This was going to be a shortish piece of experimental fiction, told by scattered journal entries. Instead it wound up being the length of a short novel. It tells the story of a Voidic scholar who finds himself journeying to find the secret of The Ultimate Material, and stirs up a bit of trouble along the way. The style of storytelling is unconventional, it alternates between chronicling the events of his life and recording the properties of the materials he catalogues and uses.
This was an experiment from the start, and one that went reasonably well, all things considered. I even finished it! (I can even tell my friends I've written a novel provided they aren't curious enough to ask about it more)

There will be is an Archive of Our Own upload here. It is not exactly the same as the upload here, as I'm doing editing as I go through it, and it also includes an appendix giving brief information about fandomy things found in the story. Not fully uploaded yet, I'm doing it chapter by chapter again.
Also, there is lots of technobabble here. If you see a word in here and don't have any idea what it means, that's probably because I made it up. If you see a word in here and have a sneaking suspicion I used it wrong, that's probably because I did.

Also if the formatting is busted that's because jcink pitches a fit whenever you forget to put spaces in your sentences and I refuse to ruin a perfectly rant for the sake of conformity.

The Ultimate Material

The Beginning Part 1: “Well, this is my next great task I suppose, calculating the “Ultimate Material”. Two things should be given as background for this. First, I am working on this because I lost a bet, I do not believe in this ultimate material any more than your regular person knows about it. It is a silly piece of speculation, much like those voidic scholars with too much time and funding who yammer on about the metaphysical implications of THE BANE. I don’t believe all the rubbish about that either, for the record. As for the Ultimate Material, there are theories that abound revolving around Advanced Alchemiter usage, and if you don’t know what an alchemiter is these notes are useless to you put them down and find someone better versed in voidic weapons technology. Essentially, the idea is that there are a large number of materials that the alchemiter can produce, and a number of the more powerful ones seem to have calculable values revolving around a possible final value, if enough of the right materials are inputted in the right order. Such a material would likely be incomprehensibly valuable. And incomprehensibly dangerous. Fortunately there are limitations on the alchemiter, and as such such a material would not be feasible to create anyways. Regardless, I made a drunk bet and now I’ll be spending my next while proving that such a thing does not, in fact exist. Once and for all. This foolishness is a waste of my time and I intend to be done with it as soon as possible."

The Beginning Part 2: “I was wrong. It does exist, all the math adds up, I just need to figure out why no one’s been able to identify more than one material that would work together to build up this material we’ve been looking for. This is more than just a bet at this point, this is science now.”

The Beginning Part 3: “It has been a long time since I’ve written in this log, as I have had nothing new to report on the advancement of my research here, I’ve been busy gathering alchemical data and studying underlying power structures and values. I understand the reason why no one’s been able to find the ultimate material. All the others have taken a few basic materials, connected them to the pillar of the ultimate material, and assumed they could do so for everything, but what they all neglected to notice was that each of these materials they could link directly in already exist as alchemizeable “composites”, meaning that each of the stages towards making the Ultimate material is made by taking the previous step, or “tier”, and then adding in the next composite material. This means that I will need to calculate the creation process for each of these composites in addition to the tiers themselves. It’s more work… but… I’m treading new ground. Discovering something no voidic scholar ever has before. My investigations to discover the base have taken me to the realm of Minecraft, already a good world for building a base for oneself, and surprisingly well-attuned to the energies required to run a high-octane alchemiter. My lab and workshop are set up, and I can begin testing materials. I think I even know where to start...

Redstone: “The first material on my list. It’s taken me months of calculating and materials testing, even after the general hunch that my task would first take me to Minecraft. While in hindsight, redstone is an obvious choice, it didn’t seem like such at the time. Really what led me to discovering that what I was looking for for the base of the first composite material was this was the discovery that the first composite material needed to be a dust or powder of some kind, which was rather a surprise, from there it was a relatively simple matter of testing a handful of the materials that are available in powdered form, regardless, I am here to catalogue materials, so catalogue them I shall. Redstone is a simple dust, the powdered form of an ore that decays upon breaking up the rock from which it is mined. It can be reconstituted into a packed, solid form, but the basic form remains that of a powder that conducts an electricity-like power called redstone flux. Most machines designed in the world of Minecraft run on flux, and depend upon redstone-oriented forms of energy production. It sort of embodies the creative potential of Minecraft, by allowing one to move and shape the world in more efficient, orderly ways through its proper application. An extra set of rules, but one that enables you to push the boundaries further than before. Sort of like my lovelife I suppose, but with fewer abrupt breakups where my girlfriend takes all the furniture.”

Glowstone Dust: “The second material needed for the first composite, this one didn’t take much extra study either. It fits in nicely as a self-sustaining energy source, based on what I believe to be perpetual internal chemical reactions enabled by the code-based structure of its home universe. While the light given off in the powdered form is much dimmer than that of the base material, its alchemical data still lines up with the requirements. As a side note, I think I shall begin chronicling my adventures in gathering these materials as well. There isn’t much to speak on for my acquisition of redstone, as I was able to obtain that in a relatively easy trade with a local. Glowstone was a little harder, as it required a trip to an alternate “dimension” located somewhere sort of below the impassable bedrock layer that holds the main portion of the world. Said alternate dimension is called The Nether, and the locals speak of it as a potentially lethal place, full of fire and dangerous creatures. I was a little worried that perhaps there was something actually to be feared in the active parts of the universe, but my worries were assuaged after my defensive sentries turned a small army of pigmen into roasted porkchops. While more dangerous than the Overworld, an equipped voidic traveler will find the Nether a relatively pleasant place compared to some of the other locales one may have to travel during studies. The smell of netherrack is awful though and it took a week to get it out of my clothes.”

Lapis Lazuli: “This one took me a while. I knew I needed a powdered substance, and I wasn’t sure what alchemical ingredient would lead to the final composite, and I have not yet been able to acquire the upgrades for my personal alchemiter needed to reverse engineer materials from their alchemical code, so I had to brute force this one. None of the dusts in Minecraft worked, and so I started trying minerals. Something that would give an edge, then I realized I had missed one. Crushed lapis isn’t identified as a proper “material” in the universe of Minecraft, and decays extremely quickly, but is however necessary for many forms of enchanting, and holds a magical charge to connected items quite well. There is, however, sadly no story to go with this one. I obtained lapis almost as easily as redstone, the stuff is apparently quite common underground.”

Brownstone Dust: “My first composite material. I was actually able to make this one but it was… surprisingly difficult. Well, I say difficult, but I should mean time consuming. Normally high power alchemiters can make most basic items quickly, and all of the base components are remarkably cheap. Not this. The alchemiter was working all through the night to get the sample completed. I have tested the material, and I suspect that the reasoning for that is more a function of what it is the stepping stone to, rather than its individual properties. Essentially, Brownstone Dust combines the properties of all three of its base materials. It conducts redstone flux remarkably well (and even electricity interestingly enough), lets off a strong glow when being used to channel flux or electrical current, and also be used as an alternative to crushed lapis while enchanting. It makes me wonder if it has any other potential uses to it, for it to be this comparatively costly…”

Mithril: “My investigation has begun to spread out a bit. The second material is not infused with Minecraft’s unique energies, so I’ve had to relocate my lab to a location in the Void so that I can more easily travel between universes to gather materials. As such, my investigation has slowed down a little bit, as though while I do have the advantage of already having my starting point this time, and thus being able to reverse engineer materials to some degree, I have a much wider selection of materials to choose from and try to catalogue. I have, however, found one of the bases needed to make the next composite material. Mithril, the most common of the stock fantasy super metals. As a super metal it is relatively rare and expensive, but one can still get it on the market, and military gear that needs to be durable and lightweight but won’t be seeing much combat use tends to be made from it, as it functions more than well enough for any mundane situation, but is still obtainable. Standard mithril, as defined by the Voidic Coalition, has a light bluish tint on a silvery metal, making it fairly recognizable. I was able to purchase some mithril bullion for my research and that was that.”

Adamantine: “There are many variants of adamantine, sometimes going by named variants of adamantite or adamantium, but stock adamantine turned out to be the second material I needed for composite number two. Stock adamantine is a fair bit harder to come by than stock mithril, as there are many more variants that don’t meet up to industry grade standards, and fewer worlds that produce the proper stuff, it is still, however, purchasable at a number of locations, and so was easy to obtain, if expensive. I have, however, made a fair amount of money off of selling my concocted Brownstone Dust, so monetary losses have overall been acceptable. As for adamantine’s properties, it is much like mithril, a stock super metal, magical in form, it acts as a sort of counterpart in that it is slightly more durable than mithril, but is also more suitable for armor and blunt weaponry due to being sturdier and more dense, and is a silvery red in color. Once again, for anyone trying to acquire this material, be very wary of false adamantines, MANY different materials go by the same or similar names, and you need the right one if you want to make the proper composite material.”

Adamanthrillium: “I was rather surprised at my result here. Adamanthrillium does, in fact, exist in a non-alchemized form. It is however a guarded state secret in most of the places that produce it, and nobody else is really willing to share their secret either. Adamanthrillium is, in essence, the perfect alloy of Adamantine and Mithril. It is even stronger, harder, more powerful in general than either of its component materials. It is very valuable and hard to come by. And now I can alchemize it. I think… I think I’ll keep my knowledge of this particular secret under wraps for now though.”

Advancement Tier 1 (Bronzthrillium): “I think this is as far as I’m going to alchemize with the catalysts. The alchemiter took almost a month to make this monster of a material, and I can see why too. This material took a lot of labwork to be able to properly shape, and it pretty much radiates power. In addition to producing an electrical current that can charge add-ons, it gives the wielder limited electromantic, technomantic and pyromantic powers, and is incredibly sturdy. I don’t understand the full extent of the alchemical interactions, but I think this has helped my understanding of how to read the alchemical formulas to physical properties at the very least. Additionally, as my lab’s funding is somewhat low at this point, I’ve decided that I’m going to use this new material. I have dubbed it Bronzthrillium by it’s bronzeish hue, and am currently searching for a way to mass produce it. Such a material would likely be highly prized in a number of different circles for a variety of reasons.”

Uranium: “This material was surprisingly easy to find. Uranium, while dangerous and rare on standard Earths, and in their universes, is a surprisingly common fuel source in the multiverse, despite its tendency towards radioactive decay and narratively-inspired penchant for violent explosions. I’m keeping mine in a special container, acquired through some of the wonderfully large pile of funds my sales of limited quantities of bronzethrillium have gained me. Hopefully a stasis chamber will stave off radioactive decay long enough for me to alchemize with it.”

Tungsten Carbide: “Tungsten Carbide is another well documented material. It is widely used on standard Earths in the modern era for tools and trinkets, due to high durability, a hardness that makes it very scratch resistant, and just a general strength to it. It is a strong metal, and it’s alchemical properties seem to mesh unusually well with those of the uranium. I’m still in the middle of doing the calculations and producing the result. I wonder what I shall get.”

Radioactive Tungsten Carbide: “What. The actual. GORILLA. Is this GORILLA. I mean, it’s another step forward, and I suppose I should be grateful for that, but this… this is just stupid. It’s not even a particularly useful material, it’s just tungsten carbide that gives off radioactive decay. You can’t use it as fuel because despite being radioactive the material itself is still too stable to begin nuclear fission. You can’t use it for tools because it’ll give you radiation poisoning. My day is ruined and my disappointment is immeasurable. Whatever, might as well add it into the catalysting.”

Advancement Tier 2 (Atomium): “I decided to bite the bullet and create the next level of catalyst. While my disappointment with the composite that I had to combine the bronzethrillium with to get this remains somewhat, I am not dissatisfied with the results of combining the two. Simply put, this material is powerful. I’ve had to look into some more… sketchy alchemiter upgrades, as the alchemiter I’m working with began to overheat towards the end of of the creation process. I didn’t even know they could do that! My studies of the material have shown my that there is a good reason for this. This is some of the most powerful stuff I have ever set eyes upon. While without proper shielding you will gain nasty burns of both the heat and electrical variety, along with mild to severe radiation poisoning, the powerful current the material generates is more than enough to power the shielding devices needed to keep the wielder safe, though that does make weapons slightly more bulky. The powers this material gives are amplified versions of those granted by bronzethrillium, full pyro, techno and electro kinesis, as well as exposing harmed opponents to the full brunt of the crackling energy of the weapon. Think of the money I could make off of this! I MUST acquire more alchemiter extensions. I think I'll call this catalyst Atomium.”

The Mistake: “I’ve made a terrible mistake. I shouldn’t have begun selling the Atomium on the open market. Not only has my business been shut down for selling D-class weapons grade materials, but I have a number of individuals scrutinizing and examining my labs. I’ve hidden my notes, and am preparing to use a backup lab, but it seems that I will have to start from the ground up. Fortunately I still have the location where I manufacture bronzethrillium and atomium, and a few of my contacts know where I can sell the stuff without getting shut down, I should still be able to procure the items I need, but it seems I am no longer a legitimate businessman. Whatever, the greatest discoveries come to light only when reality is ready for them. I shall continue my research, and release these notes only when the time is right.”

Orichalchum: “Things are going reasonably well, my new lab is up and running, and I’ve recompiled and organized my notes, and since I don’t have to worry about petty things like legality due to relocating my work to the fringes of society, I have a wider variety of materials available to me. I’ve set up a proper defensive force for my facility, and everything is going quite well, but you likely aren’t reading these for a status update on my personal life. You want useful information. A form of Orichalchum is the base for the next composite material. And an oddly specific one as well, only the bubblegum pink variant found within Minecraft’s orbital universe of Terraria has the right alchemical values. It is a strange metal, somewhat bouncy, but still sturdy and strong, holding enough weight and edge to be devastating for bladed weapons. Even stranger, it glows a soft blue when in liquid form. I’ve input it’s alchemical data into the calculations, but I’ve decided to test its physical properties myself, as I suspect it will be quite informative.”

Isolated Quantum Foam: “It’s been a long time since my last entry, not because of significant problems, though I have been forced to relocate further out recently due to a crackdown on illegal weapons and material manufacture as of late, but rather because the newest material basically had to be reverse engineered to be found. I was not expecting to need an isolated sample of what amounts to the most basic energy particulates within some versions of the base Earth Prime universes, but indeed, it is isolated quantum foam. Something about the odd way it fluctuates within it’s miniscule, tiny, incomprehensibly small stasis field makes it incredibly powerful. I’ve heard that there are weapons based around rupturing a sizeable portion of this stuff that lay waste to entire galaxies, but fortunately I don’t need that much. Regardless the end product will be interesting.”

Quantonium: “Once again I am astounded by the unfairness of the universe. The most recent composite material is another one I already knew existed. Quantonium, found naturally only in universe MVA262, but replicated in a number of other places where it is used in some power plants, and, before unlicensed cloning was deemed illegal in the IUPC protectorate, mass cloning facilities. I was quite confused at first why a mutagenic power source would be the result of these two materials, but after I investigated the properties more thoroughly it appears to be a structurally unstable form of liquid Orichalchum. Imagine that! Regardless, this stuff is primarily useful in energy production and illegal biotech, so while it is only a means to an end, I do not intend to produce particularly large quantities of this stuff.”

Advancement Tier 3 (Quantus): “I’ve decided I shall start with the names I am giving to these catalysts, as it is easier to refer to these materials by a name than just their tier. Anyways, even with the black market additions to my alchemiter, I was barely able to produce this, it is unbelievably powerful. The amount of power it outputs is orders of magnitude higher than that of Atomium, yet it somehow disperses the energy safely across a wide spectrum of different energy types once it hits the threshold where it can store no more. Usage is a different story, the material tends to release the built up energy while being molded, making shaping them… disastrously difficult. The weapons react similarly to being used in combat, though they do not release all of it at once, this means that impacts have much greater force than one would anticipate through momentum alone. Additionally, the properties granted to the wielder by Atomium are not lost, nor is the reflective nature of orichalchum, meaning that soldiers wearing this as armor are amazingly well protected and dangerous in combat, even without an additional set of properties that I don’t understand how to harness properly yet. They have something to do with quantum fluctuation on a larger scale, resulting in a sort of macro scale uncertainty principle. It is quite confusing, but fortunately, it also confuses opponents trying to hit you, so all around I consider this a wild success.

Carbon Nanofiber: “Things have been going well, I’ve maintained a proper staff of acceptably low levels, and made quite a good deal of money off of selling my lesser materials. It took me a while to figure out what I needed to do next, as apparently the next composite requires a fabric, rather than a metal or other similar material. My research eventually led me to carbon nanofiber, a cloth made of microscopic tubes made from carbon atoms, though apparently there is another material known by the same name. Nanofiber is extremely durable, soft and just in general a useful fabric.”

