Advanced studies campus, Adam's residence, three months later

*grunts, exhalations, etc*

Adam was currently naked, laying down on a massage table with a dark-skinned, white-haired/furred cat lady giving him the works. From his toes to the top of his scalp. Her soft fingers mixed with the firmness of her movements, made Adam almost pass out. About an hour later, Adam stops her with a wave of his hand. He gets up, still naked, and spreads his arms waiting for the maids to wipe the oil off his body and cover him with his robe.

Ever since he came back, it seemed as if Principal Blue has forgotten about him. Well almost, as he shoots a glance at raven perched not far. This raven was a mental construct, there as an added security and point of contact. He cares little for the supposed reason; if the old man wanted to keep an eye on him there was not much he could do to stop him.

Stepping past the waiting maids, he shoots a glance at his attendant also receiving a massage from his other attendant. His attendants were called Elena and David. Elena was the tier 9 while David was tier 6. They were a couple, so to speak. David was one of the lovers of Elena's harem. This did not surprise Adam much. In his previous world, with the presence of Gods and their pantheons. The concept of women of power owning harems was as prevalent as men with theirs. What she surprised him with however is her answer when he asked her why they were lovers and not husbands.

Her response: "I want to keep them on their toes. Lovers sound easily replaceable. They have to work hard if they wish to keep my favor."

Adam was surprised with how cold she sounded but as he observed her and David's relationship, she did not seem abusive, only authoritarian. Something he agreed with if there are multiple relationships to juggle with. From his time spent training with David, he did not notice any sort of discontentment or ambition to flip the relationship, something he finds odd but attributes to a different society with different values. 

Stepping in his residence, a victorian manor, he heads to his room with his two maids following him. The cat-lady masseuse and some type of canid beastman. A silver-haired/furred athletic lady. Both maids are closers to humans with animalistic features than the opposite, something he appreciated. They only had the tails and ears of their respective animal race. Other than their body being more durable and flexible than a base human, not much was different.

Ever since he found out the exaggerated amount of resources allocated to special students, he has been living in pleasure while focusing on refining his body. He wished to reach tier 9 as a knight before condensing his cores for the magus path. He's currently tier 3. According to Elena, the speed varies depending on what body you are working with. The longer it takes to reach the peak of low tiers, the better. It means your base body takes more to refine, which in Adam's case, his cloned body was kept at peak human level at all times thanks to his genetic tampering and nanomachines. His body's capabilities were already astoundingly high, for a regular human, before refining. 

After reaching tier 3, according to his chip, he is capable of using 100% of his muscle strength with small to no repercussions depending on the situation. 

Before refining, his max lifting strength was about 1000kg, if he used 100% muscle strength, with 600kg being something he could lift with no problems. Now, he can lift about 1200kg comfortably with double that amount at full strength with no damage. He could theoretically raise those numbers, but that would be at the detriment of his agility and flexibility. His speed has similarly doubled. From his previous top speed of around 40mph to around 80-90 mph. For something considered low-tier, the results are outstanding. The fact that they are considered lesser to magi only shows how powerful magi can be at higher levels.

At lower levels, a peak tier 3 knight, can easily take care of a tier 1 or some newly advanced tier 2 magus if they avoid getting hit. Tier 3 on the other hand is something they could never kill. A magus, once their core has formed gains a mana barrier that constantly protects them. That barrier's strength depends on the stage of the magus and the state of their core's refinement and purification. Tier 1 and 2 magi have cores that are still in the process of perfecting themselves. Tier 3 is when the core is considered at its perfected base state, ready for further transformations along later tiers. So peak tier 3, technically speaking could also be considered tier 1 in the case of mana. It is only at that stage that a being has the right tool to play with mana, anything before that is the equivalent of someone using a rusty tool. While useable, it is not perfect.

For a knight to advance to tier 4, they must refine their body as they usually do, only this time under extreme muscular stress to trigger the body's instinct for survival. Under such duress, they must focus the refinement towards their muscles, who with the help of stress and survival instinct, will excite the cells. 

The cells triggered by the body's instinct, and with the push of mana, will enter an extremely excitable and adaptable state which will trigger cellular synchronization to help the body survive. This synchronization (triggered by cells using every drop of energy they have, simultaneously, to survive), with the help of mana, will produce a bioelectrical field that will surround the knight, signifying their breakthrough.

This bioelectrical field is something that normally only surrounds specific types of cells in the human body. Muscle cells are one of them. With the help of mana, stress, synchronization, and the body's will to survive, they can supercharge said field, physically bringing it to life. It will surround the knight as long as he lives, with the intensity depending on their physical state. It is after all a representation of their muscle's physical state. Although it surrounds the knight, it is not there or able to protect against external threats. It is there to assist the knight. It is only visible when the knight's body is using its full capabilities. When the knight is at rest, it is not fully visible.

