I looked over at the uneaten fruit and had a drone carry it back out to the stored crates of food.

  It occurred to me then that the 'seed' I'd filled Armela with technically counted as material that could be used for transforming her body. I sent an impulse through my link with it and instructed it to join the rest of the material in reconstructing her.

  I idly wondered if it were possible for me to get her pregnant. Physically, I didn't carry any DNA, so it stood to reason that there wouldn't be anything to fertilise her eggs with.

  Granted, while I could simply construct a DNA sequence and implant that directly into one of her eggs, she soon wouldn't have any of those to fertilise either. I figured if she ever wanted to experience having children, we could cross that bridge when we came to it.

  It wasn't beyond our means to go through the motions of impregnation and birth; it would just operate through different mechanisms. I looked down at the top of her head, her fuzzy ears twitching slightly as she dreamed her dreams.

  I truly was a lucky man. Robot? Android? Mandroid? Whatever I was, I was lucky.

  My drones continued to survey the area, scanning for movement and heat signatures.

  Not much prowled through the forest beyond rodents, foxes, and marsupials. There were a bear or two, some deer, and untold thousands of insects. But no humanoid creatures for miles in every direction. Another peaceful, isolated night.

  Until Seta chimed in.

  "Vita! Vita! Vita! Vita! Hey Vita! Vita, listen to this!"

  I almost physically recoiled from the excited jittering in her voice.

  "Seta, it's well past midnight; don't tell me you're still awake studying? I thought I'd cautioned you to take care of yourself."

  She tittered at me.

  "You didn't ask what I wanted you to listen to!"

  I sighed internally. I probably should have just made her drone listen-only. Giving her the ability to barge into my thoughts on a whim may have come back to bite me neatly in the ass if this ongoing experience was anything to go by.

  "Seta, what am I going to listen to?"

  "I figured out the first set of symbols! Numbers! Numerals! I'm working through the exercises your gift has prepared. Addition! Subtraction! Hey Vita, did you know that if you have three apples, and you give two apples to your parents, you only have one apple left?! Did you know?"

  I could feel the pride in her voice. The smug aura of unfiltered confidence. Was it too late to take the drone back?

  "I'm making progress on the other one, the 'Alphabet', but there are sooooooooo many symbols to learn. And apparently there are others as well? I feel like my brain is going to explode out of my ears!"

  It occurred to me that Seta likely would have been shoved into many lockers going through school.

  "Hey. Hey. Hey, when are you coming back? Mother says the villagers don't believe you're real. Mother says they think you were just some adventurer who discovered ancient relics and gave them to the children."

  My eyebrow twitched as the stream of words flowed unceasingly from her.

  "Also, I have been careful with my studying; it's hard to find time to sneak away from my chores. And also I've been sleeping just fine, you worry way too much for a 'God-Chosen Reforged'. I haven't felt this good in sooooooo long! All I wanna do is spend alllllll day studying."

  Telling a child to shut up was wrong. I had to be an adult about this. I had to maintain composure.

  "Hey hey hey, Vita, why can't you bring me with you? If you took me from here, then I could study all the time, right? You'd let me do that, right?"

  Dear Mechanriel, please grant me the strength to weather these coming trials.

  "Seta, I'm happy that you've been enjoying the gift my God bestowed upon you. I would bring you with me, but you'd need to be older for that to happen."

  I tried to make my words as appeasing as possible. Telling a child you simply didn't want them around was poor form.

  It was fucking tempting, though.

  "There's a lot of tough work that needs to be done, and you'd need to be much taller to do it. So for now, just focus on doing your best to keep your health up, and rest plenty so that you don't stop growing early!"

  She gasped over our connection.

  "That can happen?! You mean if I don't get enough sleep, I won't be tall enough to come with you?! Why didn't you tell me that before?! I've been awake for two days!!! Vita! Tell me important things more quickly from now on! I'm going to sleep right now! Goodnight!"

  And then she was gone.

  She didn't even wait for me to say goodnight or anything. I marvelled at the abundant levels of energy children could produce. She'd been up for the past two days straight? Good thing I told her about the sleep thing; that might have been a disaster if left unchecked.

  What were her parents even doing? Perhaps it would ultimately be to my benefit if I had a more direct hand in shaping her future than just leaving her to her own study.