Titanium: “I’ve been a little busy recently with managing my business and research, so I’m just going to put down information about the newest material. Titanium is one of the closest things prime Earths have to a proper supermetal. It is a very light metal, that is also incredibly strong. I believe they build military planes and such out of it most frequently. It’s rather lackluster as a super material, but its alchemical data lines up, so in it goes.”

Titancloth: “To follow up on my notes for Titanium, I alchemized the two materials together in accordance with the plans, and it resulted in this. A cloth with a strength matching, perhaps even surpassing, that of steel. It is very durable, withstands heat and other energy inputs, and… no, I’m afraid I can’t do it. After my previous discoveries, I can’t seem to build up a whole lot of enthusiasm for this. While it definitely has a place as a valuable material it just seems… less interesting somehow. Is something wrong with me? Have I come to expect too much out of what I’m doing? I’ll need to take some time off to evaluate what I’m doing once I find a way to create the next catalyst.”

Advancement Tier 4 (Chronosilk): I’ve decided to take some time off for personal study and reevaluation now that I’ve finished up this stage of material development, especially since this is likely the final tier of material I will be able to make. I did say that for bronzethrillium, but I have the best alchemiter upgrades available pretty much anywhere, and the alchemiter still almost exploded creating this. It is, in essence, a cloth that can be molded into new forms. It can still be made into weaponry with a bit of difficulty and a special hardening procedure, but it’s primary use so far seems to be the creation of clothing and armor. Hardened armor using this is nearly indestructible, the testing range showing that (if the previously acquired quantum features of Quantus don’t activate) the material can stand up to some of the most powerful energies that most voidic militaries can bring to bear without use of heavy artillery or orbital bombardment, and even regular, softer clothing made from it, in addition to the fascinating blue shimmering color it has, will protect you from the majority of damage that can be brought to bear against an individual on short notice. I’m debating whether I should sell it, or just keep the small quantities I am making for myself. Keeping at least some of these secrets secrets seems rather the better idea.”

The Itch: “Hm, it’s oddly hard to keep my attention away from this subject, to the point that I’ve been doing further materials research outside of this to scratch the itch. I really do want to see where this ends, the fascination that comes from seeing and learning something totally new is indeed a strong one.”

Slade: “Business has been going well, I’ve added a new array of various supermaterials to the lineup, and I have been able to set up an automatic system for mass alchemizing some of the lesser ones. But whatever the case is, I’ve been amassing these piles of money for a reason, and this research needs to be continued. Speaking of which, the black stony material of Slade, from universe designation DORF turns out to be the perfect base for the next tier of material. Slade is a “world foundation” stone, that most of any given world in the universe is built on top of. It is almost totally indestructible by conventional means, holds up to immense pressure and heat, and is extraordinarily dense. It is also almost entirely unworkable. I’ve heard of people taking chunks of it and affixing it onto poles and calling it a warhammer, but armor made of this stuff would be basically impossible to use, as would weapons, for anyone without herculean might.”

Adminium: “I’ve been slightly preoccupied with business dealings but I have finally finished up the calculations for this tier of material. Slade, an invincible superstone, paired with Adminium, an invincible superstone. Adminimum is the world foundation stone for the worlds in the universe of Minecraft, and similarly to Slade, is unbreakable by almost all conventional methods. It is somewhat lighter than Slade, but is just as hard to craft and shape. There isn’t much to say about it other than the fact that it is a hideous pattern of grey and black, I have no idea why Notch chose such a horrendous looking material to build his worlds on top of.”

Pith: “This is an extremely difficult material. It combines the near indestructibility of Adminium and Slade, into one super dense, effectively unusable material. I suppose it could potentially have use for crafting large ammunition for voidships, but other than that and possibly a building material, there isn’t really much you can do with it.”

Advancement Tier 5 (Antelium): “Well, I was correct. I can’t make this material. I attempted to run it through the alchemiter, just in case I could get it for research, but the alchemiter literally melted after a few minutes of vibrating intensely. The whole thing, just, gone. All the tiers after this one are going to be purely theoretical. I’d be upset if I didn’t have a God’s ransom in cash. As for what the calculations say? This material isn’t as difficult to work as the composite being added in, but still darn near impossible. You’d need a Ripforge or something capable of similar energy output for extended periods of time (we’re talking MONTHS) to melt it down, but if you can, you get a material that is effectively indestructible, and that’s on top of the previously added properties. It would be perfect for armor and weapons if not for its absurd weight, it would, however, be ideal for voidship plating. If only I had some way of creating the stuff…”

Daedric Steel: “Daedric Steel is an oddball, and I was lucky to find this one out, as it does not exist naturally in its home world. It takes magics from outside the realm to craft the material. Normally, daedric armor and weaponry is made by taking ebony armor from within the universe of the Daedra, and then crafting it with a number of other high power items, most notably a daedra heart. However, using certain smithing magics from outside the realm, you can do the same thing to a proper base material (usually ebony again or material with similar properties) with just the daedra heart, creating Daedric Steel, which retains the same heavy weight and immense strength as the armor and weaponry, except it can be shaped into any number of things, from ship plating to forks and spoons (though why you’d want to I have no clue) to, yes, armor and weaponry or alloying. Aside from its origins, it is actually a rather unremarkable super metal, and as such sees very little use due to the high cost to utility ratio.”

Vibranium: “Vibranium is an odd material, and has a few different forms due to the instability and variety to the Marvel Comics universes, but I found that the one from the subuniverse listed as MC-U fits quite well into calculations I am doing here. It is another powerful super material, described as “stronger than steel with a third of the weight”, but it’s other properties are what make it interesting. It absorbs interference and energy on a molecular level, allowing for easy redirection of attacks, and power channeling superior to many other materials, allowing for powerful weaponry that can cut through many other materials, or be used to build devastating energy weaponry. On a side note, I appear to have garnered a little bit of attention from the law. One of my clientele got caught in a rather bad position, and gave away one of my selling points. I will need to be more cautious in the future.”

Nth Metal: “There was an attempted bust on one of my material selling sites last week. The men working for me made a getaway, and a good one too, but I think a number of officers were badly injured or even killed in the event. This may not be the best situation. But regardless! The final material for the next stage of alchemizing has been discovered. Nth Metal, from Marvel Comics’ opposing universe label DC52. Nth Metal is one of a series of 10, based on a singular metal that is supposed to be the raw essence of creation, Nth Metal being the closest to that isn’t quite that. Nth Metal has a number of unusual properties, including gravity negation, Magic negation, and the ability to amplify a user’s inherent abilities. Most interesting is its ability to form a symbiotic relationship with its wielder, allowing them to control items made of it that they’ve bonded with with their mind to some extent, and for the metallic object to allow the user to become more durable, sometimes even so far as regenerating limbs, or being resuscitated even after total biological breakdown. It is a dangerously powerful supermetal, even before alloying.”

Nthranium: “Nthranium, a combination of Nth Metal, Vibranium and Daedric Steel. It is a powerful metal, capable of forming symbiotic relationships with wielders, powerful energy and magic dispersion properties, and a variety of other things. The most interesting property, I think, about Nthranium is that it seems to be a material very conductive towards making alchemiter upgrades, especially ones based towards stability and strength. This would be very useful towards creating ever higher tiered materials. Unfortunately, Nthranium itself is so powerful that creating it in sufficient quantities for these upgrades will be difficult and time consuming.”

Advancement Tier 6 (Antelanium): “While my engineers work on the Nthranium stability upgrades for the alchemiters, I’ve done the calculations for the next tier of material, which I have dubbed Antelanium. Antelanium is, to put it mildly, bat#$%# insane. While it is difficult to work much like Antelium, though less in the department of immense amounts of heat (though still a good deal of that), but also including that of odd tricks with magic and electromagnetic pulses to keep it softer to allow working, it can do a variety of things Antelium can’t. For instance, I think it would take star-shattering amounts of force to *dent* a proper armor set made of Antelanium, thanks to the energy negating properties of Nthranium mixed with the sheer indestructibility of the previous tiers. And if someone somehow manages to penetrate your armor and deal a critical blow that way, the armor will keep you alive and revive you afterwards. This is on top of a short range of power negation on openly hostile opponents. I honestly have... no words for this. No words. Well, I guess I do as I just gave some, but you understand the sentiment. This material is ludicrously dangerous in the right hands, even more so in the wrong ones.”

Antelium and Antelanium revisited: “This has been an adventurous few months. We discovered while trying to make the Antelium that the heat generated by the alchemiters is still immense. We had to put top of the line cooling systems into the advanced alchemiter rooms to make ANY of this stuff. But we did it. Two laboratory relocations and a few destroyed warehouses later, and we have workable quantities of both materials. We’ve contacted someone who claims to have the resources to smelt the stuff, so in return for some of it to use for their own purposes, they’re going to craft me a set of armor out of Antelanium, and another few out of Antelium for my closest guards. This is a great day for science! Or, would be, if it weren’t for the fact that apparently the IUPC considers my operations enough of a threat to be sending out agents to try and catch my operatives, despite my main base of operations being CLEARLY outside of their jurisdiction. I’d rather not declare war on one of the few organizations that still upholds fair law and order in the Multiverse, especially not when I’d lose.”

Celestial Bronze: “I made a mistake. I received back my suits of armor, and then discovered mere weeks later that the organization I had sent the excess antelium and antelanium to had used it to try and break into a major IUPC artifact vault. They were stopped, but at great cost of life. It was let slip by intelligence officers during the counter operations that we were the ones who sold them the material. We are now on the IUPC wanted list. We should be fine if we can get moving fast enough, and we’ve begun packing up the lab to move to less hostile territory. In other news my research has once again taken me to a very particular universe. The universe of designation RRPJ is seemingly focused around ancient prime Earth mythology, and has a handful of different super materials in it of varying qualities. One of the most common seems to be Celestial Bronze, worked and treated through a supernatural process involving one of the local underworld rivers. It has special properties in that in addition to great durability and a faint golden glow, it also disrupts the essence of magical and empowered beings, causing monsters native to the universe to disperse into dust, and divine beings and magi to die much more quickly. A sort of aggressive antimagic field, as opposed to a more blanket one, if you will. I can see this material being very dangerous already…”

Imperial Gold: “We’re beginning to pack up and move, but it isn’t happening fast enough. The IUPC agents are beginning to close in and if we aren’t careful they’ll catch us immediately, and that’s a fight we will not win. But anyways, Imperial Gold is also from universe RRPJ, and is effectively a more powerful version of Celestial Bronze. It disperses energies more efficiently, but also holds a certain amount of power within itself. When an item made of Imperial Gold is broken, it explodes EXTREMELY violently. Fortunately I did not have to find it out first hand, simply stories of it. Apparently it’s used for anti-god rounds in particularly disastrous wars.”

Bone Steel: “We have begun relocating, the IUPC agents are somewhat close to us, but if we do it right we can be out of here, and off to our new location without any trouble at all. Yet another metal from RRPJ, I’m beginning to detect a pattern for this composite. Bone Steel is made by taking iron, and smelting it in fire fueled partially by the bones of creatures with particular magical signatures, and then quenching it in the blood of creatures with the same magical signatures. The blood type used will grant weapons made of the metal extra lethality against that species, but it hardly matters. What matters is it has a similar power to Celestial Bronze and Imperial Gold. Whatever the final composite material is going to be, it is going to be horrendously lethal to anything with any kind of magical or otherwise supernatural power.”

Stygian Iron: “One of my employees panicked upon finding out the reason for our relocation and tried to steal some of our materials and bail. The ensuing fight damaged a mechanical apparatus and the whole thing alerted the IUPC agents to our location. I have the pilot of our getaway ship trying to lose our pursuers, but in the meanwhile I'm continuing calculations. Stygian Iron, the final material from universe RRPJ is essentially the strongest of the materials in the composite. It damages targeted energies even more effectively than the other three, and even absorbs the energies to strengthen itself, permanently weakening targets, and even preventing some forms of self revival. An incredibly dangerous material indeed.”

Apotheosis Alloy: "We made it. It took quite a while, but we have escaped the IUPC agents. Research can begin in earnest once more. For example, the latest composite. Apotheosis Alloy takes the qualities of its base materials and compounds them. Were it not for the recent upgrades to our alchemiters this would've been impossible to create, and as it was took quite some time. Weapons shaped of the metal have great power to cut through supernaturally empowered beings with ease, nullifying defensive powers and cutting almost as if through softened butter. I'm having the small amounts we created made into knives. If things ever go south a weapon like this would be of great use.”

Advancement Tier 7 (Godslayer Steel): “... It's been a while since I've made an entry. I got too cocky after I thought we'd lost the IUPC and tried to make the next tier of material. It… did not go well. The alchemiter exploded almost immediately, and the energies it gave off apparently acted as what was apparently a great beacon to our pursuers because they showed up almost immediately. I think a few others escaped, but I lost most of the materials, all my followers and a large portion of my notes. I've finally finished restoring my notes after the disaster but it has been a difficult long while as if I show up in IUPC void space I am liable to be arrested immediately. As for Godslayer Steel itself… if it were creatable by me I suspect it would be a higher tier of what has come before. Near total indestructibility and the power to kill almost any magical or otherwise supernatural being, on top of other features. Truly a powerful material.”

Tiberium: “I've begun looking around to see if I can find myself a sponsor, but in the meantime I've been having to operate out of a mobile lab I put together a while ago, moving between universes to catalogue materials and moving back to a hidden, shielded location to make things for testing purposes. Speaking of materials, the basis for the next composite is a strain of tiberium from one of the timelines of the universe designation RACAC, known as Riparius Tiberium. It is a strange green crystalline material that gathers heavy metals from its surroundings, forming it into crystals. This makes it valuable economically in its home universe, but it doesn't seem to work on super metals. Regardless, it shall be interesting to see how it interacts to make the next tier of material.”

Dalekanium: “This was an interesting adventure. I barely managed to bypass the quarantine that is placed on this universe (designation WHOMSTVE) to keep some of its more dangerous inhabitants from proliferating throughout the void, and then very nearly got myself killed trying to obtain various samples. I will need to reclaim my antelanium armor from the IUPC if I am at all able to, it would honestly make my work vastly less perilous. As it is, the chronosilk clothing I have will need to suffice. Regardless, Dalekanium does not have much to be said about it, it is a fairly standard super metal, with some extra energy reflection ability, making it good for use in sci fi settings. Other than that it is rather unremarkable.”

Crystallized Dalekanium: “This material is a little less ‘powerful’ than the others I have previously made, but it is still, in and of itself, quite strong. The forms of the tiberium and the dalekanium seem to have been fused into a sort of super-strong crystal lattice, which conducts certain kinds of magical energies, particularly enchantments, quite well. And with some extra looking into Dalekanium and its uses within its home universe, I think one could make a powerful death ray sort of weapon using this material as the base for the weapon.”

Advancement Tier 8 (Genocium): “It still pains me that I am unable to actually create these higher level materials, but calculation and theorization based on alchemical data will have to suffice. Genocium would, in a created state, act much like a form of semi-crystallized metal, so somewhat brittle, but strong enough in its bonds that such would not really matter except on absurd scales. Genocium, in addition to being particularly conductive material to energy-based weaponry, is easier to enchant with additional enchantments than previous tiers, an ability that was somewhat lost with Antelium. It is also a little bit lighter, making wearing it rather less cumbersome.”

Infinity Metal: “My travels have led me back to Minecraft, and I am rather displeased to note that the universe of Minecraft has become a much more dangerous place. Various forces have taken note of the universe’s inherent properties as a creative well, and some form of energy from the relatively recent shifts in the Multiversal paradigm has begun seeping into its being, making it more potent than before. As such, Minecraft has become a battleground for a number of dangerous factions, including, scarily enough, a few agents of the Conflict and Narrative. Regardless, the material I was able to find is a potent one, Infinity Metal gleams with every color on the spectrum visible to the human eye, and several that aren’t, and holds immense amount of power. It is unbreakable by all conventional means, and many unconventional ones as well, and imparts to weaponry and armor made out of it a sort of “cosmic energy” that empowers the wielder. A very potent base material.”

Chaotic Draconium: “Another peculiar material. Awakened Draconium is a powerful material infused with draconic magics in the universe of Minecraft, but is not actually the peak of its power. Infused with special Chaos Shards, which are crystallized essences of the powerful Chaos Dragons’ power, it becomes chaotic draconium. Most Minecraftians are incapable of surviving sustained exposure to chaotic draconium, even in a neutralized form for armor, so the only real use it sees in universe is for massively powerful Draconic Fusion Reactors to produce enormous amounts of redstone flux. However, with a few techniques from outside the native universe, Chaotic Draconium can be rendered relatively safe, and used in weaponry and armor, and even other tools, providing the strength of one of the stronger breeds of dragons to the user.”

