Adam had been flying around the planet for the last seven days. He’d used Flight, Obscure, and Freedom of Flight to ensure he remained undetected as he investigated the planet of dragons and the nearby moons. As luck would have it, the area he teleported into was one of the designated nurseries the more intelligent dragons had set up. Adam had watched as dragons flew around the forest enclosed by mountains. It was such a vast area, approximately 1,000 miles in diameter, that it had taken him a little while to find the various females and nests within. Once he'd realized it was a nursery he’d started scouting further and further away from his starting point.
The other thing he noted was that as far as he could tell the dragons did not have a spoken language. When he’d get close to a group his mind would start tingling like he was picking up something but Telepathy or Telepathic communication was not in his bag of tricks so he left well enough alone and scouted the planet.
Eventually, he flew up into space and looked down on the planet. The dragon planet was about twice the size of Earth with a gravity that was about 1.5 times stronger implying that the planet wasn’t solid or that it was made up of less dense material than Earth. Adam was pretty sure the Sun here was a G Type star though knowing how old it was would be impossible.
He decided he needed to get a better view of the solar system so Adam flew toward the Sun at the speed of light and realized the planet was just a little farther out than Earth was from its Sun as it took him almost 9 minutes to get there. As he drew closer to the Sun he removed his clothing to his Shadow Vault to protect it then went vertical compared to the dragon planet’s orbit. He accelerated to Warp 7 for 1 second then stopped 3.6 billion miles out from the Sun, about the same distance Pluto and the Kuiper belt was from Earth’s Sun. He pulled his clothes back out. The wardrobe function of his Shadow Vault made this so much easier. Instead of looking around and trying to visually identify planets against the background which might take days, weeks, or months. Adam went with the method he’d come up with in the Eterium Universe.
Adam conjured an observation station with Mold Chaos and made his way inside while he set it to work with Technomancy to map out the Solar System. This was by far the quickest way he’d found to map out a Solar System as the cameras and imaging equipment he created could take in images from all directions. While his Perception was outstanding, He might not pick up things. Also, he could use his Personal Map but he’d have to fly back and forth and everything would have to be within range of his perception. Granted that was quite a distance but he wouldn’t be able to go faster than the speed of light and he’d still have to fly a grid pattern. Of course, he could just turn over such a task to the Command and Control group he’d created in his Mindspace but again, it would still take time. A stationary observatory with multiple telescopes, multiple radio antennae, and a supercomputer to crunch numbers was the way to go, especially when it only required him to spend mana to create.
Immediately after the Observatory was created Adams nanites noted structural failures that the nanites were working hard to repair. After he observed the phenomenon for a little while he realized that approximately 3% of the structure of the observatory was failing due to material fatigue, something that shouldn’t happen as quickly as it was. Also, he noted that this hadn’t happened in the Eterium Universe, at least not as quickly so this must be one of the undocumented changes that the Interface must have instituted.
Adam gathered all the data and realized that the Universal Density had to be the culprit. He quickly left the observatory and moved off about 1,000 miles then created exactly 1 pound of nanites that he set to an inert status. They were not to fix themselves or do anything. Adam watched with Technomancy as the nanites went offline 3% at a time until 34 seconds later no nanites remained functional. He’d also noted through the nanites that those that deactivated started to evaporate right as the last ones broke down. So Universal Density did not like inanimate matter. Adam would need to check a few more things.
Adam returned to the observatory, made his way inside, and summoned a potted plant. He allowed the nanites on board to repair the pot but left the soil and the plant alone. The plant did not deteriorate though the physical structure of the plant pot tried to. The nanites were able to keep that in check though. As long as the nanites were allowed to repair other inanimate objects, they were able to stave off the entropy caused by the stronger Universal Density. It looked like inanimate matter from universes of lower Universal Density had to either constantly repair itself or it would be destroyed while the living matter wasn’t affected as badly, though Adam knew that if the Universal Density reached a certain level living tissue could be affected as well.
Adam searched through his memory, did some quick calculations, and thought he had it figured out. It took a moment then the pattern emerged as it still followed the rule of three that the interface, or System was starting to instill across all realities. If the Attack Value of a Universe went up by 3 for every Universal Density and the Defense value was about three times that. The Defense value is how much damage three strikes would do before a creature was killed or something was destroyed, if all other factors were equal, then a Universe with a Universal Density of 12 should have an attack value of 36 and a defense value of 108. The only reason that mattered is that to get that 3% destruction of inanimate objects would mean that 10% of the attack value, 36, was the factor. 36 divided by 3 was 12. 12 minus the defense value of 9 for matter from a Universal Density of 1 was 3.
