Burn marks covered my skin. Even the panacea couldn’t heal them fully. Steel pushed everything into refining that damn technique, but I wished she would diversify instead.

  “Do you hear me, you sleeping mess?” I mumbled to the girl who snoozed over my shoulder. “Wake up.” I shook her around, but she remained sleeping.

  I walked this road many times before, and it wasn’t the first time I carried her over my shoulder. It looked ridiculous, but all the students were afraid to give me crap. Even if I looked like the most innocent kid…

  I slammed the medical hall door open and carried her inside. As if specifically for me, Melissa was waiting behind the counter.

  “You’re at the counter again? Shouldn’t they give you some healing jobs?” I sighed.

  “The older students and healers are concerned about the people I associate with.” Melissa shook her head. “I get better practice with your stunts.” She looked over Steel and me.

  Around Melissa’s eyes, golden rings appeared, she stared carefully over me and Steel. I conjured a barrier and put Steel on it.

  “I know you like your trait and all, but maybe scan us in the examination room?”

  “How come your friend figured out a way to damage the genetic material via radiation?” Melissa walked out of the counter and grazed her finger over the burn. “These things are very cancerous.”

  I nearly choked on my spit. “Wait, wait, I have cancer? This is cancer?” The burns didn’t feel like anything weird.

  “Yes, skin cancer.”

  I shivered. Steel gave me cancer… What the hell?

  “Can it be healed?”

  “I’ll get the artifact. Take you and your friend into the examination room.” She ran away to the storage room.

  I levitated Steel and walked towards the room. Placing the girl on the mat, I leaned against the wall.

  “Am I cursed or something? Everyone who comes in contact with me suffers.”

  “No. I like you~”

  “But of course, anyone, but the voice in my head. I don’t even have a name for you.”

  It remained silent.

  I had to feed it some traits. Accelerated power growth could finally be put into play. I needed to craft so many things. Orcs have a really strong growth trait…

  “Traits!” The soft ringing of the voice never lacked the power to send shivers down my spine. At least I wasn’t alone anymore.

  “I’m pathetic…”

  It didn’t comment on that. Steel kept sleeping.

  Melissa returned. On her right hand, she wore a glove made out of metal. Tiny crystals of black were stuck around the surface, resembling a very particular form.

  “Really? The way you treat cancer here is with necrosis?”

  “Excuse you? Targeted necrosis. It is a sophisticated artifact.” Without hesitation, she slapped a hand over the burn marks, which were apparently cancerous.

  I groaned in pain. This was worse than my parasitic venom. “Can it be any faster?”

  “No.”

  I was left groaning until all the burn marks were turned into a purplish mess. Melissa very carefully applied a healing form. Now my body was fully restored.

  The future was incredible in so many ways, but terrible in many others. They could create utopias, but instead, there are pain schools for clones.

  “Are you done?”

  Melissa unhelpfully nodded. Her healing technique still passed through my body. “Why did you bring her? She is completely healthy.”

  I sighed. “She is not of sound mind right now. I’m worried she’ll hurt herself.”

  The healer shook her head. “Dragons don’t do that.”

  “Well, she might. Better safe than sorry-”

  “Magnus!” Steel sprang up. Her eyes were crystal clear. “Kory spoke to me.”

  I exchanged glances with Melissa. “Can you give us some privacy?” Melissa didn’t hesitate for a second and escaped the examination room.

  “Kory spoke to you in a dream? Did she learn a new technique?”

  Steel nodded. “She said to work with you. I knew she’d say that…” Her frown deepened.

  “Steel. You might not think that now, but I think of you as a friend.”

  The hum of the station filled the room for several moments.

  “I do too. You made me strong a-and you want to save Kory.” Her hands clenched. “And you make tasty juice.”

  “Don’t give up,” I said it to myself, too. “Dragons become much stronger at knight. Transformation techniques are not a joke.”

  “I won’t reach knight before Kory-”

  “It doesn’t matter!” Aura flared out of me. “You have your whole life ahead of you, you can’t even imagine what things the universe holds, and yet you decided to give up?”

  “I-”

  “Bullshit. You will be fast enough. I’ll make you a trait.” My eye twitched. “A trait worthy of my friend.”

  “I will help.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “Go sleep. Spend as much time as you need. Peace of mind helps grow SE too.”

  There was an inner struggle. I saw her want to fight, to overcome this struggle. She shouldn’t need to do that. Sinners should suffer, not someone like her. “I’ll clear the second floor of the Emerald Dungeon. If I disassemble every geist, there’ll be enough cores to make a middle baron growth trait.”

