Veigs left the underground for the last time this month. It has almost been an entire 5 months since Vegis landed here. He has met a lot of folks, dealt with a ton of bullshit, and has nearly died a handful of times. The clones got smarter and his connection to them got stronger. They all now can do basic speech and don’t need Vegis direct intervention to finish things now. It also seems like the clones didn’t undergo a major transformation. They remained the same except for 2 things: their bones gained a metallic sheen and the third eye symbol also formed on their forehead.
The results of the testing had to be delayed for months due to the samples having to be taken off-world because the outcomes from it were too bizarre. Vegis now had to be regularly checked by one of the doctors and a biologist since whatever changed him hadn’t stopped. The lines on his body had recently formed rune-like structures that had different effects and he currently only had 3. The only one he used a lot was the first one which was a camouflage ability that allowed him to regain his former appearance but it weakened his abilities to use spells.
From what they were able to decipher was that Vegis’s entire body contained more metals than what should be possible. His blood contained a substantial amount of mercury, his bones gained lots of tungsten and strontium, his flesh and tendons seemed to hold strands of carbon nanotubes and titanium, his nerves system seemed to now have lines of copper in them, and his skin gained the most changes, practically a complete overhaul of it and there was an impossible amount of metal in it for how flexible it was. From rumors he heard from a guard, something like this also happened at the north station at the same time. The only difference was that it looked like a magi appeared instead of a drakkin and no one else seemed to have been affected like Vegis. Vegis wondered if he would ever get to interact with what came out of the tears in space.
Vegis’s dreams would still occasionally have the drakkin appear but she wasn’t putting him in chains and ripping things out of him. Instead, she was just sitting far away from him and just eating snacks. Every now and then, she would beckon Vegis to sit with her and talk. Vegis didn’t know the language she was speaking but could still understand the intent in the words and she seemed to be able to do the same. He would occasionally ask where she was and only got something to the effect of sleep as a response.
Another strange thing that happened to Vegis was that he no longer had the physical need for sleep. The constant mana circulation enhanced the glymphatic system and made it function permanently. This didn’t stop mental fatigue and soul stress from building up. So, now when Vegis slept, he put his body into autopilot and made it do exercises until he woke up. This unconscious effort plus some stress testing gave Vegis a good sense of his strength and allowed him to become more dexterous.
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The metamorphosis did something to his soul too. Even without using detector magic, he could still have a good understanding of his surroundings. He could tell someone 2 tables from him was using a fork whilst another behind him was drinking soup from a cup and more. While it only had a 2 meter diameter and it was still fuzzy in details, it was a passive thing and slipped past the detection of the guard. Vegis tested it by asking a guard if he felt something when he was using mana detection and without it.
Vegis stayed as a clone manager since they needed them and since he didn’t have the credentials to promote him higher just yet. He could have been changed to a study item, but that required firing him and that would have sent off alarms from the labor protection groups. The checkups were relatively pleasant and he got to know some of the medical staff. One of them was even a clone manager in the past but then went to nursing school and rejoined as a nurse. They got to keep one clone since they had told the station about the plan.
1 thing Vegis couldn’t figure out during the last 2 months was why was he the only one changed. The only lead he had was the nightmares but that could have been anything. Most of his acquaintances did not know of the changes and just knew that he was involved in some freak accident in the labs. Vegis wasn’t trying to hide it, he just thought it would be too annoying to explain it. The cybernetic pieces in him transformed in ways that couldn’t be changed and his left eye was turned into a flesh eye. The metal in it seemed to have been forced into the eye symbol on him.
The wings were not allowed to be used since Vegis didn’t have the permits and wasn’t given the safety training yet. From the little testing the doctor could do showed that the wings were a type of mana construct that seemed to act like an amp to magic Vegis used. Another thing that the wing brought was a drill shaped barrier that forcibly separated things. When the wings are out, scales would randomly form all over Vegis, constantly changing their position on his skin.
As he was relaxing in the 1st floor lounge, Vegis wondered what the northern station would be like. He knew that it had unlimited LSN
Soon, the others arrived and also sat down and just watched. The video Vegis put on was from a simple cooking channel that was popular for trying to find uses to as many different ingredients as possible. It was a nice thing to watch but Vegis slowly got distracted as whispering came into his ear.
