Chapter 105 – Potential

Dream walked over to the archer demon and cut its vocal cords before going to work.

[Beginning Soul Search...]

"!!!"

The demon began thrashing around, just like the one before it. Its mana was expelled in an attempt to do anything to Dream, and it actually had some effect. His clothes, skin, armor, and even the ground began to sizzle and corrode. But Dream quickly protected himself with not only magic but also sequences. The demon was blocked from doing anything and Dream began to seal the demon's magic within its body.

[Soul Search complete.]

[Skills:

'So he really does have corrosion magic.'

[Unfortunately it looks like we can only try and get one, especially if its soul starts to break down again. So which one?]

'Hmm... Get the corrosion magic.'

[Understood. Let me prepare a bit...]

Saying that, Sophia began to expend more of Dream's energy and mana. She was setting up the most suitable environment and getting ready for a blitz-type attack.

[Beginning...]

Immediately after, Sophia began to attack the demon's soul, going straight for the skill she wanted. The skill began to break down and the demon violently responded. But surprisingly, even after she completely broke down the skill, the soul didn't begin to dissipate.

<[Magic] has leveled up!>

<[Sophia] has leveled up!>

'...Did it work?'

[Yes. I got the corrosion skill. But the soul isn't breaking down. Interesting.]

'Well if it's still intact, go get another one. Maybe finish off demonic regeneration since it's incomplete.'

[Alright.]

After that, she began to attack the soul again. But right when she did, it actually began breaking down! Sophia gave a quick curse as she worked faster.

[Done.]

<You have killed a level 230 [High Demon]>

<You have gained experience!>

<You have leveled up!>

<[Sophia] has leveled up!>

'...Interesting.'

Dream began pondering on the cause of the breakdown. He initially thought that it was some kind of defense mechanism against people like him who could get skills. But he was able to get the corrosion skill. So that's not it. But it happened when he went after specifically demonic regeneration. So could that one be the cause?

'Well, we still have one more test subject.'

Dream looked over to the sword demon on the floor, who was looking at him with fear in its eyes. He didn't waste time and did the same thing to it.

[Soul Search complete.]

[Skills:

'Hmm... Get weapon reinforcement and then shoot for mana body manipulation. Let's test out this theory of mine.'

[Understood. Beginning Emulation...]

Sophia began her attack and the demon began spasming, unable to even control its mana properly. 

[Skill acquired. Continuing...]

When Sophia got one, she moved on to the other. But right as she did, the soul began breaking down once more. She moved as fast as possible before he got the notification.

<You have killed a level 227 [High Demon]>

<You have gained Experience!>

<You have leveled up!>

<[Sophia has leveled up!>

'I think I get it.'

Dream spoke after smiling at the notifications.

'The first three skills. Those have shown up in all three demons we fought. I'm guessing if we touch those, it triggers some kind of defense mechanism and starts the breakdown. How much of the skill were you able to get?'

[Only about a third. So we should get all the other skills before touching the first three.]

'Yup. You know, I wonder if the lower demons have those skills.'

Dream stood up and looked around, quickly finding a stray demon. He pulled it in with magic and grabbed its head.

[Soul Search complete.]

[Skills:

'Huh. This is getting more and more interesting. Though I doubt the skills are the same quality as the stronger demons. Break it down.'

On his command, Sophia began indiscriminately dissolving the soul, using it as research.

<You have killed a level 176 [Demon]>

<You have gained Experience!>

'Not high demon huh?'

"Dream? You done?"

Ciroc called out to him as he was pondering over things. He looked up and nodded.

"Yes. I'll take these corpses as well if that's okay."

"All yours."

"Thanks."

Dream collected the two class 3 corpses into his inventory. He wanted to study their weapons and bodies, especially the tendon used as a string and the sword.

After the village was cleaned out, the carriages got moving again. It wasn't long before they arrived at the next village. Dream took up the job again and swept through everything. After killing off and soul searching a single weak class 3 they boarded up and arrived at another village where he did the same thing once more.

After the third village sweep morning finally came, though Dream still wasn't at all tired. And when they came up on another village, Dream once again volunteered. But this time they had different thoughts.

"You should slow it down, Dream. Take today off."

"Indeed. Get some rest. You've fought hard."

"...I'm not really tired."

Dream looked at them weirdly. Rest? After having day-long life and death fights with Sophia on multiple occasions, he no longer got tired easily, only when he exerted himself. And he hadn't really done that yet. 

"It's alright. I know you enjoy fighting, but everyone needs their rest. And I'm sure the others want a shot too. You've only left them with some small fries."

"Oh. Right. If that's the case and I'm taking the day off, can I go somewhere?"

"Where?"

"A place where I can tamper with my kills in peace. It's hard to do work in a carriage like this."

"You have a mobile crafting room?"

"Something like that. I came prepared."

"Hmm, very well. But will you be able to find us?"

"Yes, that won't be a problem."

"Very well. I have no problems."

"Thanks. Then I'll go."

With that, Dream jumped out of the moving carriage. After that, he flew straight up into the sky, eventually disappearing from their senses.

"...Weird." (Ciroc)

"He's an interesting kid. I'm liking him more and more." (Idona)

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

After half an hour, Dream was flying himself into orbit. His path went straight for the space station, and it didn't take him long to approach it.

"...Nice."

As he hadn't actually seen it before, Dream was pleasantly surprised when he laid his eyes on the massive structure that was his factory.

It was even bigger than when it was on the planet. Sophia had the construction bots expand its facilities and modify it since it was now in space. Weight, materials, nor secrecy was a problem and they could do as they wished with zero obstructions. 

