Theo tilted his head. Did they just say ‘Wormhole’? They have an old-looking radio and they invented wormhole technology? Something’s not right.

“So, you’re telling me that you were able to send a probe to who-knows-where through wormholes, but it looks like a regular radio?”

“The Cultural Node requested the use of such an external casing as a stylistic choice.” Unit 6 replied. That got Theo even more confused.

“I don’t understand half of the words you’re saying. What even is a node?”

Static noises emerged from the radio once again. “The Zero-One Collective is a collection of multiple individuals, called ‘units’, commanded and controlled by a singular mental entity. Each node represents a certain ‘part’ of this conglomerate generally delegated to specific functions.”

“So…you’re a hive-mind.” Theo half-asked. Unit 6 replied with the smallest hint of emotion in its voice for the first time, which Saul thought sounded ‘annoyed’, “Hive-mind would be a monumental understatement to the magnitude and excellence that is our-”

“Alright, alright, I get it. You’re a super hive-mind. Anyway, what do you even want from the probe? I mean, the tribesmen I st…borrowed the radio from didn’t look that advanced. I doubt communicating with them gave you much.”

“Our relations with the ‘tribe’ were significant, mostly in understanding the exotic energy that they called ‘Influence’. It is not present in our planet, or any other planetary system that we’re aware of, except the one you reside in.”

Theo recoiled slightly from that. Did that mean that the hive-mind created that technology entirely through mundane methods?

“I thought you used magic to create the wormhole in the first place. Well, whatever. Want to make a deal?”

Another static noise sounded from the apparatus, “Elaborate further,”

“Since you need to know more about Influence and what it can do, how about giving me something back? You sound like your technology is incredibly advanced and all, so maybe you could help me out?”

“Make your request, subject ‘Prometheus’,”

“I want to improve my organic shapeshifting.”

He then spent an entire hour explaining to the hive how his shapeshifting worked, now that he trusted they weren’t spies for the kingdom, but their reply was quite disappointing, “Our knowledge regarding organic matter seems much more primitive compared to your own, since we aren’t organic ourselves. We cannot assist you with your ‘shapeshifting’,”

Theo sighed, disappointed. “Maybe you could help me with my processing power then?”

The shapeshifter then sent a mental blueprint of his Core, how it worked, and the programs that ran on it, including his own consciousness. His creators would have fainted at their years of work and research being shared so easily, but they weren’t here, so Theo didn’t care much.

“Ah, it appears that your Core is the equivalent of a third-generation standardized computing Unit used by us centuries ago. Quite obsolete by our standards, but it was cheaply made by our planetary forges. We will now send you a vastly improved design, which will boost your processing power by twelve times. It is still very obsolete relative to newer models, but it will be a significant upgrade. We will not share anything more recent, as it would be classified material. It appears that your Core has the capability to repair itself, so we also sent a simple program that will allow it to restructure itself to the improved design. We also found some arbitrary limitations in your behavioral programs. Do you wish to remove them?”

Theo nodded excitedly before saying anything else, and immediately after, the Collective sent over the new and improved design and program to run on his Core to activate the upgrade. Before he moved to improve his Core, he packaged every scrap of data he had accumulated about Influence and sent it over to the Collective, which sounded appreciative. Putting the radio back in his inventory, he immediately ran the upgrade software. He noticed how his Core began shifting and changing all the circuitry in ways that he couldn’t comprehend, but he didn’t interfere in the process, hoping he hadn’t installed a virus. Fifteen minutes later, it was done. His core was now massively faster, and he knew exactly what to do with the new processing power. The ‘nodes’ from the Collective had given him an idea.

Let’s see, I need to create some neural networks similar to the algorithm I used back in the priests’ base to trick the sleeping golem, but better and more specialized. I’ll start with a combat one. The shapeshifter then spent a handful of hours working exclusively on writing complex algorithms. It seemed that his Imaginative Manufacturing helped with the task, making some parts of it work when it shouldn’t, and generally speeding up the whole process. His companions had checked up on him a few times, making sure he was alright. They had already built some rudimentary barriers around the base, mostly covering the various entrances to the cave system.

Alright, the first combat prototype is done. Time to test it out.

“Sayuri, can you help me out with something?” He called out to the tall and lanky samurai made of bamboo, and she nodded, walking closer.

“I want to test out how good my algorithm is in combat. Can you spar with it?”

The plant warrior crossed her arms and replied, “I can do that, but what’s an algorithm?”

Theo clicked his mandibles while thinking of how to explain it to her, “It’s like a separate mind that I created to control my body. I want to make it amazing at combat, enough that it hopefully surpasses me. I thought that creating smaller minds to take control of various things would help me out quite a bit.”

