The puppet master was creating a single, complex organism by merging the mother insects. However, he recognized that having multiple stomachs, hearts, brains, and other vital organs would lead to inefficiencies and potential conflicts within the body.
To address this, he removed the individual stomachs and instead created a new digestive system consisting of five large stomachs, strategically positioned to optimize energy distribution. Four smaller stomachs surrounded a larger, central stomach, allowing for efficient nutrient processing and allocation.
The puppet master then inserted his unmodified tentacles into the organism's body, utilizing them to facilitate control and coordination. He also removed the individual hearts, likely planning to rely on an alternative circulatory system or modifying the existing one to serve the merged organism's needs.
By streamlining the organism's internal structure, the puppet master aimed to create a more cohesive, efficient, and resilient entity.
The puppet master's body was specially adapted to support the massive organism's circulatory needs. Each of his tentacles contained dozens of hearts, a result of incorporating worm-like features. However, this alone wouldn't be sufficient to circulate blood for a body twenty times larger than his own.
To address this challenge, the puppet master had created a massive artificial heart, blending body parts from earthworms, leeches, and hammerhead worms. This enormous heart, comparable in size to a horse's heart implanted in a human, was a testament to his ingenuity.
The artificial heart had been temporarily shut down due to its immense power, but now it was being utilized to circulate blood for the large organism. The puppet master's choice of worm body parts was deliberate, leveraging their natural ability to contract and relax, essential functions for a heart to work properly.
By reactivating the artificial heart and utilizing his tentacles' hearts, the puppet master was able to sustain the massive organism's circulatory needs.
The puppet master had dedicated all his remaining time over the last few days to crafting the artificial hearts, creating a total of 26: 10 large ones, twice the size of the one in his chest, and 15 smaller ones, with the one in his chest being one of the smaller ones.
When he reactivated the massive artificial heart, it began contracting and relaxing with immense force. Although he had supposedly shut it down earlier, the truth was that he had merely reduced its capacity to 10% of its normal power, as completely stopping it would have been detrimental.
As the puppet master utilized his body as a heart for the large organism, he felt intense strain. The organism's blood, still mixing from its separate forms, was pumping through his body and back into the organism with tremendous force.
The pressure was taking a toll on the puppet master's body, threatening to overwhelm him. If he were human, the stress would likely be fatal, causing stroke, cardiac arrest, or even an immediate heart explosion. Despite his unique physiology, the puppet master seemed to be on the brink of collapse.
The puppet master's mental fortitude, bolstered by the mind marbles and his vast thought sea, allowed him to remain focused and awake despite the immense strain. With concentrated effort, he began implanting the artificial hearts into the organism.
As he inserted each heart, one by one, the pressure on his body gradually decreased. The load was being distributed, and his body began to find some relief. By the time he implanted the second-to-last heart, the pressure had vanished entirely.
After finally implanting the last heart, the puppet master noticed a slight decrease in blood flow, indicating that the organism's circulatory system was becoming more efficient. With all the hearts in place, the puppet master's role as a temporary circulatory system was coming to an end. The organism was taking shape, and its own systems were beginning to function independently.
The puppet master disconnected himself from the organism's body, marking the next phase of his project. His focus shifted to streamlining the organism's nervous system by removing excess brains.
He carefully removed all the insect heads, leaving behind only one to serve as the main brain. Unlike the other heads, which were left dangling outside, the remaining head was tucked safely inside the organism's body, protected from potential harm.
The puppet master then repeated the process of refinement with other unnecessary parts, ensuring the organism's systems were optimized. Afterward, he utilized the lake water to facilitate the blending and healing of the various components.
Finally, he endowed the organism with five massive tentacles, crafted by merging hammerhead worms and leeches. These tentacles were distinct from his own worm-like tentacles, boasting enhanced capabilities due to the combined biology of the hammerhead worms and leeches.
The tentacles possessed a complex network of nerve cells, intricately interconnected like a web, allowing for efficient transmission of signals to and from the organism's brain. This sophisticated neural structure enabled the organism to process information and respond accordingly.
After another application of the lake water and a few hours of adaptation, the organism was fully formed. The puppet master gazed upon his creation, impressed by his own ingenuity despite the limited resources he had worked with.
Although the creature's appearance was unsettling and grotesque, the puppet master felt a sense of pride in his accomplishment. However, this feeling was short-lived, as it quickly gave way to other emotions or concerns.
The puppet master decided to test his creation, believing that its true completion depended on its functionality. To do this, he overrode the organism's already weak consciousness, essentially taking control of its actions.
Then he started reprogramming it's mental program. He then implanted a new set of permanent orders and rules, effectively programming the creature's physiology with specific commands and responses. This process allowed him to dictate the organism's behavior, tailoring it to serve a particular purpose.
With the new programming in place, the puppet master was poised to witness his creation's functionality firsthand.