Second Genesis

Grey stood there in a daze, feeling as though every part of his body had somehow also become an extension of itself. Branches formed branches, and their branches branched further. Almost like an infinite series of fractals, the deeper he went, the more there seemed to be.

He thought he had somewhat understood the limits of his Neural Frame, but now that he was seeing it like this, it was almost like he was experiencing the world for the first time.

Neural Frames didn’t have limits. They could evolve endlessly. It wasn’t as simple as a circuit running through his body. There were an infinite myriad of changes, an endless swath of possibilities, and the only way to truly grasp them, to truly understand them, was by giving them focus.

And that came in the form of the Frames themselves. They were what gave them structure, meaning, and understanding.

His Vampire Frame took up a portion of his Neural Frame, etching it in blood and darkness. When he activated it, it gave him the focus of a Vampire Lord and all of his actions began to follow it perfectly and purposefully.

However, looking at it now, he still felt like he wasn’t quite using it correctly. Almost like he understood the surface of what it meant to have a Frame, but not what it meant in essence.

What Grey didn’t understand was that this uniqueness was almost all his own. The feeling of having a Frame with infinite possibilities and a myriad of changes was almost entirely exclusive to those born with a Neural Frame that went beyond the norm, one that wasn’t restricted to a specific Type but could instead touch upon all four of them.

The Linear Type. The most straight forward of them all, one that ran pulses and signals in one direction. It was exceptionally good at the simple. This didn’t mean that it was weak, but instead that it could give its user Focus and direction.

The Vampires often had these Frames because their abilities were locked into their bodies. Their speed, their attack power, their strength.

The Branching Type. This was the most flexible of the Neural Frame Types. It was good at multi-tasking, at shifting attention, at defensive methods and abilities. It was good at taking one signal and reacting in multiple ways to it, leading to a cascade of complexity that could be directed in countless ways.

If someone with a Linear Frame had an extremely straight forward and relentless combat style, then someone with a Branching Type would be far more flexibility and dexterity-focused.

Even if two speedsters followed similar paths, if one had a Linear Frame and the other had a Branching Frame, the latter would be shiftier and more agile, while the former would have far more blazing straight line speed.

And that left the two most complex of the Types. The Resonant Type and the Recursive Type.

The Recursive Type was muscle memory incarnate. It wasn’t quite Linear, and not quite Branching, but it could instead loop and etch an understanding of either given enough repetition. Those of this Type didn’t immediately begin as good at any one thing, but they could instead train themselves to gain these strengths.

Depending on the strength of their Neural Frames, they could even begin to exhibit the strengths of both Branching and Linear in one. If they were weaker, then they might only be able to be truly strong in one path and while being weaker in the other.

And that finally left the Resonant Type, the Type the Church most often sought after, the type that had a strength that went beyond the body.

Those of the Resonant Type were capable of extending the range of their Neural Frame, exerting an electric field that pulsed with their intent outside of their bodies. It wasn’t immediately obvious what the strength of this Type was without proper direction. That was because without proper usage, then having such a path was worthless, and many of its abilities could be replicated by the other Types assuming the user was strong enough or had a treasure on hand that could maximize it, or sometimes even abilities could begin to mimic such a thing.

But there was a fundamental difference between changing the world with your Neural Frame and forging the world into your Neural Frame...

And the Resonant Type was the latter.

All of these definitions were things that Grey had known for a while, but he had never truly understood it until now.

Only now did he understand that the reason he could just replace the hole he had blown through with his fist with his own Neural Frame was precisely because he could mimic the Resonant Type whenever he wanted.

Any other Neural Frame would find this impossible, and even those with Resonant Frames wouldn’t have found it nearly so easy.

And it also meant something else.

If he wanted to open up a path ahead, he didn’t need to touch a single thing. It would open so long as he projected his own Neural Frame far enough.

Chi.

A click echoed and the ceiling above his head began to slowly open up.

Grey was lost in a bit of trance until his eyes slowly opened to see a sea of darkness above him.

His mind felt like a blank slate. All of his previous rage and anger was wiped away as though that was a former part of himself that he had wiped clean.

He wasn’t sure how long it would last or if it was even permanent, but what he knew that he felt so very...

Comfortable.

The trap door clicked close behind him as he stepped into what looked like a catacomb.

All around, as far as the eyes could see, there was one treasure after another. It was simply endless.

Gold, jewels, gems...

Grey stepped forward, scooping up a handful of the gold that was so polished it felt like it was the only source of light in the entire place.

’Beautiful...’

Grey shook his head and awoke from some of his reverie after he thought that.

What was wrong with him? Why’d he even have such a thought? It was almost like it was practically forcing him to be kind.

No, it was more like a forced appreciation of every hint of the world around him.

Almost like he was becoming Baron Giyoto.