“Woo-hoo! Hell, fucking, yes!” I shouted, feeling the freezing air settle on my body. It was such an amazing feeling, better than winning a boxing match, better than sex, and much better than not being magical.

  This was only the beginning, however. It took me three hours to actually use the thing, and the casting process was painfully slow. I needed to improve the individual forms and make the movements instinctual.

  I let myself rest for a few minutes and went right back at weaving the compression form. Mastering a form didn’t feel like a boring chore. Each use let me feel the specific way it wanted to be. Moving was only half of the process; focus and intention were just as important.

  And so I willfully lost track of time, savoring each moment of magic, each second starpower flared within me. Compress, turn to plasma, freeze, and release. It was such a simple set of actions, but beneath lay a whole world of energy; each careful twist brought me closer to the essence of the technique.

  The ball of freezing gas crackled in my hands, held together only by my willpower and the specific way I had woven the compression form. But one pinch, and it would explode into a wall of ice.

  Most of the room turned into a frozen landscape, with deep blue spires rising from the walls and the ceiling. VITA protected me from the freezing cold. Aiming at my imaginary target, I shoved the ball of death forward.

  Turning into a streak of light, it landed on the wall, only a few centimeters away from my target, exploding into ice and leaving a few more cracks on the wall.

  And then my stomach grumbled. It’s been 6 hours of non-stop training, and my body wept in pain.

  I ordered the VITA to scout myself. Pride swelled in my chest. I’ve only been awakened for what, six days? It felt like an eternity.

  Soul Introspector

  Magnus Glanzvoll

  Species: True Human (Genetically Altered)

  Age: 5 standard years

  Standing Emissions: 24

  Soul Resonance: 60%

  Affinities: Diamond – 4%; Sapphire – 32%; Onyx – 37%; Ruby – 12%; Emerald – 15%

  Spiritual Coordinates: 41,3 Ambition; 11,4 Pride; 31,2; Intelligence; 2,23 Focus;

  Traits (2/3): Rich, VITA

  Technique List

  Mind Acceleration. Type: Catalytics, Imbua. Affinity: Null (60%). Mastery: Initiate 21/100. Constituents: Strengthening-Catalytic-Acceleration.

  Ice Bomb. Type: Phasics, Reflectics, Catalytics. Affinity: Null (80%). Mastery: Initiate 5/100. Constituents: Plasmafication, Starpower Compression, Freezing, Force.

  Form List

  Force. Type: Catalytics. Affinity: Null (95%) Sapphire (5%). Mastery: Adept 10/100.

  Strengthening. Type: Imbua. Affinity: Null (95%) Emerald (5%). Mastery: Adept 21/100.

  Catalytic Acceleration. Type: Catalytics. Affinity: Null (90%) Sapphire (10%). Mastery: Initiate 51/100.

  Light. Type: Catalytics. Affinity: Null (95%) Ruby (5%). Mastery: Initiate 61/100.

  Solidification. Type: Phasics. Affinity: Null (100%). Mastery: Initiate: 72/100

  Detection. Type: Reflectics. Affinity: Null (90%) Sapphire (10%). Mastery: Adept 5/100.

  Starpower Compression. Type: Reflectics. Affinity: Null (100%). Mastery: Initiate 12/100.

  Plasmafication. Type: Phasics. Affinity: Null (70%) Diamond (10%) Onyx (10%) Ruby (10%). Mastery: Initiate 10/100.

  Freezing. Type: Catalytics. Affinity: Null (60%) Sapphire (40%). Mastery: Initiate 14/100.

  While eating the same boring meal, I used mind acceleration to read Introductory Biocrafting Forms. That book raised far more questions than it answered. It talked about stuff like altering the genome as if it were an easy thing to do, sprinkled in phrases about trait creation and more biological jargon than I could find in a dictionary. My translator was struggling so much, it made my brain overheat.

