No matter the origins of the Dofner organ, it had been around for so long that its design had reached a high degree of optimization.
Many races also managed to develop their own versions of the Dofner organ. By repeatedly stealing each other's homework, the successive iterations of this phasewater organ became more and more perfect.
Through this repeated theft-and-development cycle, the Dofner organs for every major race remained relatively uniform despite all of the improvements.
Of course, there was only so much the alien bioresearchers could do before they exhausted what they could do with their existing mastery of biotechnology.
The R&D cycle for the Dofner organ had reached a plateau a long time ago. The ones being made today were barely any better than ones in use hundreds of thousands of years in the past.
This was highly reassuring to humans as the high degree of universality of the design made it easier to adapt it to human physiques.
What was also nice was that both the lesser Dofner organs and the lesser Pelmir organs originated from the Eminence of Torment.
Even though the deceased phase lord was considered a failure by his peers, he had thrown himself into the lap of the Red Cabal, allowing him to work hard enough to commission slightly superior versions of these common phasewater organs.
Just as how the Red Association was the undisputed authority of mechs, the Red Cabal clearly enjoyed the same status when it came to phasewater organs!
All of this ultimately fell into the hands of the Larkinson Clan, allowing Ves to indirectly benefit from the Red Cabal's exquisite biotech attainments.
What also happened to work in his favor was the fact that the human race physiologically resembled the orven race the most.
Even though they were still two completely different species, at least they were still humanoids that walked upright and possessed two arms and two legs.
They were not puelmers whose bodies were shaped like balls with lots creepy hands sticking out of their skin or zzamayels whose forms resembled slimes!
These similarities meant that orven phasewater organs needed less corrections in order to make them optimally compatible with the physique of human phase lords.
This was why Ves never really held too many concerns about implanting an experimental phasewater organ in his body based on new and incomplete theories.
As the lesser Dofner organ continued to become more integrated into his true body, Ves did not feel as much pain as he anticipated.
The compatibility between himself and the personalized lesser Dofner organ was decently high on the onset.
The biotech researchers responsible for developing this phasewater organ might not entirely know what they were doing, but they had not made any egregiously wrong choices.
As Ves continued to gain a better sense of what the Dofner organ enabled him to do, he only encountered a few instances that felt a little off. These disturbances felt like minor errors that prevented him from completely feeling at ease with the new phasewater organ.
The minor incongrueties were inconsequential. The feeling of wrongness would go away after a few months as his true body gradually assimilated the organ in full. It would gradually transform and evolve in a more harmonious form so long as there was nothing seriously wrong.
"...Sir… re you… feeling well?"
Ves could vaguely hear Maria Abselon asking for his status, but her voice had grown fuzzier to his ears now that he was experiencing a range of strange sensations.
He blinked twice with his left eye while simultaneously forming a thumbs up sign with his right hand.
These signals essentially indicated that he felt fine and confident enough to let the implantation surgery proceed.
He could feel through his companion spirit and his other incarnations that his perception of reality started to wobble. He could not figure out why this was the case. His awareness shouldn't have slipped to this extent, yet his mental state was shifting in an unclear direction.
The surgeons proceeded with the next step while Ves continued to feel out his new Dofner organ while doing his best to maintain stability.
He could feel through his companion spirit and his other incarnations that his perception of reality started to wobble. He could not figure out why this was the case. His awareness shouldn't have slipped to this extent, yet his mental state was shifting in an unclear direction.
"Mrow!"
What was even stranger was that Ves began to feel his connections with his incarnations beginning to dim.
It was as if his end of the connections was beginning to malfunction. This was a pretty concerning problem, yet Ves did not feel as if there was anything wrong.
Even his connection with Blinky started to experience interference, and that should have been a lot more concerning as his companion spirit basically existed as a second personality that was anchored in his head!
Try as he might, Ves could not make himself sober again. He was able to recognize the changes, yet failed to acknowledge that this was a problem.
This was an abnormal state of mind. What could have caused him to feel so strange to the point where he felt completely differently about problems?
It had to be his body. To be more precise, more variables had to be involved with the process of implanting phasewater organs in his body than he anticipated.
The moment his body connected to a brand-new Dofner organ, Ves took another step further to the path of ascending to godhood by developing a superdimensional physical form.
Now that he thought about it, this process possessed a ritualistic angle that he had failed to recognize.
Ves did not forget that many aliens relied on rituals to fuel their initial transformations into phase lords.
They also had the habit of mystifying the process of implanting new phasewater organs.
To many of them, they only acquired 1 phasewater organ every few decades or centuries.
It was a solemn or even sacred moment to all of them. Since these life-changing events happened so infrequently, a lot of alien races developed their own assumptions and superstitions about the implantation processes.
