Woodsprites covered the entirety of Liam's body as he breathed slowly, but it wasn't only that, pink tendrils growing from the roots protectively ran against his skin, in more concentration around his implant, his head, and back.
His eyes slowly opened, pupils dilated, vision blurry but rapidly becoming clearer. His mind focuses back to reality, going back on what just happened in this strange dream, rapidly realizing it wasn't a simple dream at all. The sudden awareness of something watching, hearing and so much more is as present as ever.
'I just spoke to the blue hippies' tree goddess…', Liam was still processing what happened, the dissonance between how he felt in the 'dream' and presently, he remembered feeling cold and calculating, mechanical even.
No pointless illogical emotions and their constant presence that override his decision, the emotions were still there just perceived differently. It felt so wrong yet so right at the same time and it informed him of his true nature to a degree.
And Eywa or a part of her but also her as she referred to herself, or more accurately the spirit-soul-mind of the Tree of Divergence a being so alien to him yet so clear to understand, a fact that seemed even unusual to her. She wasn't a goddess, nor a divine being was what he understood. Neither all-knowing nor all-powerful yet nigh omnipresent here.
Still… She is the most powerful purely biological being or beings on this moon and wise beyond measure and human comprehension, she was not an enemy nor an ally. This could change and will but in what way he couldn't truly predict at the moment.
But she knew how unusual he was, she knew more than anyone else outside of himself and he was far from knowing or understanding everything either. After all, she must have sensed him appearing out of nowhere on this beach, seen him use his inventory, and knew of his links with his tames.
It was worrying to know she knew but what could he realistically do? He already presumed as such that the All-Mother knew, it was just confirmed now, the good thing was that his mind was protected to a point he was only in danger if he truly earned the rage and hate of Eywa and she purposefully worked to end his life.
All things considered, it seemed difficult to earn that from the tree goddess unless you purposefully go look for it.
Liam sighed, his eyes trailing down his body, they widened as he finally noticed he was covered in woodsprites, and as if on cue they all floated away.
Then he felt a prickling, almost painful sensation similar to ants crawling and stinging as the thin tendrils covering most of his skin above his nervous system disconnected and disappeared into the ground, tiny droplets of blood trickled from the prickling wound before they closed a few second later.
'This was fucking weird…', was the first thing that came to his mind, all of those tendrils that were all over his exposed body, mostly his back, chest, arms, and neck, and luckily only that.
Moving each of his fingers he smiled, testing further with arms and legs his smile grew, and he was back at full motor control. And his eyesight was as good as new.
However as soon as he tried to stand up a tang of pain shot into his right lung and the area he was stabbed, and he now finally paid attention to it as well.
The yellowish bandage around the wound was caked in dried blood, taking it off the area of the wound, of course, the bandage sticking to it more than necessary.
"Not that bad but definitely could have done a better job.", he mumbled after observing the wound.
He took a clean tissue out of his inventory and proceeded to clean the roughly shuttered wound, it wasn't very big and should be fully healed in two to three days leaving behind a barely noticeable scar.
Rebandaging his chest he suddenly felt intense hunger, so he ate in the same spot. Picnicking under the Tree of Divergence was quite a pleasant experience, he finished it with a smoothy of this same pink aloe-vera-like plant that alleviates pain, a medicinal plant from the Anurai Na'vi knowledge was called paywll and it was pronounced paywall.
Putting his armor back on he stared at the slinger's proboscis covered in dry blood on the ground, a scowl finding its way on his feature as the last few words of the fragment of Eywa came back to him full force. The venom that put him to an almost delirious sleep...
'Fucking bitch!', he wasn't pleased with this very likely scenario, but he was calm and reasonable enough to understand. And he put himself in this situation first, she just profited from an opportunity he so happily gave.
She had a hand or whatever her equivalent is with the gargantuan pack of flashlight viperwolves and the slinger. It was to communicate with him, assert his character, and if he was an immediate threat, a logical and sound decision. It was the only way as otherwise never would he have slept here or let that connection ever happen.
That didn't mean he was happy, not that he truly was in the first place about all of this, if the deepest part of his being wasn't protected he was quite certain the goddess wouldn't have had a problem skimming through his mind or alter part of it.
