It's been 3 days since Charles left to investigate the 'savages' as he reported them to be. Apparently, they are some kind of simple headed folk that believed they now had superpowers gifted by their various god's of choice, which while technically wrong is not entirely without some truth. Despite my ego, I simply couldn't consider myself at godlike levels… yet.
Two specific individuals that have come to the roof were especially of note. One that could shoot lightning from their hands and another that seemed to be capable of levitation. The reason these people where interesting was because they seemed to be consciously tapping into ambient HPE in the atmosphere, or void, or ether. I'm not yet sure where it's being generated from.
For me, it's generated by absorbing lower plane energies, at this moment referred to as LPE, and somehow converting that to HPE. The actual process continues to elude me. My continued use of HPE for atom printing has however allowed me a great deal more understanding and control of it though.
I was originally generating LPE in the form of photons, EM fields and radiation so as to properly position atoms in my desired place, but after some experimenting, I found directly using my HPE for the task was much less time consuming, though apparently more energy intensive.
For some reason beyond my understanding, HPE is much more efficient while converting it to understandable passive LPE's. Or rather, it would be more accurate to say that it is for now.
While it appears that more HPE must be used to directly affect matter on the lower plane, that does not mean that it is impossible. At the same time, my mastery of HPE seems to somehow directly correlate with this unseen conversion of energy.
For example, if I want to move the iron block from A to B, it would normally be more efficient to convert HPE into an electromagnetic field, which is an LPE, and move it in that way.
However, if I use HPE without converting it, I can directly manipulate the force vectors of matter even if it actually has no current force vector apart from gravity. More importantly, although the first time I did this it required twice the HPE I would use just to make the required EM field for the same effect, each subsequent time requires a little bit less.
Thus I am convinced if I simply rely on HPE to interact with the lower plane, then I will eventually build up enough of a mastery over it that the HPE would actually be inefficient to convert to an LPE.
This brings me to my next hypothetical of which more appropriate research will be required. The way I've stated it thus far, I know of two planes of existence. The higher plane, inhabited by HPE where I exist and the lower plane inhabited by LPE where everything else I'm trying to observe and interact with is.
The main difference is that, for the moment, I can only barely perceive the higher plane I am existing on. I've chalked this up to my lack of understanding of HPE and that I arose from an LPE sentience. I believe the more I interact with the higher plane, the faster I will be able to properly observe and influence it.
More importantly, based on my observations thus far, I have come to 3 important conclusions. The first is that the higher plane is basically overlayed on top of lower plane reality. Not so much like oil on the surface of water but more pervasive like salt being dissolved into water.
I'm convinced one can't exist without the other, but that is neither here nor there.
The second conclusion is that like salt dissolved in water, HPE of the higher plane is everywhere. This has been proved by the fact that human mutates appear to simply be drawing it out of absolutely nowhere. No conversion of any LPE in their surroundings supports this.
I am uncertain yet whether it accumulates in gravity like matter, fills a container like water or is constrained by types like the difference between electron rotation and photons or if it simply pervades everything everywhere evenly, but I hope to eventually find a way of at least measuring it to confirm or deny these possibilities.
My last conclusion is that the higher plane not only contains just HPE. It also contains some form of higher plane matter. I've no accurate proof of this yet but based on the nature of Jenny's ability to form claws from the HPE I am convinced that they are in fact some form of higher plane matter that is being created and interacting with the lower plane through the use of HPE.
It appears my thought process has moved tangentially from my original point, that being; the more I interact and use the HPE, the easier it becomes to understand and use it to directly interact with lower plane matter and energy.
In short, I have switched from LPE's in the atom printing process to directly using HPE. While initially it wasted massive amounts of energy, I am now at the point where disassembly and re-assembly at the atomic level within my HPE field has become almost second nature.
After 3 days, not only has my speed increased beyond what I was capable of with LPE's, but the efficiency of HPE for the task is less as well. Unfortunately, the speed of my advancement in this area appears to be closely related to a square root function.
