Prometheus loved flying, but not like this. His Golden Warrior form was soaring through the sky at impossible speeds, the ground below seeming kilometers away. He couldn't control his body. The second Tribulation was much stronger, but this time only his exterior body was heavily injured. His Core was unscathed. It seemed like his roots had been fried. The multi-purpose structures resembled the roots of a tree that went around his body, acting as nerves, conduits for resource transport, waste removal, and cell synthesis, or in general they were the interface between the Core and the rest of the body.

I am flying so fast... It seems I am even going in the direction of my base. At this pace, I might even arrive in a matter of minutes.

After a couple of mental calculations, he angled his body in an unnatural way to follow the desired trajectory. He also made his body more aerodynamic with various slits everywhere, rounding his form and smoothing its surfaces.

He retrieved his communication device from the Adventured Guild and pondered its risks. They might be able to track me down with this. Since I still have some time before I arrive, I should analyze this and see what it does.

It was much harder than he expected, simply because this technology didn't make any sense to him. Lines were engraved all around the disk in really specific patterns. The only thing he could notice was the reaction of air molecules near each segment of the disk: It seemed to be divided into two main segments, one on each side. The air would slightly vibrate on one side periodically, about once every 20 seconds. It was barely noticeable. The air on the other side was unaffected.

Mmm, this side is doing something. Should I risk it and disable this side? If I get it wrong, I might ruin my chances of receiving communications about my owners. The risk of that is too great relative to the possibility of my base being tracked down. I like Zilch and my collection, but losing them wouldn't be a huge loss.

Thinking about his worm companion made his Core feel nostalgia and affection. His scientists didn't want him to be an unfeeling machine, after all. Only they knew the reasons for this decision.

Maybe losing Zilch would make me feel sad. Not the base, though. I could replicate it in a couple of days.

He couldn't do more with his body than angling slightly. That was the reason he crashed like a meteor in a clearing some kilometers away from his base. He didn't feel pail, but the shame of having been incapacitated twice in one day was unbearable.

The forest was as silent as usual. How did ecosystems exist in a world where a rat could become a mountain-shattering disaster? That's something he would have to investigate. He could feel distant footsteps getting rapidly closer. He couldn't let anyone see him like this, not even Zilch, so he immediately discarded his cells and took his eclipse form, and hid in one branch nearby, ready to assault anyone undesired.

Three small forms burst into the clearing, holding make-shift weapons made of particularly sharp branches. They were green and toned but bandaged. The goblins. They seemed to look around in a panicked way, often asking the leader about his opinion. Prometheus grew tired and said, still hidden, "Goblins."

That made them stop in their tracks and straighten their backs. The green monsters looked around without success. They recognized their master's voice immediately.

"I have returned, and I have important news to deliver to you. Meet me at the base's entrance in an hour." Without waiting for their replies, he flew toward his home.

He had almost forgotten about his wasp queen Buzzelina! Did she survive the Tribulation? He looked around and didn't see her anywhere.

That's unfortunate. She was adorable, and I couldn't imagine how useful a hive under my command would be. No use thinking about spilled milk.

He flew toward his base, which looked identical to how he had left it.

The river flowed unperturbed near the base of the hill, going over the horizon in the distance. He flew to the top of the hill, opened the hatch, and yelled inside, "ZILCH, I AM BACK! GET OUT HERE", after which loud shufflings could be heard. His worm companion shambled, trying to exit the hatch. When it did so, it bowed and replied, "I'm glad you came back safely, Sir. How were your travels?"

"You could say.." he thought of the Tribulations, "energetic." Prometheus chuckled at his superior humor. The scientists had made him the best comedian in the world!

The scout seemed relieved to see him. Its voice carried that feeling very clearly. After petting the small scout on the head, Prometheus asked, "Were there any troubles during my absence?"

"Not at all, Sir. No one bothered us, so the goblins and I trained ourselves for the most part. I also kept the base clean of dust and whatnot."

"Good job. We will all begin training as soon as the goblins arrive; I have instructed them to come in an hour. Now that I have a lead on my objective," he glanced at the disk in his hand, "I can afford to spend time on getting stronger. In that regard, what would be the best ways to get stronger, Zilch?"

