Focussing on growing avatars that are basically just the brain and a few basic functions to house it makes the whole process a lot quicker, but after a few dozen attempts the sun falls below the horizon and I admit defeat for the day.

Better to head home on my flying bicycle and get a good night’s sleep.

Inside a fully encased flying coffin, I reach for the wood and roots around reshaping them into an even pointier and longer vehicle making it all resemble the modifications of the flying bus.

The small exercise and amount of mana poring in the runes push the craft, until I reach just under the current speed record, a little over 230 kph. The improvements in aerodynamics and runic language along with better materials would help push either efficiency really high making these speeds possible at manageable mana costs, even as the system was doing its best to stop us from exceeding this barrier. The problem wasn’t even the drag and size of the vehicles in itself, it pertained more to the limitations of the propulsion runes. Nothing else we tried could et around them. Tenfold that mana output wouldn’t push us much faster than 240 kph. Compared to the world of cubed exponent drag as we had grown used to on Earth, these limitations are so much beyond that they chafe at every corner of our development.

I woke up nearly four hours later around midnight with more energy than I could have dreamed even after the system.

Many changes it brought are amazing, but just because you could forgo sleep for a lot longer and only stop for an hour or so here and there didn’t mean that you should. I spring out of bed ready to put it all into any project that interests me and it all goes unceasingly into making a better brain.

Qi flows out slowly as I measure it in growing exactly as the system guided me back then. I walk the memory palace while simultaneously pushing for the perfect formation trying to recapture what I did last time around.

I don’t have any meaningful guidance besides the occasional nudges of the system that seemed fainter around me than the others, though that is only because I’m actively working with one of its skills. Anything I did with my natural perception field or with other skills that were not part of the system meant I got no help, the one notable exception was that after getting Qi, the system still help me cast spells with it. Help that Aspen didn’t have which is a major factor to his lousy mana efficiency and that for someone else might have cost them their capability to wield magic altogether. Though this help is probably just something that the council just couldn't retract. Maybe I was wrong about everything I thought I knew, but instead of despairing, I just trow myself even harder into the work before me.

I fold back and forth taking care to pay attention to each of the instinctual pieces of knowledge left behind in the formation of the first Avatar’s brain, but those are just the mistakes the system saw me making at the time.

Each time I will need different guidance. Each round around a track, I stumble upon different places, but I try to let the intent behind it all if not the actions guide me. I seek a path forming a mental picture of the folds and twists of the brain. A puzzle that I won’t just solve if I can see progress in the first few minutes, but something that I will ceaselessly work on, back and forth laying down the foundations until the building stands taller than a mountain.

On the hundredth attempt, I blink my eyes realizing I lost myself in the work.

Damn, I didn't think I would have spent so long working just on this.

Looking out the window, I guess the time is around noon. So twelve hours of work without a single pause for a break. Just like old times on Pando.

I look at the corner and think to light the small stove to prepare some food, but instead, I reach into the inner world and pull a few bananas along a small assortment of foods meant to the eaten without cooking.

Barely a minute later, while munching away, I look back at my work and analyze it.

The twisting folds of the brain.

Just as I feel myself getting dragged into it. A kaleidoscope disorienting me so I pull myself back with a small jerk.

“Ohhh, damn, I succeeded. ”

I look at it and different from my expectations, what I find is not a better copy of the first Avatar’s brain or even a copy of my ever so slightly different current brain. Instead, I feel the flow and ebb of the copy I made. Small deliberate choices throughout, not to copy, but to try and achieve a level of internal cohesion like the entire thing was one long track, a Mobius strip that takes you anywhere along with it if you only follow in a random direction for long enough.

I quickly grow a rough body around it and try to fully connect.

Extending my will, I let myself be dragged inside again, but when I do, I find the space cramped and not very comfortable. Half my senses are still back on my body and each of my movements seems hindered. Still, I get up and do a backflip with mild success.

Pushing off the ground is hard and dizzying, with me nearly landing on my wooden face, but it is still a tentative success.

I think of what to do with this Avatar.

All the others are about to become fertilizer or give their mass for new growth in some other form, but it seems disrespectful to destroy my first success.

I relax for a second, absorbing the information from all around until something calls my attention. Bursts of communication crowd the network inside the inner world. Seemingly telepathic and a little stronger than the last time I paid attention to it.

I reach out for the seeds there. Even after gifting so many to others, I still had a good fifty of the original left, that is not even counting the younger generations, most of which were planted just before the trial, which meant they had months to develop.

Could they…? I call out and ask using the characteristic mental imagery that they are used to:

Would anyone like a body of their own?

Every single one of them stops instantly. I feel as even Aspen, in his lumbering steps compared to these seeds halts and pays attention to me amongst the quorum of his younger brothers.

A second passes, then two, ten, twenty, and still no response. But I can feel that they are just thinking. Tentatively, a braver one amidst the group that had asked to be bonded to another human asks:

Seed alone in a body?

Yes, not riding shotgun, just you to control the roots.

That sends a cacophony and a thousand questions arrive like I just said to a class of first graders that they would be getting an infinite bucket of candy and free rain over the school grounds for an entire weekend.

Like headless chickens, they fire back and forth faster than I can follow, but unlike children, soon their exuberance begins to manifest in other ways, more mature ways and I clearly see that while most do have an interest in a body, that is not what all of them want, nor are they sure of what they will be giving up.

I pick the one who spoke first after it dies down a little. Drawing the nodule, a seed smaller than an olive’s, I guide it out of the inner world and into my hand.

