I can do nothing but stare for a moment at that beautiful sight, the nails floating surrounded by the gentle light of a pinkish-orange bloom. I grasp one, my ragged nails clicking on its rough surface.

“Oh, little thing, we will accomplish much together, to the stars and beyond,” I say while cradling that nail forged from expectation and magic.

I gently gather all the nails into a ball, place the ball gently in the center, and smile, for I know the job is done, and with that, I immediately collapse into a deep sleep. I awake to a head-splitting headache, a dry mouth, and eyes clogged with fairy dust.

I sputter because, frankly, I haven’t felt so scrunkly ever since I arrived here. I sigh, I assumed that there would be consequences for such an insane crunch.

And as always, assumptions here in the astral make an ass out of u and me. Ugh, I think my headache is getting worse because of that weak-ass pun. I rub my head and look at the ball—the ball of iron that will be my harbinger for change, the start of my own iron age. Or, well, hopefully. It’s hard to know with such limited resources, and I laugh.

“I have three separate items that generate endless piles of materials, and I still feel as though I don’t have enough,” I say while slapping my hand to my forehead.

Yeah, I’ve got to look on the bright side; I’m literally living the anti-social scientist's dream. Many portal scientists would kill for an oppertunity to be all alone while on the forefront of discovery. But sadly, I can’t say the same. That dream it doesn’t have life in it; no repairs done to things that should be thrown away, no hugs, noogies, or hard conversations in this void. I sigh—I'm not the unluckiest human out there—and with a fragile smile.

"No, that has to be Captain Limpdick, the most charismatic man you’ll ever meet, with the worst case of erectile dysfunction that has ever been recorded. It’s so bad that even when he got his dick chopped off and replaced with alien cybernetics, the new dick couldn't get it up either!” I say this to an imaginary audience, laughing between the lines.

Oh, that story never fails to get me laughing. That man is truly unfortunate; he spent a fortune to import something usually only the richest ever get to even see, and it didn’t work. And cross-system returns just flat out never work. As my laugh slows down, I push back the hair that floated forward and finally enact my plans for a less shitty base.

Entry 10 Pg.248

First things first, I streamlined the IBA. I managed to remove both steps one and two. Which is such a blessing considering just how many nails I’m going to have to make, create, or summon. I should really think of a name for the nails that I magic into existence.

Anyway, I’m so grateful that the IBA is way less fidgety than the IPA and doesn’t fall apart with the slightest change.

For some reason, the IPA just breaks if I don’t use one specific pocket! Ugh, either way, I’ve just been plugging away at expanding the ball of iron nails, inserting them one at a time into the ball. The worst part about all of this is the pure boredom of doing this task, it’s MAGIC so why does it feel like I’m an ancient skeleton writing lines on the board for detention? I occasionally go catatonic from boredom and have to give up and just collapse to consume more brain-trash novels. Log out

Entry 11 Pg.257

I’ve gotten much better at the ball-growing task, but man, does that sound weird when you put it on paper.

Ugh focus I’ve gotten much better at dealing with the mind-crushing boredom of doing the same task over and over again with little to no variation. It hasn’t gotten any less boring, but at the very least I’m better at dealing with it.

Additionally, I’ve found a way to increase nail production. The idea is simple. Do it everywhere; do the IBA while doing your logs, while reading, and in the middle of putting on my clothes; hell, I’m convinced that I’ll eventually work up to doing it in my sleep. This has massively increased the production of nails, but it has also caused some annoyance as well.

Because well I don’t want to just have dozens of sharp nails floating around my base after every summon? Goddammit, I still don’t have a proper term for this infinite nail fuckery!

Whatever in the end, in order to not turn my base into a minefield of poky nails, I have to throw nails into the ball at the center of the base. And that accursed ball refuses to stay a ball!

Whenever I throw my nails at it just a little bit too hard, it explodes as if it were a bullet punching through a skull and splatting out brain matter on the other side.

