Chương 32: Reverse Assimilation

It took an hour before Kayzen got his turn and returned home with five shard fragments. He was glad that many people still hadn't realized the true value of these fragments; and as a result, they were cheaper than they should be. Vasser would be coming late since praying at a shrine and assimilating with her powers wasn't something that could be done in an hour or two, thus, he grabbed a quick dinner downstairs and went up to the room they had booked on the upper floor.

Kayzen hung his trench coat on the hook and looked around the room. He was tired when he came from the forest, so this was the first time he was taking a good look at it. There were two beds, two windows, and enough room for a dressing table and a desk. It was a far cry from their temporary home at the Ironheart town, but not too shabby considering this was a campsite in the middle of an alien-invaded forest.

While on the queue he had learned that there was a common workshop which was shared by most crafting-type players, so he planned on checking that out tomorrow. For now, what he needed to do was simple in a sense that it didn't require many complicated instruments. Without any impure thoughts he placed the two beds together to make some room for the experiment.

'I mean, it's using space in a more efficient manner.' Finally, he settled down on a corner and took out the materials from his Hemogaster backpack. After learning from his previous mess, this time he had bought a special rug that would solve the issue of stains on the ground. This wasn't their home after all. They would have to pay extra if the floor below was damaged. Kayzen took a deep breath and cleared his mind from all distracting thoughts. What he wanted to do this time was a bit more complex.

This time, the source were the fangs and the web sacs. It would be easy enough if he wanted to integrate the records as is, such as an ability stone which would allow one to gain sharp fangs or even allow one to spit web from their mouth. However, that wasn't very practical. He wanted to modify records and make it in a way that they would be easy to assimilate for humans. This was more complex in nature.

When he assimilated with the records himself, it was in fact easy because he knew about his own records and how to assimilate them. But now, he had to create a stone that could assimilate other records with the ability of an Archwolf.

'Fortunately, I have an idea.' Kayzen recalled what he had seen on the path of the Warden of Cursed Accord. The key here was the word 'accord' and sharing one's records with the others. He couldn't use the abilities of that path since he didn't have the authority for it. Nonetheless, what he saw had given him a good idea on how to help others assimilate with the ability stones he had made. Kayzen started with the fang.

His first goal was to make an ability stone that inherited the Archwolf's agility and bone strength. The sigil on his chest flared up to life as he poured Ether into the fang. Thanks to his authority as the Warden of Records, it was simple for him to read the records of the Archwolf. He had already done so multiple times, which saved him the trouble of sorting them out. Out of their five abilities, he chose the two that he wanted and imprisoned the rest.

Now, he could repeat what he did the previous time and just send these records into the shard fragment. But he wanted to do something more. He wanted to dig deep into the Archwolf records and see if he could enhance the ability stone in a way that it was on the verge of a breakthrough to the medium rank. This was a tough challenge considering he only had five shards, but he decided to go with it nonetheless. By leveraging his past knowledge he wanted to walk forward and attain new heights.

He clenched the fang in his right hand and dug deep into the Archwolf's records. What were they? Where did they come from? How did their abilities function? The answer to all these was written in their records. Kayzen couldn't read and understand all of them, neither did he need to. All he did was select the needed records and imprisoned the rest. The difficult part was transferring them to the shard fragment. The whole process took him as long as five minutes.

By the time the shard fragment flared with a white glow and formed an ability stone, he was beyond exhausted.

'Let's see how it went.' Ability Stone Rank: Low Archweb: Upon assimilation, grants user the records for web ejection. There is a significant chance that the records would result in the mutation of facial organs. If the user has less cumulative records then there is the risk of reverse assimilation, resulting in an Arch hybrid. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. The result was a spectacular failure.

Kayzen couldn't help but laugh as he read the description of the ability shard. In a sense, he had succeeded in extracting more of the power behind the spider's web, however, the possible side effect of that was becoming a half spider. No sane human would ever choose such an ability. Not that losing their human parts was unacceptable; it's just that the power they would gain in return was simply not worth it.

