Chapter 98 – So Close

"There you are."

As Dream looked down on the city, he could see where Luna and Iris were. And when he traced the mana connection and strengthened it, Luna was alerted to his presence as well.

'Dream?! Is that you?!'

He smiled when he heard that beautiful voice come over the connection.

'Yes, it's me. How are you two?'

'It's really you! Dream we're...actually not doing that bad. We got here not long ago. Hey! We met our mother! She's real!'

'Of course she's real. It takes two to tango after all.'

'R-right. Speaking of, how's...'

'Your dad is alive. He recovered fully after I saved his ass.'

'...Thank you.'

'Don't mention it. My only regret is not getting there in time to get you two back as well.'

Dream could feel a wave of emotion from Luna. Their dad's status has probably been the biggest thing on their minds this whole time. To be kept in the dark about something like that must've been soul-tearing.

'Anyway, I haven't been able to get in contact with Iris. Something happen?'

'Yes. This place seems to block anything from going out. I've even brought out my phone but nothing happened.'

'Hmm. Alright. I'll send something down that'll let you guys communicate with me and your father. It'll find you.'

'Okay. Thank you.'

'Sure. I actually hadn't intended to be here, but I thought I could stop by. I'm glad I did. But unfortunately, aside from giving you the device, I can't do much more. I don't have the ability to break you two and your mother out.'

'That's alright. It's also too much to ask of you. Besides, I think being here might not be the worst thing anymore. We have our mother now, and we'll be able to make up for lost time.'

'That's good. I'm sending the device down now. Let's see if this works'

When he said that, Dream dropped a disk of Mithril about the size of his head that he had crafted on the spot. It flew down through the air while totally concealing its presence.

Soon, it hit a building and deployed, tracking where Luna was with the AI onboard. 

'A villa huh? You got any windows in that place?'

'No. It's a prison.'

'Hmm, well no matter. We'll just dig.'

Giving a command, the disk began to dig itself through the walls of the building, sealing it behind itself. Even the enchantments were punched through as the disk easily made its way into the building. Soon, it made contact.

'I got it! So how does it- Oh.' 

The device transformed in Luna's hands, turning into two different wrist bands.

She put one on and gave the other to the confused Iris next to her. Once they did, they suddenly saw an image show up in front of them.

"Dream?!" (Iris)

"We can see you?" (Luna)

"What's up Scarlet. The bracelets I gave you will let you call me, your father, or each other. Don't worry about it being blocked by those enchantments around the castle."

"W-wait. Dream. Is dad really ok?"

"...See for yourself."

"Hm?"

Suddenly, another image appeared next to Dream. It was a man sitting in a chair reading a book.

"Dad..."

"Iris? Luna?! Dream?"

Once Riddick realized what was going on, he shot out of the chair. He stared at his girls and then Dream who was standing next to him. 

"I'll say it one more time. Everyone who has this bracelet can call each other. It happens through your mind. So nobody will know or see what you can. Got that Old Man?"

"...Yes. But, how are the girls calling?"

"I'm currently above the United Empire. I dropped them bracelets that wouldn't be hindered by all the enchantments around them."

"And how did you get over there?"

"I flew into orbit around the planet and decided to stop by. I'll be heading back in a bit."

"...I see."

Riddick went quiet. He knew what Dream meant, but he had a hard time picturing it. Though he didn't really care much about that. His attention focused back on his daughters.

"...I'm sorry."

"No, dad, you did everything you could. We're just glad you're safe."

The girls were about to get up and hug their dad, but they remembered that the images weren't real and just sat back down.

"I'll let you guys talk alone after one more thing. Luna. If you look down at your bracelet, you'll see that it's bigger. Your bracelet is actually two, and should you decide, you can give it to your mother. This will enable her to call the group, like right now."

After he said that, Luna looked down and touched her bracelet. It split in half and one came off, looking just like the others.

"Unfortunately I can't deliver it to her since I don't know her nor where she is. So the next time you meet, you'll have to do it. The connections are always active, and everything is controlled through the mind. So just don't let someone take the bracelet. Other than that, I have nothing more. I'll be heading back out to the Spire. So... I'll leave you guys alone. Bye."