Even if he didn't know much about the 'psychic' aspect of things he knew enough that it can install loyalty and obedience, because he could do that himself under precise circumstances!
He didn't doubt one bit she had this capability as well and plenty more with extrapolation from manga, novels, comics, and series. It would be strange otherwise that the hive mind didn't have mind-altering abilities.
Using human or Na'vi standards of morality on a being such as her was simply foolish beyond belief and quite possibly insane. And the reason why he didn't do this.
Being wary was of the utmost importance, but that didn't mean she was some evil mastermind, she was only trying to survive and flourish from his meager understanding.
Not that it excused anything either or that she potentially tried to mind control him. The lack of information and understanding of Eywa's thought process was a problem he couldn't remedy for foreseeable without more direct interaction. The objective of keeping the balance and not destroying the biosphere was evident but everything else... Not so much.
"Why is it always so complicated…", Liam whispered, if only everyone was friends with everyone or reasonable but that wasn't how reality worked and so it wasn't simple. He put on his armor back, armor that will need an upgrade or a totally new one.
Looking around he observed the tree, he could still feel this presence, it was weird particularly how he felt 'looked' back at that.
He compared the scar on the divided trunk with the one he saw on the tree woman in the dream, ironic considering the frequency of thunderstorms here. And it signified the tree was from the surface and somehow ended up down there.
She wasn't immortal or impervious to harm or at the very least this part of her, a fact to keep in mind if ever need be. Or she could change her appearance as she pleased. Anyway, it was in the worst-case scenario and something he didn't want to do. He stored the proboscis focusing on something else.
Approaching closer he appreciated the sheer beauty of the tree, the present he felt before stronger than ever. He looked down at the pure black odorless oil where the roots dipped in, greedily feeding upon it, materializing a small glass flask in the palm of his left gauntlet he took a small sample.
'Huh… Curious. It's like the oil from before but extremely dense, compressed to an absurd degree even… oh so that's why it stays this way. It's the molecules of pandorium inside.', Liam thought his excitement back, it was easily fifty times denser than the heavy crude oil he already has, which itself was already a few times denser than water.
A woodsprite, the seed pod bigger than the other, landed on his left hand as the flask vanished in his inventory, the human observed it but his eyes widened as it stopped moving, flopping dead on his wide-open palm.
Instantly his heart rate increased, he thought he messed up in some way and killed it but right after it moved again before flopping again, it repeated this one more time before he understood why it, or more accurately she was doing that.
"Who do you think I am? A bird or your delivery boy?", he asked loudly while staring at the tree, the feeling of the stare receding with his own, but he still took the woodsprite that became inert not before putting it in a bottle, then the bottle into a box before putting everything in his inventory.
The next few hours consisted of him going all the way back to his base, the climb back up took most of the time as he did regular pauses to not worsen his healing injury, he was also very alert, ready to shoot at anything.
He also did collect more resources but only on the red thread way, there was no need to take more risk for now.
And so he was now in the middle of opening the trapdoor leading to the inside of his base.
The first thing he was met with was Gladius, as soon as he took off his helmet the great austrapede jumped at him in a way similar to a dog that didn't see its owner after a long day of work but ten times more excited, soon followed by the four tetrapterons joyfully cawing.
"Owww… Calm down. I'm fine, it's just a scratch.", he said as he took off everything until he was only in a pair of shorts to check over the wound again. The suns were shining over his base and work needed to be done but first a cold shower.
Day 125.
Since the first dive in the cave after Liam had healed back into full health and as such has gone back two more times into the cave each time finding new things.
In the second dive, he discovered an entire room full of quartz crystal that was covered in moss not far from the entrance. Quartz being themselves extremely useful in its raw and refined form, to say he was pleased with this discovery would be an understatement.
He found this crystal cave because he fell inside by accident, the tapping trick with a stick wasn't enough, he thought there wasn't empty air below him and he walked over, gravity doing the rest. Good thing that falling into the equivalent of a two-story building was barely an inconvenience, outside of a dislocated shoulder that was immediately put back in place.
