Author’s Corner: Hey everyone! Say hello to my little friend, the chapter! Managed to write one out, so here it is.
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Shortly after I got off the call with my dad, I felt the ship stopping above the planet. “Alright, guys! Found some stuff, but we’ll need to be quick. I picked up large monster readings just below the surface. Not really sure what type, just that it is big and full of mana.” Celeste called out over the intercom before diving out of the airlock.
A holographic screen appeared in the bridge showing her project, and next to it a sort of radar that marked her position, as well as a vague reading beneath the surface. As of now, the reading appeared to be several kilometers away, but it was moving in her direction. “Why is it that we didn’t get a bigger gun for this ship for when things like this happen..?”
“Because I don’t have the materials to synthesize nano-wiring capable of passing large amounts of mana into a cannon. Otherwise, we could get a really nice cannon.” Celeste’s voice answered over the intercom as she landed on the planet. “The nano-wiring is actually an essential part of most of the higher-end ship features, but they also require a much more powerful generator than what we use. If I get the materials, it would be just a matter of time for me to upgrade the ship, or build a better one. Granted, maybe a lot of time, but still.”
I watched as she landed in a small patch of flowers and began picking them carefully. The majority of them were bright red with three long petals, but there were also two that were green with black spots. Celeste picked one of each, before the mysterious monster signal started growing too close for comfort. “That’ll have to do…” She shook her head and started flying up, just as the thing beneath the sand revealed itself.
With a giant three sided mouth, a worm nearly fifty meters thick began rising up from the surface. “Celeste… fly faster!” As I spoke, the ship’s two turrets lined up and began firing red beams of death. Though… as the lasers impacted, they proved far less deadly than I had hoped, not even knocking the worm back as it continued rising up. Ten meters, twenty meters… Its mouth was drawing uncomfortably close to our Deus Ex companion, and the turrets were doing nothing to stop it.
I considered rushing out to help, but by the time that I got suited up and out the airlock, she’d either be back in the ship or be worm food. All I could do at this point was watch. Suddenly, the lights on the ship flickered, but at the same time Celeste’s speed drastically increased, leaving the worm behind as it tried to get a robotic snack.
As soon as Celeste was back in the airlock, the lights returned to normal and the ship began moving away. This worm was nearly as thick as our ship, and likely at least a couple kilometers long. We did not need to have it take a bite out of us!
“Celeste…” I had a strange sense that something was up, and wanted to ask her about it.
“Yeah, yeah. I know. Splitting my processing to so many instances makes it harder to use any of them to their full potential. I was only built to handle a single companion bracelet, remember?”
“So.. doesn’t that mean that the ship can’t be used properly?” Sharon looked up at the screen curiously as she asked.
“No… well yes, but no. If I can get you two trained, either of you could take over the ship in emergency situations, or at least part of it to reduce the strain on my processing abilities. But for just casual usage, I can handle my own body and the ship fine. I doubt either of you want to be behind one of those consoles all the time to run the scanners and such.”
I nodded my head at that. Only one of us would want to be behind a console that much, and that was Yo. Unfortunately, her reason for being at the console was not to learn how to fly the ship, but to play games. “Well, start teaching, then.” Celeste has a direct link to give me whatever information she sees fit, so might as well use it.
“Huh?” Sharon looks over to me curiously, and it occurs to me that I never really told her just how much Celeste is able to do in my head. After I finished explaining, her eyes went wide. “Could you do that for me and Jeeves? I don’t want to take the bracelet down to the planet when we arrive, because it might get broken, or lost if I die.”
I thought about it… and I didn’t really have a reason to refuse, as long as we did this right. “Okay.. but I’ll only do it on a clone body. That way, if something goes wrong, the damage won’t transfer over.” This would also give me the chance to begin experimenting with modifying the auras of others. Sharon nodded her head eagerly and immediately left to go to the medbay where the clone controllers had been set up.
“Get back here, young lady.” Celeste called out as she reached the bridge, and passed me the two flowers to put in my grove. “Strap in for FTL first. We don’t know how long this procedure will take.”
A few moments later, I saw Sharon walking back into the bridge, sulking slightly as she sat down in her seat and strapped in. Celeste took her own seat, while Yo stood up and waited eagerly for what came next. Sure enough, once we went to subspace she was splashed all over the floor and wall again from the brief force.
Shaking my head, I got up and followed Sharon to the medbay, where there were two clones sitting side by side. By now, we had each activated one, and made sure to put them in clothes this time. Sharon sat on the far side of the room, putting on her headset and activating her clone.
When she sat up, Sharon’s clone body happily went over and laid down on the medical bed. Celeste moved over near us, but not enough to get in the way. “You’ll want to put her under first.”
I nodded my head, and used my Alchemic Sleep spell, which I had not used in several weeks, to put Sharon out. I watched as her eyes grew heavy, and then finally closed with her head tilted slightly to the side. “Go call Yo in. Might as well take care of everything in one go.”
Celeste nodded, and walked out of the medbay, while I placed my hands on either side of Sharon’s head and closed my eyes. I was rather counting on the boost from my Amateur Brain Surgeon title to help me out here as I began placing the aura for an AI interface around her brain. It’s amazing how much easier this is when I’m not feeling the pain of doing this to myself. Then again, I was injecting my own mana into her body, and making it adapt to hers so that it wasn’t rejected.
Time passed slowly, minutes feeling like hours as I tried to get all of the proper connections. And this time, I made sure to get the runes just right, so that Jeeves would not have the same level of freedom over her body that Celeste had on mine. While it was handy in some situations, I would not want to make others go through it without express permission.
