"Alright, you move there. No, don't break down. Just stay... There! Aegis, inject aether."
"Understood."
As Dream warped space along with the motions of his hand, Aegis stood by and followed his directions. Upon being called on, he sent over his supply of aether, supplementing Dream's ongoing experiment. Dream smiled and giggled in excitement as the space in front of him expanded. He could detect an atom with that portion of space.
The atom was a helium atom. Usually, it would be extremely hard to detect one that was on its own. But with Dream 'zooming in' on space, he was able to almost literally blow up the size of the atom. It still couldn't exactly be seen with the naked eye, but that much was inconsequential to him.
The atom zoomed in even further before Dream used his power to grab the atom. He then ripped it apart, separating the neutrons and protons. Some radiation was released, but he disregarded it as he zoomed in even further on a proton.
"Alright, is the collider ready?"
"Already primed, my lord."
"Good. Give me a second."
As he said that, Dream injected more aether. The sections of space around the proton began to magnify even more. With this, Dream could see a magnified view of everything in the vicinity. He gave the command.
"Okay, fire."
"Firing."
Suddenly, a barrel next to Dream flashed. With that as the indicator, Dream's perception accelerated countless times. From the side, he could see a cluster of protons fly out of the barrel next to him and toward the proton he was controlling. Then, they collided, and the proton burst open. It released various quarks into the space.
'Magnify!'
He had a quick thought as he used aether to magnify the space even farther. In the smallest fractions of a second, he was able to find the quarks that comprised the proton. Then, he encapsulated those quarks with aether, separating them from the surrounding space and magnifying them even further.
By now, Dream was viewing the smallest units of space. His perception continued to maintain that acceleration as he slowly guided his power to run tests on those quarks. He was attempting to break even those apart and observe their more foundational units, if they existed.
Before, he was usually stopped due to the risk of breaking space apart with his aether. Expanding space made that magnified section more brittle. So when he ran extreme power through it, it ran the risk of splitting. But now, he had thought up a genius way to circumvent that. He could not only isolate the space with aether, but also reinforce it. This allowed him to expand it even more before breaking it.
Such a discovery came almost a year after Luna opened the Oasis to the world.
Dream went on to study those quarks for a while. Not only that, but he observed the effects of gravity and light. These were two other physical concepts that he had been studying. He always collected all the data he could, so while his main focus was the quarks, he had no problem studying more than one thing.
He magnified the space more. Then, he expanded it even more. He didn't stop as he saught to observe these quarks in full detail, collecting all the data he could. However, at some point, the aether became unstable. Dream noticed this, but decided to disregard it as he zoomed in further.
The quark came into full zoom, but Dream still continued. He grabbed the space within the quark and pulled it apart. With this, he was able to see something amazing. The most fundamental units of matter.
Dots. Within the quark, there were countless dots of infinitely small size. Dream could barely differentiate between each dot, but could in fact sense them. It was here that he felt a certain level of understanding and got excited.
He zoomed in even farther to study, but now, the spatial fabric was at its limit. Dream was too enraptured though to see it and giggled as he observed the dots.
"Hehe, this is so cool."
*Crack!*
"Damn!"
Suddenly, the space split at the center of the aether expansion. Dream cursed loudly as he peered into the abyss that the crack exposed. This was the chaotic void that Dream spoke to Luna about.
However, this crack was on a whole other level compared to the other ones he created. It was smaller, but deeper. This crack wouldn't be repaired easily, and that meant it would have greater effects on the environment.
Dream knew this and quickly backed out. He burst forth with amazing power, wrapping himself in aether and resisting the rapidly strengthening suction of the space crack. Then, he teleported away, appearing in space.
From thousands of miles away, Dream viewed a planet. This planet was Mercury. Dream had recently been working here since Luna had concerns about his experiments. Since they were valid concerns, he didn't fight her and moved his workstation over. This had been his workplace for a little over a year, marking the second year since Dream had returned from the other world to Earth.
