No longer unknown?

Waking up Ace felt like the experience he had before he fell asleep was a nightmare. Everything he looked at he could see in detail, he felt like he could easily pick up a single grain of sand if he so wanted when he placed his hands on the sand as he sat up. He could hear the growling lizard in the distance and his own rhythmic breathing, no unnecessary noise entered his brain.

Feeling like the ocean was bluer and the grass greener than yesterday Ace was prepared to get fishing when an unexpected alert rang out from his chip.

[Access to unknown energy source discovered, requesting permission to proceed with a system reboot in order to change power source.]

"Huh, I didn't know you could talk to me without being prompted."

[Affirmative, situation has been deemed to need host's decision, overruling of passive action programs has occurred, re-enabling those programs possible, proceed?]

It seemed the keyword addressing program was a part of those since in the unexpected situation Ace had forgotten to call his chip by the designated nickname.

"No need, tell me about the situation first." Ace didn't pay any more attention to that and instead wanted to know more about what the chip had reported.

[Affirmative, passive action programs disable indefinitely]

[Reporting, following a surge of electricity and unidentified energy through host's body, changes in the nervous system and the circulation of unidentified energy has been observed. Those changes has resulted in the possibility of switching from residual bioelectricity as primary energy source to unidentified energy. Previous analysis of unidentified energy has also led to this result]

"What are those changes about?"

[Reporting, changes in nervous system summarized as an evolution, speed of signal transfer increased on all levels resulting in faster reflexes and faster thought processing speed of host.

[Circulation of unidentified energy within host's body has gone from loosely moving around to following a set pattern, similar to the nervous system, direct relation between changes in nervous system and circulation path unknown, lacking capability identified as reason for not being able to find out.

[No detrimental side effects detected.]

Ace couldn't be sure but his nervous system had probably gone through a similar situation as the rest of his body, first enduring stimulation or breaking down the structure and then with the help of the unknown energy being rapidly healed and having the energy suffused into it.

Since his training was deduced theoretically, the scientists couldn't accurately determine what would happen if he completed the first level but if he did without any way to heal his nervous system aside from his natural recovery being put in a coma in order to control his raging senses wouldn't be strange.

Since the rush of energy had rapidly healed the torn connection between his sensory organs and the nervous system and the brain Ace didn't need to spend a prolonged period of time not in control of his body.

"To think even you could get upgraded, that's good to know i guess. So, will changing energy source do anything?

[Affirmative, further analysis of unidentified energy will proceed at a quicker pace, greater cost efficiency in energy consumption deemed beneficial due to decreased amount of residual bioelectricity following previously mentioned changes.]

"Nothing bad will happen?"

[Due to lacking analysis the outcome is impossible to determine, negative side effects might occur but risk assessment calculations have deemed changing energy source is the choice that in the future will bring greater benefits with lower chances of danger compared to continued use of host's bioelectricity]

"Will i notice the change?"

[Affirmative, simulations indicate host will experience a tingling feeling on the top of the neck]

"Okay, permission granted for Dishwasher to perform a system reboot with the objective of changing power source"

[Permission received]

[Writing power source redistribution program]

[Initializing reboot sequence]

[Shutting down]

[...]

[Boot up in progress]

[12%...]

[35%...]

[78%...]

[99%]

[Reboot sequence complete]

[Objective complete]

[Connection to power source established]

In the beginning Ace only heard the notifications but as the boot up progressed he could feel a prickle on his neck, just like the chip told him. He didn't feel much pain but it was uncomfortable as he barely felt something moving inside his neck. He probably wouldn't even have felt anything if not for his recent advancement.

The thing he felt moving was the nanotechnology chip rebuilding itself, instead of a miniature lightning rod to capture electricity it turned itself into a spiral shape with groves, still attached to Ace's spine. Although Ace didn't know anything about it the chip had identified certain traits in the unidentified energy and found a few ways to make use of these traits. One of those ways were special shapes that induced movement in the energy. Even if Ace knew he wouldn't be able to make proper use of it since the energy gathered by the spiral was practically infinitesimal. He would need a stadium sized spiral to gather the energy found inside a fish.

Since the range of absorption was limited the chip identified a hotspot of energy, conveniently located a bit lower down on Ace's neck so it moved there. The chip had determined it wouldn't negatively affect the circulation of energy within Ace's body.

The chip also changed it's inner structure to be able to make proper use of the energy, not just absorb it.

When the chip finished Ace massaged his neck as although there was no physical discomfort there was slight mental discomfort remaining. While rubbing his neck he thought about something that had annoyed him during his conversation with the chip. The back and forth repeating of 'unknown-' and 'unidentified energy'.

Unfortunately Ace's creativity was limited to combat. Thinking up a word to use instead of 'unknown energy' was surprisingly difficult, thankfully he had human history to fall back on. More specifically a word database stored in his chip in several different languages. Searching the database for words that could fit he came up with a few options such as 'qi' or 'aether' or 'quintessence' and a few expressions similar to 'vital energy' and 'spiritual energy'.

However 'qi' hade more to do with the breath of living creatures and 'quintessence' wasn't suitable either. The expressions mostly had different adjectives to describe the energy without actually giving it a name. Eventually Ace settled for 'aether', partially because it sounded the most magical.

With that word to describe the standard energy as the basis he decided to describe variations of the energy with appropriate words, like iron-aether for the energy found in the fish and the sea.

Ace told his chip to update it's database and then decide to train a bit.