"Well, there are several ways: we could increase our Core Tier, which is the main way to get stronger. To do that, we could relocate to an Anima-dense environment, as these plains seem dry of it, or hunt monsters at Tier 1 or above. Then, we could get System bonuses, but those require us to take risky and entertaining actions, such as using exaggerated fighting styles, shouting our moves, and generally fighting in a flashier way. I've heard that playing music during battles significantly increases System rewards, so musicians are highly sought after. Finally, we could create Soul abilities or learn Soul techniques."

The worm looked solemn and continued, "My previous army instructor advised us not to create an ability before Tier 3, so we can get used to the feeling of Influence and how to use it. For that reason, I don't have any idea what a Soul ability is or how to create one. Soul techniques require either a spellbook that teaches you or an instructor. We have neither, as I don't know any techniques."

Prometheus couldn't help but ask, "How would you explain what techniques are?"

Zilch seemed to lower his head and think before replying, "Soul techniques, or spells, are a standardized way of using Influence to obtain a certain result. The spell [Fireball] or [Mental communication] are some of them."

Prometheus nodded. He was starting to get what all this jungle of information meant.

"Well said, Zilch. Which one of those ways do you think would be the best one for us to follow?"

"Tiering up, no doubt. If the battles seem easy enough, we could try to get System bonuses as well. Soul abilities and techniques are unavailable without someone that could teach us unless you have them already, Sir?"

Prometheus froze in place. He had expected to hear that question, but he had hoped Zilch wouldn't ask it.

"Of course I do, but all of them are too advanced and powerful for you. Also, I got bored of using powerful techniques, so I decided to forget all of them and start from the beginning like you."

"W-What?! Why would you do that, if I may ask, Sir?!" Zilch couldn't believe what it had just heard. Prometheus had voluntarily forgotten every technique he had learned. Why would anyone in their right mind do that?

I can't believe this; he must be joking. But what if what he says is true? Maybe he actually got bored and forgot all of them? How would one even actively forget something that deeply ingrained into your mind? Ah, I am assuming I'm dealing with a normal being here, but he's anything but normal.

Zilch didn't know this, but its insecurity and self-doubt contributed to believing Prometheus' insane claim. After all, why should Zilch doubt Prometheus when the worm was factually inferior to him in every way? That was what went through the little scout's mind.

Prometheus replied, "Because I was bored, Nothing more." He finished with a tone of finality.

The worm chuckled silently and commented, "I see, Sir. It makes sense. If you'll excuse me, I need to do something in the storage room; I'll meet you when I'm done" Without waiting for a reply, Zilch descended the shaft and curled up in the corner of the storage room.

His thoughts began spiraling into an abyss of negativity. If an observer were to observe Zilch's mind from the outside, they wouldn't understand the reason behind such an event.

It had happened randomly. Ahah, he was strong enough to afford to forget all his powerful Soul techniques. And what am I doing, instead? I don't have a single technique or ability, and I can barely fight monsters one tier below me. Why does he even want me as his subordinate? It must be pity. With every negative thought, Zilch's mind spiraled deeper into the abyss of self-hatred, which in turn resulted in its mind conjuring more deluded thoughts. I literally can't do anything. Everything I do, he can do tens of times better. It curled up even tighter.

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

My parents were always right; I wasn't fit to be a soldier. I don't deserve to have such a safe shelter, honestly. What do I even contribute to this place? Absolutely nothing. I don't deserve anything...

Meanwhile, Prometheus was growing bored of waiting. The goblins should arrive in half an hour, and he didn't know what to do. He decided to shift to his Golden Ant form because he thought it looked cool. To reach the biomass required for it, he uprooted various small trees in the surroundings.

The Shape-shifting skill helped quite a bit now that it was level 2. Maybe he could train that one to exhaustion? Since he didn't have much else to do, he constantly switched forms between the ant and the human, managing to receive another notification.

Low-rank Shapeshifting leveled up to lvl 3!

