Chapter 87 – Facility

Merlin moved onto the topic of the acoustic spell that Dream used on the poison.

"In regards to the sequence, we would like to buy its usage rights. It would be taught to all staff and even be passed to the guild to notify hunters about this potentially life-saving method. Hunters constantly run into this type of poison when hunting those crawlers, and many are lost. But not only would this be able to extend their life, but it can also allow much faster and thorough recovery."

"That's fine. This is just a spell I know, not some trump card of mine, so I don't care how it would be used."

"Very well. Now in terms of payment, it would be hard to calculate so I would need to pass it over to the people who handle it, but it would be at least 1000 gold. What are your thoughts on that?"

"Oh, I mean..."

"Too low?"

"No. I just don't have problems with money, so I guess I don't need it. Especially if it's a troublesome process. I'll just give you the sequence and payment can be taken care of later."

"Hmm, I understand. But knowledge is valuable, so I'll be sure to get you what you deserve."

"That's fine."

"Then if there's nothing more, you can imprint the sequence on this paper."

Merlin brought out two sheets of paper, both already enchanted. Dream took them one in each hand and began imprinting each layer of the two-layer circle on the papers.

Within moments, the circles had been drawn out on the paper along with how the circles connected. Dream set the papers back down on the desk.

"Alright."

"...To be able to imprint the circles so fast. You really are an interesting one."

Merlin looked at him with a surprised face. Mara also had wide eyes. Dream inwardly cursed while smiling sheepishly.

"O-oh. I guess."

"No matter. Thank you for the sequences. You've just saved many lives."

"It was nothing much."

"Well, I'll go get this submitted to the hospital. Mara will come with me. I look forward to seeing you again next time."

"Likewise."

They stood and shook hands. After that, they all left the office and went their separate ways. 

Dream left the hospital and since he had nothing else to do, decided to wander around the city for a bit.

'How did I get partnered up with someone I just met?'

[I'm more wondering why he wanted to pair you two so eagerly. He definitely has some connection to Riddick. Disregarding him pairing you two, he seemed awfully confident in your ability when healing. I doubt he would let some random new kid just have his way with a man on the verge of death like that.]

'I agree. Though I'm not too concerned about it, we can just ask the Old Man.'

Dream brought up his smartwatch and rung up Riddick. He soon heard a voice from the other end.

"Dream? How was your first day?"

"It was good. I actually just got out of healing class. It's also the reason for my call."

"Something happen?"

"Do you know a man named Merlin?"

"I do. He's the head of the hospital. You met him? How?"

"Well, I actually got paired up with this girl while we were at the hospital, and she's apparently under his tutelage. Us three were going around for the last few hours helping all these people. But anyway, I get the feeling he knows about the connection between us. I wanted to get your input."

"He's an extremely skilled healer and we have a good relationship. He was one of the people I reunited with when I came back."

"Did you tell him about me?"

"No, but he's an extremely observant man. He might've seen something and made the connection."

"The bracelet. He saw mine."

"I'm wearing mine too, so that's probably it. Though it doesn't really matter. Nothing to worry about. Though I am interested in this girl you spoke of. He didn't have anyone under his tutelage last time I saw him."

"Oh, she's in the class. She seems close to him, calling him granpa. A granddaughter maybe? He actually went and paired us up. She's going to teach me healing now."

"You'd be the one doing the teaching if anything. And no, he never had kids. Hmm...Maybe I'll go speak to him. She must be interesting if he actually took her as his disciple."

"Alright. Well, I was just making sure I didn't need to worry about anything."

"You don't. Are you done for the day?"

"Yea. I'm just wandering the city right now."

"How's the material in the textbooks?"

"Let's just say I read through and understood it all the moment I got the books. It's an interesting system, but right now it's too shallow to give me anything. I'll need the more advanced copies to start developing something out of it."

"I figured as much. If you want, I can get you the copies for the advanced classes."

"I could do that or just test up into those classes."

"You could, but I recommend waiting a week or so before doing that. If people see you test up two levels in a short amount of time, they'll start talking. How about this, I'll talk to Amitel and make sure the test is ready. At the end of the week, you'll take the test and get into the intermediate class. At the same time, I'll get you the advanced sequencing book. You can give it another month before testing up again. Sound good?"

"That works. Make sure it's for both the sequencing and elemental class."

"Of course. Until then, have fun with that girl Merlin paired you with."

"Uh-huh, sure."

After that, they both hung up. Dream just smirked and kept walking.

"It's getting to be sunset. I still have a lot of time in the day as well as night. I need to figure out something to do with all these free hours."

[You could go hunting. Or we can work on another project."

'Any projects in mind?'

[Well, we can begin deploying scanners to look for materials. You wouldn't have to do the mining personally either.]

'That would give us a bunch of materials. Though, what would we need it for?'

[For if we need to build things in the future. I know you haven't forgotten what's out there and what we need to prepare for. We've got demons to fight and princesses to save. And I've got ideas for machines that can help us. We'll need materials for all of that though.]

'...Alright. I'm guessing we'll need a lot of devices, so we'll need some space. We can't build much in that little dorm room.'

[I already have an area good for a little base. Outside the city obviously.]

'Alright. Well, no reason I can't start now.'

Dream stopped wandering around and began flying to the city gates. He soon reached the gate and had no problems leaving, especially now that his title plate was stamped with the academy symbol.

After leaving the city, he began heading to where Sophia indicated. It was around 200 miles away, and with Dream's speeds, he reached it within 10 minutes. 

The area was a big hill-filled valley. There weren't any mountains, but the land definitely wasn't smooth. 

[We can build a base under the hills.]

"Underground?"

