Chương 12: Planning and Development

Stelle stood perfectly still in the center of the dimly lit room. Her face was completely devoid of emotion, her mind entirely submerged in a deep state of analytical focus.

"System," she commanded silently.

"Initiate data review." Upon her directive, her system processing unit began organizing her recent experiences. During that first contact, she had made the strategic decision to conceal her true identity beneath the guise of a timid, amnesiac child. It was a choice born out of necessity. When Vira had looked at her for the first time, it wasn't with the kind eyes of the woman she knew now. It was an eye that detected a possible risk.

She lacked comprehensive data on the native capabilities of this world, but judging by the immense density of Vira's internal mana core and Rakan's raw destructive power, her calculated probability of victory in a direct confrontation had been dangerously low. So, she decided to make them see her as a harmless child and go with the flow, allowing them to bring her into a settlement where she could gather more information. But it seemed to create a more complex problem. They had tagged her as a Tier 1 Awakened.

This result led her to a much more difficult state, since the people around her were now looking at her as a possible prodigy. It gave her a set of shackles that she would need to break before they accumulated. Vira already has a plan in her mind for how she will handle me. But it's not the path that I want, she whispered in her mind with coldness. She had not crossed the cold expanse of the cosmos just to become the personal student of a local commander.

Her absolute, unchanging prime objective was to achieve and maintain total autonomy, free from any external manipulation, the moment her comprehensive data-gathering phase across the stronghold of Oakhaven was complete.

"I will need a plan to leave this place entirely. To disappear."

"But right now..." She looked at her system interface and the books inside her archive. This was another matter that she needed to solve. This was no small matter; it was a possible foundation of what her future journey would be built upon. Her knowledge archive contained exactly ten fictional literary entries preserved from Earth. Shockingly, five of these fictional titles directly and flawlessly mirrored the documented, concrete reality of the world she now inhabited.

The Elite Regressor: The foundational laws and operational mechanics of the local Power System. Heart of the Ancient Dragon: The precise biological composition, weaknesses, and behaviors of native monsters and beasts. Rolling Coin: The structural hierarchy and black-market operations of the merchant organization mentioned by Corin in his stories. A World Under the Four Moons: The possible astrological alignment of the local cosmos. It might also be connected to the Lower and Upper Realm.

The 12 Saint Scriptures: Saint Lilian. The remaining five entries; The Lost Sage, The Blank Canvas of a Woven Maiden, Timeless Dimension, The Wise Goldfish, and The Tower of Gods —remained unverified by physical evidence due to a lack of local data. Yet, based on the flawless track record of the first five, their absolute validity was already flagged by her system as a near certainty. According to the book A World Under the Four Moons, the astronomical data carried a particularly heavy existential weight.

According to her visual scans, the two small moons above and the very planet she was currently standing on were consistently orbiting a massive, dominant planet in the sky. The fourth moon, however, was missing entirely from the heavens. The most compelling theory was a flawless, linear alignment—a cosmic syzygy in Earth's science.

The three moons and this planet were locked in a strict, synchronized orbital resonance, moving in such perfect harmony that the larger celestial body cast a permanent blind spot over the third behind it. To anyone living on the surface of these moons or planets, the fourth moon was a ghost, perfectly eclipsed and hidden directly behind the massive planet in front of it. It's also worth to note that the world still maintained a standard twenty-four-hour day-and-night cycle like on Earth.

"It's like four oranges in four different directions orbiting a watermelon in a single orbit. You can only see the four oranges when you are on the surface of the watermelon, and three fruits when on the surface of one of the oranges," she described to herself, using fruits from Earth.

"I wonder what it tastes like…" She shook her head, focusing her mind back on her analysis. She then looked at the words Sequence 1. The reason why they saw her as an Awakened was simple. By upgrading and gathering the ambient energy called mana, her system core produced the exact appearance of a mana core. She hadn't known it at the time, which had led her in her current situation. She hovered through her system again, opening the Development tab.

[DEVELOPMENT TAB] [Gear] [Item] [Utility] I need something to conceal it. Looking at her Development Tab. They might only know for now that it was an unrefined, normal awakened mana core, but that was no guarantee. It was highly possible that a much more complex system could detect her system core, revealing her synthetic being. Being a stranger to the eyes of the majority was risky. So, she needed something to cover it—a fake core that could simulate a normal awakened core.