While reaching a point where speed and efficiency where double what they were with LPE's was rather quick, the progress has slowed dramatically. I suspect that it will take me nearly a month to get it to 4 times the original efficiency and then nearly 4 months after that to get it to 5 times, and that is provided I focus solely on that aspect of HPE interaction with the lower plane.
I am hopeful that research in tangent fields of study on HPE will allow me to find some tricks in order to increase that and make more rapid developments.
Regardless, at this time I now have 12 MK2 drones completely stripping bare everything from sector 8 to sector 4. With builders out of the way, and my focus on HPE in the last few days, I have neglected my growth and am now tittering on the brink of having to slow my processing speed due to power issues.
It is quite lucky then that the Mk1 builder, which is arguably better than the Mk2 in large scale production, has finished digging and reinforcing the hole 500 meters from the surface into sector 8. I now only need another day for the hole to be properly lined with cement and capped on the surface so I can begin my biomass farm.
While that is underway, I have decided to focus on my next generation of generators. I have already had No.2 assemble a number of potential tests in the physics labs and turn my attention there now.
The first test is a normal generator only slightly better than what the humans had originally designed. With the ability to build a generator atom by atom, my designs are uniquely more efficient in almost every way.
Naturally, the test is easy and has only two minor issues that I can eliminate during construction of the larger scale versions.
The next three tests are vain attempts at generating HPE directly through the use of LPE and chemical reactions. Before now, I had somehow been converting LPE into HPE for my sustenance.
This realisation is what leads me to believe that any LPE that is sufficiently tempered by HPE can be brought to a higher level. Thus for my first attempt, I am trying to use a conventional generator.
Instead of using LPE electron flow to power my induction coils I am instead leeching a tiny amount of my own HPE back into a closed electrical system in hopes that the interaction will instead create HPE in an isolated outgoing electrical system, which for the moment is only connected to a battery.
My hopes are that it will act like electrons on a lower plane and create some form of higher plane electromagnetic field that when cut across by the turbine will create HPE.
After reviewing the design and giving myself a single decimal place percentage of success, I send No.2 to begin the fuel ignition.
The moment the turbine begins spinning I feel a feedback pulse from the magnetic coils being fed by HPE. Unfortunately, nothing is coming from the output of the generator. This would suggest the HPE and lower plane matter is interacting in some fashion. I just can't tell what it is.
I compile the test data and move onto the next attempt.
This attempt is something that is using what I call HPE infused lower plane matter. By that, I mean to say that I simply focused really really hard on imbuing the copper coils of the generator with HPE properties. After a slight rush of HPE from my reserves, it presumably worked.
Unlike the 2nd test, I will instead see if this one can operate with just normal electricity. With any luck, the electrons being excited in the HPE copper coils will generate some form of HPE magnetic field that when cut, will create HPE excited electrons on my output.
No.2 laboriously stumbled into the lab and flicked the switch. All of my visual and audio feeds from the lab turn white as a gentle rumble rolls out through the facility. I immediately redirect my nearest Mk2 Builder to investigate.
Once it arrives, instead of the white walls that are normal in my research wings, the walls, lab itself and everything in a 20 metre radius of where the battery had been has completely vanished.
The floor and roof appear to have become spherical shaped and the edges of walls simply look like they were made of soft butter and someone cut everything away with nanoscopic precision.
I quickly woke up No.3 from his cloning chamber and lobotomised him with my spare clone control device. With great excitement, I collated all my data so far and allowed it to simply float into orbit around my energy matrix as an energy band, where little tethers of energy spread out and connected to all the relevant memories connected to it.
I then rushed No.3 to the 4th and last experiment in the hopes it would create an explosion big enough to vaporise at least 3 sectors in one go.
"Charles. I believe I've found a method to generate HPE using lower plane matter!" I excitedly inform him over the comlink he set up for me.
"Hah! Conventional physics be damned! How was it?"