Unobtanium: “While I am glad to be leaving the on and off warzone that is currently the universe of Minecraft, the Great Pantheon is not much better of a destination when you’re staying off the grid, given that it seems to condense many of the Multiverse’s greatest natural dangers down into one singular universe. However, my calculations led me to believe that I needed a specific material from the vaults of the gods, and fortunately, I was correct and this was not an exercise in futility. Unobtanium is a form of refined phlebotinum, and has several different potential forms based on its refinement, but the specific kind I needed was Unobtanium-521, which acts as, well, basically a standard super metal but with a lower melting point but higher physical strength. It’s not actually that interesting really, it almost feels insulting that I risked having my backside vaporized by the House of Defense trying to get some.”

Singularite: “This new composite material is very powerful, though not the most powerful I’ve had so far. It combines the powers of the previous materials together to make a sort of ‘cosmic dragon’ power, that renders the user immune to many kinds of curses and outside magics. It also enhances the power of enchantments, through a sort of high-magic conductivity feedback loop. It’s rather strange altogether, but potentially very potent.”

Advancement Tier 9 (Holifacite): “I’ve been looking around for an employer. Most of those I can contact aren’t looking for a materials engineer at the moment, even with my past track record. But I’ll get there eventually. Adventuring on my own has its own charm to it though, I must admit. It is rather… liberating not having to rely on others for power, security or general needs. Anyways, I have dubbed this new material Holifacite, and according to calculations, it is just as unbelievably powerful as one would expect. The conductivity feedback loop is present much the same as it is in Singularite, but due to the energy buildup and release properties of previous tiers of material, can unleash cataclysmic levels of power when used offensively, and vastly empowers the strength of enchantments placed upon it. It also applies an extra level of curse and magic resistance, essentially, you are impervious, and can shatter… I don’t think there’s an appropriately large object for this comparison. The point is, harmful magic can’t touch you without ludicrous power backing it up, positive magic gets amplified to unbelievable levels.”

Star Metal: “To begin this notation I shall give a quick update on my standing with regards to obtaining a sponsor, in that my search is going very poorly. My search got off to a rather unfortunate beginning when my first ‘potential sponsor’ turned out to be a group of opportunistic treasure hunters who tried to apprehend me and turn me into the authorities in IUPC voidspace. While I was able to elude their capture quite easily, I made the mistake of leaving several of their number alive, and apparently they have begun circulating rumors that I’m not to be trusted. As such, finding a sponsor has been rather… difficult. However, progress marches onwards, and so does my research. As such, I already know one of the materials of the next composite. It is a rather unusual in that some groups define it as a stock fantasy super metal, but others consider it disparate enough between its incarnations to not consider a singular type of metal. Whatever the case, Star Metal is very much like other stock fantasy metals in all regards but one. Star Metal holds an impossibly sharp edge. A properly sharpened blade of Star Metal can cut through even suits of armor made from other super materials with ease, almost without slowing, even in lighter weapons. There doesn’t seem to be any application of extra energy, magical or otherwise. It just… severs things completely cleanly. I am interested to see where this leads.”

Livingwood: “This next material is also quite peculiar. Livingwood, found in a small handful of different fantasy worlds, of which I was fortunate enough to already know one, is a type of wood that has strength comparable to untempered iron, but that is not what makes it interesting. What does make it interesting is that tools, weapons or even armor made of Livingwood will repair itself when exposed to light. The stronger the light, the faster the reparation, up until the point that the heat and energy ignites the armor of course.”

Manasteel: “Manasteel is a material that can be found in slight variations and under different names in a number of different worlds. It shares many properties with normal steel, but, as seems to be the running theme of the materials for this composite, has a singular unique feature to it. Manasteel increases in strength and durability when in the presence of an ambient magical field, and does so over time, the more magical energy it absorbs, the stronger it becomes. It’s greatest point of strength is somewhere above that of adamantine, but not by much, meaning that it usually sees use in machines built to clean up magical mishaps as opposed to regular super material usage. Ah, and before I forget, I have been contacted by an individual claiming to represent the Power Nullification Initiative, a group I have never heard of before. They have stated that they are interested in my work, and would like to talk to me about a job offer. While I have received a few other offers recently, none of them have really gone anywhere, but this one actually seems rather promising. Updates will continue as they come.”

Blightsteel: “The talks with PNI are going quite well. We’ve discussed back and forth, and I delivered some of my credentials with previous work to them. They seem rather excited to have my interest like this, and though we are still discussing details, this may be it! But there are still materials to be researched, and I have figured out the fourth and final submaterial for this step. My research took me to another particularly dangerous universe, frequently referred to as The Gathering. The material in question that was needed is called Blightsteel, it is an alloy of Darksteel which, though not well known due to most travelers’ reluctance to go anywhere near The Gathering, is one of the strongest base-universe metals known to me. Blightsteel retains that same immense strength, and adds with it another, more disconcerting effect. Blightsteel wears away at the power of things that come into conflict with it. Steel becomes rusty and pitted, magic weakens and fades, even energy weapons will lose their spark when brought to bear against blightsteel armaments, and the same effect is achieved by using blightsteel offensively. This makes Blightsteel nearly useless for industrial purposes, but as a weapon, or for defensive means, it is invaluable.”

Manacurse Alloy: “The talks have gone successfully! The Initiative has offered me… basically everything I could hope for, more than I would normally even be comfortable asking. In return they only ask for access to my materials research, and for my consultation on other projects. To land the job, all I need now is to organize my notes and send them a copy. And hopefully, I’ll even have the next tier of material ready. Speaking of materials however, I have calculated out the properties of the next composite, Manacurse Alloy. Manacurse Alloy is very strong, nearly as strong as its base component Blightsteel, but grows to be even stronger given prolonged exposure to passive mana fields, and even active magical usage, if directly pointed, meaning that it will absorb some of the power of incoming magic-based attacks to strengthen itself. At full strength, it’d be one of the most durable metals in the known Multiverse, and that’s even without its regenerative properties. It acts almost like a living organism sometimes, objects made of it repairing themselves with the stored mana, even maintaining their edge which, much as you would expect given the star metal component, are unbelievably sharp, and all of these properties, as well as the still maintained ‘offensive decay’ ability, grow more powerful the more magical energy that is absorbed.”

Advancement Tier 10 (Gehennium): “I am writing this while on my way to my new research post. I shut down my old lab, but left it where I can find it, in case something goes wrong, and everything seems to be properly in order on my way there. The interior of this shuttle alone must be worth more than my old lab was, they must be very invested in the material research I am providing to them. Regardless, I need to put down my notes on the most recent tier of material; Gehennium. This material is roughly as strong upon creation as Holifacite, but with the mana absorption ability, fueled by the previous tiers’ power feedback loop, it quickly strengthens to unbelievable levels, additionally, the mana absorption prevents most of the previous material’s penchant for releasing large amounts of energy to keep itself stable, meaning that Gehennium can actually be used for stealth missions without immediately giving yourself away to every type of sensor within a mile of yourself. The material regenerates itself amazingly fast, such that even if your opponent managed to land a blow powerful enough to damage your armor, it would be effectively immediately undone, and the manacurse alloy’s ability to degrade attackers and defenders means that they would find it incredibly difficult to keep up their assault. This is of course, on top of previous accumulated powers, including but not limited to: quantum instability defenses, curse resistance, enchantment boosting, and supernatural power disruption, pretty much all of which are likewise empowered by the material’s self-feeding.”

Burning Brass: “It has been an interesting first week learning my way around the facility. It appears that there are a small number of coworkers who have been hired for similar purposes to me, and one of them is even an old colleague of mine from my days before this bizarre quest of mine. There is also a lady of some kind of immortal lineage that appears to be one of those “sharp young minds”, with new insights and such. The last of the three apparently isn’t too happy to be working with me on account of my reputation in certain circles after the IUPC incident. Whatever the case, the facilities are top notch, and very conducive to working on the material research and application. Not to mention, my cohorts were very quick to catch on when I began explaining my own reasons for being here, and though they have their own projects that they’ve been assigned, are all willing to assist, and have done so quite admirably, to the point that I have already completed a lot of the calculations needed for the next material. The first of the submaterials is, for example, a metal called Burning Brass. It is a strange yellowish metal that is very warm to the touch, and when stimulated with electricity or magic, releases a wave of fire magic. It is fairly strong besides, and requires special techniques to lower its melting point in order to smelt it, any sort of tool or weapon expected to be used in extremely high temperatures, or alternatively in low temperatures, could be built of this and operate almost flawlessly.”

Frozen Iron: “A further update, the Initiative has been setting up a large alchemy apparatus, something to specifications I didn’t even know was possible! It is still being constructed, but in the meanwhile, research is moving forward in many directions. Just as the others helped me, I have lent my insight on a number of other things, ranging from metaphysics to magictech and beyond. This really is a fascinating job, I am quite pleased with my place here. As for material progression, the next one in the listing is called Frozen Iron, and produces an aura of cold that will, given enough time, reduce the temperature of the air around it to roughly one hundred degrees below zero, in Celsius by “Earth standard” reckoning. However, the colder the air around it, the less pronounced the chilling effect becomes, the higher the surrounding temperature, the faster it cools the surrounding area. However, this effect apparently strains the metal, as if the temperature rises high enough, the Frozen Iron will begin to disintegrate, but no amount of time below that threshold will weaken the metal. The metal is good for a number of esoteric uses. It is functional in temperatures that force most other materials to brittleness, and maintains those temperatures by itself. Though I doubt it has much application on its own, it could perhaps be used in other ways.”

Charged Copper: “I was brought in for materials consultation today with a team of engineers who asked for my opinions on a variety of different things, as well as the potential applications of the current results of my work on the Ultimate Material. It went quite well I believe, though they seemed rather overly interested in military aspects. I suppose that an organization like this having vested interests in military tech is not surprising, but the fact that they would try to be discreet about it to their own employees is rather disconcerting. Work is continuing onwards, and I believe I have the last of the submaterials required for the current tier. Charged Copper, it is an orangey-green metal that crackles with electrical power. It is rather difficult to use, on account of outputting sparks of electricity at all times, and the more of it that is concentrated in one place, the stronger the electrical discharges are. Perhaps it could be used as a power source if there is a way to stop the discharges from extending outwards, or perhaps to harness them in a generator. Attempts on that side of things have proved rather difficult.”

Vorticite: “I am in awe. They did a test run of the full power alchemy workshop, and began by trying out some of my older material recipes, notably, they successfully created specimens of Godslayer Steel and even some Genocium before the head engineer said to shut the whole thing down so that they could do additional calibrations. I am elated, actual testing of these materials can be done! This is fantastic! Of course, we can’t get lazy just because we’ve made some progress, elsewhere, calculations have properly been done regarding the combination material using the three submaterials, which we have dubbed ‘Vorticite’. Vorticite combines the three opposing elemental properties rather strangely, creating something of a vortex of power around the user, allowing them to harness the three energies within and unleash them against foes. Of course, said vortex plays havoc with temperatures and electronics near the wielder unless they take care to dampen the effect, so it isn’t perfect, but it is a very powerful material in its own right.”

Advancement Tier 11 (Cortite): Work continues onwards, though there is not a particularly large amount of details to report, as things have been continuing along extremely smoothly even despite the continued work on the alchemy station. Apparently they have run into a few roadblocks that they need to try and work around before it will all work. As for the next step towards the Ultimate Material itself, today we finished the calculations for Cortite, the result of Gehennium with Vorticite. The Vorticite doesn’t seem to empower any of the strengths of Gehennium in a straightforward manner, instead, three new major abilities seem to have manifested. First, large enough quantities of it seem to form a sort of… energy vortex around them when left alone, causing energy to swirl and feed into itself, even stuff that doesn’t directly draw upon the self empowering metal itself. Second, according to the calculations, it causes internal power fluctuations of a rather peculiar manner. Different kinds of energy being stored or released by the metal seem to change dominance in relation to each other, making attempting to shield against the powers its wielder brings to bear, or tracking a combatant using them, requires you to spread your resources thin between all the possible spectrums instead of just a select few. Finally and most predictably, fire, ice, and lightning magics and energies come fully within the domain of someone equipped with large enough quantities of Cortite. To give an example of scope, we used a new simulation software our hosts have provided us, and it seems it would be entirely within reason for a fully equipped Cortite wielder to take a star, turn it entirely into electrical energy, and throw that at their opponent without missing a beat.”

Clockwork Brass: “Work has been continuing quite well, and I’ve even had time for socializing with the other three I am working with. It’s been going quite well honestly, the younger lady (by the name of Lothrien, apparently she’s elvish. I suppose I should give the names of all of my friends here, as they’ve all been quite helpful towards the work and it seems we shall be working together for quite some time. Lothrien is the youngest of our group, Cole is the name of my old colleague, and Maria is the one who began with a less than positive attitude towards me though we get along much better now after a few drinks and conversations.) was the one who made the breakthrough this time. The rest of us were all rather stumped with where we had to go next, until she figured out the time based aspects of the material we were looking for. It was very quick after that. The base material in question is Clockwork Brass, a peculiar alloy forged using a few lesser known metals from a couple of different universes. It isn’t a particularly strong metal physically speaking, comparable to copper despite what the name of it implies. It’s true power lies in its less natural abilities, specifically a strange form of timeline extradition. While it interacts with events properly in the course of time, it is mostly unaffected by timeline shifts and other such phenomena. Most of the time it is used for constructing time artifacts, reality anchors, and items used to track alterations to the timestream. Additionally, power channeled through it can be used to form some degree of control over the flow of time, though it usually takes large amounts of power.”

Space Gloss: “We had a surprisingly easy time of it with acquiring this material, Maria apparently worked extensively with temporal anomalies previously in her career, and picked out the material we needed very quickly. Apparently she mixes it with her beauty products to give herself special powers for use throughout the day in the lab. The material in question is something from a smaller side universe on the fringes of Paradox Space labeled 4W77-RPLJ though it can be found elsewhere as well. Space Gloss is a semi-solid almost slimelike material that holds an appearance much like looking into the depths of a starry night sky, and possess space warping capabilities. Those who come into contact with it gain these powers somewhat, and there are some individuals who produce it naturally, which allows them to use it in a much larger variety of ways. According to Maria it also has a sort of parasitic component to it, and if it enters the bloodstream of someone it will, depending on their fortitude, kill them very quickly and painfully, or slowly take over the body, just as painfully but for longer, changing their physiology such that it produces and controls space gloss, as well as granting advanced space distortion abilities. On a side note, I am beginning to suspect that our employer is not putting as much effort into completing the alchemical station as they claim they are. It has been quite a while, and no noticeable progress has been made on the construction. While I understand that the accommodations they are providing us aren’t cheap, the alchemical equipment is quite necessary for the higher level materials testing.”

Temporal Brass: “We have completed the calculations for the newest composite, which we have dubbed Temporal Brass. Temporal Brass holds the same reddish tint as Clockwork Brass, but has little twinkling lights on it similar to stars similar to the Space Gloss. The material is also absurdly powerful as we accidentally created a micro-singularity within Lab 5 while testing its properties and had to make an entirely new batch, as well as wait for the relevant equipment to be replaced. Temporal Brass itself gives the wielder access to manipulation of the space-time continuum as a “whole”. The material is rather unstable however, and attempting to thread too much energy through it, or doing so without proper channeling and direction, will cause it to collapse in on itself in any number of interesting and detrimental ways, most of them resulting in the creation of at least small amounts of paradox energy. We’ve stopped testing with it for the time being.”

Advancement Tier 12 (Continuitite): “Pardon me for the breach of formality but I need some place to air my grievances. Apparently our employers are worried about a “security breach” of some kind, and have placed cameras in all of our rooms, and then confiscated some of our personal notes. I am beginning to wonder whether or not taking this job was a good idea. At the very least, I suppose I should discuss with the others before making a decision. Whatever the case, it is becoming rather clear that they have more interest in our research than in us, though I suppose that is par for the course. Most organizations aren’t usually so blunt about it however. Whatever, we parsed the calculations for the next tier towards the Ultimate Material, now titled Continuitite. To put it simply, this material is extremely dangerous, even by previously established standards. The energy that the material feeds itself with is at this stage capable of manipulating the space time continuum in a very direct fashion, though only within short range, targeting the personal timeline of themselves and others nearby, though spatial distortion and teleportation is given much more range and potentiality. Continuitite is slightly weaker physically than Cortite, though that is much the same as saying that dropping a 95 story skyscraper on someone is less harmful than dropping a 100 story skyscraper on them. While technically true, it makes no real difference, and, to continue an already lackluster metaphor, the 95 story skyscraper is made of starfire so despite there technically being less building, it still isn’t going to end any better for the victim of skyscraper 95 than skyscraper 100. Essentially, in order to kill someone wearing Continuitite armor, you would need the capacity to manipulate space and time of your own accord, and very strongly. Alternatively I suppose a powerful enough attack could do it, but you’d be throwing enough matter and energy at them in the process to completely distort spacetime anyways in such a case.”

