Chapter 8: Chapter 7: Growth & Exploration

Mere minutes after my vampires succeed in turning the city’s swankiest hotel into the second patch of my dominion, I find myself inside of the place’s penthouse suite. My brides are in a different room, watching TV to familiarize themselves with this world’s history, while I sit all by myself at the head of an elegant glass table in the classy dining room of the suite.

In front of me rests the sacred artifact which played a role in my original downfall; the “Player’s Handbook”. The thing is closed but it is projecting a holographic display of the various skill trees I can pour points of mine into to gain new abilities and acquire more essences.

I study the thing even as I casually allow nanoscopic nanobots to escape from me and fill the air that surrounds me. The tiny machines are handy servants of mine that can create technology seemingly from nothing, and my ability to use them is due to my choice to invest some of the first points I acquired from [Level Ups] into the [Essence of the Machine].

“What a fun, and strange, essence…” I remark, even as I tap on the skill tree that only appeared after I first purchased this essence: the one mysterious dubbed “T.S.A.” by whatever odd mechanic names the skill trees. I study the abilities that I can purchase from that skill tree, several of which have ambitious-sounding names.

The tree begins in a curious way. It is based around a circle which contains three options, all of which end in the word “Chassis”. The options are “Darksteel Chassis”, “Orichalcum Chassis” and “Mithril Chassis”.

After that it asks me to select a “Form” then a “Composition”, and a “Power Core”, and I’d get one purchase in each of these areas for free if I purchase a “Chassis”, but in exchange I can only purchase them in order of weakest or most basic to strongest or most complex. After “Power Core” the tree opens and allows me to select things called “Transystems”, which I can easily tell are similar to my “Major Sanguine Powers”.

They are divvied up into four sub-trees: “Weaponry”, “Defense”, “Mobility”, and “Utility”. Even after that there is a small section of secondary upgrades that I can purchase which are not upgrades that immediately enhance my abilities but are blueprints of creatable physical infrastructure capable of wonderous feats of creation and resource management.

I can go ahead and study the options available to me even if I can’t purchase them and the powers of the upgrades that taunt me are staggering. Even the chassis themselves are remarkable things, that offer me a great deal of power no matter which I pick.

One of them upgrades my magic and my offensive capabilities, the other increases my strength and durability, and the final one buffs my speed and reflexes. There are other details that I can see upon reading their detailed descriptions, such as how they offer me ways to upgrade and refine both technology and people, and the ways that affixing one of the metals to my body and soul would allow me to passively boost the abilities of my allies and servants.

They also offer discounts to whatever systems are the most related to what they upgrade in me, such as “Orichalcum” offering me discounts to “Weaponry systems” thanks to it improving magic and directly weapon-based abilities. Orichalcum also offers me the ability to see, absorb, and manipulate all sorts of energies, which is especially interesting to me in the context of technology since advanced tech requires energy as fuel.

Orichalcum is the chassis with most appeal to me since sanguinarchs don’t possess directly offensive powers on our own. Most of our powers are capable of being used offensively, but they aren’t directly intended to be weapons in a war we wage, except for the “Savage” focus, so purchasing abilities that correct that weakness feels neat to me.

Now that I have enough points saved up from multiple [Level Ups] that I can purchase one “Chassis”. Doing so would leave me with enough points to purchase the discounted “Transystems” related to whatever chassis I choose, three utility systems, and three essences I have my eyes on: the [Essence of the Scholar], [Essence of Legendary Fates], and the [Essence of Norse Mythos]. After that I will be complete spent as far as points go, which is disappointing but not overly so.

I begin to select each thing I intend to purchase, and when I select multiple things at once I feel time slow to a crawl around me. Funnily enough the first things I have selected are the three essences, not the T.S.A. things, and when I select the T.S.A.’s orichalcum chassis, the first T.S.A. thing I have selected, I watch a notification appear in my mind’s eye.