[Well unless you plan to mine these materials yourself, we'll need robots to do it and a way to transport the materials. And since we're moving tons of rocks and still trying to be secretive about it, it'll need to be mostly underground. 

"Alright. So where do we start?"

[According to the layout of the land, this is what I've planned out.]

After she spoke, Dream vision was filled with the design of the facility overlapping on his view of the land beneath him. Sophia had planned out a truly massive area.

There would be VTOLs that carry the ore and fly into a giant mouth in the earth, leading them into the underground facility where they dropped everything off and left. From there, the ore would be processed and melted. All of the crap that they didn't need would get disposed of and carried away by more VTOLs. Then everything would get refined and turned into the ingots or metal sheets that they could use. Everything was planned out to the smallest detail, and it would be entirely automated. 

"...This seems like a lot."

[It's not much. I think you underestimate your skills and what they can do. You've only used them for small tools, but we can do so much more than just a railgun. We'll have to summon the materials for the facility and I'll be using the materials we have to build the mining robots, giving us greater efficiency.]

"Alright."

[Then we should get started. Go down to the ground.]

Dream floated down to where Sophia wanted. It was right above the middle of the facility. 

[You ready?]

"Am I about to lose all my mana?"

[Not at all. Though it'll take a while, so I hope you enjoy watching.]

After she said that, Dream felt his mana explode out from his body and spread out into the ground. Not long after, he could feel the ground shake.

*Rumble*

Massive amounts of dirt and stone were taken control of and lifted into the sky. Sophia was basically scooping out a huge chunk of earth and tossing it aside. 

After she put all the dirt and stone aside, Dream looked down and could see a massive 200-meter deep crater. Soon after, Sophia began summoning out the materials and tools needed for the facility. 

Tons upon tons of structural material was summoned and formed into the skeleton of the facility. Screws and bolts tightened themselves and welding was done wherever needed. It took only 15 minutes before the outline of the facility was completed.

Although it looked easy and smooth, Dream had begun to feel the stress on his soul. The precision needed to control everything was something only Sophia could handle, but she still did it through his soul. He still bore that burden. 

As Dream became more powerful and developed his skills, he began to realize more and more his connection to Sophia and how they interacted. Sophia was a skill that assimilated with part of his soul and gained intelligence. At first, they were still rather separated. Sophia could think semi-independently from Dream, and vice-versa. And if she did something with his skills like enchant an item, he wouldn't know how she did it, since she was the one who actually did it. But that began to change, especially after the class 2 advancement.

As he gained power, he began to become aware of the things Sophia did and thought. He started to understand what she did when she did it without her telling him. Like when they built the collar for John. Dream didn't need to ask how it was enchanted or watch the enchantment. He was just able to know through Sophia. Same with his body. Although he didn't ask about it, Dream knew the decisions Sophia made and the enchantments she made while building the body in his mind space.

Overall, their connection was deepening. And when they built something, like right now, they would understand each other's thinking and what the other was doing without needing to communicate. So currently, Dream understood everything Sophia was doing from screwing bolts to welding corners. He was aware of it all, just as she was. 

Dream watched more materials being summoned and put into place. Platforms were secured into the ground, walls were built, the conveyor system began to be put into place, the smelters were assembled, the rocks grinders were put in place, all the different components of the factory were being brought together from the ground up.

Eventually, the massive gate for the facility was made. It could open and close should they need to hide the place, and it's where everything would go in and out. Like the roof of a stadium. 

As they reached the peak of construction, Dream also felt the peak of the pressure on his soul. Though it wasn't that bad, it still gave him some fatigue and tiredness. Nothing a good night's rest couldn't handle though.

Soon the facility was completed. Though they still weren't completely done.

[Everything like the conveyor system and smelters are totally automated, but we still need manpower for any labor, like unloading raw materials and such. For this we'll need robots.]

After she said that, more materials began to move over and assemble into robots designed for moving heavy objects and doing any laborious jobs inside the facility. Though they didn't hardly look like humans, they didn't need to be. Sophia also created the central system that would run and monitor the whole facility, including the robots.

When she finished, there was a big crowd of neatly lined up robots in the facility. Though this is when Dream raised a question.

"Are my skills going to be used to power everything?"

[Correct. We're going to be making our own core that'll power the entire facility. For that we're going to use non-summoned materials like that titanium.]

"Alright."

When he gave the thumbs up, Sophia removed a huge chunk of titanium from his inventory. It was formed into a big metal ball about 20 feet in diameter. Then, it was placed into a cradle inside the facility that was built specifically for this core. 

The cradle looked very similar to that altar for the Dome core. Except instead of wood, it was metal. The cradle had its own veins that would pull mana from the core and send it to the places that needed it. This core would also work in tandem with the central electrical system. Everything would merge seamlessly.

When the core was placed, Sophia proceeded to enchant it with a massive mana vortex. Initially, Dream still had most of his mana, but this enchantment alone tanked it by 40%. But you get what you give, and the vortex along with the rest of the enchantment began to form the dense mana core shortly.

[Although it won't be nearly as dense as the Dome core, it'll be more than enough to power this entire facility. The mana from this core will be used to create heat to melt metals as well as be converted to electricity to power certain systems. In fact, the main system should be booting up right now.]

*Click*

*Vrrr!*

With a clunk, the system began to run and electricity began to flow to the various machines. As a test, different sections of the facility began to run, making sure they operated normally.

After that, Sophia enchanted the robots with their own small vortexes that would allow them to run. Although Dream eventually had to take out some mana cubes to supplement, they got all the robots up and running. 

[Now until we actually get materials for processing, this facility will remain dormant. Though that won't be for very long. I've already summoned the scanners and the drones that will scatter them. So we can start anytime.]