The third dive was more eventful as he met another pack of leucomelas viperwolves, he didn't fall for the same trick and they were promptly disposed of. The first time he didn't get their bodies the same for the slinger, the plantlife and wildlife had consumed it all.
Anyway, these subspecies of viperwolves have a very interesting pair of organs next to their hearts, biological batteries with a power source consisting of nickel and hydrogen.
Said biological batteries were connected by specialized insulated tissue to the organs responsible for the flash of light.
In and of themselves they were not exactly useful as organs as a rule of thumb did not function very well outside of the organism they should be in.
But here parts of it were, these parts were small and X-shaped in appearance with pandorium/unobtanium within, it was inert and served as a mechanical and magnetic filter that let only hydrogen through to recharge the organ.
A marvel of natural biological engineering, if it wasn't Eywa's creation, at least in design as it was still extremely slow to recharge the batteries even if there is more than a thousand times more hydrogen in Pandora's atmosphere than the one of Earth.
But still, it opened many new possibilities as otherwise making effective and reusable batteries was going to take a lot more effort and resources he didn't have such as lithium.
Other than that he got more resources he already knew were in the caves and he was currently using them as he worked above his workbench. With a makeshift, if very precise soldering iron in hand, he worked on what looked like a transistor because it was the case.
Eyes focused Liam worked, it was the hundredth of the day, and the fabricator was soon to be done, now he had fuel for the miniaturized electric generator, but still, the hardest part was finishing the circuits.
An impossible if inhuman task requiring degrees of precision only machines gave but he wasn't normal was he?
The fabricator was akin to a 3D printer in many aspects as such it needed an integrated computer to be operational and operated. It was very similar to the stereolithography plants within the Manufacturing Complex of Hell's Gate in function.
The computer didn't need to be very powerful for the moment but it also mustn't be the size of an entire room or burn when on or consume too much energy, or be too affected by moisture, or by heat, and a dozen more of or with themselves more or. A lot of conditions had to be met.
Computers are delicate and complicated to build. Particularly from scratch. He will do it even if he will have brute force his way through or cheat.
And so five days later down in a small underground room completely isolated from any environmental hazard. Soft red light from bioluminescent flowers bathed the room with their hues.
Liam was below an excessively blocky and massive machine of metal, bare back against the slatted ground he was using his implant for more light, hand and most of his body covered in grease he switched a thin cable for another. Smiling at that he pushed himself away and back up.
"Test 19, short circuit at B651K has been solved due to dust particle and too high voltage… I hope you work this time.", he mumbled to himself as he pressed a button, a valve opened giving way to a metal cylinder. Implant against the opening he poured refined heavy oil directly from his inventory until the cylinder was filled by a third.
His implant glowed brighter as he brought it up close to a short of the keypad, instantly he felt a connection to it thanks to the sensor specifically made for that purpose. It was hard to describe but it was similar to a smartphone but more direct and visceral but also void of anything that living beings possessed. It's a tool after all.
Multiple specialized compartments opened with a psst, placing materials such as powdered gold in one until all had what he needed was filled he closed them back with a mental command.
Mentally choosing what he wanted to do, his implant and brain compensated for the 'primitive' computer of the fabricator keeping a constant flow of information and directive in a way a human shouldn't be capable of. And he was perfectly aware of that, but he wasn't at one or two newly discovered weird aspects of his being now was he?
He couldn't send much data, for now, or it would overheat or randomly crash the fabricator both leading to internal damage in the processor being annoyingly difficult to find and even more to fix, if possible at all depending on the extent of the damages. It was very impractical but baby steps were still steps toward success.
The machine soon wired life, green lights at its base changed the red hue, then a loud sound of an engine came with ventilators both drowning the room in their noise.
He waited for the next half an hour keeping his implant stable, excitement growing as nothing seemed to go wrong. A beep and click were heard as a metallic leed opened, almost water-boiling temperature air wafted over his face but he didn't care as his eyes locked onto what was within, a miniaturized golden frying pan.
"IT WORKED, FINALLY! HAHAHAHAHAHA! YEESSS!", he laughed in pure bliss at that, it worked, the fact the machine shut down right after didn't take him out of his high, and neither did Gladius peeking its head in curiosity before imitating his laugh.
