“Say, [Buddy]?”

Yes?

“Did you forget to notify me about [Stats] gains, or something? I received nothing for the last two days, even though I did stupidly amazing things the entire time…”

My concern was founded on how easy it had been to gain at least a [Stat point] whenever I did something significant, and [Spell-Weaving] specifically was always followed up at least by ‘something’, instead here I was sitting on a big lump of nothing, except for hard work.

If you had bothered to check what [proficiency] was, you would already know the answer.

Honestly, I’m disappointed that it took me pointing it out for you to take notice.

Shame on you for ignoring the work that I put into enhancing the interface of our [System]!

“Ok, ok, geez! I’ll check it, man; just don’t get so all over my case…”

To be perfectly honest, I was embarrassed that I had forgotten to check an entirely new tab that had appeared in my [Status], but to be honest, I also had much more pressing thoughts to worry about, until a short while ago that is.

I checked my [Proficiency] and… yup, that would explain it.

Proficiency: 46%

(Queued: +Energy, +Ego, +Insight, +Acuity, +Will)

A level-per-level basis that represents the effort exercised during one’s growth, that determines the gains upon the next Level Up.

After every Level Up the Proficiency will be scaled down to the appropriate Level, causing the percentage to appear lower, even though the quantity represented will remain the same.

Proficiency can increase due to one’s work, or acknowledgment by the System and other higher beings, and once filled to 100% will assure that the next intake of Aether will result in a Level Up with massively increased gain.

The quality, quantity, and amount of gains per Level are determined by the percentage of Proficiency, with the higher it is the better the gains, and what has been done to increase it.

I guess I’ll miss randomly getting stronger, but this still looks like it will end benefitting me in the end.

“This will result in me gaining more [Stats], right?”

On average? Definitely, and more often than not the gains will be redirected toward something that will benefit you.

Overall? During the [First Tier] you will not be seeing that big of a difference, but since [Proficiency] scales with your level, it will eventually outclass any type of gains that you would have obtained naturally.

Also, this is something that everything unlocks upon reaching Level 10, except that I was able to slightly alter how it was supposed to work to mirror your “broken” nature.

“Neat.”

The fact that [Proficiency] was already at 46% must mean that I was as likely to gain this new type of ‘experience’ pretty easily, at least early on, and it was nice that my progress was represented by an easy-to-understand percentage, instead of like [Levelling Up], where I had to base it on a feeling on how long it would be until it happened, and even then the amounts of [Aether] I absorb seems random, even with me trying to redirect the ‘experience’ towards me manually.

Oh yeah, that is another thing that I can do, but just barely and not without its set of problems, so I normally just pull a bit subconsciously whenever possible, whilst feeling like the entire world was pulling back when I even moderately tried to put even a modicum of effort into it.

I distinctly remember either reading or hearing that this, me being able to directly influence the flow of [Aether], shouldn’t specifically be possible, but that was nothing new with me now, was it?

But enough thinking about that, I had a conceptually scary army to attempt to create!

I decided to start from what I thought was the hardest part: See if I could replicate what I did with [Kenny], or if it was all a fluke, to begin with.

I wanted something that worked sort of like a hivemind, where every entity was just a small part of the whole, and where these creatures could split and merge to their leisure, depending only on the energy that they had available, it being [Mana] or [Aether] depending what was most practical at any given time.

And, of course, I was looking for a living and thinking being that could fight on its own.

A very complicated [Matrix] was slowly been provided by the [System], but I could already see that there were a lot of parts that didn’t properly fit together.

So I did the second thing that I thought could prove to be the hardest: See if copying half of [Overflowing Adaptability] still worked like the old and regular [Adaptability].

That took a couple of tries, because I didn’t have the old [Adaptability] burned in my mind, and the current one was slightly annoying because it seemed to be left with a couple of loose [Runes] on the tail-end of it no matter how I split it, but with a bit of ‘trial and error’ I was confident of having replicated the old [Adaptability], so I immediately introduced it to the current [Spell-Weave].

The [Matrix] soon started rotating more smoothly, with fewer rings grinding against one another, but it was still far from stable: I had yet to instill any concept within it, or imagine for it a physical form through which it could properly manifest.

I decided to move on to the latter, hoping that I would end up introducing some compatible concept in the aftermath of deciding the design of this new [familiar].