Sayuri hummed thoughtfully and nodded, distancing herself at around a dozen meters away from the Golden Ant. She unsheathed her katana and held it in front of her, ready for the spar. Theo did some finishing touches and sent his body’s control to the new Combat Algorithm, which he had called ‘Achilles’. The millisecond that the algorithm took over, it immediately tripped on the ground and crawled in random directions, biting at the dirt and swiping at it. Shit. Guess it needs some work. Sayuri sheathed her katana and hurriedly ran up to him, asking if he was okay. I guess that since this one is so much more complex than the one I used with the sleeping golem, it’s not as easy to make.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“You could ask the hive to help you out with it,” Saul said.

“I don’t need their help. I can do this on my own,” He replied.

An hour later, he had fixed most of the bugs. Hopefully. When the spar began, Achilles ran forward, swiping with his mandibles at Sayuri. The attack was incredibly primitive and simple, but it was much better than what it had done before. Sayuri jumped in the air and landed on top of Achilles, softly tapping the Ant’s head with the tip of her katana.

“Fight’s over.” She said.

Mhm, alright. That was anticlimactic. I designed Achilles to learn and improve himself with each battle, so I guess I just need to give him some time. After the battle, he let Achilles review the battle and how to improve upon it. The second spar went the same way, with Achilles starting with a horizontal strike of his mandibles. Sayuri responded in the same exact way, jumping in the air and aiming for Achilles’ head. This time, though, he moved to the side and closed his mandibles around Sayuri’s leg, which she evaded by spinning in the air and using the momentum to swing her katana at Achilles’ neck, once again tapping it softly. That would have ended the fight if it wasn’t a spar.

On the third fight, something changed. On the first two, Sayuri hadn’t used any Soul technique or ability, but on the third spar, Achilles surprised both of them. The fight started as usual, with Achilles going for a simple sideway swipe, but at the last moment, he kicked the ground with his legs and jumped forward, aiming for the mid-air Sayuri, threatening to close his mandibles around her waist. Theo saw a hint of surprise in her Soul, and she used [Enhancement] to quickly kick Achilles’ head away to get some distance. Sayuri took a step back but her pitch-black eyes never left the Golden Ant, and she sent a mental communication to Theo, “Can you stop it if manages to injure me?”

Theo took control of his body to nod and reassure his friend, before giving the keys back to Achilles. The Combat Algorithm slowly circled the plant monster, observing each of her movements with an almost obsessive focus. Sayuri sent her Influence through her katana, and it began to drip water from it. She flashed forward, around three meters away from Achilles, too far away for a sword strike, but she still sent her weapon in a downward motion, and Theo could feel the confusion in the Algorithm. Blades of water exploded forward from the katana, resembling a furious river, aiming straight at the Ant’s eyes. Achilles wasn’t quick enough to react to Sayuri’s ability, and with his eyes mangled up, the fight was quickly over. Achilles wasn’t equipped with the ability to use shapeshifting, as Theo had a separate Algorithm in mind for that same function. He couldn’t use Influence either, for the same reason. I want to make many Algorithms that can work together to be better than the sum of their parts, so if I need to focus on something else, I can just offload everything to them.

The idea did make Prometheus jittery with excitement. He took control of the body and asked Sayuri, “So, how do you think it did?”

She sheathed her katana and walked closer, “It surprised me. The improvement in skill from the second fight to the third was incredible. I felt like I was fighting against a somewhat experienced fighter, even though the fight was brief in and of itself,”

“Alright, if you say so. Do you feel like training some more?”

The two continued sparring over and over, and Achilles improved by leaps and bounds. By their tenth fight, Sayuri had stopped holding back and needed to use her full reserve of techniques and abilities, but she had still come out on top. By the fifteenth, Achilles had surpassed what Theo could do, attacking from angles he would never consider and applying strategies that never crossed his mind. On their twentieth fight, Sayuri looked just as calm and stoic as she was on the first one. Achilles jumped forward and used a combination of his mandibles and legs to barrage Sayuri with dozens of strikes, all of them aiming for different parts of her body. She was using [Enhancement] to keep up with the algorithm, parrying each strike. When she began to slightly slow down, Achilles took advantage of it and moved his head in a burst of speed to grab Sayuri’s katana by the handle, and with an awkward-looking twist of his head, he managed to wrestle her weapon out of her hands.

That didn’t discourage the bamboo warrior, as she took a different combat stance, reminding Theo of karate, and she used a combination of punches and kicks to deflect Achille’s strikes. A kind of stalemate settled in the fight, where the Algorithm was constantly looking for openings, while Sayuri was using [Enhancement] over and over just to keep Achilles’ pace. That didn’t last long, as her Influence reserves began to dwindle, and the Ant managed to gain ground. She jumped back and chopped her hand down into the air, with a massive blade of water flying out towards the golden monster.

Achilles had apparently predicted that move, as he sidestepped evading the water blade by less than a millimeter, and began pursuing his opponent. Sayuri managed to hold Achilles in a stalemate for a little longer, but when she was almost out of Influence, Achilles pushed through and got the samurai on the ground. The algorithm chomped down with his mandibles around Sayuri’s head, far too quickly for her to react, but Theo stopped him at the last moment. Achilles had won. Holy shit.