The entire being, that doesn’t even have a proper brain is so tiny, but in the same sense, a being this tiny can develop so much. I know of no human that could do a hundredth of this with a brain the size of this seed. Though life doesn’t seem limited exclusively to the physical and involves other realms, the main one that I know is the formation of a consciousness tied to a physical form.

I have no idea if this will work, but with trembling hands, I walk to my second avatar and touch the back of its head creating an opening in its ‘skull’. I could probably grow a seed inside and transfer over its consciousness through the network, but why do it the hard way? Barely the seed touches it and a reaction starts. Something that is not the subtle shifting of Aether that I felt when I helped Aspen split and generate dozens of seeds simultaneously.

Barely it starts, it is over.

My finger has been fully encased, so I slowly pull back allowing the grey matter of this new being to close up.

The little seed takes control of the avatar and closes the hole without any mana. It extends out exploring throughout the new body and I keep a tentative connection to it in the Aether realm, but I don’t even dare to push my Qi at it for fear that it might affect the process.

Something terrible and wonderful happens before my eyes. The brain seems to melt slowly, becoming a goop, but as I reach in ready to help, a small shape comes out of the soup forming around the seed. One by one folds solidify growing a new brain, though a strange protonic spheric form of a brain. In the next few minutes, something even smaller than a cat’s brain comes to be. A work of art that I’m tremendously lucky that it formed with such…ease.

Its thoughts seem to limber up and any limitations I attributed to trees are simply gone. Their consciousness was always entirely based on another time frame, now they have the hardware to really make use of all their experience in a way that made sense to humans.

Aspen.

I saw. I want one, NO I want a dozen brains.

I think it over for barely a split second, but instead of just pushing out a dozen brains to sit around the watermelon-sized seed that Aspen became, I replay:

Better Idea, one large brain, one VERY large brain, at first.

Yes.

The all encompassing and pure thought that I as a human have trouble even coming close to replicating tells me all I need to know for work to begin.

-----------

Burges’s POV

“Are you certain?” I ask Merlin while we stare at the latest iteration of the portal. “I mean this was a lot of work, if it blows up...”

“I may not be like Nash when it comes to manipulating space, but not just the main portal needs to be pure silver, this whole area here benefits from the smidge of gold alloyed more than anything else at our current stage and the rest is good enough to not melt under the mana load.” He says pointing at the diagram.

“I would have thought that the center should have the most attention.”

“Ordinarily yes, but silver is plenty for our purposes there, being more precise with the address will be what actually had the most benefit. Even Nash agrees that it is the most critical point without even having to deeply study it.”

“I just don’t see how the ‘address’ of the portal can still be wood, only this other permanent part is a gold alloy, but I will trust you.”

“That part is the decoder. It is the only critical part in aiming the portal. The wood is not a hindrance on that particular part of the build. It is actually helpful eliminating the need for a highly complex design that would allow us to have multiple addresses while still making the portal dialable.”

I shrug and take a few steps back as preparations are finished and the rush of people gives way to the anticipatory feeling of our attempts. I should probably keep closer track of this project. Can’t be missing something so basic as this, but while Nash has been pushing the portal really hard, the other dozens of projects still need managing.

“Connecting to instance number: 5.” Without Merlin’s talent and not nearly enough time studying the last iterations of the portal, I’m confused about a few of the specifics. But I still sense the mana rushing for the portal and a prickling of space on my tongue. Enough that my level 2 space time interaction skill would eventually level, but I didn’t have the time to make proper use of it.

My eyes, with 22 perception points can still clearly see the pinprick sized portal stabilizing though still not quite enough to send even a grain of sand through. The same 22 points, however, are not enough for me to see what is on the other side. That is what the cameras are for.

A blurry image of a basic wooden shack in the direction is pointed that no longer exists in our village, a few seconds later the entire thing just shuts down.

“7.2 seconds.” The main operator calls out triumphantly. “God damn. We are on the right track for a nearly perfect portal.”

“But those 7 seconds emptied both original batteries and the new bank. That is nearly 50k mana.”

“And another 700 points or so from the recharge rate.” He calls out perfunctorily.

Merlin has his face scrunched and says: “I think the formula for how much energy we will spend for a fully stabilized portal in the right place is wrong.”

“Uhh,” I say before I catch myself. I look at Merlin and wait for an explanation which comes seconds later.

“The mana cost increases exponentially with how precise the portal is aimed, though we can’t send anything through if it is not to the perfect spot. Before we didn't have quite enough to make a good guess and I was more optimistic than I should have been. We will not need just double or triple the mana for a small stable portal. Even the tenfold increase that our worse case estimates indicated is very optimistic. I need to do some calculations, but I think it is closer to a hundredfold.”

“What???” Calls out one of the full time researchers in the Portal team “That is around a million mana a second.”

“And our the current set up is not up to that monumental task, not yet. We won’t just need a few pounds of silver for that, we will need literal tons of it. And even that is a big if given we also need precision, not just raw muscle power.”

“Make the runes too large and they begin distorting things, which will, in turn, need larger ones and redesigns that push the original projections through the roof. That is why I predict a hundredfold mana increase. It is the same problem we faced with making mana shields ale handle the absurd mana outputs for large scale attacks, but much worse because we still need precision.”

“Well, I guess we don’t need to call Nash just yet,” I say. “We don’t have anything to really show him.

“I disagree, we have quite a few developments to show him. Hopefully, him not even knowing there is a box to take ideas from means will give us something we didn’t explore to keep going.”