This bioelectrical field will allow the knight to physically utilize their enhanced body to its full capacity with no mental lag. A tier 3 knight, while physically powerful, does not have the processing power to keep up with his body's reflexes and agility. This bioelectrical field solves that issue.

The problem Adam is having is that his body does not have any instincts so to speak. All those things, and more, are under the control of his chip with the help of his nanomachines. 

He does not have a mental lag problem similar to other tier 3s. His chip helps with real-time calculation. Although mentally tiring if used for too long, he can keep up with this state for a solid 20-30 minutes. Enough for most fights.

The council and the knights were not accurately aware of how the breakthrough from tier 3 to tier 4 happened. This knowledge is something Adam deduced, courtesy of a few tier 3s and 4s locked and dissected in his laboratory. It turns out that The Council is environmentally friendly. No resource wasted, they recycle. The supposed death penalty that the citizens fear is just the criminal ending up in some magus's lab as a test subject. Something Adam, wholeheartedly supports, as long as the crime is deserving. Murderers, rapists, pedophiles, etc. The list of Adam-approved test subjects is long.

The other problem, other than his lack of bodily instinct, is his main muscle; his heart. His nanocore, the production base of his nanites, is in the process of merging with his heart. It is a slow-going process, dependent on a multitude of factors, including sufficient nutrients. The heart is constantly damaged during the process, allowing the nanocore to seamlessly merge itself during the healing process. 

Passively, Adam has to consume a nutricapsule daily. Actively? He doesn't have the guts to try. At the rate it is going, it would take another year and a half, earth time. While he could technically heal his heart in case of damage, with the state of nanocore partially merged, the complications that could arise are not something he could predict. 

He's not in any kind of rush. Especially after remembering his conversation with principal Blue three months ago. He understood a few things after replaying the conversation, the first of which is how every time he met an ascendant, he had a hard time staying true to himself. 

He believes it is a mental survival instinct instead of a physical one. Faced with a power he cannot resist or comprehend, he acts in such a way to ingratiate himself to the predator, to prevent offending and ensure his survival. He acted differently when faced with Olivia as opposed to principal Blue. And he is at peace with that fact. He never was the prideful type. While he would not beg like a sniveling coward when faced with death if acting slightly different from usual, when faced with a powerful existence meant lower chances of death, he is okay with that.

The other realization he gained from their conversation? The ascendants don't care. Or more like to them, what is happening is considered entertainment. Even those supposed 'traitors', Adam did not feel genuine hatred in the old man's tone when he mentioned them, only annoyance. He doesn't know what the plan is, nor does he care. As far as he's concerned, he'll be happy staying in the cracks, taking advantage of their resources to strengthen himself. 

He also checked the list of items the old man mentioned. A list of rare items available where the special students get first pick. The leftover gets distributed to the rest. Of course, you can't just decide to take everything. You must have a valid use for the resources. Dubious experiments don't count unless your track record shows a series of successes. 

Adam was able to reserve an item for himself. An item he believes will play a key role in his future. After understanding how the knights enhance their bodies, Adam felt that it would be a shame to get rid of his body to ascend. He believes that the Ascendant's way to the peak is flawed, or rather incomplete. He seeks to keep his body, if possible. He understands that keeping his body as is, is probably impossible. But with the help of the item he found, he believes he found a way to do so. 

The item: Tier 7 metal emperor slime life-metal. Slimes from elemental planes and slimes from regular worlds are different from each other. A tier 7 slime, from an elemental plane, with home ground advantage, is equal in power to a tier 8 organism. Very dangerous. Once they reach tier 7, if they wish, they can dissolve their core into a concentrated mix of their element, body, and lifeforce. This mixture, as long as it remains untampered with, will allow the metal emperor slime to regenerate himself endlessly, with the help of mana. This life metal is basically the emperor slime's core. It resembles mercury in density and physical properties. Due to the emperor slime's size, he will get the equivalent of a full bathtub.

His goal is to use this item to enhance the organic aspect of his nanites, trying to merge them as much as possible with his body. At their current state, even if the nanocore completes the merge with his heart, he cannot fill his body full of nanites. He will face a bodily imbalance which may lead to various problems. The merging only ensures that their production rate becomes part of his bodily function. Even if he strengthens his heart, their capabilities will not grow, only their production rate will, which would be useless, due to the aforementioned imbalance. The imbalance point could potentially disappear with further strengthening, but that's only a conjecture. He will not gamble his future on uncertainties.

