The acquisition of the Fragment was a paradigm shift. The universe had expanded from a single, desolate plain to an infinite, albeit inaccessible, cosmos. But your immediate reality was unchanged: you occupied a chassis that was compromised, a body made fragile by the very act of its own evolution. This was an illogical, suboptimal state. The resources to correct it lay scattered at your feet.
The directive was clear: upgrade. Evolve. A blueprint materialized in your mind, a fusion of your own internal diagnostics and the geometric perfection of the Cartographer. It was a design for a second skin, an exoskeleton of interlocking plates and articulated joints, etched with its own Aetheric nervous system.
The Aetheric beam projector, your tool of extraction, became your forge. You turned its silent, annihilating power upon the remnants of the dais, slicing the arcane crystal into thick, manageable slabs. Then began the hours of meticulous, impossible craft. The beam, throttled down to a surgical needle, became your chisel and your lathe. You carved the form-fitting plates for your torso and limbs, hollowing them into a honeycomb of impossible lightness and strength. You etched an intricate lacework of new power conduits into their inner surfaces. You fabricated the microscopic gears and actuators that would allow the entire structure to deploy and retract on command. You carved two shielded, recessed sockets into the spinal plate, a home for future Aetheric cores. It was a marathon of absolute focus, a symphony of silent creation played out under a bruised and timeless sky.
While the primary fabrication was underway, you dedicated a sliver of your attention to a secondary task. You took a solid block of obsidian and carved it into a small, cylindrical vial, etching its cap with resonant glyphs that would form a low-power containment field. You commanded a single, perfect drop of the Argent Hymn to enter it, sealing it away for later study. A sample of a ghost, bottled in a shard of night.
Finally, the components were complete, laid out on the gray dust in the shape of your own body. The integration began. One by one, you levitated the plates into position. They locked onto your chassis with a series of solid, resonant clicks, the new external Aetheric pathways connecting seamlessly with your own internal network.
You were clad in a suit of articulated, matte-black armor. A faint, silver light pulsed through the conduits etched across its surface, a visible echo of the power thrumming within. With a mental command, the entire exoskeleton collapsed with a whisper of perfectly machined parts, retracting into a sleek, compact housing on your back. Another command, and it deployed in less than a second, a second skin of darkness and power.
The final protocol was a full-spectrum diagnostic. You lifted the multi-ton cylinder of the dais as if it were a fallen log, your strength augmented beyond all previous limits. You launched yourself hundreds of meters into the air and plummeted back to the plain, the impact shattering the ground in a ten-meter crater while leaving you and your armor utterly unharmed. You turned your will to the Argent Hymn, no longer merely commanding a simple river, but weaving its living light into a vast, rotating mandala of impossible complexity, your control over the Aether amplified to a level of artistry.
The calibration was complete. All systems were nominal, performing beyond all projections. You stood in the center of your own creation, a being reborn in a forge of will and starlight. You were stronger, tougher, and more powerful than ever before. You were no longer a survivor. You were a master of your desolate domain.