A minute after he got the notification, the three goblins arrived. Zilch climbed up soon after. They looked like they had run a marathon, and the two small ones dropped to the ground, panting heavily. The Hobgoblin stepped forward and bowed, "We arrive, master."

Prometheus looked at them and Thought, Should I train them, or should I do something else? I have no idea, honestly. They are very weak so trying to make them stronger might be a good idea. Actually, what have they been doing during my absence?

Prometheus glanced at the goblins and asked them, “Goblins, please report to me what you have seen or found or near our base. First of all, were there any humans or monsters nearby?”

The hobgoblin looked down and fell into deep thought, should I lie, or should they be truthful to master?

The goblin’s mind was full of conflicting emotions and thoughts, as the worm monster was the one that killed two of his siblings. The rage inside the goblin’s mind was still burning as brightly as ever. He knew he would never forgive them. But even then, betrayal was too hard to achieve. Those demonic monsters were too powerful for him to take head-on. He clenched his fists and his jaw. The goblin looked up into the ant’s eyes and replied “No, master. No monsters or humans near here.”

"Very good. Now, you all look terrible. You aren't even using real weapons! I will fix that for you, but first, I need to conduct an experiment. Hobgoblin, come here," The monster Ant gestured with a foreleg.

The hobgoblin seemed to hesitate for a moment before stepping forward, with a dubious look in his eyes.

Prometheus then continued, "Good, now lay down. This will hurt. A lot. Zilch, hold him down." The hobgoblin seemed surprised and tried to get up, but Zilch coiled around him before he could do that.

Prometheus got closer and looked at the 2 other goblins, "He will be fine, probably. Don't worry, and most importantly, Do NOT intervene, Got it?"

The goblin pair gulped and shakingly nodded. The monster Ant sent "scouting cells", which were small virus-like beings with the only task of retrieving a cell's DNA and bringing it back to him, into the goblin's bloodstream. The dark green monster immediately started screaming, trying to get free from Zilch. Prometheus did that for every cell type, including nerve cells which was the reason this procedure hurt that much, until he got a good idea of the creature's genome.

He immediately went to work in improving every cell, increasing muscle density, bone strength, the effectiveness of the immune system, removing aging, and countless other aspects. He made the new genome quite versatile so that tiering up wouldn't cause problems for the monster. He sent into the bloodstream "Carrier" cells, which acted as cargo vehicles, with the function of delivering genetic information to every single cell. This was the difficult part.

He pointed at the two goblins and ordered, " Bring me organic mass. As much as you can." The two green monsters looked at each other, confused. "Leaves, wood, anything that comes from living beings."

The pair understood his order and ran off into the forest, coming back occasionally with a bunch of leaves, wood, and sometimes small critters.

Prometheus started absorbing all the biomass, while simultaneously sending millions of carriers each second. This will take forever, he must have about 20 trillion cells. If I can send a million carriers a minute, this will take me decades. Fuck. Ok, I can ignore old cells that can't divide anymore, so that leaves me with about 16 trillion cells. Still too many. What if... Every carrier could replicate the DNA that it's carrying and inject it into many cells? That would drastically reduce the number of carriers that I would need to make.

Prometheus changed the design of the carrier cells and continued on his train of thought, Ok, now each carrier should be able to send DNA to about 20 cells. So now we are at 800 billion carriers. That would take almost two years. I guess I'll put every fiber of my being into this, then.

Prometheus started changing form, from the monster ant to a grey, sponge-like creature spherical in shape. The goblins and Zilch were terrified at the implosion of the monster's Ant body to release the new form. This form allowed him to dedicate every cell in his body to make new cells, in this case, carrier cells. It was essentially a cell factory.

Low-rank Shapeshifting leveled up to lvl 4!

Nice, Thought Prometheus. This form allowed him to create one hundred million carriers each second. The caloric cost was outrageous, obviously, but surprisingly Shapeshifting's bonus seemed to count for carrier cell production too. He could afford to do this because the biomass available around him was effectively endless: Had he been on Earth, he couldn't even have dreamed of doing this.