To travel here took about a day even though the planet was 35 million miles away. This was due to the simultaneous use of his fusion powered rocket engines and aether teleportation. And the only reason it took this long was because he brought some items with him. If it had been by himself, he could've tunneled through space the whole way, arriving in a matter of hours. This was the power afforded to him by his dimensional tunneling skill and his ability to manipulate aether.
Right now though, Dream felt his heart sink. As he viewed Mercury from far away, he could feel the familiar fluctuations in space. His perception decelerated, and he saw the small slice of void begin to exert its force on the surroundings.
Like water flowing down a funnel, the space around the crack was sucked in. This included all the material around it. And since the crack was so deep, it exerted its force across a massive range. Dream cringed as he saw a huge portion of the planet flow toward the crack.
As if it were straight out of a sci-fi movie, the planet collapsed toward the crack. In the span of only several seconds, two thirds of Mercury was sucked into that void. Then, the laws of physics overcame the chaotic force, sealing the crack. Immediately after, there was an outburst of gravity as everything corrected itself.
Dream floated in space, his cosmic form blending into the background. He looked at Mercury, or what was left of it. The planet was now a rock in the shape of a bowl. From the side, it looked like a crescent moon. The entire core was gouged out almost perfectly. It was as if a god had come and scooped the planet with a spoon. Only, it wasn't a god that had done this, but an exceptionally careless scientist.
[Huhu, this is so going to be in the news.]
Sophia chuckled as she and Dream stared at the former planet. Did they just destroy a celestial object? Yes, they did. It wasn't like it did anything major. The gravity of the planet wasn't strong enough to alter any other orbits. The only thing that might happen is the remainder of the planet falling toward the sun faster, but even that was debatable. Nothing would come of Mercury being destroyed.
But it would definitely be sensational news, and Dream could already hear Luna getting mad at him. Sure enough, after about an hour, Luna contacted him using a device. Since he was in space and millions of miles away, it was difficult for her to contact him using their connection. It was easy with a device that could beam a connection though. With Aegis as the medium, he heard Luna's voice.
"What the hell did you do?! Why is there a planet missing?!"
"...Hello honey."
"Don't you 'honey' me. Where is the damn planet you're on?!"
Dream smiled wryly as her booming voice came through Aegis. He laid back on a curved slope within the giant bowl that used to be Mercury.
Stolen novel; please report.
"An experiment. You know how you sent me here because you didn't want a black hole to shred Earth?"
"Don't tell me..."
"Congratulations, you just saved billions of people."
Dream clapped as Luna's suspicions were confirmed.
Meanwhile, she was palming her forehead. She went silent for a while as she took a few deep breaths.
"...This is permanent?"
"Of course. But don't worry, it won't affect Earth at all. And by Earth, I mean the planet, not the people on it who will freak out about a planet disappearing. By the way, how did you find out?"
"The news, you tard. Some astronomer was observing it when you did what you did, and it's already the most searched topic. I'm watching a video right now of when it was sucked into one of your space cracks. Honestly, I'm amazed that you could cause such a massive disturbance so instantaneously."
"Why thank you."
"Don't be proud! Thank god nobody knows it was you, although there are already suspicions about it. That scene you put on during the world summit made you quite famous, and people are linking this to you since you're the most powerful existence they've ever seen."
"Heh, they wouldn't be wrong."
"...Please tell me this at least wasn't for nothing."
Luna sighed as she asked. Dream nodded his head.
"It wasn't for nothing."
"Good. Now go ahead and continue. Not with destroying planets, I mean. Just stay away from... well anything. I'll take care of things over here."
"Sure. Sorry."
"It's fine. I mean, it wasn't totally bad. Dare I say, it was kind of cool."
"Hehe, yea it was. If you want, I could grab one of Jupiter's moons and replace Mercury."
"Please don't. Just stick with small things."
"Eh, fine."
"Thank you. Love you."
"Love you too."
With that, the call ended. Dream turned his head toward the blazing sun that filled his vision.
Aegis stood beside him like a butler.
"You've become more powerful, my lord."
"Not really. This was merely a natural phenomenon. Like how my fusion reactors produce power from chain reactions."
