[/Data_recap_from_logdata_finished]

The core goes through the data log again to extract and analyze them very carefully, the core is doing its best to salvage any useful data it can find from the log while controlling the nanites on the temporary body to move around from one dark tunnel to another.

So far, the thing has remembered its purposes by reading the primary objectives and secondary objectives. Explore, research, gather, construct and communicate are the five rediscovered directives that it saves on the flash drive. Then the thing re-discovered many basic scientific data by cross-referencing the numbers from the log to the numbers the nanites are picking up from the environment around it like temperature, barometers, temperature, ionized radiation measuring, barometers, energy and force calculations, it's all in the log, however the data is still raw and not as refined as its old self, as expected.

The core also remembered it has many connections to the identified lifeforms in this world, its conflicts with the bug and golem, its interactions with 'Erika' and Arc's party. However it could not recall who its creator was and how it got here, there had no information about those details in the log, the core only knows it must continue its mission to explore and construct a colony for its forgotten master.

[/Flash_drive_remaining_capacity: 25%]

Within less than 40 seconds, the flash drive has gone from 90% empty to 25% empty after receiving an endless stream of high data rate transmission processes from the core, soon the core will run out of memory space if this keeps up.

[/New_objective: Expand physical memory capacity]

[/New_objective: Research lost technology and knowledge]

The core notes down the things that it needs to do as soon as it could before trying out a 'skill' mentioned in the log.

[Evoke Lesser Mana Sense]

The core observes the new visual data flowing into the processing unit and watches its energy balance carefully, the core is still producing more power than the consuming rate so it will not need to hold back with the skill.

As the core observes the dark world around it by using the nanites on the temporary body, the core spots a small group of bugs scouting the area, it seems like the hunt isn't over yet.

The core assumes it won't be able to win in its current situation, so the core decides to order the temporary body to sit down near a wall and pretend to be a random rock, the core is preparing for an ambush, those bugs will be good material for the core to assimilate and reconstruct its body.

As the bugs carefully walk pass the hidden machine, the core orders its nanite army to leave the temporary body and attack the big creatures by entering their body and destroying their nerve cells, effectively causing brain dead to two Hivewarrior and crippling an Evolved Hivewarrior before they could properly react to the sudden and quiet ambush.

The entire quiet, one-sided battle lasts for 3 minutes as the nanite destroys all the nerve cells inside the bugs, effectively killing them officially as the core receives the confirmation data from the unknown source.

[Pioneer 0 defeated Hivewarrior | +300XP]

[Pioneer 0 defeated Hivewarrior | +300XP]

[Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900 XP]

['Assimilation' evolution progress completed, 'Assimilation' has evolved into 'Nanite Assimilation' due to the effects of 'Nanite Host']

The core watches the bugs goes limp on the ground as the small nanite swarm inside their body begin consuming their flesh and replicating themselves until there have nothing useful left to consume. 3 human-sized bugs are only enough to produce a small handful of nanites that could gather around to form a solid football sized object at most, it seems like the conversion rate is not really good at all as there still have a lot of wasted material left behind, but at least they are the same general purpose nanites too.

[/System_power_balance: +3]

The swarm size has doubled, and so is their power consumption rate, the core can't support all the nanite anymore, one-fourth of them will have to shutdown and lay dormant in the empty temporary body as reserve nanite until the core can expand its energy production capacity.

The other one-fourth of the nanite swarm is redesignated into memory cell type, they will be used to expand the internal flash drive memory by turning themselves into an external solid state drive that connects to the core through the wireless data feed they have been using since the beginning. The rest is used to move the temporary body and sensory purposes.

[/Data_drive_found]

[/Data_drive_connected]

[/Data_drive_remaining capacity: 100%]

The new data drive has a capacity of about 10% smaller than the internal flash drive and the data rate is also lower, however, more empty data storage space is better than no space to save new data at all. The core will have to deal with it for now.

The core decides to fill the empty data drive with basic information that the nanite extracted while consuming the bugs, their nervous structure layout, their muscle construction, their hard skin composition and one unidentified, yet very interesting looking body part are the four things the core decided to save in the new external data drive.

[/Drive1_remaining_capacity: 20%]

The core decides to look into what the nanite has already identified first while ordering the body to get up and start moving again. The core needs to find more material to create more reserve nanite while doing researches to find out what it should do to lower power consumption and increase production to support the nanites.

Increase production...The core remembered that it could convert background radiation into electricity, perhaps the machine could try using the inactive nanite to produce power by applying the same power on them, after all, the nanite swarm is a part of Pioneer.

The core powers up the inactive nanite and quickly spreads them out on the radioactive material surface, then it changes the general purpose nanite into radioactive decay absorbing nanites and converts the absorbed decay into electricity before tethering the generated electricity into the core.

[Energy Dominant is in effect]

[/System_power_balance: +600]

The experiment is a success, the core has expanded its power production as a surge of power spikes its processing unit, some of its elementary processing cores in the package unit are running at full throttle even though the data flow is effectively zero. The core does not really understand what is happening, but it can feel that the power spike is making the core feeling more active than usual, the core is 'feeling' happy for the first time without knowing it.

A few seconds later, the core's system returns to normal status as it continues looking into the bugs' extracted data and starts figuring out how to store excess energy for future use. The core still has many works to be done.

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

Emperor Hito, leader of Azuria Empire

Emperor Hito has summoned a special person two days ago, and today is the day Emperor Hito will meet that special person he wanted to see.

The appearance of high leveled monster in the Dark Land of Arcanis and the mysterious earthquake in the same area were the two news he had most interests in, but according to Murphy, his intelligence advisor, that was not all of it, a traveling S-rank paladin also returned to the village after went missing in the cave for a day, she claimed to discover a new kind of odd creature in the cave that possessed many odd powers, and she wanted to recruit some people to clear the collapsed path that would lead them to the odd creature.

Emperor Hito found the story interesting and sent out a summoning message to the Paladin in the dwarven village in the Dark Land of Arcanis. He thought that the creature she mentioned might have some connection to the odd feeling he had last week.

"...Something has changed"

Hito mumbles quietly as he looks at general direction where the dwarven village and the mysterious cave are located while standing in the waiting room. Hearing the door open, Emperor Hito immediately fixes his posture as he turns his head slightly to greet the Paladin.

"Erika, is it not?"

As the king and the paladin discuss the Dark Land of Arcanis and the recent events, Hito realizes his anxious of the place is not random at all, The Emperor is onto something special, but he can't tell what it is, not for now. The Emperor will need more time to think about it.