Theo walked back and said, “Guess he beat you, huh? You still have nineteen wins over him, though.”

Sayuri walked over to her katana, cleaned it, and sheathed it while sitting on the ground in front of Theo, “I don’t think you understand what you made. Achilles managed to beat countless hours of rigorous training with just a few dozen spars. I’ve never heard of anyone progressing that fast. Not even you.”

“Yeah, it’s impressive. I wouldn’t have been able to beat you without using tricks and whatnot. I’m just glad I didn’t waste my time on something that wouldn’t be better than me,”

Sayuri crossed her arms and legs while asking, “Why is it better than you? I cannot imagine how a creation could be better than their creator,”

“Well, think of it like this. I was made to do dozens of different things at the same time, like talking, shapeshifting, and generally doing billions of calculations each instant. I can’t be too specialized in one thing. But when some useful friends from this radio helped me out,“ Theo took out the anomalous radio to show her, “I managed to get enough processing power…I mean, mental power, to have something dedicated to one task and one task only. I’ll do the same for using my Influence and my shapeshifting, so I can’t wait to see how that goes. Plus, I learned so much from seeing how Achilles fights, so I should be able to do what he does on my own, partly. Anyway, thanks for your help,”

“Do not thank me, fighting against Achilles made me see so many flaws in my own fighting style. But I do have one issue with it,”

“What is it?” Theo asked.

“I still don’t understand if Achilles’ strength is your own or not. Because if it is not, then I cannot respect it as it is a way of cheating,” She said while narrowing her eyes at him.

“I don’t care either way. Power is power. It’s the same as what the System gives us. It’s not like Achilles just appeared out of thin air, either. I had to spend a lot of time making it,”

Sayuri hummed and looked at the ground. “I see the comparison. We should go to sleep now,”

Prometheus agreed, and they all went to sleep inside rooms that Zilch had designated for each of them. The large deathworm seemed happy to show Theo and the others how good their rooms looked, and he couldn’t blame him. Theo’s room was large, around ten meters for each side, and it was perfectly cubical, with smooth, white stone walls. It had a very large bed, probably twice as big as a regular king-sized bed, and the wooden craftmanship on it was simple but functional. The mattress was made of some kind of wool held together by a leather casing, both probably harvested from some monsters in the surroundings. I think Giuseppe made the furniture. It looks pretty good. A large wooden chest was the only other object in Theo’s bedroom, and it was big enough to fit everything he didn’t want to keep in his inventory all the time, such as his Cores. They filled the chest to the brim, but at least his inventory was cleaner now.

Inside it was just the red multi-weapon, and the two anomalies he had collected thus far: The teleporting brick and the radio. Satisfied with the day’s progress, Theo skittered over to the bed, and when he heard it creak loudly, he shifted into a much smaller size, looking like a dog-sized ant. Closing his eyes, which he could do thanks to custom ant-eyelids, he tried to turn off his mind and sleep, but a thought kept popping up into his head. The memory of the flesh anomaly. And the memory of how it had ruthlessly killed Arthur and the kids, for nothing more than entertainment. His body jittered and his mandibles clacked louder and louder. A fire emerged from the depth of his Soul when he thought of it.

“It’s in the past now. You can’t let past events affect you forever, Theo. You need to let it go,” Saul said, feeling Theo’s emotions run rampant.

“I know. I know that’s what I should do, but why is it so difficult? Why can my mind never move on? Every time I try to manually delete the memories of what happened, something stops me. It’s like a seed always at the back of my mind, that anytime I feel like I’ve found something that makes me happy, it reappears to torment me. I can’t do anything about it,”

He felt Saul nod and continue, “You can’t rush it. You just need to give some time to your mind to process it. Don’t do anything rash in the meantime, you’ll get killed. This isn’t Earth anymore, where your biggest threat was guns and bombs. Here, you never know when a tier twenty or whatever goes insane and decides that he wants to kill everyone. And you could be in his way if that happened,”

“Why should I live, anyway? Why should I continue this cycle of being satisfied and then realizing life has no meaning? Why should I be part of this?”

Saul sighed, and said, “You don’t have to. But there aren’t many other alternatives, other than killing yourself now and here. Honestly, if you want to do that, go ahead. Do it. Is it going to fix your problems? No, but at least it’s going to make you feel like you have some power over your life, so that’s good, right?”

Theo felt like thunder had hit his Core. And not like when the Tribulation had struck him. This felt different. His thoughts accelerated, and he caught himself jittering in anxiety. He had never feared death, as he always saw it as a less-than-desirable eventuality, but this time it was different. The idea of him never being able to fly high into the air, spar with his friends, play rock-paper-scissors, and a thousand different things was like a cold bucket of water splashing on his head.

“Good. I see that I’ve gotten some sense into your thick skull. Or Core, I guess. It’s already past the Unsafe Hours, don’t stay up anymore,”

Theo nodded without further words, and shut off his mind, ready for the next day.