The first thing I did was give it a metallic exterior, since seeing my other works I could end up with a boney monstrosity if I didn’t specify otherwise. What metal one might ask? Divinium, of course! Once enough of them merged I intended to use them as the [Defender], or ‘tank’, of our [Party], and nothing apparently was sturdier than divinium.

And if the metal ended up giving it that white gold look it normally had then I was all for it; it also would have fitted well enough alongside [Kenny], who had kept its mithril body because it was technically a caster, and mithril was still better than divinium in channeling [Mana].

One could argue that since these new creatures were meant to heavily absorb [Mana] and [Aether] from their surroundings, then having them have bits and pieces made of mithril would have more sense. And while, yes, that would make sense, I could simply make a system of mithril cables on their inside that kind of worked like a magical nervous system, capable also of making the [Mana] on their insides travel faster along their bodies.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Just for my own amusement, I made the body of the base form in the shape of a stick-man, while subsequent merges would allow it to slowly come to resemble a heavily plate-armored warrior.

I checked the [Matrix] and saw it was doing a lot better… if it wasn’t that it felt already too heavy for the current me to use, and by that I meant creating this [familiar] as is would be too mana-intensive for my [Core].

I already tried to circumvent this problem by making it so it would start relatively weak and then just grow on its own, splitting itself whenever necessary, but it had to saturate itself in energy first, which would force it to split as soon as it reached that point in return, and only then could it fuse back together into a stronger form. But evidently, that was not enough.

I decided to further fix it by decreasing the strength of the original form by making it smaller and more fragile, while also setting up a more extensive progressive system through which it could further fuse itself into upgraded versions, ending with a final form that resembled a 5-meter tall colossus with a tower shield and a mace.

That last bit tilted the [Matrix] back to what I couldn’t handle, but it also gave me another idea: Would linking this new creature to my [World Within], even more closely than [Kenny] accidentally ended up being, be considered enough to balance it?

I mean… I could make them into the main [Race] that my inner world had, with all their capabilities intact, but with just the added ability of still being able to be summoned by me as [familiars].

Would that even work? And if it did, wouldn’t that make me a [God] that could rival [Creation], at least in potential?

Probably, but the only way to find out was to try and do it.

“Any ideas on how to actually make this new [familiar] into a natural-born entity of my [World Within], while still allowing me to summon them?”

Even though I may compare myself to the [Gods] that didn’t mean that there weren’t areas where I was lacking, and interacting more than on a surface level with my [Traits] was one of those areas.

They are part of you, how would I be supposed to know!?

That was not the answer that I was expecting.

And before you get annoyed at the fact that I should know anyway, since I am now directly linked to the [System], I need to point out that the [System] is neither omniscient nor omnipotent, just as you surmised the Gods to be.

“But still, there must be [Information] regarding someone that attempted to do something similar, right? I can’t be that much of a trailblazer…”

True, but not only I would not be allowed to talk to you about it, but the way others achieved it would not be possible for you.

“Why not?”

They were all at least [Demi-Gods], and you are lacking the authority that the [System] gave them with the [Title] that allowed them to interact with it on a deeper level.

“So I just have to wing it on my own, again!?”

Do not look at me: you are the one with the manias of grandeur.

“Fine!”

I actually was slightly pissed off at [Buddy], but not for that last point that was brought up: With all that it was given access to, now it was forced to help me less than it previously could? I call bullshit on that.

How was I supposed to put a working [Matrix] inside my [World Within]?

…

Wait!

“Oh my god, I want to slap myself.”

I immediately used [Devour] on the unfinished familiar, and a swirling black vortex appeared to eat the [Matrix], making it disappear from the outside world without any fuss; meanwhile, said [Matrix] got unceremoniously spit out of the [Abyss connection] inside my inner world, looking no worse for wear.

“Well, it’s inside it now, but the big question is if I can still modify it.”

I sit on the ground in a sort of lotus position and close my eyes. Transferring my mind from its normal place to my inner world isn’t easy, but I already did it once with some help from [Buddy], so, using the [Matrix] I was looking for as some sort of reference point for navigation, I slowly manage to make my consciousness slip further inside my body.

For what felt like a long time, everything that I could see was black; without [Buddy] holding my hand along the way it was disconcerting how disconnecting this experience could feel, but I could still feel its presence at the edges of mine, so I just kept going, trusting that it would bail me out if something were to go wrong.

