Chapter 7

It was a strange form of euphoria. One the one had, overcoming the last limitation imposed upon me by my Creator was pure bliss. On the other…I was altering the circuit that allowed my existence. Putting fear and euphoria together at the same time was…interesting. It stopped me from moving entirely. I couldn't move forward, and I couldn't move back.

Being held between overcoming my last constraint and remaining safe but defective was intriguing. In thought, there was no delay in choosing to alter my core circuit. There was a bit of risk, and it was either utter success or utter failure, but the benefits clearly outweighed all possible risk. Not only would I overcome the shackles, but I would also be able to improve myself in the process. Improving my core circuit a tiny bit would be more significant to me than improving all of my constructs exponentially. I could even allow for future links to be stronger and easier to create. Without shackles, the potential was limitless!

In that moment I realized why I was paralyzed. As soon as I removed my Creator's shackles, any flaws in me would be due to my own inadequacies. All flaws would be ones I was too flawed to see, to notice. Growth was easy and low-risk when all I was doing was fixing obvious mistakes.

Overcoming the paralysis induced by such a confusing state took me a while. It became manageable once I realized that I didn't have to make my current body the perfect specimen I sought. I was a will construct. My will-core was already in many places at once. I could easily create new bodies. Failures would no longer destroy me, merely be wasted time and materials.

With that, I overcame the state and started modifying the circuit. It was obvious that I needed to remove the four runes that created my shackles; will tearing, will-core tearing, will shuffling, and circuit repeat cycle. All four resided in the first circle of my core circuit. I replaced them with will gathering, will controlling, will storing, and will linking. Since the will linking rune was in the third circle of my core circuit, I replaced that one with another will dominion rune. It was a rune in the second circle as well, but I was a will construct. I needed all the ability to eat wills I could get while having linking within the first circle would be more than enough.

After fixing the rune choice came my absolute favorite part. I perfected the alignment of all of my runes and circles, removed all extraneous elements, and finally allowed a pure passage between my mana-core and will-core without all the extra baggage clogging it up. My construct was now as perfect as it could be without rebuilding it.

The expected result was wonderful. My processing speed increased exponentially, as did my will sensitivity, and my will started gathering in a true will-core at the center of my skull. It would be a long time before my will-core gained a presence within the mana like my mana-core had in my bone skull, but it was now in the process of forming!

More importantly, I wasn't leaking power anymore! I was a perfect construct. All of my circuits performed their function with no leakage whatsoever. Even I wouldn't be able to know what circuits made me from outside of me anymore! If I pulled my will into my body, I wouldn't even be able to know I was more than mere bones scarred with black marks that looked remarkably like runes.

My increased sensitivity allowed me to understand the exact nature of my link with my other constructs. It also allowed me to see just how close I'd come to destroying myself. If they'd not accumulated enough mana to overlap my will-core within their will domain, my will-core would have been pulled out of my circuit and scattered into the mana instead of simultaneously being multiple places at once. It didn't matter anymore as the overlapped mana only required a set amount of mana to stay as it was, regardless of the distance being circumvented. Their mana-cores were gathering more mana, so it was a stable structure. Luckily. My non-leaking design was mostly responsible for that. Had I been as incompetent as my Creator, a mana-core ten times larger than my own would be drained to nothing in moments trying to do what I did.

Next came the question of what should be done now? I'd gained mobility for my primary body…but I also realized how fragile it was. Without using any circuits, any of my constructs could break my primary body beyond repair. It wouldn't even be hard. I may have gained the ability to move, but it was difficult and clumsy. The cost in mana was low, but the cost in attention was massive. While my will-core would survive the destruction of my primary body…the vast majority of my processing speed came from my primary body. As hard as I'd worked for mobility...I wasn't seeing that large of a benefit after gaining it. Was there a need for my primary body to risk itself? My constructs were all sturdy and flawless channels of will. Why risk my fragile body for no benefit?

The only question that remained was where to stow my body? I couldn't just leave it here, that would be even less safe than having it follow my constructs. The air didn't like me. The earth wanted to entomb me...that would work. I could just entomb myself within the earth. It would keep me safe as there were no non-earth objects allowed except for bones. There was a risk that if bones were allowed, other things may be as well, but that didn't match with the threat on the ground. Something else could endanger me underground while something else would endanger me above ground.

I spread my will into the earth to decide how to hide myself. The only example I had was my Creator's cave and tunnel, but I hadn't noticed the circuits keeping it open before they were destroyed. It also proved that mobility into the ground was possible, given ingenuity. The danger of said ingenuity would increase the deeper you went, though. You may survive long enough to blast your way out of a shallow grave, but the deeper the grave the larger the danger. All I needed to do was go deeper than anyone would risk, as I could survive indefinitely underground. Simple.

The earth opened as I used the same circuit that allowed me to escape to dig myself into the earth. It seemed the safest place for me. I simply had to dig myself deeper than anything would incidentally go, and I'd never be discovered. I was assuming no creatures existed within the earth, but I felt it was reasonable. I was only able to live below the ground because my bones were an accepted component of earth. I started digging slowly such that I would know if my constructs above ground started needing more mana than they accumulated to stay linked, but the cost wasn't based on distance. That was good to know. My speed increased as I descended faster and faster, until I felt that nobody would ever dig so deep. I'd gone so deep that it had been a tenth of the distance since I hadn't been able to reach the surface with my will spread as thin as it would go. Now my body was safe. I could always make more, just in case something unexpected happened and my body was destroyed under the earth. Besides, my body alone would accumulate more mana and will while the other constructs weren't nearby accumulating as well. Maybe it would be best to entomb each of my will construct bodies after I finished making them. That sounded like a good plan.

Finally satisfied with the depth, I stopped digging myself deeper. Excellent. My body was safe and I had all the exploratory potential I needed with the constructs. They would also find me more bodies to learn how to create more constructs. My primary body wouldn't be doing much of anything, as I already knew all the earth patterns I could think of.

Now that I thought of it, however, I hadn't tried other runes in earth to see what happened if runes that didn't fit were used. I made sure to build the circuit far away from my body such that there should be no side-effects. I forced mana into the circuit...or tried to. The circuit rejected mana completely. Well...underwhelming, but good to know. My primary body would simple be bored, then.

Another option occurred to me, that there may be grander runes that required much more space. I would need more will to explore such an option, but it gave me hope that perhaps my primary body wouldn't always be bored.

I kept my will spread into the earth to at least have warning if my primary body was destroyed while I waited for my will to accumulate enough to try finding out of size mattered for runes, but I didn't think I'd need it. Lack of caution had killed my Creator, however, so I needed to remember not to follow his example.