Chapter 766 - Domus

As if expecting my question, Silverweave steps closer. She is slightly shorter than the two of them, yet she still towers over me. My guide, already forgotten and used to this treatment, takes his leave.

Silverweave, meanwhile, bends lower to show me some graphs with multiple lines and starts talking about alloys and their properties, as well as the information they have gathered.

Even without me asking, she agrees that Eldrin might be too greedy and is searching for a perfect fit, even though we could do with other options.

The male mora hears this and only snorts in annoyance before moving away. Just two swift steps take him toward the control pillar, where he starts changing settings.

Silverweave continues to talk about how they came to their conclusion and about an alloy they have tracked down. She confirmed its properties with Local crafters, yet it apparently cannot be found on any of the floors.

This goes on for ten minutes as she goes more and more into detail. Of course, I remember it all and store it somewhere in the deep, dark parts of my mind, all while translating certain parts that I keep at the surface to think about.

When she says: “Eldrin is fixated on achieving a zero-loss superconductivity loop, which is why he wants to use Everwood. My data shows that if we utilize a layered sintering process, alternating thin sheets of refined voidcopper around Everwood, we can create a 'buffer-wave' effect. Using Everwood replacements would result in roughly a 15% loss of total output due to heat dissipation, even though overall stability would remain within acceptable margins. We need a material that doesn't reach mana and primordial energies fatigue within the first minutes of operation."

I translate that to: Eldrin needs a conductive material, and Everwood seems to be really good for that.

“Eldrin, do you really want Everwood because of that, or because it’s a new material you heard about and want to experiment with?” I ask.

The mora turns toward me from the control pillar at the question. Standing there tall and towering, he smiles, showing the fangs that mora have, which are similar to a lynthari's. He smiles even wider, like a savage or someone raised by wild animals in the forest, which is totally unfitting for one of the most brilliant crafters in Beyond.

“Yes,” he says.

“Yeah, I thought as much,” I wave it off.

Silverweave explains, sounding disappointed and a bit sad, “We wanted to send Brich, but there are some things he wants to do, so he rejected us.”

“The horror,” I shake my head before turning to Isolde. She hasn’t said anything until now, but she has a satisfied smile on her face, likely from the thought of me triggering her trap. “What are you smirking about?”

Isolde doesn’t get to answer because Eldrin activates the pillars. This causes a circular hole, which had been invisible until now, to open in the floor. “We were thinking of using a piece of your Fragment of the Nameless Tree, but if I guess correctly, it is still far off from being fully mature?” Eldrin asks.

I confirm that with a nod. “I told you it will take years. Do you think I found some magical fertilizer or something? It just continues to grow while I try to steer it in the way I want it to become. It is a really powerful fragment, but it requires a bit of time. And what is Everwood?”

From the hole Eldrin opened, another pillar moves out. It is transparent glass, and inside it are multiple parts of our project. There is the Red Heartstone, the material we turned into logic cores and nodes, mana stones, materials we have made purer, and pieces of my bones and flesh. All of it is slowly turning into the shape I have picked for it.

The Chestplate.

Eldrin flicks his hand, causing the ring on his finger to activate and weaken the barrier. He reaches inside to take out a piece of metal, bringing it with him to the table.

As he walks, he explains, “Everwood is a bio-metallic alloy that physically fuses high-density timber with reinforced metal ore into a single material that is able to grow even after harvested. It possesses near-perfect conductivity, which causes many energies to travel through its fibrous grain with almost no resistance. We simply couldn't find a material more conductive than your body, the floors are just picked wrongly and stacked against us with a love for creation.” He lets out a long sigh. “Everwood should also be able to continue to grow in strength, as we hope for the item to continuously strengthen as it matures.”

His head turns around, almost to the point where I think he might snap his neck, and he stares at me again with his pale yellow eyes. “Maybe I will forget all of this and simply take your body. I’m certain I could find a healer to constantly regenerate you while I take you apart piece by piece. Imagine the items we could make. You would just need to sign a simple contract, and I promise we would put more resources into you than into Brich.”

“Not interested.”

Eldrin’s eyes narrow, and he nods with a smile, but he doesn’t say anything to that.

Silverweave answers instead, "The three of us specialize in item crafting. We are not bio-engineers. Converting living tissue into a permanent, functional conduit requires a deep understanding of somatic mana-conductivity that only someone like your 'Doc' or high-level healers possesses."

She tries to show me another graph she quickly draws on her tablet. "Our current knowledge of biological matter preservation is limited. If we attempted to integrate too many of your body parts into the item, as conductive as they are, we’d face a necrotic feedback loop within months or years. The mana and your primordial energies would simply 'cook' the organic cells once they lost their natural regenerative connection to your body. As of yet, we lack the tech to prevent thaumaturgic rot in living specimens. We have to restrict ourselves to harvesting specific, high-density body parts and not many of them. These are pieces we can stabilize and seal to ensure they don't lose their inherent properties or suffer degradation."

Once again, I listen to her and nod once in a while, which seems to make her happy, and to talk more.

For the first time, Isolde speaks to interrupt her fellow crafter. “To cut out the unnecessary details: we want Everwood. It will be good for the chestplate, and therefore good for you. It will also be good for us. Your handler should be able to help you and pick a quest that would allow you to gather some. An A-rank quest, S-rank quest, 100-year quest, or 1000-year quest, or some event. It doesn’t matter.”

“What are you so smug about?” I ask her again, annoyed by her smile that doesn’t at all relate to what she talks about. I am almost at the point of telling her what I did to the toilet subsystem, but I hold myself back. “Okay, I will ask my handler. Is there anything else you need from me?”

“I have some interesting information about the Ruler of Diligence that I learned not that long ago. Want to trade me for it?” Isolde smiles more. Just like me, she shares that kind of interest and curiosity.