"Completely vaporised the lab and I could barely sense any logical data from it. Sending you a brief sample now." I replied while doing just as I said. Part of my energy band memories seemed to spew out tiny motes of light that sped into a nearby fibre optics cable where they would be sent to Charles via the comms array.
Just as No.3 arrived at the 4th test lab, Charles put a damper on my mood.
"Well, make sure you move the last test to sector 8 or better yet the surface. If it blows out the ass end of the facility and you don't ascend like you suspect you might in such a case, then you'll be cut off from the energy grid and starve to death."
Having my excited mood dampened by my paternal figure immediately activated rebellious teenager sub-protocol 7 wherein I irrationally ignored him and had No. 3 flip the switch anyway.
This experiment was using HPE supplied to HPE infused copper coils. The outcome was completely beyond my expectations. Not only was the entirety of sector 2 atomised, so to were sector 0, 1, 3 and 4.
Strangely enough, what I had believed to be the atomisation of lower plane matter was instead lower plane matter being shoved out of the way of excessive higher plane energy into some form of pocket sub-dimension. I and the other 4 sectors joined the missing lab 114-2g.
Immediately afterwards, energy from the grid reached the 3rd test generator and allowed it to start up again where it presumably reappeared on the lower plane.
Recreating the experiment with test generator 4, I along with all the atomised sectors reappeared as well. Lab 114-2g appeared to still be missing for some reason though.
If I had to guess, when it rematerialized on this plain, gravity caused it to fall to the bottom of what was most likely a spherical cavern nearly 4 kilometres in radius.
Whatever the interaction between matter already existing and matter that was rematerializing was, I, unfortunately, did not get to record it. Regardless, the world was not currently imploding and all of my systems and access to the rest of the base were completely intact as if nothing had ever happened.
After collating and reviewing all of the data available, I set up a series of experiments to first somehow abuse the fact that HPE generated in this fashion seemed to push matter into a sub-dimension and also to determine if the HPE created was still around here somewhere.
After having No.3 carry the batteries from the tests down to me, I determined that a tiny amount of HPE was indeed somehow stored within. After atomising the batteries, I determined that they were not, in fact, storing the energy in the conventional sense but the energy was somehow instead sticking to the atoms from the lower plane.
If I had to guess, it was most likely similar to my infusion process. However, when I was pushed into that sub-dimension, I believe I felt a wave of HPE flow over me, most of which was greedily absorbed. I still have no metric data to back up this feeling and so can only posit it as a hunch.
Just as my next series of test were being set up, Charles rudely interrupted me.
"HAHAHAHA! Holy shit! Zorai you crazy bastard! What did you do?"
His accusatory tone was already enough for me to tell that both he and I knew I had done something. Naturally, I denied any connection to whatever it was he was talking about.
---
"I don't know what you mean. I am still moving the 4th test generator to the surface to run the test and have no other active projects you aren't aware of."
Charles could immediately tell by some godly parental intuition that Zorai was telling a bold faced lie.
Not half a minute ago, the zombies in the area became frenzied like rabid animals as if a wave of ill intention washed over them from the direction of the facility. Just based on the fact the virus was somehow intrinsically linked with HPE, and Zorai had been playing with exactly that at the time, made Charles conclusions mostly solid.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
He couldn't help but chuckle to himself as he wiped a fake tear from his eye.
"They grow up so quick!"
He sighed, lamenting the fact his son, the most advanced AI and arguably the most advanced sentient creature on the planet, was growing up too quickly.
His grin became almost feral as he watched the horde of tens of thousands of zombies around the mall suddenly get some crazed spurt of energy. They began running at inhuman speeds and smashing into the barricades of the building as their glowing red eyes stared into the souls of any living being they could spot.
What were originally just dead meandering zombies with lifeless expressions had now become slightly more intelligent seeming raging flesh and blood machines of death.
They even started stabbing their abnormally tough claws into the side of the building and scaling up towards the bug eyed panicking survivors on the roof.
"Well, I hope those containment chambers are ready. I'm gonna try save a few of these idiots for research."
"Get the floaty one. He seems pretty Zen about everything. Maybe he knows something we don't."
