A week passed. Although Dream didn't have anything he needed to do, he had some things that we wanted to try and accomplish before he left.
During this week, he had been doing two things, monitoring Earth, and trying to get the Solid-State skill equivalents for the other elements.
The first was rather easy since Sophia did a lot of it. Though they had a bit of trouble with the governments and corporations doing human experimentations.
There were several organizations that listened to their warnings but many more, mostly governments, didn't feel they had the authority to order them around. So having planned for this, Sophia began implementing phase 2.
It didn't take hardly any time to contact the right people and let them know of the situation. And upon knowing that they were being contracted to take down experimentation facilities, many of the former soldiers/security agents had no problems doing the job. Though there were others that didn't want to, the majority were on board.
Not just in one country either. Sophia contacted tens of thousands of trained men all across the world. She gave them the details, provided equipment, and ensured their safety after the fact. Many initially doubted the source, but after Sophia clearly demonstrated how she was Seeker, the one who hacked and took control of every device in the world, they understood. She had everything under absolute control, so neither they nor she had anything to worry about.
It only took a few days to get everything organized. It was the 4th day, and every single organization that had refused to cooperate, simultaneously had their experimentation facilities taken over and destroyed. It was quick, surgically precise, and over in a matter of hours.
After this, Sophia went and contacted the executives, making them understand that Seeker wasn't so easily dismissed. Should they attempt to try anything like that again, then not only would they be shut down once more, but they would let the public know what happened. The consequences of which could be much worse than having a couple of buildings destroyed.
There were more aspects to the operation like cleaning, taking care of the test subjects, and making sure very little trace was left of the hired guns. Unfortunately, there were a couple of deaths among the hired guns, but it couldn't be avoided. Luckily, it was only a dozen or so. Other than that, rewards were given out and everyone went on their merry way.
During this, the quest system was also released, allowing people to hire or request help with things like monster subjugations. An extra addition to that was a marketplace. A place where people could reliably and securely buy, sell, and trade. The best part was that there were no taxes since neither Sophia nor Dream had any use for that money, which pleased 100% of users.
As an obvious result of everything they've done, the fame of 'Seeker' became explosive. No company, name, or product had ever been so famous in the history of ever. Used by 13/15 billion people on Earth. All powered by one person and his skill. And nobody knew who Seeker was exactly. It was the biggest question on the planet right now. This only served to make them more famous. In fact, there were already some people who began seeing Seeker as the second coming. Who else could carry out such feats of influence, capability, and knowledge?
All Dream cared about though was making sure his family and friends were safer. Although it was a very over the top way of doing so. You could say he took control of 15 billion people just to keep the dozen people closest to him safe. If that wasn't over the top, what was?
.........................
Taking care of things on Earth only took up a small portion of his time. The majority was spent working on his magic.
The first thing he did was to try a different tactic. Since water bending didn't work, he would have to practice with other liquids. So he began searching for something else.
It didn't take long to find either. He had gone to Graff and asked about any odd liquid materials. Graff didn't really know, so he referenced him to another shop in the 'underground' area where they sold any material you could ask for. It was at this place where he found what he was looking for. Mercury.
He didn't actually find pure mercury, but instead the ore where mercury is commonly extracted from, cinnabar. So he bought a box of the cinnabar, which was thought to be worthless, and brought it back.
After he brought it back he attempted to extract the mercury. First, he ground down the brick-like powder, then heat it up with his skill. He thought about using the official tools to extract pure mercury but decided doing it himself was better. He melted the cinnabar into a liquid, and brought it to boiling point, which caused the mercury to evaporate from the sulfur. This is where he had some trouble.
Mercury gas wasn't exactly safe, and he needed to control it with his magic and prevent it from dispersing. Him and Sophia instantly began to control the air as best they could while saturating the surroundings with mana to give them better senses. When they identified the mercury gas, they reined it in while cooling it, turning it to liquid and collecting it in iron flasks.
Soon, they had powdered sulfur and pure liquid mercury. Though the only notifications he received were of level-ups.
<[Thermal Fluctuation] has leveled up!>
<[Water Magic] has leveled up!>
His temperature control went up to level 33 while water magic had a big jump and went to level 64 from 41. Sure it was nice, but not what he was going for.
For the next several hours, Dream messed with the mercury, transforming every which way and heating/cooling it. But he still only got water and air magic level-ups.