Roiling Flesh: “Something is not right here. Though, I suppose to explain that statement I must give information on the most recently discovered material. Roiling Flesh, a peculiar substance most notable for being the most common form of material that the majority of eldritch Void creatures are composed of. It has an odd tendency to elevate itself upwards in spatial and temporal dimensions under circumstances, and when affixed to other portions of Roiling Flesh, will adjust itself to match the properties of the greater whole. It also emits what many groups refer to as a “passive memetic cognitohazard”, and handling it unshielded tends to result in extreme mental degradation. It has a number of other properties, though none of them are consistent between all the “phases” that it can take, and almost none of said properties are pleasant by any metric. Roiling flesh is not used very often, almost all voidic coalitions classify it as unprocessable hazardous waste, and the only times it has been reliably used for specific purposes has been in extremely dangerous bio-weaponry, all classes of which have been outlawed under the vast majority of war treatises. This, in turn, worries me in regards to the ease with which the PNI was able to procure some for us, as well as the equipment needed to safely run tests on it. It is a… useful step forward I suppose, but a very disconcerting one.”

Brilliant Souls: “There is definitely something wrong. Wrong enough that Maria refuses to continue with the work on the material, and is seriously considering terminating her contract here. You see, the next sub material we have here is Brilliant Souls. Now, soul material is interesting, as souls function differently depending on what universe you have spent an extended stay in most recently (though not all universes which have things called souls within their boundaries actually use real souls.) but have a mostly consistent existence across a very large part of reality. Souls can usually be separated into a few different classes, though variants are fairly common. There are 5 of the so-called “main classes”; Degraded Souls, which are usually the product of extensive damage to a person’s soul from whatever means, be it psychological abuse, self abuse, or just offensive soul magics. Dull Souls, which are technically the most common type of soul but only because the majority of unintelligent animals will gravitate towards having these, only extremely worn down and hopeless individuals will possess these of themselves. Glowing Souls, which are the most common type of soul among people, representing your standard class of person, people who live their lives, go to work, spend time with friends, but never do too much special. Gleaming Souls, which are much rarer and show a class above that of weaker souls, usually only held by people who are somehow a cut above the rest, passionate, skilled, or often just supernaturally inclined in some fashion. And finally Brilliant Souls, which are ripped straight out of the most exemplary of individuals, heroes, great leaders and great forces for good or evil within the cosmos. To claim and use any of these for scientific or magical methods is considered a crime against sapience by most orders, but brilliant souls highest above all, as the gleaming power of these souls ties them directly to their owner, making them more difficult to take and utilize, but also weakening or even entirely obliterating their original owner upon use. This does not deter everyone, however, as brilliant souls hold enormous power, allowing them to be used as fuel, conduits or amplifiers for all manner of energies. Artificial replacements for all lower classes of soul have been and are manufactured, but I am quite certain that despite our employer’s protests, these are the real deal.”

Twisted Essence: “I have two pieces of rather disturbing news to deliver today. The first ties to the new combined material. Using Roiling Flesh or Brilliant Souls individually is a horrible crime against reality and sapience in general. Using them together has probably damned our consciousnesses to Limbo for all eternity, or worse. After further material testing we determined that roiling flesh can, once tempered through certain processes, be used as a sort of bio-augment to machinery, or even other biomechanical apparatuses, allowing them to somewhat manipulate higher spatial dimensions or otherwise disobey standard laws of physics. The cognitohazardous effect remains however, limiting its use. Brilliant souls can be used as power sources, and such is frequently done by necromancers who manage to get their hands on them. Brilliant souls have even been shown to be capable of manipulating basic physical laws similarly to roiling flesh. Combined together alchemically, it creates Twisted Essence, a strangely pulsing not-quite-solid mass of pseudo-energetic goop that flickers with dark light. Twisted Essence causes a sort of short-range omnidirectional suspension of physical functionality. It is rather unpredictable in measure, and is frequently rather destructive when matter and energy hit the border area between inside and outside those realms too hard, but with proper application of other reality-bending technologies, the exact effects can be channeled and even defined. Aside from apparently being a material allowing for locational reality warping, it has two major effects. First of all, it bypasses almost all forms of reality anchoring known to us and our employers. There are a few less-used techniques and devices that work to mitigate its effects, and our calculations state that regular reality warping of high enough power should be able to override it anyways, but having to actively maintain a specific form of reality tends to be rather difficult. The second effect is that the cognitohazardous properties of roiling flesh appear to have… mutated. In addition to threatening unshielded individuals with madness, unshielded individuals are also rendered vulnerable to an extremely dangerous and unpleasant form of injury known as “soul shredding” which is exactly what one would expect, intense, painful, and irreversible damage to ones soul, and done in such a way that it tends to damage one’s psyche, personal abilities, and other attributes that have connections to your soul. This brings me to the first of my disturbing pieces of news. When we attempted to convince our employers to decommission the material they merely brushed us aside. They do not seem to be concerned with how utterly vile the thing we have created is, and are urging us to carry onwards. Our second piece of news may or may not be related. Maria is gone from the compound. Her apartments have been cleaned out and closed down, and any inquiries as to her whereabouts are met with ‘She violated her contract, and her employment has been terminated’ and nothing more. It is definitely time for us to leave, but it needs to be done discreetly. In the very probably case that our employers don’t intend to let us just leave, I need to keep my goal under wraps until the very last minute.”

Advancement Tier 13 (Blasphemer’s Alloy): “I have something to report, though once again, I shall be doing so after I give the newest material. Labeled Blasphemer’s Alloy by a suggestion from Cole, the next tier of material holds effectively all of the properties of Continuitite, while also adding in the strength of the Twisted Essence. The owner is fully protected against soul-based offensives, and can launch some soul-based attacks of their own though they are, for the most part, quite blunt and unrefined in nature. It would provide awareness of and protection against multi-dimensional attacks, and with enough work and practice, potentially even enable the wielder to perform their own. The manifold internal structure of the material is self-stabilizing in a similar way to how souls tend to repair themselves if not degraded below certain points, meaning that impurities introduced during smelting will be corrected if the item is left alone for long enough, and of course, the internal soul power causes it to charge up faster and to an even greater maximum than Continuitite. Oh yes, it still bypasses reality anchoring to apply itself. A fully attuned wielder would be able to cause the effects at will, and in a manipulable fashion. Though it isn’t true reality warping and therefore not quite as versatile, it is much harder to block or disable, and functions well enough for many combat and personal purposes. Interestingly, it seems that the damaging aura doesn’t manifest naturally, and has to be willed into activity by a wielder or user, though it will remain active without their input if they so require. Now, that’s done with, I am now completely certain that our employer does not have our best interests in mind. Additionally, I am worried that we are running out of time. Earlier this week, the lab was rocked by some kind of shockwave and the sound of a distant explosion. The power fluctuated, and a number of small locational anomalies cropped up temporarily. Our employers said they’d had a malfunction on one of the factory floors, but I had the presence of mind to quickly recalibrate a few of our measurement tools, and I know exactly what caused it. The alchemical apparatus upgrades we’re waiting on aren’t going to be completed, because they already were somewhere else. The ‘malfunction’ was them attempting to create Continuitite elsewhere in the compound.”

A Revelation: “It has been a bit longer than I would like since I last wrote in here. Time is running out for me, the compound is in a sort of lockdown, and I am down to one coworker. I have not had the opportunity to write my thoughts in a safe space for a good deal of time on account of stricter security measures since the particular event that dwindled our number to two. There was, in fact, a security breach. Cole had become suspicious of the so-called ‘Power Nullification Initiative’ well before the rest of us did, and did a little looking around, including a number of activities most certainly breaching the terms of our contract. I am very grateful he did so, because among those activities was breaking his way into the wider facility mainframe. However, a few days ago he tripped alarms of some kind and brought the guards down on him before he was ready to try and make a getaway. The whole compound went into lockdown, and he broke into all three still inhabited personal quarters. Most particularly among those is mine, where he stole a few less important notepads and items (none of which have been returned by our ‘employers’ I should note), and discretely left a small data package, before leaving and presumably being apprehended and killed by the PNI. The data package has a lot of interesting tech and magic in it, enough that it keeps information I need secured against even the place I’m in now, not to mention having the passcodes and information I need to continue Cole’s work of digging out secrets and information to make an escape. Speaking of which, there is no such thing as the Power Nullification Initiative. All of the internal files are labeled such to reveal the true nature of those who caught us like flies in a honeytrap. Project Nexus Intelligence. A branch of one of the most vilified and dangerous organizations to exist in the Void, known for reappearing some time after any given defeat to wreak havoc in the multiverse once more, almost like clockwork. They raise massive armies seemingly from nowhere, equip them with devastating weaponry, and wash forth like a plague of locusts, looting and destroying all worlds within their path until some team of heroes or coalition of empires puts a stop to them, sending them underground again. And me and Lothrien are trapped in one of their facilities. I’m doing my best to see what I can do about getting me, and hopefully Lothrien, out of here. Perhaps do some damage on my way out, but I don’t know how much time I have.

Draconium: “I do not have a lot to update in terms of my escape progress, I am still digging deeper into the system, taking files, making note of security systems, and trying to learn everything I can. Instead, I shall be continuing with material analysis. The first part of the next composite material is Draconium. A metal that is incredibly rare, even within the Void. It is nearly impossible to find, and even harder to fabricate, because the process requires the distilling and crystallizing of raw oblivion energy, before stasizing it into a stable physical object. It requires enormous energy expenditures to do, as well as equipment and techniques that I don’t think any currently active organizations possess. This came to my advantage, as it put research on hold while our employers tried to scrape together enough for us to run tests on, giving me more time to work on the escape plan. But that’s a digression, Draconium is an insanely strong metal. Some less well versed folks call it the super metal to end all super metals, and it can be understood why. Pure Draconium can withstand universe-shattering blasts, and resonates with and reflects destructive energies, functioning as an attack reflector in armor and a very efficient amplifier in weaponry. To give an idea of the extent of its power, properly shaped Draconium gear is more durable than Holifacite, and perhaps even a number of higher tiers within this spiral of insane power I’ve discovered on my way towards the Ultimate Material. Notably among that, Draconium is effectively invulnerable to any and all kinds of unholy and oblivion magics, something even the previous tier materials can’t provide full protection against. It doesn’t, however, provide actual oblivion powers, merely protection against them.”

Divinium: “I have discovered more about Project Nexus. There appears to be some kind of central head figure behind its operation that has never surfaced before, and it is possible that defeating this figure could perhaps deal a more lasting blow to the organization, though who, what, or where said figure is does not seem to be information present anywhere in the facility’s files. Pity. Their modus operandi is on much easier display however, it appears that their massive armies from nowhere are created through use of special improbability drive technology mixed with mass cloning. Something that can be quite easily traced, and put down before it gets out of hand. If I make it out of this facility, this information is going on general broadcast, as while it won’t stop Project Nexus, it will make their lives a good deal harder. On the work side of things, we know the other part to the next composite. Divinium is effectively the polar opposite of Draconium, crafted and forged using divine creative energies to make an ultra strong metal, which is extremely reactive (as opposed to Draconium’s immense stability) and supplies and propagates energy instead of amplifying it. Divinium is primarily used in holy weaponry of assorted kinds, particularly because it picks up an ‘ideal’ during the process of its creation from whoever makes it. Anyone the forged item deems unworthy is extremely liable to be smitten by divine energy, but anyone who can wield it without being smitten will be able to wield those same divine energies as if it were an extension of their own will. A regular unaltered human wearing a full suit of sympathetic divinium armor can be considered equivalent in threat level to a fully powered angry godling of a major pantheon.”

Mythogaum: “Today I’m going to start with the new material, and then speak of what we’re doing, as the time is very nearly here. The composite material is, surprisingly enough, another alloy which already exists, the first I’ve found in quite some time. Normally, attempting to smelt Draconium and Divinium together ends catastrophically. One is destructive oblivion energies forged in such a way to maintain the form of something else against all opposition, and the other is divine creation energies forged into a weapon of great devastation. Mix them together improperly and you will do more than just singe your eyebrows. Once upon a time, however, a very long time ago, before most of the current orders of the Multiverse had even been dreamt of, there was a mighty empire that discovered a way to merge the two into something even greater. Very limited quantities of the mythical alloy were created and smelted, and the technique was lost when the empire fell to the ravages of time, but every so often a piece of Mythogaum weaponry or armor is discovered, and subsequently fought over. Mythogaum combines all the best attributes of both metals. It is unbelievably stable and strong, it both generates and amplifies energy and magic, it defends against almost all forms of oblivion and creation powers, and it doesn’t even smite heathens for touching it. It does have one interesting twist however, the creation magics within the Divinium are not left untouched by the fusion, mixing somewhat with the oblivion powers within the Draconium somewhat creating a different energy that is extraordinarily rare. Rare enough that I’ve never encountered it in person myself (even now, I’m not risking alchemizing this until we’re away from the compound). This new magical energy is sometimes called “Grey Magic”, or sometimes “False Twilight”, retaining properties of both creation and oblivion magic. Mythogaum is, however, a weapons material first and foremost, and as such the Grey Magic it has access to is much more limited in scope and can only really be practiced in directly offensive ways, though it is only slightly less dangerous for this. As for escape plans… I have finally talked with Lothrien. She agreed immediately, it seems she has no intention to stay here longer than she has to, she almost cried with relief when I asked her even. As such, we are putting our final preparations into place. In less than an hour, we will begin leaving, and nothing that the Nexus has ready to bring to bear against us will stop us from doing so.”

Advancement Tier 14 (Cerberium): “It has been a longer few days and nights. I would give an overview of what we had to do to escape, but I suppose a few minor details should suffice, as I am exhausted, and would much rather be getting back to work on the thing I was there for in the first place before PNI turned out to be evil. Using Cole’s information, I inserted a mixed trojan into the systems of the facility. There were a large number of automated defense systems and robotic guards, to prevent biological and chemical weaponry from being too effective, but their cybersecurity was not properly up to the task of defending against an attack from within, so when I reversed the permissions, everything started going up in flames rather fast. Additionally, I’d spent the week before reprogramming a specific group of working microbots to restructure their primary alchemy bay so that it could be jettisoned off into the surrounding voidspace as soon as we got to it. Both of these parts worked quite well. What didn’t work quite so well was getting there, as one of their overseers was on site to deal with another project on the station, and intercepted us on the way there. Neither me nor Lothrien are fighters, and had Lothrien not pulled out some leftover Space Gloss from our time testing with it, I don’t think we’d have escaped at all. As it is, I am the proud(?) owner of a brand new prosthetic leg. Lothrien is… well, Lothrien is experiencing what happens when you get a supernatural parasitic material in your bloodstream. The pain comes and goes, but at present we’re having to use temporal anchors to keep her from accidentally damaging lab equipment until she can get the powers she’s gaining under control. According to the old notes we have from Maria, she’ll be okay eventually. Until then though, I’m having to alternate between playing bedside physician and rounding up our notes and doing calculations. Fortunately, we made it back to my old base. It was right where I left it before leaving for the ill-fated job, and with the newly-hijacked crew of worker bots, it has been fully renovated to include the various facilities and workspaces I stole the blueprints and details for, including the massive alchemy apparatus which I am still tweaking and refining. I don’t know how much further into my research these new resources will get me, but they will definitely be useful, and I have to admit I don’t mind having company, even if said company spends most of her time bedridden at the moment. Oh yes! Before I forget, I have done most (though not quite all) of the calculations needed for the next tier of material, adding together Blasphemer’s Alloy with Mythogaum. The resultant material has been dubbed Cerberium and only seems to add a couple of new features, three in fact, all of which are quite easily summed up. First, Cerberium provides immunity to oblivion and creation energies, some of the only powers capable of properly stopping a warrior fully equipped with Blasphemer’s Alloy gear. Second, Cerberium is entire orders of magnitude stronger than anything that came before it. If there’s anything currently active in the Multiverse that could hit hard enough to damage it using physical force alone, no matter what source, I haven’t heard of it. Well, Godmodders and Descendants I suppose, but they tend to be special cases anyways. Third and final: Cerberium gives its wielder access to Grey Magic, and to a much less limited extent than Mythogaum does, though still not full in its spectrum. I leave it to your imagination to conclude what level of power this leaves Cerberium at, considering that of previous tiers.”