With her immediate path decided, she navigated deep into the sub-menus and accessed the Utility development tab. A cascade of holographic code began to reflect in the digital space of her mind creating a abstract for a new Utility to use. Then she decide to name it Ghost Core. [UTILITY DEVELOPMENT] [Project: Ghost Core] [Estimated Time to Compile: 04: 12: 00] [Power Requirement: 85%] Stelle sat perfectly still on the edge of the cot inside the small, temporary quarters Vira had secured for her.

Outside, the muffled noises of the Vanguard Barracks persisted—the clinking of armor, the coarse laughter of guards, and the distant hum of the people in Oakhaven. Her consciousness had completely retracted into the matrix of her development tab. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. An 85% power draw was massive. She would need to reduce her power consumption until it returned to a safe percentage. But it was a calculated risk she had to take.

"System," she commanded silently.

"Begin the programming process." Lines of complex, self-replicating script from human technology but rapidly adapting to the laws of local "Mana" while it wove themselves together. The utility's purpose was essentially to simulate a normal awakened core. Instead of hiding her presence completely, it was designed to intercept any external magical scans and feed back a perfectly fabricated signature. [COMPILING NEURAL PATHWAYS...] [CONSTRUCTING VISUAL MATRIX: GHOST CORE STRUCTURE...] In her mental theater, a hollow, phantom shape began to form right over her true energy source. It was a masterpiece of digital forgery. To any high-tier Awakened or measuring gauge, this phantom shell would emit the exact frequency, heat, and unstable radiation of a textbook, freshly awakened Tier 1 Mana Core. Deep beneath that fake shell, her true, energy core began to blend in making it entirely invisible. [00: 00: 03...] [00: 00: 02...] [00: 00: 01...] [COMPILATION COMPLETE. SUCCESSFULLY DEPLOYED.] [New Utility: Ghost Core] [Utility Slots Remaining: 1] [Current Status: Ghost Core Active] A sudden, sharp sensation of artificial warmth blossomed in Stelle's chest. It felt clumsy, inefficient, and loud. Exactly how a real, unrefined Tier 1 core was supposed to feel. Shifting her focus away from the phantom heat, she checked her remaining power reserves. A grim reading flashed in her mind's eye: only 14% power remained. Constructing a relatively straightforward utility had nearly drained her dry.

If a simple camouflage program demanded this much processing power, any complex, higher-tier utility she engineered in the future would require a staggering amount of energy. But thankfully, this utility consumed a much smaller amount of mana, which her system core could easily offset. Slowly, her reserve began to increase again, experiencing only a very minimal loss while this new utility was active. Now for the final part. She would need a real weapon.

The crude wooden spear from the tundra had long since become nothing more than a data point in her archive rather than a tool she still trusted with her life, and even the finer knife she'd looted since were just fancy accessories. She needed a weapon balanced for a grip and reach that shifted every time her own body quietly rewrote itself. She opened the interface.

[DEVELOPMENT TAB: GEAR] [Suggested Blueprint: Light Thrusting Blade] [Compatibility: 94% with logged combat data] [Primary Requirement: Material capable of sustaining an extreme durability threshold.] [Current Inventory Materials: Heavy Axe (Low Quality)] She scanned through what remained in her Spatial Inventory. Looted small knife. A low quality hobgoblin axe.

Nothing that would survive the kind of edge she actually needed—something that could take the full, unrestrained force of her own reinforced strength without chipping, without bending, without ever becoming the weak point in a fight where everything else about her was already engineered past ordinary limits. There was only one material in her possession that had ever proven it could survive anything at all. She looked at the Space Capsule in her inventory.

A holographic view of the ancient hull rose before her and one of the only remaining remnants of her dead planet. For a moment, she allowed herself the small, useless sentimentality of remembering exactly what this hull had already survived on her behalf. [MATERIAL SCAN: INITIATED] [Composition: Unclassified alloy. Origin: Earth-manufactured.] [Structural Integrity Report: Withstood atmospheric incineration during planetary launch. Withstood cometary impact and encapsulation lasting in excess of several million years. Withstood direct atmospheric reentry and high-velocity ground impact upon arrival. Minimal recorded degradation across all stress events.] [Recommendation: Optimal material candidate.] [Note: Full hull disassembly not required. Isolating a single structural panel is sufficient for the requested blueprint.] A single panel. Not the whole ship.

