"Did you test how long your grim cypher can mirror mine?" Mary asked as I changed into a hospital gown and reclined on a luxury lie-flat seat, more modern and luxurious than those on first-class flights, except this one was etched with formation array and surrounded by an array of monitors and medical apparatus.
My deal with the management had gone through without a hitch the night before. Early this morning, I met Mary Lou at the institute's medical bay to undergo my gioncore card and gion circuit card creation under her supervision. Mary and her assistants had arrived ahead of time and completed all preparations, waiting only for my arrival.
"Yes, I did. I didn't dare activate its abilities, but passively it lasted for more than three hours. I felt it could have gone on longer, but I didn't want to exhaust myself before the procedure, so I stopped," I lied as the truth was far too broken for me to reveal. While I answered, the assistants checked whether the wireless monitors and equipment were properly detecting my vitals, double-checking their settings in the process.
One reason we chose the Crowned Death was that it was a floral-type grimmon. Mary's Dendron Descendant's passive effect guaranteed successful gioncore condensation in a grimlock with fully-formed gion circuit when using floral-type grimmon gioncore stems, while also elevating the quality of the condensed gioncore to a higher grade. Mary herself was living proof of this principle.
That was precisely why I dared to use the gioncore stems of a legendary grimmon to condense my own gioncore, staking my entire fortune on this despite fully understanding the risks involved in crafting gioncore and gion circuit cards.
"That's good. The core condensation and circuit tunneling should only take fifteen to twenty minutes, so we can begin whenever you're ready," Mary said, meeting my gaze with calm confidence, her expression meant to reassure me about the procedure.
Meanwhile, the assistants loaded the custom-made gioncore stem serum into the machine. It had been created from the stem extracted from Grimlock Crowned Death and modified to match my DNA, ensuring my body would accept the gioncore condensed from it instead of rejecting it. If the process failed and the condensed core wasn't immediately removed, I could end up turning into a Gion Zombie.
"I'm ready," I nodded in response, using fateless to mirror Dendron's Descendant, causing the blackhole-shaped grim cypher illuminated in my pupils to turn into a sapling-shaped grim cypher, similar to Mary's.
[— Fateless —
The Grim Cypher Dendron's Descendant has been temporarily mirrored from the fate index.
Note:
i) Fateless will temporarily mirror this grim cypher until you deactivate it or switch to another grim cypher.]
"This is going to sting a bit at the beginning, but after that you won't feel a thing," Mary said. Midway through her sentence, I felt a sharp sting at the nape of my neck. A needle extended from the recliner and pierced my spine at that exact spot. The monitors zoomed in on the process, allowing me to see everything in unsettling detail. Considering the sheer size of the needle, it was a horrifying sight.
Mary had been right, though. After the initial sting, I felt nothing at all. The needle injected the gioncore stems into the medullary cavity of my cervical spine, then retracted back into the recliner. One of the assistants immediately sealed the puncture, healing the tiny wound with their medical grim deck.
"The gioncore stems have been implanted successfully. Now we'll introduce the gion microbiome into different points of your body, following the standard human gion circuit diagram. Brace yourself. This might get a bit claustrophobic and dissonant," Mary warned, an assistant pressed a jet injector against my skin, flooding my body with anesthetic, before a translucent barrier slid into place over and below me, levitating me above the lie-flat seat. Moments later, the gion microbiomes were injected in 361 points across my body by the barrier using aerosuspension streams.
These gion microbiomes were composed primarily of gionworm strains, supplemented by other beneficial gion microbes engineered to help my body adapt to gion. Under normal circumstances, once they enter a host, the microbiomes spread aggressively and without regulation triggering strong response from the host's immune system. As their colonies expand, they begin constructing a gioncore to serve as a stable habitat, ultimately transforming the host into a Gion zombie.
However, in a latent Grimlock implanted with a gioncore stem, the outcome differed. The microbiomes still begin by spreading uncontrollably. Yet the moment they detect the presence of the gioncore stem, their behavior changes. Instead of continuing their chaotic expansion, they retract and reorganize. What would have become a destructive mass now restructures into a coordinated network. This network converges around the gioncore stem, channeling its activity into feeding and stabilizing it.
Rather than spawning a wild gioncore that would be rejected by the host's immune system, they assist the stem in condensing a controlled gioncore, one that serves as their habitat without destabilizing the body.
As the microbiome tunneled in my body to reach the gioncore stem, I felt like insects were crawling under my skin despite the anesthetic numbing the pain. The sensation was very jarring. Meanwhile, Mary and her team observed the monitors as a small gem began to condense within the medullary cavity of my cervical spine. The moment it fully formed, my eyes lit up, my grim cypher reflected clearly in my pupils as my grim deck responded to the presence of the gioncore and gion within my body. In an instant, two of its empty grim cards connected to them. Mary and her staff observed in silence as my grim deck merged with my gioncore and gion circuit.
[ — Fate Report —
i) You have condensed a peak-grade gioncore and gion circuit successfully crafting your gioncore card and gion circuit. Your latent grim deck has upgraded to an awakened grim deck.
ii) Your grim cypher has awakened 'Multi Fate' under the influence of your gioncore card and gion circuit.
iii) Your gion circuit has awakened 'Crowned Circuit' under the influence of your gioncore card and gion circuit.
iv) Your grimcore's dormant 'Parasitic Pollen' ability has fused with your grim circuit's 'Gion Ink,' granting the ink a 'Parasitic Attribute.']