And in this case, it's way worse because rather than, suddenly useless brain matter flying out of a skull, the nails that fly away from the ball are incredibly useful, and after each time I make a mistake, I have to painstakingly rearrange the ball. But despite the difficulties, I now make nails so fast that I could defeat nailguns if there was ever a competition for throwing nails.

This means I have plenty of surplus for my next step, electricity.

Entry 12 Pg.273

You see, for my next step in my iron age, I need electricity, which, while a hard thing to get without the conveniences I’m used to, is very much something I can get my hands on. Well, as long as I go simple.

Because the basic idea behind the modern engine is, when boiled down to its simplest, just spinning magnets. And the wonderful thing about old computers is that their hard drives required the use of magnets, powerful ones, and what metal do I have access to an infinite amount of?

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Iron, and iron is a magnetic substance that is both attracted to magnets and, with the proper efforts, can be turned into one.

All you need to do is rub an iron nail continuously in a certain direction for a bit, and it will turn into a magnet. Plus, with the precedent set earlier when I replaced some nails with the IPA method, I know that I can replicate replicated nails.

This means that I can replicate the magnetic nails and the endless binder with the modifications, giving me not only giving me regular iron nails but now also endless magnetic nails. Allowing me an endless source of electricity—it’s called the electromagnetic spectrum for a reason; magnets can create electricity, and vice versa; with an infinite supply of magnets, I have an infinite amount of electricity, no matter how inconvenient.

Entry 13 Pg.293

First things first, the magnetic nail experiment was a complete success. I have pretty much used only magnetic nails ever since I ripped out that hard drive. It allows for the ball to be a bit less finicky because now it's a mass of magnets that all want to stick together.

But other than that, goddamn, was I arrogant at the start of this. Turns out the steps for making the building block of most civilization’s technology, are much more complicated than infinite magnets equals INFINITE POWER.

I’ve been looking up the simplest possible generators in Stevens’ database, and even those usually need cardboard; all I have is a lot of paper as a substitute.

Thank goodness for these old things called DIY channels. Such magnificent sources of information, all done to the tune of such charming music. And you get so many ideas for what you can do with their compilations of magnificent ideas. Although I do wonder why they keep making furniture out of silicone copies of their feet, the people back then must have loved them; there are so many!

Generators also always need loads and loads of copper wire. So I had to steal some from that ever-more-ragged laptop.

But while I was stripping the laptop of wires, I noticed that there wouldn’t be enough wire for even a single one. I panicked for a bit, but then I remembered how the IPA method worked for the nails, so I tried it with the wires. And it worked!

For some reason, it didn’t work when I tried to use a random pocket; it only worked with the IPA pocket. I now assume that that pocket is some type of magical artifact.

I wonder if it’ll still work if I remove it from the pants it was part of. I don’t dare to actually do it, but I wonder.

Anyway, it seems like the IPA method, while very annoying, seems to work on any identical objects. I tested it out on pencils, wires, nails, and fabric from the same dress, and as long as they’re not differentiated in some way and can fit in that pocket, the IPA method seems to work.

It isn’t really useful for the scale of stuff required to build things, but it’ll at least make sure that I don’t run out of anything crucial.

Getting back to the subject, through the power of infinity and beyond, I had the materials necessary to build my first generator. First, I wrapped a series of copper wires around the block of paper in two bands, leaving a space in the middle. Then I insert a regular nail into the middle and strap tightly with bits of string I ripped out of my precious clothes 2 magnetically charged nails. Then to finish it off I twisted the tails of the wrapped copper over an LED also graciously donated by the laptop.

The first time I spun that generator, it felt like magic, my twisting fingers causing that light to flicker madly before eventually going strong as a new source of light was born in the Astral Expanse, all because of me. SUCK ON THAT AUDREY. YOU WHO IS A POMPOUS TWAT AT EVERY GATHERING, WHO IS THE GENIUS NOW!

Entry 14 Pg.312

I write this with regret and gritted teeth. Because the matter at hand is simple: all the generators I can make produce pitiful power, and the ones that produce more just aren’t possible for me to build.

