Chapter 174 – Preparing

Both girls were giddy as they showed off their liquid mana. Dream was also excited. Although he had seen them use it some during the battle, he hadn't been able to get a close look.

"Very cool! I can't say that I'm surprised though. You were already only a few levels away from both your advancement and skill maxing. If you didn't get liquid mana from that, I would be surprised."

"I know, but still. That battle with the 7 demons was enough to get my level up, getting me to S tier, and those captives were enough to get my skill maxed. The liquid mana actually helped with maxing the skill, which was nice. And since Luna's skill has already been maxed, we're both good to go. Although..."

"What?"

"Well... Our advancement only allows one choice."

"Really? I mean, I also only got one choice. Kind of. But I'm surprised it was the same for you guys. What is it?"

"Mine is called [Spectral Annihilator]. I think it's a nice name."

"I guess it is kind of fitting. Luna?"

"Mine is [Spectral Familiar]."

"Huh. Spectral... I wonder what that entails. Do you guys become something like ghosts?"

"Ghosts?! No! I don't want to lose my body! How would enjoy eating things again?!"

"Relax, I don't think it's gonna get rid of your body. Probably."

"Probably?!"

"Well I don't know! I can't see the future!"

"Try harder!"

"Ugh. Just chill. Not many things can go without a physical body. You guys had something like mana pathways be created at class 3, so that means your body is probably here to stay. Maybe it has something to do with your fox form? Maybe you'll get to become a fox spirit or something."

"...I guess."

"And if you guys really do become ghosts, I'll be sure to try and build you a body."

"Not helping! I don't want to become a ghost!"

"Haha, I'm kidding. It's just a joke... Mostly..."

"What was that?!"

"Nothing! Alright, before advancing we should make preparations. I want you guys to have the best conditions possible. We'll also get your parents so they can be there. I'm not sure about the dangers of advancing, but since there might be some risk, we'll make sure to pry all the details out of your dad."

"I think we'll be fine." (Luna)

"I'm sure you will, but better to have assistance than not. Never good to let down your guard."

"Aww, are you worried about us?" (Luna)

"...No, just being cautious. We'll do the advancement in the factory. I'll build a place for you two and make sure you have all the mana and flux you need."

"Hehe, okay. Thank you."

"Of course. Now, you two notify your parents, head to the dome, and rest up. We'll do the advancement in a few days."

"What about you?"

"I'm gonna prepare some things."

"Then we'll go with you."

"You guys don't need t-"

"If you're doing something for us, then we're going to be there. It's our advancement anyway. Don't you think we should understand the devices being built to help us?"

Luna interrupted and 'scolded' him reprimandingly as he tried to refuse. Dream went quiet for a second before just nodding his head.

"...Alright."

"Good! Sophia, in three hours, tell mom and dad that we've reached our advancement and are preparing with Dream in the factory. Send a ship to get them."

[Of course.]

"Thanks. Now, why don't we get going? There's a couch up there that hasn't been used in a bit."

Smiling and biting her lips, Luna rose a bit in the air, pulling Dream along. He just smirked before grabbing both girls and blasting off into the atmosphere.

........

.....

After those three hours went by, Riddick and Selene were finally notified. And after hearing the news, they didn't hesitate to take the prepared ship up to the factory.

After arriving, they entered and could see the three lazing around on the couch. Despite being cuddled with the girls though, Dream had a serious expression on as he stared off into space.

Noticing their arrival, Iris turned to them and waved.

"Hi!"

"...Class 4 huh?" (Riddick)

"Soon. Dream's doing... something. He's going to build a device to assist us."

"I'd be surprised if he wasn't."

"...Luna, spread your influence as far as it can go." (Dream)

"Uhh, okay."

After Dream suddenly spoke, Luna let loose her influence, holding nothing back. Dream also let out his influence which easily surpassed Luna's. Despite that though, he was surprised.

"Hmm, 1.8 kilometers. That's impressive. I'm guessing it's the same with Scarlet. Hey Old Man, you had just barely crossed S tier before advancing, right?"

"No, not barely. I had a decent gap."

"Sure. Anyway, how would you compare it to Luna's influence range right now?"

"...Definitely smaller. Past the kilometer mark, but not by too much."

"Alright, that means her soul would have been a good bit stronger than yours. How big was the core you made?"

"My core is centered around my chest. A good deal bigger than my heart. I would say about this big in diameter."

