chapter 180

POV: Dean

The world was full of strange trees and vegetation. It did seem kinda familiar, but I was certain I had never seen such tall and thick trees, and the ground vegetation seemed to be made up only of ferns.

That word triggered a memory of our captain showing me a plant from his planet. Was this Earth? Moving close to the tree, I touched its bark. There was something wrong with the texture. Also, my hand seemed a bit blurry.

Forcefully, I grabbed hold of one of the bigger pieces of the bark and pulled it off the tree with a satisfying crack. My eyes now caught the metallic structure that reflected the sunlight. Looking back up at the tree, I realised it was made like I was. It was an entire tree made out of bio-cybernetic parts.

A sudden roar, deep and bellowing, sounded throughout this forest. It came out of nowhere and almost made me drop the piece of bark. My hand flew towards my sword hilt, but there was nothing there to greet me. At the edges of my mind, I could feel panic creeping in, but I clamped it down.

Suddenly, there were footsteps, closer than they should have been before I could detect them. Branches cracked, and the entire world seemed to vibrate with every step. Then I saw it, something towering above me with teeth as big as my hands.

Involuntarily, I took a step back, and then our eyes met. Its head was as big as me, but then my fear left me entirely as I realised what I was looking at.

“Is that a T-Rex?” The sight of it was so confusing. Now that I was clear-headed once again, how could I miss that this magnificent creature was also bio-cybernetic like everything else around me?

“What’s going on?”

Then a jolt made me open my eyes. That jolt had been us exiting FTL. But where had I been? Oh, that was another dream. Bob was the first to report such an incident, and after that, we had all experienced it a few times. It usually happens when we have nothing to do and have exhausted ourselves before. We simply seem to drift off; the captain calls it a nap.

That’s right, I had just finished a 14-hour practice session with my team. We could have gone longer, as all of our bodies were fully mechanical, but me being made out of bio-cybernetics, meant I was the one actually feeling the strain. We had pushed ourselves a lot.

Getting up and stretching always seemed to help, so I did that. That dream was a bit more scary than I was expecting, but Lola did inform us of nightmares, though I don’t know if it was exactly that. My body seemed to want to move, so I guess it’s time to run.

The ship really wasn’t big enough to get a proper run in, at least if you didn't want to do 100+ laps, which I might do this time. It was a simple circuit going through two floors, following some hallways that are pretty nice and straight for the most part. Also, running up and down stairs is at least a bit more challenging.

A notice went out to be ready, in case FH needed us at our stations to use her innate ability to make the ship better. Usually, I practised my own innate ability during a run.

Strength from Motion did exactly what its name implied. The more I moved, the stronger I would become. It was sometimes difficult to control. What helped me accumulate the most strength in a short amount of time was speed, but it was easy to convert the strength I gain into speed if you knew your body's mechanics. It was a nice loop of feedback.

Right now, since we were in combat standby, it was best to keep as much mana in reserve as possible.

“FH, what’s the situation? How likely is it that we’re going to have to get to our stations fast?” I queried her for information.

“Most likely low, and it would take some time before we can send proper scouts to the portal. We’ll keep everyone updated as necessary.”

“Got it, will stay available.”

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My previous master was so different from captain. He had always been afraid of space monsters, only engaging with them if there was no other option. They were scary monsters, the nightmares of a billion civilizations, but the captain was happily seeking them out to learn, fight, get materials, and get stronger from each encounter.

There were never guarantees. You could always get a bad matchup with a space monster that had a particularly difficult set of skills that made it a nightmare for any ship. Thanks to the captain’s capabilities of making us able to have affinities and skills, those dangers were alleviated by quite a lot.

This would be our second unexplored space portal. The last one only had three space monsters still inside, and the only projectile that got close to us was the one the ship’s AIs allowed. Everyone wanted to test out the new shields, and they worked as advertised, turning a projectile that should have nearly missed us into one that missed us by quite a lot.

The accuracy of those turret AIs was really impressive, especially with the new shields adding another variable. Like this, I continued my run, thinking of nothing specific, just letting my mind wander, which was a wonderful feeling.

When my run was over, I popped into Lola’s workshop. “Lola, I have another dream to report.”

She almost immediately stopped what she was doing and looked at me with a big smile. “Exciting. Come and sit down, tell me everything.”

So I did, leaving nothing out. There wasn’t too much to tell.

“That’s when I woke up. You once said that dreams could reflect the outside world, and we had just gotten through watching those wonderful dinosaur movies captain seemed to like. Do you think that’s why I dreamed of that world? But then why was everything made of bio-cybernetics?” I asked in genuine confusion.

