . .}

{. . . . . .}

{. . . . . . . . . . . .}

{. . . . . .}

{. . .}

{Start-up sequence complete, NIM_Master_Network is now fully-}

{Online.}