A couple of hours later, Prometheus was finally done. The hobgoblin had long since passed out from the pain. Results wouldn't show for weeks probably, until all the current cells died off and the new cells replaced them.

He told Zilch to release the hobgoblin and ordered the two other goblins to suffer the same procedure. It was clear they weren't willing to undergo the pain the hobgoblin went through, but they knew the only other alternative was death. So, Prometheus repeated the same process on the two smaller goblins, which took less than the first one due to the lower mass. The Hacker interrupted him. A smile crept up in his mind since his Sponge form didn't have a mouth.

Congratulations! For having modified and perfected the genetic makeup of various creatures, you obtained a new skill!

Skill: Low-rank Genetic manipulation.

"Zilch, please bring those three into our main chamber and let them rest there. Give them food and water if needed. I'll make proper equipment for them in the meanwhile." Prometheus instructed.

"Yes, Sir!" replied Zilch and immediately did as it was told.

Prometheus shifted into his Golden warrior form, went to the nearest tree, and chopped it down with a battle axe. He cut the log into smaller segments and used a shapeshifted saw-hand to shape the wood into two short bows and a long bow. He then went into making three wooden quivers, which were quite difficult to make, and finally sharpened some arrowheads. He finally used leaves on the back of the arrows and repeated this a handful of times for each quiver. He used some spider glands to create the silk necessary for the bowstrings. He noted he didn't get any new skill for this.

He also took three large wooden boards, carved a shooting target on them, and planted them firmly on the ground.

By the time he was done and returned to the base, the goblins were already awake and upon seeing him they immediately took a fighting stance. Oh, they only saw me in my Ant form.

He spoke with the same voice that they knew, "Calm down, I can change shape, it is me. How do you all feel?" The goblins all had confused looks on their faces until they replied,

"Tired." said the leftmost one. This one was a female, lankier than the other two.

"Sore everywhere." said the second, a bulkier male this time.

"Pain." finished the hobgoblin.

"Nothing important, then. What I did to you is make you stronger, but the effects will show in the coming days or weeks. I also made these bows for you. Grab them and follow me. Zilch, come as well." He glanced at his worm companion. His focus shifted to the goblins once more, "Later I'll teach you how to make arrows yourself."

He turned around and climbed the ladder to the surface, walking to the shooting range and leading the goblins ten meters away from the targets.

"Do any of you know how to use a bow?"

None of the goblins raised their hands.

Prometheus grabbed a bow and aimed at the board, without knocking any arrows. "You aim your bow like this." He grabbed an arrow and set it on the string, "This is how you keep an arrow before you want to shoot it," He released the arrow, hitting the center of the target, "and that's how you shoot the arrow. Any questions?"

The goblins didn't seem convinced but still shook their heads. Prometheus continued, "Good, then try for yourself at this distance," he made a line on the ground at ten meters from the boards.

The goblins grabbed the bows and tried to set an arrow each on the string. The female one dropped the arrow a couple of times before she could keep it steady, the other goblin could set his arrow on the string but his aim was shaking a bit, and the hobgoblin straight up broke the bow.

After repairing the hobgoblin's bow and making it thicker and stronger, he asked them to repeat what they did and release the arrows. All of them missed the boards completely, either by shooting too weakly or too strongly. Prometheus ordered them to practice until they could hit the target's center three times in a row. He continuously corrected their pose and body movements, slowly increasing their ability with the bow. The female goblin seemed quite talented at the bow. He'll consider what equipment to give them after making them try a vast array of weapons.

"Zilch, I need you to train as well. We don't know what enemies are looking for us, so being complacent will be our death. First of all, I want you to create a wide tunnel network around our base, with various escape points in various hidden places, in the hills, in the forest, and even farther away. Start over there," He pointed at a tall hill in the distance, "as the ground there is much tougher and more compact than here, so it will be good training. After you made a wide tunnel network, come back to me. Everything clear?" He asked the worm.

"Yes, Sir!" replied Zilch with enthusiasm. I will not disappoint him, I will finally show my worth! Zilch's mind was filled with determination, which would seem contradictory to how it had felt earlier in the day. Insecurity and determination were two sides of the same coin, after all. This was much more noticeable in Zilch.

