The pain of having your whole ribcage getting broken open is something I have never felt before. Even the culmination of all the pain I suffered from getting beat up doesn’t even come close to what I’m feeling right now. I’m seeing stars. White flashes pop up in my vision.

‘don’t give up’, I mumble to myself

The mechanical arms of the operation machine start doing their work. It injects me with chemicals and magical potions to stop me from bleeding. Stimulants get injected to keep me conscious and make my mind clear. The problem is that the more conscious and clear headed I am the more pain I start feeling.

‘Blerhg!’ I vomit to the side because of the rising pain. I haven’t eaten in days but I somehow am still able to vomit. It’s a miracle. All kinds of strange thoughts bounce around in my head. I start hallucinating from the extreme pain that wants to knock me out and the magic potions that keep me awake. Colors start changing. The whole room becomes red, then green, then pink,…

The blank core of a slime is getting lowered in my chest. I try to focus and keep my connection with my soul shard. I must be ready to fuse at any moment. Magic circles start forming around my heart and core. The golem transmutation that will mix this core with my heart is starting up. I grit my teeth and prepare myself for the pain, but instead of pain a cooling sensation starts spreading from my heart. It seems to even alleviate some of my agony.

‘haah’, I sigh in relief. It seems that creating a heart, that can store mana, doesn’t hurt that much. I keep track of the process. The light of the transmutation becomes brighter and brighter. There is a sudden flash of light.

‘urgh! Fuck, that stings!’, I grumble. The moment that the transmutation completes itself, I feel a small sting going through my heart and it fuses with the core. I look down at my opened chest and resist vomiting at the bloody sight. I can see my heart beating. The difference is now that on top of my heart is a blue gemstone that was the core of a slime.

I concentrate. I guide the ethereal version of my slime soul shard into the core. I keep it at the ready to materialize. Now comes the more painful part. The machine will now send small drills into my body to create the pathways through which my mana will flow. Small tendrils lower themselves in my chest.

*VIIIIIIIIIIII*

Have you ever been to a dentist and had to get your teeth drilled? Well, that’s what those small drills sound like.

‘Not exactly a comforting sound’, I mumble while trying to keep my body as still as possible.

Then they plunge in to my flesh. The pain is terrible, but I still think of myself as lucky that a magic driven machine is doing it for me and that I don’t have to do it myself. They work fast and the pathways in my flesh start opening up at breakneck speed. A white mist is injected in the pathways to prevent them from collapsing. This white mist is raw and pure mana, it corrodes the flesh it comes in contact with, it’s too pure for my body to handle. However there is no other way to do it without otherwise spreading impurities through my body.

The pathways are now finished but I don’t dare to relax yet. First comes a cooling sensation. The flesh of a slime is getting injected in my pathways. I grit my teeth and prepare myself for the next sensation to come. Thousands of needles lower themselves on my body. I can see the dragon essence blood bubbling in the tubes connected to it. But that is not what is putting me on edge. I look to my left and see the other tubes that will inject something in my pathways. I see glowing molten metal, mythril. 1500°c. Even though I will be using an isolation spell to keep it isolated from my flesh and prevent from burning the already injected slime flesh, it will still be painful. After all, during the fusion between my flesh, the slime flesh and this mythril I will have to stop the isolation spell. Then it will start to hurt. I hope that the dragon blood will be able to keep my body together and prevent it from imploding.

I smile wryly and say with a hoarse voice, ‘Start fase 2!’

The injection of both the mythril in my pathways and the dragon blood in my muscles and bones begins. I start to feel a tingling sensation from the dragon blood entering my muscles and bones. At first it feels rather good but the tingling changes really fast to burning pain.

The isolation spell is released at the same time. The molten mythril comes in contact with my flesh. The fusion and transmutation starts immediately, but it doesn’t prevent the pain of getting my flesh burnt. My body is starting to go in shock with my internal damage building up.

Needles with cocktails of healing potions and mind potions keep my head clear and stop the damage in my body from getting any worse. The pain from the dragon blood entering my body seems to go away. The dragon blood that tried to gain dominance over my body seems to help with repairing the damage. By doing this the dragon blood gets absorbed into my blood, cells and bone marrow.

I can only hope that my calculations are right and that my body suffered enough damage to absorb all the dragon essence. Another golem transmutation scroll gets activated and helps the dragon blood fusing with my body. I pray that this makes my body sturdy enough to survive the following process.

The fusion of pathways and dragons blood is completed, but my pathways feel stiff and don’t seem to belong in my body. Now with all the stimulant drugs getting injected in my body and having my mind clear, I start stretching the ethereal flesh of my slime soul over the pathways while keeping its core in the real core inside my heart. A new golem transmutation scroll starts lighting up. This is a tier 2 scroll not a tier 1 like the others I used and is much more powerful. I hear the tinkling sound of mana crystals breaking. They are breaking because of mana exhaustion at a constant pace.

I materialize my spirit inside the pathways and core. Materializing something in a solid should make that solid explode, but because the golem transmutation scroll is already fusing the materialized soul shard with the solid pathways and core in my body, the only thing that happens is that my pathways swell up on the verge of exploding. I hope the fusion speed of the two surpasses the speed of the breakdown of the outer solid layer.

My body starts swelling up like a balloon. Blood rises up my throat.

I cough up some blood and curse with a small voice, ‘dammit! Please let this work!’

Then the fusion speed overtakes the speed of my body blowing up and I rapidly deflate. The fusion is successful, but I don’t dare to feel happy yet. The backlash from using all those high grade mind and healing potions, the raw mana infusion and the fusion of flesh and metal starts now. My body is normally way too weak to even receive the backlash from one such mind potion and I should already be dead. The only thing I can hope for is that there will be enough mana crystals to heal me with the healing spell scroll. The dragon blood also made my body a lot sturdier and also gave it a faster regeneration speed so I should be okay. I think…

Blood starts suddenly pouring out of my skin, blood tears come out of my eyes and I vomit some blood. I start shaking uncontrollably.

‘shit, my body starts going into shock again!’

The mind potion starts wearing of and my consciousness becomes more blurred. I see black around the edges of my sight.

‘I can only pray that they didn’t scam me on that healing scroll.’, I mumble in a slurred voice before going unconscious.