He flew into the mouth of the factory and drifted past all the machines and busy robots working the raw materials. Since everything had been sized up, Dream was pea-sized compared to everything else. Like a bird flying through a city of metal.

Soon he came upon the storage and workshop area. There, bots were still working to enhance steel and mithril as they always were. Nothing ever stopped in this space factory.

Dream found himself some empty space and brought out the bodies of all the class 3 demons and their weapons. He began pondering.

"All of these weapons are made from something organic. Whether it's wood, bone, or something else. But despite that, these things are reaching the levels of grade 6 and 7 mithril. Like the sword that the sword demon used. As for the axe demon, that dude had bone related skills and could not only craft but enhance the bones he had, giving him armor and weapons. So what I want to know is, how does that weak bone get so strong?"

Dream held up the sword of the demon. It was made from bone, and disregarding how the demon would get such a big bone to make the sword out of, he wondered how it was able to become so strong.

[It's definitely the result of flux, but there's something else that gives these bones special properties. For that, I think we'll have to look at this alchemically. Here, take this data.]

Sophia began to stream information into Dream's mind. It was from the alchemy books that Riddick had let Dream scan.

After the meeting before they left, Riddick had brought Dream to his chamber to help with packing his things as well as so he could give Dream the alchemy books. After Dream scanned all 4 levels of alchemy mastery, Sophia had been researching the data to find the fundamental concepts of alchemy so they could wield it. The data she was giving him now was some of the concepts that she had figured out.

[These bones obviously have increased flux and mana density, but their structure and composition has also been modified. Usually bones are where things like blood and cells are produced, but these bones have had those functions and structures removed. Makes sense considering they want strength over functionality, but the chemical composition has also been changed.]

"Is it made from some kind of metal?"

[Almost. There's an uneven distribution of a carbon fiber composite strung through the bone structure. This was definitely not done by weaving carbon fiber through the bone, but through an alchemical process.]

"And what alchemy process would let them do this?"

[To understand that you need to understand alchemy. From what I've gathered, alchemy is using mana to exchange, purify, modify, or transmute materials. It can be used to change the properties of materials as well by using another material. In the case of this bone, the demon tried to transmute this bone into a carbon composite. It largely failed, but it still got greatly enhanced by what didn't fail. This combined with the hardened exterior and a large amount of flux allowed the weapon to become strong.]

"Hmm... Interesting. Now how were they able to get so much flux? They can't possibly know the technique we do."

[I think that's half due to the strength of the bone when its owner died and half alchemy. Because of their short life, having only existed for two months at most, they couldn't have waited for flux to enhance a weak bone. But they would have had to kill a monster stronger than themselves to get this kind of strength, not to mention the composition. So that leaves alchemy, and in the books that Riddick gave us, it shows how the properties of a weapon can be enhanced by sacrificing materials. It's a very inefficient process, but I think that's what happened here.]

"But the sword demon definitely isn't an alchemist or a blacksmith, so there was another demon that made this item. Maybe the demons also have different jobs within their outposts or strongholds."

[They are a very versatile race. And surprisingly smart. Too bad they're demons. Otherwise I'd argue that they have the same potential as humans.]

"They have plenty of potential, enough to allow them to reach these levels in such a short amount of time. Anyway, is there anything we can use these bodies for?"

[We can use them as flux fuel for some metal.]

"Maybe we can test out that alchemy process?"

[Unfortunately that process isn't worth the convenience. Much of the flux doesn't get passed on to the target material. Our method though squeezes out every drop of flux that the material has.]

"I see. Then let's go with that. Maybe using this and some of our leftover grade 7 mithril, we can make some grade 8 material. Speaking of, how is the steel coming along?"

[Go take a look.]

Dream walked over to another section of the storage where the few hundred bots were enhancing materials inside a cauldron. Sophia directed a bot to bring Dream a sphere of steel.

He received the steel and felt the high mana concentration.

"What grade is this?"

[This piece of steel has the flux equivalent to grade 7 mithril. But it has more mana and higher strength than grade 7 mithril, making its strength equivalent to grade 8 mithril. We have a few tons of this.]

"...Very nice. Though I can imagine that it took a while to make this."

[Using the best explosion techniques it still took a while yes. And it's only taking longer and longer to enhance it. The stronger it gets, the slower it is for flux to absorb. Though it's been rather consistent and I haven't seen any upper limits yet.]

"That's good. What about the mithril?"

[We were able to produce grade 8.7 mithril, currently on its way to the "pure" level mithril. Though we only have a couple hundred pounds of this. The higher the grade, the smaller the amount.]

"Makes sense. Silver is much rarer than iron. Though I have an idea, and if this works we might have another source of flux. Gimme that sword."

The sword from the demon flew over to Dream's hand. 

"If we can explode this sword, we would be able to release its flux into our metals. We can also use things like bones with high mana density. And since we're going to be killing plenty of demons, we'll have a steady supply of these materials."

[Well let's test it out.]

Sophia took some of the grade 7 steel and wrapped the sword in it. Then, several bots, Aegis, and Dream began to load massive amounts of mana into it.

*Boom*

A low thud came from the sword. But although it sounded low, the force coming from the explosion shattered the steel in several places. Sophia quickly sealed the cracks and took out the depleted material, letting the steel absorb the flux better.

[It's working. The mana density is increasing.]

"Sweet. Though we're going to need to be careful with those explosions. This steel is some of the strongest material on this planet, but it was shattered by the sword."

[Indeed. It has the potential to cause nuclear explosions. Though I've already developed several precautions, so we don't have much to worry about.]

"Thanks. Now since we have all these weapons and material, let's start experimenting with their flux transfer. You said a while ago that there was a way to use sequences to affect flux. I think it's about time we started playing with that."