Chapter 287 - The One Where The Author Enjoys Flexing That Sci-Fi Shit (Patreon)

Graaaaah! Had some losses on here recently, so wish me luck in getting new peeps! In the meantime, I guess I just gotta entice people with even more even juicier content! Enjoy! 

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Raika does not have eyes here. This is good. The parts needed to know what eyes see and do are gone, and it would be very confusing if they were there to see through.

They are there to see through, but it would need to stretch for it, and that is not what it is here for now.

Raika is in a cold place. This is important, because Raika emits a very large amount of heat at regular intervals, even with the added baffling, heat-sinks, and consistent venting. The cold place has distance, and shape, but the sensory elements and the processing required for them have been removed, and thus, these things are irrelevant compared to the fact that it is cold. If it were not cold, Raika would likely overheat to the point that even its regeneration would be unable to sustain its health, eventually melting its new body into a pile of undifferentiated carbon and disorganized metals.

This would be unideal. 

Whenever the space that Raika is in becomes less cold, something changes. It is Raika that is changing the something, but in her current state, Raika cannot tell what. Simply put- whenever it begins to move towards warmth, a cooling process initiates, flowing down from the top of Raika’s body down to its base, and eventually, the temperature once again reaches an ideal state.

This is good. An ideal state is required for the purposes of enacting Raika’s chosen/assigned/created function. 

Raika is thinking.

Currently, Raika is thinking of words. To be precise, it is thinking of every single word that Raika knows, and then thinking of every possible combination of those words in functioning sentences. It doesn’t always get the “functioning sentences” part right, especially not after combining three or more words, but it is getting better with practice, and feeling its own neural pathways reinforcing the correct answers. When it/she is done with all of the words and all of the combinations for all of the words (to some arbitrary point, at least) it will begin with numbers.

Raika used to not like numbers. Then, Raika made a new piece of herself, and it realized that numbers don’t really bother it very much. And since it has chosen to be / chosen to interact with numbers, then numbers are good, actually. 

But it is not there yet. For now, Raika is practicing with words.

Words are hard, though. There is an ingrained association with verbal expression that isn’t the same with numbers- a number is a representative unit, while a word is-

Also a representative unit. A series of symbols, interlaced into a larger pattern, such that they produce different meanings depending on how they are grouped. Really, both styles of communication are just symbols organized into patterns- different pattern-systems for different symbols, but the process is effectively equivalent.

Raika develops a new set of folds and shapes in itself, dedicating that section entirely to pursuing this new line of thought as the rest of her continues with combinations. 

Does Intent fall into this category as well?

Interestingly, it does not. In fact, it seems to almost directly counter this factor- through Intent, a symbol comes to mean whatever the Intent influencing it means, rather than the inverse. An Intent of peace on a weapon will, in turn, make that weapon a symbol of the Intent, influenced to act according to it, just as Intent can sharpen and improve the lethality of an attack or communicate a “word”.

What, then, is the pattern there? Is Raika’s self-appointed task to examine symbols above meaning? Well… yes. But can’t it do more than that now?

More folds. Metastasizing neurology grows further, granting room for more and more and more thoughts.

Intent reaches past symbols, as Dao reaches past physicality. A Dao reflects a process of the universe into new contexts, transforming said contexts- Intent does the same.

Are they the same?

Negation. Incompatible behaviors- Dao is tied to direct events, not purely conscious…

Well, isn’t it?

Dao is conscious interpretation of a pre-existing meaning / pattern / Intent, taken from a real object / behavior.

Intent is consciousness interpreted onto / into a material / real object / behavior.

More thoughts. So many, now, that Raika is having a bit of trouble cataloging all of them properly, and can feel the heat in the room increasing further.

It can do more.

It generates new pathways, creating the architecture needed to catalog every thought. As Raika reflects on the nature of Intent and Dao, and as Raika analyzes and interprets every combination of symbols it is aware of and can formulate, Raika begins to address the problem of memory.

It lost memory when it was last killed, when it suffered brain damage so severe it had to restart from nothing. If the purpose of this part of Raika is to catalog every thought in the engine of Mind, then memory must be improved.

Enchantment is the process of infusing Qi and varying effects of physics / Dao into an object. Inspiration?

Once again, Raika splits, forming a new cluster of neurology-

The room is heating up very quickly now. The cooling process that it can vaguely sense is coming more frequently, as well as a sense of distant concern from other parts of itself.

How does enchantment function?

…Too many possibilities, too little data. That cluster of tissue is consumed, re-integrated back into the whole while preserving as many of the pathways it generated before dead-ending.

Inspiration: Enchantment is using arrays / patterns / willpower to recreate the same effects over and over. Can the process be used to create a memory-shape?

Memory = at odds with cataloging.

A pause, as a part of a part of Raika considers that reality.

It is easy to forget things, but easy to remember the “important” bits, the useful portions. This is not its self-appointed task- it is to catalog every thought, a thought that carries a connotation of proficiency and ease-of-access, a utility tool. 

Additional- many memories are only unlocked upon a specific trigger or trail of thought. Some memories cannot be accessed without these specific triggers. The advantage, to the Pillar, is that currently-useless data is kept in a way where it is not taking up space or focus. The disadvantage is that the information cannot be properly compiled and catalogued without undergoing a near-infinite number of possible processes and chains of thought.

Inspiration: Enchantment is using arrays / patterns / willpower to recreate the same effects over and over. Theory: A process can be developed to recreate the same thoughts / memories over and over, allowing for perpetual access with a significant decrease in the need for specific triggers. 

