Reincarnated as a Mushroom?-Chapter 51 - 50: “Blind the Eye That Loves Too Deeply”

Chapter 50: "Blind the Eye That Loves Too Deeply"

I surfaced from unconsciousness like a drowned man dragged from the depths of a dream. My eyes fluttered open, sluggish and aching with pressure changes, and it took several long seconds before I remembered where I was: suspended inside the gene-weaving tank at the heart of my laboratory. My body floated weightless in nutrient-rich fluid, yet it felt like a condemned cathedral—gutted, rebuilt, and still echoing with the pain of reconstruction.

The splicing had worked. I could feel it like a low-burning star in my veins—subtle but absolute. The genome rewrite had begun to root itself into my biological substrate. I was forcing evolution into my own flesh using genetic blueprints alien to human design—anatomical blasphemy made intimate. Even with my engineered resistance, my body still recoiled at the trauma of its forced transcendence.

Above, distorted by the glass and refracted light, two loyal smudges stood vigil: Kimchi and Crystal. My Valkyries. My disasters. My lovers. They hadn’t moved an inch since I went under, their psionic auras pressed tight against the tank like warm silk. Kimchi twitched with nervous urgency, ready to throw herself at me in a flurry of claws and love. Crystal, of course, held her back with a flick of her will—an almost lazy effort that nonetheless surprised Kimchi. Not because she lacked strength, but because Crystal rarely used it against her.

A bipod floated into my field of view—one of my data drones. Its thorax projected my updated genome profile across the tank’s interface.

My lips curled into a satisfied grin beneath the breather mask.

Success.

The foreign code had been assimilated. My bones were already catalyzing the shift—denser, stronger, honed. Leg 2.0 wasn’t a dream anymore. It was a blueprint set to build itself. My tendons would be realigned with microfilament coils. My muscles reinforced with dual-helix bundles derived from predatory hive-forms. Cartilage would liquefy, re-solidify, and lock into place under hypergravity stress. I was about to become my own proof of concept.

Once I gave the mental go-ahead, a gentle wave of topical anaesthetic was released into the tank. I didn’t lose consciousness this time—thankfully. I needed to stay awake for the secondary operation.

The delicate one.

The fucking eye thing.

Two tiny crimson lights blinked to life just outside the tank, positioned precisely on the glass. My entire existence narrowed to those dots.

"Do not blink. Do not flinch. Do not fuck this up," I told myself, my entire focus reduced to the simplest command: stare. Stare or go blind. That was the deal.

I could feel it before I could see it—metal shifting through the fluid with quiet menace. The claws approached. Four-pronged surgical manipulators moved into my peripheral vision like predatory jellyfish. They were shaped like skeletal hands, each finger a precision instrument tipped with micro-serrated nanoneedles.

I resisted every primal urge in my body to flinch as they encroached. A tremor of sweat erupted across my back—even though I was submerged in fluid. My adrenaline tried to spike, but the sedative kept it at a crawl. It was surreal, being terrified without the proper biological response. Like watching a train crash behind bulletproof glass.

The claws reached my face.

Two fingers grasped the top and bottom of each eyelid and wrenched them open. The remaining digits slid around my ocular globe, pressing gently behind the sockets. I felt no pain—but I felt something. A pressure. A shift. A displacement.

And then... everything blurred.

Not darkness. Just the disorienting fuzz of misplaced perspective. I couldn’t see the dots anymore. Not because I’d moved—but because my fucking eyes were no longer where I left them.

Detached but tethered, my optic nerves still connected as the needles slid into the posterior of each eye and began their invasive augmentation. The predator eyes were taking root.

They were already genetically similar—engineered for compatibility—but the full merge would take 24 hours. Half of that for raw biological transformation. Half for healing.

Outside the tank, a loud thud cracked against the reinforced glass like a thunderclap underwater.

It was Kimchi, who had just headbutted the tank with all the force of a lovesick comet. The tank should’ve shattered. It didn’t. She was unhurt, but her voice, when it entered my psionic link, was trembling.

"Irvine-love... are you well? Orchid cannot bear the thought of your bewitching eyes torn from your beautiful skull. It is a crime against affection!"

Her panic hit my mind like an overcaffeinated freight train. The emotional noise ricocheted across my neural link. I blinked—well, tried to—momentarily overwhelmed by her volume. Unbeknownst to me, Onyx had been offloading her own pent-up emotional backlog into Crystal while I was under, which had severely clogged up the feedback channels. So when Kimchi freaked out, it hit harder than usual.

"Relax, you adorable lunatic," I murmured across the link. "Everything went according to plan. I’ll be able to see your disturbingly perfect face again by sunrise."

Kimchi flushed, her exoskeletal armor faintly steaming from her emotional heat. I had been true to my word all year—no climax, no mercy, no reward since the volcanic kidnapping debacle. She was still under punishment protocols. She had made some progress, sure, but most days I still had to bonk the bug just to get five minutes of peace.

