Chapter 205 – Science

The first thing Dream targeted for reconstruction were his assembly lines that filled many square miles of space. These things took up nearly all of the space in his giant cube factory, so there was naturally a lot. With his new power though, this much was inconsequential.

The way his machines and assembly lines were designed was actually rather simplistic. The robot bodies were made entirely by mechanical devices, and then they were stamped with enchantments. For the mechanical side, he really didn't have to change much. Other than some optimizations in the designs, they were as good as they were gonna get. 

For the enchantment side though, that's where things needed to be revamped the most. With his new magical prowess, Dream was obviously able to construct enchantments that were much better than before. So after building up enchantments with Sophia in his mind, they got to work on swapping them out. 

The first thing they upgraded were the material enhancement devices. With Dream's newfound knowledge and control over energy, he was able to manipulate flux much more efficiently. It was almost as easy as manipulating mana, albeit the way they were used was different. So with that power, he enchanted the machines and made them much more capable. He also changed how they worked a bit. 

Now, the machines were able to simply suck the flux out of one object and inject it into another. This made his high-grade material production skyrocket, and with that, he would be able to produce more high-level combat bots. 

After spending a few hours changing up those systems, Dream moved on to the enchantment systems. For those, he simply had to change the enchantment stamps and their strength, giving them more efficient enchantments that could contain and utilize more power. This meant stronger soldiers on a wide scale. To do this, he actually changed the language of his enchantments from strings to the language script he learned. Using that script, he could insert much denser and much more powerful enchantments as the script could contain that information and power, just like on the monoliths. This also led to his universal language skill leveling up to level 75. 

With that, Dream was basically done with the upgrades that he could give to the assembly lines. Overall, it led to increased output rates and increased overall strength for the bots. Amazing thing was, it only took him half a day to complete everything.

"Before, the lowest level combat bot was around the mid class 2 level. Now it's pushing the class 3 level. Isn't that crazy? We're going to have hundreds of millions of soldiers that can kill high level class 2's, not to mention the absurd amount of class 3 bots."

Dream marveled at the level of production he reached for a bit.

[Now we just have to give your factory enough time to pump them all out.]

"How long will that take?"

[Uh, about 4 months.]

"That long?"

[You're attempting to create a population of pseudo class 3 soldiers larger than the initial population of this planet, by yourself, inside a single giant cube. So yes, it'll take a quick second.]

"Heh, I guess you're right. Now, we still haven't gone to check out what exactly is going on at those demon Empires. We should do that. Or at least build something that will."

[We can send a dust bot to scout the Empires.]

"That works, but we should build a new one. Here, let's do that real quick."

Saying that, Dream pulled over some metal and forged a bot. Using his greater knowledge and control over energy he was able to create a bot that was made of particles around 10 nanometers in size. Then, he enchanted it for stealth and all the other little abilities that would be necessary like movement and material manipulation and magic detection. 

After a few minutes, it was done. Dream had a cloud of dust undetectable by any senses hovering above his hand.

"Alright, go see what those pesky demons are doing."

With a toss, Dream released the cloud and sent it on its way. It quickly flew out of the factory and descended to the planet to carry out its recon. 

"Now, while we wait for that, let's do a once over of my gear."

Going to his little workspace that consisted of a metal table and a couch, Dream got comfortable and started brainstorming.

"Now, we'll need to prepare for the worst, and that means we need the best weapons and gear. Aegis."

[My lord.]

With a word, Aegis's armor body appeared in front of Dream and bowed. He was always silently supporting and protecting Dream from within his body, doing his job as a shield to his utmost no matter where he was. 

"I haven't done anything with your armor body lately, but that'll have to change. As for your heart, I don't think I'm going to be touching that yet."

Dream rubbed his chin. He had already done a once over of the heart, and sure enough, it was similar to a spirit body, except just a heart. It was made with Aether, flux, and mana. However, its structure and power system were still too complicated for Dream, and he couldn't identify how it was able to power itself. Whatever or whoever this heart came from, it was definitely extremely powerful. So for now, Dream had no reason nor ability to tamper with it, although he would definitely continue to study it. 

"So, I'll just be upgrading your armor particles. Well, it'll be both an upgrade and an experiment to test the limits of my new powers. After all, you are my greatest weapon and armor."

"Anything for you, my lord."

"Huhu, still a smooth talker. Now, we'll need a combination of both material and magical systems. For the material, if I want a good weapon, we'll need power. For that, we can build or design a new miniature reactor. It's definitely needs be absurdly powerful, more so than what we have now. Then we'll need the best and highest grade materials, alongside a comprehensive system of supplemental enchantments that can tie to both Aegis's heart and my body..."