Mana Crystal Singularity: “It has been a while since my last entry yet again. Not because things have been eventful, in fact, rather the contrary. I had gotten used to being able to rely on others for assistance with the alchemical calculations, and now that I don’t, I have had to work on catching me knowledge up to where it would have been by now, not to mention I am now having to cope with having roughly a third the brainpower I did the last time I was trying to find my starting point. Between that and helping Lothrien through the final stages of her transformation it took me quite a while to get the latest material, but Lothrien is sleeping right now, I have everything I need calculated out for the moment, and I know the first material for the next composite. A Mana Crystal Singularity is not a gravitational singularity and does not gain its unique powers by virtue of matter or size. A Mana Crystal singularity is so called because of its ability to store more mana in a singular space than should be physically possible by taking a crystalline mana structure and fractalizing its internal pathways. This doesn’t generate mana, but it prevents power decay and allows one to store a theoretically infinite amount of mana (though in practice the actual amount tends to be limited at some point by the natural mana flow of the universe the singularity has spent an extended amount of time in most recently, and due to background interference in the natural energy flow, they can’t be constructed out in the Void without exponentially higher energy cost.). Mana Crystal Singularities also have a notably alchemical oddity to them; alchemical results of singularities are almost always explosively unstable, regardless of if inputted while charged or empty, and that is assuming one has a strong enough alchemiter to alchemize the result in the first place. I do, and also have the blueprints and resources to make backups of said alchemiter so if something does go wrong it won’t be more than a setback. Lucky me.”

Assortment of Elemental Gems: “Lothrien is awake again, or, was. She’s very fatigued still and spends most of her time sleeping, though how much is going down little by little. Hopefully she’ll be alright soon. I have also figured out the next alchemization, but interestingly, it seems to be another ‘object’, or rather, ‘collection of objects’. The alchemiter’s application of the ‘grouped item’ label is very sporadic and confusing honestly and that resulted in locating this ‘material’ being quite a bit harder. It turns out it required a collection of elementally infused gems, with at least three from each of the classical elements, one or more from most of the remaining primary elements, plus others from various other elements, though it doesn’t seem to matter which elements, it’ll still give you the same alchemical data. Interestingly if you have a type of gem for all of the primary elements, as opposed to just most of them, the alchemiter stops recognizing it as a grouped object, which feels rather counterintuitive. Perhaps once I’m done with my research into the ultimate material I could try my hand at figuring out how the ‘grouped items’ functionality works. As for the ‘material’ itself, there’s not much to say about these. Properly cut gemstones hold elemental magics quite easily, and can be enchanted to collect and utilize a specific kind of it. Nothing more to it than that.”

Fabric of Reality: “Lothrien finally woke up fully coherent, and she’s feeling much better, though still a little achy sometimes. She’s gained full control over her powers, and as a result seems to have forgotten that doors or hallways exist. She’s still rather sensitive about the new coloration to her skin but other than that has adjusted quite quickly and has resumed helping me with my research. This was immensely useful because I got hung up on a similar point to something that brought my work to a grinding halt near the beginning of my work. The final base material for the latest composite is isolated fabric of reality, a term for the basic… ‘stuff’ that most universes seem to be constructed out of. That the rules of that universe are printed on and woven out of, so to speak. Individual units are also extremely small, and attempting to isolate a large enough chunk of it to actually use in anything tends to result in it folding up on itself trying to create a new universe out of what’s written on it, and then collapsing and decaying due to not having enough stuff in it to keep it stable. Same problem I ran into with the Quantum Foam basically, and Lothrien was going over my past notes for potential clues and figured out straight away that our problem was something like that. So now we have alchemical data for the Fabric of Reality, and are ready to move onwards.”

Infinite Magic Crystal: “We’ve calculated out and even alchemized the next composite, and decided to set the alchemiter station to work making some of the other materials for later use in the meantime. This composite is actually a real creation of a theoretical item known as an infinite magic crystal, the logical conclusion of mana singularity tech, capable of actually holding potentially infinite mana. Normally, however, doing such a thing would put any user in extreme danger, as vast reserves of stored mana tend to ‘leak’ when used, causing the user to release more mana than intended if not properly accounted for, and setting a sort of ‘minimum mana usage’. The Infinite Magic Crystal solves that by having several thresholds limiting the release of magic. This has the downside of only letting you use so much at once, but it means you won’t accidentally blow up your universe if you’ve stored too much in your travels. Additionally, you can keep the flow constant, meaning if you need larger amounts at once for a larger project, you can transfer magical energy over to another container built for those purposes. Or if you’re us you can just make more infinite magic crystal and graft it together, as the output limitation seems to be dictated by the size of the container.”

Advancement Tier 15 (Elenium): “The most recently calculated tiered material has been, uh, calculated. Suddenly I wish I was writing this in pencil as opposed to pen… Regardless, Elenium, as we have dubbed it, has one main power gain compared to that of Cerberium; it does not seem to have a regular upper limit to its power level, and though it maintains the ‘power expenditure limit’ that limit is still roughly around that of Cerberium, and unlike Cerberium, if charged for long enough would be capable of operating at “full capacity” effectively indefinitely. In other news, since the alchemiter isn’t much use while working with materials we can’t alchemize, we’ve set up a few more alchemiter bays and set them all to work on alchemizing various items, even including a bit of Cortite, though that takes awhile to get significant quantities created. The current setup doesn’t seem to be capable of manufacturing anything more powerful than that, but I have a few possible ideas on maybe upgrading to more. Though to be fair for the moment we don’t really need it. I doubt we will come into conflict with anyone capable of dealing with what we have.”

Lifestone: “Me and Lothrien went out for the first time in a good while. Lothrien was starting to get a little anxious without having other people to talk to, and the next material we figured out was something we had to go out to retrieve anyways. To that end, we beefed up our personal equipment properly, with Gehennium and Cortite weaponry and armor, a small voidship with Antelanium and Mythogaum plating, and a few robotic assistants constructed of Genocium (as well as others constructed of lesser materials, the ‘main tier’ are immensely difficult to work and create and using alchemy to create alchemized items doesn’t seem to work. It seems rather like overkill to make more things out of this stuff than we have to.). Additionally, at Lothrien’s suggestion, I replaced the prosthetic I’d downloaded the alchemical code for off the voidnet with a new custom-made one made of Holifacite. We tried with Gehennium but Gehennium’s degrading properties meant the thing kept corroding holes in the floor of the compound if I was too distracted while walking about, so we’ve shelved that particular idea. We also implemented the first round of alchemiter upgrades, and alchemized our first piece of Continuitite while we were gone. Speaking of materials, the latest base is “lifestone”, a kind of rock found in universe 594242, a minor fantasy world. It’s a hard rock similar in substance to granite that holds power over life essence. In universe it is primarily used by healers and the designated villains of a small cult that corrupts lifestone objects in order to use them for life leeching magics to make themselves immortal. I believe that with a bit of enchanting and other working, stronger power and control with such items could be achieved, but not enough that it is useful to us.”

Skullsteel: “We moved on rather quickly to our next material, and beyond that, I am writing this while en route to obtaining the third and final for the next composite. Things are moving quite smoothly, our equipment is functioning fantastically, maybe even better than expected. We were beset by a small pirate fleet out in the Void who managed to home in on some emissions we missed with our cloaking device due to a minor programming error, and the encounter was laughably one-sided. Between our enhanced weaponry and the incredible durability of Antelanium, we routed them well before they so much as scratched our hull. I was hoping to not have to field-test combat application of these metals, but at least they work! As for our most recent material, Skullsteel is a metal known by a few names in different fantasy universes. It is a modified alloy of steel that is imbued with necromantic magics, and usually used to equip armies of undead warriors. Skullsteel feeds off of death in nearby areas, strengthening any undead close to or in contact with it, and a strong enough necromancer can retrieve that stored necrotic energy, allowing them to use mass slaughter to fuel other projects. It is a rather… nasty metal honestly. I will be rather glad to be rid of our samples once we have all the data we need, and Lothrien even more so.”

Soulstring: “Something has Lothrien uneasy. She’s been rather agitated ever since we obtained the Skullsteel sample, and the most recent material seems to have upset her more. I… can see why honestly, but I definitely need to talk to her. If she doesn’t want to work on this I need to not keep her with me, it wouldn’t be right. As for the material in question, we had to retrieve samples of Soulstring, a kind of thread found in a number of different universes, though rarely under a recognizable name, and oftentimes not given a special name of its own at all, as it is almost invariably found only within the possession of whichever entity or group of entities act as the local “Fates” of the world, and the number of universes known to possess Soulstring without having such individuals is negligible. Soulstring connects directly to the life force and soul of an individual, chosen through supernatural means of some kind upon creation, though the subject of a string can be changed with effort. When a Soulstring is snapped or cut, it immediately kills the individual, forcing their soul into the nearest afterlife system. If a Soulstring is frayed it damages the individual’s soul, and if total destruction of the string is achieved without it severing, or before a fray can be repaired, it completely obliviates the individual, erasing their life force and soul altogether, a fate which very few individuals are capable of surviving. However, opposed to that, the more powerful a being is, the more resilient any soulstring attributed to them becomes, making it much more difficult to kill them that way. That is not the primary use of Soulstring outside of their home universes however, as the process of connecting a soulstring properly usually requires some form of extra-cognitive knowledge about an individual, meaning it is very rarely possible to connect it to one’s enemies. Instead, Soulstring is created of easily controlled individuals (often used in tandem with illegal cloning operations) and then used in a sort of soul-fusing process that binds their soul directly to the string, empowering it. Particularly powerful demon lords are known to weave fabric of such “bound” Soulstrings, greatly increasing their powers, especially in relation to soul-based magics. A strong enough soulcaster can even ‘burn’ these Bound Soulstrings to give them a massive surge of energy to use however they desire. Consequently, Soulstring, bound or unbound, is extremely illegal in most places.”

The Choice: “Lothrien came to me first. She wants to leave, to stop. But she doesn’t want to leave without me. When she first woke up, she was hoping that we were past the horrors of some of the previous tiers, but those hopes were shattered when we added in the Skullsteel and Soulstrings. She is convinced that this work is evil, that no good can come of it… and she may have a point. She’s ready to leave with or without me, but she’d rather I was with her. I… I’m at a loss. She is the first close friend I’ve had since before I was set on this path, and… I don’t think that throwing that away without thought would be wise in any manner. But I can’t just abandon my work ever, this is the greatest, most monumental thing I have ever done! A chance for immortality of any kind I could imagine, ultimate power… A way to change the multiverse, maybe even for the better. I… I would be a fool to throw that away, wouldn’t I? I… I need to think on this more, privately.”

Essenceweave: “Essenceweave is the compound material of the three base materials, and combines their properties. It is a fabric of metallic thread with a similar coloration to Lifestone. It mixes soul, necromantic and life magics into one whole of a material, allowing an individual to create disconcerting… hybrid undead. I haven’t bothered to name them, as the discovery of that property was accidental and I don’t really want to explore it more at the moment, especially while contemplating… other things. These hybrid undead, at a glance, move around much like living do, despite lacking a proper life-force. I think they also have soul manipulative abilities, making them ludicrously dangerous. Additionally, the mixture of three likely makes anyone wearing any significant amount of the stuff effectively invincible, repairing damage to one’s soul and body with power taken from others, and maintaining it in the meantime with advanced necromantic magic.”

Advancement Tier 16 (Yorickite): “I sent her off. Not… on bad terms per se, but I think she was disappointed in my choice. I gave her the voidship, and the things we had built to stock it, as well as the samples of Continuitite we alchemized before. I was going to offer her some of the Blasphemer’s Alloy I think I know how to make now… but given the circumstances that would’ve been insensitive. She’s said she’s heading back to the IUPC protectorate, so I should relocate my facility as I’m still on the wanted list there and she doesn’t want me to be put in any inadvertent danger by her actions. I think that’s a good choice on her part, I think the IUPC is the only group I would really trust with any of my research as of right now, and they, at least, are absolutely certain to do something about Project Nexus before it resurges again. She’ll do well, I think. Likely better than she would with me. But she’s not really important to these notes anymore, she’s gone, and it is back to working on this alone, so I should get back to writing down my findings. Yorickite, according to calculated values, matches the power of Elenium with a new added set. A fully equipped Yorickite warrior would effectively be a master of the border between life and death, able to take an opponent’s life force for themselves, take the soul as it exits the body for another attack on the next foe, and raise the corpse stronger than before to help them fight. Additionally, a set of Yorickite armor (or, honestly even just one piece) would render you effectively immortal as the metal’s power feeds into your own lifeforce and the integrity of your soul for as long as you wear it. You would heal from wounds instantly, brush off even the most destructive of soul-based attacks as if they were nothing… This power would stay with you even upon removing the equipment, leaving you functionally immortal in a class beyond even some gods so long as you return to it on occasion. And now that that's done I'm going to go have the strongest drink I can find the alchemical codes for."

Yggdrasil Wood: “I am a little less upset about Lothrien leaving as I was previously, my quest forwards has suddenly taken a very dangerous turn. The next material is not one that is commonly accessible, or one that can be retrieved relatively safely from undeveloped universes, nor even one that can be found with a bit of delving into old lore and ancient ruins. The material I just had to acquire is Yggdrasil Wood, a material that is jealously guarded by a Voidic organization known as the Worldguard, a sort of order of druids who have made it their duty to protect life as it springs up in the Void. Though they are not a major political power at present, they are growing, and make frequent efforts to stop wars and genocides. They draw their power from a number of sources wherever they can find them, but the one they protect the most, which they are most secretive, are the Yggdrasils. Cuttings of a powerful world tree that once grew at the heart of Minecraft’s universe but was razed shortly after my most recent visit to it, that creates and channels creative and life-giving energies in vast quantities. Even the very bark and leaves of these trees holds immense power over life and creation, and how to work it, and properly take it from the trees without damaging or weakening its power is a secret known only to the highest ranking members of the Worldguard. Fortunately for me, they keep temporary stores of the safely harvested material while they are making it into staves, circlets and other items to help their casters and warriors channel the energies upon which they are founded, and it wound up being much simpler to find these stores than they would have hoped. Unfortunately for me, resistance was stiffer than I anticipated, and a miscalculated counterstrike of mine ignited the tree it was being stored within. ...Most of the tree in fact. I would be very surprised if they managed to save it after I left. Though they don’t know exactly who I am thanks to the obscurity provided by full body armor, and the anti-scrying defenses I have over myself and my base, they are definitely on the lookout for me now. Yggdrasil Wood is immensely strong, comparable to Adamantine, despite being much lighter, and it also does not burn easily unlike most other woods. The more relevant properties, I suspect, are that of the creation and life energies that run through it in vast amounts. One can tap into its power and create all kinds of things, even living, breathing things. I think one could even create actual thinking people from scratch using the energies found within, though it would be difficult, precise work. This information lends much more credibility to the rumors going around that the Worldguard have some kind of “world healer” device that allows them to fully restore devastated or even destroyed worlds over the course of days or even hours.”

Magetear: “This journey is turning into a real headache, I have just made another powerful enemy, and this one with fewer scruples than the Worldguard towards finding a way to end me and my research. Greyhold is an ancient castle hidden in the depths of the Void, home to a powerful circle of archmagi searching the deeps for the mysteries of the universe. Terrible tales and legends are told about the horrors their number inflict on those they deem ‘less important’ when wandering abroad in the Multiverse in search of knowledge… and even on their own when they come into conflict with each other. Many people believe them to be little more than stories imagined up to scare little children, but as for myself, it is rather hard to be skeptical of the existence of an order whose headquarters you have recently detonated magekill explosives inside of. The story that led to me doing so is rather long and unpleasant, so I shall spare any readers the exact details. Suffice it to say that I took great pleasure in gutting the inner workings of their citadel. I was forced to leave when they brought oblivion-based weaponry to bear against me, something which I am not fully prepared to deal with just yet, but I have the material I needed so this is still a resounding success. Magetear is a concoction the ingredients of which I am not completely certain of that acts as a magical amplifier and modifier of immense power. By burning Magetear during a ritual or spell you can increase the power of the resulting magical release by extreme amounts, seemingly generating mana from nothing in vast quantities. This does, however, come with a downside. Magetear is unstable, and rather unpredictable to those unused to its flow and energy, meaning that an unskilled, or even a very skilled, magus will find themselves overwhelmed by their own spell with no time to react before they lose control of it to disastrous effects. This instability is exacerbated by the fact that Magetear ‘taints’ any spells it is used in, changing the energy signature to one I am not familiar with, but that resembles certain abyssal magics that I have… unpleasant memories regarding.”