  Designing your First Modification book wasn’t helpful either. It barely focused on what modifications can be used for, instead talking about nebulous stuff like starpower enhancement coefficients and form suitability. I didn’t want to just make myself better at forms, I wanted to become immortal… Or something along those lines.

  Confused by the annoying structures of the books, I finished eating and headed to one place where I could find help - the laboratory smelling of medicine and filled with containers of organs.

  Even now, Simona was standing right in the middle, tinkering with her own hologram. It was as if she were glued to it.

  “Hello, Magnus! How was your day?” The pleasantries sharply contrasted with her intimidating look.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  I cleared my throat, “It’s fine. Professor Simona, I need help with biocrafting.”

  The snake-woman’s eyes lit up like Christmas lights, she quickly flicked at the air, turning off the hologram for the first time I’ve seen her. A wide smile stretched on her face as she aimed her unabated attention at me. “You want help? Of course, I’ll help! What do you want to do? Maybe you want to try some additional limbs? Maybe more eyes? Oh, it’s a delight to have more eyes… Actually, I can help you design some-”

  “Professor!” She stopped talking, her purple cheeks becoming slightly redder. “I need help with the basics. I just can’t understand what the books you gave me are for…”

  Her eyebrows furrowed as she scratched her horns. “Well… What do you want to do with biocrafting?”

  The question was always prevalent – how would you like to change? My answers were pretty simple. “I want to become immortal, lose the need for food, get the ability to fly without forms, and generally become better at everything. Also, I want to make a maid!”

  With each sentence, Simona frowned more and more, shaking her head. With a sigh, she spoke, “Oh dear, that’s an onyx for you…” She took a deep breath. “Becoming immortal, losing need for food, and flying are the realm of traits, but making a ‘servant’ is forbidden. Creating servile sapient life is forbidden. Creating sapient life is a very dangerous road, child. Do not step there.” Behind her usually gentle eyes, a threat appeared. I was staring into the maw of death.

  I gulped, averting my eyes. “G-got it…” Still, I needed to learn. “I saw forms about condensing traits, but the gathering rituals and other stuff just sounded like nonsense to me.”

  Simona slowly nodded. “Trait creation is not my specialty, but it will suit wonderfully for an onyx-sapphire, like you.” She slithered away towards the huge hologram projector. “To create a trait, you will need several things.”

  The projector flared to life, showing me a monster. A form of a giant worm with thousands of eyes and legs, floating in space. “Firstly, you need to gather biological material from a primer; the strength of the source is not important as much as its metaphysical abilities.” She waved her hands around the worm, and it got bisected, showing its organs. “The gogzalodans can propel themselves through the void of space and feed off of starlight, suited for your purposes. Even a tiny part of the creature will work, but if you want the best results, you have to focus on the functional parts.”

  It made sense. The book talked about stealing the abilities of other creatures and grafting them onto the soul. But it didn’t say anything about needing organs…

  The hologram flickered again, transforming into a gem. “Secondly, you need a sufficiently powerful actualized potential. The stronger and more aligned to you and your intentions it is, the better the trait will come out.” She smiled, looking over my clothes. “Your VITA was made with a count-level core.”

  Finally, the screen changed into diagrams of hands and starpower flows – forms. “Thirdly, you will have to delve into a specific ritual that will help you graft the needed abilities into the gem. VITA creation has been automated, but I helped make the prototype rituals, and even now my intent is felt throughout every new student.” She made the VITA? What a tremendous woman.

  Simona raised all four of her hands. “It’s the most important part, one that requires skill and imagination as well as understanding of the phenomena you want to harvest. You will have to tame the metaphysical essence and convince it to join you, maybe even imbue it with a part of your soul. That’s the thrill of trait crafting, to turn impossible into reality.”

  A wild grin spread across my face. She was right, VITA already changed my life irreversibly, and I wouldn’t accept anything of lower quality. My goal of creating a perfect maid could wait. Becoming like Superman was the number one concern.

