“General, we have made a unique discovery,” Jebzzbej called out from her terminal.

The team of scientists had been in and out of VR, using every tool at their command both in real-time and system-time, and had not yet managed to even scratch the sphere of white cr.

It was maddening. Clearly, they were missing something, some key piece of the puzzle that the alien-human must have stumbled upon during his imprisonment.

“What would a human see or try to do that a Tela would not?” That was a common theme he had heard one of the more insane scientists muttering. That particular scientist had asked for all the data that the Tela had on the human race and had spent many decades in System time trying to think like a human. He had become rather unstable and even chose to change his avatar and to wear plant matter as decorations on his strange soft and lanky body.

A body that seemingly could die to just about any form of violence, if what Magus had observed was true. That scientist had been most thorough in his testing.

It was one thing to visit exotic alien planets for a short while but it was another thing entirely to try to become the primitive alien you are studying.

Magus the 1st didn’t respond for some time, choosing to finish tying up his multi-sector search for the elusive human. Magus had been unable to locate Kevin’s habitat, another indication that all of this was a clever plan of an enemy of the Tela race. Only a race with superior hacking abilities would be able to hijack a Tela habitat and deactivate its habitat ID so completely. It was almost as if the habitat was offline… or destroyed.

Both thoughts were troublesome.

Magus finally turned his attention to Jebzzbej, his long eyestalks swiveling in place, ready to hear another theory that would be proven false once they tested it against the sphere.

“Summarize your discoveries thus far for me,” Magus commanded as he rotated his armored carapace in place with his many under legs and raised his eyestalks to observe the scientists that were present in real-time.

It had been a very long time since he had needed to revert to his natural Tela body. He had forgotten how good it felt to multitask with his many tentacles. How his species' innate talents had made his race superior at battle and defense for a good part of the war.

That is until the fog of war was lifted and the enemy could see his troop placement.

A stabbing tentacle wasn’t effective if your enemy could see it a sector away.

See every troop and civilian placement of the Tela.

Magus the 1st put those memories out of his mind as he studied the sphere. The scientists had cleared away a small surface of the orb for a demonstration. For much of the trip, the orb had been covered with various boxes and tubes while the team tried out different theories on it.

The current configuration was a long needle of cr hovering to the side of the sphere, as though it was just waiting to pop the sphere like a balloon.

“I believe that we finally have insight as to why cr is the way it is. Why it is impervious to all forms of matter or energy.” She said this as she opened display windows off to the side that showcased the extensive testing that the Tela had done on normal cr throughout time.

Magus diverted one of his eyestalks to monitor the videos while his other focused on the demonstration taking place before him.

By an unspoken command, one of the scientists directed the hovering needle of cr to propel itself at the exposed surface of the white sphere at full speed.

It was hard not to flinch as the cr, which had been previously thought of to be invincible, exploded against the side of the unharmed sphere.

“What you just observed is proof...” Jebzzbej began as though testing her words carefully. “That cr either exists at an entirely inconceivable rate of time or is from an existence where time does not function as we understand it.”

In Magus’s left eye the images of natural metal rods in all densities being test-fired against thin sheets of cr made her demonstration seem like she had just used a rod of iron dug up from the ground in her test. Magus knew that this was incorrect though and that each of those shattered pieces of cr was still impervious to any form of damage by traditional means.

Magus could feel his anger rising as his right eyestalk focused on the sphere, the mess floating all around in the air, and the useless scientists standing around.

He was just about to say something and to order the deletion of each and every scientist copy aboard his ship when Jebzzbej rotated the sphere in place. She removed all of the boxes and tubes that had been covering the thing this entire time to show the side that had been facing away from Magus.

There was a tiny and barely visible dent in the perfect surface of the orb.

“What? How did you manage that?” He asked in awe as he magnified the tiny amount of change visible by his eyestalk.

“One of our earlier tests caused this, it just took all of this time to get to this point that the deformation of the material was visible. These two forms of matter are cr, they are just at entirely different densities. I would say that this new cr is relatable to a high-grade metal while our regular cr is more like a dense liquid. You can deform metal with liquid, it just takes a lot of time and power.” She said as she opened a new video showing a small area of cr that had been vibrating as hard as it could against the surface of the orb. It had taken time but it was able to slowly dent the white cr.

“But… that is impossible. Normal cr doesn’t do anything when it hits cr.”

“Exactly! There just isn’t enough power inside our cr. That is why I used this cr’s own power against it. By directing it to create microbursts of energy I made the sphere harm itself using normal cr as the nail. Nothing else would achieve anything. Normal matter would just get obliterated by the energy that this higher density of cr can put out.”

Magus was stunned. It wasn’t what he expected at all.

“Please continue, I hope there is more to your discoveries.”

“Well, we have narrowed down where he might have found this new cr at.” She said as her mind left her body and returned to the habitat’s VR. Magus and several of the other scientists followed her into the space that she chose to visit.

They found Tillman, the scientist that had decided to try to become a human, in an expanse of space that was created to show the timeline the human had existed in on Magus the Second’s Core.