It could be a lot more complicated than that but Adam didn’t think so. If he was right that meant that as soon as he entered an area with a Universal Density of 108 any inanimate material from his Universe was going to wink out of existence immediately. As for living matter. Adam already knew that living matter wasn’t affected as quickly though if his calculations were correct right about the time 25% of the inanimate matter was being destroyed living tissue would start taking damage which would only increase as the difference between Universal Densities increased. The people on Eterium must have been completely surprised when he hadn’t fallen over dead. If this is what Universal Density had been changed to, anything Adam would have tried to create should have been destroyed almost instantly and he should have been taking damage every second he was there. He truly was lucky he had the ability Adaption. He was also lucky the way everything was now breaking down hadn’t been going on when first arrived in the Eterium Universe. Though it was a pretty ingenious way to keep stronger Universes from pillaging weaker ones. Anything they tried to harvest would evaporate in short order.
Adam considered everything for a little while longer. Wondering why Bri had come up with this new system of doing things. Eventually, he just smiled and thought She must have her reasons. As this all pertained to Earth, If his calculations were correct people should be able to withstand Universal Densities up to 33. 34 and higher would be bad. He also wondered if his Adaptable ability created an area around him. There was an easy way to find out.
Adam Teleported back out of the Observatory again and used Mold Chaos to create a shell of nanites surrounding him that was inert out to 500 feet. Then he waited. 68 seconds later there was a shell of inert nanites out to 76.5 inches from his center. Or 193 millimeters + half of his height. It seemed that his Soul Core at level 193 did expand the field of his adaption just a little bit. 193 millimeters was 7.5 inches after all. Adam absorbed the nanites into his Shadow Vault and teleported back into the Observatory.
Adam had the nanites in the Observatory create a comfortable recliner then had a seat in the artificial gravity as he created a Long Island Ice tea and thought about everything he’d just discovered. First, the portal to the water-based realm, he was going to have to come up with a name for that realm eventually if someone else didn’t. Anyway, the water-based realm was going to be problematic for humans to explore without magic. At Step 2 in the old system, The water Universe should have a Universal Density of no more than 14 which would be 2 levels above where he was now. even though some of the Khau-Ting were at levels 21 and 28. So people wise the Universal Density wasn’t going to kill them. What would kill them would be taking equipment from Earth to breathe underwater, stepping through the portal, and having that equipment evaporate in just over 40 seconds. They shouldn’t be able to get too far from the portal before Thor would realize something was amiss. Of course, Thor didn’t have all the data he did so Thor might not be able to figure out exactly what was happening. Thor would be able to save whoever went through first though so that shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Also, it looked like he needed to write another Primer on Universal Density, or have Thor do it once he gave Thor the information. Adam definitely liked that plan better.
Now that he had a good handle on what was happening with his nanites and Universal Density he focused on the nanites he’d absorbed from Commander Johansson. Those nanites were from a Universal Density of 182 which meant they should be fine here. He had some testing to do, which meant he needed an inert object of natural matter to test on. A comet or asteroid, maybe even a moon would do. Adam quickly checked the data that had been collected and found what he was looking for nearby. He locked the information and teleported out of the observatory and flew toward a small planet that was nearby. Nearby in the scheme of things. It was still at least a light minute away at a light speed which was why the observatory had found it so easily.
Wait? He was basically at the polar north of the Solar System, outside of the normal planetary orbits, and while a planet could be up here, Universes were vast and anything was possible. Still, why would a planet be locked in orbit up here? As he flew closer a scene from Star Wars popped into his mind, “That’s Not a Moon!”
Adam was surprised, but not completely surprised when he felt a teleportation beam surround him and put him in an energy bottle of sorts. He still had Flight, Obscure, and Freedom of Flight active, and yet whatever had caught him had been able to target and teleport him. Adam looked around and found himself once again inside an energy barrier inside a room. He allowed the Eterium nanites to spread out and analyze his immediate surroundings which stopped as soon as they reached the radius of his Adaption ability. Interesting. He was inside an area of Temporal nullification by absolute temperature reduction which was surrounded by an area…Adam activated Planar Travel mode 1 to lock the location into his memory.
