CHAPTER 95: ONI [2]: COMPLETED

Ethan soon found himself back in the lab again, Irina had also returned to the hotel where she currently stayed after their ’talk’.

’Talk’ being loosely used here since Irina refused to take his advice...well, not really an advice but still.

Anyway, back to the lab. Ethan made sure he was completely disinfected before putting on the lab coat and a new pair of latex gloves.

He approached his cryo container where he had previously stored the half completed ONI and slowly moved it towards the microassembler.

Taking out the lenses out, they looked almost completely done, save for the lines of graphene that visibly passed through it and it’s subtle glow, all of which Ethan was going to adjust.

With a pair of precision hand tools he adjusted the lines, careful not to mess anything up else he’d risk resetting his progress and starting over again.

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The hours quickly passed and with no one to disturb him, he soon completed ONI and the system was the first to congratulate him.

[Congratulations on creating a tech not from the system’s shop, tech has been successfully registered in your status screen.

Rewards:

+50 SP, +10 Biotech & Genetic engineering proficiency.]

[Would you like to see your status screen?] The system asked.

’Not yet,’ Ethan leaned back on his chair, ’give me a second.’

As much as he wanted to celebrate this wind, his mind wouldn’t let him. Not until he was completely sure it worked.

On the work table before him was what seemed to be subtly glowing lenses encased in what seemed to be a jel like substance.

Ethan then proceeded to swap the latex gloves on his hands for a new one before he slowly moved the lenses towards him.

There would be one of two results if he tried putting them on right now, either it works as intended or they just completely fey his eye balls, which did not sound so appealing.

But despite his better judgement, he was going to put them on anyway... Why?

Well, one he was eager to see the capabilities of a physical piece of tech created with his own hands and two, he didn’t exactly have a lab rat, one that was preferably human, so he could only test this on himself.

Though, he intended for that to change in the future.

Carefully, he picked up the irises and tilted his head a bit upwards before putting it in and blinking to steady it.

At first, it felt pretty weird, since he could feel the foreign object in his eyes, but it would only take some getting used to so he didn’t mind.

Picking up the other, he put it in his left eye and also blinked to adjust it.

The connection was already established the moment he put it in his eyes, so he only needed to activate them.

This was the moment of truth.

When placed on his eyes, ONI sends faint bioelectric pulses through the optic nerve, and all he needed to do was respond mentally to that by mentally commanding it to activate.

This was another neat trick that his brain brought about, active control over certain signals that were previously not under his willfully control.

Slowly he walked towards a reflective surface and looked at his reflection to see if ONI was noticable.

Apart from the slightly brighter glow in his eyes, which just worked to make his blue eyes seem like gems.

With a mental command, he activated the Ocular device and the glow only got a bit brighter.

Maybe his eyes would release a small glow in a completely dark environment, but he could live with that.

It’d have been cooler if he had red eyes though, but blue also works.

(Ocular Neural Interface O.N.I successfully activated.)

A holographic screen popped up before him, this one clearly not from the system. Although it shared the same blue with the system, it’s texts felt completely different.

’Partition my mind,’ he gave the command and ONI quickly went to work, completing one of its functions.

A second later, Ethan immediately felt the burden on his mind ease, although, unlike with the system, his mind didn’t feel stuffed or restricted.

He could also feel that he now had multiple minds to control at the same time without any strain to his brain.

It felt weird, no doubt, but like the ONI lenses, it just needed a bit of getting used to.

(Mind successfully partitioned into seven spaces. Cognitive load balanced. Neural strain: 0%.)

Ethan blinked, his vision briefly distorting as if reality had been split into panes of glass. Then, just like that, the world snapped back into focus, only this time it was a lot clearer and detailed.

One part of his mind was cataloging every sensory detail in the room, another was running probability scenarios of ONI’s failure rate, a third was recalling his conversation with Irina word for word, and the rest filled in with calculations, future planning, and even idle daydreams.

It was terrifyingly liberating.

He raised his hand in front of his face. With one ’mind,’ he focused on the fine wrinkles of his knuckles.

At the same time, two other minds were already sketching out optimizations for ONI’s next iteration.

"...Holy shit," Ethan muttered.

His voice came out in unison with the thought-thread that was still silently running through half a dozen equations. He didn’t even stutter or need to pause any of the two.

He also discovered that he could assign multiple tasks to a single ’mind’ while keeping the rest idle and he wouldn’t get anything more than a slight headache.

But the tests were far from done, there were still a few capabilities of ONI that needed testing, but before he could get to them, a warning screen popped up before him.

(Warning: Extended use of more than three minds at a time may cause disorientation, identity drift, or emotional fragmentation. User discretion advised.)

Well, the side effects were not completely unexpected, they were even tame compared to what he was expecting.

"Alright then," He stated, "let’s run more tests."