Frustrated, he set things down and called it a day, coming back and continuing the next day. He tried to identify the problem.
'Manipulating fluids isn't enough. We need to change them. I've been getting the most level-ups from that. Let's make this room airtight.'
Dream went to the door and sealed it, preventing air from being able to escape. He then summoned out some helium tanks.
[If you aren't careful this could be dangerous. Just heed my warnings.]
'Sure. But its a necessary risk.'
Dream put on an oxygen mask as he said that. Then, he unsealed all the helium tanks, filling the room with helium.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
'Certain elements require more than just low temperatures to become liquids and solids. They need low temperatures as well as pressure to sustain the molecular bonds. Helium is one of these. There's also nitrogen and oxygen. Sophia, what's the air composition now?'
[37% helium, 48% nitrogen, 10% oxygen, and 5% other gases.]
'Good. Let's start with oxygen. We need to isolate it from other gases then condense it, turning it to liquid. First, isolation...'
Dream sifted through his senses with Sophia's help and identified the different gases. Once he found the oxygen, he brought it all to his hands while pushing everything else away. His mana being pretty quickly consumed.
<[Basic Air Magic] has leveled up!>
<[Basic Air Magic] has leveled up!>
<[Basic Air Magic] has leveled up!>
<[Basic Air Magic] has...>
<[Basic Air Magic has evolved to: [Intermediate Air Magic]>
<[Intermediate Air Magic] has leveled up!>
<[Intermediate Air Magic] has leveled up!>
<[Intermediate Air Magic] ha->
<[Intermediate Air Magic] has evolved to: [Advanced Air Magic]>
<[Advanced Air Magic] has leveled up!>
......
Dream watched a super long stream of notifications flood his eyes. This was still just him manipulating and separating gases. He quickly moved on to cooling.
The oxygen gradually took on form. It took a whole minute of cooling the area around his hands and putting pressure on his soul, but eventually, he produced two balls of pale blue liquid oxygen. He smiled in accomplishment and curiosity.
'Huh, this is pretty cool.'
[It's also extremely dangerous. If anything inside this room sparks or garners a bit too much heat, then it'll blow this whole place plus the buildings above. That liquid oxygen is used in rocket fuels you know.]
'Oh, nice. Well, my levels have been going crazy, so that's a good sign.'
Dream said that as he watched the notifications appear by the second.
[One thing we won't be able to do is create a superfluid. I know you wanted to use the helium for that, but I think it'll be too much for us since it takes over 25 bars of pressure to create it. We should be able to freeze nitrogen though.]
'Hmm...Then let's do that.'
Dream was a bit disappointed not being able to play with superfluid helium, but was fine with nitrogen.
He let the oxygen turn back into a gas and gathered the nitrogen. He began doing the same thing, freezing and pressurizing the nitrogen.
First, liquid nitrogen formed at around 77 kelvin, or -320 F. A colorless, clear liquid formed above his palm. Usually in science projects, the nitrogen would produce that white fog. But since the temperature was being maintained and no other gases interacted with it, nothing happened visibly.
After doing this, Dream finally saw what he was going for.
<[Advanced Air Magic] has leveled up!>
<[Advanced Air Magic] has level->
<[Advanced Air Magic] has evolved to: [Gas-State Magic]>
<[Gas-State Magic] is level 51!>
'Yes! Light Work!'
[Definitely not light work. We still need to make the solid.]
'Sure. Let's do it.'
Dream nodded in excitement. He wasn't about to stop halfway.
The liquid slowed its flow and pressurized even further. Instantly, Dream knew it would be many times more difficult turning it into a solid. He could feel lots of pressure on his mana and soul trying to maintain the pressure and temperature.
After almost 10 minutes of stress, the liquid began to stabilize and bonds formed between molecules, forming a solid structure like a crystal. Soon, Dream had a chunk of frozen nitrogen in his hands.
<[Water Magic] has leveled up!>
<[Water Magi->
<[Water Magic] has evolved to: [Liquid-State Magic]>
<[Liquid-State Magic] is level 43!>
<[Solid-State Magic] has leveled up!>
<[Solid-State Magic] has leveled up!>
<[Sophia] has leveled up!>
...........
[Drop it!]
*thunk*
Dream dropped the chunk of nitrogen ice on the floor. The chunk instantly began turning back into a gas, giving off that signature white fog. Behind Dream, a chair also appeared which he quickly sat in.