Magewood: “The Greyholdian Council is as angry with my intrusion as I suspected they would be, and the Worldguard is just as enraged as the archmagi, though that I find a bit more surprising. Reports are floating about the Voidnet of shadowy figures and eldritch monstrosities that match what I learned of the archmagi’s modus operandi during my incursion, and the Worldguard has openly denounced my attack on their stronghold, promising a large reward for anyone who can come forward with information about me. It’s probably a good thing that I’ve finally gotten that first sample of Blasphemer’s Alloy alchemized, I may wind up needing it soon. Anyways, for the composite, combined of Yggdrasil Wood and Magetear, the material I’ve dubbed ‘Magewood’ is another titan of a material. Creation and life energies flow through it, but in a sort of… distorted fashion. Life created with Magewood doesn’t seem to come out… ‘proper’ so to speak. It still lives, dies, moves and reacts like proper life does, but it feels tainted, much the same way magetear magic does. I created a small holding pen to examine exactly what was up with them and most of the creatures evolved into horrifying monsters within a rather small number of generations, even the ones which remained relatively docile became much more dangerous in some way, and instinctive use of dark magics began to crop up quite quickly as well. Ants committing ritualistic sacrifice with something that resembles a mouse but has a few too many tentacles and external teeth is not an image I wanted in my head. While the magic becomes twisted after a time, it remains quite serviceable for immediate use, and if combined with purification magics designed specifically to work with your spells, you can output vast amounts of energy, objects and… lots of things really. Making a wand or staff out of Magewood while giving it a core of some kind of purity aura generator would be an immense boon to any mage, no matter their profession.”

Advancement Tier 17 (Eselion): “Here we are, with another material which I have dubbed Eselion. The strength of all the different properties seems to have subdued the overwhelming nature of the magetear’s corruptive properties, such that the eldritch powers it holds are more of an option than something that always happens, which is rather useful. Additionally, it has a ‘burning’ quality similar to magetear, allowing you to expend small amounts of the material to unleash cataclysmic amounts of power in one, massive burst. Additionally, this expenditure is increased as the material stores more energy in itself (something which the properties of magetear have accelerated, making power growth even faster than before) and unlike when just using crafted material as itself, there isn’t a limiter on this release of power, allowing you to focus it as you will to as great an extent as what you unleashed had within itself, and under your direction and guidance, as once again, the immense stability and empathic properties of the previous tiers override the instability of the composite. The creative and life-control properties are potentially useful as well I suppose, but it does feel like creating a world of creatures on its own is rather outside the purview of my present needs. The Multiverse supplies enough life as it is. Oh, yes, one more thing I should note. I have started to feel a little… off, since my experiments with the Magetear. I ran some more tests with it, more… carefully this time. Apparently Magetear has a dampening effect on a large number of emotions, particularly positive ones such as happiness, compassion and hope, though sadness related emotions seem to be somewhat dampened as well by its use, though to a lesser extent. I’ve looked up alchemical codes for some psionic normalizers to counteract the effect, and I’m holding off on using it for anything else until I have ensured I haven’t done any permanent damage to my mental state. I suppose this is a lesson in caution, I can’t let something like this bring my work to a stop for any reason.”

Green Sun Matter: “Life continues to grow more perilous, though I do not yet think I’ve made another enemy at this point in time, I still need to tread lightly. The First Guardians are known for subterfuge and roundabout methods of acting, if their eye has indeed been placed upon me, I may not know until they’ve already been acting for a while. To those of you who are curious as to who the First Guardians are, on account of the secrecy of their organization, they are actually two groups, with mostly opposing goals. They are beings associated with two massive objects known as The Green Sun and The Red Sun (though individuals well versed in matters dealing with Paradox Space may be aware of lesser Suns of both type being scattered throughout its area). These are two massive fiery spheres composed of the matter and energy of many, many universes condensed into something resembling a star and supercharged with one of two kinds of temporal magics, Space for the Green Sun, and Time for the Red Sun. There are a number of extra powers afforded to the two groups of Guardians of course, usually within the general purview of ‘energy projection’, and they also tend to be immensely strong, fast and durable besides. Additionally, a few of their number are gifted with a form of limited omniscience (barring areas where their influence is blocked of course), giving them knowledge and comprehension of all of space (for Green Sun Guardians. Red Sun Guardians have purview over time), with a singular, very notable exception, being a figure known as ‘Doc Scratch’, who exited Paradox Space at some point in the distant past after an unknown event heavily disrupted his normal personal timeline within its borders. Doc Scratch has access to limited omniscience across both space and time, and acts as the ‘leader’ for the First Guardians of the Green Sun. The First Guardians of the Green Sun, as a whole, call themselves protectors of the timeline and work to enforce stability of the space-time continuum at all costs. This means that my most recently retrieved base component material, a sampling of matter from the Green Sun itself, may put me in a bind in times to come. The power within just the small amount I have is incredibly vast, and energy analysis seems to show that even disconnected from its source it weaves itself into the fabric of space for quite some distance. I could do a lot with this.”

Red Sun Matter: “I have definitely gained attention this time. I have now angered both groups of First Guardians, though I don’t think enough to get them to actually work together. The First Guardians of the Red Sun are much more direct than their counterparts, and frequently destructive in their methods. They proclaim themselves as defenders of free will and personal decisions, though most individuals believe it mostly just to be a pretense so that they can do whatever they feel like. Since their work often results in disrupting fate and prophetic constructs, they frequently come into conflict with the Green Sun Guardians and the two have a deep-seated dislike for each other. Red Sun Guardians possess control over time, and their leaders possess cognizance of the entire timestream, so there were several waiting for me when I lowered my cloaking devices enough to obtain some Red Sun Matter, and they did not seem particularly happy to see me. I suspect they were a bit less happy to discover that my Continuitite armor, and quite handily my brand new Blasphemer’s Alloy weaponry, were more than enough to protect me against their time-based attacks. However unhappy those individuals are, I think the organization in general being unhappy about me killing several of their member and making off with a piece of their power source is probably a bit more pertinent. Relevantly, the reason they knew I was coming despite my scrying shields (though their knowledge of exactly when was their own doing) was that their Green Sun counterparts tipped them off. If I’ve somehow managed to get these two to work together, I have quite the uphill climb ahead of me. Of interesting note, however, is that one of the Guardians who moved to oppose me survived my strikes, and the matter that I collected seemed to continue to resonate with her, even after I disconnected it. I’m going to look into that more, once I get back to my own home base.”

Spiral Sun Matter: “To preface this, I’m going to explain what I learned about my experimentation with the two types of Sun Matter. First, both generate energy, what I have is effectively self-contained pieces of universe, the laws of which literally create and then expel energy, meaning infinite power. Lots of infinite power. Enough that if I feed it more matter the samples I have grow in size, and can even have additional samples trimmed off of them. Theoretically you could farm Green and Red Sun Matter, in fact, I am already doing so in small quantities to use in fuel cells for my various devices. Second of all, Green and Red Sun Matter react extremely violently with each other, almost like matter and antimatter, except that at the core of the vast energy release is left a tiny bit of swirling energy, which is in fact the alchemized compound: Spiral Sun Matter, which contains and channels the energies of both simultaneously. And resonates with and fuels both kinds of First Guardians. This is the important point, as they staged a raid on my lab a very short time ago, while I was finishing up looking into the resonative properties of the materials. Just a little too late for them, fortunately. An entire army arrived, ready to attack, including a few members of the Greyhold Archmagi, a large number of Nexus soldiers, and a number of both types of Guardians. I had some time to prepare, as I’ve been setting up defenses for my compound ever since my escape with Lothrien and the outermost of those were quite capable of slowing down and damaging the incoming assailants. By the time they had properly located the compound itself, I was ready for them. While the Archmagi, Nexus goons and assorted others (presumably favors called in by the Guardians) fired away fruitlessly at the exterior of my base, and then even more fruitlessly at the security drones I sent out to deal with them (well, mostly fruitlessly. Mixing mythogaum and Cortite plating isn’t a foolproof strategy so the archmagi did manage to down a few of those before being routed) the Guardians themselves bypassed my defenses despite me having set up temporal anchors (perhaps something to do with the resonant properties with my samples again. Probably, in fact, the room they all appeared in was the location I was keeping the sample farms) and were met with equally stiff defense, except with a lot more concentration. First Guardians are harder to take down than petty mages and mass-cloned super soldiers however, they did a lot of damage in my base, nearly reaching an outer wall to let in their assorted rabble before I finished the weapon I was preparing. You see, First Guardians of either Sun draw their power from said Sun, but thanks to my research I now know that their powers don’t make any differentiation between the Suns themselves, or small separated pieces of said Suns. Those Suns provide, control and regulate their powers, and so too can the smaller pieces. All I had to do was lock onto their signatures and cut off their access one by one, leaving them as little more than pretentious thugs with insufficient weaponry and armor. A quick relocation of them back out to their previous comrades was all it took to scatter their army. This probably won’t help my reputation with either Guardian group, but perhaps it will make them think twice before getting in my way again.”

Advancement Tier 18 (Merged Sunsteel): “I was uncertain how to start, so I suppose I shall start with the material, then give the status update. Alchemically combining Spiral Sun Matter with Eselion creates something which I call Merged Sunsteel. It flickers with an internal fire and is somewhat warm to the touch, and strengthens a number of different energy-related powers that previous tiers had on top of increasing power gain rates yet again. There are only two new developments; first, Merged Sunsteel seems to radiate its power through the space-time continuum around it, allowing its wielder to gain much more thorough control over the world around them. When stacked with previous abilities, this effectively gives the owner extensive local reality warping powers. Proper reality warping powers, not just the weird pseudo-warping that was gained with Blasphemer’s Alloy, but maintaining the near unpreventability of such. Secondly, Merged Sunsteel forms a much more powerful and connected bond than previous tiers do, much like the Guardians have with their Suns. Someone who makes the full empathic bond would gain many of the powers of the material, just from being ‘familiar’ with it, and additionally would be able to give lesser connections with that power to other people they deem worthy. On the ‘irritating distractions’ side of things, the leader of the Green Sun Guardians contacted me remotely, through a chat client application on my personal laptop. A chat client application I haven’t been logged into or used in months, and that I had thought was defunct. He delivered an ultimatum, that I would cease and desist using my materials, and go head somewhere else where I would not interfere with maintaining time and space as they dictate we need to. He outlined a number of very good reasons as to why I should accept their demands, but it turns out that despite priding himself on his chess mastering abilities, old Scratch isn’t as smart as he is, or rather - was, convinced. I realize I had something I could use, something I had already used. And I had the resources needed to amplify my reach. A quick “I’ll think about it”, some minor cloaking application to make sure none of the eyes watching me knew exactly what I was doing, and a bit of tinkering and mad science later, I had located exactly where the good doctor was holed up, so to speak. I was rather intrigued to discover that he also appeared to have some sort of tie to the Red Sun as well, but that neither connection was what fueled his cognitive abilities. Something innate to himself. Less in his favor is the fact that apparently his very being ran on Sun-fed energy, he had no life force of his own to speak of. I shut him off, almost like flipping a switch, and with that single action, one of the greatest masterminds in the known Multiverse is no more. While I doubt the Guardians have been totally deterred, they will find it much more difficult to track and stop me.”

Something New: “Something… odd happened this morning. I woke up, rolled out of bed and discovered that the coffee maker had malfunctioned and I had to make myself a new one. I stumbled my way towards the minor alchemiter bay I keep for my smaller day-to-day needs, but as I was making my way there the thought that I really just wanted that coffee now as opposed to later pushed its way to the front. That isn’t the unusual part, what is unusual is that once I thought that strongly enough, there was a cup of coffee in my hands. I, of course, dropped it in surprise. But the coffee stayed real, albeit splattered across the floor. A few quick tests (cleaning the mess, making a new coffee mug with coffee, adding some cream, removing some of said cream because I added too much the first time) revealed that I apparently have some kind of reality warping power now. Distressingly, the nature of it seems to line up with a very specific kind, one that is well documented but not understood at all. Descendancy. A power given to individuals who will (or have) greatly affected the course of Voidic history with their actions, far beyond that power which they should be capable of. Either I’ve done something to greatly alter the course of history, or will do so soon. Probably both, given what happened not even two nights ago. And if that’s the case, I’m probably going to need every edge that these powers can give me.”

Liquid Mana: “I have done thorough calculating for several aspects of the next composite, and I can speak with certainty that these next few materials are going to seriously anger more people. Namely a specific group of people, but more on that some other time. The first material I am making for the composite is Liquid Mana. Pretty straightforward, it is simply raw magical energy condensed into a fluid form and held together via small amounts of matter (any kind will work, so long as mana can bind to it. You can even use the elements found in air for this purpose.). Given the… overwhelmingly vast supply of mana-generating materials I currently possess, it was no trouble whatsoever to make some of this. Liquid Mana is not as useful as many people believe it to be. While it does make storing mana much more consistent when traveling between universes, and allows new types of conduit to be used, it’s only real use for most Voidic travelers in this day and age is hidden magic reserves, as unlike most other forms of dense magic storage, liquid mana usually gives off low enough quantities to fade into the background noise of the Void.”

Starfire: “Next up along in the list is a material known as Starfire. Now, Starfire is different from the plasma that Earth Standard universes are made of. Plasma is merely a state of matter that gas reaches when given a strong enough energetic charge (and that gas can be something that was solid before it was vaporized through sheer heat). Starfire, on the hand, is a very specific, and very powerful, substance. There is some confusion, as Starfire is the material that the Sun(s) of most magic-run universes is made of, and it too is extremely hot and bright. Unlike plasma however, Starfire is more of a form of liquidized primordial fire. If brought to a gravity well not composed of Starfire, it will flow like a regular liquid (assuming it doesn’t just incinerate everything for miles in every direction instantaneously), and it is not nearly as dense as material take from an ordinary star is. to counteract this, Starfire exerts a strong pull on nearby Starfire, almost like between magnets, so Starfire will tend to gravitate towards itself, forming massive balls of flaming destruction. I did not have any in my compound, so I was forced to head out towards the nearest universe that I knew of that had Starfire within its boundaries. This, unfortunately, led to several different of the numerous groups who currently have bounties on my heads, or are gunning for one of the bounties on my head, finding me when I left the safety of my cloaking. Predictably, most of them were destroyed by my automated defenses well before I became aware of the presence of hostiles, but one of the groups had the foresight to not charge in guns blazing, and instead continued to take potshots at me throughout my time in the universe. I finally got a lock on them and sent a sizeable energy blast their way. I don’t think there was any life on the planet they were using as cover, but there definitely isn’t now. And if they survived, they figured out that there were probably better things to do than get in the way of my research as the attacks stopped thereafter. Or, well, their attacks did. Two more groups of semi-generic flunkies vaporized themselves against my automated guns, but I suppose at this point in my life that’s just par for the course.”

