-"Brother-in-law! Wake up!"-Rin jumped on me.
-"Brother Eno, it's morning!"-Misteln followed suit
-"Mmm, Aunt Mobius also should wake up."-Griseo also climbed onto the bed, but did so with her usual serenity.
I opened my eyes to see the young trio either on me or just next to me.
-"Good morning."-I smiled at them.-"I'll go down in a moment; just give me and Mobius a moment to refresh ourselves."
-"Sure, I'll inform Sister."-Rin nodded and, after kissing my cheek, ran away from the room.
Misteln once again followed suit, kissing my other cheek and running away with flushed cheeks. Only Griseo didn't move; instead, she looked at me intently. Understanding what she wanted, I rose up and kissed her forehead, making her nod in satisfaction and leave to catch up with her two friends.
-"I know you are perversely interested in my current body, but you should not cross some lines."-Mobius's voice sounded from the side.
-"Well, it's not like police still exist."-I shrugged and looked at her, who looked barely old enough to be a teenager.
She narrowed her eyes and smiled.-"I'll make sure to repeat that to Sakura and Kosma; see how they put you in your place."
-"Let's not. I don't want Kosma to look at me as if I was a great enemy again."-I thought of a certain Flame-Chaser who was Griseo's nominal guardian.
-"Then pay up."-She moved closer to me.
-"As you wish."-I leaned down, capturing her lips.
Half an hour later, we went down to the dining room where everyone was waiting for us. Eden, as the owner of this 'Golden Courtyard', sat at the side of the head of the table; opposite her was an empty seat waiting for Mobius. My seat was at the said head of the table, something Eden insisted on, as I was the 'head of the house'. When I sat down, we started our family breakfast, talking about our plans for the day.
-"Brother-in-law, can you take us today to visit some interesting things outside?"-Rin looked at me with sparkling eyes.
-"Sorry, today is out of the question."-I shook my head.-"I have an important matter to do in the lab with Mei and Mobius."
-"Is that so?"-Rin deflated like a pierced balloon.
-"We can go some other day."
-"Do you need some help in the lab?"-Hua asked me, always treating herself as my assistant and secretary.
-"No need, Nuwa and Fuxi are enough this time."
-"Then please bring them these bento boxes."-Sakura handed me two boxes.-"You should give them some vacation. How long has it been since they stepped outside the lab?"
-"It's not like we keep them there by force. If they finish their job, they can have free time."-Mobius waved her hand.-"To be honest, had it not been for Fuxi acting like a fool, they would be much more efficient."
-"Don't act as if you don't make them do more tests in a day than some labs do in a week."-Mei rolled her eyes.
-"Says one who treats Prometheus like a slave. I'm sure that had Einstein lived, he would sue you for human rights for Prometheus."
-"Don't compare those ELF's with Prometheus. While I admire their ingenuity, Prometheus is pure AI, lacking those fancy personalities and self-awareness."
-"You two, can you not argue for one day?"-Eden sighed while looking at the two most brilliant scientists of the era acting like teenagers.
-"Tell that to her."x2-two of them reacted in sync.
Watching everyone's interactions, I couldn't help but smile.
An hour later, I sat on the operating table, looking at Mei, Mobius, and Aponia, who looked at me with worry.
-"Everything ready?"-I asked them.
-"Yes. All tested and checked."-Mei nodded.
-"Last moment to stop."-Mobius crossed her arms.
-"No, we are proceeding as planned. The more I yearn for a normal life, the more I fear my own powerlessness."-I lay down.-"I leave myself in your hands."
-"Just remember to focus on Aponia's Discipline."-Mei played with my hair while she bound them so that it wasn't in the way.
-"Are you sure about not taking anesthetic?"-Mobius asked one last time.
-"This way, the procedure can be smoother."-I nodded.
-"Sigh."-Mobius shook her head.-"Grit your teeth then."
With that, I felt the first of many cuts that I would experience today. But my mind was too occupied to process all the pain, being flooded with the elusive syllables that morphed it into something else. Soon, I was fully immersed in a mysterious state, my awareness no longer feeling changes in my body.