  “You can’t go alone.”

  “I won’t be alone.”

  The voice giggled.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “Fine. Don’t die.”

  “Same to you, Steel, same to you.”

  She stood up, and together we left the medical hall. After goodbyes, we parted ways, and now it was time for me to test my new trait.

  “Traits~”

  I could feel greed dripping from this ‘assistant’, I needed a power-up and to tame this thing.

  I planned for this moment; my training in trait crafting wasn’t just to make everyone else happy – it was for ascension.

  In my room, inside the drawer, there lay numerous trait cores. Spiral cores, round, isohedral. It was my little training collection and something to give me an immediate boost.

  As I stared at them, an intense desire rose through my mind. An alien want to devour and become more.

  “Listen here, voice, or whatever you want to be called. You are an assistant, not a driver.” The hunger lessened. “I will feed you and you will make me stronger; however, you are my servant.”

  I waited a bit for a response, but none came.

  “And as my servant, it is your duty to act on my commands and to my benefit only. If you do not wish to be removed, obey me, follow me, and I will let you taste many precious traits.”

  I grabbed one of my favorite ones. An eight-sided transparent gem, its surface covered with chaotic grooves.

  Synergy Trait

  Type: Trait

  Rank: Adept

  Affinity: Null

  Description: Improves the power of all other traits by 10%

  I planned to mass-produce these stacking bonuses to the point of absurdity. The voice agreed with my assessment of its value. As I rolled the trait between my fingers, the desire to consume the trait constantly flared.

  “I want you to suppress your hunger, and only then will I let you eat the trait.”

  Anger. It sent it clear into my mind.

  “I know what you’re thinking. How come this guy isn’t letting me eat such a nice treat? It’ll only benefit him? It’s about discipline – the more control you have over your feelings, the better you are.”

  The emotions went silent. It probably contemplated it.

  “We’re in this together, and to become truly strong, we have to be intelligent, deliberate in every step. Controlling those desires is crucial.” I directed my eyes at the trait. “Say something if you agree.”

  “I agree…” It lost its singing quality. It was still high-pitched – I couldn’t quite place whether it was a male voice or a female, it sounded like neither, it was more of a bird’s song than a proper noise anyway.

  I flooded the trait with starpower. A gasp resounded through my mind, and the greed flared up. I retracted the starpower.

  “You see the trick now, right? We’ll keep going. If you can’t restrain yourself, then, I guess, we’ll have to fight without traits.”

  “I will win~” I was certain of that, too. It was a shard of me after all. It was our nature.

  I continued to discipline my newest minion. With each try, its feeling grew more complicated. Can you really blame it? The God’s Flesh nature was to consume traits, and here I was telling it to restrict itself.

  Pretty cruel, but this disciplining counted as my revenge for hurting Kory. “Yes, you hear my thoughts. This is punishment and training. Control is beyond important. Don’t fail me.”

  I heard a calm exhale in my mind. I exhaled physically, too; it seemed to calm down with my breathing exercises. Starpower filled the trait slowly. I watched for any signs of hunger. It suppressed them all.

  I clenched the trait, and from my hand black tendrils burst, piercing it. The hunger was muted, distant. The trait burst into light, only to be sucked into the tendrils. Then they disappeared.

  Energy surged through my body, and satisfaction unlike any I felt before. I scanned the trait.

  -Integration. All absorbed traits will have 33% (+3%) of their original strength, but will not use up a trait slot.

  “Now that’s what I call a growth trait,” I smirked. “I have two weaker ones.” I grabbed two more synergy traits. I’ll need to craft so many of these to reach the original strength…

  “Let’s do this again…”

  It took God’s Flesh much less time to get its hunger under control. The math worked out. 40% of strength was achieved. The VITA already felt more metallic. If my math was correct, and it was correct, were I to absorb 13 adept rank synergy traits, I would reach the original 100% increase…

  I laughed like a maniac. Could it be so easy? Unlimited power hidden in these shitty traits? At 20, I would reach 200% of strength, at 30 – 520%, at 40 – 1350%. It was exponential growth. If that was real, I would become unstoppable very quickly.

  Uncertainty… The voice felt afraid.

  “How come you don’t know, you’re the product of God’s Flesh, not the other way around.”

  “Might kill us...”

  I sighed. “I guess it couldn’t be that easy, but, hey, it doesn’t stop me from trying. Now let’s eat the physical traits. I’m tired of this weakness.”

