But reading data from Database is different. It’s pure information, stripped of any feeling - just pure numbers and knowledge. Anything submitted to Database undergoes the same process. A colourful mental recollection of fishing at sea or hunting certain mutants will get turned into clean lists of numbers and sanitized line drawings.
Which is great, as it does little to affect the information delivered, but it fails to deliver any impact. Reading about a way to make a couple dozen kiloton explosion really fails to impress upon the reader how devastating such an explosion would be. A method of producing a planet-destroying device has the same gravitas as a cake recipe. So, Re-Haan implemented more policies to prevent people from doing anything too dangerous.
Instead of banning it outright, she allowed people to work their way towards such a goal. Database now tests everyone on their proficiency - either mental or physical - of a certain subject before ‘graduating’ them and allowing them more information. And she banned anyone from buying any raw materials she thought problematic, such as radioactive material or neurotoxins.
And it wasn’t just the braincores. While the gutcores turned out to be the least problematic, as they didn’t lean towards the physical or mental extremes, the heartcores had turned to creating physical weapons, often employing braincores to enchant and modify their creations.
The device in her hands dies before she can start recalling all the horrors those physically obsessed, idiot savant cultivators got into. She checks her own range prediction and confirms that it was correct. The range in this environment turned out to be a couple dozen kilometres, enough for a mission that will span a single large city.
Grabbing at the thin air, Re-Haan starts moving back towards the moon. Another thing she noticed these last few days, is that nobody really innovated in a brand-new way. They all enthusiastically learned all they could about already-known information, but the only new data submitted was of the observable kind.
Database’s inbox is even now filling with observations and statistical data. Migration and weather patterns, ways to grow crops, population densities, sure. But almost no innovation or new ideas. The only people innovating turned out to the be the original students Teach took in, or the people close to them. Vox, Danarius, and Valerius are among the few not constantly taking in new information but actually forming their own hypotheses and theories, almost all concerning medical science and horticulture.
Selis is, even now, messing with water and all its forms. Angeta did nothing but sleep since she got healed. Ket and Tess were too busy flirting to get anything done. Bord just ate and fought, though he did submit some rather crude and primitive theories on gravity, so there is that…
“Stuff goes to stuff. More stuff goes more towards stuff.” Database had some trouble determining what to do with Bord’s submission, so Re-Haan decided to award him some points. He used it all to buy fancy foods.
Re-Haan decides not to think about that for now and puts her own findings on her own section of Database. The communication device started beeping softly again but is interrupted by a static crackle. “Miss Re-Haan, we have the data. We found a section about fractal antennas on Database, and we could add that feature if the range is insufficient.”
“No, that's okay for now. Any updates on the other two items.”
The radio crackles again. “I’ll check, ma’am.”
“Yeah, you do that,” Re-Haan says to herself as she descends to the moon. She checks her personal corner of Database but doesn't see any new information. Everyone was still reporting to her in person, even though she told them to keep her updated via the information network repeatedly.
A flare of orange and blue catches her eyes, so she changes course towards Tree, speeding up as she wonders why Database didn’t prevent what was likely an experiment gone wrong.
⁂
Angeta seems to have finally calmed down. She had this aura of restless anger about her for a long time now. It started since we left Tower City on our mounts for the first time. I wasn't even aware of it at the time but scanning back through my memories makes it pretty clear.
I pull the massive sword from the fire again. It’s starting to take on the shape that I want - finally. I thought about making it an ornamental and tribal looking thing but decided that’s not my style. Instead, I want to aim for a massive rectangular razor-like blade.
Putting the glowing chunk of alloy on my pure carbon anvil, I continue working on the blade. I went slightly overboard when I made the forging instrument, so now I have a nearly indestructible collection of tools, all made from single crystal, layered graphene stuck together with an interwoven mesh of covalently-bonded metals.
I start hammering the thing, sending waves of qi through my hammer and into the sword with every strike. I can't really be bothered to arrange each molecule in perfect order. That would take too long and be really boring. Instead, I imagine the crystal structure I want, impress that intent on my forging qi, and let it do its thing.
I run some more simulations, and come to the conclusion that a magnesium alloy would be the lightest and strongest alloy I could make in a reasonable amount of time. Then I decide against it, since the purpose of this sword is not to swing it around fast, but to smash through things with brute force and massive weight.
In the end, I randomly threw together some lead, titanium, magnesium, carbon, iron, tungsten, and some other interesting metals. I didn’t use aluminium, as that stuff is really irritating to forge and would just burn. I also used a mix of silver and copper, forging that inside the blade itself in order to make qi channels.
I decided to go with a fire and ice theme and am now interweaving some formations in the blade, representing the laws of thermodynamics. I, of course, added my own twist. The internal energy of an isolated system is constant? Sure, it is, in a world without qi.
Okay, I really can't break that rule, even with qi, but it does allow me to redefine the term ‘isolated system’ however I want. I can add the thermal energies of an enemy to my defined system, steal all its warmth, and then isolate the system to only my sword. Or vice versa, if I want that particular enemy to explode into bloody and well-cooked steam.