Riddick put his hands up and moved them a certain distance apart on his chest. Dream looked, visually calculating the length.

"Encompasses your heart and your lungs, but stops there. I would say about the size of your rib cage, so basically your entire upper torso."

"Just about, yes. It was then that I ran out of energy."

"Mm. Now based on influence range, both of them would theoretically be able to create solid mana the size of their entire torsos. That's with no assistance though. If I'm able to help, they should be able to extract enough energy to cover their whole bodies. That combined with the  free and neutral liquid mana of mine should make fueling the process easier..."

Dream quickly traveled down his train of thought, exploring all possible avenues that this advancement could take. He just mumbled to himself as he and Sophia can up with all kinds of enchantments and devices that could assist the two in whatever way possible.

"Uhh, Dream?"

"Hm?"

Dream stopped his mumbling as Iris tugged on his arm. He looked at her, but Iris could tell he wasn't entirely focused on her.

"Don't you have solid mana already? You got those orbs from the Tree, didn't you."

"Uhh... Yes, indeed I did."

"So... Why don't we use that? It would save lots of energy."

"Because that mana is aligned with nature. Although I erased the signatures and made it free, it would conflict with your conversion and force you to expend energy in an attempt to change the alignment."

"Alignment?"

"Most mana has an alignment. Yours is aligned with the aspects of blood, heat, and devouring. Luna's is aligned with cold, ice, and healing. If you took in nature mana, you would have to change its alignment using your soul to match it with your unique mana type. It would be much harder than forming it yourself, and it could actually pose dangers as if you didn't totally convert it before doing the enchantment, it would hinder your soul's ability to move mana."

"...Oh. But, you said something about using your mana?"

"My mana isn't aligned with anything, thus it's transparency. I can also wipe the signatures, making it free to claim."

"How do you know it's not aligned with anything?"

"Because the suits that I've made for you guys function perfectly alongside your mana, even going so far as to enhance your usage and power output. My transparent mana is one of the main reasons you guys are able to use the suits so well. The only thing that conflicts with my mana is the Old Man's destruction mana. However, if you've noticed conflicts with your mana and mine, you need to tell me."

"N-no, I haven't noticed anything."

Iris stuttered a bit at Dream's serious question. His solemn gaze caused her to question her answer, but after looking back, she verified that what he said was the truth. 

While she was caught off guard a bit, his solemn attitude told her how seriously he was taking this. She wasn't really sure why. She was totally confident in being able to handle whatever may come. She never even considered the notion of either failing or doing bad. She only looked forward to her jump in power.

But with Dream acting as he was, she lost some of her carefree attitude and took the whole thing a bit more seriously, seemingly mimicking Dream's own aura. 

Hearing Iris's answer, Dream nodded. He in fact had data from the suits themselves that outlined efficiencies and deficiencies. From everything the suits told him and his own experiments with his mana, he was pretty sure that his mana didn't have an alignment. And if it did, it at least didn't conflict with other types of mana and could be converted rather easily. In a situation like this, that would help greatly.

Dream went back into thought, but not for much longer. He knew that Luna and Iris's advancement would go differently from Riddick's, and while he wanted to prepare for a situation like Riddick's, he also knew that there needed to be room for improvising. That meant he couldn't build anything that would force them in any one direction. His devices needed to be purely supplementary. 

Luckily that much was simple for him. While what he was planning to build would have to be powerful, the underlying concepts weren't anything crazy. And thus, he got to work.

Without saying anything, Dream raised his arm. The four around him were confused until they sensed movement behind them. From the storage area came flying thousands of meta ingots, all of which contained super high levels of mana.

As they flew, the ingots actually began disintegrating into ultra-small particles. After they did, they came to conglomerate in front of Dream who fluidly extended dozens of mana strings from his hand and attached them to the conglomerating ball of particles.

Soon, huge fluctuations of mana rolled off the ball of particles. Mana was passed between all of the individual particles and created an extremely complex network that propagated itself into the batches of particles that continued to stream in.

This process of disintegrating ingots, mana fluctuations, and infectious enchantments continued for a while. It was only when the ball of particles had grown to about 20 meters in diameter that Dream stood up and moved it.

Everyone watched as Dream floated over to another part of the factory that was empty. It actually wasn't far from the construction site of the 2nd orbital railgun platform, and the family was able to see its massive skeleton that was constantly being worked on by thousands of construction bots. 

