At the core where the flame used to be lied an indiscriminate mass, seeming like a hulk of burnt charcoal. When Zeno approached, the mass broke apart like an egg, revealing a jet black hammer inside. The hammer seemed much bigger than would have been practical, while the head had an interesting pattern engraved onto it. Inspecting the pattern, he found it was almost identical to the array Zeno made to start the flame in the first place, with lines flowing from the rear end, through a flame diagram and then to the business end of the hammer, while the top of the hammer had a profile reminiscent of an anvil.
[forge of creation (unique) level 1: a magnificent tool born to hammer chaos into order. +10 to strength. +1 effective level to all crafting skills. Feeding mana into the tool while crafting imbues product with special abilities]
[system detected unique artifact connected to host. Integrating artifact into space… artifact integrated! Congratulations host, artifact abilities are now integrated into the dimensional fabric, effectively allowing host to use them unlimitedly within the pocket dimension. Dimension has been advanced, and now grants +3 strength on level up rather than +2]
“So, making shit makes the dimension better? That seems abusable…”
Zeno felt almost twice as strong from the extra 10 points to strength from the hammer. If he could continuously create equipment to boost his stats, he would be invincible in short order…
Of course, after countless hours at the forge, he learned this wasn't true. He started out by trying to forge a shield that would increase his vitality, and while he succeeded, the space did not integrate the shield, meaning he couldn't stack the attribute bonuses it granted. Neither did it integrate any other product he crafted, from swords to hammers and even a shovel. It appeared that to be integrated an object had to be special, meaning that mass producing objects to integrate would be impossible. On the bright side, he gained and leveled the forging skill a couple times, while leveling both the flame spell and, surprisingly, genesis.
“So that's 20/100 perk points… oh oh, a fifth of the way there, oh oh, living on a prayer…”
So, Zeno continued his crafting, moving from forging to alchemy, creating enchanted salts and nuclear gunpowder. Not kidding about the nuclear gunpowder thing, apparently the reason genesis was leveling up was because as he was pouring mana into the product to give it more features, genesis created reagents to add into the mix. In the case of the gunpowder the reagent was powdered uranium, which when detonated would cause a small nuclear reaction. Not exactly enough to compare to an actual nuke, but it certainly blew regular gunpowder out of the water.
Of course, the availability of a material that could create such a large amount of energy could definitely be used for other purposes…
So, Zeno began to work on something new, akin to an engine. The gunpowder would burn to generate heat, which would boil water to spin a turbine, which would generate electricity, which would be… well, Zeno didn't really have anything to power at the moment, but surely something would come up…
After using genesis and trying to forge everything into place, he put the powder into place and started it up… it immediately exploded…
Luckily Zeno wasn't harmed any further than being knocked on his ass for his stupidity. I mean I know its a very high energy substance, but it was an explosive substance, not like coal or gasoline which just slowly burns…
So of course Zeno decided to… try again… goddammit Zeno…
At least this time he used arrays to strengthen the structure further, as well as try to slow the release of energy. At least this time it didn't explode. Just immediately turned red hot and start to melt…
Welp, third times the charm. Building the third iteration on the melted remains of the second, this time more heat resistance arrays were added, as well as trying to cover the inside with ceramics to absorb heat and shock. Low and behold, the turbine emitted a low hum, sparks of lightning shooting off it.
“I mean I guess it feels satisfying to get it to work, but this is getting a bit boring isn't it? I don't even have anything to power with this thing…”
[engineering unlocked]
[assembly unlocked]
“...”
“Ask and ye shall receive I guess”
And so Zeno got down to tinkering, using the engineering skill to create designs that would incorporate forging, alchemy, and arrays. A couple levels in engineering later and he was able to create several designs, using magic to supplement his lack of refined materials and mechanics knowledge. Some may consider it cheating, but some don't get to make robots now do they?
