The Harvester

Chapter 206: Overhaul

“{So… while on this topic, am I wrong to ask why you could not just use this new ability of yours to fulfill wishes for yourself?}” Fray asked as Rakna headed to the Pavilion.

‘I don’t know why… but I find what you said very offending.’

“{Pardon?}” He said confused. “{Is it really?}”

‘Well, it seems… the Sage has given me more than an ability,’ the therian said pensively. ‘Deep down in my consciousness, I can feel something. Knowledge that I shouldn’t have but that I cannot access either way without needing it.’

“{Interesting… What about my question then?}”

‘Of course, it’s a no-go. First of all, my power doesn’t work on myself. And wishes, as you said, require prices. Even if I could ask others to make wishes for me, they would have to pay a tribute. But more importantly, a wish that is not genuine cannot be fulfilled by… well, me, but I would rather say the Crystal Sage’s power.’

“{Hm,}” Fray mused. “{How would you define a genuine wish, if I may ask?}”

‘Real… Something that you truly wish for. Something that only belongs to yourself. In other words, it cannot be abused. Let’s say I ask Flavia to make a wish that is beneficial to me, or rather for herself and the group as a whole. I know for a fact that she would do it without hesitation but no matter how willing she is to do it, it wouldn’t be ‘real’.’

“{But then, that child…}”

‘The kid was as genuine as you can get,’ Rakna retorted and stepped inside the Pavilion. He was spotted by the receptionist and passersby who immediately stiffened. He ignored them and went up the stairs to the private section as he continued to explain. ‘Children are… for the lack of a better word, naïve beyond reason. But thanks to that, they grow by leaps and bounds. At that age, dreams and wishes come as they go. Do you know what is different about children compared to adults?’

“{What is it?}”

‘They are sincere,’ Rakna snorted. ‘Their thoughts and actions are genuine at every turn. They are the only ones who I almost always granted a wis-‘ He abruptly stopped his thinking with wide eyes right when he entered the lounge.

Fray had obviously noticed why. “{That YOU almost always granted?}” He said with a sharp tone.

Rakna paused for a moment before recovering. “Doesn’t matter,” he said out loud. “Whatever the Sage did to implant these thoughts into me, I don’t think it meant me harm. I guess it’s a manner of my inheriting his powers.”

“{It is still slightly worrying but… I will concur with your gut instincts.}”

“At this point, the only question I have is about my Kzanaria,” Rakna continued as he entered the Gravity Chamber. “And I mean the fact that although I gained a Title that supposedly allows me to grant wishes, I got nothing about awakening my Kzanaria.”

“{I would assume it to be a process. Perhaps this wish-granting is merely the first step?}”

“A piece of a greater result,” he concluded and Pronos jumped off his neck when he ordered Trii to increase the gravity to what he was currently used to train in. “Regardless… that’s something I will have to worry about in the future. I can’t just go around and ask people for their wishes. It will probably happen on the fly at best, like today. It only works on specific people. I can’t always just choose.”

“{If you say so.}”

“By the way, do you see any change to my soul sea?”

“{No… I am looking out the window at the moment. Nothing changed… much, at least. There is in fact a certain thing I’ve noticed. The raining petals are now, I would say, 95% black and 5% white in color.}”

Rakna scowled. “Doesn’t seem very indicative… it might turn out to be gradual. Either time-based or by the number of wishes I grant,” he said and shook his head. “Let’s stop thinking about it,” he continued and sat down on the ground. “I have a lot of other stuff to sort already…”

“{Indeed.}”

“First… this,” he muttered and opened up the description of Eye of Symphony once again.

[Do you intend… to run the Overhaul, Rakna?] Alexa asked with a careful tone. She didn’t know why, but she was a bit nervous about it. She was aware that this process would transform her Host into something closer to herself. It excited her… to a stage she didn’t even realize.

“It depends,” Rakna replied honestly. “I don’t give a crap about being a robot, freak, or whatever else. If this can make me stronger, I will take it. I don’t have much humanity left anyway. But before committing…” He paused.

“Run a simulation, leave no corner untouched, and give me the results. Calculate the probabilities of failure or negative side effects and show them to me,” he started uttering commands one after another but both Alexa and Fray knew he wasn’t talking to either of them.

To be exact, the therian appeared to be talking to himself. And as expected, his orders were carried out by none other than the Eye of Symphony. The lenses focused several times back and forth and rows of data, as well as a digitalized image of Rakna’s body, was constructed.

He read every result with uncanny speed. In fact, he only had had the time to blink for every single word and number present to be read by his eye and registered by his brain. ‘I guess memory isn’t a problem to me anymore,’ he thought to himself. ‘And reading speed obviously…’

“0.264% chance of unwanted side effects. 1.173% chance of failure…” He commented with a raised eyebrow. “Not high enough for me to care.”

