They reached the cave shrine, it has an altar at the far end, enlightened with torches of blue fire. Akino looks for a flat surface to lay down the wounded woman as Alexa resumes on instilling her blood via a chord coming out of her wrist to the right arm of the woman. Akino stares at the woman, she fabricated a towel, and reaches on water stoup near the altar and soaks the towel. She carefully removed the woman’s clothes, and then cleans the face of the woman and the other body parts drenched in blood.

Alexa: Something’s weird.

Akino: What is it?

Alexa: She should be regrowing her left arm, I mean I did reprogram her cells, safely, her wounds healed already but its like she was born without a left arm.

The woman starts to hyperventilate and having mild seizures.

Alexa: Her vitals are dropping! She’s going to die!

Akino: We’ve got no choice then.

Akino pulls another cable out of her hair, and tries to stick it in to the back of the woman’s head. Alexa, confused on what was Akino going to do, tried to stop her.

Alexa: What are you going to do?

Akino: I’m taking her cerebral matrix and place it inside ours, then repair her there.

Alexa: Is that safe?

Akino: I don’t know, but I’ll be careful. I promise, we’ll save someone this time.

Alexa let Akino to plug the cable on the woman, the woman stops having seizures. Akino then sits, and closes her eyes, Alexa did the same thing.

Akino: Keep transferring blood and her heart beating.

Alexa: Yea-yeah.

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ACCESSING QUANTUM CORE…

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ENTERING VIRTUAL CEREBRAL MATRIX…

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FOREIGN CONSCIOUSNESS DETECTED IN MATRIX SYSTEM, WOULD LIKE TO ALLOW? [Y/N] [Y]

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CONSCIOUSNESS-03, LOADING IN…

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Akino and Alexa reopened their eyes, they found themselves inside the never-ending place of white floor and sky, where they previously found Dr. Heilmach. They saw a medic pod in front of them, the wounded woman was inside. Similarly, on how they saw Heilmach in that virtual world, the woman was naked. Her body is full of small cracks, like an old vase that was dropped, shattered, and put back to pieces with a super glue. Her left arm was missing, the same way how it was cut in the real world. Akino touched the pod, a hologram of analytics appeared, she observed it for a while. Alexa, on the other hand was intensely looking at the woman.

Alexa: Is it just me or her body was starting to evaporate?

Akino: What?! But the sensors say she’s just alright?! What’s going on?!

Alexa: It’s the same, isn’t it? The same with Yggdris? We can’t save her, can we?

Alexa looked disappointed, accepting the situation. Akino refuses however, she thought every possible way on saving the dying woman.

Akino: Turning her like us…

Alexa: Uh – um – what?

Akino rips off her own left arm, without any exclamation. She opened the pod and re-attaches her left arm to the woman. The woman’s body disintegration rate decreases, but the cracks are still visible.

Alexa: What did you do?

Akino: Integration… I’m integrating her cerebral matrix to us. And in that way –

Alexa: She becomes a quantum core, just like us?!

Akino: Exactly!

Alexa: Wait, wait, wait. Can you explain to me, HOW?

Akino: Remember what Heilmach did on the core in the Facility-13? She uploaded her cerebral matrix inside the core. Even her body was already dead, her ‘self’ is still alive. Like a hermit crab leaving her shell to look for another, and that other shell was the core. And since we have some procedures on creating the quantum core, we can recreate the same to her. In this case, we just have to give her a new ‘shell’ to live in, along with changing her into a quantum core like us, so that her new body will accept our modifications, saving her.

Alexa: Wha – what should I do? Her body is still turning into dust.

Akino: Try transfusing your blood to her.

Alexa: But this is just a virtual -

Akino: Trust me, Alexa. Trust me.

Alexa did what Akino said. She connected a tube-like tentacle from her wrist to the woman.

Alexa: What else?

Akino: I don’t know, you’re the biology-stuff, change her DNA or something.

Alexa: You just told me to trust then you do this?

Akino: Hey, I’m still integrating her to our cores, that will make your modifications compatible to her.

The cracks on the woman’s body began to disappear, the sensors Akino set-up shows positive signs that they saved her. And then, weird hieroglyphics started appearing on the woman’s body in a glowing manner. Then, it disappeared. After that, Akino detected a life pulse. The woman is alive.

Alexa: What the hell was that?!

Akino: Don’t know, but the thing is she’s fine now.

Both of them peeked on the pod, Alexa was smiling because they’ve saved someone at last. Akino then went to the panel board on the pod.

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FOREIGN CONSCIOUSNESS DIAGNOSIS REPORT: SEVERE CONSCIOUSNESS DAMAGE – DAMAGE SOURCE: UNKNOWN SEVERE CEREBRAL MATRIX DETORIATION – HOST IMMINENT DEATH WITHIN 14 MINUTES EXTREME RECUPERATING PROCEDURES NOT APPLICABLE

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FOREIGN CEREBRAL MATRIX BYPASSED: WOULD LIKE TO RESTART? [Y/N] [N] FOREIGN CEREBRAL MATRIX OVERRIDE: WOULD YOU LIKE TO INTEGRATE FOREIGN CONSCIOUSNESS TO THE SYSTEM? [Y/N] [Y]

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FOREIGN CONSCIOUSNESS DIAGNOSIS REPORT: SEVERE CONSCIOUSNESS DAMAGE: 100% REPAIRED SEVERE CEREBRAL MATRIX DETORIATION: HALTED HOST CURRENTLY STABALIZING HOST CONSCIOUSNESS CURRENTLY INTEGRATING WITH THE SYSTEM CEREBRAL MATRIX PROTECTION: ADMINISTERED MAIN CONSCIOUSNESS PROTECTION: ADMINISTERED MULTI-LINGUAL COMPREHENSION: UPDATED PRE-BODY MODIFICATION: ADMINISTERED ANTI-REJECTION BYPASS: ADMINISTERED POST-BODY MODIFICATION: UNDER EVALUATION BY THE HOST MATERIAL PROJECTION: UNDER EVALUATION BY THE HOST MATERIAL EXPLOITATION: UNDER EVALUATION BY THE HOST ENERGY SOURCE: ADMINISTERED BETA QUANTUM CORE: 95% INSTALLED

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FOREIGN CONSCIOUSNESS STATUS: INTEGRATED WITH THE QUANTUM CORE SYSTEM FOREIGN CONSCIOUSNESS STATUS: OVERALL INTEGRATION AT 95%. HOST HAS TO COMPLY WITH EVALUATION TO COMPLETE THE INTEGRATION PROCESS FOREIGN CONSCIOUSNESS AUTOMATIC RE-DESIGNATION: HUMAN QUANTUM CORE NO.101

Akino re-opened her eyes, they were awake except for the woman, still unconscious and laying on the ground inside the cave. Alexa checked on her and was glad that the vitals of the woman was normal, but something is bothering her.

Alexa: Her left arm should have grown back, right? It still not there. Her regeneration is already the same rate as our regeneration, but still, she doesn’t have it.

Akino: It’s because I used my parts to recreate her arm in the virtual space. Thus, it should be my parts to recreate her left arm. Seems illogical, because we can, you know, create matter out of nothing, and she was already like us. But something is really off about her. The quantum core did integrate her, but still, why the hell she has to comply? I mean, we didn’t do that when we wake up inside the facility, right?

Alexa: Yeah, that doesn’t make sense…

Akino: And on top of that, her body was covered with GLOWING tattoos for a while. That’s fishy. And heard those dudes outside? They said shit like magic and mana, I mean WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY TALKIN?

Alexa: Yeeaah… so how do we, umm, replace her left arm?

Akino then started to rip off her left arm.