Chapter 65 – Cubes

After the bullet finished it's work and killed the wolf, Dream nodded.

'I should see about getting Imbue and Scribe to max level. Seems easy enough.'

[The we should try more dynamic instructions. Here, I got one.]

Sophia began writing to the next bullet. At the same time, all the bystander wolves who saw their kin die began to properly freak out.

*Oouuwww!*

Howls were let out and they all began running every which way. Many instantly darted for their caves while others began patrolling the area, sniffing for threats. Dream also saw some wolves turn invisible, though he could still sense them. The entire den was on high alert.

'So what's this bullet?'

Dream inspected the enchantment Sophia was making.

[The gas variation. It'll collect gas as it travels and when it plants itself in the target, explodes.]

'...Damn. Alright.'

Dream took aim at one of the wolves that turned invisible, firing at it's gut.

*Dsh*

*POP*

The bullet landed and the gas was released, causing the wolf's body to suddenly swell and release. Though it didn't actually kill the wolf, just made a big gash on its side from where the pressurized air escaped. Blood could be seen pouring out excessively. 

[It'll die in a few seconds. Its internals have been basically scrambled.]

'Ouch.'

Sure enough, after a few seconds Dream got the notification.

<You have killed a level 116 [Unseen Dire Wolf]>

<You have gained Experience!>

<[Imbue] has leveled up!>

<[Scribe] has leveled up!>

<You have leveled up!>

Imbue was now level 97 while Scribe was level 85. Dream also leveled up himself. He was level 98 now.

[Try this bullet.]

Sophia enchanted another bullet and Dream took aim at another wolf, firing at its body.

*Dsh*

*Yelp!* *Arrr...ARRR!*

After the bullet landed, the wolf yelped in pain. It ran around, fell to the floor, and thrashed violently. And soon, Dream could see smoke coming from it's mouth as it died.

'What bullet was that?'

[It was imbued with your thermal fluctuation skill. Programmed to heat up everything in it's vicinity. Try the next one.]

Dream aimed again and fired at another class 2 wolf. 

*Dsh*

"..."

After the bullet planted itself inside the wolf, nothing happened. The wolf just stood there for a bit. Though after several seconds passed, the wolf began looking around at its kin.

The shot wolf turned to a wolf next to it, also a class 2. After looking at it, the shot wolf lunged and began attacking the other wolf. It didn't hesitate at all and went straight for the throat, trying to kill its kin as fast as possible. Dream could feel hatred emanating from the wolf. 

<[Imbue] has leveled up!>

'...So you used Mystify for that one?'

[Indeed. It thinks that the other wolf is its mortal enemy. Or something along those lines. I just made it so that the wolf would hate the thing next to it. Since I still don't understand how Mystify works exactly, I couldn't be precise.]

'Interesting. But will I get the experience?'

[Let's see.]

Dream watched the two wolves fight for a minute or so. Since the shot wolf had the element of surprise, the other wolf was quickly put down. Meaning Dream's wolf won.

"..."

After waiting a good minute, nothing came up. 

'I guess not.'

*Dsh*

<You have killed a level 112 [Unseen Dire Wolf] >

<You have gained Experience!>

<[Imbue] is Max level!>

'Huh, nice.'

Dream smiled at the notification after killing the wolf. It was one less skill to worry about. 

[Dream, look.]

'Hm?'

Sophia suddenly tugged on Dream's mind an pointed him towards a direction. When he turned towards it, he could see a cave. Sophia wasn't alerting him about the cave though.

'...Is that the leader?'

Dream watched a wolf come walking out of the cave. This wolf was at least 50% bigger than the others though. It had brown fur, its teeth were big and sharp, it's claws were even sharper, and the mana that emanated off of it was much more than the class 2's that Dream faced.

As Dream thought about whether it would be difficult to kill it, Sophia answered his question.

[Actually...]

'Don't tell me...'

Not long after the brown wolf came out, 3 others followed. One was red, one was white, and another was green. All of them had much higher mana levels and were much bigger than the other class 2's. 

Dream began to seriously rethink his safety after seeing them. 

'What's their mana levels compared to mine?'

[Your mana level is C+. Each one of them has C level mana.]

'...'

He contemplated the possibility of fighting them. One thing he knew he had over them was sustainability and precision mana usage. He could recover mana fast, and very little, if any mana, was wasted when casting. So as long as they didn't try to fight with everything they had from the get-go, he would be fine. He could outlast them and kill them.

