Chapter 206 – Mana Atom

"Alright! Machines done."

Letting out a breath of dense mana, Dream relaxed and overlooked the new addition to the factory.

In front of him were thousands of machines. Some produced synthetic diamonds from carbon utilizing ultra high pressures, some produced liquid helium for cooling using sterling engines that cooled the gases, and then those two machines sent their products toward the metallic hydrogen machines that produced tiny little chips of the stuff for use in fusion reactors. 

While no single machine could make a lot, multiply it hundreds of times over and those supply problems would be solved. Even now, Dream could see dozens of little metallic hydrogen chips being pumped out. 

"Now, we've got our fuel. We just need the reactor."

[I've got a good design.]

"Then let's make it."

Not wasting time, Dream got the schematic from Sophia and pulled some metals over.

[This reactor is only about 10 inches in diameter. It'll go on your back, and its shell will be constructed out of the platinum we're using for the suit. As for the internal mechanisms, I've designed them to be built from small particle clusters only about 3 nanometers in diameter, that way it can disassemble and reassemble into its reactor form at will. Only downside is the fact that the internal materials will have to be made from the appropriate minerals, like graphite, silver, tungsten, and others. They'll be weaker, but they're necessary for the function of the reactor.]

"That's fine. Though, I'm thinking we can go smaller on the particles."

[The solid mana as it is now can only help us observe and manipulate particles around 1.2 nanometers at best.]

"Unless we make denser mana. Here, let me try something."

Grabbing some of the metals, Dream created a ball of solid mana in the air and extracted flux from the high grade materials. 

"Since flux is easy to manipulate now, let's try some things with it."

Taking the flux from the metals, Dream infused it into the ball of solid mana. The flux content increased drastically, tripling the density within that ball. When that happened, Dream observed an odd reaction. 

"Shrinking?"

[It condensing. The monoliths said that flux is the force equivalent right? That makes sense since it's a bonding agent for magical energy.]

"So more flux means more bonding strength. Although the mana content has stayed the same, the bonding abilities have increased. Now the mana is shrinking down under the pull of flux."

The two watched as the ball went from the size of a head to the size of a baseball. Suddenly having an idea, Dream moved the dense ball of energy over an ingot of steel.

"Oh, so it really does help with the scale."

[Let's see... 0.5... maybe 0.4 nanometers. So 4 angstroms, or about two water molecules put side by side.]

"What if we add in more flux and mana?"

Dream asked as he inserted more flux and mana, increasing the density of the ball. Sophia tracked the scale as he did so.

[0.3... 0.2... 1 angstrom. 85 picometers. 78... 65...]

"Hm, this is getting difficult."

Dream frowned as the scale kept decreasing. The ball's size remained the same, but the density of flux and mana increased by several times. From the pressure on his influence, he could tell that the energies inside really didn't want to be that concentrated. Well, the mana didn't at least.

"There's a balance, and I need to hit it."

Concentrating, Dream started adding in more flux. He wanted the repulsion force of the mana to be countered by the attractive force of the flux so he could maintain the ball without energy input. 

However, as he kept adding flux, the ball kept shrinking and the pressure on him kept increasing. Soon its size had shrunk exponentially from a ball, to a finger, to a cell, and soon approached only a few nanometers in size. 

[...That's a lot of power in a small place.]

Sophia spoke a little nervously as Dream kept adding flux. The ball that was originally the size of a head was now the size of a molecule. Obviously, the power within was rather large, and the consequences of losing control wouldn't be light. 

"Ugh. Let's go outside."

Also getting nervous, Dream left the factory with the little atom-sized ball. Although he could still handle the pressure, he didn't know how much smaller he would have to get.

[Ball size is at 80 picometers. 70 picometers. 60... 53...47...]

"Come on!"

Shouting, Dream put even more pressure and added even more flux to the ball, forcing it to shrink down further.

[42... 38... 35... 34... Oh! We're getting stability! Keep going!]

"One more push! Hah!"

With one last heave, Dream put all the pressure he could on it. The ball shrunk down to 30 picometers in size, and once it did, the outward pressure suddenly disappeared, and all the flux seemed to balance in force.

<[Particle Manipulation] has leveled up!>

<[Particle Manipulation] has leveled up!>

<[Particle Manipulation] has leveled up!>

Seeing a stream of notifications in his vision, Dream stopped exerting energy and 'looked' at the atom sized ball of mana. 

"...So, did I just create a magical atom?"

[I think you did. That's pretty awesome.]

