I clapped my hands together and closed my eyes as I started channeling flesh attribute mana into my hands. I focused on the lysdale script I had written up for the primordial. I made sure to keep my mana from generating any blood between my pals and directed the mana to flow freely from one palm into the next, traveling down my arms and across my shoulders and then back down my other arm and through my palm again, creating a circuit.
When I was satisfied with the flow of my mana, I added crystal element into the mix. I immediately felt a sharp twinge of pain throughout my body, but that went away quickly. Maintaining the flow of mana, I allowed a crystalline to be formed between my palms. With each wave of the primordial crystal mana that passed between my palm, the crystal grew larger and larger until it was about the size of a marble.
I stopped channeling mana then and took a deep breath before I opened my hand. Rolling around in, the center of my palm was a mana crystal. It wasn't polished or refined looking like farm crystals were, but I could feel a small trace of mana leeching out of it, and from what I could tell, the mana didn't match mine.
"What's that?" Bo asked as he walked around me to see what I was holding.
"A mana crystal." I said, then plucked the crystal out of my palm and held it up to the light. A bright rainbow glow shined over my face as the light hit it. "And the core of the Primordial."
"Core…?" Sin and Bo both muttered.
I took the primordial mana crystal and placed it into the gene resonator. The machine was basically a long tube that blasted embryos with sound in order to simulate cell growth. As such, it was designed to gold test tubes and various other products. As I closed the hatch and powered up the resonator, I pointed to Sin.
"Go to the central console on the gestation tank and set it up for multiple containment." I ordered. Sin nodded and turned to move, then froze and turned back to me.
"How do I do that?" He asked.
"It's easy. On console, there is a massive red button that's marked evacuate, DO NOT PRESS THAT BUTTON! There is a smaller blue button under that one marked section and cordon. Press that one." I explained.
Sin nodded and then ran off to the center of the lab where the gestation tank was located. I returned my focus to the small display on the gene resonator. It displayed the resonance rate of whatever sample was inside, the higher the rate, the more chance that the mana crystal would start generating new cells. The average for an embryo was at least five hundred million cells per second replication rate. The mana crystal was already at nine hundred million.
"I think we're almost ready." I said to Bo. I stopped the resonator and took the crystal put of it. The small marble hummed with energy and glowed with a soft golden light.
I ran around Bo and headed to the console for the gestation tank and was relieved to see that Sin had done as he was told. On the console, there were five slots marked on through five that were sample introduction ports for the tank. I opened the slot marked one and put the crystal inside the port, and closed it. The crystal was sucked into a tube that went under the console and fed straight into the gestation tank.
The tank itself was split into five parts with three foot thick glass thanks to Sin following my instructions. The primordial mana crystal fell into section one of the tank. The tank, like all maturation tanks, was filled with various chemicals and hormones that promoted rapid cell growth. Despite this, Sin, Bo, and I all waited with bated breath for something to happen.
Minutes passed, and nothing happened. I started to fear that it wasn't going to work when Bo started tugging on my pants.
"Chase, there's a weird film around the crystal now!" Bo exclaimed. I squinted my eyes to see better, and sure enough, I saw the film.
"Please be cells! Please be cells!" I prayed to myself. A few seconds later, that film turned into a coat of flesh that covered the whole crystal. "YES!"
I jumped up and down and fist pumped the air. Sin and Bo shared in my enthusiasm, though it was obvious they were excited just because I was excited.
"Did it work? Whatever that was?" Bo asked, pointing to the tank.
"Yes! It's working!" I exclaimed happily, then pointed back to the gene resonator. "Though this is only the first attempt and time will tell if the evo will form exactly how I designed it on the lysdale script. In the meantime, let's keep this momentum going!"
"Going? Do you want to make more evos?" Sin asked, then looked at me with concern.
"You have enough mana for that?"
"I only used ten percent of my mana to create the primordial mana crystal. That one was the most intricate of all of them too. While I can still remember how it feels, I want to create more evos." I said.
"There are five spaces left in this tank…you are planning to make four more evos?" Sin asked.
"Yeah!" I replied, then headed back to the gene resonator. Sin and Bo followed close behind.
"Umm, boss, I get that your new process is working, but how exactly is it working? Actually, can you just explain what this process is?" Sin asked.
"It's a simple five step process. Step one: Write out the lysdale script of whatever evo you want to splice, planning it out from head to toe. Every gene sequence thoroughly mapped out. Step two: use mana manipulation to channel flesh and crystal attributes in order to make a mana crystal that will act as a core for the evo, do this while reciting the lysdale script of whatever evo you are splicing in your head. Step three: Use a gene resonator to activate the latent DNA inside the mana crystal. Step four: Place activated mana crystal inside a maturation vat or tube. Step five: Wait for evo to fully mature." I explained.
"This sounds a lot less like splicing, techno or traditional, and more like you're shaping evos…" Sin said softly. I froze mid-step, nearly causing Sin and Bo to run into me.
