Among the received profiles, two drew her attention most strongly:
- Arlo Carmine, the wandering mechanic from Vacuo with a makeshift prosthetic arm and a heart filled with determination.
- Indigo Slate, a rebellious young inventor from Mantle whose mind was as brilliant as it was unstable.
Alex wasted no time and quickly issued her clear instructions:
"Mark Arlo Carmine and Indigo Slate.
Whichever reaches an emotional peak first, you take.
After growing to at least 1 km, you can connect the second one. Expected growth time: about one month."
Shards did not ask permission. They did not negotiate. They simply waited for the moment of emotional peak, and then connected.
Indigo woke slowly inside the dumpster, a strange taste in her mouth and her head pounding. Dragging herself out, she was still trembling—but alive.
She urgently needed a bath… and maybe some food. Looking around, relieved by the absence of patrols, she picked up some old wooden planks lying nearby. Something deep in her mind insisted they'd be useful, though she had no idea how. She took the pieces back to her makeshift hideout, where old car wrecks and obsolete machine parts lay scattered everywhere.
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Back at her workshop, Indigo dropped to the floor, exhausted yet exhilarated. Her mind felt sharper and more vibrant than ever.
She felt alive in an entirely new way.
Her Aura, previously faint, now glowed brightly, pulsing with an intense indigo-blue hue. Her ideas… had never been so crazy, yet so brilliant.
Her eyes landed on an old toaster:
"If I reuse these heating coils in an artificial stomach, it could process food faster..."
Deep down, she knew it would likely explode and kill whoever tried it. She'd have to test it outside a million times first. But for some reason, when thinking this, she felt an odd sadness coming from a dark corner of her mind. Something seemed disappointed, like a teacher watching a student making an obvious mistake but unable to intervene.
She shook her head. Ridiculous, she thought.
Then her eyes settled on a bucket of dirty water on the floor:
"I could make a saline injection to prevent organ rejection… I'd need a few chemical compounds… and maple sap? Wait… MAPLE SAP???"
She blinked. Where the hell did that crazy idea come from?
Before she could ponder it further, a sudden flash of light flooded through the broken roof, bathing the interior in strange, multicolored brilliance.
She immediately looked upward, staring at the moon—now brightly pulsing turquoise and violet, surreal and impossible.
Indigo's jaw dropped, eyes wide:
— The moon… WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!
[Ripperdoc] said nothing.
Explained nothing.
Never interfered directly.
It had only delivered a concept. A flash of raw inspiration, now fully accepted by Indigo as her own genius idea.
For the next entire month, Indigo immersed herself in obsessive experiments. Each failure—explosions, purple smoke, fire—and each minor success provided valuable data to the shard:
With each experiment, [Ripperdoc] slowly grew, quietly absorbing every piece of information.
Its core grew from 310 meters to almost 360 meters—and upon reaching 1 km, it would have everything necessary for its next connection:
Arlo Carmine, the mechanic from Vacuo, whose fate was practically sealed already.
That night, Indigo Slate stared at the surreal moon, feeling her heart accelerate once again.
She had no idea what was truly happening.
She didn't know of shards or mana networks.
She didn't realize her "crazy ideas" were silent gifts from elsewhere.
But she knew one thing for sure:
If the moon could change, she could certainly create something even more incredible.
And deep within her mind, [Ripperdoc] silently smiled.
Eagerly awaiting each new spark, each new explosion, each new data point.
After all, the Network was just beginning.