The problem is this: steam power. Of the vast array of possibilities for making electricity, the vast majority is steam power hiding in a big jacket. And steam power is pretty goddamn hard to make considering that the IPA pocket can’t fit water bottles inside it. And I can't exactly just pour water into the fucking pocket and expect something to come out.

I tried to research a way for infinite water, but the research had no results no matter what I did, and with how the water dropped after each experiment, I had to terminate trials with no results. For now, I’ll revisit the water problem after I know more about the mechanics of an infinity attempt, and thus can revisit it without losing what is most likely my only source of water. Without access to higher forms of generators, I’ll just have to make do with a shitton of tiny hand cranks.

Entry 15 Pg.321

The ball grows ever more, the things too damn big to fit in the base even had to be placed below the base. It’s grown to the size of a house by now, it’s not nearly big enough for what I want, but it’s starting to get there.

But other than that, for the past several sleeps I’ve been diligently making that stupid little generator over and over again and then running it again and again.

I don’t turn it by hand now. I wind a string around the handle and pull all the strings at once. It sure is a strange sight now, I didn’t have enough space in my base for all the little generators, so now they’re all floating in the astral, stuck together with string so that they don’t fly away.

The 50 of them sure do make a sight, although they sure are annoying to reset them all every 7 seconds, I’ve been running them all sleep long. I didn’t have quality, so I made do with quantity; each of the little ones generates around 1.5 watts after I strapped more magnets to them, and with 50 running, I have enough power to slowly charge my hair braces.

Because you see the hardened photon technology in my hair braces, it uses, well, photons. And with so many photons tightly packed running through it, it’s actually pretty easy to jury-rig it into a shitty laser with no focus.

Thank you, Pop-Pop, for teaching me how to disable the safety restrictions. Ever since that day when you showed me how to quickly turn a pair of hair braces into a laser that would break the mind of an Earther, no boy has bothered me at school anymore. May your soul rest in peace.

Either way, I got the casing off my charger and attached the wires to the insides; now I just have to rewind these strings some more, and soon I’ll have a combination welder and improvised flamethrower.

Entry 16 Pg.327

I am approaching my industrial evolution in an entirely backward way: through the power of lasers!

I’ve successfully hacked my way into a laser, and while it's charged, I’m going to use it to craft a bunch of iron sheets. The standard Replicator that you can find in your home, in order to craft any metal products, essentially puts metal dust in the shape you want and lasers it together in little layers.

And I’ve been doing the same thing. I first rubbed the iron nails into powder by scraping them along the edge of Stevens’ corpse, which is thankfully much harder than iron.

Then I laid out a carpet of iron dust on top of my suitcase and pulled it away. Leaving a floating mass of iron that you can melt around the size of a suitcase.

The first plate was bumpy and a bit wavy due to my pulling the suitcase away too fast, but when I placed more iron dust in the holes of the plate, it got smooth enough to be useful. Soon enough, I had gathered enough plates to create tables, chairs, and mounts. My imagination burns with the possibilities enabled by my power and ingenuity.

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I wipe my brow, standing over my base forged through lasers and magic into something more than a desperate attempt to categorize the unknown.

The base now has a floor and a low set of walls interspersed with handles so that I might pull myself to my destination rather than swim, with various straps allowing me to stay in place without fear of drifting away.

My workstation is now a place of science and creation rather than a tool for not falling apart. The beautiful look of the hexagon that is my base was eclipsed by the sight behind it: a ball of iron nails the size of a hill.

It’s big, but it won't be enough, especially considering it has to be 3–4 miles in radius before it can generate enough gravity to keep me attached.

But soon, soon, I won’t adhere to the rules of the astral; the rules of the astral will adhere to me!

I tighten my makeshift backpack, formed of stolen zippers and torn-apart clothes. Place all the items I simply cannot lose, save for Stevens.

And I walk away from my base; off to explore the Astral and make it my bitch!