Crafting design after design, Zeno quickly found that all of his crafting skills, as well as genesis and emerging chaos ignition, were leveling at a rapid rate. Interestingly, creating the body of the robot was simple enough. Just making tubes for hydraulics and magnetic servos to act as the muscles while carving arrays to act as wiring across the frame. The hard part was designing the controls. Zeno was trying to use an array in a small booklet installed in the robots chest to autonomously control the robot, but certain systems were a bit too complex to fit. Walking, for example, was very difficult to get right, with the robot falling over constantly. More complex tasks, like recognizing and interacting with objects were even more difficult. It was simple enough to create a sensor array that gave out certain inputs depending on what it saw, but that would only apply for very specific objects. It would be able to recognize a box, but not whatever was in the box, or if said box was already empty.
Things like locomotion were simple to fix, for example by going from a biped form to a quadruped, and putting wheels at the bottom of the legs instead of relying on a walking motion. The hard problem is finding a way to make the robot versatile.
One option to develop and artificial intelligence for the robot is to develop a way for it to increase its memory, like a hard drive, and give it the ability to learn. The problem with that is that Zeno had no intimate knowledge of how hard drives worked. This meant he could probably create one using genesis and his memory of what one looked like, but it would be impossible for him to use it without knowing how.
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Not to mention the problem of how to let the robot know what is a good course of action as opposed to a bad one. A robot that only learned how to perfectly fall on his face isn't very useful.
Looking at how a human mind functions, it associates things with other things in order to expand its knowledge. A baby associates its mother with the word mama, while associating things like hunger, soiling itself, fear, and pain with wailing. Eventually it learns words like hungry, poopy, and ouchie, finding that using those words are much more effective at solving its problems than random wailing. Of course this all has the goal of minimizing pain while satisfying its needs, which drives it to continue learning…
So, Zeno proceeded to try something different. He forged a massive sheet of paper thin brass, doused in white sand and mashed up berries. Putting it through the fire gave the metal a kaleidoscopic sheen, perfectly preparing it for the next part, carving the array. At the very center of the sheet, Zeno drew a picture of a brain, connecting it to a stylized Z with a crown on it representing himself, pricking his finger and adding a drop of blood over it to make sure that the array was focused on holding him as king. From the symbol that represented himself, he connected two symbols back to the brain, a check mark and a x mark. This is the core of the array, so that the robot leans towards doing things that benefit Zeno much like a baby seeks to satisfy its needs. Next, the brain was connected to an intricate web of symbols surrounding it, from symbols designed to activate motor functions like moving arms and legs, symbols based on the association and recognition of stimuli such as sight and language, symbols designed for basic arithmetic, to symbols designed to catalog and record previous actions and decide if they were optimal or not. Finally, the sheet was put through emerging chaos ignition while it was being crumpled up.
Zeno understood that magic worked on information, symbols and sensations. That was the reason array symbols were so easy to design. As long as a symbol was close enough to what it represented for people to recognize it intuitively or officially, then that symbol represented that thing. This meant that “programming” arrays was much easier than programming an actual computer, and why most modern programming languages used symbolism more. The brain symbol at the center of the array had a very, very limited ability to “think”. In short, it acted as a logic gate, evaluating inputs and giving an output. This is all carried out by a single symbol, while computers would need an incredible number of arguments to accomplish the same with traditional programming. Of course arrays took up a lot more space, given that the sheet was 100s of square meters in size, not something that you could fit in a laptop, as well as requiring a source of mana capable of producing 10s of times more energy than what would have been necessary to run a comparable program.
Of course Zeno “thought” up a solution for both problems. Energy was never an issue in the first place, given the rate he recovers mana inside of the pocket dimension, while the size is being solved by crumpling the sheet like a piece of tinfoil while subjecting it to emerging chaos ignition. Normally, when you deform an array, it gets ruined, but crumpling it into a certain symbolic shape while using emerging chaos ignition to give it a specific purpose, it would be theoretically possible to reshape and condense the arrays.
