The further Amelia walked towards the Coliseum itself, the more that the Orctown atmosphere disappeared and was replaced with... General Sunwell feeling. The buildings lost their distinctive roofs, and the signs were no longer printed in some unknown script.

She did not mind it—she had lived her entire life in Sunwell, after all—but it produced a dull flavor of neighborhood that was neither ethnically distinct nor important to the rest of the city. In fact, she was unsure what, exactly, this district’s purpose was supposed to be. There were houses, yes, and a few high-rise apartments, but not so many that it could be a residential zone. The businesses were small and local, and there were no factories or offices. The entire area was a halfway-developed intermediary buffer, she realized, between Orctown and the Coliseum, just a delineation to make sure that everyone knew which group the Coliseum truly belonged to—the North Sunwell Company, of course.

A young kid on the street tried selling Amelia a bundle of newspapers. A good price, a real good price. When she refused, he followed her for the next block, screaming at her with epithets no child should ever know. He was just hungry, probably desperate to make some coin, and she held nothing against him.

So this was not a place of wealth, either, even if it was hardly a slum.

It was only a few blocks, now, from the Red Light District. Amelia’s new target. That orc shopkeeper Urgul told her all about this place that had become Fourland’s new stomping ground, where they heavily pushed the new drug “synth.”

Two nominally illegal things brought together in one place, with the colonial government all too willing to look the other way as long as no one made a fuss. The Red Light District offered all sorts of sexual wonders and nightly escapades, while synth livened up the world and brought brand-new colors to life, at least for a while. The former was safe, almost tame in its industry’s self-regulations. The latter was hurting the lives of innocent people and disrupting the city itself.

Whatever Fourland was involved in, so was the North Sunwell Company. And so she was going to yank on the synth business until the whole thing fell apart. That ought to bring Ed out of hiding, if nothing else, she thought.

The Red Light District was not, in fact, known for violence or much seediness at all. That was, until synth moved in recently. Now, as a hot spot for Fourland, Amelia fully expected a good mess to start. If she killed less than five people today, she would honestly be shocked.

And so, in preparation for the near-assured fight to come, she decided to check her system herself as she walked. Amelia was, admittedly, not very skilled at multitasking while examining her HUD, but she could at least walk down a well-paved street without tripping over herself.

Amelia had five modules activated in her soul gem, each with incredibly different functions. Ed had created them to help her control her powers and develop new ones; without them, Amelia would likely have never progressed past a glowing spherical orb. Actually adapting to her half-human self was one of the most difficult things she had ever faced in her life, and some of her earliest memories, for that matter.

The Access Core, her lower-level system, was essentially the nervous system to her soul gem’s brain. It interfaced with the other modules, performed diagnostics, and maintained homeostasis in her organic parts. It provided her HUD, gave her the ability to capture snapshots, and kept track of her mana reserves (and the annoyingly small memory bank her soul gem was afforded).

The Access Core was the spark that brought her into this world, and if it went out, so would she. Her body—the real one made of mana, underneath all the skin and bones and rock—depended on the Access Core to function. In many ways, she WAS the Access Core.

No.

The Access Core is a separate module.

Amelia, you should know this.

Sometimes she wished that Ed had not installed the adaptive interface. But at least it reminded her of the woman she had lost sight of so long ago.

The Access Core interface is not Ed.

Ed Winback created the Access Core.

Anyway.

Where the Access Core was the root of her system, the four other modules were its stem. The higher-level systems which Amelia herself could directly control at will. She often kept them off to conserve mana, but in an optimal situation they would be activated at all times to turn Amelia from an above-average woman into the wondrous monster that Ed and others had helped bring to fruition.

The first, most prudent system was the Combat Module. When activated, it sent mana throughout the body in specific directions based on the skill she had chosen. Whether that was [Shock Pummel], [Throwing Hands], or [Mana Burst], she always had an option for getting out of, or into, trouble. Unfortunately, the errors in her system had taken a significant toll on the Combat Module, and she had lost access to many of the skills she once frequently used, such as [Slice], [Harmonic Ring] and [Overload]. She had the ability to upgrade and reactivate them, but they cost so much soul energy to generate that she had not prioritized it, instead focusing on keeping herself functioning properly. Beside that, she was stronger than most glossals already, which certainly helped in fights.

The Scan Module was also incredibly important. It allowed Amelia to analyze and record detailed views of her surroundings in several different modes. She could scan for mana energy, heat signatures, psychic energy, motion tracking, and several other items whenever she wished. And, like the Combat Module, there was the promise of upgrades to install new analytic instruments, although she had no idea about what might be useful.

