Theo squinted his eyes a little, a small smile dancing at the very corner of his mouth.
'As if I would refuse such an offer.'
By now, he had confirmed that whatever power everyone in the academy used had nothing to do with his nanites. And while that meant he was nowhere closer to uncovering the mystery of being born with the nanorgan, it also meant that just controlling the nanites was by no means Theo's bottleneck.
'Tsk,' Theo clicked his tongue, mentally slamming head-first into the wall of its lacking humor and ability to interpret mood-affected responses. 'Yes, I do wish to implement those.'
This time, Theo's face twisted into an expression of mild surprise.
'So there's more than just one option here, huh?'
He shook his head a little before throwing another chunk of meat into his mouth.
Cultivation or not, his feeding frenzy couldn't stop—not until he forced the very last piece of meat down his throat!
'Elaborate on those options.'
"I guess things would be too damn simple if there was no choice for me to make, huh?" Theo whispered under his breath before relaxing back in his chair, stuffing his mouth again, and then closing his eyes.
'Well, I wouldn't want to grow lazy by making everything happen automatically, would I? How could I have any kind of fun if all were to happen outside of my active control?' Theo released a short sigh. 'Hive, what are the risks for guided implementation?'
'If that's the case, would it be possible for me to go back and redo it from scratch if the side effects turn out to be a bit too much for me to bear?'
This time, the hive didn't even need to process its answer, as if it was something it had already predicted Theo would ask about and had calculated its response in advance of Theo's question.
'Then…'
Once again, Theo leaned even further back in his seat, only to then change his mind and stand up, push the seat away from the alchemy stand, and then line up two plates full of the prepared meat at his sides. He then sat down directly on the floor, close enough to the stand's ongoing fire to feel a bit of its warmth before crossing his legs. After grabbing a drumstick of meat in each of his hands, he rested them on his knees.
'It's my first time ever dabbling in magic, cultivation, and all of this mystical crap, so let's play it safe and go with guided implementation,' Theo made his choice before emptying his lungs with a long sigh and then stabilizing his breath as he closed his eyes and gathered his focus. 'Hive, do your worst!'
As if not to distract him, the hive's response came in the form of a text flashing before Theo's closed eyes, as opposed to the vocal prompt it normally used.
<
- Condense your nanites to the utmost limit
- Push the condensed nanites over the mapped-out path within your body
- Once you've established the full path, densify the flow of nanites beyond the limits, allowing the excess to reinforce the established path
- Continue the process until the flow gains its own inherent momentum
>
The hive printed out a list of steps for Theo to follow along with a convenient map of his body with a marked-out path for him to push the nanites through. This path circled through the entirety of his body, venturing deep into every limb… No, into every finger, coiling around his insides, wrapping around his bones…
This path, when viewed from a greater distance, appeared to be a simple circle taking a single round across the outline of Theo's body. It was only once he took a closer look at the three-dimensional projection before his eyes that he realized just how insanely complex it was.
The hive came in as a crutch as soon as Theo focused on the possible paths.
'Tsk, another choice right off the bat, huh?' Theo nearly rolled his eyes when, rather than getting straight to the fun part, he ended up facing another quite important choice.
Someone could say that the simpler the path, the better, allowing him to climb to the peak ranks with relative ease, overcoming the lacking potential with the speed of growth. After all, what did it matter if he was weaker than others of his level if he could always remain several levels above all those around him?
On the other hand, there was an argument to be made about going for the maximum potential complexity, greatly increasing his potential and ability to become the low-key master—a shadow eminence of sorts, capable of overcoming threats several levels above his own, taking down enemies who would consider him no more than a fly to be swatted away.
Theo decided against both of those paths, though.
The path of simplicity would be an insult to the potential his nanites gave him. Picking it would be akin to bringing out an atomic bomb to deal with an annoying fly.
The path of complexity, however…
To put it simply, all of Theo's designs on it came undone when he continued to zoom in on the projection, all the way to the point where the potential path reached, quite literally, the atomic level—weaving through every single particle making up the more complex chemical compounds that then turned into individual cells, structures, and so on.
'If I were to go that complex, I would die of old age before I even completed the first loop around my body,' Theo realized, scrapping his idea of becoming the most talented person possible.
In the end, Theo ended up getting some help from the hive—not in the form of added guidance, but by simply having it analyze the books it integrated from the library to figure out the general level of complexity the people of this world followed.
Then, and only then, did Theo decide to take things just a few steps further before finally settling on the path, on the structure he wanted to implement.
'It's nothing like the atomic-level weave, but it's complex enough to cover every last organ, bone, and biological pathway of my flesh while also being several levels above what the books implied to be the norm,' Theo thought as a sense of satisfaction filled his mind.
With this choice made, he finally started to gather up his nanites from his overworked nanorgan, grouping them into a single, condensed entity in a seemingly endless process.
<
- Condense your nanites to the utmost limit (completed)
- Push the condensed nanites over the mapped-out path within your body
- Once you've established the full path, densify the flow of nanites beyond the limits, allowing the excess to reinforce the established path
- Continue the process until the flow gains its own inherent momentum
>
The very moment Theo couldn't press even more nanites into a single point anymore, the list before his eyes changed a little, only for a small dot to appear right above the solar plexus of his projection, mirroring the place where Theo had just happened to gather his nanites.
The ball of nanites started to move, too small to leave serious damage in its path but just big enough to make Theo feel as if there was a vicious worm burrowing through his flesh, too big to ignore but way too small to do anything about it.
'There's no growth without its pains,' he justified the situation in his mind before gritting his teeth and then squeezing his eyelids even harder, determined not to lose any of his focus.
After all, he was about to become the first modern person to ever gain access to the actual, mystical arts!