I sat at my lab, staring at my hand.

"It doesn't look very different."

I take a moment to look up at Angela, "I guess there's only one thing to do to see if this works."

Gingerly, I pick the steel plate.

My fingers easily deform the metal, the sheet easily bending in my grip.

"Well, I guess we can count that as a success!"

Angela stared at the warped slab, "that is amazing. Biological manipulation to such an extent is frankly… astounding!"

"You know, I was originally going to wait until I managed to accumulate enough in the way of advancements to clone myself a new body, but with this, I can add things as I go." I comment, pulling up my plans for a new body.

Angela peered over my shoulder, "You really did it!?"

"Of course. I mean, previously you guys had to compromise on what you wanted me to have, but not only can I change a lot more than that modification allowed, but I'm also not stuck with one form or the other, so while I'll probably want a general look for my 'base' form, I'm more than willing to tweak things for each of you."

Closing my eyes, I focus, shifting around a few cells here and there. "Aria, please dim the lights to about… twenty-five percent please."

The lights dimmed visibly through my altered eyelids, but when I opened them, it seemed brighter than they were before my changes. "Well… that's annoying."

"Too bright?" Angela asks

"I'll work on some tweaks for my pupils, might even improve clarity in my eyes, all things told."

Angela nodded, before pausing and staring at me.

"What?"

She blushed, "Do you think that you could do some… roleplay?"

"Sure," I shrug, "What do you want me to do?"

"Well, I've mostly finished working on my wings so I was thinking… couldyoubeademonmaking mefall?"

I chuckle, skin cells suddenly flushing with haemoglobin, keratin extruding into rusty scales. My teeth shift, mainly in shape as I lean over her, "Would you like to make a deal."

She shuddered, knees weakening, but a tail whipped around her waist before she could get too far. Another tendril stealthily slipped into a culturing tank, quickly assimilating food and water as I grew, gaining enough mass to tower over her, "I will give you nothing demon."

"Oh, really? Should I take what I want then?" I rumble.

She shudders and then blinks as I abruptly revert to my original form, phasing the excess mass into the rest of my body for the moment, and smile, "Maybe once you have your wings."

She nodded, "Er just one thing…"

"Yes?"

She blushed deeply, "I've already made a lot of progress in elasticising my tissues… so."

"Ahh,' I nod in understanding, "I'll send you a few art pieces in a bit and you can tell me exactly what you want. Anything else special?"

"The red skin was a nice touch, but I was surprised that you didn't add any horns or spikes."

I shrugged, "It seems like something that would take a lot more planning than just altering my follicles into scales. Lots of skeletal restructuring to do if I want them to do more than look dangerous."

Angela nodded as I began working on more changes.

Absently, I started optimizing things, slowly incorporating the more quality-of-life adjustments into my body. Things like tougher bones, more elastic tendons, optimizations to my eyes that let me focus light and from there, optimizations to my retina to take advantage of the reduced impact of the Rayleigh scattering on angular resolution.

Some additional tweaking on my ocular musculature, to allow for better focusing across a wider range of distances.

I was working on tweaking some of my extended stamina augments when I heard the door slide open.

"Jon?" called Gwen, "It's dinner time."

I shook my head, "Sorry, got caught up with something."

"Yeah, I heard." She said, "Angela told us that you wanted us to think fo anything we wanted to be personalized for us."

I picked myself up, absently noting that I might want some sort of artificial joint popping. Stretching just wasn't satisfying enough without it, "Anything you want me to do?"

"Eh, not really. Maybe tentacles? So that you could take me without anyone else noticing? But beyond that, I don't really have anything I'd like to change about you that you're not going to do yourself."

I paused, "Ah, yes, the strength augments. I'm working on adapting some of the stuff I've learned from Kryptonian tissues to our own purposes. I think that I might have figured out a means to transmit power between universes using a Lutece particle as a focus in a sympathetic connection."

"Tricky?"

"You don't know the half of it, but if it does work out, I'll be able to draw power from any number of reactors, even those more powerful the one on the X-01 regardless of where I am. I've theoretically figured out how to do it for any of the reactors I create as long as I'm in the same universe, but spanning the gap is both tricky and dangerous. I'd like to speak with Access and Deedee before I do anything dangerous."

She paused, before considering what might be interested in a stream that much life force passing through the inter-planar void would do and immediately shuddered.

Still, I picked myself out of my chair and followed her to the kitchen.

Angela was placing some saukraut next to the pork knuckle that was dominating the table.

I grinned, "That looks delicious!"

Angela nodded, "It is my mother's recipe, I hope I didn't mess it up too badly."

I take a bite, savouring the juicy, savoury meat and crispy crust. "Well, it is still delicious, so I think you've done an amazing job either way."

Gwen nodded as Ahri dove into her plate.

After dinner, I made my way over to one of the time chambers to get some practice in.

My augments were quite powerful, especially as I began weaving more and more in the way of exotic enhancements though my body. Thanks to the Dragon, I could fairly easily use telekinesis to augment my strength and even replicate the technique that let me accelerate an entire object at once rather than just the contact points.

But on a more physical level, I was a complete redesign. I didn't change too much outwardly, beyond some better muscle definition, but I did restructure my organs enormously, altering the internal chemistry of my body to compact my organs and vastly improve survivability.

Evolutionarily evolved equivalents were replaced with purpose built cells, more specialized and streamlined.

My skeletal structure subtly shifted, making use of far more sturdy materials than mere human bone to support myself.

My nerves were also similarly enhanced. With my psionic energy ensuring the continuity of my consciousness, I worked to replace neurons with a far more computationally dense design. My extremities were seeded with ganglia that worked to provide local processing for immediate reflexes, data that was backed up more centrally in case I lost a limb for some reason.

Most of my systems were redundant, in fact. When you purpose-build stuff, it can get a lot more compact and I was now a rather large individual.

Even while ensuring my additional capability, I had enough redundant systems, that even lacking my powers, I would be able to survive with as little as half of my body along any axis.

But the biggest changes I made were entirely mental.

The Dragon was designed to take as much advantage of its psychic abilities as possible, and over the course of the ritual, I had assimilated those strengths for myself. And now that I had them, I could begin pruning myself of weaknesses.

I kept personality quirks and the like, but I did improve my ability to focus as best as I could, though I had already received a massive bonus from being able to trace my subconscious thought processes.

I even corrected some 'misconceptions' I had. Thought processes that were based on outdated or incorrect data that I now rerouted to work with more accurate assumptions.

But it was something else, ultimately, that provided the greatest benefit.

In a manner similar to how the Dragon had created automated defences before our meld was complete, I practised with generating automated thought-forms. Small… I'd hesitate to call them minds, but it's the closest word that I have. Small minds that would perform simple tasks.

I wasn't able of much yet, but I could separate a thought process from the bulk of my identity to imbue a separated mass of my body with the ability to complete simple tasks.