  Reviewing the activity on her drone, I could see every query the girl had made for information over the past two days.

  There was virtually no coordination in what information she sought, bouncing from page to page to page, sometimes looping back and forth between two, cross-referencing them in order to make heads or tails of them.

  I tinkered with the system, restructuring the navigation functions to behave in a more leading way. Much like a school curriculum, it would begin with early childhood concepts and then progress into more complicated material as she passed formatted quizzes and tests.

  While doing this, I added in a sub-function to help elicit motivation, not because I thought she would need it, but because it was an opportunity to show the true value of the drones I had provided. Anytime Seta passed an exam, or cleared a certain amount of content, she would be rewarded with something of her choosing.

  It would be a randomised selection of three things, of which she could select one. These things could be anything, ranging from varying quantities of precious metals, to food items, to toys, to additional reading material, and thousands of other such things appropriate for a girl of her age.

  Anytime she was presented with the reward options, I would produce the item and simply drop it through a rift on the underside of the drone.

  In this way, there were always concrete benefits to continuing to use the device. I separated out the various rewards into rarity tiers. Food and such would be basic items, precious metals would be rare, and schematics for inventions and technology would be legendary, for example.

  I weighted the resultant reward choices to progressively get less likely as they moved up the tier spectrum. I added a tooltip to the selection projection showcasing the various rarities and the percent chance of getting an item from each.

  This way, even if she didn't get an epic item right away, she could see that it was possible to get one.

  These weren't specifically for Seta's benefit. I knew the pursuit of knowledge was more than enough to keep her going; these additions were more to encourage other members of the village to potentially reconsider use of the drones.

  Eventually, the rewards Seta would get would work their way into the village, and questions would come up, but I had faith she would be capable of recognizing the importance of that, and navigating the political ramifications of it for me.

  Whether she wanted to or not, she was eventually going to be the de facto leader of Hilst unless she left. Which, based on the conversation we had, might be more likely than anything.

  With that in mind, I made a final modification to the system. I wove a second track into the curriculum, which focused on physical fitness, combat prowess with every weapon I could think of, and dietary information.

  It would be an optional set of daily tasks one could complete in order to get a second reward opportunity.

  The daily tasks themselves would shift wildly depending on the person in possession of the drone, as some people had wildly different dietary and exercise requirements.

  But the general guide would have a list of physical activities like stretches, cardio training, muscle training, and combat training with visual aids for whatever weapon the person selected to learn.

  The dietary portion would track their total caloric requirements to attain an optimal body form based on their physical regime if they'd elected to have the drone make one.

  It would present them with recommended meals and quantities. People could then further modify the list based on what ingredients they had available, and new recommendations would be made.

  I wanted the daily tasks to total out at two hours of activity in all, requiring the user to participate for the full two hours in order to qualify for the reward. They could not just do two hours of pushups in order to clear that time allotment though; they needed to complete each distinct step laid out for them on the list.

  The reward pool excluded the top rarity items, as having access to those things on a daily basis would completely blow out the scale in a matter of weeks. I couldn't have people running around with piles of gold bigger than themselves after a month if they kept getting lucky.

  Instead, I added both weekly and then monthly reward tiers. You needed to maintain a daily completion streak in order to qualify for it. 14 hours a week, 56 hours a month—minimum.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Working off the Gregorian calendar would be somewhat arbitrary on this planet, but it was what I knew, and would technically be close enough to the season cycle of this planet as to not matter. If the user missed a single hour in their streak, they would need to start over from the beginning.

  The weekly and monthly reward tiers would exclude the lower rarity rewards, so they needed to be harder to obtain by necessity.

  The rarity tiers were broken down as follows:

  Pathetic

  Sad

  Bad

  Poor

  Basic

  Common

  Uncommon

  Rare

  Super Rare

  Legendary

  Epic

  Mythic

  Singular

  Cosmic

  Godly

  Entropy

  I excluded the last four tiers from any of the reward options; they wouldn't even appear in the tooltip explaining the percent distribution as the requirements to get them would operate entirely differently.

  I would implement those options once construction on my God's limb had begun, and they would be tied to physical locations within the superstructure. One would not only need to physically locate the room, but they would also need to overcome whatever obstacle was placed there to restrict access to it.