"I saw nothing like this in the monoliths. It took a huge amount of flux."

[I'm assuming that was to recreate the necessary force. The strong force maybe?]

"Definitely that. It wouldn't have taken so much energy otherwise. Now, what exactly can this thing do?"

Dream waved the mana atom around as he pondered. While he did indeed have to exert tons of pressure, it wasn't that much. His soul had extraordinary stamina now, and after a minute, he was perfectly fine. It was just the momentary burst of high exertion that stressed him a bit.

[Well, mana is the material equivalent, and flux is the force equivalent. So maybe this mana atom can act just like a regular atom?]

"Except it has no properties like regular atoms. Or... you may not be totally wrong. Suppose I were to destabilize this, or maybe, destabilize millions of these."

[...You'd make a mana nuke.]

"Hehe, I'd make a mana nuke! That would definitely be useful. Except I definitely can't make millions or billions of these, let alone build machines to do it for me. Too much energy."

[So for now, this is useless.]

"Pretty much."

Dream sighed as he came to that conclusion. He might be able to make a few thousand mana atoms before being totally drained, but that amount was minuscule and nothing compared to the necessary amount for something like a nuke. 

"Still though, it's a step in the right direction. To think this was even possible. Do you think we could replicate magnetic fields with flux since its the force equivalent? Maybe that would help with the reactor. Oh! Maybe we can assign this mana atom to an atom and control it directly. Though we'd need a lot of mana atoms for that idea to be valuable... Eh, I guess we can just stick with manipulating stuff."

Dream shrugged and played with the mana atoms some more. He activated various magics and controlled it in different ways, finding out its uses. He also took a look at his status since he got a bunch of level ups.

|Profile|

Name: Dream

Species: [Metacosmic Psykhe]

Class: [Prophet]

Title: [Origin Seeker]

Level: 388

Stats: Strength- S+      Agility- S+

Stamina- S+       Magic- S+

Passive Skills: [Sophia] Lvl. 23, [Arcana] Lvl. 90, [Universal Language] Lvl. 50

Active Skills: [Summons From Another World], [Particle Manipulation] Lvl. 60

"Level 60. Nice. And I didn't notice how high my stats were. Although I'm pretty sure I can gauge my own strength better than the system now."

Smirking, Dream closed the status and went back to the factory with the mana atom in hand.

"Alright, we got a bit sidetracked. Where were we?"

[The reactor.]

"Right. Now, I can make denser mana, so we can now go down below a nanometer in size. Although I can't continue to make atoms, I can condense things down pretty small to get a better view of things. That means we can enchant almost individual atoms. What do you think?"

[Anything that controls things on an atomic scale will need precision and lots of power so that we can break and create bonds at will. We're not exactly strangers to machines that do that, but this will require another level of control and power than before. It also depends on whether you want to make it operate mechanically or magically.]

"Hm, I was thinking we could do a hybrid. We can enchant individual atoms to break and create bonds according to the input from mechanical systems. So we can have magnetic and electrical fields control mana run systems. That way it'll be able to act quickly. Computer systems are still faster in terms of sheer transmission speeds than our minds. Well, maybe not yours, but definitely mine. Plus, mechanical systems can act more precisely than my mana can. After all, I can't manipulate atoms normally without condensing a mana ball like a microscope."

[...That would work. I might need some time to flesh out the details of the device to communicate with individual atoms, but I think it's doable.]

"Oh, let me help with that."

[Alright.]

Sophia sent Dream streams of data the next moment. When he received it, he started working alongside Sophia to design the machines. 

..........

.......

A few days later, Dream and Sophia started putting on the finishing touches on the designs for the reactor and suit.

For the suit and all its weapons and devices, every single atom would be enchanted, the process of which would be carried out with a spreading infection-based enchantment. There would then be tiny molecule-sized devices strewn throughout the suit that would be responsible for controlling everything precisely using magnetic fields and electrical transmissions. 

Finally, those molecule devices would all communicate with each other using light, effectively creating a photon-based processor that was ever-present throughout the suit. It was incredibly complicated and the necessary precision was baffling, but after those few days, Dream and Sophia finally had a working design on the suit. It would be able to accommodate anything they wanted, and its versatility was higher than anything Dream had built before. 

"Atom sized enchantments with the universal language, all of which interconnect and cooperate when used. Honestly, this is a bit overkill, but I'm loving it."

