After Degritone woke up, now a full, if nude, body, he said, "I really need to get my clothes made of cloakium." Then he noticed the announcements. "I wish to learn everything about controlling the energy of this pocket of creation."
Processing
Wish too major
Choose a more minor wish
"I wish to learn all the information those who created the system learned about how to control this pocket of creation's energy before learning to create a sphere of every element."
Processing
Granted
"Stavch" added to your main menu
The white around him faded and, out of the left corner of his eye, he saw one last flicker of white before he opened the new menu and began reading. Turned out it was about building large, complex structures, which would constrict Stavch and cause it to oscillate in just the right way to generate the desired effect. A cube with roughly 25000 cubic feet of volume would generate a baseball-sized effect.
It seemed the material of the construction also mattered, but much less so, with each element having a different effect on the size of the effect, but not the actual effect itself. Simply using wood, you could create a near-permanent source of protons the size of a thumb. Using pure copper, however, would make it the maximum size: A baseball. Additionally, when creating a more complex construction, the center of mass for the entire construction was always where the effect would manifest.
After a basic explanation of this, it gave 3D models of the shapes required to create protons, neutrons, and electrons. Protons and neutrons were, themselves, made of yet smaller sub-structures, when looking at them from the eye of someone knowing about quarks. When he looked at the structures of the various elements, he saw that they, too, were combinations of the structures needed for the subatomic particles.
Degritone knew, or at least assumed, based on his old RP, that he didn't need to actually physically create the structures required for Stavch manipulation. So, he held out his hand and began to mentally construct the structure needed to create a baseball-sized sphere of iron above his open palm. It took him a few minutes, but it was successful.
Additionally listed were many, even more complex, structures to impart or remove kinetic energy, both the microscopic kinetic energy that was heat and the macroscopic kinetic energy that was momentum, in specific directions and amounts. There existed one heat structure for each multiple of 5 degrees fahrenheit up and down, in addition to one structure that could be detected to be doing something to the Stavch and had the same basic shape as the other heat structures, but its effect was immeasurably small.
Unlike the atom structures, the heat structures actually were unique, rather than simply attaching multiple different structures to each other. It seemed that the system's creators only discovered up to multiples of 45 degrees at a time before they discovered atoms. Momentum, however, while similar to heat, were slightly less complex and were simply attaching multiple of the same structure together to add or remove momentum.
They had by far the largest effect to volume ratio of anything he'd seen so far, with roughly 3 cubic feet of effect volume per 1000 cubic feet of structure. Their base structure imparted or removed roughly 0.05 feet per second in a target direction, which could either be determined through structure orientation or by choosing from one of 60 different minor variations that changed the direction of imparted momentum.
Additionally, there existed structures for various wavelengths of light. After looking over the various structures for the various wavelengths from lowest to highest, Degritone realized that the structures were simply a smooth transition between the various wavelengths. Well, as smooth as jumps of a Planck... energy? I forget the terminology for the smallest allowable energy is. As smooth as discreet jumps of one Planck energy at a time would allow.
Among the listed structures were some which had vague effects. The first of those listed were said to be different for different people. The structures generated a measurable effect on the moods of people who walked into their centers, even those who did not know they were part of an experiment, so they couldn't be affected by placebo. The effects varied from person to person, so they did not include any specifics, but hundreds were listed.
Among the vague effects were by far the most complex structures on the list, which affected various aspects of life. Included were three increased the speed at which living objects grew while not affecting the growth of crystals and other non-living objects that could grow; seven made people sick in different ways; one straight up killed anyone who put their chest inside the area; one that could keep someone alive if they took a fatal wound while their chest was in the area of effect; many that could detect many things, ranging from as specific as a specific atom to as vague as life; two that could somewhat bring the dead back to life; and four more.
The first of those two was true revival, but required that the person had died within the last 90 system seconds, while the second simply caused the body to begin moving on its own, with the intelligence and aggression of a feral dog. There existed a "control" structure that would allow someone who kept their head inside the area of effect to control any mindless undead that had been created by a raising structure made of the same material.
The final four listed in the vague effects were one that granted permanent sight of non-still Stavch, one that could measure the exact amount of Stavch in an area, one that could allow people to activate and deactivate any mega structure that it was connected to it, and one that was very complex in its effect. Despite having a complex effect, its base structure was actually quite simple. However, it accepted many, many smaller sub-structures as "input."
Those sub-structures primarily allowed it to act as an intermediary between two structures without directly connecting them into a single structure. Most, but not all, sub-structures acted as ways to allow the detection of the output of one structure and connect it to a switch structure of another structure, basically an if statement.
Finally, they had also discovered some structures for generating and manipulating Mana. These basic structures were incapable of doing anything outlandish, simply generating Mana, absorbing Mana, and solidifying Mana, presumably used to create atomically solid tools that were tougher than any known element.
