The world spun and twisted, shifting and twisting into impossible shapes, for the first time, [Iteration[1] tasted the sound of bread, saw the taste of bread, and felt the feeling of bread. A symphony of colors and sounds exploded in its sight as reality warped and bent as it moved through time, space, and the in-between before it spat out the [Crystal lens] of [Iteration[1].

[Iteration[1] found itself in a space that was not also a space before a portal winked into being and sucked the [Crystal lens] through.

Finally, [Iteration[1] found itself in a land of iron, an endless land of [iron ore]. [Iteration[1]felt its connection with the [Crystal lens] and its soul strain as the aftermath of its travel slammed into it, weakening the connection it had to the [Crystal lens] greatly.

The visual data it was receiving was blurry, likely due to the ambient [Metal mana] and whatever happened to it on its way here. [Iteration[3] had decided on the name after running a few tests with the [Metal mana], it slowly turned anything it came in contact with into metal over a long period and was highly resistant to change.

When it finally processed the blurry images and rearranged the jumbled data what it saw utterly left it dumbfounded, it was a world of metal, raw and unrefined metal ore, specifically, iron ore, ore stretched as far as it could see, the air itself was heavy with metal and metallic mana.

Above the metallic clouds of dust [Iteration[1] made out an absolutely massive sun, pulsating wildly as it released oceans of [Metalic Mana] that drenched and suffused the very air, becoming almost physical due to its high concentration.

The sun was so bright and mighty that just looking at it caused the [Crystal lens] to strain under some empirical pressure combined with the mind-boggling amount of raw [Metalic Mana] present.

With great reluctance, [Iteration[1] commanded the [Crystal lens] to look away and observe other parts of this strange environment.

Towering mountains of raw [iron ore] loomed in the distance, impossibly large, and the very ground below was made of compressed iron ore, it was a sight to behold, even the sky itself seemed to be composed of some sort of metal.

Behind the mountains of metal loomed what [Iteration[1] assumed to be constructs similar to its [Combat Golems], judging by how they were positioned and how they looked, they were absolutely massive, spanning thousands of kilometers, and this was just a rough estimate.

Behind the four massive mountains of [iron ore] were four equally massive constructs of [iron core]. [Iteration[1] marked these mountains as no-go zones, the sense of danger it felt just by observing them for too long was intense.

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Aside from that, there wasn't much to see, just small hills of [Iron ore] that went on endlessly, seemingly without end. [Iteration[1] was starting to wonder where the unknown attacker of its [Combat golems] was too, since nothing had attacked it yet.

It didn't want that to happen, as it didn't know if it could replace the lost [Crystal lens] but it still couldn't help but wonder, perhaps the portal randomized the location each time, that wouldn't be an idea for future plans but that would explain why it wasn't attacked by anything yet.

Communication between its other selves was slow, due to the high mana density but they were already working on securing the area around the portal, [Iteration[1] decided to convert the entire area around the portal into a laboratory to study the portal and stopped the [Worker golems] from digging any further in that direction.

The portal was just too precious, with it, it would secure a theoretically unlimited amount of [Iron ore], that was if it could defend it and carry it back, of course. It still didn't know what was out there, but it knew it was things it could hardly handle, even worse than the [Goblins].

It wanted to get some iron tools before the [Goblins] came, that was its only chance of survival. [Iteration[1] had the [Crystal lens] capture all the footage it could, though the quality was subpar as the further it went the stronger the interference from the [Metalic mana] became until it stopped responding completely.

[Iteration[1] felt an empty slot open up inside its soul as soon as the [Crystal lens] was lost, right then and there, it knew it could spend five points of its [Automation mana] to build another [Crystal lens] to replace the lost one.

[Iteration[1] did so and watched as the process started, temporarily losing focus on everything else as it concentrated to the maximum of its ability. Shifting its awareness over to the first room, it concentrated on its [Central core] and willed the payment of five [Automation mana] to be made.

The mana came out from its [Mana outlet] and moved up until it was directly above the [Central core] where it began to shift inward, but also outward.

The [Automation mana] then began to spin, breaking off into smaller bits of [Automation mana] that began spinning themselves until they got too small to track. This continued for a while until [Iteration[1] felt the broken bits of [Automation mana] rejoin and started to transform into micro crystallized [Automation mana].

[Iteration[1] was shocked, it didn't know mana had a crystal form, it always assumed that its [Central core] was built from something else and not pure crystallized mana. The tiny mana crystals grew steadily as more [Automation mana] crystallized and joined already existing clusters of mana crystals, soon, an intricate network of crystals floated in [Iteration[1]'s awareness.

There was a blinding flash of [Automation mana] as the mana crystals finished forming and connected to each other, seconds later the same thing repeated itself until four medium-sized colorless mana crystals floated in its awareness.

Before it could see what was going to happen next, [Iteration[1] felt a metaphysical jab at its soul, forcing its attention away from likely the most important in the formation of [Crystal lens] yet.

The voice of [Iteration[3] boomed inside its mind.

{WE'RE UNDER ATTACK, FROM THE PORTAL!!!!!!!}