Dream giggled as he looked at the design. The suit was definitely incredibly powerful and had limitless applications in terms of the tech and knowledge that was going into it, but it also wasn't all necessary. As of now, the tech would only be used for the railgun and reactor that would be contained within the suit. There really wasn't anything else that the tech would be applied to. However, Dream wasn't one to skimp, and he also wasn't one to create underwhelming products. 

[This will take a while to build, but at least that'll give us time to make sure everything works.]

"Indeed. Now, we got the platinum for the suit, which I still haven't tested, and then all the materials for the reactor and molecule processors inside the suit. Let's build the reactor, test it, then we can test the platinum and move on with forming everything."

[Ready whenever you are.]

"Then gimme some hydrogen chips and the materials."

Waving his hands, Dream brought over some metallic hydrogen and other miscellaneous materials for the reactor according to Sophia's design. He then quickly went on to piece everything together, which only took a few minutes. 

Soon, the reactor was sitting on Dream's hands. It was a hollow metal tube ring 2 inches thick and 10 inches in diameter. The whole ring was encompassed by high-power electromagnets and had an input for the hydrogen gas and chips. In the center of the ring was also another ball-shaped secondary reactor connected to the main ring which would provide a way to effectively extract power by catching heat, free electrons, and gamma rays all released from the fusion. 

The whole thing looked very high-tech, and it functioned just as awesome as it looked. Or, so he hoped. 

"Let's test this thing out."

Going in with high expectations, Dream activated the reactor and started the ignition process. Hydrogen gas was sent in to create a plasma nearly 100 million degrees kelvin, and after them came the chips which provided a dense source of hydrogen atoms just waiting to be hit by the super fast gas particles.

Soon enough, the breakeven was reached and the reactor started producing power. However, the internal heat started to rapidly rise not long after that, reaching nearly 300 million degrees kelvin and climbing from the sheer amount of reactions taking place. The pressure on the ring increased exponentially, and Dream became nervous.

"...This is working too well."

He spoke as the ring became red hot. Although it was enchanted for extreme cooling and durability, surviving temperatures many times hotter than the core of the sun was difficult. 

After a minute, the reactor kept going crazy, but Sophia gradually turned down the input, calming the system down. Soon, the reactor was functioning properly and producing far more energy than the other fusion reactors. 

"Hmm, I wonder what the limits are."

[This is about the limit. It's producing several times more energy, but it's definitely not its max.]

"Can we sustain its max?"

[...Possibly. Change out the ring materials with this and add these magnets. Also, apply this enchantment.]

"Got it."

Dream didn't hesitate and shut down the reactor, swapping out parts and changing the design a bit. After another few minutes, the reactor was pieced together. He boot it up once more, and this time, pushed it to its maximum.

This time, the ring didn't immediately become red hot despite the high temperatures. And after it reached its maximum potential production with a special injection rate of hydrogen gas and chips, it was able to keep steady and maintain itself.

"Hah! We did it!"

Dream cheered as he looked at the reactor that sat on a table. It was small, but much more effective than other reactors even 10 times its size. 

[Looks like those chips did a good job. Although it eats away at them, we got plenty.]

"Hell yea. Now all we need to do is break it down as it is and integrate it with the suit."

[Hopefully it still works that way.]

"Eh, we'll figure it out if it doesn't. So let's get started! First we just need to disassemble the platinum..."

Getting excited, Dream formed a super dense ball of mana full of flux like he did before when forming the mana atom. Then, he brought over tons of platinum and filtered them through using the mana as a microscope to disassemble the metal atom by atom. 

The process went by surprisingly quickly, and all the atoms were piled up in a special container where the enchantments were applied. Dream also drove these enchantments with another ball of high-density mana.

Like this, platinum was reduced and then enchanted. Dream didn't take a single break, and in 30 hours, he was able to get all the necessary platinum for the suit disassembled and then enchanted. However, it wasn't a light cost to do all this.

"Ugh. My head..."

He spoke as he collapsed onto a couch. Doing such precise work and maintaining that state for a long time was tiring. He had definitely been drained.

[Congrats, you've completed the first step. Now you gotta do it for the reactor, make the molecule processors, and then disassemble anything else you want to put inside the suit.]

Sophia teased him as his mind struggled to stay focused. This was what happened when he wanted to make something overkill. 

"Eh, whatever. Let me just sleep it off for a bit and continue tomorrow."

Saying that, Dream's cosmic body laid down on the couch like a bum. He then passed out while staring at the container full of platinum that looked like liquid metal and fluctuated with super powerful mana.