He wants to use the life metal to transform his nanites from regular machinery to an organic/metallic construct, similar to the emperor slime. Their current bioorganic state only ensures that, at certain quantities, his body will not react to them. He predicts that by using the life metal, on his fully merged heart, they would grow in strength and capabilities with his body as well as negate the bodily rejection from imbalance if he wishes to overload himself with them. 

His main goal is to replace or merge his blood with the new type of nanites and see if there's potential to replace more; bones and muscles for example. Of course, to achieve that he would have to tamper with his marrow, so he will begin with a merge and see what consequences marrow modification could bring. The possibilities this could bring him are potentially endless. And it might also allow him to keep his body as he ascends if he fully transforms his body using the new nanites. Their pseudo organic state will ensure his capability for growth, something he wishes to keep if possible. 

One thing he needs, to be able to merge with the life metal, other than his fully merged nano heart, is a bloodline holder. This is a secret concoction created by the council, using slimes as a base ingredient once again. After reading on slimes, Adam is not surprised at how many uses one can find using them. They are some of the most adaptable organisms, available en masse, in the omniverse.

The concoction has different grades, depending on the bloodline the magus wishes to integrate himself with. This concoction's purpose is to make their heart become the equivalent of a slime itself, basically goo, while keeping the host alive, allowing them to introduce a specific bloodline in the mixture of their heart goo. 

With the boosted adaptive properties of the slime, from the concoction, along with a few extra ingredients, the heart will rebuild itself, to fit the host while matching the creature from which the bloodline came from. Meaning if one uses a draconic bloodline, they will obtain a low-grade dragon heart. The reason it is low-grade is simply that the magus needs to refine and perfect it along with his growth. 

The slime used in the concoction is neutral. Meaning it is not elementally attuned to any specific element. At low-tiers, they are common, but to have one fit Adam's needs, at tier 7, that is a lot harder to find. Slimes rarely grow to that level without attuning themselves to an element. Most organisms seek strength by instinct, this includes slimes. To find one at tier 7 with no element would be considered a rarity. 

That is why bloodline magi use low-tier bloodlines with high-tier ancestors, like lizards with dragon ancestry for example. With the help of specific resources and a lot of refinement, they can trigger atavism, to enhance the grade of their bloodline. It is very rare for one to start with a higher grade bloodline. Although it provides advantages, the rarity of bloodline holders at that grade deters them from even trying.

Luckily, Adam is a special student. He has access to such resources, the crux of the matter is how to obtain them without paying too great a price. He is greedy like that. He can obtain either the life metal or bloodline holder with no strings attached, but to gain both, he has to complete a mission assigned by the council. Either way, he is not in a rush. In a few months, he will receive the life metal and the bloodline holder is put on hold for him. No other students with his status require it, most of them have already chosen their paths. He is the newest one of the group.

As Adam keeps thinking of his future and the resources he may need, he finally reaches his destination. His study room. Entering, still in a robe while followed by the maids, he picks a book about the differences between elemental magi and psychics. Sitting on a single-seater, he waves over the dog/wolf beastman maid. Understanding what he wants, she walks over and kneels between his legs while he starts reading. She undoes his robe while he continues reading. Grasping his member in her gloved hand, she proceeds to give a long lick then swallows, all the while Adam stays focused on his book, only showing his acknowledgment with a hand stroking her hair and animal ears.

Yeah, he's enjoying himself.

Author's note: Eyoo, how y'all doing. I'm great and INSPIRED! so many things I wanna write, but my OCD forces me to describe things. While I enjoy doing it, it slows me down somewhat. This chapter is meant to take Adam away from the top dogs and bring him back down to earth, where he belongs as a weakling. Hahaha. You can get a glimpse at what kind of path he walking on. He won't follow the Ascendant's footsteps. While they may be all-powerful, they aren't all-knowing. All paths, if followed properly, may take one to the top. His nanites will play a big role in his future, his chip on the other hand.....yeeaah. His chip was always only a crutch for his brain, even calling it a chip is only for the sake of simplicity. The shape of it in my mind is more like bioorganic nanocircuits that run alongside his brain, to manage all the calculations that the brain does unconsciously. When it stores info, it does not store it in a separate databank, it does so in the subconscious part of his memories which it manages to not affect him with random weird ticks. So yea, as his existence elevates? bye bye, Zero, sad but that's how it is. I never was a fan of random personalities in Mc's heads, even a system to me should not have a personality. Shit get's weird in my head, I'd rather keep that to myself. And it feels weird for a mc to flirt with something in their head, then decide 'Oh, I don't need this all-powerful system under my control anymore, here's a body'. Yea, never made sense. 

Anyways, comment, reviews, like, etc. 

Have fun, Lazy, Out!