Author’s Corner: Sorry guys, my internet has been out all day. Finally got the chance to write up the chapter.

Looking down at the device, I handed over the five silver coins to the golem shopkeeper to study it. With a shrug, he pressed a button to undo the barrier around it and walked back to the counter. After a moment, Celeste popped up from my bracelet, looking up to me. “Are you sure you want to do this…? I won’t mind if you wait a while longer, you know…”

I smiled to her, shaking my head. “It’ll be fine.” Though I said that, I went ahead and sent both of the birds back to the grove, just in case something went wrong. I could either make this work, or save up to get Celeste a robotic body, but personally I preferred this option. After all, a robotic body could still be broken. Maybe after I get some more money, I’ll be able to afford a robot to copy her AI over to, but really this was a priority. And now I was procrastinating again.

Taking a deep breath, I used all of my focus to study the aura of this device. There was a handy little display that showed how it attached to the brain to ensure safety, and that helped me in my planning. However, first I needed to completely memorize the aura of this machine. And this was not exactly an easy thing to do. Unlike the scope, this wasn’t considered a ‘simple’ device, even by the game’s standards. Each of the various pieces of the implant were enchanted with different runes, and by some stroke of luck they were all ones I had previously learnt from the enchanter’s terminal.

Five minutes, ten minutes, thirty minutes…. two hours later I was still studying that device with all of my attention. I had already used my Record feature to memorize the visual aspect of its aura from every conceivable angle. I even had twisted and rearranged the thin wires to make sure that the aura didn’t show any extra signs of change. In this time, a few different people had come and gone from the store, but I didn’t pay much attention to them.

Finally, after three full hours of studying the implant, I felt like I was ready to start. If my memory served me, this was the longest amount of time I had spent studying a single aura since I began this game. As such, I found a nearby chair along the edge of the shop’s wall and sat down. “Okay… here goes nothing. If this fails, seeya in a few hours.”

Closing my eyes, I began working, using my Mana Sense to essentially view myself from the outside. I could feel as my mana worked its way into my head, feeling around for the exact place that the device was supposed to be placed. This was the easy part, the hard part was making it. By focusing my mana, I added a bit into my head so that I was not trying to convert any part of my brain.

Once I felt I had enough mana to create the basic chip, I got started on changing the aura of the extra mana to match the chip. This part I took extremely slowly, such that by the time I was done, the three hundred mana that I had poured into it had already fully recovered. There was a bit of a nagging pain in my head, but since I hadn’t made any of the connecting wires yet it was just a bit of an annoyance. The next step, I inspected the chip and made sure that I had added each and every little rune into the aura. I wanted to make sure that this was going to be perfect, or else this was going to hurt a lot.

For my next trick, I try not to die! In other words, it was time to work on the connection wires. Each one was meant to go towards a different section of my brain, and that meant accuracy was extremely important here. Being off by a millimeter could be the difference between hooking it up to my hearing and hooking her up to my sense of pain.

I decided to take it one wire at a time, emulating the connections with my mana down to the smallest detail my puny mind could possibly handle. Each wire took me nearly ten minutes to finish, and after each one there was a growing headache. Smart people take painkillers of some kind before they have other people go poking around in their brain. Other people just do the poking themselves.

Six wires in, and it was getting slightly difficult to concentrate. However, I wasn’t even halfway done yet. The one bright side was that the auras for all the different wires were the same, and it was just placing them that I had to worry about. By the tenth wire, I was pretty much fueling myself on willpower while holding my forehead in one hand. I thought I tasted a bit of copper in my mouth, which was likely a bad sign. Somehow, I managed to get through all fifteen wires, before the pain became too much and I fell forward, out of the chair as I lost consciousness.

I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but eventually I woke up… back in the hospital. The familiar metal armband had been reapplied, and was once again measuring my vitals. The same nurse that I had spoken with before noticed I was awake and moved over towards me. “We need to stop meeting like this.”

I chuckled a bit at that. “So, what’s the verdict, doc?” I asked, noticing a blue screen in front of my vision.

You gained a new title!Amateur Brain Surgeon

+5% Success rate when performing brain surgery.

For some unknown reason, you lack common sense to the degree that you are willing to perform untested magic inside your own skull, repeatedly. The fact that it works is a miracle worthy of praise, but only inspires your recklessness.

New Spell UnlockedImplant Magic - Technomancy - ★☆

Through sheer recklessness, you have discovered the means to replicate the effects of implants in your own brain.

Mana Cost: Varies

Technomancy has increased to Intermediate.

Mana Signatures has increased to Intermediate.

Aura Sight has increased to Intermediate.

“Well… Mr. Hulett, the verdict is for you to stop trying to perform surgery on yourself, and leave it to the professionals.” The nurse gave a tired smile. “Almost every technomancer does it at one point or another, trying out their abilities to make an implant, and almost every one of them end up here. Those that don’t… end up downstairs.”

It didn’t take a brain surgeon to understand her meaning, and I nodded my head before she continued. “Now, from our scans, and consulting with your companion, it would appear that the ‘operation’ was a success.”

