Her first objective: the fauna.
Dozens of small creatures scurried through the underbrush outside Victor's village — deer-like mammals with spiral horns, birds with iridescent feathers that shimmered like Dust crystals, and of course… the predators.
She focused on a lone Beowolf prowling at the forest's edge.
[Analyzing...]
[Species: Grimm]
[Composition: Negative aura constructs]
[Behavior: Aggressive, instinctual, non-sapient]
[Data harvest: 73% complete...]
The network absorbed the structural and behavioral patterns, filing them into her growing library.
Then she expanded further, sweeping through the atmosphere, detecting traces of Dust in the soil, the rocks, even latent in the water vapor.
[Analyzing Dust Variants...]
[Primary types detected: Fire, Ice, Lightning, Gravity, Earth]
[Secondary impurities: present]
[Potential for resource extraction: confirmed]
She smiled — or would have, if she still had a face.
The Dust would be essential. Not only as fuel for the Shards' evolution, but as a tool to enhance hosts like Victor. The network would need to study it, catalogue its properties, and eventually replicate its effects within the safe confines of her dimension.
One day, she thought, she would cultivate entire forests of Dust within her crystalline expanse.
But first…
She turned her focus back to Victor.
He lay beside his grandfather, asleep, exhausted, the faint glow of his Semblance still lingering like a dying ember.
Alex drifted closer, extending a non-invasive tendril of her presence into his mind.
Not deep enough to harm… just enough to read.
His thoughts and memories flickered past: fragmented conversations, slang, idioms, local expressions — the peculiar twists of the Valean dialect.
Alex frowned — or approximated the cognitive gesture.
If the network was to interface properly with hosts across multiverses, she would need a dedicated module to catalogue, parse, and transmit linguistic structures.
Otherwise, every time a Shard woke up in a new species… it would be left guessing:
"What the hell is my host saying to others?"
"Are they angry, flirting, or asking for food?"
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Unacceptable.
She reached within herself, isolating a minute fragment of crystal — barely a speck compared to her vast mass.
[Initiating germination of Minor Shard: Linguagens]
[Designation: Subordinate - Auxiliary Function]
[Purpose: Catalogue and transmit host species' linguistic systems to parent network.]
The fragment pulsed softly, then began to grow into a compact, multi-faceted crystal, each surface fractalized into microstructures designed for linguistic analysis.
[Core Functions:]
- Data collection: Monitor host's verbal and written interactions.
- Pattern recognition: Identify syntax, semantics, cultural expressions.
- Transmission: Relay processed linguistic data to higher-tier Shards for integration.
This Shard wouldn't be powerful. It didn't need to be. It was a tool, a utility for ensuring coherent communication across Shard-host interactions.
[Minor Shard: Linguagens] — Status: Germinating...]
Alex allowed the [Linguagens] shard to remain tethered loosely to Victor's mind, already beginning to passively harvest the nuances of his speech patterns.
Soon, it would parse out all his idioms, slang, expressions — from curses to tender endearments.
And when other Shards interfaced with hosts of similar species or cultures, they'd receive that data like a universal translation packet.
Alex paused, letting the systems run.
"One less problem to solve."
She withdrew slightly, her attention returning to the slow but steady germination of the [Corona Solar], still coalescing within Victor's core.
The boy wouldn't realize it yet, but within him, two seeds were already taking root.
One to light the world.
And one to understand it.
Alex's crystalline mass shimmered faintly as she resumed scanning the region's ecosystem, her data archive expanding with every passing second.
The network was growing.
And this… was only the beginning.
[Shards Active:]
- [Corona Solar] — Status: Germinating
- [Linguagens] — Status: Germinating
[Data Collection:]
- Fauna: Partial
- Dust: Ongoing
- Language: Initial lexicon established