Though as Dream kept staring and evaluating the wolves, he suddenly felt a chill. He looked closer at the four wolves and realized what it was.

'...Hey Sophia? Am I seeing what I think I am?'

[That's right. I have a feeling that is the actual leader.]

Dream looked behind the four wolves and saw a silhouette. It was faint, but definitely there. This wolf wasn't as big as the other four, and the mana was only a bit higher. But Dream knew it was much more lethal than them. It was his gut feeling. 

'That one's an assassin. It'll be my biggest threat. Luckily it can't see me. Though that may change if I act.'

[Engaging them is high risk. We don't know their compatibility or their skills. Though from guessing, you've got the elements plus the assassin. And if they can work together well, which is highly likely because they're wolves, then you may not stand a chance.]

'...'

[Disengage. We can prepare for this kind of battle.]

'Alright.'

Dream nodded and began pulling away very carefully. He would be stupid to not trust Sophia.

As he walked away, he could see the 5 alpha wolves walk over to the corpses and look at them. Though he didn't stay to watch and used that to further escape.

...............

He relaxed when he got to the house, letting out a deep breath as he collapsed onto a couch.

"*sigh* Those wolves are strong. I guess they don't come out often."

[Explains why we didn't see them. They are likely high-level class 2's, but definitely not class 3. Otherwise that invisible wolf would've seen you and you would've died.]

"Ya. Well, you said we can make preparations?"

[Yup. Weapons. And you should max out the [Scribe] skill before getting your second class anyway. 15 levels shouldn't be difficult.]

"Alright. If I'm making weapons, I should start with my gun. Any ideas for that?"

[Yup. We can streamline it, make it quieter, more precise, and make it more compatible with your magic. The last being the biggest priority. We can enchant the gun so we don't have to take time to enchant each bullet.]

"Sounds good. We canstart now."

Dream got up and went to the workshop. He took out his rifle and set it down on a table.

[Since we don't have the materials, we won't be able to make several components with this world's materials. But everything else we can. It'll be a hybrid like your suit. And actually, I planned on building our own.]

When she said that, the rifle disappeared from the table. In its place came many different materials and components.

"You want to build one?"

[Yes. There are too many optimizations that could be made, so instead of modifying one, we'll just make one. Everything will be improved. Literally. Just sit back and watch.]

Dream watched as Sophia took out more materials and put them on the table. Magnets, motherboards, wires, and titanium from the world. The titanium began heating up in preparation for shaping. 

After the titanium was heated, it began shaping itself into the skeleton of a gun. Dream could immediately see the difference between this one and the previous gun. It was slimmer, shorter, and looked more functional. And although it was being primarily built for functionality, it still looked like a cool futuristic railgun.

The skeleton outlined a stock and assembly where the ammo was loaded, and the barrel that guided and accelerated the rounds. The barrel was two rails on top and bottom that would guide and accelerate the projectile with magnets and electricity. It also had teeth that served to control the arcing caused by plasma.

One of the biggest problems with railguns is heat dissipation. It took huge amounts of electricity to accelerate the bullet, which would heat up the gun. But Dream didn't have to worry about that. He had a skill for it. The intake assembly for bullets was also modified for his inventory, allowing easy input and linking between rounds. 

All this was accommodated for by the skeleton. After the skeleton came the internals. Things like the wiring, supercapacitors, and magnets that would make the gun function were put into the skeleton. There was also a computer that would handle simple things and act as a remote control for Sophia, if ever necessary.

Overall, the process to build the gun was half an hour long. Dream just sat there and watched as Sophia worked since it took highly precise handling. Though he was still aware of everything she did.

[It's good.]

After the metal cooled and everything fell into place, Dream picked up the gun. He instantly fell in love.

"...Oh yea."

[It's not totally done yet, but yes. It's awesome.]

"What kind of improvements are we looking at?"

[Well first, the projectiles are launched about 60% faster than before. Its accuracy is better. It has different modes, meaning you could use it as a sniper or automatic rifle. The durability is much higher. And when I enchant it, it'll have even more features.]

"Ok. Go ahead."

After he said so, mana flowed out of his body as Sophia began writing enchantments to the whole thing. 

All the little parts and big parts had their own enchantments, but they were also programmed to work together. The enchantment was also dynamic, allowing change and control if they would ever need it while using it.