"You've touched upon the fabric of the third dimension, my lord. Could you have done such a thing a year ago?"
"...No, I couldn't."
He smiled. Over time, Aegis had become more self aware since he was comprised of a psuedo soul planted by Dream. That soul had developed, and Aegis was now more like an actual person. Dream enjoyed conversing with this butler of his that traveled with him everywhere.
Sophia chimed in.
[You undermine the discovery we just made today. Take a look.]
Saying that, Sophia pulled up Dream's message log from the System.
----------------------------------------
<[Particle Manipulation] has leveled up!>
<[Particle Manipulation] is level 94.>
----------------------------------------
"Huh. Nice."
Dream nodded seeing the notifications. Over the couple of years he had been on Earth, his skill level had slowly gone up. Now, it was almost maxed. But he had realized that it wouldn't be so easy to max it out. Just now, he had observed the most fundamental constituents of matter, but it had only gone up a level.
Even Sophia's level had gone up. She was a processor that worked alongside Dream, so anything that he did could in turn promote her advancement. As they developed unfathomably complex rules for physics, she would adapt herself, leveling up in the process. However, both of them had underestimated how profound the skill known as Sophia was. Even though it had been so long, she was still only level 74.
Sophia mused.
[We've finally peered at the most basic particles, but we still have yet to totally understand them. However, I know you have an idea about their nature.]
"I do."
Dream smiled.
"I think this might be the bridge between the 3rd dimension and a lower dimension. I think those dots are the manifestation of a lower-dimensional material."
[Like strings such as in string theory?]
"Maybe. I'm inclined to find out, but we might run into another instance of infinity, and I'm not sure how well such a situation would turn out."
[We can handle it.]
"We can't. But I like that enthusiasm, so let's try."
Saying that, Dream reached out his hand and called upon a skill.
'Dimensional tunneling.'
This skill was integrated under his Arcana skill as a sub skill. It was a way to manipulate aether, which was a higher dimensional spatial-type energy, just like how mana was the higher dimensional equivalent to matter.
But there was another part of the skill that he didn't often use. It was the actual dimensional tunneling part. With this, he could poke a hole through the 3rd dimension to another dimension. Usually he only thought to go up a dimension. But now, he was going to go down one, to the 2nd dimension.
Aether warped the space in front of him, and energy was sucked from his soul. A hole in space was made and expanded, looking similar to a wormhole. And unlike the spatial crack, this didn't suck in the surrounding space.
Seeing the wormhole open, Dream sent in his influence. The influence was like his eyes as he observed what was inside. However, the next instant, his mind was overwhelmed.
Infinity
Before, Dream hadn't truly understood what it was. But now, when he reached in his influence, he experienced it.
Infinite planes of space that stacked on each other and spread across all of space. In any given section of space, there was a literally uncountable number of planes. Not only that, but there was every amount of planes, and each plane was its own dimension. There was 1, there was 2, there was 70,000, there was a million.
Every amount that there could be was there. There were a billion, a trillion, and a quadrillion. All amounts existed at once, and it filled Dream's mind with correspondingly infinite information.
[Get out!]
Luckily, the instant that Dream sent in his influence, Sophia realized what was wrong. She cut off his influence and sealed the dimensional tunnel. However, the damage had been done, and she worriedly turned her attention to Dream's mind.
Dream's mind space could be thought of as a tangible realm of existence created by his soul. Within this mind space were the monoliths filled with golden script from the legacy space. And in the center was the Catalog, a collection of literally every experience Dream has ever had. That catalog could be considered who he was.
But now that infinite information was given to him, Dream's mind ceased to function. The Catalog flipped pages continuously, never ceasing. With infinite information, there had to be infinite processing. If it were left like this, Dream would be processing the information he received for the rest of eternity. Or, the information would simply destroy his mind.
Since Sophia was an independent consciousness, she wasn't affected. But that didn't console her. She felt unbearable panic come over her as the Catalog continued to flip. Cracks also began to pervade the mind space, an effect of the information being too much to handle. It was a repeat of what happened in the legacy space, but this time, she didn't know if he could get through it.
