The days passed by in a blur, information and creation, those were the only two things that I knew of as the days passed by. Delta had deemed it prudent that my digestive system be reworked immediately, not even allowing me to design it instead opting to copy her own unto me.

It worked but it left me bitter that I could not dictate my own upgrades, however I knew the necessity of Delta's decision. If she had not done that then I would have starved to death in the coming weeks.

With the addition of the new digestive tract though, I was able to extract 100 percent of the nutrients in the nutrient paste whereas with my human one I would only have been able to extract maybe 5 percent if I was lucky.

Not that the paste was designed poorly, just that the human digestive tract was not able to digest it even when Delta had specifically designed it so that I would get the most nutrients.

But now that I had the enhanced tract the nutrient past lasted me a whole two weeks before I needed to eat it again, however that only amounted to a year and a third of food which wasn't enough if this was to be a two year journey.

Delta was able to stave off her hunger for decades with the help of aether but I didn't have that luxury, my own not being potent enough to be able to do that.

The digestive tract wasn't the only upgrade though, my implant and other arm had been majorly upgraded.

historical

First came the arm which was pretty much an exact copy of my other except that it had been upgraded slightly by the knowledge that Delta had beaten into my head. Of course the other arm wasn't spared that treatment either so in the end they were both the same.

The real upgrade came in the form of the implant, together I with the help of Delta was able to majorly upgrade both the processing power and memory of the chip. Though that came at the cost of it inducing a powerful headache as I got used to the increase in both memory and speed of the brain.

There was also the fact that the upgrade allowed Delta to directly upload data to my brain, which majorly sped up my own training.

By the end of the month I was able to upgrade myself fully into the realm of tier 5's.

..

It had been a productive month, with the fear that Rhea might actually die if I were to not upgrade her to a manner in which she wouldn't need air nor food and water to survive or at least find a solution to the resource problem.

Even if I knew that I could most likely find a way within the time it was still a great motivator, to be able to feel that fear, it brought me to new heights. New ideas were brought to mind one after the other but I implemented none of them, only noting them down in the recesses of my mind, my whole being more focused on educating and allowing my apprentice to upgrade herself than selfish ideas.

Though I did have to intervene and give her the template for my digestive track, however that did not mean I coddled her. No, it just meant that I pushed her harder, not even helping with the adaptation and creation of it.

It took a while, a whole week gone before she had finally succeeded.

When I had finally seen the final product that she had proudly presented to me I was happier than I had ever been, maybe it was the realm or maybe it was my apprentice but these days I was showing more emotion, more interest in the world other than the protection of Aoif and the innovation of technology.

..

Days and nights passed by as we grew closer and closer to the planet that I had set course to.

The nascent intelligence that I had created had not developed as I had intended, however that was a good thing, whether it was a failure or not, it was still good data.

Although it had not developed into a full consciousness that did not mean that I erased it, no, instead I gave it the job of keeping the jet. To fully pilot it to the best of its ability would be its new purpose.

It seemed happy, or at least as happy as a nascent intelligence could be given its current intelligence.

I shook those thoughts out of my head, focusing on my apprentice that sat under me. This would be the last upgrade that she made to herself and I would be the one to do the surgery. Even if I wanted to have Rhea do it, I could not, for this to work her brain needed to be fully shut off. Rhea would need to be effectively brain dead for the duration of the surgery.

It unnerved me a bit at how close Rhea would be to dying here but all the necessary precautions had been made, no matter how it went whether it was a success or failure, she would survive.

I would make sure of it.

..

Slowly my hands started to move, her hair being cut off as I shaved it down to allow me access to her brain.

Once that had been done I cut a line going from her forehead to the back of her head, opening it up with swift movements. Next to me were the implants that she had spent this last year designing.

I had personally looked over them and given them the thumbs up but even now I was nervous. If there was any failure in this it would take me exerting myself to the fullest to even have a chance to save her.

I took a deep breath, preparing myself.

And with that I began the hard part of the surgery, my hands stable and the new implant in my hand.