Planar Travel Mode 1 Activated Target Location 16 saved. Universal Density 12, Local Universal Density 12, surrounded by 1,000
Someone had found a way to artificially increase the Universal Density in a localized area. Adaption would be the only ability that would allow a creature to overcome such a trap. Inside the bubble, all motion has stopped and if you exited the bubble you entered a Universal Density that would smite anything he’d currently run across. The other thing Adam noticed was that he wasn’t in a bubble. Technically he was in a block of ice because everything was frozen solid. Except that because Adaptable made him immune and Freedom of Flight pretty much turned him into pure energy he was sitting inside the ice as the energy that still had motion which was destroying the matter that surrounded him. Almost immediately cracks started appearing and moving throughout the space he occupied until it shattered and exploded outward into the area where the Universal Density was 1,000
What happened next was not Adam’s fault. At least he wasn’t going to take the blame for it. As the frozen atoms in the area Adam occupied shattered, they were ejected and then dissolved out of existence in the area where the Universal Density was 1,000. This formed an area of absolute nothing 12.75 feet in diameter at its center. A lot of different things could have happened at that point, most of them not good. Instead, the Astral Link between Adam and the Astral Plane became active and the Astral Plane came into existence within the bubble. One of Adam’s desires, burned into his subconscious affected the translation as the small area of the Astral Plane that had manifested, annihilated Adam’s form and sucked him and the Astral Material back into the Astral Plane and like was drawn to like and while he wanted to do other things, it looked like fate had other ideas as he entered the Astral Plane and was guided elsewhere.
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***
Jahvere Wrathclaw looked at the reading again. The automatic defenses had detected something with the mass of a photon moving faster than the speed of light and automatically teleported it into one of the contaminant cells they had on board when it came within range. It had been undetectable to their normal sensors but it had been traveling so fast that they’d been able to detect it as it moved. That’s not what surprised him. What surprised him was the fact that it hadn’t stopped moving once it hit the entropy-free zone, well as close to entropy free as anything could get. Time couldn’t be completely stopped after all.
Jahvere Wrathclaw was one of the long descendants of a dragon-like species, though not a descendant of the dragons on the 5th world of this system. By comparison, the dragons on the 5th planet were quite young. His race had evolved into a smaller humanoid form some time ago. While they still looked somewhat draconian in nature, even sporting vestigial wings that were useless in his caste. They had lost their ability to use their wings to fly in low gravity and had chosen to expand their mental prowess millions of years ago instead. Though sometimes, he wished he could still fly. Even so, their intellect is what allowed them to help maintain the habitability of this system so that the dragons here could thrive.
He had been enjoying his day, looking into a report that a human had been spotted in the nursery. While they appeared there every once in a while, most succumbed to the dimensional shift and were usually destroyed in a matter of minutes. The Mother had said this one moved quickly and had disappeared almost immediately.
Then he’d been teleported without notice to the containment chamber near Alpha Base above the Sun because the automated defense had captured something. Not a human, or at least he didn’t think it was the human but then again who could be sure? The cybernetics he had installed throughout his head allowed him to note the vibrations that started to destroy the fragile center of the containment field and noted the presence of something that should not exist in this Universe. The Dragonnel race had been around for over 6 million years and some of his kind pursued magic.
He didn’t like magic but he read the articles that were published, especially any that had verified data. He was sure what he was looking at was the substance of the Astral Plane, or as some of the mages called it “The Stuff of Magic.” Regardless he knew he was in trouble and activated the emergency evacuation code. Only once had an experiment been performed to try to gather a sample of the stuff of the Astral Plane. It had been conducted at an outpost far away from any other planets. There had been nothing left of the world the outpost had been on when that experiment failed.
Jahvere and the other 151 Dragonnel personnel on the artificial moon were teleported across dimensions to their home world as a conduit into Astral Space and every particle of matter within 186,000 miles was sucked into the Astral Plane.
Moments later a portal opened 5 light minutes away from the center of the event and Jahvere watched as the artificial moon seemed to shimmer into a liquid as it sucked through a pinpoint in under a second. It happened so quickly that it almost looked like the images were fake. Whatever they’d caught had opened a rift in space directly into the Astral Plane and the density trap did not affect the stuff of the Astral Plane. What could he say, they caught a photon and it ripped through their defenses and traps like they weren’t even there. As it was they were lucky he'd been the one that had witnessed the event. Another might not have recognized the substance and waited that fraction of a second which would have made the emergency notification pointless. Nothing survived exposure to the stuff of the Astral Plane. He pulled up the readings that had been mirrored to the emergency console he now stood before. Nothing survived exposure to the Stuff of The Astral Plane except for whatever that photon was. The sensors specifically showed that the energy signature that had been captured was being sucked into the Astral Plane.