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I wasn’t sure how long I worked, but eventually I had the final connection in place. Next, I made the same connection between her brain and her wrist where the companion bracelet rested on her main body. That way, when she ‘logged out’, her AI would be able to upload itself to her new implant. I considered giving her a Cybernetic Adaptation like I had on myself, but figured that’d be better left for after I got permission.
For fairness’ sake, I made another slight alteration to her aura to give her a psychic power. Although she couldn’t turn human like I could, her power should still be able to function, even if it is at a reduced strength. By now, Yo and Celeste were already back in the medbay and waiting for what was definitely the most awkward part of this.
Letting out a long sigh, I looked to the slime girl, and beckoned her forward. “Yo… can you shrink your chest to the same size as Sharon’s?”
“Uh… okay?” She shrugged her shoulders, not seeming to understand why I was asking, but did so anyways. I began examining her aura with my Mana Sense, focusing on the regions I had previously identified as being related to gender. I was a bit concerned that Yo would not technically have a gender, since she could switch to different forms whenever she wanted, but thankfully those aspects were still there.
Once I identified the parts of her aura I needed, I began focusing more heavily on them, and compared them with what was in Sharon’s aura. Once I found one that was nearly identical to Sharon’s, I focused on that particular aspect. “Okay… Now expand your chest a bit, like you had it before, but slowly.”
“Alright!” She responded more enthusiastically this time, and my face heated up because I realized just what it was I was doing. I felt as the change in Yo’s breasts corresponded to an alteration in the part of her aura I had been focusing on. I then repeated that alteration on Sharon’s aura. I watched as her chest slowly swelled, and she let out soft moans in her sleep that I had to do my best to ignore. I wasn’t sure how ‘big’ she was originally, so I stopped growing them just after what I assumed to be DD. If this was still too small for her… I wasn’t really sure my sanity could handle it.
“Anything else, Papa?” Yo asked with a smile next to me, her chest back to its normal proportions.
“No.. that’s all for now. You can go play some more.” After saying that, I watched as the slime girl ran off out the door. “Celeste, think you could scan her? I gave her the same psychic power procedure as I did for myself.”
“Alright~.” While Celeste pulled out the scanner and got to work, I reviewed the window that had appeared while I was working.
New Spell Unlocked!
Aura Surgery - Mana Manipulation - ★★☆
By manipulating your mana to match that of your 'patient', you are able to alter the aura of another person to match patterns you have studied.
“Looks like she has a telepathy based power, with minor talent for empathy. It’s a lot easier to train than yours, so she should be able to do it even in an elf body.” Celeste spoke up, making me unreasonably nervous. “Yes, that means that, depending on the nature of her power, she might be able to read your mind soon.”
“I… think this may have been a poorly thought out plan.”
“Too late to take it back now, Captain.” Celeste grinned at me, because Sharon was starting to wake up.
“So… did it work?” She asked groggily, before pausing and looking down to her chest. Then up at me… then back down to her chest. “They got bigger…” As she spoke, a smile began forming on her face, followed by a deep blush. “Did you…?”
“Complete gentleman, I swear.” I quickly denied any accusation she may have been getting ready to throw at me. “Though I did give you a psychic power. Celeste should be able to help you figure out the details of it.”
Sharon smiled more widely at that, looking to the Deus Ex as I excused myself from the room to get to my training. “Celeste, until we get to Gerin, I need you to give me some information. As much of the runic language as you can manage, and basic piloting skills.”
The AI spoke up in my mind. “Alright, I can work on that.”
For the next few days, Celeste was constantly pouring information on runes into my head, while her Deus Ex body was training Sharon. I wasn’t really surprised by what her power turned out to be. Celeste said it was called ‘Wild Voice’, and was essentially a universal translation power. However, it not only worked on sapient races, but animals and plants as well. Essentially, she could communicate with anything that had a soul. And since her power was less stressful than mine, within the first week she was able to train it to the point where it only caused her a minor headache to talk with Chrome and Jasmine for brief periods.
Within that same week, I had finished learning the entire runic language. All ninety-nine million, two hundred and thirty thousand, seven hundred and sixty nine runes...Why would any language, universal or not, need that many words?!
Of course, I was still training my affinities during this time, and managed to get the rest of them up to 15%. For the final week before we arrived at Gerin, I decided to practice my Toybox power. Over this week, I made several discoveries regarding how I could use this power. First of all, I was able to create a portal inside of my grove, with the second portal being outside. While this wouldn’t immediately be useful, it would mean that I could take magical items into my grove far easier than before.
I was also able to ‘sit’ on a portal, by placing it down in a thin spiral shape. Doing so let me easily fly about, with only my mind. Of course, doing so required a big enough portal to support me, so it took quite a toll on my mind.
The rest of the time, I had been practicing linking the size and shape as accurately as possible. With Celeste analyzing the rock I was using every time it passed through the portal, she was able to point out any small discrepancy. A few times, I managed to do it just right, and was now able to do small portals for pebbles with hardly any strain. Now if only I could do it for more useful measures.
“Everyone, please report to the bridge. We’re about to pull out of subspace in the Gerin system.” Celeste called out, and everyone moved towards the bridge. Ever since the aura surgery, Sharon has been taking the chance to wear her clothes which emphasize her new bust. She seemed quite happy with them now… and Chrome and Jasmine liked to snuggle into her chest even more now too.
As we got to the bridge and sat down, we got ready to enter into the next chapter of our adventure. To the elven worlds!