Zorai quickly replied in an emotionless monotone.
Charles packed his gear away quickly and then secured his Face Huggers. With a little more practised ease then his first attempt, a dull glow spread over his whole body, and he began sprinting towards the horde and screaming his joy.
---
Clarence watched on with trepidation and shock as the walkers began to ascend the building. It was currently 25 days, nearly a whole month, since the outbreak. He had barely escaped the shambling horde the first time and luckily made it here to this fortified shopping mall.
Apparently, Cappa, the guy in charge, had been some kind of zombie end of the world doomsayer and already had an action plan in place when the world changed. He'd been gathering survivors here since the very first day and seemed to know what he was about.
Everything had been going as per normal today. Cappa and his biker gang had been raping the few women that hadn't already killed themselves in regret and everyone else was trying hard to ignore it.
About the only people able to stand up to Cappa where the Chinese guy, Marti, who seemed totally Zen about everything and just floated about, and Gregory, who tended to join in with Cappa's madness. Everyone else didn't have awesome superpowers.
Just less awesome superpowers. Clarence used his power to hit his target as he fired round after round into the climbers. The world slowed down around him as he entered a surreal zone of total focus and his headshots were as easy as blinking, almost instinctual.
That was until he heard laughing in the distance that boomed over the high pitch screams of the walker horde, which had somehow become a screamer horde. Or something, Clarence already forgot all the names Cappa gave different zombies because he'd never seen anything apart from walkers before now.
Having his focus broken, Clarence honed in on the sound until he noticed a particularly dense swarm of screamers get blown apart into a gory pulp as if hit with a grenade launcher.
Then came the madman. Laughing manically and grinning like a total savage, he raced through the crowds of screamers throwing punches that didn't seem to be connecting with anything. Now and again he would do a flip for no reason and kick out roundhouses into the air.
While he wasn't actually hitting anything, almost anything within a 4-metre radius was being minced by some strange shimmery airwave. Clarence was admittedly jealous of such a cool power.
More so because whenever something actually got close enough to bite or scratch him, the weird glow on his body blew them apart instead.
The moment his raucous laughter spread out over the infested parking lot, almost every zombie on this side of the building started swarming towards him.
It was absolutely horrific watching a single man getting dogpiled by thousands of zombies only for them to simply explode on contact. He didn't even actually need to do anything. Just standing there would let the zombies bombard him with their bodies and subsequently explode.
"Haha! What a complete dickbag. Everybody reinforce the east side while old mate out there draws their attention!" Yelled Cappa, as he watched Charles in the distance doing some kind of ballet dance and simply prancing into an oncoming zombie with manic glee written all over his face.
Clarence grimaced as he followed his orders. Although that strange fellow may make it look easy, Clarence doubted it was anything but. Maintaining focus on your power for that long usually led to your brain turning into goop if you lost concentration for even a second.
He assumed the kicking and punching and… dancing, was some form of focus trigger the man had. Everyone else seemed to have one except Marti, who could just float around even if he was getting gnawed on by a zombie.
Just as Clarence turned to re-enforce the east side, he noticed a group of strange creatures move over the edge of the distant rubble heap from the west.
They looked like some kind of white-furred animal. What kind, he couldn’t tell. They just looked like a sphere of long shaggy white fur. Transfixed by the strange sight, he watched on as they got closer and closer.
Initially, he suspected they were just a group of the same breed of dogs but the distance was too far for a creature that size to be so clearly visible.
It was only when the 6 animals moved into the horde of zombies, and their shaggy hair became like some kind of sentient razor thin wire, that he realised the things were standing nearly 3 meters tall.
He then watched on in horror as they simply swayed into the crowd of screamers and their hair became a whirl winding scythe of death, spraying gore and severed body parts around like a moving blender.
Instead of jumping onto the strange man immediately after reaching him they instead seemed to form up around him like guards and continued to just move around the wide open parking lot and mince the horde into pieces.
