Crystalized Munchkinry - Arc I - Chapter 03 (Patreon)

With the available power, he assigned the second core to begin constructing yet another processor while dedicating the original core to self-improvement tasks, effectively splitting his focus between expansion and optimization.

Before fully immersing himself in the process, he set an alarm for three months later so that he could lose himself in the work without risking missing the birth of his chosen host, which would still leave him roughly a month to ensure that everything was in perfect condition for the initial connection.

With that handled, he turned his attention inward toward his increasingly massive body and quickly realized that, despite the addition of the new core and its current task, he was functionally back where he had started in terms of available resources, though this did not concern him much since he had no intention of making major structural changes just yet.

Instead, he decided that his first improvement would focus on the communication and connection protocols between different parts of his body, because although the original work described Shards as somewhat biological, his own observations suggested something closer to a distributed computational system.

The crystalline structure was composed of countless smaller units that collectively formed a hive-like network capable of functioning as an immense processing system, yet since these units lacked self-awareness and the Shard itself did not demonstrate particularly advanced cognition, he interpreted the whole as a semi-autonomous software entity running on a vast but poorly optimized hardware cluster, one that had been repeatedly modified in inconsistent and often inefficient ways by its creators.

It was a shame that this specific race won the evolutionary lottery on their planet.

As the saying went: 'Phenomenal cosmic power, itty-bitty brain.'

Because of this, the smaller constituent units communicated and interfaced with one another in a variety of inconsistent ways, some subtle and some glaringly inefficient.

So he established his first major task as cataloging all existing communication methods, simulating improvements across countless iterations, selecting the most efficient model, and then standardizing it throughout the entire structure.

Fortunately, the simplicity and scale of these units made modification relatively trivial, and while the resulting improvements in efficiency and power consumption were not dramatic, they were still meaningful enough to justify the effort, and more importantly, the process itself was satisfying.

He made sure to archive all original configurations within his data banks and implemented a monitoring routine that would automatically analyze newly created units for deviations and apply corrections where necessary, ensuring long-term consistency.

The manufacturing systems required approximately a month to propagate these changes across the entire structure, during which he continued refining his power design interface and occasionally diverting attention to observe the ongoing lives and interactions of the Heberts.

The next task was to establish routines, alerts, and various system-wide processes within the Shard, effectively bringing every function into alignment and ensuring that everything operated under a unified framework, which, while only improving efficiency by a few percentage points for now, provided a far more stable foundation for future upgrades.

It seemed that all those Xianxia novels had been good for something after all.

With that complete, he shifted his focus to general housekeeping and long-term expansion planning.

 Settling on an ambitious goal of eventually covering the entire continent in crystalline matter until no available space remained, after which he would leverage the resulting processing power and resource generation to fundamentally improve the very material that composed his body.

Unfortunately, he still had approximately five months remaining before the third core would be completed, unless he chose to divert both existing cores and their auxiliary systems to accelerate construction, which would come at the cost of halting most other activities.

It certainly explained why Shards required so much time to Bud while simultaneously managing parahuman powers.

In the end, he decided to dedicate himself to research during the construction period rather than endure another stretch of pure boredom, as observing Danny and Annette exchange expressions and debate baby names had already proven sufficient for one lifetime.

His research began with a deeper investigation into the Shard’s energy-gathering systems, specifically how they harnessed quantum fluctuations, with the long-term goal of improving efficiency to the point where additional generators would become unnecessary.

Entropy remained the fundamental problem, since these fluctuations would eventually cease, leading to the same inevitable outcome the Entities were trying to avoid, and while he had no illusions about solving a problem that had occupied them for eons in a short time, he was determined to eventually find a solution that did not involve the large-scale destruction of planets or entire universes.

After all, he currently lived in one.

The primary limitation he encountered was that, despite being extraordinarily advanced by Earth Bet standards, the Shard’s energy-generation methods were inherently constrained by dimensional access, meaning that if it wished to exploit multiple dimensions, it had to do so sequentially, using energy from one to open access to the next.

What stood out to him was that the system completely ignored whatever existed between those dimensions.

He considered several possibilities, including the chance that the Entities had explored that space and encountered something they could not control, or they had failed to develop the necessary methods to access it.

Or even that they had never conceptualized its existence in the first place.

There was, of course, the less comforting possibility that something existed there that was better left undiscovered, which he chose not to dwell on.

Regardless, the immediate issue was that he himself had no reliable method of accessing that interdimensional space, and while various works of fiction he had consumed offered ideas, they invariably relied on vague or nonsensical explanations.

Recognizing that this line of inquiry would require significant time, he decided to focus first on refining and optimizing the existing energy-generation systems while using the Simulator to gradually explore more advanced possibilities.

As a supplementary approach, he considered expanding resource collection beyond the host planet and its dimensional counterparts, since relying solely on a single planetary system seemed inefficient.

However, another search through his data banks yielded no clear explanation for why the Shards had not pursued asteroid mining or broader stellar resource extraction, despite possessing all the necessary tools.

After briefly considering the idea, he decided that a small-scale experiment would be worthwhile, noting that the planet he currently occupied, which he realized he should probably name, possessed a satellite equivalent to Earth’s Moon that should be trivial to reach with his capabilities.

Activating one of his maintenance drones, he sent it toward the satellite, and for clarity in his records, he designated the planet as Terra, the satellite as Luna, and the drone itself as Gagarin-01.

Little Gagarin-01 ascended smoothly until it reached an altitude of approximately 100 kilometers, but beyond that point, the connection between the drone and his main body began to degrade exponentially, weakening significantly with every additional few hundred meters.

Roughly a kilometer past that threshold, communication failed entirely, and without the processing support of the main body, the drone ceased functioning and fell back toward the planet.