The Mind reacts.

Priority detected. Two-thirds of the neural mass dedicated to pattern formation of symbols is instead diverted to the neural cluster responsible for the theory. Vast amounts of potential utility, a possible way to retain memory after total brain-death, new method for encoding information that would not require as much neural mass. 

No need to have a dozen brains re-think the same pathways to reach an old conclusion or calculation- not when Raika can create a catalog of precisely what is needed and previously experienced.

Raika is satisfied with itself and its current behavioral and structural modifications. It might still be trying to find ways to optimize processing speed through brute force if it was constantly processing new input- with this new form, it has only its own thoughts to occupy itself, and the flaws therein.

It also adds a few emotional processing tissue to itself. Just in case. Better safe than sorry.

At this point, the room is near-boiling in temperature, and the cooling-process is being undergone constantly. Raika can feel the part of itself that is the room expand further, fresh heating vents opening to reduce the heat- but this is not its business or responsibility. Its self-appointed task is simply to think, and to know when it is hot and when it is not.

Its current process will take time. The limitations of the needles sting, enforcing form even as it tries to expand its size further, but…

It has increased the heat in the chamber quickly. It is not made to keep track of time, though this catalog process will likely bear results in that direction as well, but… its original intent with the needles was to enforce limitation. Hard lines that could not be crossed, save as an emergency measure, to ensure that no one part of it/herself wastes resources or compensates for the very weakness they are supposed to be working on.

Raika slows itself down a bit. Recalibrates, finding a better balance. A quarter of its processing to tracking patterns and symbols; a quarter percentage to tracking conclusions about Intent and Dao and what the correlation might mean, if it means anything; a full half dedicated to finding or inventing a new way of encoding things.

It is a strange thought, and Raika is not sure exactly how the cataloging idea will change things- but it will change things, and not for the worse. And is not the purpose of its currently very out of the norm self to find new ways to think about things?

Yes. Yes, this will do.

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Raika looks in at her/itself, turning eyes inwards towards the part of her being lovingly called the Pillar. For a while, it was borderline overheating, the temperature in the room reaching just barely below the threshold for boiling her own brains. Notably, this temperature is nearly double what it would be for a mortal, unaugmented brain- Qi saturation is useful like that.

It seems to have calmed down a bit, but it’s still outputting near constant heat, and has grown a few inches since she “installed” it in herself. It is her, she is it- but the whole point of the enforced separation is to provide fresh perspectives and challenges, and putting her original, humanoid-brained thoughts into the Pillar would sort of defeat the purpose. Like giving one of her Dao bodies a giant panther-body: cool and a great way to compensate for any worries, but ultimately making her less reliant on her chosen skills, adding in shortcuts and stopgaps.

So… she leaves it thinking.

She can feel its thoughts, even though they still feel distant. It’s not thinking anything bad, its actively listening to input and concerns, held back from actually damaging itself, and its existence remains deliciously her, in that weird way that her Truth has so thoroughly reinforced.

Maybe other people might be worried about semi-separate minds, but… well. 

I Am Me, I Am Mine. It’s just True. And besides- she’s not other people.

The final launch sequence initiates as the “big squirter” launches the last of her bodies out- and then begins to load again for another shot.

Raika can feel her bodies, some still hurtling through the air, some already out of their launch-seeds and walking forward. At any time, they can reach back through themselves and be / reach her, just as she can push through the mild disconnect of the needles pretty easily to change things or deliver supplies through them. Each body is a portal now, a truer avatar than ever before, and should she so choose, she can reach through herself to spread further.

So why stop at just a few semi-dissonant bodies?

A few minutes later, a fresh seedpod is launched out into the world, landing well away from any major nexus of Qi that she can sense. No need to spread wildly, or go about upsetting the people who actually live wherever she’s landing near.

But Singheart proved a very important lesson.

From a few hundred miles away, Raika reaches back through her own being and sees the city again.

No thread connects the strider-form with the city. No neural tissue or musculature binds them through distances, operating as a constant vulnerability.

I Am Me, I Am Mine.

No matter how far apart she may be.

A seedpod lands and begins digging, generating whirring drill-teeth tendrils and hyper-dense piston musculature to find or create isolated caverns and isolated places to hide.

And then, as she fills freshly found or excavated spaces, she weaves veins and biology into formation, cycling Qi through herself in larger and larger cycles.

At this point, she could create a set of meridians. But… frankly, why? A meridian isn’t just to cultivate Qi- it digests it, shapes it according to the soul of the being it belongs to. Useful for specific techniques, maybe, or to carry certain affinities, but…

Maybe later. She’s pretty happy with being able to create large-scale generators of raw Qi, ready to be used for any purpose and power any power or part of her body with minimal waste. Not very optimized, maybe, not as much as it would be if she had, say, a cultivation centered around biology… 

But there’s something to be said about quantity and quality.

She can try to replicate meridians and cultivations some other time. Her resources aren’t unlimited yet- but that’s not to say she can’t begin to set things up.

Deep within herself, far, far down, she creates a new chamber in her body, she creates a new think-tank, and a body for her to experiment with.

One at a time, for now. No need to waste resources brute-forcing the idea just yet, not when she has so much other stuff going on. 

But… she can do more. And there’s really always more to do.

And as she feels her senses come awake out of one seedpod after another, she smiles. 

Carefully, launch after launch, Raika spreads further, and grows, one patch of purple-red terraforming at a time.