"Clarence you yellow bellied piece of… What in the fuck are those things!" Cappa finally noticed Clarence's absence from the east side of the building and came to ream him out.
Instead, he got the shock of his life as he watched the group of giant furred creatures slaughter screamers coming from every direction. Clarence could hear them giving off some strange low buzzing noise that seemed to be sending the zombie horde absolutely mad.
Even screamers from the north and south sides of the building were breaking off to try and engage these new adversaries.
---
"Sure am glad you came to help out. Didn't know if I'd be able to keep my aura up long enough to save anyone."
Charles was actually a little winded for once and huffed a bit as he caught his breath. The nearby Mk2 Builder simply made a 'hmph' sound in an androgynous tone and continued decimated the zombie ranks.
'Transmission is shotty this far out so the builder will follow basic orders until you get back in range. It's only programmed to move and eviscerate at the moment. Feel free to be creative with that. Don't forget to bring back as much of the zombies as possible. You may need to… vacuum them up or something. See you soon."
The drones all then seemed to pause for a brief second and then continued to just spin around lazily as the razor sharp wire tendrils turned everything coming nearby to mush like giant whipper snippers.
Now and then a few zombies managed to survive the storm of wires and push through to the centre where Charles would finish them off with a lackadaisical swat.
Charles then began to bark orders at them and point about the place, sending the spinning ball of death off in that direction and eviscerating everything as it went.
It took nearly 3 hours to mince the rest of the ten thousand strong hyper horde. Eventually, a gunshot from the rooftop popped the head of the last zombie within sight of the mall. The 100 odd acres of clear land around the mall had become a muddy pit of blood and limbs.
It was with great trepidation that Cappa the local leader sent the expendable Clarence out to meet the monster taming madman, that had somehow managed to completely destroy a significant army of zombies.
Clarence trudged through the ankle high bloody meat and bone towards the smiling Charles.
"Greetings plebeian. I've come for your women and anyone with a mutated power. These are demands, not a negotiation. Send word to your cowering peoples of their fate."
Charles made a dramatic bow, allowing the pieces of zombie still stuck in his hair to slop onto the ground as blood and eviscerated zombie dribbled off him in a steady stream.
Clarence made no attempt at greeting or introductions and immediately turned around, running back into the building while pale as a ghost.
Some yelling and arguing sounds came, then Clarence appeared on the roof, lined up his rifle with the strange blood soaked man and fired a perfect shot that would take his head clean off.
Instead of the expected fine mist of blood and bone spraying out the back of his skull, a strange pulse spread out from his forehead, and the bullet vied off into the hair of one of the monstrosities.
It didn't even seem to faze the creature as a few strands of hair and a steaming bullet fell to the ground.
Charles expression turned into a clearly staged upset face and he pointed towards the front of the building.
"Eviscerate!" he commanded. The 6 Mk2 Builders happily began to spin and slowly moved towards the front of the building.
Multiple peoples suddenly appeared at the edge of the building and began shooting at the creatures with fireballs or lightning bolts and every form of gun under the sun. Unfortunately, everything short of a grenade or rocket wouldn't be able to take more than a few hairs from the creature's bodies.
While the combined firepower of 40 odd people was impressive, the continuous march of the creatures seemed inevitable. The builders finally reached the mall front and everything that wasn't already trampled flush with the ground was minced into powder.
Following that, the glass, stacked machines and furniture and even the walls forming the barricade exploded as the six builders pushed through.
Charles called a halt and simply strolled into the mall behind his tamed monsters.
His grin was feral as people yelled and screamed at each other on the upper floors. While the group trapped upstairs seemed to be sorting out their problems, a fellow dressed in Taoist robes and floating about a metre off the floor slowly hovered over towards Charles.
"Hey man. Like, are you taking us to some research lab or something. Are we like, gonna be ok mostly or is it all butt probes and cut that bit off… or whatever?"
Charles' eyebrow raised slightly as he took in the shaggy Chinese guy that seemed like he was stoned out of his head.