[Alert: Transynth Ascension

By purchasing items from the Transynth Ascension you will be beginning to walk down the path of becoming the first manifold ascendant, and the first ever transynth. Transynths are ascendants who are to machines, artificial intelligences, and cyborgs what cosmic gods are to gods, and what sanguinarchs are to vampires. You can do this due to the [Omega Sparks] that have blazed to life within you when you were undergoing your resurrection, which make you capable of vast and powerful change.

Transynths are creatures of evolution, progress, technology, and creation. They are incredibly powerful machines who take the very best aspects of biological life and technological life and push them to absurd extremes. You are also going to be able to attain some things for free by virtue of having nanobots; the [Nanoswarm Composition] and the [Hypernanite Console], two powerful things that incorporate your nanobots and upgrade them.

Your dark brides are also going to be able to benefit from and make use of the upgrades you are purchasing. This will be true of all ascendant-based purchases you make in the future, due to the long time that your brides have had to acclimate to ascendant energy.

It is worth noting that you can buy the other chassis on sale, but that the next one you buy will be vastly more expensive than the first one was, and the last one will be more expensive than the second one was. That said, you do get all of the benefits of the chassis when you buy them, including the discounts they come with.

You will not have power on the same scale as the powers you have as a sanguinarch, at least not right away, but by using your powers you can steadily build up might. If you do go down this path, you will someday have access to universe-changing power as a transynth.]

The alert also tells me about the “Default” ascendant abilities granted to any and all transynths, including the abilities shared by all ascendants and the science-related specialties of transynths. I am especially intrigued by the boosts to my intelligence, and the power I will get over all technology, which serve as direct boosts to the powers and attributes of the [Essence of the Machine]. It seems that taking even the initial steps towards becoming a true transynth is worth it!

“So T.S.A. stands for Transynth Ascension? Hmm… Interesting.” I remark, even as the world continues to be slow around me. I purchase the items I have selected, and when I finalize that decision the world slows further still, and I see that I need to make selections before time can resume that are related to my purchases.

I am asked to make my free choices regarding things like “Composition”, “Power Core” and “Form”. Doing so is easy, and I select “Nanoswarm Composition”, “Cosmic Artifact” and “Basic” respectively. I then go through and select all the “Weaponry Systems”, and three “Utility Systems” in addition to the one I get for free. I purchase the [Existential Inducer], the [Technosupremacy Array], and the [Reality Distortion Emitter], and make two more sets of choices for the essences I wish to purchase. I finalize the purchase, and I feel my mind fill with new information, which causes me to laugh brightly.

[Essence of Legendary Fates] allows me to select a single [Origin] from a specific and strange universe known as the [Type-Moon] setting and get both the perks and items that come with it. It is an unusual essence as I can buy it repeatedly, though it becomes more expensive with each purchase, and each time I do I get to select another [Origin] from it to buy.

The choice is easy, I select the [Demonic] origin, which has perks that focus on sins. The reason I select that origin is that it is one of the origins most tied to a type of ascendant; the archdemons, lords of all eight deadly sins. It has perks directly related to temptation, corruption, seduction, and is altogether a powerful origin for someone like me who seeks to walk the dangerous path one would need to walk to become a manifold ascendant.

I feel the perks and items associated with that origin flow into me and alter my body. I sense the “Holes” from [Heaven’s Hole] etch themselves into my fingertips, and I sense my innate beauty be dialed back so greatly that [Myriad Colours of the Flesh] isn’t considered active. The perks that the [Demonic] origin have infused me with are powerful, dangerous things that can allow me to destroy sanity and freewill with ease, and that certainly help me take the first steps I need to take to become a true archdemon.

The [Essence of the Scholar] is simple, in comparison to the other essences. It grants me immense mastery of the sciences, perfect memory, immunity to insanity, and a few quality-of-life knowledge-based powers. On the other hand, the [Essence of Norse Mythos] is another [Origin] picker, but one that is decidedly more complex. At the moment I am being asked to make choices regarding this powerful essence.

It transforms me into a [Ymir], a primordial “Class” of being, according to the essence’s description anyway. That is also the name given to one of the most ancient beings in Norse mythology; the ancestor of all jotnar.

