[/Marker_found: Startpoint]

The machine looks down at the spot where it once rested in for ages after spending an hour wandering from one tunnel to another, since the last deadly confrontation with the unknown humans and their guardians, the machine has not yet able to find any hints of intelligent lifeform in the dark cave aside from the bat look alike creature resting and watching the machine from above. At one point the machine tried to catch one of the bats to do detailed inspecting work on it, but the bats always manage to evade the machine’s rusted and burnt hand easily. The machine knows that it won’t be able to accomplish any kind of scientific research at this stage, so it just ignored the bats later on and keep itself focused on exploring the dark tunnels only.

The machine looks up at the unexplored side of the cave as its CPU runs through the map it made since its awakening, the cave system seems very big and impressive, too impressive perhaps as the machine thought the cave is not natural, but it was made by someone or something a long time ago. The machine assumed that the electric robot it fought against earlier was used for the digging work and the unknown human race was the master of this place at one point. Whoever made the cave and what its purpose will probably stay unknown or soon to be discovered in the machine record anyway as the machine continues its long trek in the darkness.

[You have 12 unallocated points]

The machine’s CPU ponders where did the unauthorized data come from as the message pops up in its view. And the irrelevant data is certainly not produced by other systems and processors in other parts of the machine. Since the CPU is free at that point, the machine decides to look into it while walking, starting by spamming random codes in the debugging console to try triggering some kind of answer to be given to the machine.

[/console_debug_input: Expand]

[Pioneer 0 has 12 unallocated points]

[Please choose what do you want to unlock with unallocated point]

[Stat bonuses | Skill | Core | Title]

After the 400th try the machine finally got an answer. The machine is very curious what those data mean since the machine can’t analyze it without any cue, it decides to explore those options.

[/console_debug_input: Help ‘Stat bonuses’]

[Unallocated points will be used to increase your stats here]

[/console_debug_input: Help ‘Skill’]

[Unallocated point will be used to unlock new skills here]

[/console_debug_input: Help ‘Core’]

[Unique: Unallocated points will be used to unlock core and core slots, non-blessed-race only]

[/console_debug_input: Help ‘Title’]

[Unique: Unallocated points will be used to unlock new titles, world traveler only]

The machine is now intrigued by its new discovery, it seems like this world has some kind of different world rules and standards comparing to its old world judging by the new data it just found. And as the machine wish to learn more, it begins to expand all the options to see what choice does it have and what that choice really mean.

[/console_debug_input: Expand ‘Stat bonuses’]

[+EN |+HP|+DEF|+ATK|+INT|+DEX|+AGI]

On further inspection the machine found out that the machine can improve its specs by using those options, there have some other options grayed out too, but the machine does not really care about it as it continues the research.

[/console_debug_input: Expand ‘Skill’]

[Dash | True strike | Appraisal | Automatic recovery | Enhanced Recovery | Cure moderate wound | Cure curses | Detection | Lesser Magic Sense | Lesser Art Sense | Lesser Alchemy Sense | Lesser Magic Resistance | Lesser Art Resistance | Mending]

The machine takes some time to analyze all the information flows into the CPU as it filters out the gray options that it can’t take for some reasons. By the look of it, skill means special abilities that grants the machine an advantage by allowing it to perform something much better than usual by using up EN, or energy, without the need of studying it first. That mean the machine can start throwing fireballs without needing to learn how to make that fireball first by spending EN. The machine understands that it could greatly improve the machine’s effectiveness and the chance of successfully performing a certain action at a reasonable price, skill's effectiveness also can be improved by spending more unallocated points into that skill after unlocking it. But energy although seeming unlimited due to the thermal converter’s anomaly, the machine has to shut down and waits for a long time to charge up only a little amount of energy, and it seems like casting a certain special action by using the skill system will always cost more EN with weaker result than using it without evoking any skill move. So the machine decides to move on with the research for now.