Degritone was somewhat surprised that Mana structures were discovered before atom-generating ones, but he shrugged and tried to find any patterns in the structures he could use to generate more, unlisted structures. If he could figure out the structures needed for solidifying Stavch without using any intermediary, he'd be one important step closer to completing the most important step in becoming an omniverse hopper: Replacing his atom-based body with pure Stavch.
He believed could potentially even combine the actual revival and fatal wound ignoring structures to complete the transition, destroying his atom-body while he had his soul stuck in place with the fatal wound ignoring effect, then creating a pure Stavch body in its place, which, in theory, would make the revival effect attach his soul to the newly made Stavch body.
As far as Degritone could tell after going over the list twice, he couldn't see any specific pattern. A few minor patterns, sure, but none that he could use to reverse engineer a method to produce arbitrary structures. Granted, he wasn't the best person to do this kind of thing, and he'd pass the task off to someone else when he could. For now, he decided to make sure he memorized what he had available.
He spent maybe an hour memorizing the Stavch sight, Mana, kinetic, revival, and immortal structures, using his now-permanent Stavch sight to see if he was doing it correctly for the non-visible effects. He'd still need a lot of practice if he ever wanted to create the effects in a timely manner, though, as it took him multiple minutes to build a single structure. Getting bored, he decided to get moving and maybe try using Summon Ally on Melena to talk to her in person about all this information.
As Degritone looked up, he realized he was no longer in the white space, though he was also not where he had expected to return to. As he looked around, it slowly dawned on him. All around him were orbs of various sizes, from around a 20-foot diameter to a far off dot. On each of the orbs large enough to see any detail on, he saw the life of a random person. Around each was some non-static Stavch, though he couldn't tell its function.
Stolen novel; please report.
The largest orb, which was slowly getting smaller, he saw a random spot in the middle of an urban city. Degritone took a few minutes to mentally construct a large enough momentum reduction structure to stop himself. He had somehow been shunted to the void between multiverses. He pointed at his originating multiverse and tried to yell at it, but their existed no air in the void. So, instead, he aggressively thought, I will find whoever did this, and I will murder them.
He lowered his arm and thought, Well, maybe. I might cool down by then or it might have been a loli. He opened his messaging system, opened Melena's tab, and found all his past conversations had turned into complete gibberish, like someone had opened an executable in notepad. I will definitely murder whoever did this, unless they're a loli. I'd bet my balls Melena thinks I'm dead.
Well, let's at least get closer. Each one should be about as wide as a city block, so I'm quite far away, he thought, slowly mentally constructing the necessary structure to move him back toward his multiverse. While I'm here, I may as well investigate my theory about invasions. Well, one possible way it could play out. I wonder if each world is a different timeline or a different multiverse, which would matter.
Guess I won't actually know until I see an invasion start, unless there's some machinery attached to the multiverse on the far side, in which case, I've probably already found them. So, Degritone slowly drifted toward his multiverse, trying to figure out how to get back into the world. His best bet, as far as he could tell, was to be correct on what invasions were.
If they were beings from other multiverses that wanted something from inside multiverses, but breaking them caused the thing they were after to disappear, he could potentially just hijack an invasion force and use them to get back home. However, that plan would only really work if they directly targeted the timeline he originated from, as otherwise, he'd need to become a timeline hopper and hope to luck into his original timeline or figure out how to skip becoming a timeline hopper and jump directly to multiverse hopper to be able to browse timelines to manually find it.
Guess I could completely hijack an invasion ship after figuring out how to view timelines like a multiverse hopper, but without actually having the power to pass through the multiverse's membrane, then retarget the invasion to my timeline. If I have to become a multiverse hopper, I'll be here for centuries while I figure out the exact mechanics of what makes Stavch structures work in order to be able to figure out all the stuff I'd need.
Finally, Degritone reached his multiverse, then began slowly inching his way around it to see if there was any attached machinery he couldn't see from the other side. There was not. I should set up an early warning system to detect if any moving Stavch enters close proximity of my multiverse. He looked at the near-sphere of dots of moving Stavch around all the multiverses he could see with any detail. Actually, I guess the system already does that...?
Given it's not a solid sphere, it would make sense for invasions to have different warning times, if the size of the ship changes with the level of monsters inside. Anyway, I could probably tap into the early warning system the system already has set up. Over the next few days, he went about mentally constructing what he believed to be a system that would cause a sphere of copper and steel to rotate if anything got detected by the early warning system.
At the very least, it would detect him if he passed through one of the detection nodes. Realizing something, he checked his Skills to see if they were experiencing any growth while here. After watching long enough that he should have definitely seen some change of even a single visible decimal of his passives' Skill experience, he saw no change occur. Maybe you can't gain Skill experience anywhere where time is disconnected from a multiverse's.
Wait, if invasions are multiverse hoppers, what stops them from simply jumping to a super early part of the multiverse and harvesting whatever it is they want from there? Why must they follow multiversally-linear time? I guess the system could have some sort of protection in place to disallow that from happening or to adjust their landing position to a timeline that's not... well, why did the system appear at any specific time in my world?