As one who helped develop it, I knew every step and part of this surgery. While Aponia put me under Discipline, Mei and Mobius slowly extracted all the nerves from my body, replacing them with a biohybrid network constructed with Quantum and Imaginary Energies fused and turned into living tissue with the help of the 6th, 8th, and 12th Divine Keys. This way, my nervous network turns into a neural network combining advantages of both; I would gain speed, precision, and scalability of an artificial neural network, while retaining the inherent complexity, flexibility, and adaptability of the human brain and nerves.
Mei and Mobius started by replacing the Peripheral Nervous System, as they could access it without having to touch the brain that was being 'reprogrammed' by Aphonia. They did everything slowly, taking great care so that everything was perfect, needing over six days to extract and replace the whole 72 kilometers of nerve fibers.
With the first step completed, they proceeded to the next one: the spinal cord. Time-wise, this step was much shorter, requiring only about half a day to be completed, but its importance far outweighed the previous one. While the brain is the organ responsible for controlling the body, many forget that the spinal cord is what connects it to the body, being responsible for quick reflexes and rhythmic movements.
This meant that for a warrior who needs to use instincts and habitual movements, the spinal cord was sometimes more important than the brain, as it could move the body faster than the brain could respond. SWARA procedure also heavily focused on this aspect; that's why it heavily emphasized the need for matching martial arts.
But this operation moved even further, as aside from the whole spinal cord, there was one more part of the Central Nervous System that needed to be replaced: the brainstem. This might be the most essential part of the whole neural system, controlling things like breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, and other reflex actions, but also consciousness and sleep.
This was only part of the brain and the last overall element that was directly replaced by the Quantum-Imaginary Biohybrid Neural Network. When Mei and Mobius completed this step, the second-to-last step of the operation would start. As such, after confirming that my state was stable and all the modifications were completed properly, Mobius brought out the three Divine Keys that were used in the production of QIBNN.
She and Mei, utilizing Prometheus and countless other machines that mapped my brain structure in real time, slowly utilized the three Divine Keys to turn my brain into the same Quantum-Imaginary tissue as the rest of my neural network. The 6th Divine Key provided the Power of Creation to ensure fusion of the artificial and biological elements; the 8th Divine Key protected my spirit and ensured it could merge into the new QIBNN; the 12th Divine Key used the power of Corruption to 'corrupt' my brain tissue into what we wanted; and Prometheus controlled the infusion of Quantum and Imaginary energies, providing the last elements needed for the creation of QIBNN.
This process took a long time, and I mean a long, long time. With the brain consisting of an average of 86 billion nerve cells and 1 quadrillion synapses, even if the speed of conversion was as high as 100.000.000 cells per second, the process still took 116 days; that's 16 weeks and 4 days, or almost one third of a year. And during the whole process, all three Divine Keys needed to be operated, something that Mobius and Mei couldn't achieve alone.
So the news of my operation was revealed to other Flame-Chasers, causing quite a stir among them, especially from Eden, Sakura, Elysia, and Hua. But they put away their dissatisfaction and cooperated with Mei and Mobius to help with the use of the Divine Keys. Everyone worked in day-long shifts, using Divine Keys under Prometheus's supervision, and jointly managed to finish this step with no issues appearing.
With that, only one last thing was left. During the whole operation, I was in a special state caused by the Mantra and Discipline; now I had to be awakened. To do so, Mei created a special catalyst, something that would definitely bring me back, though she didn't tell me what it was. And good she didn't, as I would never have agreed to it if I had known prior.
She forced the core in her heart to stop functioning, causing her Honkai Infection to quickly start appearing again. Through the connection with the core, I felt the anomaly even in my special state, waking up in seconds. Seeing my brain activity returning, Mei allowed the core to function normally, but even that short period of inactivity forced her to lie in a hospital bed for a week to recover.
