Reincarnated as an Energy with a System

Chapter 2010: Examination

The empty darkness vanished, replaced by the surface of another planet.

Ning immediately felt the radiation.

A tremendous amount of radioactive material existed beneath the ground, concentrated into vast natural deposits. There was barely any atmosphere above them to block what escaped from the surface, leaving the region exposed to levels that would have been lethal to ordinary humans.

Ning extended his senses underground and quickly identified the source.

"Plutonium?"

"There are extensive deposits throughout this region," Crownus said. "The planet formed recently, so very little of it has managed to decay at all."

Ning nodded approvingly.

"This will work."

Ning knew intuitively that it was going to take many, many years for Crownus to completely study the System within him, so during that period, he wanted his daily Nuclear Energy absorption to progress. Hopefully, by the time he woke up, he would have gained the 1 octillion Nuclear Energy he needed to be done with 2 of the 3 requirements necessary to fully unlock all Energies.

The only one remaining after that would be to find a way to tear through the universe and make a path to another one, but that would still take him some time.

Crownus looked around at the barren landscape before turning back toward him. "I still do not understand why you required this location."

"You don’t need to. Let’s have you start examining the System."

Ning created a simple bed on top of which he lay down. He looked toward the sky and closed his eyes.

"Go ahead."

Crownus accepted that and focused on him.

At first, Ning felt almost nothing.

But then Crownus’s Energy reached him.

It moved carefully rather than forcefully, spreading through Ning’s structure and probing deeper as Crownus tried to understand what he had failed to perceive from a distance.

Ning remained still and allowed it.

The sensation was unusual.

Crownus’s Energy passed beyond the surface and reached into what he believed to be Ning’s Soul, searching through layers of structure that would have been completely inaccessible to nearly anyone else.

Ning did not bother correcting that misunderstanding since Crownus would figure out soon enough that there was no Soul within him, only Energy. He would likely understand then that the only path to a proper, powerful System was by manipulating the Soul itself.

Ning could feel Crownus moving slowly, examining one portion at a time rather than trying to understand everything at once. Even for a being like Crownus, there was simply too much information contained within Ning for the process to be quick.

Ning looked across the irradiated landscape and settled in for what was coming.

This was going to take a long time.

Ning eventually stopped paying close attention to what Crownus was doing.

At first, that had been difficult.

Having another being’s Energy constantly moving through the deepest parts of him was not exactly easy to ignore, especially when Crownus kept stopping at different points to examine something in more detail. Sometimes the pressure shifted slightly, while at other times Ning could feel whole sections of his structure being studied from several different directions at once.

After a while, however, he found a way to let his mind drift.

He had spent tens of thousands of years traveling through empty space before this. Long journeys with almost nothing changing around him had taught him how to stop thinking about the passage of time and simply exist until there was something worth paying attention to again.

So Ning allowed himself to do the same here.

The radiation from the planet continued washing over him while Crownus studied the System, and the strange sensation of being examined slowly became part of the background.

Hours became days, though Ning stopped counting very quickly.

Days became years.

Years stretched into spans of time that Ning no longer bothered measuring at all.

He could not have said how quickly time was passing anymore. There was nothing nearby that gave him a useful reference, and he had no reason to check. Crownus continued working without interruption, probing deeper into Ning and studying one piece after another.

Eventually, the tinkering became normal.

Ning barely noticed it anymore.

The presence of Crownus’s Energy had been there for so long that its absence was what finally caught his attention.

Ning’s awareness sharpened as he realized something had just changed. He opened his eyes and immediately realized that Crownus had stopped examining him.

"Done?" Ning asked.

Then he actually looked at Crownus, slightly taken aback by his current appearance.

The human form was gone.

In its place floated something much stranger. Crownus now possessed a body made almost entirely of dark smoke, constantly shifting and folding in on itself without ever dispersing. Suspended above that smoky mass was the head of a goat, though even that looked wrong in several ways.

The horns curved downward before rising again, giving the impression that they had been turned upside down. There was something distinctly unpleasant about the entire shape, as though it had been designed specifically to appear threatening.

Ning stared at him for a few seconds.

"When did you decide to look like that?"

Crownus’s voice came from the floating head without any visible movement.

"I did not."

Ning raised an eyebrow. "You definitely didn’t look like this when we started."

"My appearance changed because the people changed."

Ning looked over the smoky body again. "The people?"

"The way they perceive me has shifted over time."

That made Ning understand.

Crownus’s form was influenced by the collective perception of the beings within his galaxy. If their idea of him changed, then what he appeared to be could change with it.

Ning glanced at the goat’s head again.

"So everyone suddenly decided you should look terrifying?"

"Fear has become widespread throughout the galaxy."

Ning looked around the barren planet. Nothing about the immediate surroundings appeared different enough to explain that kind of change, but considering how long Crownus had apparently spent studying him, a great deal could have happened elsewhere.

"What happened?"

"A war began," Crownus answered. "A war large enough to span most of the galaxy."