Author's Notes: Chapter edited and corrected by Scott Fellman.
I clung tightly to the new constellations and observed them closely, the new projections within my Reality Marble that shouldn't be possible, that shouldn't exist, but... that's what The Light did.
The paracausal force created to break the system, the rule created to break the established pattern, to push everything in a different direction than usual.
And that's what it had done. The Light had altered my Reality Marble so much that it was incredible. I could feel it; I could feel how The Light sought infinite possibilities, how it marveled at growth, diversity, possibilities, of life without stagnation.
And that's what I was now. I was The Traveler, no, I was still me, I was still Serena Eileen Prince, but now I was the Gardener. I was the one who sought to create new rules, new possibilities, diverse, unpredictable and constantly changing.
But I would do it my way.
It was not in my mind to cultivate civilizations to see how far they could grow, guiding them to regions beyond their normal destiny. I was not as altruistic as The Traveler, who never wanted to be worshipped as a god, who never made his presence known more than necessary, who always leaves quietly when his work is done.
No, I was The Traveler, the Gardener, but my flowers would always be Mysteries, magic, paracausality, the supernatural. And that is what I would cultivate. I will take all the existing Mysteries, plant them, make them grow, and create new ones everywhere.
Even if it were just for me, even if I were the only one to enjoy the infinite Mysteries that I myself created, I wouldn't stop. It's what I was, it's what I would always be, and nothing was going to change me.
I could feel my Reality Marble resonating powerfully. My entire being resonated with the same force, shaking even my soul. I closed my eyes tightly, about to open my mouth when I felt it.
The Darkness, there it was, creating a monolith within my Reality Marble, slowly expanding. And I almost wanted to vomit. My entire being as the Gardener shuddered at the sensation of The Darkness, the Winnower, the Gardener's counterpart.
And I knew it immediately. What the purpose of The Darkness was, and when I understood, I hated it immediately. And how could I not?
Final Shape. The final form of everything, the termination of everything into something predictable, something established, a predetermined state. The ultimate goal of The Darkness, The Winnower.
And it was horrible. I hated it so much. With so much to see, with so many worlds and universes to explore, and even more, with so much magic to discover, to create, and to invent beyond imagination.
How could I not hate the Final Shape, if it was the complete opposite of what I loved?
Magic was the creation of things that shouldn't exist; it defied the conventional laws of physics; it didn't follow a pre-established order; it was there to change the universe according to our imagination, to make our thoughts a reality.
Magic was limitless. Magic held infinite possibilities. Magic broke all laws and created its own. I loved magic and everything it represented.
To abandon all of that, all the wonder that was magic, in order to reach a Final Form? To a predetermined and monotonous path of always?
It was disgusting.
I could feel my entire being, everything that was part of The Traveler, purring in agreement, and the words came out of my mouth before I realized it.
"I am the Root of all Mystery
Light is my body, Magic my soul.
I am the Gardener of infinite possibilities,
who despises the certainty of a final shape."
I could feel those words resonating completely within my being.
Light is my Body, Magic is my soul.
Light and Magic were the same thing: paracausal energies, energies outside of logic and normal causality, energies that broke with the predetermined pattern of the universe. This meant that my entire being aligned with Magic; I was a being with a single purpose: to keep changing the rules, to keep creating new possibilities, new Mysteries.
And that was what the following line meant.
I am the Gardener of infinite possibilities,
I was The Traveler, I was the Gardener. The Traveler's job was to sow possibilities, to break the stagnation of a predetermined game, adding new rules through complexity and growth, but never controlling the outcome.
The Traveler sought a diverse, unpredictable, and ever-changing universe without end, that even while evolving was full of possibilities.
And just as I said, I would do it my way, I would create Mysteries, I would make new rules, even if they were only for me.
Who despises the certainty of a final shape.
The Final Shape sought to return everything to a predetermined state, to its most basic elements, to a predictable mathematical result, a world without magic. And I detest it with all my being.
Even playing Destiny, with as much immersion as Cyberpunk's VR, I had never felt such contempt for the Final Shape, the end of everything, the end of the Mysteries, an absolute cancellation of infinite possibilities.
A state where there is only one stable and defined form, eternal and immutable, where nothing changes, where nothing grows, where nothing diverges, and where nothing is altered.
Where there were no mysteries because there was no beginning or end, because there were no secrets or contradictions, because the 'inexplicable' did not exist.
And it was something I would never let happen.
The Veil, The Winnower, and The Witness did not exist in this world, nor in any I have visited to push the Final Shape. Still, even so, I repudiated the concept with my whole being, to the point of becoming a fundamental line of my Reality Marble.
I would use Darkness for my own purposes while completely rejecting the Final Shape.
When the words settled into my entire being, I could feel my Reality Marble tremble intensely. The addition of three more lines to the chant of my Reality Marble made everything inside me tremble.
And then a massive pulse of Light surged from within me. The explosion of The Light enveloped the entire tent we were in and kept expanding.
I could see The Light enveloping Orario as it continued to spread, even further. I gritted my teeth and forced The Light to stop and disappear.
I closed my eyes as I tried to keep The Light under control. Even so, I could feel The Light on my skin, shining so intensely, searching for every corner where it could escape and surface.
I had to use The Light somehow.
I took a deep breath as I grasped the Prüfer constellation and pushed it toward myself. I could feel The Light enveloping me and beginning to change my body. The change was almost instantaneous, but I could feel every part as if in slow motion.
