Chapter 155 – S Tier

Barely half an hour after Dream called, the girls were boarding the factory. 

"I still can't believe how huge this place is."

Iris spoke as they walked past the massive processing machines and cauldrons of molten metal. The amount of energy flowing through the place was far higher than they could imagine, and if it weren't for the reactor technology Dream recently developed, he wouldn't be able to expand his processing facilities so much. 

After admiring the sight of huge machines and metal processing, they arrived at the storage room. Both of them sighed as they saw the heaping piles of ingots that were being constantly stacked and taken from.

And off to the side of these piles, Dream was sitting in a chair, fiddling with some crystals in his hand.

"So Dream, done with your negotiations yet?"

Luna smiled as they walked over to him. Hearing her, Dream sighed.

"I wish. I just happened to have some free time."

"So you decided to play with some crystals?"

"These crystals are very special."

"Hmm... You're soul is a bit weaker than normal."

Sensing his aura over the connection, Luna spoke out in concern. 

"I've been exerting a lot of energy tampering with these things."

"So what makes these so special?"

"It's solid mana."

"Solid? That exists?"

"Yup. When I arrived at the Elven Empire, I did a scan of their home Tree. Inside, I found these solid mana crystals. They were interesting, so I took some."

"...This looks like a bit more than some."

Both girls looked at the table in front of him that held 20 of these crystals. All of them were bigger than a head and took up a bit of space.

"I actually have 50. Most of them have been broken down. Plus, there was a lot more inside the Tree, so it's okay."

"Do the elves know about this?"

"Of course not. They would kill me if they knew."

"...Right."

"Anyway, I need some help. If I don't want to pass out for days on end, I need some energy passed to me as I exert it."

"What, you called us up here to act as batteries?"

Iris snickered as she curled up on his lap in fox form. Dream smiled and pet her.

"Something like that. I also get to spend time with you guys. Better than being gone for a week straight."

"True. We were bored anyway."

Luna came from behind his chair and hugged his neck, placing her chin on his shoulder. 

"You guys can just relax as I test some things. In fact, let's get us a couch."

Saying that, Dream stood and brought out a couch. The three sat down and got comfortable, cuddling with one another. Dream then made more of the crystals float over in front of them.

"I've broken down 30, but I haven't begun converting anything."

"What do you mean, broken down?"

"I've reduced them to tiny particles that you can't see. There's currently a cloud of crystal particles floating in front of us. In fact, you, Scarlet, walked right through it."

"I did? I didn't notice anything."

"I know. Luckily I kept you from breathing any in. Anyway, you'll notice when I start converting the mana to my own."

"Ok."

"Then I'll start."

Saying so, Dream utilized his already spread influence and controlled the crystal particles in front of him that were no larger than 40 nanometers. He began wiping the existing mana signature from them and replacing it with his own, thereby giving him control. 

But unlike last time, he was now doing this across thousands of pieces at a time. It required much more energy, and the girls were indeed able to sense his gradually weakening aura.

When they did, Luna used her skill and amplified the connection between Dream and Iris. Iris then began slowly passing energy over, assisting his soul.

Like this, Dream went through clusters and converted the mana alongside Sophia. He also had Sophia display a live simulation, letting Luna and Iris see what he was seeing and doing. This made it so they wouldn't get bored.

"Hmm... So you're converting mana. Why do you need to convert it?"

Halfway through, Iris chimed in with a question as she watched what he was doing.

"Each person's mana is personalized with a signature that comes from the soul. If someone wants to use external mana, they need to get rid of the signature and put their own on it. This takes energy depending on the strength of both people."

"But you got these crystals from a tree."

"It's a very special tree, so the crystals have the signature of that Tree. And it's rather powerful too, making this more difficult than I would've liked."

"Gotcha."

After answering her question, Iris closed her eyes and put her head back down, enjoying Dream's masterful petting skills. He also continued converting, and around 15 minutes later, he had finished breaking down and converting all the crystals.

"*sigh* Doing anything with these crystals is gonna be a pain."

"You exerted yourself quite a bit, though compared to your bottomless pit of soul energy, it wasn't much."

"I could naturally recover from this in a few hours or so. But I have yet to work out at all. This is just a warmup."

"Workout?"

"Mhm. And boy is this one gonna suck. Alright, first, let's squeeze."

"Squeeze?"

"Squeeeezzee..."

Dream stared straight at the floating gas of crystal pieces in front of them and stressed his soul, bringing together all the pieces. Then, like a liquid, the pieces seemed to melt and bond together.