[We should start with the materials. Then we can work on the reactor. Those will be our foundations. Of course, it depends on the kind of weapons you want to wield.]

"I should be able to wield whatever weapons I want. You know, I'm thinking we need to make a device that can be universal. It can turn into whatever I want, literally."

[If you're talking about the manipulation of individual protons and neutrons and electrons to have any element and therefore material or device on demand, then I'm sorry to say that we're still a bit of a way's from that.]

"Maybe by pure magical manipulation, but with the right machines to assist me, it should be possible."

[Maybe. Since this is going to be a single suit though, keep things realistic.]

"Hmm, no. I don't think I will."

[...We aren't able to build what you're thinki-]

"Maybe, maybe not. We won't know until we try, so let's just try and shoot as high as possible."

[...]

"Just work with me. Wild ambition and creativity are what's going to bring us higher, so don't stifle it. For what may come, we'll need the most wild stuff we can make. Now, I've already got some good concepts in my head. Let's do what you said and start with materials for the suit itself."

[...You've changed.]

Sophia suddenly blurted out. Hearing her, Dream just thought about it for a second before shrugging. 

"Have I? I don't really think it's a bad thing."

[I know your mind collapsed, and it was supposedly reshaped, but what actually happened in that legacy space? What knowledge could possibly cause something like that? Sure that gold script is a higher language and all, but it wouldn't cause what you described. I've gone over that trial script. It definitely doesn't have that kind of power.]

"...I don't know."

Dream gave an odd answer as he responded.

"I don't know what that trial script did to me, or if it really was simply gold script. There were a lot of things about that place that was a mystery. But I don't know if I care either. All I know is that there's a path in front of me. What I need to do is push the limits of science and magic. I need to learn and discover everything I can. And right now, the demons are standing in the way of that. So, I'm going to wipe them out, and then continue on with what I've been trying to do for a while. You and I, Sophia. We're gonna make the demons and science our bitch."

[...Okay?]

"Great. Now, let's get started."

With an odd response from Sophia, Dream smiled and went on with what they were doing.

"So, what's the choice in material gonna be? Carbon? Iron? Cesium? Palladium? Radium? Americium?"

[When it comes to material strength, I think we've reached the limit in both toughness and applicability. We can construct nanotube and graphene structures, which are stronger than diamond and the strongest possible terrestrial materials we can make. Plus, the necessity for material defense is lowering for you. Magical defense and offense are becoming more critical, so whatever we design should revolve around that fact. After all, you're practically immune to physical harm now.]

"Hm, I guess you're right. But everything is still somewhat rooted in physical material. Matter is like a vessel for mana, allowing us to enchant. So while I don't need to focus as much on material strength, we still need material. Material that can contain magic the best. What material would that be?"

[Right now, the best magical material is silver, for reasons unknown.]

"...Iron isn't far behind. It has a higher mana containment limit, but the flow of mana isn't as smooth as in silver. I would say that's because of the electrical conductivity of silver, but the monoliths hinted to something else."

Dream pondered as he recalled some information from the monoliths. The prophets studied both science and magic, as well as how they were related. And although they weren't much farther along conceptually than Dream right now, they did have more specific bits of information that were valuable. One of these bits was about the 'conductivity' of mana through matter and flux.

"From what I saw, the density of the material was more important than the conductivity when it came to mana. The closer the atoms, the easier mana flowed between them. What's the density of silver?"

[The density of silver is about 10.5 grams per cubic centimeter.]

"And Iron?"

[7.8.]

"So Iron is less dense, and from our experience, less conductive of mana. But since Iron has a high atomic stability, it has a high mana containment limit. Silver is denser, so it conducts mana better. Connecting dots?"

[So we need denser materials.]

"I'm thinking we do. What's the densest material?"

[The densest stable material is either osmium or iridium with densities around 22.5 grams. The only elements denser than those two are unstable, radioactive, and synthetic elements.]

"Okay. Do we have any of those materials?"

[Probably, but we'd have to process them out as they're usually found with other minerals. Even knowing that though, they're incredibly rare. The likelihood that we'd have enough for a project is minimal. Though, I have a recommendation to solve that problem.]

"What's that?"

[Platinum. It's less dense by about a gram or so, but it's much more abundant. We have a good amount of it from both the planet and the moon, enough for any projects. Plus, its chemical properties are convenient, not being easily corroded or reactive. It'll process easy.]

"Oh. Very nice. Have some bots bring some over. Until then, we should plan out how we're going to build this. In fact, let's focus on the reactor and stuff."