It's basically a multiverse hopper, judging by the spheres around the other multiverses. Maybe the system is a timeline hopper and the early warning system was set up by a different multiverse hopper. Potentially this pocket's version of Gatiel? If everything's puppeted by him, it would make sense that there's no real danger to the multiverse, since, despite not caring about individual people's lives, he does work to keep the multiverses active.
Interesting that that means I was supposed to get kicked out of mine. I might have to kick his butt later, though that's multiple thousands of years in the future. I'll figure it out. For now, I need to figure out how to view timelines in order to get myself inserted into the correct timeline. After three days of trying to figure out how the structures worked, he felt his headache disappear and went into his mental space to see what was up.
A second "body" had appeared in his mental space and the void had closed, leaving behind a discolored brown scar in the wall of his mental space. "Chuuni?" He projected a question toward the body.
"Of course, both Music and I are here. You know anyone else that lives in your head?" Chuuni responded, weakly.
"No, but it seems Music and I have begun merging. Melena said the lines between her and my sections of our soul were dimming, and that was days ago. Given the speed at which they had decayed, I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet, but maybe the 'reaction' slows down as it gets closer to completion."
Chuuni weakly nodded in response.
"Seems like you don't feel good," Degritone commented. After Chuuni gave a weak shrug, Degritone said, "Well, when you feel better, feel free to help with this project. We were shunted out of our multiverse by someone and now we have to figure out a way back in."
Chuuni nodded and his fog body slumped to the floor.
A few days later, he saw a speck attach itself to a nearby multiverse for a few seconds before flying off beyond what he was capable of viewing. A week after that, he checked in on his mental space and saw Music was gone. He checked himself, and it seemed that, in addition to her ability to reproduce songs very easily inside his head, he'd gained her ability to think in parallel to him. This second "thread" wasn't nearly as strong, but it would allow him to think in detail about a small matter while using a majority of his mind on some more mentally taxing task.
He used that mostly to worry about how Melena was feeling. Another eight days later, he noticed it was much, much easier to mentally construct Stavch structures. For the first time in years, his mental space was completely empty, just him and the walls. No void indicating the other two existed and were missing, just, simply, empty. He felt kinda sad at the thought, but he was determined to get back, and decided he would cry once he'd gotten back to Melena and dealt with whoever had thrown him out.
Almost a month beyond that, he finally figured out how to view the timeline projected on the outside of the multiverse in much more detail, allowing him to move the view around. He still couldn't browse multiverses or move the view in either direction in time, but at least it was tangible progress. However, from there, progress slowed to a crawl. It had been almost a year without any real progress, and he was feeling the pain of true isolation.
During that time, however, he'd made significant progress in his ability to construct Stavch structures. What used to take him multiple minutes now took seconds. He could zip around the void at speeds that would have been terrifying if he'd had obstacles, and could change his momentum at speeds that would have killed him, pre-system.
Another month in, he saw a swarm of the specks attaching to nearby multiverses for seconds at a time before detaching, and one even made its way to his multiverse. It was roughly the size of his house, with no visible way to get in. On the end that attached to the multiverse was a suction cup-like protrusion that perfectly fit around a relatively small section of the multiverse perfectly.
No noise could be heard, as there was no air, but he could see the Stavch around the vessel move right up until it detached, then it rapidly flew away. While it was around, he tried desperately to get inside, but he'd have to settle for just having seen part of what it was doing. He looked around his timeline to see that an invasion had happened, but also that it was only roughly a month since he'd been kicked out.
That did not make sense to Degritone, as he'd watched the timeline move in real time in all the times he'd viewed it. Maybe it rewound because the invasion happened? Maybe it only advanced while I was watching it? Did me watching it cause Melena to experience the pain of losing her only protege in forever? Similar thoughts plagued Degritone for months afterward, and he refused to actively watch his timeline unless he was performing a test to see if he'd finally figured out how to browse timelines.
Finally, after almost three total years of isolation and another two visits from the invasion ship, he'd duplicated the flows of Stavch he'd seen around them and figured out how to browse timelines. It took him another month to find a red-eyed Melena. He wasn't sure if it was his Melena, as there should have been infinite timelines coming off the one he'd been kicked out of, but it was a start.
Regardless of whether or not the Melena he'd seen was the one he'd interacted with before or not, seeing her after she'd obviously been crying made him sad and angry. He spent the next few months working on a way to see inside the craft, and found a way to see through specific amounts of mobile Stavch. While waiting for the next, and hopefully final, invasion ship, he also learned how to rewind when in a timeline he was viewing.
Since he wasn't a true multiverse hopper, he wouldn't be able to directly affect all timelines originating from the point in which it happened, but he reset the view to its default position in, at the very least, a branch from the primary timeline of the multiverse and began rewinding until he was back to when he had just selected his wish. There, he saw the camera that was following him. Underneath it, outside the view of the camera, was someone he recognized.