Chapter 59: The bond

It took a long time to completely recover from the ‘intensive’ ritual. I didn’t feel weak, but my limbs were uncoordinated. My mind slightly foggy, and a hint of nausea meant recovery time was important.

Eventually, I managed to stand comfortably. Scooping Chic into my arms, I head into my castle. Sitting comfortably within my library, I gently rest with Chic. At some point I fell asleep, I don’t know when. Yet I must have, as I distinctly remember waking up.

As I wake up Chic gently stirs as well. The bond I feel within myself pulses with life as Chic awakens. Focusing on it, I feel the beat of a heart and waves of emotions ebbing and flowing. A gentle pool of confusion.

Eventually, images and meanings started to flow through the bond. Images of food, a distinct feeling of hunger, and a word ‘food.’

I send a word back, ‘let's eat’. I quickly receive excitement in reply, along with the short meaningful sentence ‘I want meat.’

The cute spider quickly starts running towards the kitchen, I follow along at a far calmer walking pace. I find the spider hanging from the ceiling from a web, vibrating in elation at the concept of food.

I quickly place out chicken, beef, and pork. I mentally ask “Which one do you want?”

I feel a strong wave of emotion followed by “Beef, I want beef; beef, beef.”

I guess that settles it. I cook some steak I got from a butcher for us to enjoy. It's strange feeling the emotions of another. I had to mentally separate them to keep focused. The food didn’t last long, but I pleasantly received thanks.

This bond will take some getting used to. I spent a long time just playing around and accompanying Chic. I slowly accustomed myself to the gradual flow of emotions and the occasional image and word. Noting an oddly high competence with a language the spider has never used.

Emotions seem to be passively passed between the bond without any will. Images and words usually need the intent to flow but if the thought is really strong it will travel over. I also noted a distinct feeling of where they are at all times. Not like coordinates but a rough direction and area that gets stronger with proximity. I doubt I will ever lose them again, or them me.

Eventually, I had to do things so I moved on. Something I have been putting off is isolating the genes of the skin samples gathered. Moving onto the task. Finding squid, and bat samples. I quickly start breaking them down. Isolating water breathing, night vision, and flight genes.

I also took the time to collect the teleport gene and save your inventory gene from some enderman. I just broke some dimensional doors and harvested a couple before running. I managed to harvest a few samples from Sling and Chic. Being able to tell Chic my goal helped immensely and I don’t even think Sling noticed I harvested them.

With all that I now have a healthy collection of incomplete genes. I even have climb, poison, and slimy. The 2 latter ones I am unlikely to use.

Using an iron golem, I create basic cells, using hoppers for automation. Funneling those basic cells into the cell breeder I breed all the incomplete cells into complete cells. It took a while but it will be worth it.

I should improve myself now, but… the pain is making me think that a bad choice. I am sure I can put it off. Something to note, the genetic material stays in your blood. If I harvest my own blood after an improvement, I can reinject it into another clone to add the same genetic traits. Although I assume it only works on myself and not other people.

Now that I think about it, can’t I just improve a clone before I inhabit it to avoid the whole painful process. Then I just need to switch into the clone and be in a genetically superior body.

For now, I make a super-serum, including flight, night vision, teleport, water-breathing, extra health, and climb.

I create 2 of these serums, 1 for use on a clone; this one will be duplicated by extracting blood. It makes it more efficient, so I can store the blood and use it on any clones I wish to enhance.

Finding myself I nice juicy clone, I begin the procedure. Slowly injecting the serum into the clone body. I watch in awe as it begins to involuntarily twitch. The skin shifts taking on an almost imperceptible layer of scales. Gills form on the neck; wings expand from the shoulder blades. I also spot the skin texture in the hands changed, like for the climbing aspect. And finally, an odd aura appeared around the chest. The final change was the eyes, they started twitching, the sclera shifting to red and then to amber. A large slit splitting down the middle.

Once the change completes and the seizure-like movements stopped, I extracted a large quantity of blood into separate vials for use in other clones. Carefully storing the complete super serum in a secure cooled container and the blood clone serums in a fridge near all my clones.

I appreciate the fact the face didn’t change too much, most notably the eyes. If you look closely you would see small metallic-like scales but few will be carefully inspecting my skin.

With the improvement complete, I store my current body and enter my new and improved body. Feeling my mind leave my body and rush towards my new body. The world flashing to grey and then to black. Opening my eyes, I find an odd sensation of strength, along with a slight suffocating feeling perpetually around my neck; that will take time to get used to.

Stepping out the case I… fall flat on my face. These damned wings are annoying. Even flat against my back mess with my center of gravity. I take some time to accustom myself to this body. Wondering if this means I am no longer human. Although I question if I was before noting my deep red eyes and statue-like grey skin tone on my base body.

I take a moment to appreciate my original body, frozen in time within the case. I should probably find an even safer place to store you, shouldn’t I? What's safer than a pocket dimension hmm?

Quickly creating a spirit key, I admire the oddly glassy appearance and texture. I wonder how I use this. I spent a while stupidly focusing on it before I figured it out, I just hold it out and turn it like I was opening a lock. A split opens in the air, leading to the spiritual pocket dimension. I created an obsidian safe house within storing my body and a few important supplies like tools and armor.

