Dr. Dew stood in front of the lab's reinforced console, eyes narrowing as the idea took full form in his mind. He suggested something radical to Leonardo da Vinci, Paracelsus, and Celeste Starfire Cassidy: injecting himself with genetically engineered Conduit genes, hoping it might solve the mana bottleneck that still throttled his ability to summon Heroic Spirits through magecraft. The Conduit genome, adapted from the abilities of Eugene—the conduit who could enter digital worlds, manipulate data streams, and transform into living energy—offered a theoretical way to bypass the limitations of traditional magic circuits. Eugene's video power was more than illusion or hacking; it was transformation on a conceptual level. Dew theorized that by integrating this gene, he might not just amplify his magic circuits, but multiply them—creating new magical pathways modeled after digital entropy and fluid data constructs. If successful, it wouldn't just solve the mana problem. It would redefine what was biologically and mystically possible. The team agreed, though not without hesitation. Leonardo warned of the dangers of cellular overwriting, Paracelsus checked the biosystems thrice, and Celeste quietly prepped the surgical containment in case the experiment veered into instability. Dew loaded the injection manually. The serum shimmered with a pulsing violet hue as it sank into his bloodstream. Within seconds, his body reacted. He arched back as data-like energy cascaded across his skin, his form levitating from the floor as his body phased between solid flesh and shimmering light. Digital static danced across the air, and code-like glyphs spiraled around him as if the very laws of physics were watching with interest. To the others, it resembled the moment a conduit absorbed a blast shard—pure, raw, radiant. Then, just as quickly as it started, it ended. He dropped to one knee, panting but grinning. "Are you still you?" Leonardo asked, stepping cautiously forward. Dew's eyes flicked toward her, the faint traces of digital light fading from his skin. "Better," he said, rising to his feet. "Much better." They ran diagnostics immediately. The results stunned everyone. Dew's DNA had been rewritten from the ground up. Plasmids, Vigors, Infusions, even his engineered mutations like hyperacusis and hypertrophy—gone. All replaced by a singular, evolving template of living code. He was now a Prime Conduit. Physically superhuman, but powered entirely by conceptual energy, he had become a being perfectly suited to traverse and manipulate digital space, and by extension, mana-rich environments born from creative simulation. With his new form, Dew accessed the digital world directly, projecting himself into its fluid structure like a god among circuits. There, within the constructed mana field—made real by Dew's own rewritten biology—he initiated the Heroic Spirit summoning. They had prepared the Ankh of Anubis, a symbolic anchor tuned to bridge life, death, and metaphysical resonance. The Ankh served as a focus, projecting a holographic image of the spirit they sought—Tesla. But as Dew would later explain, the Ankh alone couldn't summon Heroic Spirits. It merely isolated potential echoes. Actual summoning required both the image and the ritual—magecraft woven within mana-rich space, something Dew now had full control over inside the digital ether. As the summoning reached its crescendo, a strange spike surged across every sensor in the city. Alarms blared. External energy levels redlined. Dew's voice came through the comms, strained but focused: "Something else is reacting to this—get outside." They rushed into the open. Above the shield dome that protected their settlement, a rift had opened in the sky—small, unstable, and pulsing with energy they didn't recognize. But to Dew and Leonardo, it felt familiar. Not from some catastrophic battle or catastrophe, but from years ago—when it had only been the two of them, attempting to summon a third companion. Back then, their attempt to call Tesla, Edison, or Einstein had yielded Paracelsus instead. With his arrival came an unmistakable sensation: the feeling that something was watching them. Ancient. Distant. Unknowable. They hadn't spoken much about it, but none had forgotten it. Now, that same alien sensation returned—but stronger. From the tear in reality, something pushed through. A chaos entity—though they didn't know to call it that—emerged. The demon was a twisted thing of teeth, limbs, and spiraling hatred, its body pulsing with warp-tainted madness. Dew blinked back into the material world, eyes narrowing. Tesla had just finished materializing behind the lab, light surging around him like a thunderstorm collapsing inward. "Hostile identified," Tesla said flatly, raising a cannon of his own invention. Without needing orders, Celeste, Paracelsus, and Leonardo armed themselves with plasma rifles—hybrid weapons crafted from Fallout and Starbound designs. Dew stood beside Tesla, extending his hand as energy surged into his palm. They fired as one. Twin beams—Tesla's electric pulse and Dew's kinetic digital blast—collided with the creature as the plasma weapons hammered it from three sides. Screeching, the demon was hurled backward into the rift just as it began to close. The Erchius field flickered and held. Barely. The threat vanished, but not without consequence. The warp energy that bled from the rift flooded the nearby area, mutating forty-seven individuals—ten synths, including two children, and thirty-seven animals. The afflicted became erratic, aggressive, frenzied. Paracelsus and Celeste acted quickly, deploying containment pods and drones to isolate the mutated victims. "We don't destroy what we don't understand," Dew reminded the others. "They're still people. Still ours." Days passed in containment. Analysis showed something horrifying: the mutations were caused by foreign energy—something neither magical nor scientific. It defied classification. Dew enhanced the Erchius Force Field, expanding it over the entire settlement. Their working theory: the field dampened or filtered this strange force, though only partially. They didn't know its origin. They didn't even have a name for it. They only knew it reacted to summoning. Meanwhile, the Ankh of Anubis continued to prove vital. Though it could only show a target for summoning, pairing it with Dew's control of the digital mana world made full summoning possible. With Tesla stabilized and aligned to their cause, they now had the scientific genius they sought. It was Tesla who helped them identify a solution for the mutations. By isolating the warped energy inside each victim and fusing it into a physical structure—a mana-reactive tree held inside a reinforced Erchius cage—they neutralized its effects. Then, they injected a modified strain of the FEV virus into the victims, tailored to their original DNA. Physical mutations reversed over days, and VR pod assessments showed their minds had stabilized. One by one, they were freed. Grateful. Changed, but safe. Over the next five years, the city evolved. The small settlement grew into a towering metropolis—diverse and self-sustaining. Glitch, Nova Kids, Hylotl, Florans, Avians, humans, synths, and even ratfolk, mole-people, and lizardkin. Some of the conduit experiments resulted in stable variants: glass manipulation, wire growth, plant integration. A handful of giants now worked alongside the others in peace. And through it all, Celeste Starfire Cassidy remained an anchor in the team—resilient, sharp-tongued, and now something of a local legend. The team hadn't just survived. They had built something real. Something united. And now, it was time. They had put it off for long enough. With the Koh-I-Noor complete, the solar system mapped, the population stabilized, and Heroic Spirits accessible through the digital-mana fusion method, only one frontier remained. The stars. "We've built the foundation," Dew said as they stood atop the highest platform of their new tower. "Now let's find out who else is out there."
End of Chapter Twenty-Eight