This thing is going to be fucking neat.
Then comes the second law, that heat cannot spontaneously flow from a colder location to a hotter location. What if I redefine what heat and coldness is? Heat and cold don't really exist in reality. It’s just a scale starting at zero kelvin and going towards infinity. I ignore the theory of absolute hotness and the Planck temperature, as that would just overcomplicate things.
The third law is the one about entropy. A shame that qi colliding with qi generates more energy than the reaction takes, so that entire point is bollocks. I’m sure the energy is being pulled from somewhere, maybe it's being pulled from some other plane or dimension, but that doesn't really matter. I will start worrying about the life and death of universes once I celebrate my billionth birthday, okay?
I use the third law to let this sword stay relevant to me, allowing it to grow. A part of the qi inside it will go towards containing the qi, similar to the structural qi inside cultivators. This will allow it to absorb more and more qi and energy.
Including the two massive mana crystals is a tricky job. Crumbling them and mixing them with the alloy would be useless, since the crystal needs to be a certain size to keep generating energy. In the end, I forcefully crumble them, reforming the orange and blue stones into long bars that I fold inside the metal. I let qi soak into the mana stone, letting the higher power rule over the mana as a regulator and controlling force.
Now to connect the two. I can't really make a bridge between the two power sources, since I need a construction to act as a neutral ground allowing the heat and cold to mix and flow. Let’s use an image of Tree, then. Letting the silver come to the surface, I form a long and messy engraving of Tree on the middle part of the blade, connecting the two long stones inside the blade through channels of silver and
copper.
Next, I… Next, I should... Am I done? I don’t feel like the sword is done.
I wake from my theoretical smithing daze, noticing a rather sudden change in the environment. I am holding a rectangular blade, a similar shape to a ruler. Lengthwise, it’s a good two meters, and the middle half is a five-centimetre-thick, perfectly smooth black metal. A long and stylized silver tree adorns the middle part on both sides. The two outer quarters are tapered to a sharp edge, looking like shiny brushed steel.
The blade’s top is also tapered, making for a sharp edge on three sides. The edge near the handle continues past the blade’s body, forming a sharp, diagonal handguard. A long, clean metal handle sticks out from the blade’s base, a simple round pommel on its end.
I look up from my creation and notice my castle in ruins. I am surrounded by loose bricks and rubble, only the area around me is clear of any debris. The suns shine down on my sweaty and soot-stained face, as I look around at all the spectators. The entire population of this dimension is gathered around, staring at me in absolute silence.
I see signs of damage everywhere. Large swathes of forest and grassland are either burned or frozen. I also see exhausted cultivators standing ready in front of my original students' houses, Tree, the library, and the gardens. Might I have gone a little overboard?
At least I have a cool weapon now.
Maybe I should spend some time setting up some protective formations everywhere. I only had a sound dampening formation around my castle, which is now entirely gone.
Looking at the blade in my hands, I still feel a sense of incompleteness. Then, I sense danger. Turning around with the still glowing sword at the ready, I only see a flash of white, hear a terrible rumbling, and see a lot of gold before things go extremely wrong.
chapter sixteen
Emissions
Lola is feeling funny. It took her quite a few tries to get to the top of the cold mountain, but now that she is here, she’s unsure what to do. It took her quite a lot of effort to keep her fiery forelock from acting up, only using her qi infused fur to keep warm. This was a losing fight, as the temperatures on top of the massive, snow-covered mountain are at least a hundred degrees Celsius below zero.
Instead, she lets her small body cool down and her even smaller heart take it easy. Sluggishly she managed to get up here, hardly even crawling the last few hundred metres. Now that she is here, her cooling brain has trouble remembering why she did this in the first place. Instead of worrying about that, she takes a moment to enjoy the view.
Having to keep blinking to prevent her eyes from freezing over is a small price to pay for the grandiose tableau laid out before her. She sees Tree, glowing golden and sparkling, in the middle of all. The small clearing holding a few buildings is barely visible from this distance. The only thing standing out is the garden, which has been expanded time and time again, and now covers a couple dozen acres at least.
The forests covering the majority of the land are vibrant and bustling with life. Some of the mana mutants and beasts were herbivores. Most of the dangerous carnivores were quickly hunted to extinction. A colorful flock of grazers has claimed an expanding piece of grasslands to the east of Tree. More empty patches are visible, some containing small settlements, others housing large fighting rings or storage barns.
The mountain opposite Tree is equally as massive as the one Lola is sitting on. The red streaks of lava and smoggy clouds surrounding it making it clear that it is not only the geographical opposite of the peak she is standing on.
Surrounding the large stretches of forest are beaches, strips of varying width, covered by sand. Beyond that is water. The ocean is filled with ice on one side while tropical trees indicate a warmer climate on the otherside.
A flash of orange and blue steals Lola's fading attention, and she looks back to the base of Tree. Too far to really sense anything, she somehow knows that the colourful display happening there is caused by the big giver of food. He’s playing without her again. Having fun while ignoring the mighty Lola. Inexcusable!
