Solo Leveling: Digispirit.

Chapter 62: Digicore.

The next two weeks were relatively quiet for Takuya. He spent most of his time divided between three things: home, his friends, and his Digicore. And by his Digicore, he meant that he desperately needed to understand how the damn thing actually worked. One of the things that had happened when he received the Digital Scanner was the formation of a Digicore inside his body, and just like with any Digimon, it seemed to contain practically all of his essential information.

A Digimon’s Digicore was, well, everything. It was the nucleus of a Digimon, performing functions comparable to both the brain and heart of a material being while simultaneously defining the structure of its body. That was why Digimon could sometimes recover from injuries that looked completely fatal. As long as the Digicore remained intact, their bodies could potentially recover. On the contrary, if something happened directly to the Digicore, the situation could become extremely dangerous. A Digimon without a Digicore would die, just like a human couldn’t survive without a heart. Because of that, it was usually hidden somewhere inside the body for protection. There were a few exceptions, mostly extremely powerful Digimon whose bodies couldn’t contain the enormous power generated by their Digicores, forcing them to manifest outside their bodies. But those were beings near the absolute peak of power, and even then, not every extremely powerful Digimon had an exposed Digicore.

From Takuya’s perspective, however, the easiest way to think about it was still as a heart. A very weird, extremely complicated digital heart, but a heart nonetheless.

It was a tricky concept to fully understand, but there was one thing Takuya knew for certain: he had one. That meant his power, his information, and perhaps even part of his very essence were located there. Because of that, he had reserved one of the Hunters Association’s training rooms for most of the week. Today, he was going to spend almost the entire day alone, while Cha Hae was supposed to arrive later in the evening so they could train together.

Currently, Takuya sat in the middle of the training room with his legs crossed, meditating.

Why?

Because he had read too many novels.

Yes.

That was literally the reason.

He had absolutely no idea how someone was supposed to "feel" a Digicore. The closest reference he had was all that weird stuff Chinese novel protagonists did when they cultivated Chi, Qi, spiritual energy, or whatever other mysterious force happened to exist in their world.

That was the only example he had, so without any better idea, he decided to try it. He already lived in a fantasy world filled with Hunters, magic, dimensional portals, and Digital Monsters.

Why the hell wouldn’t meditation work? Unfortunately, after what felt like an eternity, he felt absolutely nothing.

"Maybe the problem is the Human Form..." Takuya immediately transformed into Vritramon and sat down again.

This time, instead of simply clearing his mind, he focused specifically on the source of his power. His body reacted almost immediately.

Flames erupted around him.

And then he saw it. The Data.

The core.

It really was like a literal sphere. "The Chinese novels didn’t fail me..." Takuya muttered.

Unfortunately, maintaining his concentration was considerably harder now. The flames surrounding him threatened to spread across the training room as the temperature rapidly increased. Still, inside himself, Takuya could clearly see the Data composing both Vritramon and Agnimon. It was strange considering Agnimon technically shouldn’t have existed separately anymore after he evolved, but as the D-Scan had already established, Hybrid Digimon were weird.

Then one word suddenly came to mind. Slide.

Takuya opened his eyes slightly.

"Slide Evolution."

The words themselves weren’t important. It was his intent that mattered. The Data surrounding his body immediately changed.

His massive frame shrank from five meters to roughly 1.8 meters as the armor reshaped itself around him. Moments later, Vritramon was gone.

Agnimon sat in his place.

While Takuya experimented, Go Gunhee watched everything from one corner of the training room. The Association Director had become increasingly curious about the boy. Personally, he didn’t truly believe Takuya had experienced a third awakening. Not because such a thing was impossible, especially anymore, but because the original explanation Takuya had given them was beginning to look increasingly accurate.

His power simply needed time to manifest.

And from what Go Gunhee was witnessing now, that appeared to be exactly what was happening.

This looked much more like someone slowly adapting to an existing ability than a Hunter repeatedly awakening entirely new powers. The fact that Takuya could freely return to the same form he had possessed as an A-Rank made the situation even more intriguing. If the boy had manifested a second transformation after enough time and training, what prevented him from developing another one in the future?

Go Gunhee’s instincts told him it was entirely possible.

And strangely enough, that didn’t concern him as much as it probably should have.

He had been observing Takuya for some time now and, naturally, the Association had investigated him extensively. Everything they found pointed toward the same conclusion.

He was a good kid.

The worst illegal thing Takuya had done since becoming an S-Rank was apparently eat at a hotel buffet without paying.

And even that was almost laughable.

Generally speaking, hotels were more than happy to accommodate an S-Rank Hunter for free. Having someone of that level staying on the property was practically the best security service in the world.

Back to Takuya, now in Agnimon form, he continued focusing on his Digicore.

This time, everything became much clearer.

Well, of course.

If anyone was going to successfully pull off this meditative Chinese cultivation bullshit, it was obviously going to be Agnimon rather than Vritramon. Vritramon possessed far greater raw power, but martial arts, balance, and precise control over fire were clearly Agnimon’s domain.

"Now we’re talking," Takuya muttered with a small smile.

His core was crystal clear now.

Or maybe fire clear was more accurate, because to Takuya’s perception, it looked as though the entire thing was burning. It was still made of Data—numbers, patterns, and information constantly moving around—but all of it seemed surrounded by flames.

