CHAPTER 89: TRAITS INFUSION

Lucy, have you locked onto the swarm’s control signal?" Liam asked, his voice steady though his heart beat quickened in anticipation.

"Yes," she replied after a moment’s pause. "Just now."

"Good. Let’s get started. Wake it up." Liam said, with his eyes gleaming with even more anticipation.

"A second, please. I am currently decoding the signal’s rhythm and structure," Lucy said.

Liam gave a sharp nod, his jaw tightening. He knew what she was doing. She was translating the strange low-frequency pulses the nanites always broadcast into something she could understand. The frequency can be called the nanites’ language.

Seconds ticked by in silence. The endless barren expanse of the Dimensional Space around him only made the moment heavier. Then Lucy’s voice cut through.

"I have completed the decoding. Wake-up instructions have been sent."

The effect was immediate.

Liam’s breath caught as a cold shiver ran across his entire body. It felt as though countless unseen eyes had snapped open inside him all at once, every single one turning toward him with eerie synchronization.

His lips parted in shock.

"Holy—" He let out a nervous laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. "That was... scary as hell."

The sensation wasn’t painful, but it was primal, unnerving. It was the awareness of being observed at the most intimate level — not by people, but by something that lived inside his very cells.

"The swarm AI is awake and awaiting instructions, sir." Lucy’s voice came again.

Liam steadied his breathing and forced the thrill in his chest into calm focus. "Perfect. Let’s get started."

He reached up and tugged a few strands of hair from his scalp, placing them into three separate sample boxes arranged neatly on the long, obsidian table. The follicles glistened faintly, roots intact.

"Give the instruction, Lucy," Liam said simply. He had already told her his plan earlier. There was no need to repeat it.

"Yes, sir."

The nanites were hardwired to Liam’s biological signature, but placing these living samples outside his body gave the swarm something to anchor to externally.

As the swarm AI extended itself through the follicles, Liam felt another faint ripple inside his body, like an invisible tether had been pulled taut.

The process began.

The nanites swarmed over the samples, breaking them down at the molecular level with surgical precision. Every strand of DNA was unraveled and scanned.

Using Lucy’s massive genomic database as a reference, they began isolating trait genes: the eagle’s super-dense retinal photoreceptors, the starfish’s limb regeneration pathways, the axolotl’s scarless healing protocols.

It was breathtaking in its simplicity — like uploading files from ancient libraries, then rewriting them into new blueprints.

"Sir," Lucy said minutes later. "The digital trait blueprints are complete. Shall I begin the infusion?"

Liam’s chest rose and fell with a forced calm. He was really trying hard to hold himself back. This was the step he’d been waiting for.

"Yes," he said firmly.

At once, a wave of alien sensation swept through him. His eyes prickled, his skin itched, and deep within his muscles he felt a faint, crawling, almost electrical vibration.

It wasn’t painful. Not exactly. It was more like every cell in his body was stretching, yawning awake after centuries of sleep.

Liam gritted his teeth, then forced his body to relax. He leaned back in the chair, shutting his eyes. The more he resisted, the worse the itching became. Better to let it wash over him, to accept it as part of the process.

The swarm worked in silence.

The eagle’s vision infusion would finish first — just hours, as Lucy had explained to him after he told her his plan. The nanites will modify the structure of his photoreceptors, sharpening neural pathways, upgrading how his visual cortex processed light and motion.

The starfish’s regeneration would take longer. Days, maybe more. Because every stem cell in his body needed to be rewritten with the capacity to trigger whole-tissue regrowth. That meant muscles, skin, even bone marrow would have to carry the upgrade.

The axolotl’s trait would be the longest. Scarless healing wasn’t a simple trick. It rewrote how his body handled damage at every level — immune response, blood vessel repair, collagen deposition, nerve regrowth. It was a symphony of genetic editing.

"Lucy," Liam said softly, opening one eye, "monitor everything closely. If there’s even a hint of mutation, rollback immediately."

"Already done, sir," she said. "A full backup of your genome has been stored. There is no danger."

Liam smiled faintly. "Good. Without you, this would’ve been suicide."

And it was true. Without Lucy, the swarm would’ve been blind, operating with brute efficiency but no context. They could’ve shoved alien genes into his DNA without considering compatibility, possibly triggering cancerous mutations or catastrophic errors. But with Lucy as interpreter, the swarm worked with elegance and precision.

The itching dulled after a while, fading into a strange warmth, with a very faint vibration that seemed to radiate from his chest. Liam rolled his shoulders once, then sat up.

"Alright," he muttered, shaking his head clear. "Let’s multitask. Lucy, connect to the assembler and the analyzer."

"Already connected, sir," Lucy replied instantly.

"Good girl." He pushed himself to his feet and grabbed the jagged slab he had brought back from the valley.

He walked toward the molecular assembler, the sleek container-like machine still hovering slightly above the barren ground.

He slid open one of its raw material compartments and placed the slab inside. On impulse, he also scooped up a handful of dust from the plain and poured it in.

"Lucy," Liam said, brushing his hands together. "Have the assembler disintegrate this slab. Extract these elements."

He paused and gave her the list of elements he needs. Which are also the elements for creating the gear glass.

"Transmutate elements if you must, but I want every usable atom extracted."

"Understood," Lucy replied.

The assembler came to life. Its fabrication arms unfolded like metallic serpents, their platinum joints gleaming under the sterile light.

Inside the core chamber, beams of blue light lanced downward, atomizing the slab into a shimmering mist of particles.

Liam stepped back instinctively, giving the machine room to work.

"Transmutation engaged," Lucy announced.

Liam’s eyebrows rose. He knew what that meant: the assembler wasn’t just separating atoms, it was rearranging them — shifting protons and neutrons, turning one element into another like an alchemist with the precision of quantum engineering.

Normally, such a process would demand astronomical amounts of energy. On Earth, it was barely possible, reserved for nuclear labs. But the assembler ran on zero-point power — infinite energy harvested from the vacuum of space. Energy was no obstacle here.

The only true limit was mass. One kilogram of slab input meant one kilogram of elemental "clay" to sculpt into new matter. No more, no less.

"So that’s the trick, huh? Mass in, mass out," Liam smiled.

But even so, the thought sent a thrill through him. He was watching the laws of chemistry bow to his command.

The assembler worked for several minutes, its arms weaving graceful arcs as beams pulsed, stripped, and rebuilt matter atom by atom. The chamber glowed with shifting colors — emerald green, electric blue, molten gold — as elements were distilled from chaos.

Meanwhile, Liam crouched down near the edge of the wasteland. He clenched his fists, then drove one into the ground with his full strength.

The result was thunderous.

The ochre ground split apart with a violent crack, fissures spidering outward in jagged webs. Chunks of solid earth leapt into the air from the shockwave, scattering in a loose rain of fragments.

Liam grinned and gathered the shards, carrying them back to the obsidian table. He repeated the process again, this time sprinting back to the valley and tearing more chunks from its broken wall.

When he returned, Lucy’s voice was waiting for him.

"Sir, extraction and transmutation are complete."

Liam froze, excitement surging through him. "Perfect. Show me the results."