In this case, the arrays are meant to act as the “brain” of the robot, so folding it into the shape of a human brain would give all of the arrays a central theme, thus making up for any deformation, even if it loses out on certain higher functions. The flame, on the other hand, is meant to reshape and enhance this theme, effectively reconnecting and adapting the arrays.
[array creation leveled up x5, engineering leveled up x3, assembly leveled up x4, forging leveled up x2, alchemy leveled up x3, emerging chaos ignition leveled up x3]
[mind of the assemblage (unique) level 1: made from inscribed orichalcum and forged in the fires of emerging chaos, this artifact is soulbound to its owner, and built into their servitor. Item can level up over time, gaining additional effects and increasing previous abilities. Grants servitors 30 memory, 20 will and 2 attunement. +5 memory and +2 will for every level of the item. +1 attunement for every two levels. Stats capped at owner stats]
[system detected unique artifact connected to host. Integrating artifact into space… artifact integrated! Congratulations host, artifact abilities are now integrated into the dimensional fabric, causing the artifact to interact with all “brain” runes inscribed by the host. Dimension has been advanced, and now grants +15 memory, +4 will on level up rather than +10 memory and no will ]
[level up!]
“So every robot I make from now on is tied to that singular AI? That's great, assuming it doesn't try to kill me…”
The robot in front of Zeno had a humanoid torso, while it had 4 “legs” each ending in a set of wheels. Its head was dominated by a single glass lens, acting as its eye, while tubing stretched along each of its limbs. Putting the mind of the assemblage into its chest cavity, it suddenly came on, slipping around a bit on its legs before finding its balance.
It was kind of cute, seeing it flail about like a newborn. It was also nice that its construction brought Zeno three quarters of the way to getting the dimensional obelisk perk.
So, Zeno began crafting new robots with various different shapes. Rover robots that were basically tiny six wheeled cars, spider robots that crawled along on several legs, tank robots that sped along on tracks, and even a single helicopter robot, that could actually fly. It was nice to see them scuttle about, but unfortunately it didn't bring as many levels as expected. It appeared to Zeno that the skills he obtained had reached the point where their proficiency was becoming harder to raise, despite the incredible boosts from the pocket dimension.
So he elected to try something new. Exercise…
Using his recent level up. He cleared out another room worth of space, creating a small gymnasium. Here, he created a bit of equipment, nothing too major, and got to work. Working along the machines and weights, he eventually got the fitness skill, after a few hours. The fitness skill was a little different than most skills, since it added a point to either endurance or power each level up. Of course it took ages to level it up, meaning that most couldn't get extraordinarily strong just like that. Certainly superhuman, but not capable of lifting a loaded semi truck.
Of course Zeno could cheat, using the pocket dimension’s proficiency boosting abilities. By the time he started his little fitness run he had already been gone for a couple of days at least, even if he never actually felt the need to sleep, something he attributed to the pocket dimension revitalizing him. What was a couple more days.
So, he punctuated crafting and spellwork with mindless exercise. He focused on creating tools for the robots to use, as well as spells to boost them. So far he gained two entirely new spells, discharge and overcharge.
Discharge was used to transfer energy to a target, mainly electric energy but also apparently mana as well, since one of his experiments to see if robots could do magic with their attunement stat showed that it recharged their mana on a 1/1 basis. Of course he couldn't use it on himself without tasering himself so he can't know if there is some efficiency lost. Overcharge boosted the robots performance, basically overclocking their systems. For him, it increased strength by its level while reducing endurance by twice his level, though he could only sustain it for a little over a minute.
Finally he decided to level force bolt, a little spell he got in a self defense class, as well as a simple shielding spell, given its simplicity. The shield spell was interesting, since it gave your health a “buffer” made from your mana equal to its level, with the rate the buffer regenerates being equal to how fast you could put mana in it, in other words your mana control stat.
Putting in a bit more exercise, and zeno finally heard the final skill level up
[fitness level up]
[dimensional obelisk obtained: generating now]