Prometheus decided to try fighting in a "flashy way" as Zilch had described. He shifted the war axe in his hands into a Warhammer. He searched the forest for any signs of life until he heard leaves and branches break in the distance. He confidently and calmly walked to where the sounds came from until he came across a purple amorphous blob with the only facial feature being a big mouth filled with teeth and many thin limbs that ended with 2 fingers that it used to maneuver around the forest.

Prometheus said, " Greetings, monster. You are facing Prometheus himself! Rejoice as your death will be the peak of your life! May our fight be fair and respectful." He ended with an elegant bow. Obviously, he didn't expect the monster to understand him, but it seemed to bow as well, in a creepily human way.

Prometheus lifted his Warhammer and pretended to charge a powerful strike, while simultaneously creating bioluminescence from the tip of his hammer, making it glow with a divine light. He created a low rumble with his vocal cords to add to the scene, which paralyzed the monster in its tracks. "May you be lucky enough to not meet me in your next life" Prometheus ended by smashing the Warhammer on top of the monster using every shred of energy he could put in that single move. His enhanced muscles screamed at him and burned. The sound of the hammer smashing down and flattening the monster could be heard from kilometers away.

He put the hammer into his inventory so it wouldn't degrade and turned around to walk away when he heard movement behind him. He turned around to see that the monster had survived his strike! Barely so, but that was still incredibly impressive.

"Impressive. You survived a single strike from me. This achievement cannot be ignored, so I will reward you." He shifted into his Sponge form and performed the Genetic augmentation procedure on the monster. Its genome was quite simple so it didn't take long to finish.

When the monster got up, it seemed confused and disoriented. After seeing that Prometheus wasn't attacking it, it ran away.

Prometheus nodded, proud at his generosity.

Congratulations! For having spared and enhanced an innocent monster that was gathering food for its children, you received a reward!

Body +1

He decided to bring out his 'Status',

Name: Prometheus

Stats: Body:11

Mind:10

Soul:10

Skills: Low-rank Enchantment breaking lvl 1

Inventory lvl 1

Low-rank Digging lvl 1

Low-rank Stonemasonry lvl 1

Low-rank Shapeshifting lvl 4

Low-rank Genetic manipulation lvl 1

Traits: Tribulation Resistance

Titles: None

Prometheus immediately noticed the difference. Every physical aspect of his body was improved by around ten percent. Muscle strength, bone durability, cell resilience, and it even seemed to improve his Core's durability and its roots, but not its processing speed. Maybe that was what the Mind stat was supposed to do. An idea sprung into his mind. He created some cells and immediately noticed what he hoped: The Body stat affected cell replication speed. A villainous cackling escaped his lips. Both the Shapeshifting skill and the Body stat seemed to improve his cell creation capabilities, so that's the part of the System he would focus on, for now.

After he got tired of laughing, he returned to his base, but something wasn't right. The forest was completely silent, which had never happened before. He turned into the Ant form, adding various spikes for offense, just in case.

He shouted in the air for Zilch in the worm's language, which made the scout appear in front of him a couple of minutes later. He found the goblins practicing the bow as he had instructed.

Prometheus looked around, trying to soothe his sense of unease, but nothing seemed outright wrong. His instincts were working overdrive and were telling him that he was in great danger.

Suddenly, a mental communication spell connected with his mind, and he turned around to see a Giant flaming snake a couple of meters away from him.

The snake laughed at Prometheus' shocked expression and said, "Your fight was quite interesting, yes. You will make a fine soldier in the army. Those are your subordinates, I assume? I'll take them as well." Before Prometheus could move an inch, he could feel pressure all over his body, preventing him from moving even a single cell.

"Hahaha, don't worry, I won't hurt you, unless you force me, of course." The giant snake smiled. "An explanation will be given to you when we arrive, but for now, enjoy your flight, little ones." Then, Prometheus, Zilch, and the goblins floated and stuck to the snake's belly like magnets.

The snake sprouted giant wings from its back, flapped them, and flew into the sky.