At first, the girls only saw a small portion of crystal come into view, but as time went on, the small portion turned into the bottom hemisphere of a globe, and every second, layers were being stacked on top of this hemisphere, forming one big globe about the size of a head.

As Dream formed this sphere, the girls could sense his aura weaken at a much faster pace than before. Both were surprised before Iris quickly started sending energy.

After a few minutes, Dream had formed one sphere. 

<[Arcana] has leveled up!>

<[Arcana] has leveled up!>

"Huh. Two levels. That's level 11 now?"

Dream saw the two notifications and smiled a bit. The girls both looked at him and the sphere.

"You leveled up?"

"My skill, yes."

"Seems rather easy."

"Tell that to my soul. I'm already tired."

"..."

Although he didn't show it on the outside, both girls could sense the energy he expended. And given his ability, for him to take so long on something seemingly simple meant that it was by no means simple at all.

"Alright. Let's keep going."

"How many more do you have to make?"

"Well there were 50 when I started, and I just made one. So 49 more."

"Wait, you're planning to reform all of them?"

"Yup."

"...Good luck."

"Thanks."

Smiling, Dream went back to forming the other spheres. Except this time, he focused on two instead of just one.

Focusing on forming both at the same time wasn't difficult. His mind was far more powerful than it was as a normal human, and with Sophia's dedicated processing ability, he hardly needed to even pay attention. His soul however, now had twice the pressure. This is probably what he focused on the most.

After another few minutes, Dream had formed the two spheres. But he didn't stop and went straight to forming another three. 

As Dream formed more and more, he was gradually able to get the hang of it. Manipulating this solid mana was much different than manipulating liquid or gas mana. As he said, he had to use brute force in order to handle it. But over time, he was able to find certain tricks to make the handling easier.

One such trick was letting go of his absolute control. Ever since the Magic skill evolved into the Arcana skill, Dream noticed the very different method of use. Despite this though, he still sought to use the Arcana skill the same way as with the Magic skill. And when building simple things like his bots and such, that was acceptable. But when it came to things like this solid mana, he was figuring out how wrong it felt.

So in order to figure out how to correctly use the skill, he decided to apply the skill in a very basic manner. Basically, he would give a simple objective and let the skill almost do as it pleased. All he was was the driving force. 

By doing this, he was able to slowly understand the different method in using the skill. Once he found a pattern, he would begin to actively apply that technique and try to understand it. And when something felt off, he would either loosen his control or try a different pattern. Sophia would also map out different ways of using the skill in a more mathematical way.

Dream went on like this for a few hours, and gradually his mind disregarded the slowly decreasing strain on his soul. He just closed his eyes and immersed himself in the visualization and feeling of control. 

<[Arcana] has leveled up!>

<[Arcana] has leveled up!>

<[Arcana] has leveled up!>

<[Particle Manipulation] has leveled up!>

<[Particle Manipulation] has leveled up!>

<[Particle Manipulation] has...>

<[Sophia] has...>

...

11 notifications streamed down his vision, but Dream didn't pay it much heed. 

At this point, all 50 orbs of solid mana were floating in front of him. Some were in pieces, some were smushed flat, some were reduced to nanoparticles. He just did random things with each orb, working on his control over this solid mana.

But while he was immersed in the euphoria that came from progress, the girls were a little worn. Iris suddenly spoke up.

"Ugh, Dream, how long are you gonna fiddle with those balls?"

"...You really had to make it weird huh. I'm not done yet."

"Well you've taken a lot of energy from us."

"You can stop sending it."

"If I do that you're soul will be strained."

"It's fine. I'm coming onto something here. Just gotta... Huuuhhhh."

When he spoke, Dream suddenly started taking in super deep breaths, more so than should be possible. But he wasn't simply breathing in air, but mana. 

As he breathed in, not only did the ambient mana fog start rushing into his body, but one of the orbs was reduced to particles and flew in with the mana fog. Everything gathered in his lungs and started accumulating, condensing. And only a few seconds later, a drop of liquid mana formed.

<[Arcana] has leveled up!>

<[Arcana] has leveled up!>

Two notifications appeared, but Dream didn't have the mind to notice them. The reason was because of the simultaneous strain and strengthening of his soul.

"Dream?"

"What's going on?"

Both girls were suddenly alerted. They had sensed the intense mana accumulation in his chest, but they didn't pay attention to that much. What alerted them was the intense fluctuations of Dream's aura. One moment is was super weak, but the next it would strengthen. This happened several times in a short period, and they knew something like that wasn't good.