[/console_debug_input: Expand ‘Core’]

[ Lesser Mastermind Core | Lesser Sage core | Lesser Evolution Core | Lesser Power Core]

[Core slots: 0/2]

The machine does not sure what those things are, and on further inspection, it seems like those things can grant the machine a special set of powers by having it, with mastermind core allows the machine to think faster and more deeply, sage core grant knowledge of the world around the machine, evolution core can change the machine to adapt and overcome challenges it face, and power core improves the machine’s energy recharge and reserve considerably. These cores seem to have the ability to improve themselves over time as the machine done a certain action that is related to the core, however, the initial price of these core is very high, and it will increase considerably each time the machine unlock a core or a core slot. It seems like there have quite a lot of cores too. But now the machine can only pick 1 out of 4 available core.

[/console_debug_input: Expand ‘Titles’]

[There have no title to unlock at this moment]

The machine slows down a bit as it descend down on a slope while analysing all the new data it just found, all of them sound really helpful and could give the machine many advantages in one way or another, but since the machine can only pick one or two of them at the moment and it needs a way to keep itself running in poor condition, the machine decides to put recovery related power above all else. The ability to spend energy to repair itself sounds good, but it means the machine will risk running out of energy even faster and recover much slower than it is currently.

The machine runs some logical filtering processes over and over many times before it carefully spends its point.

[/console_debug_input: Allocate point 'Core' | Lesser Evolution Core]

[Lesser Evolution Core unlocked. 2 unallocated points remain]

[Lesser Evolution Core activated, 1 core slot remain]

A surge of magical power rushes into the machine as its new power awakened, the machine can now evolve...But what is evolution?. The machine asks itself as it stops walking for a moment to think about it, the machine digs through the data web in its storage drive to look for an answer. The machine indeed is able to find a lot of relevant data, but most of the data is for organic lifeform evolution, the machine is not that kind of creature however.

As the CPU runs full speed to find a way to use that newly found evolution power, the machine takes a step forward and accidentally trampled something on the ground. The machine immediately takes a step back to see what it was, all it can see is a pool of orange glowing substances however as the damaged infrared sensors are not able to pull sharp images as well as it did prior the fight.

[Pioneer 0 defeated Elder Devil Bat | +100 XP]

[Assimilate biomass? {Y/N}]

It seems like the machine stepped an on an old bat that fell off the ceiling as it got too weak, but the machine does not pay much attention to that detail, instead it focus on the new option presented in front of its view as it looks at what left of the dead bat on the ground.

[Assimilate biomass {Y}]

The machine observes the bat's dead body slowly disintegrates into a pile of warm goo and slithers toward the machine, then the gooey substances begins to crawl onto the machine's leg as it fills in the cracks and gaping holes on its armor plate before hardening itself like a slab of bone welded into the damaged alloy plate, the newly patched part does not seem to be as strong and durable as the old, rusty alloy plating, but it sure better than a gaping hole for dirt and foreign objects to move in freely.

[Biomass assimilated | Lesser Evolution Core gain 1 XP]

The machine is baffled by the scene as the CPU's data flows froze in place as it has no logical explanation for what just happened, not even unproven theories and hypothesis in its data drive can be used to explain that. And at that moment, the machine begins to question itself whether this is 'real life', it wonders if it is in some kind of simulation set up by its makers to test the machine, after all, the thermal converter's anomaly, unknown teleportation technology, and these weird powers do support that assumption.

The machine stands motionless for a few minutes before the CPU restarts itself to renew the data flows and restore its operation, the machine decides to push all those unexplainable things aside for now as it now changes it focus from exploring to assimilating enough biomass to repair itself, and hopefully trigger an evolution event sooner or later as it progresses.

Meanwhile, a certain adventurer wakes up from his nightmare in the middle of the night, haunted by his memory of the confrontation as he wakes up his companions to hasten their trek back to the adventure guild to report the event.

-------------------------------------------

[New_objective: Assimilate more biomass until unit is repaired]