With that, Dream left the call. He looked down at the house the girls were in.

"So close, yet so far. Oh, how I loath this feeling."

Dream was suddenly very frustrated. Only 20,000 feet, a distance he could cross in seconds. He had thought about attempting to just go there and snatch them, but no matter what way he looked at it, it seemed impossible. The reason was because of the number of strong signatures in the area. 

"I've never seen such a heavily guarded place. Thousands of class 3's. And there's even 4 signature's that surpass class 3 by a whole realm. That's probably a class 4. I've never sensed one before. And I couldn't imagine trying to fight that anytime soon."

Those deep and unfathomable signatures that he sensed were the biggest threat. They had some weird effect on their surroundings, but he could only assume that that was intentional. Not to mention, if people as powerful as them didn't want anyone to sense anything, then they wouldn't. So he could only assume that these four were only the tip of the iceberg. 

"*sigh* Whatever. Let's head back."

Dream looked to the sky and shot up, heading back into orbit.

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

When he got back to the factory, Dream took off the suit and took a seat. 

He was still fatigued from making the suit. He had just got caught up in the excitement of finishing it. Though that excitement had died down now.

"*sigh* How are the bots doing?"

Dream looked over to another section of the workshop where the bots were. There were two piles of material on the ground, one was a pile of raw steel and the other was enhanced steel. The bots were taking from one and moving to the other, and it looked like they had made great progress.

[Nearly 170 tons of enhanced steel has been made.]

"I see that. But they've only been enhanced once. If we want anything to match up to Mithril, we'll need to go grade by grade."

[For that we'll need more machines.]

"Then let's make them now."

[You'll be exhausted. You're running on low right now.]

"I'll sleep when we finish this. The sooner we can get these enhanced the better, and I don't want to wait."

[Very well.]

Sophia didn't argue and pulled over material. Bars of Mithril flew over and began to form themselves into different machines. And to ease his load, Aegis went over and assisted in the construction. 

Dream was able to see another function of the suit in action. Aegis could turn into a cloud or solid however he wanted, and everything was interconnected. He had his own mana supply and didn't need the help of Dream to enchant or build items. So as Dream constructed, Aegis would go and quickly enchant the items. He would encase an item in the cloud and the enchantment would be rapidly applied. 

Aegis could also rapidly construct or deconstruct items and materials. Although the extent of his powers wasn't to Dream's degree, it wasn't exactly that far off with its massive mana pool. It could take things like Mithril bars and break it down just like they did when building the suit. It even had the function to take in material and make it a part of its own body to reconstruct itself. So needless to say, the suit was extremely versatile, if not a miniature Dream.

It didn't take long for the new bots and machines to be constructed. Dream had built not only another 200 bots, but also modified them to be able to work alongside a specialized machine he built. The huge cauldron shaped machine was meant to condense huge amounts of mana needed to explode the materials for enhancement, and the bots, as they started to enhance stronger materials, could use the huge cauldron if they themselves were too weak to enhance things. 

Dream looked over everything as he sat. Once he nodded the new bots all went to work, grabbing the enhanced steel to enhance it further.

"...We're going to need more silver if we're going to continually use it like this. Deploy more scanners and mining teams."

When he said that, his chair rose and took him out of the factory. Once he was over the grassland, Sophia began to rapidly summon out scanners and drones. She also began to bring over tons of steel and construct her own mining teams.

In a few hours, Dream had 14 more mining teams in front of him and thousands of scanners lined up. They looked like an army just waiting for their orders. 

"...Go."

With the word, all the drones and their scanners rose and flew off into the distance. Their destination was wherever they hadn't searched. 

At the same time, two mining teams loaded up and set off. In the past few days, two more spots had been found, so they went to go and mine. The rest of the teams also loaded up, but they didn't head out, instead hiding inside the factory. 

At this point, Dream could barely keep his eyes open. And once the ships all loaded into the factory, he actually dozed off and passed out.

When he did, he was about to fall out of the sky, but the servant next to him would never let that happen and quickly encased Dream's body.

[...Take him to this destination.]

"Understood, my lady."

Aegis obediently carried out her orders and began flying off. 

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

.......

"..."

When Dream woke up, he was in his bed inside his dorm. 