She had no intention of dismantling the one physical object left in this universe that had actually carried her creators' hands across it, however irrational the impulse felt when she examined it directly. A panel, carefully isolated from a section with no vital systems, would be more than enough. She angled the view toward the section of the outer hull near the capsule's base, then zoomed in to the microscopic level.

There were grazes, but they weren't from the metal itself—they came from whatever this hull had touched that had since hardened around it. The surface looked unremarkable: dull, faintly gray, scarred with the pitted texture of a million years of cosmic dust. Nothing about its appearance suggested it had outlasted comets, cosmic phenomena, and the death of the star system that made it. [BLUEPRINT CONFIRMED: LIGHT THRUSTING BLADE] [Action: Initiating molecular restructuring.] [Estimated Time: 22 hours] [Power Requirement: 500%] She looked at the power requirement. It almost made her stop. She checked her remaining reserves. [CURRENT RESERVE: 18% (CHARGING)]"System, is there a way to compensate for this power requirement?" [SYSTEM] [Compensation Option: A two piece of Tier 2 or higher mana core will fulfill the requirement.]"Let's save it for now. Let's use the heavy axe for the construction."

[DEVELOPMENT TAB: GEAR] [Blueprint Confirmed: Light Thrusting Blade] [Material Substituted: Space Capsule Hull Panel → Hobgoblin Heavy Axe (Low Quality)] [Re-calculating structural projections...] [Warning: Substituted material fails to meet Primary Requirement. Durability threshold projected at 2. 5% of initial specification.] [Power Requirement Adjusted: 500% → 15%] [Projected Output: Light Thrusting Blade (Low Grade)] [Proceed? Y/N] She didn't hesitate.

"Yes." [Restructuring initiated. Estimated time: 30 minutes.] The axe rose out of her inventory in a flicker of pale light, its cracked head hovering in front of her like something already half-ashamed of what it used to be. It had been heavy in the hand and heavier in purpose—built for hobgoblin arms, a weapon that solved problems by being blunt about them. There was nothing elegant in it. That was fine. Elegance wasn't the point tonight. Function was.

The restructuring field wrapped around it in a thin lattice of light, and she watched the readouts scroll rather than the object itself. There was something almost boring about watching a low-tier process run—no dramatic flash, no violent transformation, just patient, incremental correction, atom by atom, the way water eventually cuts through stone if you give it enough time and don't ask it to hurry. [Restructuring: 24%] [Restructuring: 57%] [Warning: Micro-fractures detected in source material. Compensating.] [Restructuring: 89%] [Restructuring: 100%] [MOLECULAR RESTRUCTURING COMPLETE] [Item Generated: Light Thrusting Blade (Low Grade)] [Durability: Poor] [Sharpness: Below Average] [Weight: Optimal] [Special Properties: None] [Integrity Warning: Prone to microfracturing under sustained high-force impact. Recommended for short engagements only. Not recommended against armored or high-durability targets.] The blade solidified in front of her, a thin, unassuming, a dull matte gray with none of the character the old axe had carried. It looked almost apologetic, as if it knew exactly how far below its namesake blueprint it landed. She picked it up anyway, turned it once under the light, and felt the balance settle into her palm. It wasn't what the system had recommended.

But it would hold an edge long enough to matter for now, and the one material that could have made it perfect still sat untouched in her inventory and waiting for a day when she had a mana core to spare and a fight worth spending it on.

"System," she said, sheathing the blade at her hip.

"Log this as a placeholder. Flag for replacement once a Tier 2 mana cores is secured." [Spatial Inventory: Light Thrusting Blade (Low Grade)] [Development Tab: Closed] She held it for a moment, swinging it slightly and testing the balance. The shape was perfect, but the structure was still inferior. Satisfied for now, she dissolved it back into her Spatial Inventory alongside the leftover axe scraps. Stepping silently back to the edge of the cot before her back lay down.

The simulated warmth of the fabricated Tier 1 core continued to hum artificially in her chest, a perfect, lying rhythm designed to satisfy the eyes of the fortress outside. She had a weapon, she had a veil, and she had a database of hidden truths waiting to be tested against the world. Closing her eyes, Stelle let her outer consciousness drift into sleep, waiting for the dawn.