  The synergy traits made me salivate with possibilities, but I had to stick to reality. Seven glowing emerald traits rolled in the drawer: 2 for durability, 4 for overall strength, and 1 for speed.

  Exercising restraint, I absorbed them one by one, carefully monitoring the changes. The overall strength, predictably, reduces the penalty by 1%... only 1% So did the next three.

  The penalty reached 6% physical. It’s not that I wasn’t happy, but the traits were adept, and they promised at least 10% increase in strength; the fact that the penalty was much larger than expected was frustrating.

  “I’m weak…” The voice mumbled. It burned with shame, as if I ambushed it.

  “It’ll improve. It’s probably the penalty that makes it all much weaker. I’m sure the results with the durability will be-”

  They reduced the penalty by 1% all the same. “What the hell? That’s not even what they do.”

  - Adaptability. Changes incompatible traits during absorption, allowing for contradictory abilities.

  “Yeah, thank you, scouter. For nothing!” It was disappointing. I should have been 16% stronger, 8% more durable, and 4% faster. Instead, all of these perfectly good stat traits just reduced the penalty to 3%. I was only three percent weaker, and my starpower also sucked.

  “Sorry~”

  “Don’t apologize… I was the one who created you like this. It’s just a small bump on the road to power. Just a small bump.” I sighed. Did I make a mistake by choosing God’s Flesh? I would’ve gained more power if I had just absorbed the cores for SE.

  I pulled out the three traits that increased SE by a percentage. 7, 4, 6 – the best I could manage with my skills, all of them were onyx. I flooded them with starpower and let the God’s Flesh absorb them.

  I was owed a 6.8% increase in SE. And unlike with the physical traits, I got them. Happiness occupied my mind, as the penalty decreased to a measly 3.2%. I was surely going to become exceedingly powerful.

  “We will be powerful.”

  “That’s right, trait. That’s right.”

  The energy splashed out of my soul, starpower flared high and wide. 63 SE, I got back 4 SE, and it felt amazing. Better than just increasing it on my own.

  “No, no, assistant. You can’t have the immortality trait. Three fun abilities and that’s it.”

  I grabbed the three remaining traits, ones I worked the hardest on.

  Intimidating Aura Trait

  Type: Trait

  Rank: Adept

  Affinity: Onyx

  Description: The user can exude an aura infused with the Fear form.

  This combined well with:

  Feardrinker Trait

  Type: Trait

  Rank: Adept

  Affinity: Onyx

  Description: The user can consume fear to regenerate.

  And the most useful one, which Simona recommended to any biocrafter.

  Starpower Sight Trait

  Type: Trait

  Rank: Adept

  Affinity: Sapphire

  Description: Allows the user to see the flows of starpower

  Holding the Intimidating Aura and Feardrinker, I absorbed them. My mind flashed, I drank the pain from someone – it was a memory fragment of a senseless parched. The Intimidating Aura sent me visions of power, of subduing everyone around.

  “Enough!” I shivered. It was a mistake to absorb them at the same time. “God’s Flesh? Are you aware? Did you lose yourself?”

  No response. It remained silent.

  Scouter showed a new addition to its description.

  -Feardrinker Aura. The user can project a weak aura infused with Fear form, for all targets that are affected increase regeneration proportional to the emotion.

  It was like a new arm extended from my body. I clenched this limb. From my center, a wave of awareness passed through, only to hit the wall and do nothing. It felt pretty tiring too...

  “I guess it’ll become better with more synergy traits.” I coughed. “Hello! Assistant. Wake up.”

  “Very tasty trait, master. I was thinking.” The voice changed. It gained a sharp edge. An unsettling one.

  “I shouldn’t have eaten those traits. Of course, it’ll make you creepier, it’s as if I needed a more disturbing voice in my mind.” I shook my head. “Still silent?”

  I clicked my tongue and grabbed the starpower sight. “Ready or not, it’s time to eat.”

  No hunger or desire revealed its presence. The trait went into me smoothly, like it already belonged.

  -Starpower Sight. Allows the user to faintly see the flows of starpower

  Another addition. I had to really tense my eyes, really look into everything to see even the tiniest strand. But I could see.

  “I see too~” The voice giggled, like an old song I’ve long forgotten. Unsettling.

  “These traits are peanuts. I spent most of my cores on you, assistant. Be grateful.” It was silent.

  “Let’s go into the Emerald Dungeon. I should be able to deal with the second-floor boss. Hopefully.”

  I closed the drawer, hearing the immortality trait shuffle around in there. I thought I would’ve been stronger by this point.

  Greed awaited.