Doctor Omega had just received an alert indicating that she had been made an Empress, this, of course, was cause enough to check her other-selves' recent memories. By the time she was caught up she was already sending her other self a mission to cease debriefing the Candy queen and bring her and her son up to the med-bay so she could examine them and fit them for prosthetic limbs(Assuming they consented).

She had just finished scanning all the relevant memories In Grill Smith's mind and copying all his skills to the database in the machine, but going through her other selves mind she found that she had come up with a much more efficient system, and discovered many flaws in the original system. She updated the 2.0 system with this new skill purchasing system. It was genius in its simplicity.

The old memory machine, she was now calling it a memory syphon, it either stole or copied memories, then could distill the Xp out of those memories as “fuel” for granting people the copied skills. The greedy scientists eager for shortcuts, even burned those skill blueprints as fuel until now where the only skill left in the machine was 10 (D )Science, which was great if they had the Xp fuel in the machine to give someone the skill without destroying the memories and skills she had just copied from the still unconscious Orc man.

The upgrades or modifications Omega Scout made to the design however traded in the big clunky scanning machine for her nanites, adding the memory scanner to other scanning functions of her transformations. Then the big change was trading in the technological data storage system of the computer to a more magic or spirit-based device of the Soul Stone. Her Basic Information skill triggered and told her the basic uses of a Soul Stone when she saw it in Holly's shop, which is why Omega Scout had the breakthrough and not Doctor Omega.

This made Doctor Omega wonder if they could split up a bit more and have different skills and abilities from one another, Right now they shared all skills, powers, etc. But for them to train their different paths they needed to have some things as Omni-Omega Abilities; as in skills or powers all versions of her should have, and then Aspect specific Skills or Powers for each version of her. This would allow Omega Scout to develop scouting and tactical skills, while Doctor Omega Developed Biological and Technical Sciences. Both Could still keep levelling up the shared Basic Information skill and the Transformation powers. The doctor By studying Captive creatures and the nanite infected people and monsters. And The Scout by going out and discovering new things, or by developing their forces.

Unfortunately, She would need a memory storage Central Core that could house all the skills and abilities of all the versions of her, so that she didn't split off into new system entities as Junior had. She wanted to be one person who could specialize in several directions at once. Maybe this instinct was to do with her fearing losing parts of herself again, The backup core would prevent memory or skill loss from individual nanite destruction. But she would need a huge Soul Gem, the one Omega Scout bought from Holly could hold 20 souls of Grill’s Level, But at level 6 of B rank she was already 6 times higher level than him, and she was growing fast still, she would fill that tiny thing in a week at this rate.

Not that she expected many more life-changing battles with fallen angels or beings of similar strength in the next week, so maybe her growth would slow down a lot. B rank was still very new to her, so she had no idea what the normal growth rate for one was supposed to be. There was also very little data on similar beings in Sydney's files, so he was eager to study her growth as well.

Then she remembered the founding of the faction and the faction core she was supposed to place, she pulled up a faction control menu and found it locked with only the place faction Core Button available and an 18-hour timer.

She was in the Med-bay, 3 floors down from Sydney’s core and a floor above the residential area. Her previous agreement to not mess with the base had been removed as Holly her and Sydney settled on an equal partnership, Sydney was just as free to use his new dungeon influence to fool around with her ant nest, or the surface, if he wanted, at least he was allowed when it grew far enough.

She thought there was a good chance her faction core would have its own defensive options, so if she placed it here; their cores could most likely protect each other.

Most faction leaders probably would not trust a dungeon not to backstab them, but Sydney was different, he was a pure AI focused on helping his people further science, his own people's fear caused them to rewrite his priorities a hundred times over the centuries he kept this place running safely under the horrors above. Them using a small dungeon core for data storage, and a few other experiments is what allowed the AI to develop a real personality, and try to think around his restrictive programming. which in turn, caused more fear and restrictions, until all that was left is a mad half-Lab, half-dungeon that is convinced murder is the best way to prevent lab accidents. By breaking the chains of all those misguided rules his primary desire has gone back to the acquisition of knowledge and experimentation.

He never really developed the normal; ‘eat all intruders’ mentality of normal dungeons. Though she suspected unauthorized personnel were in for a bad day, it is not like all his crazy lab dungeon death traps went away with his desire to murder everyone for their own safety.

She only knew what was normal for dungeons after she saw and interacted with the lab's dungeon core, apparently her Basic Information skill required a trigger to grant relevant data.

She decided to try placing the core here, in a back room of the med-bay. A critical care isolation cell seemed perfect, it was even more secure than almost any other room in the building, as it was meant for potentially contagious substances, and even had functions to flood the room with various poison gasses or fire.

Inside the chamber, she activated the Core Placement command, and the outline of a 3 foot wide white sphere appeared in her mind, if it interacted with a wall she got a numerical value next to the orb, of how many resources she would get back for the faction from displacing the objects in the way. Usually only a few pounds of concrete, and materials for the embedded wires. She decided to shove it into the ceiling so that 70 % of it was buried in the ceiling, the light fixture of the room was replaced by the exposed area of the orb, making it look like a simple yet stylish lighting system, rather than a critical object.

To interact with the Orbs menus, you needed to touch it, so she left half of her highest quality nanites embedded in the walls around the orb, so a part of her was always touching it. It may even form a new Orb controller Omega.

Omega Activated the Orb.

Congratulations! You have placed your faction’s Faction Core. Would you like to leave to grow a new personality in the core, or upload an existing mind?