At the very least a lot of alien races believed that as long as they followed the correct 'traditions', the probability that the phase lords would get along with their new organs would increase!
Ves never took these stories seriously, but now he was beginning to doubt whether he had underestimated this potential issue.
Were those alien writers right all along?
He grew more curious about what the Red Collective found out when they started to produce their own human phase lords.
Did their test subjects grow all woozy and lose their sense of reality like himself?
Ves did not have enough information to determine whether he was the only that went through this kind of experience or whether it was common to all human phase lords.
Whatever the case, it was clear that he had underestimated the complications that could arise from what he initially thought was a simple process of plugging in a bunch of new organs.
As time went by, his consciousness started to grow less attentive to the outside reality. He was no longer able to focus on any specific sound, and his vision became filled with bright and insubstantial blobs.
He was no longer able to maintain awareness of much of his body. It had all grown numb as if he was under anesthesia.
This was bad as the lack of awareness and control over his body might cause it to produce undesirable reactions to external stimuli.
Fortunately, that did not happen.
His body strangely remained still, giving the surgeons enough reassurance to implant the lesser Pelmir organ.
This was the phasewater organs responsible for giving him the equivalent of a reactionless drive.
While a basic phase lord such as Ves already possessed a basic capacity to traverse through space, his acceleration rate was fairly slow.
It was basically impossible for him to keep up with starships as they traveled from one planet or another.
The Pelmir organ therefore played an essential role in enabling phase lords to move through realspace at acceptable speeds.
It also synergized well with the Dofner organ. Warp travel was like a souped up version or regular travel in the physical reality.
The faster a phase lord moved in realspace, the faster he could reach a star system through warp travel!
Due to this reason and more, the Dofner organ often came paired with a Pelmir organ developed by the same group.
Only when they were designed to play with each other on the onset would they seamlessly be able to work together!
As the Pelmir organ connected to his body without any obvious rejection reactions, its influence on his psyche was a lot more noticeable.
Ves began to feel even more disconnected from reality!
It took a lot of effort for him to maintain even the most tenuous connection to his companion spirit!
Although Blinky was able to ascertain that his connections with his incarnations still remained intact, the way he simply forgot about them was extremely concerning.
Yet Ves still felt as if there was nothing wrong!
This strange mental state constantly tried to make him feel at peace. It felt as if his mind was increasingly beginning to float away from his changing body.
It also felt as if his body was becoming more out-of-tune with reality.
Was he supposed to do anything about this? Should he try harder to reverse this effect?
The lack of information caused him to grow indecisive.
His instincts offered no clues either.
Ves tried to analyze his current situation from a spiritual angle.
According to his previous guess, he may have inadvertently started a ritual even if he did not mean to. The absence of an overt ritual did not necessarily mean anything.
Ves' true body already served as a powerful core ritualistic component in itself. The new and powerful phasewater organs served as supplements to this ritual. Each implantation advanced this mysterious process.
What was the point?
He still tried to figure this out. It did not feel as if his will and intent came into question.
Instead, Ves felt as if his true body was continuing to evolve and expand as a direct consequence of the implantation surgery.
He was making significant strides towards moving away from his frail and mortal body.
The more inhuman he became, the less he felt constrained by the material dimensions!
It felt as if he opened the doors to several new and unfamiliar dimensions!
As the new phasewater organs unlocked these new dimensions for him, Ves felt as if less and less parts of his true body remained in reality.
This naturally caused him to feel less connected and in-tune with the cosmos.
Was this the reason why his grip on reality had grown so tenuous?
His phasewater concentration must have grown, and not by a small amount either.
As his Pelmir organ settled into his true body, Ves vaguely strengthened his belief in this theory.
Perhaps this was what every phase lord went through as they increased their phasewater concentration.
Not only did they grow larger, but a greater share of their body mass began to shift into new and unfamiliar dimensions.
It would explain how his true body did not grow further despite the considerable increase in phasewater concentration!
This also faintly made him aware that other dangers might occur. It was common sense among the alien phase lords that they should always strive to perform implantation surgeries at their greatest possible size.
The records that Ves had access to never explained why this rule existed, but he could make a number of guesses.
Right now, Ves was most afraid of a mismatch in sizes. The new phasewater organs were tailored to him at his current size. If he suddenly grew twice as big, the phasewater organs become comparatively smaller, which could produce all sorts of problems.
Ves was slightly afraid that his organs might rupture once he grew to his new size!
However, the lack of alarm caused him to believe that nothing would go wrong.
He even had the time to wonder about another issue.
Where was he getting all of the extra phasewater?
Comments