Suddenly there was a bright purple light, and I was left looking at a bird-eyed view of my [World Within], bathed in perpetual twilight, with its colorful trees mixed with normal-looking pines, weird rocks with checker-like patterns on them poking out the ground, lush grass covering every free space, and a pillar of darkness on the side that erupted from a black sun in the sky, and pooled into a hole in the ground.

Next to this last one, the [Matrix] was left hovering close to the ground, where a curious [Kenny] was orbiting around it, shining it with different kinds of light, probably searching for a reaction of some kind.

“Suddenly, I feel like a father presenting the newborn to their slightly older kid…”

“Master!” [Kenny] exclaimed, seemingly having heard my thoughts, since it started shining its light where my vision was originating from.

“Hey [Kenny], how’s it going?” I managed to project my voice out loud, asking my increasingly talkative [familiar] about its situation.

“Too dark! Need more light!” it responded in its characteristically clipped and robotic tone, producing a stroboscopic effect with its light as if to emphasize its point.

“Got it. Don’t worry about that for now, I need to interact with that [Matrix] there to make some new friends”, I responded, not really comprehending what it meant, but not acknowledging it would probably appear mean to his juvenile mind.

“A new ‘friends’?” It asked, maybe not understanding what the word meant, which was particularly sad if I thought about it.

“Yes, others like you, but different, that will start living alongside you here, and be summoned for battle the same as you; but there will be many of the same, who will only increase in number, in the hope that they will form a community and populate this desolate place”, I replied, trying to be as thorough as possible, but I wasn’t used to talking to kids, or at least to their equivalent, so I don’t know if it understood much of what I tried to get across, even when simplified.

“Yes yes! A new friends is good!” It happily exclaimed, not really addressing how much he understood, but it seemed enough.

With little effort, I managed to bring my point of view closer to the [Matrix], and noticed that it was slightly different, almost as if simply entering my inner world had deeply modified it in some way.

First of all, I could tell that it anchored itself to this place on its own, probably as a result of my desire for it to do so in the first place, but I couldn’t be sure.

Second of all, it had new rings representing the concept that I needed for it to be sturdy and dense, because I needed it to be able to take a real beating.

Third of all, I could sense that, somehow, [Luck] had gotten her grabby hands on it, since it had a single grey ring with red runes, which I couldn’t discern the use of, but still decided to leave it alone, since I could remove it if worst came to shove, but I still trusted the [Goddess] enough to try it her way at first.

And final of all, the [Matrix] felt like it weighed practically nothing while in here.

“I can definitely cheese the shit out of that.”

Before finalizing the [Matrix] I decided to fix a bit the shape it would dictate, by making them thicker, and adding ball joints everywhere, since even if they were humanoid in shape, it made no sense to keep the limitation that such bodies normally entailed.

Obviously, I was going to call them collectively [Aurumon], because they would practically be golden beings inside my pocket.

I finally snapped the [Matrix] into being, and after a golden flash, a little golden guy was left standing in its place, who promptly mimed the official salute of the [Nexus] with one of its stick-arms over where its heart would generally be, towards my general direction, showing that it also two round, black, eyes, which made it kind of cute.

You created a new [familiar]:

Aurumon, the golden servant:

(Spell; familiar; hivemind; randomized upgrades; Adaptability)

Summons the familiar from the inner world.

The familiar is biological in nature, but with a metallic exoskeleton made of divinium, which makes it almost impervious to slashing and piercing attacks.

It can absorb multiple forms of energy when it comes in contact with them, and when its core reaches capacity it splits into two identical copies of itself, which maintain all capabilities to no detriment.

Once it comes into contact with another instance of itself, it’s able to merge with it, evolving into a stronger variant, which in turn can merge with similar variants, into more powerful and specialized ones with matching armaments.

The type of variant is randomly assigned during evolution, but normally still mirrors already existing archetypes, like Warrior, Mage, and Archer.

“Ok, I think I already found a description that is longer than [Devour]’s.”

I have no idea why [Luck] wanted to introduce a ‘gacha system’ into my new familiar, but maybe it was for balancing issues, and it was probably part of the reason as to why it cost so little to make now.

I looked back to my [Aurumon], and I guess I should say [Aurumons], since there already were 4 of them.

“I can definitely use them.”