The conclusion was clear: while Shards were capable of communicating across vast distances through dimensional tunneling, their conventional, real-space communication capabilities were surprisingly limited.

Or at least the ones the Administrator had access to.

Deciding that this was an issue worth addressing, he turned his attention toward solving it, noting that his next processor core was progressing well and that Danny and Annette were safe, with automated alerts already in place for any unexpected developments, leaving him with both the time and the freedom to tackle the problem.

After retrieving the fallen drone with another unit, he repeated the experiment without making any changes.

It wasn’t science if the results couldn’t be replicated.

Unsurprisingly, after another brief test flight, Gagarin-02 met the same fate as its predecessor, confirming that the failure was consistent and not a fluke.

Following that, he modified the communication method from direct transmission to dimensional tunneling, but this introduced a new limitation, as the drone was required to remain in constant motion to sustain the connection, which was impractical.

Equipping the drone with its own tunneling capability was also not an option, since that function was tied to the core itself, and constructing a drone large enough to house such a system would have been wildly inefficient.

Undeterred, he continued experimenting with different configurations, refining parameters and testing variations in an attempt to find a viable solution.

By the time he prepared Gagarin-68 with an upgraded dimensional beacon, he experienced a sudden moment of clarity.

After an entirely unsuccessful attempt at a facepalm, due to the absence of both a face and a hand, he simply opened a direct dimensional tunnel to Luna.

As expected, it worked.

However, the method was not without drawbacks, as it consumed a small but noticeable portion of the core’s processing capacity and required a steady energy expenditure.

While negligible in isolation, these costs would accumulate rapidly if he attempted to establish large-scale infrastructure such as generators or extractors on the satellite, or worse, expanded into asteroid mining, an idea he deliberately chose not to dwell on for the moment.

He didn’t even dare to think about a Dyson-sphere.

It became clear that while the Shards were technically capable of such operations, the limitations imposed by the Entities rendered them inefficient on a larger scale.

That said, with an additional core already under construction, there was nothing preventing him from eventually dedicating an entire processor solely to managing distributed energy and matter systems.

A quick simulation confirmed that the concept was viable once sufficient processing capacity was available, so he set the idea aside for future implementation.

For no reason other than curiosity and mild amusement, he launched Gagarin-68 once more, observed its failure, and then outfitted Gagarin-69 with a small payload of explosives before sending it upward, where it detonated in a brief but satisfying display of fireworks upon reaching space.

Explosions, he decided, were indeed a form of art.

He was just about to shift his focus toward Shard network structures and communication protocols when an alert interrupted him.

Upon checking it, he was surprised to realize that the allocated three months had already passed and that Taylor’s birth was less than a month away.

Promptly setting another system-wide alarm to manage ongoing processes, he redirected the majority of his attention toward Danny, Annette, and the soon-to-be-born Taylor.

While he had little interest in witnessing the birth itself, he was determined to ensure that the connection process proceeded without error, particularly given that he would be using a modified Corona design, which he had designated as the Corona Redix.

He spent the final month before the auspicious date rerunning simulations for the new Corona, attempting to predict how Taylor’s brain would develop and ensuring that he would be prepared for any possible outcome.

Even with all his precautions and concerns, he was still nothing compared to Danny, who had effectively become anxiety personified, while Annette, despite her discomfort, seemed thoroughly entertained by her husband’s increasingly frantic and mostly futile attempts to help.

He made sure to record all of it.

Annette went into labor late on June 10th and gave birth to a healthy baby girl on the 11th at Brockton Bay Hospital.

The Corona integrated smoothly with Taylor’s still-developing brain, and while he expected this would allow for more accurate simulations going forward, he resolved to monitor her closely regardless, ensuring that its growth remained optimal and that no complications arose.

It would have been a waste to design such an impressive power set only to have Taylor die from something like brain cancer.

He also transferred the observation field to her, removing the one that had been monitoring Danny, since the protocols available to him only allowed a single instance to be active at any given time.

And while he would have preferred to keep both, he chose caution over curiosity to avoid drawing attention from other Shards, even as he briefly lamented the loss of the steady stream of incidental data Danny had provided.

Next, he created a dedicated file for Taylor within his data banks, taking a complete snapshot of her body down to the quantum level and establishing a routine to repeat the process every second.

He extracted a sample of her DNA and subjected it to every available analysis, ensuring that no genetic conditions would interfere with either her health or his long-term plans.

Originally, he considered optimizing her DNA into some theoretical ideal of human perfection, but quickly dismissed the idea, recognizing that such alterations would be both conspicuous and uncomfortably reminiscent of ideologies he had no desire to emulate.

Instead, he limited his intervention to removing genetic markers associated with potential hereditary diseases and implemented continuous monitoring to detect any unexpected mutations.

With that, there was little left for him to do directly, as all immediate avenues of interaction were closed, so he settled into a more passive role.

Now that the connection had been successfully established, he had approximately fourteen years to focus on self-improvement.

His responsibilities regarding Taylor were now limited to ensuring the proper development of the Corona, preventing any fatal complications, and recording her life in detail, both for data collection and so that she might one day have access to memories of her mother.

As he observed the small family celebrating the birth, he experienced an unexpected wave of melancholy, realizing that despite his immense capabilities, he was unable to partake in even the simplest human experiences.

And while he missed his own family, he took some comfort in knowing that his original self had not abandoned them.

After lingering a little longer on the scene, he reluctantly turned his attention back to his crystalline form.

He now had roughly fourteen years to refine his systems, master Sting, implement anti-Thinker and anti-Shard safeguards, and construct a coherent, stable, and suitably impressive power for Taylor.

Time to buckle down.