He sat up and noticed that he wasn't really fatigued. He had basically recovered.

"Did I sleep for a day again?"

[No. Only about 15 hours.]

"Oh. Okay."

As he looked around the area, Dream noticed that the girls weren't there. He shrugged and stood up, stretching out of reflex.

[I actually did some more modifications while you were asleep. I've integrated grade 7 mithril into your bones. I've also changed some bodily processes and enchantments, so energy output and such are enhanced.]

"Alright. How were things at the factory?"

[Everything's handled. Mining teams are doing their job, scanners are scrambling the lands, and all the bots in storage are enhancing materials as we speak.]

"Good. Hopefully we can strengthen that steel more. I want to see how far it can go. So...what now?"

Dream began running through his list. They were enhancing the materials, they had built Aegis, and resources were coming in by the ton. He began thinking of the girls, but he still couldn't help them. 

"Ugh. I miss their fur. I've never gone so long without petting something."

[We could just go get you a pet. We can travel around or even go back to the animal continent and find a baby tiger or something.]

"Hmm... Alright. Why not. I've never had a tiger as a pet before."

As Dream casually made his plans for kidnapping baby animals, Mara and Arrina walked into his dorm.

"Oh, hey guys."

"...Hi."

Both had a surprised face as they looked at him. But that soon went away as they went and sat on the couch. 

"So? What'd I miss over these past few days?"

Dream went over and sat with them. 

"Nothing much. I'm slowly getting better at manipulation."

Arrina took out her cube and began making it fly around her body. It looked effortless.

"I've also been getting better at it. My sequences have also been getting better." (Mara)

"That's good. Now, the next step for both of you is to be able to handle multiple objects at once. Here Arrina."

Dream brought out 6 cubes identical to the one she had and put them on the table in front of them. 

"Do that but with two cubes."

"...Alright."

Arrina looked a bit intimidated but still picked up another cube. When she attempted to manipulate both, the difficulty was obvious. As she moved one, the other wouldn't do anything. And if she tried to move both, she would end up dropping one. 

"Not so easy now huh? Once you're able to manipulate 20 cubes all at once, we'll move on to liquids. Same for you Mara."

"Why does manipulation have to be so difficult?! I just got used to moving this single cube!"

Arrina shouted out towards Dream. He smiled.

"It really isn't all that difficult. Watch."

Dream proceeded to take out 40 cubes. Altogether, they spun in random directions around the area. They would flow around the girls and the couch and even between legs. It looked chaotic, but it was very controlled. 

Both of them looked at the cubes with ridiculous faces. After a bit, Arrina just slouched down into the couch looking tired.

"...I don't want to anymore."

"Come on, you got this. It's not impossible to get down. Just take it one day at a time. I'm sure in a week you'll be able to move around 3 of those cubes."

Saying that, he put the cubes away. Arrina sighed before putting come cubes in her pockets. She then looked at Dream.

"By the way, the teacher is wondering where you've been."

"Good for him."

"Her. And not good. Are you sure you're getting everything? You haven't studied with us or the class."

"I'm doing fine."

"Really? Show me any three-layer circle."

"..."

Dream looked at her for a second before bringing out an 87 rune three-layer circle. It took no time to form.

"...Hmph. What about 4 layer?"

"I'll show you a 6."

After that, Dream held up his hand towards them. In front of it, a circle about 4 feet in diameter appeared. It was filled to the brim with easily 200 runes. After that circle came the others. 1 circle a bit smaller was laid on top. And on that one was placed 4 more circles in a square formation. The runes counted over 700, and the mana density inside the room noticeably increased just due to that circle. 

Both girls looked at the sequences with incredulous faces, though Mara was by far more surprised than Arrina.

"How have you made a 6 layer? That's mid-advanced level. I've only barely gotten there."

"Once you understand the runes and how they interact, it becomes rather easy. You just need to follow the pattern. Plus, I'm an enchanter. I have an easier time writing this stuff. But that's beside the point. The main reason is because of my manipulation techniques. Once you get that down, this stuff comes easily. So keep on working and you'll be able to do this stuff soon."

Dream sat back and dissipated the circle, enjoying the weird look the girls were giving him.