Chapter 191: Blueprint of a Pocket Dimension
I had been sitting at the workbench for hours, staring blankly at yet another ruined sheet of paper. Crumpled paper balls littered the area around me. My head was buzzing from the tension, and the problem, for some fucking reason, just wouldn't be solved.
To somehow get my thoughts in order, I set the pencil down, rubbed my temples, and began reasoning aloud, breaking everything down step by step.
"Alright, Iron, what is this? It's a pocket dimension. And what is a pocket dimension? It’s a 'pocket' located at the exact same physical point as a regular house, but simply shifted along a different coordinate axis. Right."
I folded down one finger. Logical? Logical.
"How does the entrance work? The door has to scan whoever is entering. If a regular person crosses the threshold, the space beyond remains perfectly ordinary—they just walk into a room in the house. But if it's Elyria, the system recognizes her essence, and a quantum shift occurs. Noted. Next."
I skimmed over the rough sketches. Now for the hardest part—the internal workings.
"How does the space change according to Elyria's will? Lumon will allocate his power to constantly monitor the pocket. Elyria, let's say, voices what she wants aloud or mentally; Lumon intercepts this signal and instantly reproduces it. Right."
In that exact second, deep down, I clearly caught a heavy impulse. Lumon absolutely did not like this idea.
There are no other options, I cut him off mentally, reining the system in.
Twirling the pencil, I added with a sigh, "On the downside, Lumon will be using my mana for all of this. And I still don't even know if I have a lot of it in the first place."
I re-read my notes once more. Everything added up. The base structure was perfect, the interaction mechanisms made complete sense, without a single logical plot hole.
"But why the fuck is it still not working out?!" I swore, throwing the pencil onto the table. The paper still held nothing but a mess of mismatched lines.
A few minutes later, I caught myself sitting motionless, head thrown back, blankly staring at the darkened ceiling boards of the workshop. And then, my own hollow chuckle broke the silence.
"I'm an idiot. I'm just an idiot. How could I forget about that?"
I had thought everything through to the smallest detail, mapped out the logic, the algorithms, the interactions. But I forgot the most important thing—the physical medium. God...
"Alright," I exhaled, rubbing my face with my palms. "I need to make a quantum shift. But damn it... quantum? Will I even be able to pull that off? Fine, I at least need to draft the schematics first."
Naturally, we didn't have the right resources in the camp. I'd have to use wood. Good thing I'd previously asked Elyria to prepare a block of so-called Iron Oak. It possessed an incredibly dense, rigidly ordered carbon crystal lattice. Essentially, a ready-made natural matrix.
But okay, we have the material. The next step, however, is pure, concentrated nightmare. To make it work, I'll have to compress my own mana down to the thickness of a needle literally one atom wide. And then, guiding this microscopic beam, burn a pattern completely invisible to the eye inside the wood fibers.
And for the schematic to remain stable, I desperately need pure mana. But where am I supposed to get that?
At that moment, Lumon sprang to life in my head:
[ATTENTION. Environmental analysis complete. Presence of pure mana confirmed in the upper layers of the atmosphere.]
"Seriously?"
I drummed my fingers thoughtfully on the table, processing the information, and nodded to myself:
"Alright then. The plan is this: we'll have to somehow grab this pure mana and seal it inside the micro-voids burned into the wood. When the mana particles hit these runic 'pockets,' they'll align into a strict order and start working like a living microchip. Plus, this whole structure will remain completely invisible from the outside. Which is a huge bonus."
My throat was unpleasantly dry. I slowed down slightly, reached for my mug, and took a few gulps of cool water. Washing down the accumulated charcoal dust, I mentally asked the main question:
Can you do this, Lumon?
He took a brief pause, calculating algorithms, and then delivered:
[ANSWER: Insufficient initial data for an accurate prognosis at this time. The final verdict will be formed directly during the execution of the task.]
I set the mug back on the workbench.
"Okay, well, at least that's honest."
"Right, so the physical medium is sorted," I rubbed the bridge of my nose, gathering my thoughts. "Now I need to figure out the second part of this damn puzzle."
I leaned back in the chair and addressed Lumon again:
"Lumon, listen to the objective. You need to scan all the space inside a room of the house. Space isn't monolithic—at least, it wasn't in my past life, but we'll test that while we're at it. Your goal is to spot a tiny void in the fabric of reality. It's at that exact point where our world borders hyperspace."
I waited for mental confirmation from the system and continued building the algorithm:
"You must expand the found void using my mana. Under the pressure of the mana, this point should expand and inflate into a full-fledged three-dimensional bubble suspended inside the fourth dimension. But here's the problem. So that the physical pressure of our Universe doesn't instantly collapse this bubble back in on itself, you have to continuously calculate mathematical stability. While you do that, Elyria will weave a boundary out of her energy. The result will be an isolated spherical barrier—a force field, beyond which lies absolute nothingness."
I added this stage to the sketch.
"Moving on. You need to place raw ether in there, inside this barrier. This ether will fill the entire volume of the pocket and will be ready to accept any of your commands."
I fell silent, examining the resulting schematic.
"Now we have two independent things: an Iron door with a scanner in the house, and an empty bubble floating somewhere in hyperspace. Your next task is to take the spatial frequency of this bubble and hardwire that address into the quantum runes on the iron door."
I ran the final scenario through my head, testing its integrity.
"Next, Elyria flies over the threshold, and you must read her essence... you generate the raw ether, the polarity increases, and the bubble becomes a fully-fledged pocket dimension."
I held my breath, waiting for a response from him:
"Well? Can you handle that?"
His even voice rang out in my head:
[ANSWER: The implementation of this process will require colossal time and computational resources. For a successful outcome, I must switch all systems into a mode of deep autonomy.]
"Why do you need to disconnect?" I frowned.
[ANSWER: The disconnection procedure is necessary so that you do not die from the strain. Analysis of the host's condition indicates a critical level of tension. The transition to autonomous mode is activated to make the process as safe as possible for you and to guarantee that you do not sustain serious injury.]
"Fine then," I said.
And I actually felt Lumon disconnect. Silence instantly reigned in my consciousness.
Damn... Because I'm too weak, Lumon has to disconnect just to avoid harming me...
Alright, let's lock in the overall schematic. Elyria opens the door and flies into the opening. The scanner reads her, and the doorway redirects her along the 4th-dimensional axis inside the bubble. As soon as her body is inside, Lumon (who will be monitoring the system round-the-clock in the background) recognizes her background desire: "I need a place for meditation, nature, peace." Lumon sends a command to the raw ether of the bubble. The ether instantly begins to change its polarity, density, and state of matter. The lower part of the ether compacts, turning into black soil and stones. The upper part becomes clear air with a comfortable temperature. Elyria's energy triggers the growth of astral grass, trees, and the appearance of a stream.
I nodded in satisfaction, but then train of thought after train of thought hit a brick wall. I froze with my pencil raised.
Right... Where am I supposed to get raw ether?
"Lumon. Answer."
Nothing.
Fuck. And why didn't I ask him right away...
I exhaled heavily, set the pencil down, and looked out the window. It was already completely dark outside the glass. Fine, I'll get some sleep. Hopefully, you'll be back online by tomorrow.