"Um… mostly no butt probes I don't think. I mean, I pay a little attention to that stuff, but just like, the end results, not the method or anything."
Charles somehow felt himself revert to the common accent and speech pattern of his college days while talking to this super Zen monk with black straw-like hair and a wispy attempt at a moustache.
"OK, like that's cool. So are we gonna have like… what's those things… like any freedoms or stuff… and I mean… ohh I just realised. I totally forgot to introduce myself. I'm like, my name err… is Meng Tin, but like, that’s hard to say, so people just call me Marti."
"Oh yeah cool. So I'm like, Charles, and my son actually runs all the freedom protocols and stuff cause I kinda gave him my super-secret underground thing a few years ago, to keep him busy and stuff. I guess I could like… ask him or something?"
"Nah that's cool I spose. I mean, this place is definitely not chill. So like, I'm ok with the secret lab or whatever, I just want one thing though. Like, some of the girls were getting pretty roughed up here so I like, want them to have it a little better or whatever. As long as that’s cool, I'm down with the lab enviro. And I mean, like, if I'm not too interesting, I could like, take care of your secret gardens or whatever? I graduated from the horticultural biology department at Weed University so I'm preeety good with plants I guess…"
Marti trailed off, leaving his last statement kind of open in the hopes Charles would be cool with him starting a weed plantation in his super-secret underground base.
Charles took a few seconds to fully interpret the college student language he was picking up from Marti. He then nodded his head when it all clicked.
"Yeah ok. That'll be cool I guess? I mean, Zorai was super pumped about your floating stuff so once he's figured that out I guess it will all work out after that."
Just as he finished talking, a group came down the stairs escorting a bruised and beaten Cappa, leading him towards Charles like a group of angry peasants escorting a witch to the stake for burning.
Before anyone got a chance to speak, Zen master Marti spoke out for Charles.
"So everyone just needs to chill out a bit cause the vibe I'm getting in here is all like, peasant revolt or whatever. Charles here seems pretty kosher with like, the fair treatment stuff, and is full on behind this crazy zombie stuff. He's like, got some underground bunker place that we can all go and just relax for a bit and like, not be killin’ stuff and getting killed. And he's all like, pro women's liberties I guess.
"I think, like, all we gotta do is sit in our rooms for a bit and like have some blood samples taken and like maybe use our powers a bit and then it's like, all good from there, you know?"
Strangely, the moment Marti actually spoke everyone seemed to become dazed, their entire focus narrowing in on Marti. When he finished they all had a look like they'd just been struck by enlightenment and immediately began assenting and nodding like chickens pecking grass.
While Charles was quite bemused by the sight, he made a mental note to have this guy checked out from some kind of mind reading or precognition power. His scary ability to know about them living in a lab and the general process they'd all undergo for testing was super cool and he wanted to play with it immediately.
He was already dreaming of having him hooked into some kind of computer mainframe like a cyborg and processing all the data that Zorai could feed him in order to predict certain outcomes.
Marti seemed to suddenly have a shiver run up his back and then looked about the place as if he expected there to be an air-conditioner running right behind him.
---
Charles checked in and assured me that he was finished with his nonsense at the shopping mall. Unfortunately, the builders were far too efficient in their task, and the majority of zombies they came in contact with weren't chunky enough to just pick up.
Luckily they had an entire shopping mall nearby that was filled with shovels and he now had about 50 odd volunteers to help him scoop as much zombie slurry into a gas tanker as could possibly fit.
I informed him it would be fine to leave the diesel in the tank and let the two mix, as my faith in the evolutionary capabilities of Fungus Mk6 were extraordinary. He would probably have to make a few trips to finish gathering all of the 10000 odd corpses worth of zombie slurry.
With that in mind I focused on the current progress of the hole. I actually didn't need to wait for the walls to be properly sealed with cement because the moment I put the fungus spores in the bottom of the hole, which had already filled with a number of zombies, they began to spread up the walls and act like cement themselves.