Dream didn't mind it though and picked out his area. After he arrived, he tossed the ball out which quickly formed itself into a dome. The inside of the dome was 10 meters in diameter and its walls were several meters thick. All of the particles squirmed over the surface of the dome as they fit into their places.

Despite this though, the particles continued to stream in and add themselves to the dome. At this point, one might assume that Dream was creating a nuclear bunker. And while that wasn't its purpose, this dome was already definitely capable of surviving a nuclear explosion. That was because of the material used which was entirely grade 12 steel. 

This was the strongest material Dream had aside from the steel his bones were made of and Aegis's material. For some reason, he had never been able to surpass this grade, but he had also never tried to bind the steel with solid mana. He was sure that was the next step, but at least for now, that experiment would have to wait. 

Eventually, the particles stopped flowing and the dome solidified. Sophia had enchanted every particle and they all created a network capable of doing anything Dream wished that aligned with his abilities. Besides Aegis or his own body, this was definitely the most powerful enchantment network he's created, and it took a bit of energy. 

But he was far from done, and moving onto the next step, Dream used his influence to pull over some objects. They were the orbs of solid mana he extracted from the Tree. 

Dream knew he couldn't use these orbs directly for enchantments if he wanted maximum performance due to their alignment. But he did know that he could use them a fuel, which was exactly what he was planning. 

At this point, the family had pulled their eyes from the huge construction project and looked back at Dream. But not long after they did, Dream suddenly walked through the metal wall of the dome as if it were liquid, disappearing from their sights and taking the orbs of solid mana with him.

Inside the dome, Dream split the solid orbs of mana into thousands of tiny pieces. He also activated the dome around him, giving it the order to condense mana. In only seconds, he had an environment of transparent liquid mana and a cloud of solid mana pieces. 

Taking a deep breath, Dream sucked in huge amounts of liquid mana as well as a portion of the solid mana pieces. The two conglomerated in his lungs, and using his Arcana skill to target the solid mana, Dream started extracting the flux.

This was Dream's attempt at creating solid mana. And given how powerful his soul was combined with the nature of his Arcana skill, he assumed he would be able to. And his assumption wasn't wrong. Although he had to expend quite a bit of energy, Dream soon had two small spheres of transparent solid mana in his lungs being formed. 

<[Arcana] has leveled up!>

<[Arcana] has leveled up!>

<[Arcana] has leveled up!>

After around 15 minutes and a few level ups, those spheres had grown to fill Dream's lungs. And while he had expended nearly 60% of his energy, he smiled in excitement.

Extracting the mana, Dream moved the lung sized pieces through his body and out into the open. There he set them on the ground and continued the process of forming solid mana.

At this point, the girls had already noticed Dream's energy expenditure and started sending him energy, which he didn't refuse. With that, he was able to form 4 more lung sized pieces of solid mana before stopping, giving him a total of 6. Though it came at a price, and although the girls were sending him energy, it wasn't fast enough to keep his energy levels from falling below 10%.

After such a drop in energy, both girls were worried and entered the dome. There they saw the pieces of solid mana, totally transparent.

"These... are for you two."

Dream spoke tiredly as he propped himself up. He really was running very low on energy, and while it didn't affect him physically, he felt like he was physically tired.

"Solid mana?"

"You can use it for the advancement. I thought that by eating it, you would be able to easily convert it and use it. It should save on a lot of energy. And while Luna can't eat it, converting this instead of making your own solid mana should still be easier. In fact, you guys can try and convert it now. I already wiped the signatures."

"I think that can wait until you get your energy back. We have time. Let's not rush things."

Luna bent down as she spoke and activated her restoration powers alongside Iris's energy transfer. Both of these aided his recovery and he was soon feeling much better, albeit still very tired. 

"*sigh* I know. I'm... just worried. I want you guys to get the most out of this advancement. Your dad got a small enchantment in the form of his core, but I want you guys to get full body solid mana enchantments. With that, you'll become much more powerful."

"We'll do our best. And you need to trust us. With both of us working together, there's not much we can't get done. We'll take the help, but just remember that this is our advancement. I don't want you stressing too much over it. Okay?"

"...Okay. I won't be leaving though. I'm gonna be in here with you guys through the whole thing."

"Of course. My new class is a Familiar one after all. I gotta have my master there to bond with."

Luna smiled teasingly as she stroked his silky hair. Dream just rolled his eyes.