Trial 1

The Great Csillacra was setting out to make a pair of ideal humans, one for matters of violence and another for matters of peace.

At the moment, Donovan was already well suited to handle matters of violence, at least he would be if Split was not something that needed to be considered.

He had a fairly complete understanding of tactics on every level, and possessed the necessary charisma and confidence to act on that knowledge.

Physically, he wasn't too far off from being ideal. Sure he might be a little shorter than what the Great Csillacra would have liked, and he wouldn't grow to be as strong, but he was capable of withstanding great amounts of damage and enduring strenuous conditions for extended period of time.

Split could make up for deficiencies in power and speed, it could not compensate for the body's ability to resist damage or break down.

Now was its time to make the adjustments that would improve this natural ruggedness.

Bone density was slightly increased, making him heavier but less likely to break his bones. Ligaments and other vulnerable 'soft tissue' were similarly strengthened, making them harder to tear and break apart.

His skin was remade, better able to resist cutting edges and tearing as well and made better at cushioning blows.

His brain was also remodeled, something he had noticed but not realized. He would find he could now 'think' faster and recall information at a greater speed. Memorization would come easier as well. His senses more acute, better able to pick up on minute details and potential threats.

These were all very important enhancements, crucial in fact, but they were alterations that would also be performed on Diana. These affected their survivability, and it would do everything in its power to guarantee that they remained alive.

Where the largest differences would manifest themselves would be how their bodies interacted with split. Both would be pushing the limits of efficiency, if not reaching them, but they would operate very differently.

Donovan, in the middle of being altered, could feel 'something' being made 'bigger'. It wasn't a feeling he was used to, nor should it have been, as it was the enlarging of his capacity to hold split. There was no volumetric change that would show inflammation in his body.

At the same time, he could feel the phantom pressure inside of his stomach, that caused by the fruit, fading.

The effects of the fruit were not waning, they had barely diminished even five percent since his consumption of it, it was that his body was slowly being adjusted to maximize the passage of split throughout.

At the moment, he would be able to force as much split out of his body in a mere five minutes as a regular person could in three hours. Powerful, useful, but a double edged sword. An increase in consumption meant a decrease in the lifetime of his reserves, so a soft limiter would have to be implanted so that he may actually learn to use it without hurting himself.

That could wait until the end of the procedure.

The next step in the process was enabling him to generate split. True, everything did that to some degree, but to actually generate split of a quantity and quality high enough to use was crucial for someone who would have to be using split in the thick of battle. Absorbing what surrounded him would be too dangerous in such a scenario.

This was something that couldn't be given.

Like a muscle, this ability needed to be cultivated over a long period of time. But the Great Csillacra could make some tweaks to speed up the process and increase the upper limit to which this regeneration rate could grow before slowing.

Specifically, the Great Csillacra wanted to remove this limit altogether.

Dangerous, but the Great Csillacra was 100% confident that this could be done without any risks. The only reason for this was that Donovan did not have the ability to create split in the first place.

Thus, utilizing the seed that Donovan had eaten, one of its own scarce, delicate, and precious offspring, it fashioned the 'perfect' core.

With this core finished and successfully implanted in the space behind his sternum, it began to jumpstart the self-sustaining reaction.

Slowly, gently, it began to concentrate all of the split leftover from the fruit in this core, taking precautions to not drain so much that split decay would become an issue. Compressing, twisting, swirling the split to remove what miniscule impurities remained in this little ball of life.

Once it reached a satisfactory level, that being a completely pure blob, it began to compress in earnest.

Donovan could tell from this experience that, unlike the atomic structures he was used to, Split occupied volume completely. There was no distance between particles because there WERE no particles.

Perhaps instead of viewing split as something like a gas or liquid, it would be better to think of it as a separate three dimensional dimension with varying values in coordinates that would indicate how much was there. A height graph overlaid on a three dimensional field.

Don was back to normal now, but he was no longer asking as many questions. Instead he was focusing intently on the spectacle near his heart.

Remember this feeling. If you wish to grow stronger you will have to do this frequently.

Splitting off a small chunk of the now highly concentrated split, the Great Csillacra reintroduced the impurities before setting it aside. In just a few seconds, the core would be complete. There would be no shock of power rippling through his veins, the split orb would just suddenly shrink to an impossibly small size.

Taking that little which remained, it repeated the process of purification over and over for Donovan. Once finished, it would again reintroduce the impurities.

It understood that he was completely new to this, and lacked the understanding of how to move split around. It took the liberty of using his 'organs', that part of his biology capable of moving around the concentration of split, in order to show him how to do it.

It was very much like helping a baby move its legs to teach it how to walk.

Don would sometimes be given a small amount of control over it, usually the squeezing or stirring, to give him practice. An even smaller chunk was torn off, barely even a fraction of what was there before, so that he may practice on that.

Upon purifying this incredibly small amount of split completely, that is to the same level required to form the core, he expressed excitement and triumph.

Taking control once more, the Great Csillacra demonstrated how to use that to strengthen the tiny core. It squeezed that external split against this core, slowly shaking and shifting it around until it disappeared. It repeated this process again and again, explaining to him why he needed to to this and how.

Finally, it did nothing for a period of time, letting Donovan purify a quantity of split. When finally a cell of split concentrated enough for him to detect formed, it directed his attention towards it so that he may analyze it.