'*sigh* I'm really tired. I wanna go to sleep.'
[Not yet. It's not safe in here. Just put up with it for a bit longer while I make this place habitable.]
Sophia took over and began containing the gases. She stuffed the helium back into the canisters and returned the air composition to its normal state. Dream took off his oxygen mask and huffed.
"It hurts but the pain doesn't come from my body."
[Overexertion. Applying pressure wasn't too bad, but lowering the temperature so much required a lot of effort. I was about to make a vacuum to compensate since any outside influence like other air or your hand would cause a lot of changes.]
'Ya. But at least we have the skill now. It should be easier in the future.'
[It will be. A lot of avenues have been opened up for us as well. We can now manipulate solids, liquids, and gasses. Our only limiter is mana now. By the way, your attributes have risen a good chunk.]
'You know what, let me check that.'
Dream opened up his status.
----------------------------------------
|Profile|
Name: Dream
Species: Human Male
Class: [Mystic]
Titles: [Origin Seeker]
Level: 93
Stats: Strength- D+ Agility- C-
Stamina- C- Magic- C+
Passive Skills: [Sophia] Lvl. 30, [MMA Mastery] Lvl. 30, [Vorticular Accumulation] Lvl. 67,
[Thermal Fluctuation] Lvl. 30, [Scribe] Lvl. 65
Active Skills: [Summons From Another World], [Shooting] Lvl. MAX,
[Mystify] Lvl. 22, [Solid-State Magic] Lvl. 44, [Gas-State Magic] Lvl. 51,
[Liquid-State Magic] Lvl. 43, [Fire Magic] Lvl. 20, [Regenerate] Lvl. 29,
[Imbue] Lvl. 84 >
----------------------------------------
'My fire magic is still trash.'
[We can work on that later. And technically, we can produce fire all we want, just need a fuel. But I know you have higher ambitions than just fire.]
'Indeed. I'll be shooting for plasma. But it's so different than the other states. Technically I could produce plasma just by heating a gas, but its more about controlling the electrons and atomic nuclei among that gas. Sure I could probably harness lightning to some extent, but true manipulation is still a bit of a way off.'
[Well, at least your attributes have gone up. Almost fully into the C range, with your magic almost at a B.]
'Indeed. Skills truly are the way to go when trying to raise your attributes. Not to mention how I'll gain attributes as I level.'
Dream got excited thinking about his future growth. If things progressed as they are, then he could fight way ahead of his level. Even right now he was confident in taking on strong class 2's, and he could at least have a chance of survival when facing a class 3. And he wasn't even 2nd class yet. If he were to fight that dungeon king again, depending on his tactics, he could wipe the floor with that thing.
'For now though, I should sleep. I'm still tired.'
Dream suddenly felt the fatigue set back in. He dragged himself out of the study, going to his room for a nap.
..............
The next day, Sophia came to him with an update on the satellites.
[Everything is in their positions. All the satellites orbit the planet about once every 2 hours, or 12 times a day. And the positioning gives us a view over every part of the planet. I've already begun imaging and have a general layout of the planet's landmasses and oceans. I've also got weather patterns, which are weird, and the astronomical satellites trying to find where the hell we are in the universe, if we're still in the universe at all.]
'...Sweet. So are the maps Riddick showed us accurate?'
[Sort of. There are indeed two massive landmasses, with one more landmass about half the size acting as a bridge between the two. There are also many islands both huge and small all around these landmasses. I actually theorize that this planet is a very young one. The continental plates aren't as divided, meaning they haven't had much time to move and reform, unlike Earth which has 7 continental plates and scattered landmasses.]
'Interesting. Compared to Earth, how much land surface area is there?'
[Exact numbers will be inaccurate, but I think this planet actually has more land than Earth. And not by a little, I mean by almost 20%.]
'Really? That's like adding an entire Russia to Earth.'
[Pretty much. And all that land is separated into only 3 continents. Needless to say, the continent we are on is huge. I've begun trying to map things out on a closer level, but it'll take a while. I have our location on GPS and am running those satellites as fast as possible. It shouldn't be long before we have important landmarks mapped out and approximate distances.]
'Alright. Unfortunately, we can't go launching more rockets. That last one took over a month to save up and slowly buy. Though since my attributes are going up, my mana supply is much bigger. So who knows, maybe in the future we could do much more than we think.'