The Collector's psionic profile floated within the depths of the greater system hosted within it. The system not only stored biomass without changing the Collector's physical dimensions or adding to its mass, but it also most importantly stored every single psionic profile of the creatures the Collector consumed.

The female daemon specimen had called psionic profiles 'souls', and indeed, the Collector understood from its stored memories of tinkering civilizations that most of them, when they were in more primitive stages of development, correlated psionic profiles with some part of their active will that stayed beyond the deterioration of their physical forms.

Yet, this was incorrect.

Psionic profiles that did not have a tether to a physical, living body were merely records.

Snapshots of the energies that comprised the mental processes that formulated living beings. No more alive than a tinkerer's image caught in a photograph.

No more alive than the genetic memories that they stored within organisms.

Complex, yes, but alive?

Not so.

There was no way to truly frame what the Collector was experiencing in interacting with its stored psionic profiles through the conventional senses, but if it were to be highly simplified down to purely visual representations, then it was as if the Collector was traversing through a great sea, a body of water, and here, there were flickers of light that indicated a unique psionic profile.

The Collector utilized the system's processing power to locate the psionic profile of the female daemon specimen.

The waters shifted, and the appropriate light came before it. Touching it would lead the Collector to an analysis of the specimen's profile.

This, the Collector did.

Yet, results unexpected.

Attempting to extract the 'Blessing' from the profile caused the Collector to abruptly find itself not surrounded by waters, but in the midst of what seemed to be a structure of tinkering architecture.

A circular room not unlike the throne room of the goblin lord in the dungeon.

The Collector remained at the very periphery of this area, blocked off by a wall of flickering darkness that obscured every conceivable sense, including psionic analysis, but even then, the Collector could perceive the vague shape of a sizable throne through the wall.

The Collector analyzed this area, for this phenomenon was a completely new one that had never been recorded when attempting to analyze psionic profiles.

The area was still analogous to a psionic profile, thus, the Collector existed in this space also as a profile, but it was not the profile of the female daemon specimen.

No, cross-referencing this profile with the many that the Collector had consumed determined no match.

A potential psionic infiltration?

No. There was no hostility from this profile, if there was, the system would have automatically registered it and destroyed it.

The profile was not foreign.

Its coordinates originated directly from the female daemon specimen, likely having inhabited her core, not her body, hence, the Collector had not encountered this before.

Initially, the Collector had thought this potentially similar to the gate system incorporated within the cores and roots of sorcerers it had consumed, for the female daemon specimen had showed circuitry that seemed to indicate gate connection.

But gate connections were almost purely a physical phenomenon.

A tinkerer would alter a portion of their spirit roots so that they were wired only to connect to a foreign energy source. In their case, a gate. The gate itself was not a living being, it was merely a well of energy, but the fact that it was regulated by a higher tinkerer known as a 'god' prevented the Collector from utilizing such a power.

Not only would the Collector never bow to a tinkerer, it was possible that said 'god' could damage the Collector from within if it wired any of its roots connected to the gate they managed.

Yet, this was different.

Assessing the potential threat of this new profile yielded a 0% chance of harm.

This psionic space and whatever profile it belonged to was not tethered to any living organism.

Thus, much like the countless other profiles the Collector stored within itself, this foreign psionic space and its corresponding profile did not possess any true will of its own.

It simply existed.

The Collector could sense that beyond this wall of darkness, the potential to retrieve the 'Blessing' lay.

But though this profile was untethered, that did not mean it would not respond to psionic stimuli.

The 0% threat rating attributed to this profile had the potential to shift if the Collector attempted to utilize more processing power to break this wall and interact with whatever was within.

Yet, the power the daemon specimen had shown was extremely tempting.

She wished for the dawning of the Collective and had laid down her life for it. If the Collector could access this power, then it could grant her wish all the quicker.

Some contemplation.

Analysis.

A decision.

The Collector withdrew. No more risks. Not now, when survival was so tenuous.

This psionic space would always exist within the Collector's storage to investigate later, potentially when the Collector possessed more information about it.

And that was one of the primary resources the Collector needed most now.

Information.

With the loss of the daemon female, obtaining a free flowing and easily maintained source of information would be difficult.

Keeping this in mind, the Collector tended now to its physical evolution.