On the positive side, Kayzen had at least succeeded in assimilating the Archwolf's records with that of a human. Based on the 'Arch' keyword he was sure that the whole archwolf species must have originated from reverse assimilation, which gave him a new direction for research. In conclusion it was a right step in an unexpected direction. With prior experience, Kayzen repeated the process with minor adjustments. This time he focused more on stabilizing rather than enhancing the power of the ability stone.

10 minutes later, he was greeted with another result. Ability Stone Rank: Low Archfang: Upon assimilation, grants user the records for web secretion. There is a significant chance that the records would result in the mutation of fangs, allowing the user to secrete web upon contact.

'This is getting nowhere.' Kayzen shook his head and decided to take a short break. He leaned back on the bed and thought about what he was doing wrong. If he focused on the Archwolf's records, then it mutated the organs of the humans. And if he focused on the humans' records, then the ability integrated by the Archwolf would be subpar in quality. It wouldn't be this difficult if he was just satisfied with creating low quality ability stones, but he wanted more.

His goal was to extract the maximum amount of records he could from the source and transfer all of them to an ability stone.

"Perhaps I don't really have to use a blank record in order to facilitate the assimilation." Kayzen muttered as a sudden thought struck him. He could use his own records as a base for the ability stone. Not his records as Kayzen Ashbourne, but rather, his records as a human. All of the humans had many things in common, so they too should have corresponding records which were similar. It was similar to the common genes shared between all of the humans.

Among a human population, things such as the hair, eye, height, weight, metabolism, and other things would be different. However, the fundamental things wouldn't change; such as having two hands and two legs, five fingers, two eyes, a nose, two ears, and so on. Thus, if he used those records as a base model and designed an ability stone that would integrate the records of Archwolves on top of that base, then it should be possible to get the best quality records without causing unnecessary mutation.

"As they say, third time's the charm." Kayzen repeated the process once again, and finally, he succeeded in creating an ability stone that hardened human skeleton and improved their agility. He had succeeded in creating a shard that was on the verge of becoming a medium rank. Just this alone would cover most of his expenses in this camp. Even the first two shards he created weren't all that useless. Perhaps no one would willingly use them, but things would be different in desperate circumstances.

For example, what if someone had their skull fractured and used the ability stone to integrate the Archwolf records? Would they gain a new head via mutation? What about if someone was blind? Will they get eight eyes of the spider and their vision? In the end mutation was a double-edged sword. Yet for those on the brink of death this could be a life saving grace. Thinking along these lines, it didn't look like what he had made was totally useless. And that reminded him of Derrick.

The more Kayzen thought about him, the more he felt like he was going in the right direction. Just how many people had lost their limbs? If he could design something that could integrate monsters' body parts into humans, then wouldn't that be great? It was like an advanced version of prosthetics with an ability to boot. By now he was already very familiar with the process. He did everything the same way he had done, but this time he focused on mutating just one hand of a human.

He imprisoned the records of one arm in the base and overlapped it with the archwolves' records. For this complex task he also added his Hex into the mix. This could also serve as a weapon if he desired to mutate or replace a part of a target organism. This time he didn't have to care about what mutation took place, so he focused all of his attention on extracting as many records as possible and creating something entirely new.

A record combination that would result in an ability which even the Archwolves didn't have. If he mixed and mashed all five of their abilities and formed something new, wouldn't he be able to create something that was greater than the sum of their parts? It wouldn't be a medium-rank record for sure, however, he could craft an ability from scratch. The possibility itself made his skin shiver from excitement. This was the power of the Warden of Records. Sealing and imprisoning records wasn't just limited to combat.

With his ability of record extraction he could choose what to extract, and with his authority as the Warden of Records, he could decide on what to suppress. In a sense, it was akin to editing the Akashic records and creating what he desired. It would take a long time for this theory to come to fruition since his control was lacking at the moment. Nonetheless, it didn't prevent him from creating something new. Now, there was a brand-new ability stone hovering above his palm.

One half of it was sparkling red, while the other was dim white. And just like its appearance, the ability it contained was also unique in nature. Ability Stone Rank: Low (Breakthrough) Arch-hex: Upon assimilation, the user will lose one of their arms and gain a mutated limb. The type and degree of mutation depends on the compatibility of the records.