"Ugh... It's fine. It's... Fantastic!"

As he gritted his teeth in pain, Dream forced more drops of liquid mana to form. In fact, he dumped his entire mana pool into his lungs to be condensed and converted. 

This obviously took a huge amount of soul energy as he needed to gather enough flux for the liquid. He was trying to break down the solid mana. Not just making the pieces smaller, but converting it back to a liquid. This would provide lots of unbound mana and flux which he could use to refill his mana pool.

And sure enough, after dozens of fluctuations between a weak and powerful aura, his breathing steadied as did his soul. The massive concentration of liquid mana in his chest also disappeared into his pool. His mana pool had finally broken through!

"Huhu... Yes..."

"Jeez, you're gonna make me tired just from sending you energy. You better take me out to eat!"

"Huh?"

When Dream snapped out of his bubble, he could feel the nourishing energy being sent from Iris. He could also sense her aura that had weakened significantly. Luna's was also weakened similar to hers.

"Uhh, I told you you could cut the connection."

"And let you die? Do you know how weak your aura got? Even our connection weakened!"

"I wasn't going to die. The worst that would happen is passing out."

"Don't you have political crap to do? You can't pass out. Whatever. Just get me some food!"

"Heh, thanks."

Dream smiled and ruffled Iris' fur. He then had her jump on his shoulders before the three got up and boarded a ship, flying back down to the planet in search of some food. 

.........

"You damn wolves! Just stay put! You too, stupid deer!"

In a forest on the human continent, Iris was lighting up the night sky with pillars of fire. She was currently in pursuit of a large den of animals, many of which were class 3 and 2. 

Dream and Luna just sat in the ship. While Dream could just kill all the prey, Iris loved to hunt, so he let her do as she wished.

"Ahh... That feels better."

Luna sighed and relaxed as energy was passed to her from Iris, nourishing her soul. Dream was also receiving energy, although quite a bit lesser than Luna.

"So you seem to have made another breakthrough."

Luna spoke up as they sat together, watching the fire fox dash through the forest. Dream smiled and held her.

"I guess you could call it a breakthrough. My magic went up."

"You were at A+ before right? So its S- now?"

"Yup. My mana pool turned to liquid and it also expanded. It was a significant jump in both mana and soul power. My skills also leveled up a bit."

"That's good. I guess it's safe to say that you're about as strong as a class 4."

"My power is a bit dynamic. Hard to estimate. But as for stats, yes, I would say that I'm barely on par."

"Mm. Mine and Iris' magic are still hovering at A+."

"You guys are also pretty high leveled."

"Less than 40 levels until our advancement."

"If you both keep training as you have, you should be able to break through into S tier before the advancement."

"Iris definitely will. She's gaining power very quickly. But there's been something odd going on with us."

"What?"

"Our stats are identical. Our levels aren't, but even those are only one or two levels off. And I can definitely say that I haven't been making nearly as much progress as her."

"You think you're sharing your stats?"

"Maybe. When Iris' magic stat goes up, mine does too. And when my stamina stat goes up, hers follows. I mean, I'm not concerned or anything. Our stats going up is good. But I just find it peculiar."

"That is interesting. Well, only time will tell what that leads to. You two are connected in a weird way, so maybe something weird will happen."

"Not the most comforting words you could've given."

"Weird isn't necessarily bad. All a matter of perspective. People would say I'm weird."

"Weird is one way to put it. You're very..."

"Passionate."

"In bed or with your experiments?"

"I would think both."

"In bed yes. Otherwise, mad scientist."

"Passionate intellectual."

"Potato-"

"Patahto."

"Hehe... *sigh*  By the way."

"Hm."

"I know it was a while ago, your birthday on the 10th. You were unconscious at the time, so happy birthday."

"Oh. Out of the blue, but thanks. I think we talked about that once before. Speaking of, when would yours and Iris's be?"

"Hmm, it also passed when you were asleep. According to your calendar, February 14."

"That's... Not even a month ago. We would be in early March right now. I guess that's happy birthday to you too then.

"Why thank you. Hehe, maybe we'll have to bring out a cake for the three of us."

Giggling, Luna looked off to the forest. Iris was walking back. Behind her was a large expanse of land filled with the ashes of all the trees and foliage she burned.

At this time, Sophia also chimed in.

[Dream. I've got an update. It's Earth.]