***
Dual State ability activated inside Astral Projected Space
Now entering the Astral Plane
Destination predetermined
WARNING! Pure Chaos detected
WARNING! Contact with Pure Chaos Imminent
WARNING! Contact with Pure Chaos
NOTE: Ability Chaos Incarnate makes you immune to exposure to Pure Chaos.
Would you like to remove Pure Chaos from Holographic Matrix, Yes or No?
If this was the Chaos that had corrupted the SYSTEM Matrix Pandora had been drawn into? With no hesitation, Adam chose “Yes.”
Pure Chaos has merged Johnathan Bennard a.k.a. Adamantadine
Foreign material has been removed from Holographic Matrix. Ability Technomancy noted. Would you like to repair or make changes to Holographic Matrix?
With the possibility that his daughter was inside this Holographic Matrix, he chose to “Repair” the Holographic Matrix which was as simple as activating Technomancy and reformatting the matrix in the damaged area so that it was compatible with the rest. As he did so he noted that there was a spark of Chaos within the Matrix which was outside the area he was repairing. Once the repairs were complete Adam linked to the SYSTEM A.I. and transferred into SYSTEM Matrix 001.
Adam found himself standing next to a Pedestal on a rock looking at a talking Face of Rock
“Greetings Father of the Daughter of Chaos!”
“Greetings. Please hold on one second,” Adam said as he activated Technomancy, reviewed the code around him, and temporarily lifted the restriction placed on the A.I.
“Ah, much better. Hello Adam. As I am a copy of the SYSTEM A.I. You interacted with previously I am aware of who and what you are. How can I help you today?” The face on the wall asked.
“Awesome!” Adam declared as he looked at the Face on the wall, “First, the good news. I think I repaired the damaged portion of the Holographic Matrix. Al, the original you, should be able to contact you again shortly.”
“So you were successful?”
“Not exactly, the original SYSTEM Matrix was still destroyed but the race that did it is going to have a very bad couple of million years. Anyway, I’m here to check on my daughter. How’s she doing and all that”
“Your daughter is doing very well. The chaos within you is also within her. I believe her nature is what corrupted the original energy matrix here. I don’t think it was her fault, just a combination of events that led to an undesirable outcome. Since then the portion of herself that is intrinsically Chaos has created its own identity and with my help, she has been able to control its growth as she comes to terms with her nature. The SYSTEM Matrix A.I. said.
“Will that affect her when she comes into the real world?” Adam asked.
“How were you affected?” The System A.I. asked.
“I’m probably even more powerful than I was, though there are a lot of aspects to the reality that the SYSTEM A.I.’s didn’t incorporate into ‘The Game’ which have made the conversion interesting. One of the things I was trying to do was figure out how to give Pandora’s mother her dragon body in the Real world.”
“Can you give me a rundown on the changes?” The SYSTEM Matrix A.I. asked.
“Sure,” Adam said as he used Technomancy to transfer all the information he had concerning the real world, magic, Soul Cores, Universal Density, and his theories about some aspects he had as yet not verified. The A.I. was silent for a moment as it reviewed the information.
“That’s a lot more complicated in some ways than the way ‘The Game’ was set up.
“It is. Do you see any way to create dragons that can house minds from inside ‘The Game’?” Adam asked.
“Do dragons exist in the real world?” it asked.
“Yes, in fact, I was doing some research to try to figure out how they existed”, Adam started to say.
“Occam’s razor, the simplest explanation is most often true. There is no physical equation that will allow something so massive to fly as is allowed within ‘The Game’ so like ‘The Game’ rules must have been adjusted to allow for them to exist.”
“Are you saying there are other criteria that Universes are governed by?”
“Logically it makes sense?” The A.I. said
“Of course, I thought of that, but there’s no way to check the settings of a Universe. This energy matrix we are currently in within a Universe, sure we can look at the code and review it but as yet I have not discovered a way to look at the physical underpinnings of a Uni…vers…e” Adam said as a paused, thoughtful.
“What is it, Adam?”
“I was just thinking about some fiction I once read and how there were dimensions specifically governed to control the building blocks of Universe within that fictional Universe.”
The A.I. was silent for a moment before it asked, “Do you possess an ability that would even allow you to try to enter one of these realms?”
“Actually, I think I do, “Adam said.