With visible restraint—truly admirable—she exhaled, "My love... stop. You’re going to make me act out again."

"Yes, my love—do stop," Crystal added dryly, her psionic voice dripping with feigned decorum. "And redirect those compliments appropriately. Toward me, preferably."

"Oh? Was that my exquisite Crystal I heard? Apologies—only smudges are visible right now, and Kimchi’s was the sexiest smudge in the room."

That... was probably a mistake.

Kimchi began trembling from unspent glee, and Crystal’s claws, which had been peacefully folded behind her back, were now carving trenches into the palm of her own gauntlets out of pure, possessive outrage. Her restraint was astonishing—but I knew I had to reward that later. With appropriate worship.

Enraged and ever the queen, Crystal began to walk toward me. Her gait was slow, serpentine, and utterly lethal. If she’d had heels, they would’ve melted the floor. But to my compromised vision, she was still just a glorified blur.

"Ah. A new smudge appears. Excuse me, regal smudge—could you fetch Crystal for me? I’ve got some overdue flirting to perform."

That did it.

Crystal snapped her fingers.

The world dimmed.

Not the tank. Not my vision. The world.

Light itself bowed to her tantrum. Darkness crept in like spilled velvet until the only thing visible was Crystal’s silhouette—now perfectly, painfully in focus. Her body was outlined in shimmering psionic imprint, her regal form glowing like a goddess carved from radiant thought.

"So," she said imperiously, "you failed to recognize my form during your temporary blindness. Unfortunate. I’ve now encoded my image directly into your eyes. Even in darkness... even in blindness... you will always see me."

I stared at her in deadpan silence, then smirked. "Ah. There you are, my midnight snack. I was wondering where the delicious one had gone."

Her psychic aura hiccupped. Blush detected.

And with her embarrassment came the undoing of her power—the room lit up again, light cascading across the lab like laughter. Everything returned to blurry smudges... except her. Crystal remained radiant, perfectly visible, coded into my compromised senses.

"Fascinating," I muttered, glancing toward the edges of the room. "Wait a moment... I can still see your other body in the throne chamber. It’s just sitting there."

"What is it, my love?" she asked.

"One second. Kimchi, sweetheart, let Crystal borrow your body for a second."

She looked confused, but complied—my curiosity had that effect on her. When Crystal projected into Kimchi’s body, both forms lit up in full psionic outline... then reverted back when she left.

"Interesting," I muttered again. "It’s not retinal. It’s not psionic projection. It’s something else..."

The research possibilities were endless.

But right now, I needed a towel.

And probably a cold shower.

Or three.

---Chapter 50: "Blind the Eye That Loves Too Deeply"

I surfaced from unconsciousness like a drowned man dragged from the depths of a dream. My eyes fluttered open, sluggish and aching with pressure changes, and it took several long seconds before I remembered where I was: suspended inside the gene-weaving tank at the heart of my laboratory. My body floated weightless in nutrient-rich fluid, yet it felt like a condemned cathedral—gutted, rebuilt, and still echoing with the pain of reconstruction.

The splicing had worked. I could feel it like a low-burning star in my veins—subtle but absolute. The genome rewrite had begun to root itself into my biological substrate. I was forcing evolution into my own flesh using genetic blueprints alien to human design—anatomical blasphemy made intimate. Even with my engineered resistance, my body still recoiled at the trauma of its forced transcendence.

Above, distorted by the glass and refracted light, two loyal smudges stood vigil: Kimchi and Crystal. My Valkyries. My disasters. My lovers. They hadn’t moved an inch since I went under, their psionic auras pressed tight against the tank like warm silk. Kimchi twitched with nervous urgency, ready to throw herself at me in a flurry of claws and love. Crystal, of course, held her back with a flick of her will—an almost lazy effort that nonetheless surprised Kimchi. Not because she lacked strength, but because Crystal rarely used it against her.

A bipod floated into my field of view—one of my data drones. Its thorax projected my updated genome profile across the tank’s interface.

My lips curled into a satisfied grin beneath the breather mask.

Success.

The foreign code had been assimilated. My bones were already catalyzing the shift—denser, stronger, honed. Leg 2.0 wasn’t a dream anymore. It was a blueprint set to build itself. My tendons would be realigned with microfilament coils. My muscles reinforced with dual-helix bundles derived from predatory hive-forms. Cartilage would liquefy, re-solidify, and lock into place under hypergravity stress. I was about to become my own proof of concept.

Once I gave the mental go-ahead, a gentle wave of topical anaesthetic was released into the tank. I didn’t lose consciousness this time—thankfully. I needed to stay awake for the secondary operation.

The delicate one.

The fucking eye thing.

Two tiny crimson lights blinked to life just outside the tank, positioned precisely on the glass. My entire existence narrowed to those dots.

"Do not blink. Do not flinch. Do not fuck this up," I told myself, my entire focus reduced to the simplest command: stare. Stare or go blind. That was the deal.