She stomps on the snow in frustration. The snow cracks and falls from under her. She gives off a slight squeak as gravity pulls her down, falling into a dark crevice. Her fur saves her from splattering against the rock as the dark tunnel twists and turns randomly. She bounces around like a ping pong ball dropped by a cave explorer for a few minutes.
As tired as she is, she nearly falls asleep. Having exhausted all of the qi inside her blood some time ago, she had been trudging up the mountain with just the structural qi inside her body. Her tired eyes then start seeing a blue glow coming from below. She smashes against a protrusion one last time before tumbling into a large cave, lit blue by a glowing orb hanging in the middle of the hollow space.
Lola’s subconscious finally has had enough and decides to act. It kept track of her bodily functions, keeping them going when they really should have stopped going due to hypothermia. Now that a true threat to her life has been detected - the blue orb is many times colder than anything prior - it acts.
All the structural qi in Lola’s body is released, fed through the red lock of hair on her forehead and expelled. The near catatonic bunny springs back to life as her body temperature spikes. The solid core in her heart starts dissolving as a result of the qi embedded in her body being released. Her cultivation base basically self-destructed to keep her alive.
This causes a rather large amount of heat intent qi to fall on the blue orb. The orb that Teach used to keep the mountain cold, setting up the qi generation process of the constant battle between cold and warmth circling around Tree. The orb made of pure cold intent.
The following action and reaction chain takes some time to describe, but happens in the time it takes to light a flint.
The cold core, having a very rudimentary survival instinct, expels a similar amount of cold intent qi towards the heat intent threatening its existence. Both clouds clash, with Lola in the middle. The reaction between both extremes causes a massive eruption of power, with Lola in the middle.
Lola’s heat affinity was formed when she took a long nap in lava. Her fur was initially enough to withstand the heat. But after hours of being submerged in molten rock of a thousand degrees centigrade, her subconsciousness started to look for ways to not get burned to a crisp the moment her qi ran out.
It did so by taking the concept of heat in itself, welcoming the thermal temperature change and allowing Lola to employ the phenomenon for herself.
This entire process now happens again, but with ice. Lola is hanging in the middle of the cave while qi, hot and cold of enormous pressure, rage around her. The ice - stillness and frozen motion - is violently shoved inside her qi starved body. The fire - excitement and pure movement - is welcomed greedily, but her newly forming core is unable to extract the ice fast enough.
The ice core, wanting nothing but to be left alone and chill, uses thermal expansion and contraction to open the crack Lola fell through in the first place. Like a pressure cooker being opened prematurely, the small rabbit and a lot of developing steam starts moving upwards with extreme violence.
Teach made the heat core of the volcano and the ice core at the same time, linking them intrinsically despite - and because of - their opposing nature. The violent action of the ice core causes it to weaken by a fair amount, having used a lot of its gathered energy to get rid of the rabbit in an expedient manner.
This causes the fire core to weaken in concert. Its own faint intelligence did not see this coming - at all - which forces it to vomit up all the power it no longer can contain with its weakened shell. It starts venting the thermal power into the surrounding magma, causing both mountains to explode at the same time - one with ice and the other with fire.
Tree, being quite concerned with how this double eruption will affect all of its carefully grown forests, decides to take action. It sees that its own creator and/or parent, Teach, is still busy and occupied with something. So, Tree explodes with golden po
wer, two thick streams of power surrounding the two fountaining streams of hot and cold power.
Not sure where to aim the two contained streams, it hesitates. Gravity causes both streams to curve in an orbital pattern, both starting to flow towards the middle, towards Tree. Tree is now no longer concerned with the forests it planted. Instead, it wonders if it could survive being the meeting point of these two powers.
Deciding it might not, it pushes them upwards, causing both to meet a few kilometres above its lush crown. Too late, Tree realizes that a single rabbit was still being propelled by the stream of cold.
If Lola was sleepy previously, being shot out of the mountain like a cannonball and smashing headfirst into a stream of pure magma causes her to be more awake than ever before.
She barely manages to use the heat qi she got back to stay alive and whole, not even bothering to reform her cultivation base just yet. Now that she has smashed into enormous quantities of the element she is most comfortable with though, she starts sucking up the rich qi like there’s no tomorrow.
The golden energy of Tree intensifies as it tries to contain the massive explosion happening above its crown as fire meets ice.
This causes Lola to experience what it’s like in a pressure cooker for the second time today. This time her subconscious is ready, though. Lola is still too dazed and confused to act, but her well-developed instinct is prepared.
The mixing energies of fire and ice are forcefully invading her small frame for the second time today, but this time they are welcomed. The qi is absorbed through the skin and any orifice it can find, sinking into her flesh, blood and bones at an astounding pace.
Her core reforms, the qi condensation stage is skipped as the air contains enough qi to immediately condense liquid qi. Her heart forms a solid core a second later, sucking up all the qi greedily until her solid core is entirely formed.
The Dao of Magic: Book 3: A Western Cultivation Series Page 14