More importantly, he could finally distinguish its internal structure.

There were clearly two different sets of Data inside him.

If he had to assign arbitrary numbers to explain it, maybe around sixty percent represented Vritramon while forty percent represented Agnimon. Vritramon’s Data occupied more space, most likely because of the sheer amount of power contained within the Beast Spirit.

And according to the D-Scan, if Takuya wanted to unlock Aldamon, he needed to synchronize those two sets of Data.

The question was how.

He could finally visualize the power inside himself, but directly manipulating the Digicore meant messing with what had effectively become the new source of his life.

That sounded dangerous. Extremely dangerous.

And probably not something even an S-Rank healer could fix if he screwed it up badly enough.

Maybe a programmer would be more useful... "Well... I guess I have to start somewhere," Takuya muttered as he focused on the core again.

Synchronization. Aldamon was the fusion of Agnimon and Vritramon.

So logically, he needed to somehow combine both packages of Data.

At least in theory.

First, however, he focused on learning how to interact with his Digicore without actually changing anything.

Surprisingly, that wasn’t particularly difficult.

The Digicore responded naturally to his will.

"Now comes the tricky part."

He needed to identify exactly which Data belonged to which Spirit before attempting anything more complicated. The last thing he wanted was to accidentally mix random information together and corrupt himself.

Just imagining himself suddenly turning into some kind of Chimeramon because he fucked up his own Data made him pause.

Wait. Would becoming Chimeramon actually be bad?

Takuya thought about it for a moment.

Well... It wasn’t part of the plan.

So yes.

Bad.

Then another thought suddenly stopped him. Is this how Digimon normally evolve?

He had never asked. Big mistake. A really big mistake.

He had spent months traveling with Digimon and somehow never thought to ask how Evolution actually felt from their perspective or how they selected one Evolution over another.

Then again, he had never expected that he would eventually need to manually synchronize his own fucking Data.

But here he was.

Should he return to the Digital World and ask someone?

No. Definitely not yet.

Not after discovering that one Royal Knight was secretly investigating dimensional anomalies while another Royal Knight had become suspicious of everything Ulforce was doing.

"Let’s keep it simple," Takuya muttered.

He knew the Hunters Association was listening to practically everything he said inside the training room, but honestly, he didn’t care. Speaking aloud helped calm him down, and right now, he wasn’t exactly revealing state secrets.

He focused once again.

In the anime, the original Takuya had achieved Double Spirit Evolution through external help, specifically through the light produced by Seraphimon’s Digiegg.

External assistance. Now Takuya was trying to reach the same result completely on his own.

But if a Digiegg could somehow trigger the process...

Then surely he could figure it out himself.

Probably. Hopefully.

Takuya pushed both groups of Data closer together.

Slowly. Carefully.

He concentrated on merging them into a single entity.

That was what Aldamon represented, after all: the fusion of Agnimon and Vritramon.

So, in principle, this should work?.

As Takuya continued, his Digicore suddenly ignited. Energy began accumulating rapidly inside it. And he wasn’t the only one who noticed.

At the edge of the training room, Go Gunhee immediately stood up. The flames surrounding Agnimon intensified.

Then the amount of power radiating from Takuya began increasing drastically. So did the heat.

The floor beneath him started to scorch. Then melt.

Yet Takuya remained sitting in the center of it all, eyes closed, meditating while fire engulfed the area around him.

Go Gunhee was eventually forced to shield his eyes from both the brightness and the overwhelming temperature. Even then, he didn’t interfere.

Whatever Takuya was doing, the Director understood that it was important.

Inside himself, completely unaware of the destruction beginning around him, Takuya remained focused on his Digicore.

The two sets of Data were actually combining.

Slowly.

But surely.

For one moment, Takuya couldn’t believe it. Was it really going to be this easy?

Seriously?

If every previous Evolution had worked like this, he could have become Vritramon months ago.

Still, he forced himself not to become too excited. The process wasn’t finished.

In practical terms, Takuya was attempting to glue or stitch two enormous packages of living Data together without damaging either of them.

Then he felt the first backlash.

The two sets of Data suddenly separated as though they were magnets facing the wrong direction.

The power inside his Digicore fluctuated violently.

Takuya steadied himself and tried again.

Then again.

And again. Slowly, he started getting closer.

But then something changed. The Data began to vibrate.

For a brief moment, everything slipped completely out of his control.

And then Takuya felt something that sent a shiver through his entire body.

It felt as though something was staring back at him from inside the flames of his own Digicore.

For that single instant, he genuinely felt himself losing control again.

It reminded him of the beginning of Vritramon’s trial.

But this was different.

Older. More primal.

Then, for the first time, a D-Scan notification appeared directly inside the strange mental space where Takuya was observing his Digicore.

Understanding of Digicore increased...

DIGISpirit synchronization increased...

Data recovered...

Assisting user with process...

New Evolution process detected...

Examining Data...

Reconstructing...

User / D-Scan synchronization above normal parameters...

Increasing efficiency...

Congratulations. Ancient Data has been recovered.

New possible Evolution Path discovered.

Ancient Spirit Evolution

— AncientGreymon

Process: 5%

Double Spirit Evolution

— Aldamon

Core Synchronization: 1%

Takuya stared at the information.

"Holy shit."