After that it asks me to select one of five origins with the options being [Warrior], [Trickster], [Healer], [Teacher], and [Monster], which I know are archetypes which are central to Norse mythology and cosmology. This time I don’t get to see the perks ahead of time, which is annoying, but when I make my choice I get the perks and the items linked to whichever origin I pick, and I won’t need to repurchase the essence to get the other perks and items.

Just like how I can get perks and items from completing quests, I’ll be able to earn the perks and items linked to the other origins by behaving in ways that link together each of the remaining origins. So, when I make my choice I’ll quickly be able to eventually earn whatever I didn’t get.

This time the choice is harder. Without knowledge of what exactly I’m getting it is difficult for me to select between the options in front of me. Each of the possibilities is intriguing to me, as I know that all five archetypes are very powerful and mixing that with the knowledge of my future status as a primordial being with the potential to match the mysterious being known as [Ymir] makes the choice even harder.

Thor is a mighty warrior, Loki is a skilled trickster, Freya is an incredible healer and magician, Odin is associated with both healing and wisdom, and there are many dangerous monsters in Norse mythology. Norse culture and symbology exists in this world so it is one of the things I’ve stumbled across while I have studied this planet’s history, which is quite helpful for me at the moment.

I am silent for a few moments as I wrack my brain and apply the mind-boosting effects of [Essence of the Scholar] to the decision I am currently making. My enhanced brain, bolstered by both the effects of the transynth ascension and the scholarly essence I have just acquired, begins to theorize about the sorts of perks each origin might offer me, as well as how each of the origins might allow me to advance with regards to my greater goals of becoming a manifold ascendant.

Eventually I come to a silent decision. It all boils down to the fact that I want to be a manifold ascendant being, the first ever multi-type ascendant, and the fact that dragons exist in Norse mythos. Dragons are powerful monsters, and if I want to inch closer to them, and the dragon lords that rule over them, I need to lean into chances to become more monster-like.

I pick the [Monster] origin and finalize the decision with a thought. When I do I feel the powerful perks and items that it was hiding flow into me, which cause me to shudder and shake as I feel my body changing and improving again. Power and conceptual weight pour into my body, and I feel the effects of each of the perks I have unknowingly chosen fuse with me, even as I gain an awareness of the items I now possess.

“This is… incredible.” I mutter, even as I feel my body struggling to adapt to the changes. I am surprised when I hear the voice of my tome begin to whisper into my mind.

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“Hello Master, I see that your body needs a second to adjust to the powerful changes occurring to it. May I recommend that you use the lesser version of [Truewarping] you possess to go to a world where you can safely adjust?” My Player’s Handbook asks me, causing my eyes to widen. That is an interesting idea, and I elect to pursue it. I inform the artifact that I would like to do that, and the thing shudders for a bit before speaking to me once more.

“Excellent! Time will freeze here while you go over there, just this once given the unusual conditions of your departure. I have scanned your mind and made a choice about which universe to send you to, based on your interests. I have selected the universe and timeline of [The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild], as it has things like monsters, dragons, and even technology that this planet does not, which will allow you to fully explore every facet of your identity as a burgeoning transynth, and soon-to-be manifold ascendant.” The tome explains, causing me to smirk in excitement, even as I feel my consciousness slipping.

I don’t know anything about [The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild], but I know that the tome made this choice in consideration of myself. I am excited to see what this new universe is like, and to have a chance to adjust to my new abilities before returning to the strange world of Arcadia, the name the locals have for the planet I have spent the last few days on.

“You’ll awaken in the new world, master alone. If you want to go back, you can wait a few days, or you can go and add an area here to your dominion and use the "Shadow Path" dominion perk to head back to Arcadia. I’d wish you luck, but you won’t need it.” The tome says, even as I feel darkness wash over me.

For an indeterminate amount of time I feel myself float in the darkness of unconsciousness. My mind is so powerful that even while my body is unconscious, I can still feel and access my mental facilities, but I am still as helpless as a being as powerful as me can be while unconscious.

I don’t need to sleep, normally, so this is a strange feeling. I am still attuned to my body, or at least my core, so I can feel my powers growing and changing as my body adjusts to the new aspects of my identity that come with adding the things I purchased prior to my collapse to my soul but I can’t act. I am forced to “sit”, for lack of a better word, quietly, and just wait until I can wake myself up.