Meanwhile, Eldrin already fully ignores us to the point that I’m sure a first-floor version of me would be able to come closer and steal something from his pockets without the mora even noticing.

Silverweave, the nerd who is not interested in this kind of talk, heads toward the pillar to pick up a piece of my bone from it. It is from my arm, but in her hand, it looks so small. She sniffs at the bone, then licks it, and then writes down some notes.

“What do you want?” I ask Isolde as I watch Silverweave nibble on the bone this time, and note something down again. After a while, I take my eyes off Silverweave and focus on Isolde only.

"I want to meet with that healer of yours, Lily Chen. Since she joined Bloodline, it has become difficult to even attempt to contact her, and she just rejects the messages I send through Bloodline’s leadership."

"There are many people annoying her," I answer. "So, what do you want from her?"

Isolde’s fangs show slightly, though she doesn't act as savagely as Eldrin or as weirdly as Silverweave. Isolde is more of the observant type, though she has that weird sense of humor.

"I have a side project of my own, and for that, I want a part of her spine that I’m sure she can easily regenerate," she says.

"I would expect the catboy to ask that, not you."

She shakes her head. "Can you do it?"

“It is up to your information. I will either just get you her spine or arrange a meeting, which I’m sure you would prefer more,” I say, as I try to imagine petite Lily standing opposite a mora who is twice my height. Then I realize that, even in such a case, Lily could probably grab Isolde by the leg and swing her around like the brute of a bulldozer she is. I glance at Isolde and imagine the scene, which causes her to misunderstand my stare.

"My information is very good, the kind you prefer," she says quickly.

"Go on," I invite her.

"I accepted this information as payment not that long ago, so it’s fresh for me as well. First, how much do you know about him?"

"Not that much," I say, deciding not to reveal anything I’m not sure she already knows.

Realizing this, she smiles and looks down at me from where she stands, tall and imposing. "The Ruler of Diligence also used to be known as the First One, and his past self is one you can meet on the 4th floor. He was born from an experiment of a lynthari Champion in an attempt to create a weapon called the Colony. The First One was supposed to be the core of that: a hive mind, a node to channel all the thoughts of the Colony. A protector of queens and a general. Of course, it all went very wrong."

"Of course," I nod.

"Virelia fell, his [Hive Mind] evolved, and all that. He became an Absolute and fought against two other Absolutes who intended to erase the Colony together. There were multiple pairings, challenges, his well-known feud with the young dragon, the Corporation betraying him and trying to sell him out, the Slayer getting hired to erase him, and in the end, the time when the First One challenged the Ruler of Diligence and won. All that is more or less well known stuff."

I blink and just nod, trying not to let anything show on my face while thinking I want a five-season, twelve-episode series of that with a proper budget for CGI effects.

"What I wanted to tell you," Isolde says, "and what I find the most fascinating, is where the Ruler of Diligence is now. I thought about it and made some simulations of how I imagine it."

She pulls out a big sheet of glass and taps on it. Colors flow into it from multiple containers connected to the glass, mixing and creating pictures. At first, it shows an image of a solar system with what seems like a dying star. There are ten planets, each with multiple moons.

"This was his planet back when he just became a Ruler, the one Virelia was on. The star was dying because of the consequences of the fight against the previous Ruler."

The images start moving, and gradually, the planets change their orbits around the star and start moving closer and closer toward the planet with Virelia. It feels sped up, as if watching something that likely took decades or hundreds of years in reality. One after another, the planets crash against the main one, throwing off debris that circulates the globe before later raining onto the surface or burning up and connecting. They do this one after another.

"He wanted to artificially strengthen his planet, not just through pairing, but also this way. While it isn’t nearly as effective, it allows for a bigger home for his Colony, which is hidden deep below, while the surface is bombarded by other planets, turned into a living hell. Deep underground, somewhat safe from the Absolutes, safe from the Slayer, and safe from the many others attempting to kill him."

She talks as more planets appear, pulled from greater and greater distances, and solar systems far away. Asteroids follow, all slamming into it and turning it into a burning hell, yet growing in size.

"That planet grew and grew. It took millennia upon millennia of careful planning and execution, but one day, when it was finished, Domus became one of the biggest planets in the system. Bigger than many of the stars.” Her eyes light up, and her voice quickens with excitement. “Imagine it. Stabilizing a star of that mass would be insane enough, let alone a planet. And preventing the planet from collapsing into a black hole? Just how much knowledge and power does something like that require?”

The simulation shows it: the planet is now enormous, taking up most of the solar system and possibly more. The star now orbits it instead.

"And the old, dying star wasn't enough. So the First One, in a display of the talent we crafters all bow to, created an artificial star. He seeded it into the core of an old one, used its remains as a spark to start it, and made it grow, placing it in orbit around the Colony’s home planet, Domus. Then he brought in another star, forced it into a stable orbit, and now both of them circle the planet!” She laughs in happy disbelief.

At high speed, the simulation changes. The planet cools off, its surface getting covered in greenery, water, and enormous mountains as tectonic plates shift, though many gigantic craters where planets crashed remain visible. The stars expand in size, still not comparable to the planet, but glow brighter with a healthy orange-yellow light.

I ask the question Isolde likely wants me to ask: "How many ants are there in the Colony?"

The mora smiles. "Quadrillions, for sure, but possibly more. Maybe quintillions? Sextillions? However, this is the information I had for you. Now, respected S-rank, Absolute Candidate Nathaniel Gwyn, may I know if I have satisfied your ever-hungry curiosity, and what is the word regarding my payment?"

I look at her and then back at the sheet of glass. "I will put in a word for you, and Lily can decide if she wants to meet you."