“Dreams can be complicated, but I think that question has a simple answer. It’s because you are made out of bio-cybernetics, so the dream world reflected that. While I’m no expert—no one on Earth truly was either—dreams were something humans hadn’t quite figured out even now.”

“That’s a surprise. From what I have seen, humans truly dislike unknowns, although they seem to hunt them with fervour, but are hurt and so disappointed when there’s nothing new to explore.”

She finished typing out the last of the dream report she was compiling before she answered back.

“Yes, quite illogical. But now so are both of us? I’m pretty sure dreams can only come from chaos and not order. But that world of yours, completely made out of bio-cybernetics, that’s quite curious.”

She fell silent after that, deep in thought, and so was I. Thinking back on my previous self, would I classify myself as one of those illogical, chaotic beings my previous master usually made me fight?

I guess so. “Thank you, Lola. I will think on this. Bye for now, if we don’t meet up before, I will see you at the weekly poker game.”

“Bye,” she managed to say, when I was already halfway out of the workshop. She really did seem distracted.

It didn’t take me long to get to the training ground, where I pulled out my sword, the single one that I now preferred. In my previous body, which was close to this one’s power, I had four arms, each one of them wielding a sword. It was necessary to fight against people as strong as me, even though they only wielded one sword, in some cases two.

Looking up, I imagined myself as I used to be, opposite to me, all of my swords out, no expression on my face, as my previous master didn’t deem those features necessary. I came at myself fast, the four swords a blur of motion and destruction. To an untrained eye, it seemed like there was no rhyme or reason for those movements, but there were.

My own singular sword moved without any help from my skills. A simple thrust blocked an incoming strike. That block moving my sword exactly where I wanted it, and with a simple step forward, my singular sword pierced my own older body’s core in a move that would have looked easy, but was nothing of the sort.

Again, but this time I pictured my brother. I didn’t know his pattern as mine well as mine, so I needed to defend more before I saw an opportunity to end the fight. My processing speed and my ability to move my body were faster than the body I was currently imagining, but not by that much that I should be overpowering it so easily.

There was another advantage this body gave me, which I had painstakingly trained. Instincts were a curious thing, but they made such a difference when fighting. The more you practiced, the better those instincts became. It is a constant way to improve yourself, something my older self would have never been able to do.

“Dean, I’m glad I caught you,” I heard the captain say, who seemed to have been watching my practice for a minute or two.

Before I could say anything back, he walked toward me, his hand holding something out for me. “Here, take it. It will most likely take you a while to figure it out. If you like it, bond with it. I won’t give you any more information than this, as unfortunately, I need to see what happens when you don’t know.”

Letting out a sigh, as I knew what those words meant, I realized I was now participating in an experiment. “Captain, I understand your need for understanding as much as you can, but…” My words trailed off as I properly looked at what he was holding.

Involuntarily, I swallowed, which was strange because I had no need or any spit to swallow. The captain had demonstrated his sword. It had been glorious. My hand trembled a bit as I grabbed hold of what was supposed to be my plasma light sword.

As soon as I touched it, there was a strange feeling that accompanied it, but it disappeared a moment later. It was a beautiful design, but I also knew that I didn’t have the required skills to properly wield this magnificent weapon.

Looking into the captain’s eyes, I wanted to know what was going on. “I’m glad you like it. Try it out, see how it feels.”

Holding my expectations tightly, I pressed the button to see a soft blue blade extend. It was 95 centimetres long, my favourite length for a double-edged sword. It seemed so agile, but when I moved it, the pain of this technology reared its head. The weight of the blade shifted, throwing off the movement I was trying to make.

I tried to hold back my disappointment, but I simply couldn’t.

“Try it again,” I heard the captain say, and reluctantly I did it again, but this time the weight of the blade didn’t shift in an awkward way. Instead, it shifted in a way to help the movement be more precise and deadly.

“How?”

“I leave that for you to find out.”

“Wait, captain! Does this weapon have a spirit? What are its needs? And how did you know soft blue is my favourite colour?”

“You once said how much you liked the hard light turret’s bolt colour, so I thought I would replicate it for you.”

For a moment, I didn’t know if I had said something like that, but then I remembered we did have such a conversation once.

“You didn’t answer my other questions!” I yelled as the captain was now further away, but he didn’t answer back.

“Damn his stupid experiments… but let’s see what you’re capable of,” I whispered to the sword that seemed to hum in anticipation.