The Martial Unity

In Rui’s mind was an image of the end goal.

The end goal was an evosapien nervous system so complex that it was nothing short of a web. The tendrils extended from the spinal cord all the way across the body, dividing into more tendrils that spread to different regions that divided even further and grew smaller and smaller until they could connect with individual cells.

Rui needed to create a new nervous system that would allow him to control the evosapien half of his body with just the tendrils alone, which meant that he needed a hybrid between a martialus nervous system and an evosapien nervous system.

He immediately dove into the process, targeting approximately half of all nerves that emerged from the spinal cord and spreading across the entire body. Replacing them with evosapien stem cells that rapidly transformed into neurons.

Nerve cells did not die and divide throughout life, meaning that he could not rely on an innate division of cells for this process. He needed to manually take evosapien skin cells, of which he had countless billions by now, and transform them into stem cells, before transforming them into neurons for his evosapien nervous system.

He ran into his first problem.

“Evosapien nerve cells work a little differently.” He frowned.

Their reach was much longer, and they had evolved an almost tentacular tendril structure that was meant to reach out and connect with millions of cells.

Unlike all the other organ cells in his body, the difference between a human neuron and an evosapien neuron was stark!

“This… complicates the brain replacement part.”

It couldn’t be helped. He was just learning about this since he had just gotten to the nervous system. This was perhaps the most complicated attempt at replacement since he had replaced half of his blood with evosapien blood.

“Nevertheless, now that I have begun, I cannot cut this short.”

He immediately activated the Eye of Prophecy, a technique without which he would undoubtedly have died of autoimmune disease long ago.

However, it wasn’t just the Eye of Prophecy that guided him.

No, it was also his newfound enlightenment of the Essence of Life.

The enlightenment allowed him to understand the very fundamental mechanism of all life.

“Chemistry that prevails.” His eyes sharpened as the glow of Megamind flared. “As long as it prevails, I have succeeded.”

He could apply his fourteen years of exposure and understanding of biochemistry and organic chemistry to evaluate what prevailed. Of course, just because it prevailed did not mean that it was ideal. One could prevail and still be diseased and crippled.

No, he sought the ideal victory of perfect health and a hybrid nervous system as he sought to achieve.

Together with the Eye of Prophecy and the Essence of Life, he began unraveling the very puzzle of life, putting the pieces back together to a picture that painted a perfectly functioning nervous system.

“Every evosapien stem cell must be connected to the brain through the nervous system.”

It meant that the throughput of data through the nervous system was going to rise astronomically, both to the brain and from. Any ordinary brain would be utterly cooked with excessive data. After all, that was the reason that the Body Evolution Process of the Squire Realm necessitated an evolution of the brain.

Without that, the brain would become flooded with excessive neuroelectric activity, causing it to become overwhelmed and eventually suffer seizures.

“I can handle it.”

Rui’s mental processing power was in a world by itself, second only to NOVA. Not even powerful titanic pathwalkers like Mother Maeria with giant botanical organic processing units could match him in processing power or intelligence.

He could handle excess data without any issues, although it would probably make using his systems of thought a bit more difficult, which was why he needed to upgrade his brain as well.

Neuron by neuron, he replaced countless human neurons with their evosapien replacements, while prodding the evosapien neurons to extend their tendrils deep across the body, searching for evosapien cells. The evosapien neurons identified them through their cell receptors, quickly latching on to each evosapien stem cell across his entire body.

His brain stirred as it began gaining brand new ’muscles’ to flex. It was truly an astonishing feeling. He could leverage his brain to send electric signals to each evosapien stem cell to adaptively evolve in a particular way, while making his command more precise with chemical signals.

“It’s like I gained countless new muscles; each individual cell can be controlled individually…” His eyes widened with shock. “I can’t imagine how long it takes to master these cells!”

It would surely take years if not decades. Rui would need to categorically develop brand new muscle memory with his entire body! And this time, because these were connections that he had never had before, he really could cheat with Soul Retcon either. He would need to painstakingly master his new body as if he were a new pathwalker.

“Damn, this might make me weaker in the short term!” Rui cursed as his brain experienced more and more cells to directly ’flex’ like he was controlling muscles. “I didn’t realize just how radically different the experience was!”

Once more, he had allowed himself to be reassured by the fact that they were genetically compatible. Just because they were of the same family of species derived from a common ancestor just one generation ago did not mean that they had even remotely comparable bodily experiences.

He realized that he might very well need to spend an extra year in the manifold just training with his new body to master its basic functionality before he could go out and fight.

He shook his head slightly. “No, let’s leave these considerations for later. Focus on finishing up the nervous system. If I encounter failure here, I will lose control over my body and won’t even be able to fix it with my own power.”

His mind threw aside all unnecessary thoughts as it focused entirely on the process at hand, rapidly overcoming all hurdles faster than he ever had before.