"Shaping…hmmm…I like the sound of that. Chase Kingston, first shaper." I said with a smirk, then hurried over to the gene resonator. I stopped in front of it and took the same pozs as before.
"When did you have time to come up with those Blythemail scripts anyway? They were pretty long." Bo asked.
"Lysdale scripts. And I was working on them three days ago when you, Sin, and your dad helped take those techno-splicing machines out of my void pocket." I replied.
"Hey Gargesh helped a lot too!" Bo exclaimed.
"Yeah, he did." I admitted. 'In fact, he did all the heavy lifting.'
"So when you suddenly disappeared, you were actually just working on those lysdale scripts?" Sin asked.
"Yeah, as well as researching." I added. "Now let's knock these out…"
***
It took a little while doing, but Sin, Bo, and I finally managed to get the last of the evo mana crystals into the maturation vat. I ended up making two void drakes and two Ogrest. Bo called dubs on one of the void drakes as soon as I put it in the tank and said what it was.
With a satisfied sigh, I took a step back and looked up at the budding evos floating in the tank. None of them looked anything more than cluster cells or a fatty piece of flesh no bigger than your thumb, but I hoped it marked the beginning of an accomplishment.
"Now we wait?" Sin asked hesitantly as if he didn't want to interrupt my moment.
"Yep. The tank needs to be cycled, and new reagents are added every day, but I can handle that. " I said, then turned to look at Bo and Sin as a thought popped into my head.
"What brought you guys here anyway?"
"OH MY GODS!" Bo exclaimed, then started rummaging through his pockets until he found what he was looking for. He pulled out a few pieces of jewelry and held them up to me.
"Mom told me to show you these. They're pieces that she competed yesterday. She wants your opinion."
"Holy shit!" I exclaimed as I looked at the pieces. There were two rings, a necklace, a broach, and a bangle. I picked each piece up and inspected them. "Your mom made these?"
"Yeah, she worked pretty hard on them after you introduced Jane and Iris to her and dad as well as Auntie Baset." Bo said.
"These are…amazing! Perfect!" I exclaimed.
All of the jewelry was made with higher quality gold and silver. The rings had beautiful woven designs on them but still had plenty of space from me to etch on them. The necklace blended the silver and gold in a way that it was almost impossible to tell where the gold began and the silver ended. The broach was classic yet elegant, and the bangle was plain but well made.
"Great! Mom was worried that you wouldn't like them." Bo said.
"No they are leaps and bounds above anything I could create and the fact that she had the foresight to leave enough space on the jewelry for me to enchant them while still making them pleasing to the eye shows attention to detail and skill." I said.
Looking up at the maturation tank, I nodded, then looked to Bo and Sin and motioned to the front door.
"Waiting around isn't going to help them grow faster. We're heading back to the shop, I need your mom to make a few custom items for me, Bo."
***
"I can't believe you like them!" Jade exclaimed, covering her mouth with her hands. I arched a brow at her as I held up the necklace.
"These things are extremely well made! How could you think I wouldn't like them?" I asked. Jade sighed and looked away.
"Compared to my father's craftsmanship, mine is sorely lacking." Jade replied. I couldn't help but notice the tinge of sadness in her tone when she said that. I placed a hand on Jade's shoulder and smiled comfortingly.
"Don't be too hard on yourself. You managed to design pieces that fit my criteria, not based off of a design I gave you but from seeing me scribe one time. Compared to what u was making, this is amazing." I said. Jade seemed comforted by my words and smiled slightly.
Jade stood up from her work table and stretched
We were currently in the basement of the shop, which Hade had converted into a workshop momentarily until a better one could be made available. It was small and a little cramped with the four of us in there, but for the small time operation that the company was, it was perfect.
"What took you all so long to get here anyway? I sent you and Sin hours ago." Jade asked, turning her attention to her son. Bo pointed at me.
"Chase figured out his new splicing technique!" Bo exclaimed. "We were helping him with it."
"Really?!" Jade exclaimed and turned to me. I nodded and then sighed.
"I'm calling it shaping, thanks for the name by the way Sinner, it's by no means as fast as traditional splicing but I'm hoping that it'll more than make up for that with stronger evos." I said.
"I don't fully understand it, but the process is…interesting and seems to be working." Sin piped up.
"We'll know in a few days if my shaping process works...in the mean tike can I trust all if you to keep quiet about it." I said deliberately, looking at Bo. Bo noticed this and frowned, then crossed his arms.
"I'm not an idiot Chase. I know to keep my mouth shut…" He grumbled.
"Yeah, but you're also only ten." I said.
"Ten and a half!" Bo griped.
"Regardless, I don't want any word getting out about this until after I know it works. Rigjt, now we're in the wait and see stage." I said, then turned to Jade. "But actually, since you've proven that your craftsmanship is exactly what I need, there's something else I need..."