Balefire: “Balefire. This was going to be the big problem from the start, and I as correct in my prediction. Balefire is a very, very particular… I can’t really call it a material, as it really isn’t in the usual sense. It is more of… a kind of magic. Some would call it a specific spell, but there are a few different ways to create it, and none of them exactly ‘collateral friendly’, though I suppose that is more a function of what balefire itself is, than the processes themselves. Balefire is the combination of oblivion, space and time magics, all combined together into one of the single most destructive forces recorded anywhere in any literature I have ever read. It tears through things with the utmost efficiency of oblivion, but unlike oblivion, it does not stop only at unmaking their being. Balefire erases anything that comes into contact with it backwards in time, destroying its past and erasing events it was part of. This is incredibly unhealthy for all individuals involved, as because of the brute-force and instantaneous nature of Balefire attacks, it doesn’t do so cleanly. The timeline doesn’t have… time is the wrong word here but I’ll use it anyways, time to repair itself from the damage of the attack, leaving individuals with patchy memories of things that transpired before and after the object or person was erased, sometimes even to the point of not knowing how they got injuries they obtained in the altered timeline, or similar such things. The physical world becomes unstable in unpredictable ways (sonic booms created by the erasure of air in the path of the beam, items that were only partially hit being erased recursively until much larger chunks are gone, and unexpected changes to the area caused by timestream alterations and damage) and the fabric of space and time itself destabilizes. There are a few universes where oblivion magics are woven into the very fabric of their existence, and pseudo-balefire forms can be created in those. Those universes are also much less adversely affected by the power presented by balefire, but even they will crumble and tear apart at the seams if too much is used in too short a period of time. Regular universes frequently, depending on their structural integrity before use, rip apart if sustained usage of longer than an hour occurs. Rather frighteningly, Balefire is one of the only non-paradox-based weapons capable of directly damaging the continuum of the Void itself, though it isn’t nearly as bad as damage dealt to individual universes, and the Void is vast enough, and resilient enough, that most damage by the Balefire usage is patched up soon after the event. The paradoxes that balefire usage tends to cause are frequently a different matter, and one that I will not delve into here as I’ve already rambled on for far too long. To put it shortly, Balefire is dangerous, so dangerous it has no use aside from that of a WMD or destroying an individual or place backwards in the timeline. Additionally, one of its main required components is raw oblivion energy, of which there are only three known sources. First: you can kill universe eaters, and harvest small amounts of oblivion energy from the central cores of their beings. This is not desirable as that would require me to kill a universe eater, which I’m not certain enough of my own personal abilities to test them out against. Second: Engietech sells oblivion energy canisters of varying grades, even up to the degree that I want if you have enough money and put in a special order. I do not have enough money for the full strength stuff, and given the current climate towards me and my work, don’t really have any way to obtain it without drawing even more unwanted attention. Third and unfortunately best option: going directly for the elemental plane of oblivion, which is blockaded by the IUPC on a permanent basis to prevent the mass production of oblivion weaponry. My attack on the blockade went quite well, especially given that I’ve had time to prepare. A handful of juggernaut robots crafted of variously tiered materials at multiple points in the blockade, then pinpointing a weak spot created in their defenses by the efforts to beat back my drones worked like a charm. Which is to say, quite well up until the chain which the charm is held on breaks because you weren’t specific enough when ordering it from the local enchanter and everything goes downhill very suddenly. I can now verify from personal experience that despite it being extremely durable, Continuitite armor is not strong enough to withstand sustained oblivion fire. On the other hand, Descendancy is a remarkably effective cure-all where other methods fail, just as the old stories are so quick to proclaim. I literally had the entire front half of my head blasted off when I didn’t dodge an incoming artillery shot quickly enough (normally the Continuitite would’ve warned me of such an incoming shot through temporal abilities, but the space-time continuum is rather… thin? near the plane of oblivion, and I was rather preoccupied with gathering samples without letting them scuttle my ride home) and lo and behold my brand new super reality warping powers grew it right back. It did not, however, regrow the helmet that was ruined by the attack, and I think a few more shots like that may well have killed me properly anyways. I’m going to have to kick my work on properly alchemizing Cerberium into overdrive, another run-in like this may be rather detrimental to my ability to continue research.”

Un Fluid: “Well, despite attempting to go back to ground while doing the next few bouts of calculations, I have news yet again: first, Project Nexus pulled up on my trail as I was making my way back to base with the oblivion energy samples, and followed me home without me knowing, as some of my sensors got damaged in the firefight. Shortly after beginning tests with the Balefire to get exact qualities written down, an entire Nexus battlefleet showed up on my doorstep. Because an organization that specializes in mass production is not going to learn their lesson after the first time you casually dismiss an invasion. Unfortunately for them, I now have the alchemical data for balefire, as well as the assorted materials required to craft weaponry using it. Hopefully they’ll think better of their next attempt after I left that fleet drowning in timeline erasure and paradoxes. After relocating, I finished calculating, and then alchemizing (with EXTREME caution and preventative measures taken) Un Fluid. The composite of Liquid Mana, Starfire, and Balefire. I think the best way to give a summary of this new material is a singular sentence: “And you thought Balefire was bad.” Un Fluid rips through mana and energy fields the same way Balefire rips through space, time and matter. It radiates a sort of… heat, that wears away at things it passes by, except more in an ontological manner than the way a laser heats up the air around it. It wasn’t easy to alchemize without destroying the apparatus and then losing the material, but I did it. But, on account of my second piece of news, I may need to do it more. Remember how I had my old helmet irreversibly damaged during the firefight with the IUPC blockade? Well, it appears that one of their agents was quick thinking enough to snap a profile of me, and my old criminal record in their database has been reactivated, as well as bumped up to top priority. If they find out where I am at any point they’re going to send whatever the all-hero equivalent of kill squads is called after me. I’m not 100% comfortable with the idea of enacting something as horrific as total cessation of existence on people who are, pretty much by job description, the good guys… but if that’s what’s needed to defend myself I guess it has to be done.”

Advancement Tier 19 (Aponagos): “I have more news that is both troubling and extremely welcome. The massive attack and manhunt I was expecting didn’t come. The IUPC is on the lookout for me, but are not actively hunting me down. The reason for this is somewhat distressing however. Apparently a number of different events coincided in a very unfortunate way. The unraveling of several major conspiracies and organizations (I suspect my dealings with the First Guardians may have had something of a hand in that), the climax of one of the largest Godmodding Wars in living memory, the IUPC not moving fast enough to keep Project Nexus from resurfacing, and a number of other things. This wave of chaos started up some time a little after me and Lothrien left Project Nexus’s research center, but it didn’t become apparent that it was becoming a trend until a short while ago. What’s apparent now is that the entire Multiverse is in upheaval. Old orders are fracturing and new ones are rising from the dust. Armies are marching and gods are unleashing their wrath upon the worlds. Chaos reigns and only a select few locations are shielded from the madness. If I were still working as a normal business, this would be quite the upset in my plans. However, I am not a businessman. I think at this point most people who know of me would refer to me as more of a mad scientist, and though that is… a bit of an unsettling revelation, it does mean that this chaos directly benefits me and my ability to move about unhindered. Most of the groups who want me dead are a little too preoccupied with not dying themselves to make good their dislike of my continued existence. But enough about other people’s troubles, I know (generally) what the next tier’s features are. Aponagos is much like Merged Sunsteel, it has only one major difference. That difference is, however, a very dangerous one. It holds great power over powers residing within the realm of unmaking, in all their forms. Especially oblivion magics. Most of the attacks that previously would’ve acted as deterrents or maybe even lethal dangers to one equipped with the previous tiers now will do nothing. Not even nothing, they would empower the wielder. Additionally, anyone fully equipped with Aponagos would be able to manipulate and generate these energies themselves at minimal energy cost to themselves. Oblivion beams, destructive bolts. Balefire. Un Fluid. All at their fingertips. You could end entire legions of gods with barely a thought. The thought of this power scares me, but at the same time… I have to see more. I have to know. Where does this madness end? Will it end? Who knows! I don’t… but I will.”

Lerasium: “Progress marches onwards. Before I continue onwards, I’ve been refining my Un Fluid weaponry schematics, but I’m running into problems. Specifically that it eats through mythogaum if left alone in the container for too long, so I’ve fast-tracked my efforts into properly producing Cerberium, since that’s the only real lead I have on something that might be able to contain it well enough to properly store and use Un Fluid. More pertinently, the next material was quite easy to collect, especially with Multiversal politics falling apart the way they are. I had to deal with one group of pirates who had an advanced seer system that got past my basic stealth mechanisms and figured I’d be good pickings, but aside from that brief bout of target practice nobody was active enough in the area I was heading towards to give me trouble. The material I needed was something called Lerasium, found within the universe called The Cosmere, a peculiar metal whose most notable characteristic is not that of its use as a material, but the fact that it can be ingested, and grants special powers to any individual who does so. The main magic system of the specific planet (the Cosmere is unusual in that it does not have a singular magic system consistent across its entire breadth, instead, magics seem to be mostly localized to individual planets, driven by splinters of an ancient god called Shards) is called Allomancy, which allows users to tap into the power of the local Shard by ingesting certain metals and ‘burning’ them. Most individuals can only allomantically burn one kind of metal, but ingesting Lerasium turns you into something called a “Mistborn”, greatly increasing one’s allomantic powers, and enabling you to burn all metals with allomantic properties. There are a few different internal changes that Lerasium enacts to do this that I haven’t fully mapped out, but it is still very intriguing.”

Pinarium: “It has been an infuriatingly long while. I was missing a crucial part of what I needed for my next step, and the material I needed is unlike any other I’ve encountered before. I had some of what I needed, but not enough to finish up all the calculations. I set up some new sensors and began scanning the Void to see if I could find any matching energy signatures… It was quite frustrating. I was starting to think I just wouldn’t be able to find anything, only to finally catch a blip mere days before I was getting ready to shut down and try something else entirely. A flash of energy, well hidden in the folds of some out of the way universe. I had my lock on it and went for it immediately. Arriving in the universe, a quick scan over the planet showed it to be apparently some sort of post apocalyptic frozen wasteland planet, moderately sci-fi technology but missing a number of different options, especially in terms of communication technology. Interestingly, this doesn’t seem to be the base state of the universe, as the minor fluctuations found in majorly modified universes were present. I have no clue what the original state may have been, as there didn’t appear to be any other major planets or civilizations. There was one major exception, the location where the material I needed was being stored. A massive lab complex built around a geothermal plant drawing energy from a major volcano. It was giving off a number of peculiar readings, but I had no better ideas of where to grab it, so I made my preparations and made my move. It was… very peculiar. While the outer reaches of the complex, where people were living and working, were grimy and icy, the interior was pristine. Sterile even. No dirt, dust or similar particulates of any kind. At least, until I blew in the far wall with a blast from my landing shuttle and fried every system in the labs by converting all of the magma and heat of the volcano into electricity at once then forcing it through the internal electronics. In hindsight, that may have been unnecessary amounts of force. If the material had been unstable I would’ve lost the samples, but fortunately that was not the case, and instead it served to disable the vast majority of the defenses in the facility, and leave those working in it entirely unable to stop, or even locate, my incursion. The only actual resistance I met came in two places. First, genetic experiments of some kind were being done, and twisted shapes of what were likely denizens of the compound outside pre-alteration were wandering the halls - likely as a result of the rather hamfisted approach I took to disabling the security. They were far above the level of normal mutations however, a lot of them seemed to be unstable on a molecular or even existential level, and I think one of them tried to hit me with some kind of liquid glitch matter. Fortunately, they were at the end of it still just mutational experiments, and none of them stood up to the force I utilized while blasting my way through the walls of the compound. The other form of resistance I encountered were even more peculiar. Massive hulking black beats with lines of pink light flickering throughout their bodies. The first one I encountered only seemed to utilize one attack against me, but that may have been because after the first few shots gave off a form of energy I am unfamiliar with, and which seemed to be potentially dangerous, I left it as a smoking crater in the ground. Said attack was that its eye sent forth some sort of pink flame, which ignited on its targeted spot making a small inferno of more of that same fire. I collected small amounts of it for future study, and subsequently vaporized any more of those strange entities I came across before they could spot me or attack. There were a number of other oddities, rooms with strange experiments and pieces of equipment I didn’t recognize, a massive hangar with some kind of pulsating mass of twisted flesh, and a room that appeared to have nothing in it but scorch marks and a few large piles of assorted shattered guns. I took everything that looked like it might be pertinent as I made my way through, and after by passing a few enchantments and mysterious holding marks that I wound up just brute forcing my way through, broke into the main vault. From there I simply had to retrace my steps through the holes I left in the walls and ceilings on my way through complex, and I was home free. All in all less than 20 minutes spent on the ground. The material I acquired is… interesting. It destabilizes the structure of any whole which it is inputted into, be it animal, machine, spirit or something else. This manifests on many levels, from the basic assembly, to the integrity of the parts, all the way down to the basic facts of its existence. While this process does expend the material itself (called Pinarium according to the labels in the compound I broke into) it allows for an outside force to rewrite the structure of the object or individual it was applied to with much greater precision, and with less chance of internal failure while doing it due to the self-disconnect it temporarily creates. I’m not certain if I could use this on its own honestly, I’d need to go far too in-depth into the science behind this rewriting process to get good results myself. Either way, I suppose I owe thanks to whoever those MTT INDUSTRIES folks were, they saved me a lot of hassle by making so much of it.”

Collapsed Life Crystal: “Well, today’s entry is rather special. I have several major pieces of news to impart, two of them relating to materials, two of them relating to things that have been happening in my life, and one rather interesting piece of information I’ve come across. First, I’ve finally finagled my way into creating Cerberium. Now I just need to tweak my alchemy machines a tad more so I can make it faster and in larger quantities, and with that I’ll be much better protected against the threats coming my way. This is rather a good thing, because the two relevant things towards my life are both unpleasant. First off, someone large and powerful has put a major bounty on my head and now I run into mercenaries and similar groups pretty much any time I let my cloaking down even a little. Second off, the same someone large and powerful has been applying political pressure in a variety of places. A number of different notable groups have declared me a public enemy and have kill crews searching for me in relevant Voidspace, including groups like the Voidlord Coalition, Parliament of Ancients, and even the Great Pantheon itself. Now, I suppose you are wondering how I know that it is the same group for both of those problems. That is because of the little nugget of information I have come across. I noticed, as I started investigating where all this newfound hostility came from, that even though all the applications of pressure seemed on the surface to be from different places, following the threads seemed to lead back to the same places more and more. Enough digging finally gave me a name. “MTT INDUSTRIES”. I appear to have inadvertently made a greater enemy with my last escapade than I thought I would. Especially in light of the other material-related news I have. I tested the mysterious pink flame’s properties a bit and discovered that it is (or at least appears to be) a mythological substance known as Refiner’s Fire. Described as ‘the incarnation of the true body of god’ in some ancient voidic scriptures, it is a powerful energy, charged with certain powers of creation, and if this MTT INDUSTRIES is using it to power their guardians I’ll need to keep an eye out for trickery beyond what I’ve already seen. That being said, I haven’t been able to get much further than the name, so I can’t really remove this problem at its source just yet. I will see what I can find out, but in the meantime, I have something else I can do that will kill two birds with one stone so to speak. You see, the final material that I need is called Collapsed Life Crystal, a highly-condensed form of crystallized life energy. It is something that very few scholars know about, because in order to make even the slightest amounts of it you need to kill trillions of individuals, and to make enough for my purposes I will need a killcount… much higher than that. Even discounting that mass life force reaping tends to be rather inefficient. I would rather not kill people on that scale simply just to kill them, so the more recent developments have given me something of a way out of this dilemma. If taking out individuals as they come after me is not enough to deter them, perhaps wreaking havoc at their home bases might prove a little more persuasive. I’m assembling some deployable armies using a combination of my own research , tech stolen from my MTT INDUSTRIES raid, and more tech taken on another raid I did more recently on a factory site that Project Nexus was building. I have dispatched smaller groups a few times already to the locations of smaller mercenary companies and a variety of other groups and I must state that the lesser tier materials still work as well as ever. Personal cost on these retaliatory raids has been quite low, and paid out good dividends on life force collection besides. Since I expect things to go much as they are right now for the next foreseeable while, I shall simply give the properties of Collapsed Life Crystal here. Collapsed Life Crystal is very dense, and very sturdy, much like other forms of hyper-compressed solids. It also holds enormous amounts of life energy, so much in fact that it feeds off itself in one of those pleasant little energy generation feedback loops that I have become so fond of, though not nearly to the scale of those before. Tapping into Collapsed Life Crystal for personal use will give on a flood of life energy, which must be used carefully as it is actually enough to cause a less-known effect called “overheal overload”, where someone or something is pumped too full of life energy and explodes. This kills them, but disperses the life energy over a wide area, causing a massive variety of things to come to life or revive around the unfortunate overloadee. It is apparently not actually unpleasant though, as individuals with resurrective immortality have been recorded as becoming addicted to it. I personally do not intend to try it out at any point, but I suppose it’s an interesting note nonetheless.”

Vibranse: “I have my collapsed life crystal collection acquired, and it does seem to be working as something of a deterrent, though I am now welcome in even fewer places than before. Interestingly, I wound up needing less of it than I expected, so I am currently using it for self-healing purposes and similar needs. I can see why this might be addictive though, keeping extra life force on hand is actually quite pleasant. In other news, I know more about MTT INUDSTRIES. It seems they are quite the well-traveled organization, and there are records of bits and pieces of their dealings quite a ways back. They are run by a circle of 10 individuals known as the Advanced Superiors, shadowy figures who no one really seems to know much about aside from that they seem to have access to powerful ‘Curses’ that enable them with immense power. Tales of just what those powers are, and how great they are vary, but all of them seem to come to the general consensus of ‘enough to make them folks you don’t want to anger’. Honestly all the better that I have my own personal horde of worldbreaker robots, Descendancy, and completed my first set of personal Cerberium gear. I don’t intend to cross paths with them again if I can help it, but should such a meeting encounter, I believe I am well enough equipped to deal with this particular viper’s nest. Speaking of which, I have my next composite. Vibranse is a powerful material which restructures whatever it is taken into on a fundamental level, strengthening it, enabling it to call on energies around it, and elevating it to a form of greater awareness… making it more ‘alive’ so to speak, whether it was alive or not before. A regular person ingesting a small sample of it would effectively be raised to godhood on the spot. I have been alchemizing and taking vibranse pills with my waking meal every day for a week now and while it does give something of diminishing returns, coupled with regular ‘pick-me-ups’ from my accumulated life crystal store… I feel better now than I ever have in my life.”