“Yup, that’s right!” I heard a familiar voice in my ear, but since the nurse didn’t react, it seemed like she didn’t hear it. “Don’t bother, testing out the new features!” Suddenly, an image appeared in front of me, a young woman standing behind the nurse. I instantly recognized it as Celeste, despite her no longer being miniature or slightly transparent. She jumped around happily, doing some spins and flips before sitting on my lap. Of course, she was still only an illusion in my head, so there was no weight. “Now, don’t you go doing that again! I was worried.” She pouted while pointing a finger at me, a bit cutely. “Hey, it’s not cute, it’s serious!”

Uh oh… there’s now a woman inside my thoughts. I don’t think I thought this through… After I thought that, Celeste puffed up her cheeks and pouted again, but soon vanished from my view. “Yeah.. I’d say it worked.” I turned to the nurse, who had apparently been waiting for my reaction. “So, what now?”

“Now… we discharge you again, for the second time in two days. Try not to make it a habit, Mr. Hulett, we don’t give special deals to repeat customers.” She gave a tired sigh as she removed the armband from me again and let me up. At least this time nothing was stolen from me. That golem must have called the hospital as soon as I collapsed. “It would be good for you to check back in after a week or so, to make sure the implant doesn’t have a negative reaction.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” I smiled to her, standing up and stretching out a bit. Thankfully, even though it seemed like the entire night had gone by, it had only been a couple hours on the outside. I had been seriously worried that a call would come in while I was focusing on the ‘surgery’ that would interrupt me.

After leaving the hospital, Celeste appeared again, walking alongside me. “This feels so different from before!” She happily exclaimed, looking ahead. Naturally, she was still unable to properly look around since she was only sharing my senses. However, now it seemed like she was getting the full range of sense input, rather than simply sight and sound.

“Well, everything turned out alright, for the most part. Though, I still haven’t done the rest of the cybernetic spells I want to do yet.” After I said that, I suddenly found my hand rising up and slapping myself in the face. Looking down at the hand in shock, I heard a giggling next to me. When I turned to look, there was a very proud looking Celeste smirking towards me.

“None of that. We just got out of the hospital, we’re not putting you right back in it.”

So… she can even take control of my motor skills. This suddenly seems awkward. Celeste suddenly had a deep blush after I said that, and turned away to pout. Though, there were several potential uses to this as well, such as helping me aim or dodge, or maybe even mimic fighting styles. “Fine, fine. I’ll be good. Still, didn’t expect you to have so much control from this implant.”

Celeste turned around, and gave a small grin. “Well… you see… I think you may have missed just a bit on the implant. From what the display said, I should have access to all of your senses, but I think you messed it up so that instead of ‘access’, I have… well.. ‘control’. Now, don’t give me that look, I’ll be a good girl. This is a good thing, really! Now I can stop you from doing half of the stupid stuff you do.”

I blinked a bit at her, and then just shook my head and sighed. This was going to get awkward if I didn’t get used to speaking mentally and hearing verbally. Just think of it like the elemental speech, and everything should work out.

At that thought, Celeste nodded her head, and we left to go back to the hotel. I still had to figure out some way to train Yang and Yo, but having them spar wasn’t an option, and we were all too low level to go exploring the hunting grounds around the city. The best idea I could come up with was to have them fight monsters in the real world.

Once we were in the hotel, I sat down on the rather comfortable bed, and Celeste sat there with me. “Okay, so what’s the plan?” She asked with a bright smile.

“Well… first I need to finish training my affinities. After that, we should head back to my world and train those two. I don’t suppose this control of yours extends to my magic, does it?”

“Hold on, let me check!” She closed her eyes and seemed to be focusing.. “Nope, doesn’t seem like it. I can feel your mana, but I still can’t control it. So no, you can’t just have me refine medium grade Seeds of Wind for you while you practice.” She smirked knowingly to me.

“Well… was worth a shot. Looks like she’ll be evolving into a Gustwing instead of a Windslayer, more than likely. Should have taken a look at the evolution paths of that one as well. Maybe there will still be some way to get a rather epic type of bird.”

“Maybe! But at least now, you can mark one item off your checklist, right? And after a while, maybe we can take another crack at learning the runic language? Now that I have a direct link to your senses and memories, I can store information a lot better. I can even slow down the speed at which the information is passed to you over time to prevent another migraine like you had the first time.”

Now that was something I hadn’t considered. Essentially, with this setup, she could learn all of the information skills from the internet just by searching through them and memorizing it. Although she wouldn’t be able to do so with practical skills, or with special software, that is still a huge boost.

“Exactly.” She speaks again, answering my thoughts. “I might even be able to look up information on nearby planets and local species to help you plan future adventures. Oh, this is going to be fun!”

For some reason, the idea of having a female AI, or any AI, or any female for that matter inside my brain and able to essentially take full control of my body whenever she wanted still disturbed me a bit. Sensing this thought, Celeste simply turned to me and grinned mischievously. “Oh, it’ll be fine. But don’t think I don’t know you wanted to use your X-Ray vision to peep on women. I may not be able to stop that, but I can certainly censor it.”

Alas, another dream crushed before it could be realized.