Logical, alienness, pulsing energy dragged him to awareness. For a moment he was back in the fever of dreams of the transition and then his brain caught up. A rat of all things was nibbling on one of his spreading roots and the inbuilt alarm had triggered. With a bit of energy, he expanded a delicious offshoot for the animal to distract it. The farmer in him wanted to go on a genocidal war and destroy the cheeky mammal, but for now, buying it off with a distraction was the more economical solution.

It did not even eat enough to damage the conductivity of the root, which was not a surprise; he knew he had been setting the automatic alert to ultra-sensitive levels. With a few tweaks, he kept the monitoring but put an extra level. If a nibble occurred, then it would grow into a distraction. If damage exceeded ten percent, then it would contact him. There was no point bothering him when his magic could take care of it simply and easily.

It was still dark, and everyone was sleeping. His roots had grown for thirty minutes while he was asleep, and he got the impression they had soldiered on while he had slept. Given that, he considered trying to get back to sleep, but what was the point? He felt refreshed, as if had slept for closer to eight hours.

Daniel shut his eyes anyway and then opened them straight away. He was way too alert. There was no chance of sleeping.

Half an hour only. It was a scary concept, but it might end up being his new norm? That was fine, given his powers. He could always find something to do, no matter how dark it was.

Refreshed, his mind returned to the problem at hand. He could connect to the interface’s grain now. He just needed to use it to cast the Animal Sense spell.

Daniel kept testing, using tiny bursts of Animal Sense to follow the logic of what triggered the spell in the other interfaces. Once he could see the pattern, he applied the energy sequence to the grains without thinking the words “Animal Sense.” As he hoped, the spell kicked off, but only in two of the five pieces.

He was on the right track. He triggered with words, and sure enough, all five triggered. He kept repeating, alternating between thinking the words and energy patterns until he could consistently engage all five each time.

Finally happy, he applied the method to the dead grain next to his core. It worked instantly, then it started heating faster than the ones in his head ever had. He killed the connection immediately.

His chest hurt inside. That must have reached well over a hundred degrees. He was surprised that steam or smoke was not coming out of his chest.

It was progress, if the grain was not destroyed. He did not know whether to be happy or terrified.

To distract himself, he checked the roof spaces. The plants just continued their slow, boring progress. Come dawn, he would start poking probes through roofs to scan the different corridors, but till then, it was all boring. However, having the contingency in place made him happy.

The heat had departed and, using the tiniest pulse, he confirmed the grain was still functional.

Success but not. The isolated grain had triggered but tried to do it all itself. Previously, he had just been engaging with the interface grain without asking it to something specific. This time he had specifically asked it to cast the Animal Sense spell, and it had done what he wished. It was progress, and if what he was imagining was possible, which he hoped it was, then this was the right path. The next step was to get that tiny object to pass the calculation into the larger core. It had to be viable because the separate grains already networked the effort, so it was set up to spread the load. He just needed that piece he had moved to be next to his heart to take the direction while leaving the work to the rest of the core.

What could he do to solve this last bit?

He was so close. If he failed now . . . Focus, he told himself.

Who would have thought that fighting overpowered zombies would be the least troublesome part of his day? For a long time, he just played with creating the connection, switching it on and off as he considered options.

In frustration, he tried using both the joined grain and the ones in his head at the same time.

A spark leapt from his chest to his brain, shooting along his bloodstream.

He ended the attempt in shock.

It had not been painful, as it was more like a tickle. Annoying more than anything.

Success? It had to be. They were connected, his core and the broken interface. He needed them to talk.

The spark had not hurt him. It had to be good.

Daniel tried it again. Once more there was a spark, but this time he did not panic, though he still killed the link quickly. While he probably had not permanently destroyed anything with his experiments, he did not want to push it, and he knew how swiftly the pieces could heat when he did something stupid.

Now that he was making progress, he felt energised once more. It was just a matter of time, so he went slowly, using micro length triggers time and time again, keeping them open just long enough for that communication channel to connect between the two areas and the information flowed. Within his main core, he could feel sections that were not dedicated to his existing skills being repurposed for Animal Sense.

His heart beat faster, and he shifted on the mattress. Ivey startled with a small cry of terror. He held her, stroking her hair gently, and she did not wake fully. She sighed softly and seemed to drift back to sleep. He was not sure if his movement had woken her or she had been suffering a nightmare.

The spell would work. The broken interface was training his core; he was sure of it.

Each tiny spike had the spell extending beyond the room already, and if he amped up the power, he might even feel the entire floor.

Slowly, he reminded himself. Slow and steady wins the race, and there were still hours till morning.

He debated trying it with just his own core. It had failed earlier, but this time? It couldn’t, it wouldn’t, but he had to try. In the pursuit of science. Plus, the micro pulses were heating the bits in his head. If he used his own power, that would not occur.

The energy triggered in the core, and his awareness expanded out. It was disappointing, to say the least. The eight humans shone brightly. The rat had eaten its full and moved to the other side of the room, but was still entombed in the crawl space. That rat was not a threat, its power seemed to have an ability to control other rats. Beyond that, it was just a normal rodent. With no companions, it was pretty harmless. There were several small spiders up there. None of them had abilities like the electrical bugs.

Daniel terminated it.

There was no noticeable heat in the dead bead. While overall, its range had been less than he had hoped, it had worked just like in his false memories. Right down to being able to assess the strength of all non-sapient creatures that it touched.

No heat either. He examined the interface grain near his heart carefully. Nothing had appeared to have changed.

He wanted to dance, such was his excitement. It was a success.

Soon.

He tried the dual process again, but this time dripped extra power into the spell to keep it longer. The broken interfaces were speaking to each other and his own core. Daniel repeated it till suddenly he felt a change. The connection formed the same as always, but there was less information flow.

Daniel unleashed the spell, pushing a spurt of power into it. His core did the work with the broken interface guiding, and with immense clarity, his senses exploded out across his floor and the ones above and below him.