  Those obstacles would be left to a procedural generation algorithm, which I would run over the blueprint for the Limb. The items on those tiers would range from pocket fusion reactors to antimatter rifles with infinite ammunition to immortality pills.

  I would fiddle with those ideas as more occurred to me in the future. The main point would be to have the percent distribution on the daily, weekly, and monthly rewards specifically not add up to 100%.

  People needed to see that there were other tiers accounting for a portion of the distribution that weren't visible to them.

  Having finished modifying the system of the drone, I looked back up at the sky through the central hole in the tent. It was slowly growing lighter as the sun crept back up towards the horizon. The various and complex changes I had made to the function of the drone took some time to run through and heavily test for errors.

  I left a message for Seta explaining the changes, and that if she completed the daily activities, she would without a doubt be able to join me as quickly as possible. I monitored the progress of Armela's transformation; it was about 30 percent complete.

  Cumming inside her had pushed the completion up a full 10 percent, which was a pleasant bonus to the whole experience. Given the rate of change, her transformation would complete in about seventeen hours.

  I would need to start on designing a fabrication machine to offload the creation and delivery of reward items as demand for them increased. I could probably handle the entire village of Hilst, but anything more than that and it would take more time than I was willing to spend simply producing items.

  The fabricator would need to be extremely dextrous, able to manipulate individual atoms of various elements provided to it. It would need to operate at high speed and with a level of precision and reliability not seen before.

  The only viable option I had was to make the assembly head of the machine out of my body.

  The incredibly small robots were capable of manipulating individual atoms with no issue. However, while the operation was second nature to me, offloading that computation onto something that wasn't my core would be a challenge.

  Instead of having it all built into a single unit, it could be beneficial to set up a controller bank in a separate location and simply route the instructions to the printheads remotely. That way, I could cool the controller banks without interfering with the item construction.

  Latency wouldn't be a problem as the terminals would be connected via rifts maintained through a constant supply of power from my core. Once I'd fully harnessed the power of the sun, the energy supply for those rifts could also be offloaded as well, though I wasn't worried about the draw on my core; frivolous energy expenditure was unnecessary.

  I began having my subconscious draft blueprints for the components. I would review them when they were finished.

  The first few birds began to rustle and chirp as the sun finally crested the horizon. Time to get up and begin preparing breakfast. Armela was still fast asleep, so I simply sunk into a rift and popped up out in the yard, rooting through the crates to gather up more food for that morning's breakfast.

  While I did that, I went over the three-dimensional image generated by my scans under the hill. The main vein of iron snaked wildly several kilometres in varying directions, the main bulk of which was slightly offset to the south of the hill.

  It had settled in a band stretching from 50 metres to 250 metres down. I estimated, based on the volume and concentration of the ore in the soil, that there were roughly seven hundred thousand tons of raw iron to be mined here.

  There were other pockets of different metals sparsely dotted around the land, but the majority of it were in quantities that wouldn't warrant their own excursions. They could be set aside until the wholesale mining of the planet began.

  As I finished preparing the food and started to cook, Seta broke into my thoughts and offered a brief prayer to my God before thanking me for the changes to the system. She would be putting them through their paces for sure.

  She also added, with a bright tone, that the rewards might help to sway opinion on the drones if she got her hands on a nice one.

  I wished her the best of luck, and she bid farewell.

  Armela awoke shortly after and emerged from the tent as I finished up with the food.

  She hadn't even bothered putting her dress on, the only thing covering her being the pouch slung across her hip. She sauntered over to me and casually slapped my ass as I handled the cast-iron skillet.

  I turned to regard her, and she glared back expectantly.

  I leaned over and kissed her.

  "Morning, Armela. Sleep alright?"

  The brash display of affection surprised me, but I smiled warmly at her all the same.

  She stretched, the movement seeming more feline than canine, before stepping over to a stump and sitting at the fire I was cooking over.

  She stared into it as she replied.

  "Can't say falling asleep in your arms is all that bad, though, waking up to an empty bedroll was a bit shit."

  She yawned and scratched at a spot along her ribs. The action caused her chest to do some magnificent things, and I couldn't help but stare a bit too intently.