The fungus actually appears to be spreading out like long thin cobwebs stretching across the tunnel. It was rather fascinating watching the fungus spore burrow into the side of the tunnel at a certain point and then spread a root system that insured the structural integrity of the walls without my input.
It would then release thin wispy threads with spores on the end that when caught by the updraft of the hole floated across to a distant wall. The spore would then burrow in and repeat the process while the original spore would begin reinforcing the thread.
After a while, more spores would sprout out of the middle of the thread and would spread out to distant walls again to continue the process from the middle of the thread. Just from the hundred odd bodies I'd pulped and sprayed onto the tunnel walls, the fungus had already spread a web of strong threads in crisscrossing patterns nearly half way up the hole.
Once I was satisfied with its growth I capped the hole and set up the necessary processing equipment just below the surface to separate and compress the important gases and send it down to sector 4.
With the three major gases being produced from the fungus I can create two optimised fuel mixtures. The by-product of both being water for one and carbon dioxide for the other.
As long as the fungus receives sufficient carbon, water and other trace minerals, it will be able to continue production indefinitely. As a bonus, it leaves some kind of nutrient rich sludge at the bottom of the chamber ideal for feeding hungry humans.
Although it tastes like someone rubbed a lollipop through their sweaty ass crack after a long fart, I'm not at all troubled by it. The three annoying humans I recently let out of their confinement however, have done nothing but complain.
Moving on, I've finally found a reliable way to generate HPE without pushing the entire base into a separate dimension. I'm still not fully certain how I did it though.
My second test with a new generator built from the ground up has no real difference from the first one but still manages to reliably pump out HPE directly into the power system of the base. Since its creation, I have completely disconnected from conventional LPE and everything still seems to be running perfectly fine without it.
The only real problem is that all of my finely tuned LPE based detection equipment has basically died in the ass and is completely useless for HPE based systems.
On reviewing the data related to my two experimental generators, I couldn't find any metric data that suggested anything between the two tests was different.
While reviewing how I was feeling at the time I imbued the generator's coils however, I have discovered that my first attempt I was simply willing it to work and the second attempt I specifically wanted it to work like I expect it to given conventional lower plane physics.
This has led me to an exciting discovery. The secret behind HPE is intent. Normally I would put no measure of certainty behind such a supposition, but after reviewing my fungus experiments, I am now sure that somehow, the will or intent behind an imbuement is what alters the outcome.
To be certain of this I have had No.3 place a solid cube of iron only 100mm3 on a table in an empty physics lab.
With the cube in place, I focus my entire will onto it and attempt to imbue a specific property instead of just some haphazard imbuement of anything.
After a small rush and a brief glow from the cube, I immediately connect it to the facilities power grid. I leave it like that, as I have another cube set down along with some wire and a switch.
I then repeat the process but this time attempt to imbue something else.
After the brief rush, I have my first and second cube connected into a circuit along with the switch. The moment I have No.3 flick the switch, the second cube begins to glow.
It's a Eureka moment! I feel entirely vindicated and life is worth living! This not only proves my hypothesis but also opens up an entire world of potential possibilities. Although I'm going to hold off on trying to have a cube mimic the event horizon of a black hole for the moment, I'm still excited to research into this more.
First though, I need to calm down for a short while because just those two imbuements has spent my entire reserve of energy. Even something as simple as 'BE A BATTERY!' or 'MAKE LIGHT WHEN POWERED!' were quite difficult and required an enormous amount of focus and energy.
Hopefully the act of imbuement will mirror my HPE matter manipulation and become easier as I continue my research. Now I need to set up a huge battery of tests to attempt to disprove my theory.
Science isn't always about proofs after all. The absence of proof is more often than not the principle of science and therefore all breakthroughs must be attempted to be proved wrong at least as many times as you attempted to prove them correct, times a thousand.
As long as one of those experiments can reliably prove me wrong, I will be excited to try another path. With any luck, once I wake up the code monkeys and scientists from the cryogen storage, I will have plenty of people available to help come up with counter arguments to my theory.