*
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Woodsprites covered the entirety of Liam's body as he breathed slowly, but it wasn't only that, pink tendrils growing from the roots protectively ran against his skin, in more concentration around his implant, his head, and back.
His eyes slowly opened, pupils dilated, vision blurry but rapidly becoming clearer. His mind focuses back to reality, going back on what just happened in this strange dream, rapidly realizing it wasn't a simple dream at all. The sudden awareness of something watching, hearing and so much more is as present as ever.
'I just spoke to the blue hippies' tree goddess…', Liam was still processing what happened, the dissonance between how he felt in the 'dream' and presently, he remembered feeling cold and calculating, mechanical even.
No pointless illogical emotions and their constant presence that override his decision, the emotions were still there just perceived differently. It felt so wrong yet so right at the same time and it informed him of his true nature to a degree.
And Eywa or a part of her but also her as she referred to herself, or more accurately the spirit-soul-mind of the Tree of Divergence a being so alien to him yet so clear to understand, a fact that seemed even unusual to her. She wasn't a goddess, nor a divine being was what he understood. Neither all-knowing nor all-powerful yet nigh omnipresent here.
Still… She is the most powerful purely biological being or beings on this moon and wise beyond measure and human comprehension, she was not an enemy nor an ally. This could change and will but in what way he couldn't truly predict at the moment.
But she knew how unusual he was, she knew more than anyone else outside of himself and he was far from knowing or understanding everything either. After all, she must have sensed him appearing out of nowhere on this beach, seen him use his inventory, and knew of his links with his tames.
It was worrying to know she knew but what could he realistically do? He already presumed as such that the All-Mother knew, it was just confirmed now, the good thing was that his mind was protected to a point he was only in danger if he truly earned the rage and hate of Eywa and she purposefully worked to end his life.
All things considered, it seemed difficult to earn that from the tree goddess unless you purposefully go look for it.
Liam sighed, his eyes trailing down his body, they widened as he finally noticed he was covered in woodsprites, and as if on cue they all floated away.
Then he felt a prickling, almost painful sensation similar to ants crawling and stinging as the thin tendrils covering most of his skin above his nervous system disconnected and disappeared into the ground, tiny droplets of blood trickled from the prickling wound before they closed a few second later.
'This was fucking weird…', was the first thing that came to his mind, all of those tendrils that were all over his exposed body, mostly his back, chest, arms, and neck, and luckily only that.
Moving each of his fingers he smiled, testing further with arms and legs his smile grew, and he was back at full motor control. And his eyesight was as good as new.
However as soon as he tried to stand up a tang of pain shot into his right lung and the area he was stabbed, and he now finally paid attention to it as well.
The yellowish bandage around the wound was caked in dried blood, taking it off the area of the wound, of course, the bandage sticking to it more than necessary.
"Not that bad but definitely could have done a better job.", he mumbled after observing the wound.
He took a clean tissue out of his inventory and proceeded to clean the roughly shuttered wound, it wasn't very big and should be fully healed in two to three days leaving behind a barely noticeable scar.
Rebandaging his chest he suddenly felt intense hunger, so he ate in the same spot. Picnicking under the Tree of Divergence was quite a pleasant experience, he finished it with a smoothy of this same pink aloe-vera-like plant that alleviates pain, a medicinal plant from the Anurai Na'vi knowledge was called paywll and it was pronounced paywall.
Putting his armor back on he stared at the slinger's proboscis covered in dry blood on the ground, a scowl finding its way on his feature as the last few words of the fragment of Eywa came back to him full force. The venom that put him to an almost delirious sleep...
'Fucking bitch!', he wasn't pleased with this very likely scenario, but he was calm and reasonable enough to understand. And he put himself in this situation first, she just profited from an opportunity he so happily gave.
She had a hand or whatever her equivalent is with the gargantuan pack of flashlight viperwolves and the slinger. It was to communicate with him, assert his character, and if he was an immediate threat, a logical and sound decision. It was the only way as otherwise never would he have slept here or let that connection ever happen.
That didn't mean he was happy, not that he truly was in the first place about all of this, if the deepest part of his being wasn't protected he was quite certain the goddess wouldn't have had a problem skimming through his mind or alter part of it.