But I had no time to notice it, as the instant I woke up, an anomaly occurred within my body. In the horrified eyes of everyone watching from the nearby observation room, my body started to crystallize, causing even Mobius to panic. As some were to despair, a light enveloped them, allowing them to feel the emotions and thoughts I wanted to convey to them. When the light receded, they were greeted by me with an appearance that was new to them, but familiar to me.
As my upper body was bare, everyone could see that my whole left arm and a good chunk of my chest were made of azure crystal, and within it, countless star-like spots and a purple nebula-like hue. Those stars and nebula were direct proof of the procedure succeeding, as they were the QIBNN, visible to the outside due to the transparency of my crystalline arm.
As the neurons activated, the stars would slightly twinkle, making it appear as if I had the universe in my arm. The previous amber hue was mostly covered, but it still existed, making the nebula appear more colorful than the uniform color of Quantum.
My face didn't have any changes; only my eyes gained a slight purple hue inside them, though the azure color was still dominant. The same was true for my wings that now returned in full glory; the pure white moonlight shattered into countless small feather-like shards. The halo above my head was back as well, taking the form of White Crown I was familiar with. I even felt the Banshee's Crown back on my head.
But while my appearance didn't change that much, internally, I felt as if I was a different person. I was still 'I' of course, but the change brought by the QIBNN couldn't be explained easily. It was akin to the change brought by turning from mortal to multi-dimensional being, but in terms of mental capacity.
To illustrate it: the human brain possesses 86 billion neurons; simplifying them into binary variables, you get a system possessing 2^86 billion unique states. Mind you, the universe possesses only around 10^80 atoms, making the first number almost incomparably larger. Yet that is nothing when compared to entering the quantum state, as now we possess a Hilbert Space of 2^86 billion dimensions, where the states can be illustrated: the number of states that can exist is outright infinite.
This is the jump that QIBNN achieved, from finite to infinite. No matter how one would describe it, it's impossible to imagine or compare. The existence of a 5th dimension can't be understood by those living in the 4th, let alone trying to convey what the n-th dimension is like. We might be able to illustrate it with mathematics, but our senses limit the true understanding of how one would live in higher dimensions.
-"Eno?"-A somewhat doubtful voice brought me back to reality.
I looked at Mei, who stood by the entrance, fear and worry visible on her face.
-"It's me; just give me a moment to get used to the changes."-I smiled, trying to reassure her.-"I think it's a good moment to tell you about myself, so how about you sit, and I'll explain everything slowly?"
She nodded and sat on a chair nearby. Others in the observation room also sat where they could, interested in my story. So I started to speak, using Imaginary Energy to project my memories with magic around us. For them, my story might be fantastical, unbelievable, or thrilling, but to me it was just my past, so I didn't feel much as I told it. It took me most of the day to tell everything; of course, I didn't describe daily life or things as such, but my hundred-year-long life had many things that were worth telling about.
When I ended, I regained most of the control over my body, so I all of us returned to Golden Courtyard to eat something and rest. My story brought quite a shock to everyone, but that accepted it quickly, not minding me hiding it, as they understood my difficulty. But I also got scolded for hiding the procedure, and as punishment, I was to prepare a grand banquet.
This banquet was also a form of final party for us all, as, adding the time I was under and the time that passed since the 12th Herrscher, over three and a half years had already passed. So I was to prepare everything, while Elysia volunteered to assist me with the arrangement. The date was set to three days before the arrival of the Final Herrscher.
For now, my life returned to the norm I created during those years; the only difference was that spent much more time in the training room. During this time, I understood how much strength I had recovered, and while it was better than nothing, it wasn't even half of what I could do outside the 'Dream'. I only gained the abilities connected to my identity and Sankta and Metatron, together with my magic and Originium Glintstone.
This meant that things like my Noble Phantasms outside Univers Immortel Metatron, and skills connected to blessings I received from others, were not here. This limited my strength, but still made me about twice as strong as a 10th or 11th Herrscher. Only Kevin, who underwent the latest CHIMERA surgery, could match me. So we often trained together in the wastelands outside the base, trying to gain as much as we could before the final battle. Everyone else also got more and more stressed as time passed by, and that last banquet became the symbol of the coming end.