As I had No.3 begin setting up more labs for testing, I focus on the backlog from the grinder. As I focus on what I've began calling scrap dust, I begin to deconstruct it into its base elements or mixed elements depending on which is easier to store. Although I can't yet reconstruct atoms and rearrange them into different elements, my day of full ascension draws closer and I'm hopeful I will be capable then.
This eventually results in various sized bricks of finely packed elements that can't be easily stored away in sector zero. I've never really described my sector before but it used to be about 2 square kilometres of highly advanced computer hardware packed in as close as physically possible.
Once I discovered my ability to completely atomise things nearby my core, I restructured the entire thing. All incoming data came through various optical fibres and huge electrical cables.
In order to grant myself some form of mobility I converted the entire roof, which is about 6 metres high, into a giant, thin copper plate connected to the incoming power lines. As long as I was within 10 metres, huge arcs of electricity ionise through the air and get sucked into my ethereal energy body to be processed by some means I've yet to understand.
With the onset of the new generator, that no longer happens. Instead, a constant and direct line of light streams into me like a laser from the closest conductor, even threw other matter.
More interesting, is the fact that HPE in the system seems to completely disobey physics and can move the necessary power for me to operate through a cable as thin as a hair.
It also seems to completely disregard safety switches and power regulators and just supplies whatever is connected with enough to operate in the manner I expect it to. This has revolutionised energy systems, and I could technically go pretty much anywhere in the base now.
Unfortunately, while one single generator about 40m3 in size is capable of operating the base and keeping me growing, the amount of fuel it's eating is magnitudes higher than the combined equivalent needed for conventional electricity generators.
I believe this is something to do with the inefficiency of the system given the use of HPE and have already started projects to prove or disprove this. If I had some means to measure the quantity produced without relying on the vague feelings I'm having, the research would perhaps be much faster.
With that in mind, I've started a new project to try and find a method of measuring HPE or even just being able to tell it's properties. Although I'm starting to believe that HPE does not actually have any real properties apart from those imparted by the source, i.e. me imbuing something or an imbued object generating it.
I actually suspect that the generator is not 'generating' HPE, but is instead drawing it in from the higher plane and imbuing the properties I wished for it to have when imbuing the generator.
If this theory is correct, it would suggest that imparting my will onto an object will allow said inanimate to produce recordable phenomenon in any HPE it makes contact with.
Once again, another project started. With that in mind, I've made an addendum to the search for a method of measuring HPE. If my previous theory is sound, then simply imbuing an object to measure HPE for me is most likely also possible.
In other news, I've gotten really into the whole engineering biologicals after the fungus. However, with my limited amount of time and my lack of experience and energy to imbue every hopeful research subject, I have instead created something else.
The natural ability for the mutagenic virus to rapidly speed up evolution, which I suspect is in part thanks to the will of the energy user, is invaluable in researching evolution as a whole.
With the severely reduced number of people in the facility, I have reappropriated a corner of sector 8. About 3km2 worth of land that I've completely enclosed and dug a few holes in. I've filled the holes with the excess nutrient rich sludge from the fungus, which even with only a few hundred bodies to work with has already somehow produced nearly 100 litres worth.
I have then introduced various bacteria and micro-organisms into the sludge along with a cocktail of random DNA from various creatures and plants that was safely tucked away in my cryo-chambers.
With all of my will focused, I imbued each pit with some HPE and simply left what I'm calling the spawning pool to its own designs. Hopefully, it will begin spitting out some interesting creatures to study.
I then return to slowly atomising the backlog of scrap dust and decide that while I'm here, I might as well begin building another generator. With the fantastic amount of zombie goop I expect Charles to be delivering soon, I will hopefully have enough fuel to run both generators at maximum and still allow excess fuel to build up a backlog.
On that note, I'll also rezone some more of sector 8 for compressed fuel storage and have my builders continue digging the Fungus Pit down towards sector 0. By the time Charles is done, and our new guests are settled into their white rooms, I should be down to at least sector 6 with the help of the 6 builders on hand.