I could feel it before I could see it—metal shifting through the fluid with quiet menace. The claws approached. Four-pronged surgical manipulators moved into my peripheral vision like predatory jellyfish. They were shaped like skeletal hands, each finger a precision instrument tipped with micro-serrated nanoneedles.

I resisted every primal urge in my body to flinch as they encroached. A tremor of sweat erupted across my back—even though I was submerged in fluid. My adrenaline tried to spike, but the sedative kept it at a crawl. It was surreal, being terrified without the proper biological response. Like watching a train crash behind bulletproof glass.

The claws reached my face.

Two fingers grasped the top and bottom of each eyelid and wrenched them open. The remaining digits slid around my ocular globe, pressing gently behind the sockets. I felt no pain—but I felt something. A pressure. A shift. A displacement.

And then... everything blurred.

Not darkness. Just the disorienting fuzz of misplaced perspective. I couldn’t see the dots anymore. Not because I’d moved—but because my fucking eyes were no longer where I left them.

Detached but tethered, my optic nerves still connected as the needles slid into the posterior of each eye and began their invasive augmentation. The predator eyes were taking root.

They were already genetically similar—engineered for compatibility—but the full merge would take 24 hours. Half of that for raw biological transformation. Half for healing.

Outside the tank, a loud thud cracked against the reinforced glass like a thunderclap underwater.

It was Kimchi, who had just headbutted the tank with all the force of a lovesick comet. The tank should’ve shattered. It didn’t. She was unhurt, but her voice, when it entered my psionic link, was trembling.

"Irvine-love... are you well? Orchid cannot bear the thought of your bewitching eyes torn from your beautiful skull. It is a crime against affection!"

Her panic hit my mind like an overcaffeinated freight train. The emotional noise ricocheted across my neural link. I blinked—well, tried to—momentarily overwhelmed by her volume. Unbeknownst to me, Onyx had been offloading her own pent-up emotional backlog into Crystal while I was under, which had severely clogged up the feedback channels. So when Kimchi freaked out, it hit harder than usual.

"Relax, you adorable lunatic," I murmured across the link. "Everything went according to plan. I’ll be able to see your disturbingly perfect face again by sunrise."

Kimchi flushed, her exoskeletal armor faintly steaming from her emotional heat. I had been true to my word all year—no climax, no mercy, no reward since the volcanic kidnapping debacle. She was still under punishment protocols. She had made some progress, sure, but most days I still had to bonk the bug just to get five minutes of peace.

With visible restraint—truly admirable—she exhaled, "My love... stop. You’re going to make me act out again."

"Yes, my love—do stop," Crystal added dryly, her psionic voice dripping with feigned decorum. "And redirect those compliments appropriately. Toward me, preferably."

"Oh? Was that my exquisite Crystal I heard? Apologies—only smudges are visible right now, and Kimchi’s was the sexiest smudge in the room."

That... was probably a mistake.

Kimchi began trembling from unspent glee, and Crystal’s claws, which had been peacefully folded behind her back, were now carving trenches into the palm of her own gauntlets out of pure, possessive outrage. Her restraint was astonishing—but I knew I had to reward that later. With appropriate worship.

Enraged and ever the queen, Crystal began to walk toward me. Her gait was slow, serpentine, and utterly lethal. If she’d had heels, they would’ve melted the floor. But to my compromised vision, she was still just a glorified blur.

"Ah. A new smudge appears. Excuse me, regal smudge—could you fetch Crystal for me? I’ve got some overdue flirting to perform."

That did it.

Crystal snapped her fingers.

The world dimmed.

Not the tank. Not my vision. The world.

Light itself bowed to her tantrum. Darkness crept in like spilled velvet until the only thing visible was Crystal’s silhouette—now perfectly, painfully in focus. Her body was outlined in shimmering psionic imprint, her regal form glowing like a goddess carved from radiant thought.

"So," she said imperiously, "you failed to recognize my form during your temporary blindness. Unfortunate. I’ve now encoded my image directly into your eyes. Even in darkness... even in blindness... you will always see me."

I stared at her in deadpan silence, then smirked. "Ah. There you are, my midnight snack. I was wondering where the delicious one had gone."

Her psychic aura hiccupped. Blush detected.

And with her embarrassment came the undoing of her power—the room lit up again, light cascading across the lab like laughter. Everything returned to blurry smudges... except her. Crystal remained radiant, perfectly visible, coded into my compromised senses.

"Fascinating," I muttered, glancing toward the edges of the room. "Wait a moment... I can still see your other body in the throne chamber. It’s just sitting there."

"What is it, my love?" she asked.

"One second. Kimchi, sweetheart, let Crystal borrow your body for a second."

She looked confused, but complied—my curiosity had that effect on her. When Crystal projected into Kimchi’s body, both forms lit up in full psionic outline... then reverted back when she left.

"Interesting," I muttered again. "It’s not retinal. It’s not psionic projection. It’s something else..."

The research possibilities were endless.

But right now, I needed a towel.

And probably a cold shower.

Or three.

---

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