[Alright. It's on the moon, so it'll be here in around 7 hours.]

"Great. Now, with what functions should we build this thing..."

Dream got to pondering the overall design of the suit.

"I use guns and sometimes melee weapons. Melee weapons are easy, so we really only need to design a gun, a power source for that gun, and the suit that can supplement some of my abilities alongside Aegis."

[Well that gun is obviously going to be a railgun, so we need it and the miniature reactor.]

"Problem is, will a railgun be able to keep up with my power?"

[...I think so.]

"And will it be able to merge into my suit for discreet holding?"

[Let's build it first, and then we can work on making mechanical molecular disassembly feasible.]

"Heh, alright. So, railgun."

[Not much will change, except maybe for the supercapacitors, of which there will be more. The design of the gun will get some optimizations, but other than that, there's not much we can change unless we totally revamp the gun.]

"Which I wouldn't know how to do. Then if that's set, what about the reactor?"

[If you want a better reactor while keeping it small enough to hold on your body, then we're going to need a better injection system and higher temperatures.]

"Hmm... Or, we could use a different fuel."

Suddenly thinking of something, Dream gave his suggestion. Sophia refuted him though.

[No matter what, the best fuel to use is hydrogen.]

"But we can change what type of hydrogen we use. One of the big problems with fusion is the lack of collisions that occur since hydrogen doesn't like to get close together and remain so far apart. But if we bring them closer together, like as a solid, then they'll have an easier time colliding."

[So you're proposing we use solid hydrogen as a fuel.]

"Bingo. Not just solid hydrogen though, but metallic hydrogen, that supposedly acts like a metal. The only problem is creating it. From what I know, diamond anvil cells can barely create small samples since the necessary pressure is so absurd. But I'm thinking we shouldn't have problems with its production. You know, since we have magic and all."

[That's... possible. Although the reactor will have to be tweaked rather significantly...]

"No matter. If it's possible, we'll do it. Get me some carbon for diamonds and fuel for flux. We're gonna dive into some high pressure physics baby."

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

3 hours later...

*BOOM!*

"Whoah!"

*Bang!*

"...I almost got a hole in my face."

Dream cowered with Aegis covering him as he stared at a hole in a wall. 

He had made diamonds and created a machine that used both magic and mechanical devices to put hydrogen gases under insanely high pressures approaching 600 gigapascals. Unfortunately, there must've been a few atomic defects in the diamonds, since after activating the machine, a large shard of diamond snapped off and flew out at super high speeds. This is what Dream barely dodged. 

The reason he was so scared of the shard though was because it was filled to the brim with mana and enchantments. If it hit him at those insanely high speeds, then it could do some magical damage.

[I told you not to stand near it.]

"Hey, I wanna watch. This is high pressure physics up close. Remember what I said about making science our bitch? Well this is a part of that."

[Well the only reason you don't have a hole in your face was because you barely spotted the atomic effects and dodged. Let's just be a bit safer please? We don't need a diamond bullet putting a hole in your soul just because you wanted to get a close up view.]

"Eh, oh well. I say the experiment was a success though. Look at that."

Smiling, Dream approached the machine that was compressing the hydrogen. Within the hydrogen container was a piece of solid material that was transparent, like glass. While it was only a chip the size of his fingertip, it was something.

Dream picked it up with his influence and looked at its atomic structure.

[Looks good. That's definitely hydrogen.]

"Then let's test its conductivity. Of course, it also has to be at low temperatures."

Saying that, Dream walked over to another machine. It was a simple battery with two electrodes, and he connected the electrodes to the hydrogen chip. Then, after cooling the chip to only several degrees Kelvin with magic, he measured the conductivity. 

"Hah! Success! It's a superconductor baby! This is definitely metallic hydrogen. Though it's interesting. It's also acting like a supersolid."

Curiously, Dream put the supercooled chip down on the metal table and pushed it. When he did, he found that it just kept sliding, like there was no friction. 

[So it's a superconducting supersolid. That's pretty neat. Only, when we use it as fuel, it can't be at temps that low. It'll just have to remain a normal solid at high temperatures.]

"We can use it for other things though. This doesn't have to be cooled as much as other superconductors. Maybe factor it into our machines. It might help. Now, since we've succeeded, let's automate this process and mass produce it. After that, we'll design the reactor that can use this stuff and hopefully have a reactor with huge energy output. Then, we'll be halfway done."

[Alright. I've got designs for the machines. We'll also have to automate diamond and liquid helium production, but that shouldn't be difficult. You can start building.]

Saying that, Sophia handed off schematics and directions to Dream. Receiving the data, he nodded, and then flew off to create the necessary machinery.