Early Evening - Late Summer : Above the Deep Sea Laboratory | Siratha

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*blub-blub* Slowly sinking down into the dark, frigid water, Ilios continuously created small air pockets with his aura before letting them collapse from the pressure, carefully watching them implode into millions and then billions of tiny bubbles before dissipating completely.

At this depth, even strengthened steel wouldn't stand a chance.

But we continued to sink, only inconvenienced by the occasional current attempting to push us up the submerged mountainside. -Seems like he doesn't care about the depth anymore...-

When Ilios first dove into the water, he shot down to about three kilometers before getting slammed by the sudden increase in pressure, to the point that it actually did hurt his ears a bit, but thankfully he had gotten adjusted after quickly returning to the surface and slowly going down with me.

*fwip-fwip-fwip-fwip* After a while, he didn't even need to properly swim, and exclusively relied on the wag of his tail to stay in my wake.

It was truly cute, and while a part of me thought it would slow down as we went deeper, even all the way down at seventy kilometers, his wag was undisturbed.

At least until we changed directions.

*Fwoosh* As we were mindlessly continuing deeper, the mountainside I followed with my aura eventually disappeared, and a stiff, lifeless current washed over us with nothing but ambient mana.

-Ah.. right...- I had forgotten to retrieve the dungeon core from Hera's rest, the mountain Hera was stuck on. -I need to go grab that when I go and get the reactor connector and stuff from the crawler... Hopefully, no other core has formed in the time it was away...- Thankfully, it didn't seem like it, but checking and moving it all was for after I finished getting everything situated.

Quickly turning into the abandoned and seemingly lifeless dungeon, I quickly came up on the laboratory, completely and utterly untouched from when I had last seen it, without even a layer of dust on its roof. Thankfully, it seemed like nothing so much as bumped it while I was gone. -Thank goodness...-

Eventually swimming up and over the edge of it, I descended into the large cone-shaped space in its center, where the old reactor used to be, and used my aura to attempt to refresh myself on the state and condition of the lab.

But, to put it simply, it was just as bad as I remembered.

After I drained and sealed off the still-intact parts of the lab and made an attempt at cleaning some of the cabling, the lab was in a decent state, but at the same time, it was so incredibly complicated, using almost three hundred and twenty different gauges of wire, that I simply felt.. a bit overwhelmed.

But it wasn't often I had that feeling, and oddly enough, after not feeling it for a while, it worked as a spark of excitement in the back of my mind.

I finally had something I could focus everything I had on. A challenge I could really dedicate my mind to.

It was all just a matter of time.

Quickly running through my memories and refreshing myself on what I knew, I almost immediately hopped into the void with Ilios and went to Hera's rest to retrieve what I needed. *Vwoop* I had a lot to do and no time to waste.

And sure enough, after using vector compression to return the dungeon core and its containment center back to the dungeon the grind began.

The next few days passed in a flash, walking a path of trial and error only guided by memories of Acardi technology and my own intuition and scientific knowledge.

But while it was a bumpy path, it was one I could walk.

The first thing I did was fix the battery, recreating its simple array of electrically charged tubes and connecting it to all the halted external charging pylons before creating a more conventional battery that was continuously charged via a rune to keep the tubes powered even in the case of an emergency.

After that, I began rerouting and extending the countless cables around the laboratory, connecting them to their respective transformers as they were built until I was eventually left with a massive web of cables that filled the center space of the lab as if it were a spider's den that all connected at one point with six thick cables, where I planned to build the reactor.

And the next thing I knew, almost a month passed.

As it turns out, creating a reactor almost 15 meters across without misplacing a single atom and then upscaling the mind-bogglingly complex connector that did all the energy conversions was quite time-consuming and experimental. The connector itself, while essentially perfect on a small scale, was shockingly inefficient when scaled up, to the point that I was forced to completely redesign it, which meant I had to deepen my understanding of how it all worked and how I could scale it for a much, much larger reactor.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

But thankfully, I had the time.

Every few days, Grace would come from the surface and give me some updates on what all was happening, and thankfully, it hadn't been too much. The Holy Kingdom hadn't made any moves, Siratha's announcement of war seemed to go over well thanks to a new national pride centered around my return, and Father's condition was progressing smoothly. The only thing I knew I would have to come back for was Lief's evolution thanks to the elixir from my horn, which was to be taken under ceremony in a few days, and Hera's return to Bahamut, which was about a month out.