A dotted line followed Kevin’s damaged harvester robot as it was thrown from Magus the Second’s Leva feeding room and down to the surface of the sun. The sun and the Core were scaled down considerably, letting the observers follow every recorded movement the tracking module made.

The path followed Kevin’s wandering path until the tracker just stopped moving. The path was highlighted and was displaying percentage figures that Magus didn’t fully understand at first. Tillman was showing all of his teeth for some reason and his eyes seemed like they wanted to become eyestalks with how wide they were open. He also seemed to be breathing hard for some reason. Out of all the scientists, Magus would feel the least regret when it was time to delete him from existence.

Magus followed Kevin’s path south and then read the notes that the scientist had made regarding the recordings and locations that Magus the 15th’s memories had offered up.

All in all, it showed a clear path with a massive gap in the middle where Kevin had dove into the surface of the sun, only to be seen again when he surfaced and attacked Magus the 15th at the south pole of the sun.

“Tillman thinks he knows where the alien obtained his special cr.” Jebzzbej said as she stood off to one side, as though she didn’t want to be a part of the proceedings. Even the other scientists seemed to find Tillman’s transformation to be unsettling.

“Kevin,” Tillman said clearly.

“What?” Jebzzbej asked, one of her eyestalks snapping back towards the odd-looking scientist.

“His name is Kevin, not alien or alien-human,” Tillman said as he zoomed in on the starting path that Kevin had taken.

No one said anything, choosing to remain silent instead while the obviously mentally unstable scientist explained his discoveries.

He didn’t have much to say, choosing to zoom in on the path, following Kevin’s damaged module as it fell towards the sun. It was then that some anomalies started to showcase themselves as Tillman brought up two bars with text underneath them.

One bar read “Maximum registered acceleration possible by standard cr” versus “Kevin’s cr”.

It was clear to everyone, including Magus, that something was off the moment that Kevin started to move and to take control of his harvester.

Kevin’s cr’s speed far exceeded what normal cr could do.

Magus followed the presentation, watching Kevin’s speed far outclass what should have been possible up until the tracker stopped moving inside the sun.

“Hmmm… That doesn’t explain…” Magus started to say before Jebzzbej interrupted him by pointing her tentacle sharply at the “Kevin’s cr” bar as though the demonstration was not over yet.

The dotted projected line that Kevin might have taken to reach the south pole went through a “Sun Spot” or “Death Spot” as it was commonly known and the speed with which Kevin was estimated to be capable of moving vs normal cr shot up like a rocket.

“Such power.” Magus could only say as Tillman continued to path and show the speed capable by the hum… by Kevin.

When Tillman had concluded his demonstration and let the simulation end with Kevin escaping to his habitat he simply stood there breathing hard.

“This next part is… troublesome.” Jebzzbej began to say as hers and the other scientist’s eye stalks jittered in agitation. “But, in light of a new creature discovered, by Kevin nonetheless, the discussion of an alien entity that has caused fatigue this entire time, and the creature that ate the Core… it could be the answer.”

Tillman was nearly dancing back and forth for the reveal to this next part. Instead of focusing on the Death Spot like Magus had expected the scientist rewound time back to the moment when Kevin had first been thrown into the sun… and pushed time back even more.

“What? Are you saying that he received this power before?” Magus started to ask when the image of the sun and Core disappeared and a recording played in its place. It was a recording that many Citizens had seen in the moments when Kevin had been dreaming. The dream slowed down and stopped.

Right on the arrival of the alien ant.

“This, I believe, is the anomaly that altered Kevin’s ability to use cr. I believe that this thing taught him how to pull more power out of cr than we are capable of. If he had more power at his disposal then he could theoretically push cr faster than we can. He would be able to harvest this five million of new cr from somewhere inside the sun… most likely inside a Sunspot!” Tillman said excitedly, seemingly deflating as his discoveries were finally revealed.

“But that creature was never recorded to have existed or manifested in reality,” Magus argued as he studied the strange spiky creature.

“No… but these do.” Jebzzbej said as she showed images of the Wrath creature that Kevin had discovered while surveying and recordings of the creature that devoured the Core.

“If we could use this more powerful cr in the same way that I used our normal cr to create a dent in its surface,” Jebzzbej said as she recreated a sun and zoomed in on a Sunspot. “I believe that we can harvest some more powerful cr to use to hunt these creatures to learn their secrets. Perhaps to gain even more understanding of cr.” She said.

“We have always lost miners when they impact Sunspots. They simply can’t see anything inside the sun. How will you manage to do anything if you can’t see?”

“By guiding normal cr in slowly to coat the surface so that we can study it and try to find a viable area to try to work. That is… if Sunspots are what we think they are.” She said with a thoughtful voice. “This new cr does have the power that we would need. Normal cr has never afforded us this opportunity before.”

With that, she brought up an object that looked sinister in its purpose in the air between the gathered Tela.

“It will take a while but I believe that we can pound the metal cr into this drill shape. This will, hopefully, serve both our purposes. Both in harvesting more rare cr and in killing alien creatures for study. Our softer Tela cr will be used to excite it and will all be located on the back flat side while it is in operation and in combat.”

The ancient general of war smiled.