Even if he didn't know much about the 'psychic' aspect of things he knew enough that it can install loyalty and obedience, because he could do that himself under precise circumstances!
He didn't doubt one bit she had this capability as well and plenty more with extrapolation from manga, novels, comics, and series. It would be strange otherwise that the hive mind didn't have mind-altering abilities.
Using human or Na'vi standards of morality on a being such as her was simply foolish beyond belief and quite possibly insane. And the reason why he didn't do this.
Being wary was of the utmost importance, but that didn't mean she was some evil mastermind, she was only trying to survive and flourish from his meager understanding.
Not that it excused anything either or that she potentially tried to mind control him. The lack of information and understanding of Eywa's thought process was a problem he couldn't remedy for foreseeable without more direct interaction. The objective of keeping the balance and not destroying the biosphere was evident but everything else... Not so much.
"Why is it always so complicated…", Liam whispered, if only everyone was friends with everyone or reasonable but that wasn't how reality worked and so it wasn't simple. He put on his armor back, armor that will need an upgrade or a totally new one.
Looking around he observed the tree, he could still feel this presence, it was weird particularly how he felt 'looked' back at that.
He compared the scar on the divided trunk with the one he saw on the tree woman in the dream, ironic considering the frequency of thunderstorms here. And it signified the tree was from the surface and somehow ended up down there.
She wasn't immortal or impervious to harm or at the very least this part of her, a fact to keep in mind if ever need be. Or she could change her appearance as she pleased. Anyway, it was in the worst-case scenario and something he didn't want to do. He stored the proboscis focusing on something else.
Approaching closer he appreciated the sheer beauty of the tree, the present he felt before stronger than ever. He looked down at the pure black odorless oil where the roots dipped in, greedily feeding upon it, materializing a small glass flask in the palm of his left gauntlet he took a small sample.
'Huh… Curious. It's like the oil from before but extremely dense, compressed to an absurd degree even… oh so that's why it stays this way. It's the molecules of pandorium inside.', Liam thought his excitement back, it was easily fifty times denser than the heavy crude oil he already has, which itself was already a few times denser than water.
A woodsprite, the seed pod bigger than the other, landed on his left hand as the flask vanished in his inventory, the human observed it but his eyes widened as it stopped moving, flopping dead on his wide-open palm.
Instantly his heart rate increased, he thought he messed up in some way and killed it but right after it moved again before flopping again, it repeated this one more time before he understood why it, or more accurately she was doing that.
"Who do you think I am? A bird or your delivery boy?", he asked loudly while staring at the tree, the feeling of the stare receding with his own, but he still took the woodsprite that became inert not before putting it in a bottle, then the bottle into a box before putting everything in his inventory.
The next few hours consisted of him going all the way back to his base, the climb back up took most of the time as he did regular pauses to not worsen his healing injury, he was also very alert, ready to shoot at anything.
He also did collect more resources but only on the red thread way, there was no need to take more risk for now.
And so he was now in the middle of opening the trapdoor leading to the inside of his base.
The first thing he was met with was Gladius, as soon as he took off his helmet the great austrapede jumped at him in a way similar to a dog that didn't see its owner after a long day of work but ten times more excited, soon followed by the four tetrapterons joyfully cawing.
"Owww… Calm down. I'm fine, it's just a scratch.", he said as he took off everything until he was only in a pair of shorts to check over the wound again. The suns were shining over his base and work needed to be done but first a cold shower.
Day 125.
Since the first dive in the cave after Liam had healed back into full health and as such has gone back two more times into the cave each time finding new things.
In the second dive, he discovered an entire room full of quartz crystal that was covered in moss not far from the entrance. Quartz being themselves extremely useful in its raw and refined form, to say he was pleased with this discovery would be an understatement.
He found this crystal cave because he fell inside by accident, the tapping trick with a stick wasn't enough, he thought there wasn't empty air below him and he walked over, gravity doing the rest. Good thing that falling into the equivalent of a two-story building was barely an inconvenience, outside of a dislocated shoulder that was immediately put back in place.