  Naturally, she caught me gawking and smirked.

  "Are we going to ruin another bedroll, or are you going to fucking feed me? Need help deciding? Seems to me you've already got some sausage ready for me."

  She indicated my cock with a nod of her head and licked her lips.

  I hadn't bothered reassembling my clothes, and so it was on full display. The casual ease with which she'd spent her time nude around me had caused me to once again neglect to dress myself.

  I looked down at the pan in my hand, then the plate in my other, and then back to her.

  "Food first; how many clean bedrolls do we have left to ruin?"

  I dumped the contents of the pan onto the plate and brought it over to her as she laughed.

  "I don't know, but if we start going at it like rabbits, then we'll run out before the next group rolls in for sure."

  She inhaled deeply over the plate before sighing heavily in satisfaction.

  "It doesn't really matter since I'm sure you'll figure out a way to preserve my beds; I'm not too worried."

  She winked and began to scarf down the food.

  As she did, I topped up the contents of her pouch and regarded the condition of her body.

  She hadn't showered in weeks, and while that didn't seem to bother her in the least, her hair had begun to mat and tangle.

  She also stank of a combination of blood, dirt, sweat, and sex.

  It didn't bother me, and in a few hours it wouldn't really matter anymore, but I thought she would enjoy going through the motions of cleaning herself. So, while she ate, I cleared out a 5x5-meter patch of the compound.

  She watched on with interest as I used my limbs to excavate the patch to a depth of two metres.

  Once that was completed, I briefly opened a rift directly into the river running past Hilst and allowed the water to fill the pool.

  As it filled, Armela wandered up next to me to get a closer look.

  "The hell is this supposed to be?"

  I looked over at her and simply replied.

  "Bath."

  Her nose scrunched up, and she shook her head.

  "Ohhhhh, fuck no, that water is going to be colder than Yuthrie's heart, no way I'm getting in there, besides, it's only been a month since my last bath anyway, I don't need it."

  I snapped the portal closed once the small pond was full and poured prodigious amounts of energy into the water, warming it until it steamed lightly in the early morning. Then, I fixed her with a look.

  It took a second, but her face registered understanding, and she immediately spun away, trying to run as fast as she could, but it was fruitless.

  I scooped her up as easily as I would a fruit and chucked her into the water.

  "VIITTAAAAAAAAAA?!!!?"

  She sailed through the air, flailing arms and kicking legs, before slamming into the water with a mighty splash.

  She exploded from the surface and sputtered.

  "You.... You fucking ASS! I'm going to kick your—"

  The sight of my form cut her off as I also sailed through the air directly over her head.

  Already assuming the optimal cannonball position, I angled myself to impact directly in front of her.

  I hit the water so hard she was ejected backwards, thrown by the wall of water to the edge of the pool.

  When I surfaced, I looked over to where she ended up, floating face down in the water like she was unconscious.

  It was clearly a ruse to get me close, so I simply called over.

  "Armela, come here. I've something to show you!"

  There was no response.

  "Don't make me pick you up and toss you again, woman."

  There was a twitch, but she remained steadfast.

  "Alright, don't say I didn't warn you."

  My limb snaked out and coiled around her ankle.

  She exploded into motion, screaming.

  "NO NO NO NOT THE TENTACLE-THING!! I'M SORRY OK, I'LL COME OVER STOP STOP STOP!!"

  She flailed as I yanked her across the pool to me. My tentacle deposited her into my arms, and she tried to look up at me through the wet mass of her hair.

  "I fucking hate you."

  I laughed.

  "You know, we'll have to do something about that mouth of yours; you swear worse than sailors."

  She snickered, baring her jagged carnivore teeth at me.

  "Oh? What's this? You've got a problem with my mouth, Vita? Gonna do something about that? You. Bitch."

  She bit her lip. I wasn't too sure what it was about that specific gesture, but watching it happen did something visceral to my baser thoughts. The urge to fuck her rose sharply before I stemmed the tide of emotions.

  "Oh, I'll do something alright..."

  I worked a finger around her lips, hooking her jaw and pulling her mouth open gently. She was confused but complied easily enough.

  That's when I stuffed the bar of soap between her teeth. Naturally, she didn't know what to do at first, so she just sat there uncomprehendingly, then the chemical taste hit her tongue and she began attempting to spit it out.