Since they had the skills for it, the script writing and imbuement didn't take nearly as long as the suit, which took almost 3 days. In fact, it was faster than building the gun, only taking 15 minutes for it to complete. During this time, Dream watched a stream of notifications fill his vision.

<[Scribe] has leveled up!>

<[Scribe] has leveled up!>

<[Scribe] has leveled up!>

<[Scribe] has...>

The Scribe skill leveled up continuously until it reached level 94. 

"So the more complicated a script is, the better."

[Not necessarily. Of course, it depends on the script, but complexity does not mean better.]

"It does in your case. But I get it. Either way, we're leveling the skill. Only 6 more levels. Though I'm wondering what we could do to top it off."

Dream picked up the gun and inspected it. But before he could get too engrossed in how awesome it was, Sophia came up with an idea.

[I actually had something I wanted to try. Have you ever thought about mana batteries?]

"....I have not. You want to make a storage unit for mana?"

[Yup. Though we need materials so we can isolate a space, letting us actually contain the mana. But we got plenty of Iron, so I thought we could make some batteries.]

"That's pretty genius. But wouldn't we have to charge them? That would take a while to store up anything uselfull."

[Vorticular Accumulation. Just attach your regeneration technique to the isolated object and let it charge.]

"...Well isn't that handy. Let's try it."

Dream took out a bunch of iron chunks and formed them into a giant cube. The cube was 4 feet tall, wide, and long, and really heavy.

As Dream was about to saturated it with his mana though, he thought of something.

"Wait, does mana have to be isolated in materials? Why can't we just create a chunk of mana in the air?"

[It's a matter of stability and energy consumption. Sure we could create an isolation barrier on air particles, but they would disperse unless you held them together, which takes constant energy. Or you could use regular solids, which don't require energy to hold together.]

"Ok, now here's another question. Is the max density of mana dependent on the material or space? Because if all we need is space, then we could just make pockets of mana independent of material. But if it's dependent on matter, then more material = more mana, and we could use a gas tank and stuff more gas in a smaller space to store a bunch of mana."

[...]

"..."

There was silence for several minutes as Sophia worked her brain. Dream didn't interrupt. 

[Let's test it.]

After she said that, a vacuum space was opened up in front of Dream. No air, no matter whatsoever could be detected within that space. 

At the same time, Sophia began moving his mana into that space. She soon came with an answer.

[Space.]

"Ok?"

[If mana needed matter as a medium to travel or exist like sound, then it wouldn't be able to move through a vacuum. And I was able to move it through a vacuum. So it isn't dependent on matter. The problem is trying to contain and concentrate the mana. Normally when using a material, the mana is almost bound to the material, which makes it much easier to create isolation barriers. But when you don't have material, it becomes many times harder as you have to bind the mana to itself. So technically, I could create an independent pocket of mana, but it would take a long time and lots of strain on your soul.]

"Oh. Well, that means we can just use hollow cubes of metal as an isolation space. No biggie."

[Alright. Let's reshape that big cube of iron.]

Sophia reheat the massive cube that Dream made and began splitting it into 1-foot by 1-foot cubes. Each one of these were hollow and had thin sheets of metal for the walls.

After that, she began enchanting the cubes with the vortex skill. This took lots of mana as she had to form an initial vortex, but not so much as to drain him dry.

After 10 minutes and 70% of his mana, he had 50 enchanted cubes sucking the mana from the surroundings and stuffing it inside themselves. 

<[Scribe] has leveled up!>

<[Scribe] has leveled up!>

<[Scribe] has leveled up!>

<[Scribe] has leveled up!>

<[Scribe] has leveled up!>

<[Scribe is Max level!>

"Heh, forget storage cubes, we should get some little balls with just the vortex enchanted on them and point them to me so I can regenerate faster. We could send them out and have them act as collectors so our intake increases."

[Why not?]

"Because I'm almost drained of my mana. We can wait on the balls. How much can those cubes store?"

[Each one will have about C- levels when full. And they will take about 2 hours to fill up.]

"Why not more?"

[Well for one, the strength of the vortex and it's ability to cram mana into one place is only as strong as our enchantment. The other inhibitor is the material. We don't want the iron to implode under too much stress. So until we find better materials and become stronger, that'll be it.]

"Alright. Even as it is, it'll be a massive help. With enough, I won't need to leech off of the Old Man to get nice things."