I then neatly hid the key somewhere on my island. Ignoring it I create a second key for me to actually use. Even though if I die in my original body, I just migrate to a clone body, it has sentimental value so I don’t want to lose it. It's also good to keep a generation one body in case anything goes wrong; call me cautious but I have seen enough movies to know cloning clones can go horribly wrong.

Happy with getting this chore done, I go visit Sling and Chic finding them playfighting. This is really funny as Sling is rather damage resistant just reflecting Chic when she jumps at him. I call Sling a ‘him’ but slimes reproduce asexually, it's more for convenience. Laughing internally as I recall the slime population living off moss and monsters in the cavern under my island.

Heading into town, finding my mailbox relatively empty. A single note within from the coven. It simply states a witch will be visiting this town soon. I wonder what they will think of the town? I hope it's all positive.

Heading to the mayor, a passing greeting to the clerk. I enter after politely knocking, “Hey, how are you?”

He replies without even looking up from the paper, “I am good, you?”

He seems to be used to me just dropping in now, “I am good; thank you.” I continue, “Want to grab a bite to eat, I had a few questions and thought you could use a break?”

He actually looks up to reply, then looks down at the paperwork then shrugs. “Sure, let's go; I know this nice restaurant.”

Heading out, I see the surprise on the clerk's face as he spots the mayor leaving. He remains silent but I can see a war behind his eyes. Likely to ask where the mayor is going or stay behind the counter and not get involved.

He walks towards the restaurant, I follow behind; keeping pace. “So, anyway; I never asked, but what's your name? I always just considered you ‘The Mayor.’”

He slows by an almost imperceptible amount before responding. “You can call me… Average.”

Taken aback, “Your names Average?” He just sighs in response.

He turns to me, a slight pink on his cheeks, “My dad thought if he called me it, I would strive for greatness.”

I just raise my arms in response, what a rubbish parent. I suppose everyone has their bad qualities; yet calling your kid average? That’s just cruel. “my condolences.” He laughs at that response.

We come to a nice, slightly higher class than I am used to – restaurant. Entering, we find a smartly dressed man run towards us at full sprint. “Hello Mayor, please may I show you to your usual table.”

The Mayor just nods, as the man guides us up some stairs to a small table with barriers around it. Resulting in a private booth. Few people are on the second floor, but I can hear a few hushed voices. We enter, looking at the menu while the waiter just stands and waits.

I end up ordering a fish dish that sounded tasty and the Mayor, a steak from a cut I am unfamiliar with. “The steaks here are really good, the fish is to but I am a beef guy myself.”

I smile lightly, “Don’t blame you, beefs awesome. I just like the delicate texture of fish. You rarely find a tough fish; harder to hide bad quality.”

Filling the table with light conversation while we wait for food. The mayor is actually very knowledgeable. Knowing geographic, historical, and even astrological information. I should have expected a well-informed individual given his position.

The waiter brings our food shortly, a large plate with a massive slab of meat on top, drizzled in a thick honey-like sauce. My fish was a fried fillet of fish with a light sauce and some salty vegetables. I also spotted a few fried balls of something, which I expect to be tasty.

Removing my helmet to eat, I spot the Mayor looking at me; wait I changed my face, didn’t I? Crap!

He quickly asks, “What happened to you?”

I stutter out, “Well… y… you see I… improved my body. Don’t judge, the normal body is too weak for me.”

He sits there silently for a while, “So you just ‘improved’ your body just like that?”

Replying shortly, “Yep,” not elaborating further.

He quickly recovered his composure which I admire, “So… what things did you improve?”

Feeling nice, I humor him. “I made my skin more durable, gave myself Nightvision, water-breathing, climbing hands, wings, and short-range teleport.”

He keeps the reply light, “You can teleport, cool.”

We quietly finish the rest of our food before getting to business.

“Now that we have finished our meal, I had a few questions to ask,” I say, placing my knife and fork down.

He also lowers his fork; “It was a nice distraction, what do you wish to ask?”

Leaning back in my chair, “2 things, first I wish to enquire the location of ‘The End Portal’ round 3x3 portal surrounded by green-blue encrusted yellowish stone. Eyes of ender slotted into the top, know it?”

He places his hand over his eyes, “How do you even know that exists? Tell you what, don’t answer that. I can get the location for you, it's currently being guarded by the Dagger family. You would need their permission to even see it, much less enter it as I assume your plan. I will look into it for you.” He takes a deep breath, “What's your second question?

Regaining focus on the conversation. I was lost slightly contemplating the hoops I have to jump through to access the portal. “I just wanted to inquire about the structure of the governments, how the towns work, and all that.”

He places his hands together, clearly focusing. “As you know every town has a mayor, if a town grows large enough it becomes a city. 2 other people are elected to help run it in that situation. A town is created whenever a significant amount of people moves to a location and begin to live there. It's only a town after it connects to the network. This mostly involves, making sure a wall has been erected for security, a road to an already connected town, and accepting taxation. The government is loose, each town is internally governed until they reach massive sizes. At that point, they are integrated into a more closely-knit group. This mostly happens around the capital. Obviously being connected has benefits but they don’t penalize towns that wish to forgo such things. But they would lose out and support if they are under attack, bandit suppression, and massive trade routes. Other benefits exist but they are the major ones.

We continued to talk for a while, he lightly filled me in on general knowledge. I enjoyed the evening but eventually, I retired to my home. Going to bed, to which Chic quickly followed, sleeping on my ceiling.