Firstly, consuming the immense amounts of biomass it had stockpiled.

>>>

*Biomass Consumed*

Biomass Level: 330>7

Metamorphosis Level: 6>8

>>>

With this amount of biomass, the Collector could ascend two metamorphosis levels. Thus, it could restore two of its prior adaptations.

>>>

*Neuro-Endocrinal Matrix Rank I Restored *

--Chronostasis: Utilizing psionic energy to boost neural processes, the perception of time may be slowed for short instants. After one second of usage, neural processes must undergo an adjustment period which may cause delayed reactions or warped spatial perception.

*Neuro-Circulatory Reserves Rank I Restored*

--Reserve Heart I: An additional heart. May be utilized to sustain bodily processes in the case that others are destroyed or compromised in function.

>>>

Like cornerstones building up a strong foundation, adaptations such as these that enhanced broad bodily and neural functions were prerequisites for developing stronger weapons systems and sub-adaptations.

The Neuro-Endocrinal Matrix granted the Collector greater control of its hormonal system and neural pathways, and with further evolutions, would also allow the Collector to unlock the psionic powers it once possessed.

Its psionics would never be at the level of a Dominator-strain Collector for all of its psionics were geared towards boosting control of its own body to maximize usage of its natural tools. But even so, this was a formidable adaptation.

One sub-adaptation, for example, allowed the Collector to spread its consciousness throughout its entire body, allowing it to maintain some level of mental processing unless its entire body was destroyed.

Coincidentally, this was the crucial ability it had utilized to survive as a grub against the so called 'high king of the gods'.

The Neuro-Circulatory Reserves adaptation would allow the Collector to manifest additional crucial organs such as hearts or brains.

Though, in the Collector's case, culturing additional hearts was far more useful in allowing it to store cores it consumed into the extra organs.

Now, to determine what forms it would take.

The Collector would have to discard every insect base it currently utilized. These specimens, though they could handle the lightless cold of the Darkwoods, could not even begin to survive in the Collector's current biome.

The Arakka genes, in particular, were highly inefficient here. The hydraulic systems the Arakka utilized to move its legs would freeze and compromise. None of the other insectoids from the Darkwoods would fare much better.

The rohu genes it utilized for aquatic mobility were also inefficient, even though the Collector assessed there was a high probability of water-based environments in this location.

The rohu swam in warmer waters. It would not contend with the chilling waters likely to flow here.

The daemon base the Collector currently utilized was quite exceptional, and unlike the other specimen, the genetic material from the daemon was exceptional enough that it would continue to get stronger and stronger as the Collector itself attained higher metamorphosis levels.

However, the daemon base also was not entirely efficient for the cold, and there was another specimen that was just as exceptional as it.

The Firefly Shinchu.

This creature's core alone had provided the Collector with the biomass to ascend an entire metamorphosis level. No doubt the true creature it sourced from would easily defeat the Collector even now.

There were two ways the Collector could survive this environment.

The first was in splicing forms that resisted the cold.

The other was to splice forms that could generate enough heat to beat the cold.

The Collector chose the latter option. Thus, it utilized the Firefly Shinchu as a base for though it was an insectoid, it could produce a heated bioluminescence that could quite comfortably negate the cold.

Not to mention its immense capacity to hunt monsters.

The Firefly Shinchu was an odd specimen. It seemed to not hunt tinkerers unless provoked. Instead, it devoured solely other monsters, specifically monsters with higher primal densities.

It seemed to operate as a specimen that regulated the magical biomes of this world, eliminating monsters that grew too old and powerful for their habitats.

Thus, the Firefly Shinchu had completely adapted itself to monster hunting.

Its bioluminescence could be tuned to attract monsters, and it could generate a form of magic that could wreathe its body parts in solid light that caused massive internal damage akin to spontaneous combustion when encountering the bare flesh of monsters.

The higher the primal density of the monster, the more severe the internal damage.

This ability, the four star adventurer had attempted to utilize on the Collector.

Yet, the Collector had not possessed much Primal Density for the ability to take strong effect.

In this environment devoid of humanoid population density, monster-hunting capabilities would be incredibly useful.

And this power in general would allow the Collector to "cheat" and face off against monsters stronger than itself.