And, the forever-useful Repair Module was just about the only thing that allowed her to fix her own body. The Access Core had its defragmentation protocol to help fix internal issues, but it only activated when she entered power-saving mode, the golem equivalent of sleep. She was unsure of how this module could be upgraded, if at all, but it had saved her many times in the past, including just yesterday. The Repair Module let her fix all sorts of external issues, both with the fleshy and rocky parts of her body.

Finally, there was the Boost Module. This let her enhance her body for athletic and mechanical purposes, although it cost considerable mana for each use. While her normal physical capabilities were superior to most humans even with all modules off, she could not reach the full capacity of a traditional stone golem unless she overclocked her core with the Boost Module. She became faster, stronger, more nimble, and heightened her senses. If used too much it could destroy her body, but she rarely needed it to such an extent. Like the Combat Module, it too had special skill techniques, but they were not as plentiful, and most of them, too, had been deactivated due to various malfunctions.

Five impressive modules. All things that warriors dreamt of, accessible to Amelia at the power of thought. She did not take lightly the reality of the gifts she had been given. And that was why she was so hell-bent on finding their creator.

Because she was falling apart. Because only one person had the skill to fix her. Because errors were building up that even defragmentation could not fix. She had five impressive, but stagnant modules that had not grown with the rest of her.

And, worst of all, parts of her system that were simply locked away, rendered completely inaccessible.

Ed disappeared from Amelia’s sight, and she had no idea of why. But when she did, she left behind an incomplete prototype. An Access Core that simply was not finished even after five years of work. And Amelia herself did not have the knowledge or skill necessary to do it herself. Her own body was a mystery to her.

She had dug through her Access Core, trying desperately to learn its intricacies, but unfortunately, golemancy was one of the most difficult fields in all of magedom. It would take five, ten years of constant study for someone like Amelia to understand even the basics.

For instance, in her systems, she discovered three brand-new modules sitting there uselessly: The Morph Module, the Warp Module, and the Ruby Module. She did not know what actions they performed, nor why they were locked. Ed certainly had never mentioned them before. Without the ability to activate them herself, all she could do was let them continue gathering dust.

There was only one thing Amelia could unequivocally do to benefit her systems: Soul upgrade.

Souls, with all their concentrated power, could fuel her body just like any other kind of mana. But souls were so great in their intensity, so high in a certain ethereal quality, that absorbing them could also help Amelia improve the efficiency and operations of her core and her modules. Using the Access Core, she could channel enough mana into her modules to gain brand-new advancements.

Right now, she had one full soul gem left on her person. Knowing that the Red Light District would most likely have plenty of combat in store, now was as good a time as any to try and upgrade her systems.

So, even while walking down the street, all she had to do was take out the soul gem and press it to her chest. That familiar surge of energy soothed her entire body and calmed those nerves that had been building up all morning.

The soul energy popped up on her HUD and she selected to absorb it. Now, she only had to choose which of her systems to upgrade, if any. It would be a waste of her mana reserves, but if all went well today, she would be more than making up for it with new souls.

Today, she decided to improve the Boost Module.

While she did not have the knowledge to create new skills for either the Combat or Boost Modules, she could at least improve the ones she already had.

For the Boost Module, Amelia chose the [Heel Dig] skill. It was a special technique she and Ed had developed together in their years in the countryside, one that never failed to impress in training. Like the name implied, she dug in one or both of her heels into the ground, putting all tension on her legs and making her essentially immobile while she absorbed momentum. The rest of her body was able to move rapidly while she waited, and getting knocked down was a ludicrous proposition. But best of all, after collecting enough energy in her legs, she could end the skill with a large jump in any direction, especially forwards to barrel right into an enemy.

This skill was still rather inefficient, though. The mana required per second to continue digging in her heels was paltry compared to what she could spend to simply let the Boost Module enhance her body so she could move around the battlefield with incredible speed.

However, with this complete soul gem absorbed into her body, she upgraded [Heel Dig] and made it twenty percent more efficient, just like that. It consumed less mana, built up her leg strength faster, and had a higher capacity, all from the power of souls.

Great. She imagined she would see great use of [Heel Dig] soon, if things got too messy. If not today, then tomorrow, or the next day, or some future battle.

Now she saw the Red Light District just up ahead, the neon lights glowing even in late afternoon. Very, very soon, she would destroy Fourland. Then, with that, she would gain more and more power until she became truly unstoppable.