-But.. it seems like I can finish the reactor before I need to return to help Lief...- Silently overlooking the colossal connector that was almost as large as the reactor itself, I ran through each layer, making sure everything was as it should be, and ensuring that there wouldn't be any issues with materials melting or particles getting hung up in it. "Ilios, what do you think?"

*fwip-fwip-fwip-fwip* Quickly swimming over with his wagging tail, carrying the large tentacle of an octopus in his mouth, he came up to me and used his aura to look over everything.

Although he didn't know the theories and numbers as well as I did, he was surprisingly good at recognizing patterns, fixing inconsistencies, and generally helping highlight areas where I could have made mistakes.

But this time, for the first time since I had him look at the cabling, he didn't point anything out. *blub-shik* After casually knawing on the tentacle for a moment, he simply turned back around and swam to his spot on the edge of the roof of the lab where he had been eating the octopus he killed a couple of days ago. -Does that mean I'm really done?-

Not really believing it, I took my time going over it several more times, but just as Ilios showed, there was nothing to be found.

To my knowledge, everything was in place, from the tiny circuit boards to massive antimatter transfer cables.

All I had to do was start it. -Well.. I guess there's no reason to hesitate...-

Quickly scanning through the parts of the antimatter cables I didn't touch, I did my last few checkups before finally using my aura to activate the charge pylons mounted around the lab. -Here goes nothing...- *vwwWWOOOM* Using the mana being pulled into the dungeon by the mana core attempting to refill itself, the pylons instantly kicked on, roaring to life and lighting up the cables with a blue glow. -Seems good so far...-

Closely keeping my eyes on the battery as it filled, I gave it some time and eventually, once it was about half full, flipped the switch to feed the reactor both hydrogen and antimatter, just like in the reactor I found, except with a much higher amplitude and frequency of fuel.

*pop* *pop* *pop-pop-pop-pop-VWOOOM* Finally firing up with a roar, the reactor kicked to life, forming a blazing ring of fire that instantly surpassed the temperature of the sun before flooding the connector with so much energy that the entire laboratory started vibrating.

But it was a good sign.

*flick-flicker* After just a moment, the lights outside kicked on, and almost immediately, a crackly, robotic voice echoed through the interior in a very pre-programmed manner. "Severe damage detected. Cannot scan the integrity of systems. Cannot access reactor controls. Attempting forced shut down-"

It was the lab itself issuing emergency protocol. Since it couldn't control the reactor, it assumed the worst-case scenario, which was that the reactor would turn into a bomb just waiting to explode, much like the battery did several years ago, but thankfully, I had everything under control. -Now that the reactor has started, I just need to turn it down a bit, and...-

Finally turning my attention toward the center control room, where I had spoken with the AI previously, I watched the computers finally start receiving electricity again and boot up.

All that was left was to give the antimatter cable leading to the AI's core access to the antimatter in the battery. -I uh.. hope this doesn't break anything...-

It was a very thin wire, indicating it didn't want much antimatter, but the systems the antimatter went to were considerably over my head. -Well.. all I can do is hope...-

*crackle* Finally opening the hatch and allowing antimatter to flow at a rate the core it was flowing to should be able to dictate, I sat back and watched, only attempting to regulate things if they went clearly wrong.

"Sufficient Power detected." *Beep* With a gentle beep from one of the computers, I tilted my head slightly and made my way down into the main room of the lab in my humanoid form, where the AI's core was, and found the computer's screen lit up with a familiar login screen.

-It worked!- Countless questions instantly started ripping through my mind, and after quickly logging in and figuring out how to disable all the warnings and emergency protocols, the black tube at the center of the room began to glow blue, slowly forming a sphere of light at its center. -Is that it?-

"Dungeon Research Intelligence '4856' Activation Sequence Initiated." *hhhuuummm*

Finally stepping away from the computer, I looked up at the central tube and felt a wave of satisfaction and a feeling of accomplishment wash through me.

At long last, I had it back online, and with its voice, a wave of nostalgia washed over my mind.

*Beep* "Unable to connect to remote servers. Please Provide Instructions."

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