The third dive was more eventful as he met another pack of leucomelas viperwolves, he didn't fall for the same trick and they were promptly disposed of. The first time he didn't get their bodies the same for the slinger, the plantlife and wildlife had consumed it all.
Anyway, these subspecies of viperwolves have a very interesting pair of organs next to their hearts, biological batteries with a power source consisting of nickel and hydrogen.
Said biological batteries were connected by specialized insulated tissue to the organs responsible for the flash of light.
In and of themselves they were not exactly useful as organs as a rule of thumb did not function very well outside of the organism they should be in.
But here parts of it were, these parts were small and X-shaped in appearance with pandorium/unobtanium within, it was inert and served as a mechanical and magnetic filter that let only hydrogen through to recharge the organ.
A marvel of natural biological engineering, if it wasn't Eywa's creation, at least in design as it was still extremely slow to recharge the batteries even if there is more than a thousand times more hydrogen in Pandora's atmosphere than the one of Earth.
But still, it opened many new possibilities as otherwise making effective and reusable batteries was going to take a lot more effort and resources he didn't have such as lithium.
Other than that he got more resources he already knew were in the caves and he was currently using them as he worked above his workbench. With a makeshift, if very precise soldering iron in hand, he worked on what looked like a transistor because it was the case.
Eyes focused Liam worked, it was the hundredth of the day, and the fabricator was soon to be done, now he had fuel for the miniaturized electric generator, but still, the hardest part was finishing the circuits.
An impossible if inhuman task requiring degrees of precision only machines gave but he wasn't normal was he?
The fabricator was akin to a 3D printer in many aspects as such it needed an integrated computer to be operational and operated. It was very similar to the stereolithography plants within the Manufacturing Complex of Hell's Gate in function.
The computer didn't need to be very powerful for the moment but it also mustn't be the size of an entire room or burn when on or consume too much energy, or be too affected by moisture, or by heat, and a dozen more of or with themselves more or. A lot of conditions had to be met.
Computers are delicate and complicated to build. Particularly from scratch. He will do it even if he will have brute force his way through or cheat.
And so five days later down in a small underground room completely isolated from any environmental hazard. Soft red light from bioluminescent flowers bathed the room with their hues.
Liam was below an excessively blocky and massive machine of metal, bare back against the slatted ground he was using his implant for more light, hand and most of his body covered in grease he switched a thin cable for another. Smiling at that he pushed himself away and back up.
"Test 19, short circuit at B651K has been solved due to dust particle and too high voltage… I hope you work this time.", he mumbled to himself as he pressed a button, a valve opened giving way to a metal cylinder. Implant against the opening he poured refined heavy oil directly from his inventory until the cylinder was filled by a third.
His implant glowed brighter as he brought it up close to a short of the keypad, instantly he felt a connection to it thanks to the sensor specifically made for that purpose. It was hard to describe but it was similar to a smartphone but more direct and visceral but also void of anything that living beings possessed. It's a tool after all.
Multiple specialized compartments opened with a psst, placing materials such as powdered gold in one until all had what he needed was filled he closed them back with a mental command.
Mentally choosing what he wanted to do, his implant and brain compensated for the 'primitive' computer of the fabricator keeping a constant flow of information and directive in a way a human shouldn't be capable of. And he was perfectly aware of that, but he wasn't at one or two newly discovered weird aspects of his being now was he?
He couldn't send much data, for now, or it would overheat or randomly crash the fabricator both leading to internal damage in the processor being annoyingly difficult to find and even more to fix, if possible at all depending on the extent of the damages. It was very impractical but baby steps were still steps toward success.
The machine soon wired life, green lights at its base changed the red hue, then a loud sound of an engine came with ventilators both drowning the room in their noise.
He waited for the next half an hour keeping his implant stable, excitement growing as nothing seemed to go wrong. A beep and click were heard as a metallic leed opened, almost water-boiling temperature air wafted over his face but he didn't care as his eyes locked onto what was within, a miniaturized golden frying pan.
"IT WORKED, FINALLY! HAHAHAHAHAHA! YEESSS!", he laughed in pure bliss at that, it worked, the fact the machine shut down right after didn't take him out of his high, and neither did Gladius peeking its head in curiosity before imitating his laugh.
*
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