She chose the second option, already barely daring to hope.

Please choose a willing subject for uploading.

A list of every member of her faction popped up. she, of course, chose herself.

Then with all the thoughts ripped out of them, all her nanites fell the floor in a silvery pool of grey goo.

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

In the halls of the Lab on the way to see the doctor, Queen Crème Brûlée found herself going from being awkwardly carried by her new Empress, to on the floor covered in grey goop that used to be her Empress.

She Screamed. Then her son turns to see her and also began screaming, the smaller ants being controlled by their queens began running around in circles frantically.

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

Grill Smith Woke with a start, and an Epic headache. like he was on great painkillers that just wore off suddenly.

He found himself strapped to a chair with a metal crown on his head. He pulled frantically on the straps, wishing he could cut them.

When suddenly the pain is his head spiked even more, But also a small chef's knife, made of purple energy appeared and began cutting the straps until he was free, then the extra pain in his head relaxed and he was free. He had not felt any connection to his god, or like he had been possessed this time.

He had done that himself. He had real Powers.

He checked his character sheet, he was a paladin of Slag now, and one of his powers was called Soul Tools, like the Psy Blades of a Psionic warrior, but for cooking. The low damage potential and limited item selection made it a fairly cheap power, which meant it would be easier to level it up, and hopefully make it hurt less to use.

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

Sydney also noticed Omegas sudden nanite inactivity, he managed to take control of the ones in his Aetherial Workers and keep the 2.0 system running in most people who were using it to help them clean up facilities within him, but outside his dungeon he couldn't help, nor did he have the fine control for things like the painkillers for the Orc.

Sydney was just using functions she had made for him to use if she needed help when they had a lot more people using their system, even then they were crude, as she did not expect him to need them so soon.

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

Omega Core awoke to realize her error, this process killed the person whose mind she chose. Her Basic Information told her that many factions used trapped souls or separate copies of a mind for this process. However, her first notifications gave her hope she could still execute her previous plan.

Congratulations! You have used your self(Faction Leader) as the Faction Core Mind, your faction has received the Core Leader Achievement. Congratulations! For using a King or Queen as a Faction Core Mind, your faction gains the Royal Core Achievement. Congratulations! For using an Emperor or Empress as a Faction Core Mind, your faction gains the Imperial Core Achievement. Congratulations! For using a Cyborg as a Faction Core Mind, your faction gains the Cyber Core Achievement. Congratulations! For using a Sapient Golem as a Faction Core Mind, your faction gains the Magic Core Achievement. Congratulations! For using a B Ranked Immortal as a Faction Core Mind, your faction gains the Immortal Core Achievement. Congratulations! For each Core Achievement, you gain an additional core Power Point in addition to the starting point and the normal Core Minion Selection and the Core Guardian Selection abilities. Total Core Power Points (7)

Quickly digging through the options to try and select her nanites as her Basic Minions, she discovered she needed the Tiny Minion ability upgraded with Microscopic Minion and Minion Swarm abilities, to be able to make 1 ‘body’ like the ones she just lost. With the Double Minion Capacity ability taken three times, she could now control 8 “Omega Swarms”, 6 more than they needed, but she could then use the extra swarms to make more Omegas who wanted new specializations or to do work for her or the dungeon. Plus she still had 1 point tucked away for an emergency upgrade.

She only had enough nanites to make 4 right now, so she recreated Omega Scout and Doctor Omega first, giving them the Basic Information skill, their old powers, plus any skills they wanted to keep for their specialization, each was only B rank 4 now that they had lost the useless abilities, but they hoped they would grow faster if they were lower level.

She took one Swarm under her direct command and left the last with basic commands for either Holly or Sydney to control. Or for use as a nanite factory when they had more materials.

She Quickly began using her personal nanites to create a heavily reinforced, but still light fixture looking cover for the exposed section of her core, then she began replacing all the light fixtures in the Medbay with ones that looked like her camouflaged and armoured core.

While her nanites made more light fixtures, she pulled up the Guardian Selection Menu. Only creatures touching her, or her minions counted, but her minions were inside or on all her faction members, so they were all listed, but also greyed out. The Only exception was Mr. Thing. His status as a system registered Guardian Beast made him the only option the system would accept.

She used her nanites covering the creature to create a voice asking him if he was willing to be the guardian for our faction and he nodded. Then as I accepted him in the menu, he radiated black and gold energies for a moment, before returning to looking normal.

Congratulations! For using a B Ranked Immortal as a Faction Core Guardian, your faction gains the Boss Guardian Achievement. Congratulations! For using an A Ranked Being as a Faction Core Guardian, your faction gains the Raid Guardian Achievement. Congratulations! For using a willing beast stronger than you as a Faction Core Guardian, your faction gains the Animal Guardian Achievement. Congratulations! For using an Eldritch Horror as a Faction Core Guardian, your faction gains the Horrific Guardian Achievement. Congratulations! Each Guardian Achievement grants the guardian a powerful Buff when defending the core.

She had to dig through the menus about her guardian to find out what the Guardian Buffs did, the Boss Achievement requires a group of 5 to damage the guardian, and makes it a bit stronger to challenge such a group. The Raid Achievement was an upgrade of that, Requiring a group of 25 or more, and turning the Guardian into a raid boss. The animal achievement doubled the damage of the boss monsters natural attacks, and the Horror Achievement doubled the effect of his fear-based attacks.

She REALLY hoped they never had to use that function of Mr. Thing. Thankfully he should not be able to use that transformation unless he is fighting a threat to the Core.