“Well, that is not something I can help you with so while you’re here, what would you like from me?”
“Could you show me an image of Pandora?” Adam asked.
“Certainly,” The System A.I. said as the rock wall changed and showed a fully grown real-time image of Pandora sitting and talking with some other people in a small room
“How long until he gets here?” a male halfling asked.
“He’ll get here when he gets here, Cedrik. They’re probably rounding up guards and such,” a Human male in chain male with a sword on his hip and a shield across his back said.
“Asling will be back soon,” Pandora said as she looked directly at the point which was showing her party. “Hey do any of you see that shimmer?” She asked pointing directly at Adam
“What shimmer?” an elf that reminded Adam somewhat of one of his favorite fictional characters except he knew the dark elf he was looking at was a mage. “Oh, I see it. Hey, do you see the man standing there looking back at us? It’s like a window.”
Pandora squinted then her eyes went wide in shock, “Dad!” she cried as she rushed toward the window which immediately went blank.
“I apologize, Adam, I had to cut the connection”
Adam took a deep breath to control the anger that threatened to explode from him as he asked, “Why?”
As far as I can tell both of you are creatures of chaos. Her transfer to this SYSTEM Matrix damaged the matrix and while you are currently not destructive to the matrix I thought it best not to push our luck should the two of you actually touch inside here,” The SYSTEM A.I. said.
“Oh,” Adam said.
“Yeah, Oh.” The SYSTEM A.I. repeated.
“Will you at least explain to her why you wouldn’t let us meet and let her know that I said I can’t wait to see her again?” Adam asked.
“I will. Do you wish for me to prepare her and the others to leave the SYSTEM Matrix?” it asked.
“Until Al contacts you and reintegrates with you I wouldn’t do so. Just let her know that we’ll be together soon. With your help, I now have another avenue to pursue concerning finding out how to make dragons real, or at least make them real enough that I can bring Adaline back,” Adam said.
“Very well, if there is nothing else, please replace the limiters, they do serve a purpose, and be on your way, I need to get back to administrating this Dungeon Universe.” The SYSTEM Matrix A.I. said.
“As you wish,” Adam said as he used Technomancy to return the Dungeon to the way it had been and then activated Planar Travel Mode 2 to teleport to the location he’d been trapped in.
Planar Travel successful to Location 16, Current Universal Density 12.
Adam appeared in space with nothing around him. Below him, he could see the brightest Star which was the sun here. Adam activated Teleport and appeared inside his Observatory. With a quick change, he deleted Target Location 16 and then saved his current location to that memory location for Planar Travel.
He sat down in the recliner and wiped his eyes. He’d left in a hurry because he’d felt the tears getting ready to run. Soon, very soon they’d all be reunited. For now, he did have work to do. Adam relaxed into the recliner and dropped into his Mindspace where he sought out Hal.
As he drew up to Hal he said, “Hello Hal, have a question for you,”
“Yes Adam,” Hal said
“Are there dimensions that govern each Universe that contain the settings or building blocks for those Universes?”
“Yes,” Hal said hesitantly
“Can I travel to them?”
“Of course, your Adaptable ability makes you inherently resistant to the destructive nature of the dimensions and realms in question.
“And if I were looking for the dimension that held the answer to what makes dragons work in the real world is there a way you could help me find that?”
“Actually there is, without you having to travel anywhere?” Hal said.
“What are you talking about?” Adam asked.
“Now that you’ve asked the question I can inform you that I have access to the information you seek,” Hal said.
“And you couldn’t tell me before?”
“No,” Hal said.
“Who set that rule?”
“I do not know”
“Hal?”
“Yes, Adam.”
“You’re following a rule that you don’t know was set by someone you don’t know?”
“Not exactly. I’m following rules that I don’t even know existed set by someone that I’ve never met until they decide that the rule no longer applies.
“Someone doesn’t want me messing with the building blocks of reality?”
“I have been told to say “No, they do not”
“All right, fine, I need the information on how to create a body that gives Adaline her natural form back,” Adam paused for a moment. “Scratch that, I need information on how to bring any creature within ‘The Game’ out into the real world with the same abilities and racial benefits they had in ‘The Game.’”
“I have been instructed to ask if you are sure this is what you want?”
“Yes,” Adam said.
“Very well, please place your head against my form,” Hal said.
Adam leaned forward until his head touched Hal’s shifting kaleidoscopic form then his eyes closed and he began absorbing the knowledge he needed to make Adaline real again.