Sophia's own consciousness accelerated, the cracks seemingly halting. Sophia was basically built as a processor of information. Her speed of thought was many times faster than Dream's maximum, but in exchange, she lacked his creativity. For her, a second in real time was like years. Even Dream would be shocked at the age of her mind, but as she told him a long time ago, that's just how she operated.
But now, it felt like a curse. Sophia had to watch as the cracks slowly spread throughout Dream's mind space. And she couldn't think of any way to stop it. The infinite amount of information couldn't simply be handled by her, or by Luna, or by Iris and Alice. She couldn't cut off the influx either since it had already arrived. The infinite information didn't come in a stream. It simply was. That single unit of information was all units of information. That's what infinity was.
She couldn't think of anything. For an unknowable amount of time, Sophia devised ways to save Dream, nothing short of wiping his mind. She was scared to find out though that to access the catalog, she would have to subject herself to infinity.
And she was about to. If it could help, then she would. But she waited. She waited to see if she could think of anything else. Until she absolutely had to, she wouldn't walk on a path of no return. That was a last resort. But she couldn't find any other ways, so she prepared herself.
Then, she dove in. She shot herself toward the catalog and Dream's mind where infinity was destroying him. However, just before she could enter, she was blocked.
[A ring?]
In front of her stood a ring. A single, silver ring. She remembered it. Dream had been imprinted with it upon being ejected from the legacy space. It matched the script that he had yet to comprehend, but until now, it had done nothing for him. It just sat in his mind space, looking pretty.
But now, of all times, it was being put into action. The ring moved to the catalog just as Sophia had and glowed. It rotated as the cracks began to overwhelm Dream's mind. The entire mind space was about to shatter.
[Come on! Do something!]
Sophia shouted as the cracks continued to spread. But it didn't act. Finally, the mind space shattered. In the same instant though, the ring activated.
Sophia watched as the collapsing mind space froze. Then, as if time were reversing, it pieced itself back together. When everything was back to normal, the ring descended upon the catalog. Within the catalog was the infinite unit of information. The ring mounted itself upon the catalog, and then melded into it.
The next moment, the book multiplied. It was as if an infinite number of books appeared, and they all rotated in a ring. This only lasted for a second before the books collapsed in on each other, leaving two. One was a silver book, and one was the previous book with the black cover and gold script within.
"Huh?"
[Dream!]
When that happened, Dream turned lucid again. Sophia cried out, surprising him.
"What?"
[Are you okay?]
"...Yea."
He nodded, the recent events coming to him. He reached into the dimensional tunnel and was then overwhelmed by infinite information. Sophia also sent him what she saw, and he was stunned. His mind actually collapsed. But that ring saved him.
"That... was dangerous."
[Yea, it was.]
"...But does that mean I can handle infinity now?"
[I don't-]
"Let's try it."
[No!]
Suddenly, Dream reached out and opened up a tunnel. The same dimension of infinite planes was exposed, and before Sophia could do anything, he reached into it again. Sophia panicked, but surprisingly, Dream didn't go mute again.
"Whoah... This is interesting."
Dream felt wondrous as he observed the lower dimension. It was sudden, but he had quickly understood what the ring did and what that silver book was.
When his mind collapsed from infinity, the silver ring that the Keeper had engraved in him took action. It formed within him another catalog that could handle infinity. Since the catalog was only a storage for information, Dream's mind didn't undergo much of a transformation. However, his mind could now handle and even comprehend infinity using that second catalog. With it, he wouldn't be overwhelmed. And curiously, Dream understood how it was possible.
Normally, information had a beginning and an end. Infinite information didn't though. The ring solved this problem by forming a loop that contained infinity, having neither a beginning nor end. It allowed Dream to subject himself to infinite information, but also extract himself from it. This was the function of the second book.
Knowing that, Dream secretly thanked the Keeper. He knew he had given him this ring for a reason, but until now, hadn't known what. Turns out, it was for this.