As each part of my body was replaced with metal, circuits, and data, I felt my entire body changing and my mind adapting to the new one. Going from having a brain to just circuits, the speed of my thoughts increased exponentially until I almost lost myself in them due to the incredible speed at which they were now being processed.
Finally, I breathed, even though I no longer needed the air. I moved my hands slowly as I began to examine my body.
My whole body still had the same shape, but I could feel it, feel how my whole body was now entirely made of metal, circuits, and magic.
I took off my shirt, leaving me in my underwear. I looked at the sides of my torso and could see large amounts of circuitry and metal, denoting my new biology.
"You are... an Ex Machina... a Prüfer unit." GLaDOS murmured as she approached me, thoroughly fascinated. I could feel our minds connect, not through the Pack link, but through our bodies.
We had formed a cluster.
Oh, definitely not an actual Cluster. A Cluster, a group of Ex Machina units, was typically made up of 437 Ex Machina units, with a Befehler unit in command.
But we were only two Prüfer units; even so, the union we formed was called Cluster within our programs.
And that allowed GLaDOS to access not only a mental link, but she also had access to my entire new body.
I could feel GLaDOS begin to examine every inch of my programming and the inner workings of my circuits. I simply granted her full access; I even knew how to offer her part of my internal processing unit so she could work much faster.
GLaDOS seemed surprised, then grew extremely excited to have two Prüfer speed units. My entire internal scan was finally complete.
"You are... a perfect Prüfer unit, you are identical to me, without a single deviation beyond the shape of the chassis and what constitutes our minds or mental programming, that... is impressive... what... what did you do?" GLaDOS asked in amazement.
"We're confused too. First, the chant that came out of nowhere, and The Light's enormous explosion that I'm sure everyone in Orario must have felt, and then... this." Riveria said, surprised. I simply nodded and began to relay everything that had just happened.
The change within my Reality Marble, as The Light flooded my entire being: the ability to replicate living beings, biological, or racial traits, thanks to The Light, as my whole being had created three more lines in the chant of my inner world.
The girls seemed surprised.
"Does that... mean you can turn into any race we encounter?" Rebecca asked incredulously. I nodded.
"Yes, I definitely could, but... ceasing to be a succubus, a devil, is unnerving me a bit, bordering on uncomfortable. I mean, I can see the benefits of a Prüfer unit when I'm investigating, but I'll still prefer my normality." I said with a grimace.
"And you can't... I don't know, hybridize them? GLaDOS is both." Lucy pointed out, confused. I stopped stiffly before plunging once more into my Reality Marble and began to experiment.
It turns out that yes… I could do that.
Only if I took the Devils as a base, for some reason, the Devils were stupidly compatible and malleable when interbreeding with other races, as if they were adapting to and accepting different biologies.
I undid my Ex-Machina change; I was about to gather the constellations before I stopped.
"Becca... let's continue with what we were doing." I said with a crooked smile.
"Are you sure?" Rebecca looked surprised, and I grimaced before awkwardly smiling again.
"Sure, I... there's so much I have to unpack thanks to The Traveler power swap and the new evolution of my Reality Marble, and I know myself well enough to know that I'll really start rambling for days, like... literally."
"The last time I discovered something interesting, I was in a time bubble for eight days writing and rewriting potion recipes." I sighed wearily.
"Yes, no, I love you, but if I have to listen to you talk for hours about research, I at least want to be able to go somewhere to test my new powers, to see if I'm really capable of doing everything I could in the game." Rebecca said immediately, and I chuckled.
"Yes, I know, I love you too, and that's exactly why I stopped." I said playfully. "We still have to do the eye swap for Riveria and help her adjust to them, then... we can experiment with The Light, I... I also have to figure out how to change the Evil Pieces into functional Ghosts and all that." I said with a hum.
I tried to delve into the Traveler's memories before overwhelming amounts of them hit me. I used all the Occlumency I could muster and began to sift through the information.
If Rashek's 1000 years of memories and experiences were overwhelming when I first started delving into them, The Traveler's were even worse.
The Traveler held eons of memories. And not only that, what came from the Light returned to the Light. All beings blessed by the Light returned to the Traveler, and within it resided all their memories.
Obviously, I couldn't access all of The Traveler's memories; there were... too many. I'm sure I couldn't even access 95% of all the available information. Any technology seen in The Destiny was just the tip of the iceberg compared to the pre-human races that The Traveler helped to elevate.
For example, I definitely wasn't able to delve into the technology of the Witness's Precursor Race, but there was plenty of other technology I could access. A lot of Eliksni technology, from humanity's Golden Age, or even some from the Hive.
But what I was most focused on were the weapons. The weapons Rebecca had physical access to, I had the blueprints. I could feel my Reality Marble voraciously devouring the memories and blueprints, and GLaDOS, too, happily grabbing all the information she could.
Dozens and hundreds of stars formed rapidly as more weapons and paracausal weapons linked to the Light joined my repertoire.
I quickly ignored it and focused on a technology that mattered to me: the Ghosts. I found their blueprints, their creation, how they worked, and how they were made.
To my surprise, it really wasn't complicated. I quickly filed away all the information and let it float superficially in the background of my mind. There were a couple of things to do before experimenting with the Evil Pieces.
Author's Notes: And we have more lines of the chant! Phew, it's always hard to write the chant lines. What did you think? I'm happy with how it turned out, but there's always room for improvement, so for now, those lines will stay. We're halfway there; four or more to go!
A/N: If you liked the story, join my patreon, patreon.com/Camellya_Addams, there are up to 10 chapters in advance, thank you. Or you can also visit my Ko-Fi, ko-fi.com/camellya_addams.