I am shocked when I suddenly hear murmuring, but I can’t make out what is being said. At least not the first time the murmuring is audible. The second time, however…

“… Open your eyes…” Whispers a voice in the back of my mind. The voice is melodious and determined, and it sounds both excited and frustrated. And almost as soon as the command is uttered, I manage to do as I am told, and I open my eyes to see a strange device directly over me. It is some sort of pod, a machine that lightly glows and faintly illuminates the room I am in.

My senses take a beat to return to me, but when I am fully aware of my surroundings I find that I am floating in a small pool of blue, water-like liquid and I am directly underneath a machine that is pouring strange, restorative energy into me. I can faintly see the energy, which should be invisible, thanks to the orichalcum of my chassis. The energy is suffusing my body, which I begin to examine even as I lift myself out of the pool. I will the last bits of the energy to suffuse me faster, using the energy manipulation properties of the orichalcum chassis I now possess.

When I am out of the pool I look around and examine my surroundings. I am in the middle of a dark room, one that is illuminated only by strange technology which surrounds me. The alien technology must be part of what my Player’s Handbook meant when it said that there is technology here that does not exist in Arcadia.

The technology is made up of strange materials and somehow seems to be powered by odd, glowing symbols carved into the walls. I go ahead and memorize them with even a cursory glance.

I am wearing minimal clothing, in fact only my groin is covered by a pair of blue shorts. I have a balanced build in this body, with some muscle but not a whole lot of it, and when I look in the pool to see my reflection I see that I have a strikingly handsome face with blonde hair, blue eyes, and the sort of curved, pointy ears that the elves of Arcadia’s myths supposedly had.
“Link… You’re finally awake.” Whispers the voice from earlier, speaking directly into my mind.

“When you are ready, go grab the sheikah slate on the pedestal near you. It is the odd tablet. It will greatly help you in the days to come.” The same voice explains, causing me to nod. The more the voice speaks the more I can study it. And as I study it, I realize that the voice is not telepathic.

Somehow the voice is something else. It is almost certainly technological, perhaps even belonging to a smart artificial intelligence that can see and react to me!

I close my eyes and allow nanoscopic nanites to escape from my body. As they do I direct them to study the device which I awoke underneath, and within milliseconds I find my mechanically enhanced mind filling with knowledge of the device.

The thing is known as a “Shrine of Resurrection” a bit of experimental “Sheikah” technology. Unsurprisingly the creators of the slate the voice wants me to get, are also the creators of the fountain-like thing I woke up in. My nanites study the device and I sense blueprints being created for the machine in the depths of my mind. I open my eyes and smile, even as I gain a masterful understanding of how the machine works and its capabilities, at least in theory.

I walk over to the pedestal that the voice mentioned, which is right in front of a large stone door, and in the middle of the door is a strange lens-like runic symbol, which I assume must be tied to the “Sheikah”. I grab the thing, which has been slotted into an expertly crafted opening for it, and I watch as it begins to glow.

The tablet scans me, and I hear it call me “Link”, and recognizing me as its owner. I seem to have snatched the body of this “Link” person, and annoyingly enough when I scan the mind of this person I quickly realize that whatever memories this person may have once had are gone. Perhaps that is a side effect of the shrine of resurrection? If so, what an annoying side effect. If not, this must be a consequence of whatever put “me” in the shrine in the first place. Probably some sort of cataclysmic, life-threatening injury…

The door in front of me slides open, revealing a room with two chests in them, and a small walkway leading to another pedestal in front of another stone door. I direct my nanites to study the tablet in my hands, and the pedestals even as I walk to the chests and open them.

Both of the chests contain clothes, one containing an old shirt that presumably belonged to “Me”, “Link”, and another containing pants complete with a case for the slate I now own. I put them on, shortly before making my way to the second pedestal, one that lacks the slot my slate, and this time I put my tablet in front of it. The thing glows and I hear a chime right before the runic symbol on the door begins to glow, temporarily, and the door slides open.