Fray audibly contained his laugh. “{Why would you?}” He said sarcastically. “{Be frank, you would not care even if those numbers were above 90, am I right?}”

Rakna shrugged and mentally began a new simulation through his mind. He could do it all silently but it felt a bit less bizarre to voice them to his Eye, “Scan my brain. Run a new simulation. I want the full details of the Overhaul’s effects on it.”

This time, the view of his body zoomed out, and instead, his head was detached from it and zoomed in before extracting a full-scale brain. The Eye of Symphony performed the scan with the nanobots’ help and displayed every single detail.

“That was fast…” Rakna mumbled, a bit surprised. “If I went back to Earth with this Eye, we could probably start fabricating synthetical brains… quite an odd prospect. How much storage does this thing even have to make a neuronal map of-” He paused as he telepathically received the answer in the form of cold hard numbers for the CPU and Storage capacity.

“{What is wrong?}”

“Sorry… There were too many zeros to react,” Rakna deadpanned and dismissed the info. He then concentrated on the brain simulation and sighed. The Overhaul Program would indeed transform his brain but not as drastically as the rest of his body.

The parts that will be the most affected are the Parietal Lobe, the Occipital Lobe, and the Temporal Lobe. Two of these were already a bit modified to integrate the Eye but would be even more so after the program.

Then there were the more delicate parts of the brain, the Frontal Lobe, the Brain Stem, and the Cerebellum. He was most interested in the Frontal Lobe, which primarily involved his emotions and reasoning capabilities.

“Run a consequent simulation. Obsidian Blood will be the variant for this one,” he mumbled and proceeded to watch with his own eyes how his personal Trait messed with his brain. After a few seconds, the corners of his lips raised a bit despite himself. “Compatible. This Overhaul can fix my little self-destructing problem.”

“{So… no more need for you to fear the emotional trigger?}” Fray inquired.

“Pretty much. With this, I could switch from one to another without even going through ‘Spill The Blood’. A mental command would be enough to activate it in the best-case scenario. According to these calculations, technically, it could still be dangerous, but only if I were stupid enough to play around and trigger Obsidian Blood every second for an entire minute.”

“{I see… considering how your Trait changed while I was away, it is useful. Not only to be able to switch to a polar opposite magical element, but this new effect of halving speed and dexterity and give it to strength and endurance is incredibly powerful. Coupled with your werewolf form… your strength and endurance will be incredibly high.}”

“Yeah, rams in even more why skill with attribute multipliers are so rare,” Rakna commented with a thoughtful tone. “The stronger I get, the stronger the effects. Let’s say I had 100 across the board, with Shape-Shift and Obsidian Blood, my END and STR could reach around 230. But if I was, let’s say, all 500…”

“{You would easily breach the 800 cap,}” Fray finished for him. “{You indeed have the potential to overpower foes far above your level. But, take heed, you are not the only one who possesses skills of this nature. Bar something like your Titan Ascent or Demonization, from what I know, the Nine-Tailed, for instance, have a Shape-Shift similar to yours. To be exact, they can transform into their respective beast forms and experience attribute increases. I am not privy to the detail of said increases, but it is suspected to be between 50 and 100%.}”

“Don’t worry, I get it. I never thought for even a second that I would be trouble-free with just this,” Rakna said and swiped his hand to manually manipulate the holographs of his Eye. Of course, only he could see them and to anyone else, he would have looked eccentric; though he could technically make the Eye project it for others to see.

“Anyway,” he sighed and dismissed all the mathematical and atomical formulas with a headache creeping up. Even he, who was decently taught in all science subjects, was drained by all of what he saw.

Heck, this new eye of his had shown him a periodic table twice the size of what he knew. If the Eye of Symphony’s internal system didn’t have the necessary intuitiveness to simplify the results, he would have been stuck there for days.

“What do you think I should do first? Get to Lv.100 or run the program?”

“{Honestly? Use the latter. It will undeniably bring substantial changes to your status. It would be best to get it out of the way before Lv.100. It could get rather confusing, after all.}”

“In that case…” Rakna turned his head toward Pronos. “Little guy, bite me. Painkillers,” he said and took off one of his gloves.

The little snake silently stared at his master for a moment before releasing a sigh accompanied by a hiss. He was always on the first-class seat whenever Rakna did something reckless. He was far too accustomed to it to care. He slithered to the outstretched hand of his partner and bit into it as he used his Myriad Poison Magic to concoct a non-lethal poison made to numb victims.

Rakna watched his veins lit up with a purple-green hue that traversed his arm until his elbow. He nodded and opened his mouth, “Run the Overhaul Program.”