  I probably laughed a little too much because she took the soap and pitched it directly into my face.

  She'd used soap before, so I didn't need to explain the concept to her. We took turns washing one another, and I idly played with her hair as she scrubbed me. Wondering if she should cut it, I bunched it up behind her head to see what it would look like short-cropped.

  Her wolf's ears were certainly more pronounced with the hair brought back, showing the lack of human ears on the sides of her head. As she ran her hands over my body, I thought about how many opportunities there would be for moments like these in my future.

  Once my resource extraction ramped up, things would move quickly. The population of this planet would either be converted to supporters or stamped out as enemies. As my expansion grew, my attention would be divided and redirected into many different endeavours.

  I may realistically go thousands of years never knowing the touch of another soul.

  My hand cupped Armela's cheek, and she looked up into my eyes. It was possible I would need to send her into some far-flung galaxy to conquer it. It was possible that I might never see her again over the course of our journey. Staring down into her beautiful chocolate brown eyes, I was overcome with the desire to keep her.

  Her brows creased in concern; my thousand-yard stare unsettled her. She brought a hand up and returned my gesture, placing a hand against my cheek as well. I nuzzled into it, kissing her wrist absently.

  "Vita, what's wrong? What are you thinking about?"

  I continued to kiss her hand for a moment longer, holding it to my lips while the expanse of time yawned away from me over some far-off horizon I could not see beyond.

  I shook my head and returned her hand to her.

  "Just counting my blessings. Sometimes I'm reminded that I'm still just a dumbass."

  My response had perplexed her, but she rolled with it in an attempt to lighten the mood.

  "The fuck do you mean sometimes? You are a dumbass, you dumbass."

  She wrapped an arm around my neck and pulled me into a deep, passionate kiss. Breaking it off, she softly followed up with,

  "But... you're an excellent dumbass... so far."

  We made love on the ground next to the pool multiple times before finally cleaning up in earnest and eating lunch. We forwent the combat training from the day prior in favour of spending the rest of the day in each other's embrace. She couldn't keep her hands off me, and I couldn't resist her.

  The sun was setting by the time she rolled off my hips for the last time. She panted heavily, clearly completely spent from the hours of physical stress. Her poor womanhood was swollen and red, but the satisfied smile plastered across her face eliminated my concern.

  "I'm going... to have... soooo fucking many... pups. I'm probably... pregnant thrice over by this point..."

  She rubbed at her muscled stomach, trying to shift her weight off of the wet spot beneath her on the bedroll.

  I piped up, clarifying the situation for her.

  "Actually, I've been preventing that... we hadn't spoken about it, so I figured it was best to just not let that happen."

  She swivelled her head to me, her eyes wide.

  "You can do that?! Dersio's taint, Vita... your body defies all logic."

  I chuckled.

  "I didn't want to let anything happen that you didn't want, so I figured it would be better this way. Though based on how adamantly you begged me for my seed, I could only assume you were fine with the idea of carrying my children."

  She blushed and once again rubbed at her stomach, smiling sheepishly.

  "I can't say I would mind that at all... I mean, I hadn't really been thinking about it much, but I suppose I was fully prepared for it to happen... But... maybe right now isn't the right time—for us, I mean."

  I reached over and put my hand over hers, pressing it gently into her stomach.

  "I agree, but there will come a day when the time is right, and I'll be sure to give you many, many pups. Deal?"

  She smiled at me, nodding.

  "Yeah, dea-"

  She locked up, her eyes going unfocused.

  "Vita, what's this? There's a... tablet in my vision. It's asking me to proceed?"

  She sounded worried, but I chuckled lightly and explained,

  "That's the notification that your transformation is complete and the system is ready to hand over control of your body to you. Just say yes, and you'll begin the process. It shouldn't be too long for you."

  She focused back into the middle-distance and then her body went rigid, her teeth clenched hard enough to creak audibly. I checked on the status of the transition and, sure enough, she'd hit one hundred percent saturation. It looked like all our lovemaking had accelerated her change quite a bit.

  The initial reboot sequence shouldn't be anything too difficult for her to handle, but I stayed close and waited for her to return to the realm of consciousness.