What lies in front of me beyond the door is a path leading to a small rock wall, and after that the opening of the mouth of a cave. Early morning daylight pours into the cave, and brilliantly illuminates the path ahead of me. I walk to the rock wall, while safely storing my slate in the case attached to my pants, and I scale the thing easily. It is only twice my height and even though I never climbed stuff back on Arcadia I find it easy to do, no doubt thanks to the instincts I now have thanks to Link.

I silently walk out of the cave and find myself feeling the warmth of the early morning sun on my skin. I am standing atop a cliff, and a few trees surround me. I can see various things in the distance, such as a vast volcano, a once-beautiful castle surrounded by a cloying miasma of mystical, corruptive energy, a ruined cathedral not particularly far from me, many small villages and lone homesteads.

I also see many small ruins in the distance that’d be hard to see for mortal humans. Fortunately for me, my senses are far, far sharper than those possessed by mortals, or even ordinary gods.

I study the view and I realize that not only am I elevated by being atop a cliff, I am elevated by virtue of being on some massive mountain-like landmass. There are taller mountains in the distance, but I am clearly above sea-level. When I breathe, doing so for the first time since I left the cave, I realize that the oxygen here is somewhat thinner than I’d have assumed it would be if I were on sea-level, but I also know that I am in a different universe where physics could be different as well.

I grab my slate and I will my nanites to flow into the thing. When they do they study the thing and blueprints for it begin to appear in my mechanized mind, but I also realize that my slate is damaged!

I quickly command my nanites to fix it, and to upgrade it, which is a transynth ability. By virtue of possessing an orichalcum chassis I can upgrade both people and things, making them moderately better in every respect. These upgrades pale in comparison to the more focused upgrades that someone who has the darksteel chassis or the mithril chassis could grant to things, as those upgrades are focused.

Having a chassis made of darksteel would give me the power to upgrade things and people to be more durable and in general and to iron out weaknesses. Possessing a mithril chassis would allow me to upgrade people and things to be quicker, to regain energy faster, and to possess a healing factor, even in the case of non-living things made of metal or similarly non-living materials. That said, the all-rounded nature of the upgrades I can give to people and stuff is quite helpful.

I watch my slate begin to glow and a screen blinks to life made up of a dark blue background with several empty boxes in the middle of the screen. These slots begin to glow, and I watch strange runic symbols, like those on the doors in the shrine of resurrection’s cave appear. Descriptions appear beneath them, denoting their names, which causes me to chuckle.

Some of them have fancy names like “Magnesis” while others are as simply named as “Remote bomb”. I familiarize myself with the descriptions of each of the runes, and when I am done I put my slate away, and look to my right.

I quickly see a path leading down to the ruined cathedral, and part way down that path is the spirit of an old man dressed in the sort of robes that a traveler might wear seated next to a fire. On the floor next to him is a warm apple, located not far from the fire the odd ghost is using to feign warming up. The spirit would fool less perceptive people, but my ascendant eyes, sanguinarch nature, and deific intelligence allow me to see the ethereal energies which surround the strange spirit.

As I look at him I casually realize that if I weren’t wearing the clothes I am now wearing, which I order some of my nanites to upgrade, I’d be chilly myself. The cliff is mildly chilly but I am protected from the inconveniences of chilly weather thanks to the clothes I am wearing, and I sense a faint breeze blow past me, in the direction of eerie castle in the distance.

Barring doing something like climbing down the side of the cliff I am atop, or flight, the only way forward for me is to walk down the path leading to the old spirit and the ruined cathedral. I turn inward and glance at my quests, and I am unsurprised to see a few new quests.

The two big ones are entitled “Destroy Ganon” and “Begin Restoring Hyrule”, and both are marked as “Accepted” even without me having explicitly done so. Both quests require that I move from this cliff, and get off of “The Great Plateau”, which I assume must be my current location.

I turn in the direction of the cathedral, and I begin to walk towards the first objective of the “Begin Restoring Hyrule” quest; the spirit of the old man. As I do I begin to smile, relaxedly. I am filled with curiosity as I make my way towards the idling spirit.

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