  I had to think very carefully about the abilities I wanted to steal… “Professor, is there a way to increase the maximum trait amount?”

  She tilted her head, confused, mumbling, “What are they teaching humans nowadays… Of course you can! The nobility thresholds weren’t set arbitrarily. Each threshold will unlock a new trait slot. I’m surprised your parents included such thorough modifications, yet kept this information from you.”

  Query: Nobility Thresholds

  Adept – 50 SE; Knight – 100 SE; Baron – 250 SE; Count – 500 SE; Duke – 750 SE; Lord – 900 SE; Overlord – 1000+ SE;

  Information source: VITA

  “By modifications, what do you mean? I feel pretty normal.” I shrugged. My adept threshold would come pretty soon.

  Simona put a hand over her mouth, holding back a chuckle. “Little Magnus, your muscles, bones, skin, and pretty much every organ have been engineered to always function at maximum capacity. You’re thrice as strong as a baseline true human, think faster than one, and you’re more durable than one. I don’t think there is any work to be done on that front.”

  Despite myself, I frowned. I wanted to become superhuman by myself, yet my parents already did all the work. “S-so there’s nothing that can be improved?”

  She chuckled. “If you can find a Lord level biocrafter, they might think of something, but don’t be ridiculous.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, not finding any words. That explained why my parents weren’t that surprised at my intellect or speed of growth. Still, it would have been nice to mention it to me! I guess I’ll work on traits instead.

  “I see, so how do I practice making traits? I don’t want to absorb some half-baked trait. It has to be perfect.”

  The snake professor curled her tail, smiling brightly. “We have a lot of nice primers in the requisition hall, free for student use, but you will have to acquire actualized potential yourself.” She nodded. “You can get permission to dungeon delve from your group’s curator, or you can join the Soldier Training course.”

  Looks like the stars aligned for me once again. “Thank you, professor!” I was starting to like the old woman more and more. The people from Earth were right – grannies are the best. “Can you point to some forms that’ll help me get started?”

  “But of course!” She flicked her wrists, and the hologram shifted to show three diagrams of forms. “You have them in your books, but I’ll reiterate. Basic Trait Harvest, Trait Imbibing Ritual, and Metaphysical Stability forms will be needed if you want to start right away. Most others are iterations of these forms, so learn them dutifully! During the harvest, you’ll need to channel the starpower into the noosphere underneath the primer and cut out the information from there. You’ll have to take the idea and direct it towards the actualized potential carefully, or else you might make a dangerous trait… Have I told you about a student who made a trait that turned them into slime? Quite terrific, I tell you. There was another one who-”

  “I understand!” She stopped talking, looking at me bashfully. “I’ll dig into the books and learn more! Thank you for the help, professor, you’re the best!” I smiled, looking at the door.

  “You flatter me.” She chuckled as her tail twitched.

  “Goodbye!” I waved at her, running out of the room. My mind was shimmering with ideas, and all of them required actualized potential. Traits were increasingly fascinating, and I didn’t waste time, already reading about the forms she told me about.

  Unfortunately, they were much more complicated than I expected. I went straight to my training room. Surprisingly, all traces of ice had already disappeared, and all the scratches and bumps on the walls were gone too.

  Using a detection form, I focused on the forms within, trying to look deeper within. The walls were just like plants… Even now, a tube of starpower reached towards the surface, spreading like roots and healing it. The station was alive in a way.

  Without hesitation, I returned to reading, already trying my way at weaving the forms, even if there was nothing to latch them onto. I was glad for the mind acceleration, because otherwise I would spend far more time staring at imaginary pages.

  A loud voice rang through the training room. Steel, standing tall, ran inside, growling. “Are you ready, Magnus!?”

  “For what?” I looked at her, rubbing my eyes. It was already 13:30; I promised to train with her.

  “For a spar!” She started laughing, standing in a pose needed for the Dragon’s Might. Her muscles bulged, and a terrible dread grabbed hold of my soul…