Advancement Tier 20 (Origin Metal): “Well, the period of time where I had my own personal army is at an end, a fair bit more abruptly than I anticipated, but my plan to get other people to back off rather backfired and the various groups I’ve already angered started wide-broadcasting my storage locations as they found them and one by one they got taken out. I sent out commands to keep the locations on alert after the few went dead abruptly, but even that only slowed the process down, so I started going to the more… sensitive locations to retrieve my tech and keep potential backlinks out of other people’s hands. This went mostly well until roughly a week ago. Someone knew I was coming. Some very particular someones. I disembarked from my main ship into my landing shuttle, and as I made it into facility was very abruptly attacked. I didn’t have my full armor on because, well, why would I? Fortunately, I do keep a few higher-level trinkets on my person at all times, which tipped me off to someone twisting to the timeline to try and disable me. They didn’t seem to be expecting me to totally shrug off both that and their subsequent attack on my mind, which gave me just barely enough time to bring some of the bots online for cover. I couldn’t see who was attacking at that point but the between temporal anomalies, fluctuating temperatures, and encroaching corruptive energies, I was quite certain of who it was. The Advanced Superiors, three of them. Which ones exactly I’m not yet certain but they turned out to be much more formidable foes than I believed. A quick scramble later and I was into my shuttle, putting on my armor and prepping the ship for takeoff. That takeoff was never completed, as one of them breached the hull partway through the engine warm up. That was when I finally got a good look at them. One of them, but they all look basically the same. They look like businessmen, clean, crisp suits and faces that are mostly human but somehow incredibly unsettling. The methods by which he’d broken the hull was extreme and intense thermal shock I think, though the amount of power you’d need to pull something like that is insane. I think he tried to do the same to my armor, I felt the temperature beginning to oscillate so I did the only thing I could think of: punch him in the face. He seemed rather surprised that I was still alive, and even more so that I was fast enough to hit him (though admittedly that was because I cheated a bit). Everything from there on is a blur, and though I suppose if I tried hard enough I could give a play by play, that is not what I’m here for. ‘Highlights’, though they weren’t particular ‘high’ for me, include one of them reversing time on one of my attacks after I had moved into what had previously been its path, so that I got hit by it twice (once during the reversal, once when time resumed for it normally), the one who broke into the hull (I think) freezing me in a block of solid air, then dissolving the structural supports up above to bring the rest of the structure crashing down on top of me, and the last of them making a major comeback by arriving with a quarter of the station’s activated bots corrupted and on their side. It took activating everything on the station and setting them to “kill all”, as well as remote-driving what was left of my landing shuttle into the bay where we were fighting at the moment to distract them long enough for me to escape, and I lost my prosthetic leg and all of the skin on my left arm on the way out besides. Suffice it to say that I don’t particularly want to face the Superiors again any time soon. In less near-fatal news, I finished up the calculations for the next tier of material, which I have dubbed Origin Metal. Origin Metal has similar enhancing properties to Vibranse, except in much greater quantity and power as one might expect. You could graft parts of it onto a weaker weapon and make the whole thing unbelievably powerful, or you could ingest small amounts of it and personally imbue yourself with nearly unimaginable power of all sorts. You would become a cosmic entity, so powerful that entire empires would tremble before your very presence, and your power would resonate with your equipment, turning you into… well, you get the idea. Make some of this and eat it, you become effectively invincible. If you then make a full suit of armor and wear it, just thinking about fighting you would (metaphorically) be enough to kill someone. Maybe even actually if they were in range of your near-total grip on the fabric of reality itself.

Voidstone: “Continuing along in my quest for knowledge, the next material is Voidstone, which is rather interesting to find as Voidstone has very few uses. Voidstone is grey, mostly featureless, and has roughly the strength and consistency of limestone. It’s most notable feature is that it is almost totally nonreactive. Energy attacks will plow right through it, it will not react chemically with any known substance in the multiverse, and it has no energy signatures at all aside from the basic reflective ones that most species use to observe reality (sight, hearing, tremorsense, threadspinning and so on). As such people sometimes use it to contain acids or the like, but due to it being rather fragile this usually is found to be a rather bad idea. For the few things it really is good at though, it is used nearly ubiquitously as it is actually rather easy to obtain. All you have to do is find one of the many long-abandoned voidic ruins, and take samples from anything that has been exposed to the Void and its energies for long enough to wear away down to Voidstone. Anything left in the Void unprotected for long enough will erode away into Voidstone after enough time, though said process takes a very long while. There was nothing of note in my trip to gather samples, except that someone appeared to be following me, and they were following at a very particular distance as if they were trying to stay out of range of my sensors. Their information on my specs was wrong, as I could tell they were there usually, but it took a while to shake them permanently. I’ll keep the guns on alert in case they decide to make their move, dealing with these bounty hunters is tiresome enough without them trying to set ambushes.”

Liquid Entropy: “I am somewhat confused by most recent material retrieval, but in a rather unusual way. I hadn’t realized how much my power had grown. I suppose on some level I understood it, but it never really registered in my mind the kind of abilities and monstrous strength I possess at this point. At least, not until my way back from the last mission. My work has me matching wits and crossing swords with some of the greatest powers of reality, and on such a regular basis that taking on creatures of ancient legend doesn’t even phase me. You see the only reliable source I had for the most recent material, or, that I could find anything about, is/was something known as the Chaos Butterfly. Created during some ancient Godmodding War, the Butterfly is an enormous malevolent force formed of code, entropy and destructive magic. The flap of its wings is said to bring ruin to universes, and in its inactive form acts as something of a tiny virus, creeping into the heads of anything exposed to the information directly enough. Once it has infected a host in this manner, it incubates, slowly taking over their mind until it bursts free in a blaze of entropic energy that obliterates the universe it finds itself in, before consuming the power freed by the explosion to transform into its adult state. Instead of proliferating like a species however, it retains its singular individuality across instances and for most of its existence, whenever two or more of its instances encountered each other, they would merge together, combining their power and strength. That was, of course, until some point during Paradox Wars when some genius who thought they could control it gave it the idea to spread as far and wide as it could and then merge all at once in a massive wave to supercharge itself. It got halfway through the scheme before other folks caught on and started hunting down its incarnations. The largest one though, the original, was never destroyed. Those who were fighting it were fighting on many fronts and couldn’t spare enough power to do more than imprison it, and by the time the war was over, the records had been lost. This didn’t stop me of course, and I managed to track down the prison of the Chaos Butterfly, and ready a number of different weapon options for myself to use as I went to its holding place. The locks on the prison were well made and shielded, and had barely deteriorated at all, but this was barely a deterrent to me, as they were built to withstand entropic and voidic energies first and foremost. Blowing the locks off one by one was trivial. Inside, held within great chains that were barely holding together, was the Chaos Butterfly. A massive semi-insectoid roiling mass of entropic power. I could give a description of the beast, but that would take much too long and if you managed to find this journal you can likely find other sources on that as well. Me and my small team of personal guard bots swept through the chamber, clearing out the entropic scale creatures the Butterfly was trying to free itself with, and setting up my equipment, all while ignoring the enraged psychic screams of the Butterfly. I didn’t even have to go to my secondary plans, the first thing I had ready to deal with the Butterfly worked perfectly. A simple machine apparatus with extra holding tanks built to act as basically an Un Fluid field gun, with enough ‘ammo’ reserves to keep firing for several hours, maybe even a few days. I took three of those, set them up, and aimed them at the Chaos Butterfly, and turned them on. Well, turned two of them on, the third went totally unused because the first two alone were enough to not only keep it… stunlocked let’s say, but also wear away at its power faster than the Butterfly could recover. From there it was a very simple matter of withdrawing generous samples of liquid entropy from its being, and then opening up the entryway into the prison wide enough for me to fire my landing shuttle’s main gun down into it. I did see something… odd, while I was there. Someone managed to follow me to the prison, a knight of some sort. They were wearing strange armor, that gave off extremely strange readings, fluctuating between different powers and energies, specifically like a lot of my tiered materials do. I didn’t have enough time to pin down what, specifically, they were wearing because they left as soon as they realized I’d spotted them. Very odd. Anyways, soon after they left my bots finished clearing me a shot, and I hit the Chaos Butterfly with… well, a lot. Probably more than I needed to use, but regardless of how much I did or didn’t need the Chaos Butterfly will not be troubling anyone after this. Looking up now, though, I have written for more useless anecdote in this journal than I really needed to, so I’m going to give the general information on Liquid Entropy, and then get back to work before I waste more time. Liquid Entropy is a sort of coalesced form of entropic energy. The problem is that Liquid Entropy also requires certain destructive magics to properly form it into fluid form, and so almost anything formed with or powered by Liquid Entropy will have very strong destructive tendencies, accelerating and modifying entropic tendencies such that it leads to a full collapse of anything subject to its powers.”

Blackguard: “Alright, today’s story is likely to be rather long as well, so I shall start by listing the material I retrieved most recently, and then move on to general news. Blackguard is a powerful metal, but rather rare as the secret to its creation is only know by one group, Blackguard Foundry. An out-of-the-way voidic super fortress that was repurposed into a forgeworld and does frequent business with many groups in the Void. Blackguard is a very strong supermetal, durable and extremely resistant to decay and disrepair, the material itself, and therefore all items made from it, has built-in defensive charms partially maintained by a sort of ‘matter’ collection function, where it collects small particles out of the air and dust around it to convert into energy and replacement matter. I have not yet totally figured out the method by which it does this, but it is a function of the material itself as warping and reshaping the metal does not degrade these properties at all. It is also very dense, but the density of the material is not always consistent, on account of the matter collection and burning. Now that that’s done with, on to the drama I suppose. First thing to state is that the Void in general has been gradually getting more and more hostile to me as time goes on. The Superiors (at least, I’m fairly certain it’s them) have been putting quite a bit of effort into sending organizations after me so any given stretch of time will have me fighting three or four different organizations between it all. The IUPC also seems to be very unhappy with my conduct in general and have hunting squads looking for me anywhere there have been ‘recent sightings’, and the number of those is going up drastically because they’ve finally started resolidifying their hold on the territory they protect, even with how much chaos and turmoil is going around in the Void outside their borders. This brings me to why this most recent material turned out to be a bit more of a pain in the neck than expected. My intention was to head in to Blackguard Foundry, place a small order of weapons and material, and be on my way with no further issues beyond a small cash transaction. Instead, they rejected me, sent me some kind of list of ‘crimes against reality’ and threatened to call in the IUPC if I didn’t leave nearby Voidspace altogether. Much more hostility from a supposedly neutral group than I expected, so despite my best efforts to negotiate in good faith, I was forced to take more drastic measures. A quick decoy deployment to lull them into a sense of security, thinking I had left, and then going in loud. Blackguard Foundry may be famous for their weaponry, but I was quite correct in my assumption that they weren’t prepared for things like my Cerberium and Blasphemer’s Alloy weaponry, and punching a hole in their defenses was effortless, after which attacking their database and locating a storeroom of prepped material was almost as easy. The difficult part came when reinforcements arrived, because despite threatening to call in IUPC agents, it seems they already had before they even finished answering my call in. Clever, I suppose, but not really smart. Despite not having the fire power on hand I need to enact my wide-scale retribution as I tried in the past, directly attacking and trying to trap someone who already has more than enough power inside your base to reduce it to slag is still never smart, so upon the discovery of IUPC agents already making their way in, even trying to destroy my landing shuttle to keep me from escaping (ha!) I didn’t have much option but to set my little helpers from ‘mayhem’ to ‘clean sweep’. This would likely have been the end of it, except for a further development of something I think has been going on for a while. The knight from the Chaos Butterfly’s prison was part of the squad, or accompanying it, or something. And when I set my robots to be a little less generous with their mercy, said knight showed up at my exact position nearly instantaneously. They were more of a challenge than I cared to deal with at that point, surviving most of my attacks with their armor itself unscathed even when I did manage to land hits, and the one time I managed to punch through it (using an Un-Fluid-coated puncture drive weapon of my own design) and land a shot in a spot that should have been lethal, they kept going! It definitely slowed them down by quite a lot, but I really didn’t have time for a fight like that while there were undoubtedly more IUPC Agents en route so I hit them with a spatio-temporal rebound lock and made my way out. I am certain it didn’t hold them for longer than a few minutes though, a more in-depth analysis of what I got from their equipment confirmed my previous suspicions. Their armor was forged from Continuitite, and most of their weaponry was too. The only other person I know of who possesses Continuitite of any kind is Lothrien, and she didn’t take any of the data needed to make more, though what she took is quite feasibly enough to have made the equipment of the knight… What happened to her, is she okay? The IUPC wouldn’t just kill her, would they? I wish I had some way to learn what led to this knight coming after me without diving head-first into IUPC Voidspace. As a final afterthought, I’ve been looking more into creating myself some Elenium for equipment and the like. So far all I’ve really been able to do is speed up Cerberium production a little bit, which is not nearly as useful as I really do not need large quantities of it in all honesty, but I will take any advantages I can get. Hopefully I shall get there soon, I am beginning to suspect that I may need it in the near future.”

Waluigi Thyme: “Once again I find myself at a strange crossroads, as I have killed another creature, or rather, individual, of myth and legend. Waluigi is a good deal less mythical, however, as the mayhem that rose in his wake was well documented despite his powers being a bit less so. His path of chaos stopped rather abruptly however, a very short time before my journey started. An expeditionary force was made to his ‘lair’ and found it nearly destroyed with strange energies lingering around it, the purple demigod’s private store of ‘Waluigi Thyme’ but most of the stolen artifacts untouched, with those few that weren’t fine seemingly destroyed in the fighting, seemingly without rhyme or reason as to which ones were taken and which were left. I now know, exactly, what the reason behind his disappearance is, but first I should probably once more give a general rundown of the material in question. Waluigi Thyme is a rather curious substance, taking the form of a spice (closer in form to oregano than thyme strangely enough. I suspect the name was given purely for the sake of the pun) with a deep purple hue, and a variety of unpredictable effects. It has a tendency to grant limited power over plot energies, and exception and resistance to the machinations of the Narrative and Conflict. Individuals often discover new powers within themselves after ingesting Waluigi Thyme, as if the presence of plot and reason is a personal inhibitor, but those powers vary wildly from individual to individual and are not always logically connected. It also, unfortunately, tends to inflict near-total insanity on individuals who ingest enough in one go for it to take proper effect. Reportedly it is also very versatile in usage with cooking, but as I do not have any way to replenish my supplies once I run out, I think that particular question will remain unanswered. As for how I got it… Well, I had not made heavy use of my capacity over the timeline except for quick combat applications, and the time had come to change that. I had a general timeline of Waluigi’s final escapades, and using that I was able to locate roughly the time at which he was killed so that I could sneak into his mansion prior and take a few small samples of his signature spice before the rest was looted by whoever it was that came and killed him. Instead, it turned out that I’m the one who killed Waluigi, because he was waiting for me in the pantry. Not only waiting for me, but already hopped up on Thyme with several of his ‘collected’ artifacts already on hand. He gave a short speech about how he was ‘expecting me’ and started complaining about something regarding ‘luigis’ and I took the opportunity to shoot him in the face while he was monologuing. Even though that wasn’t enough to take him down, I needn’t have bothered. Fully equipped as I was, especially with the small handful of Elenium weapons I managed to craft just before, he was no match for me. I suppose it was inevitable though, what is a god in the face of scientific inquiry? In the end little more than old superstition and a few parlor tricks. Since I suddenly had all the time I needed, I opted to take the entire spice cabinet. And then the blasted knight showed up with their continuitite armor, and the real fight began. A few things to note in the fight, the knight’s armor is much more refined than mine. I have been a little too wrapped up in my materials research and never really got around to optimizing add-ons, enchantments, and general enhancements that can be done beyond the base material. These add-ons the knight has play a much larger part in making them dangerous than I previously would’ve expected, they’re a match for me even with their material 2 tiers lower than my own. Not only that, but they’re fighting with IUPC standard combat training so it is definitely one of their agents. I could go into much greater detail, but I did not really spend much time fighting her (fairly certain it’s a her, the armor seems to have a voice masker installed, but I could glean that much from post-fight analysis of her angry ranting throughout the fight) on account of realizing I had left my ship unprotected outside and that if she had brought in any sizeable amount of allies my notes and stores may be at risk. Fortunately, she had not, but the knight remains alive to continue digging thorns in my side for the future. I will need to finish crafting myself Elenium gear and the like and then perhaps do something about the knight.”

Equalized Chaos: “Having returned to my own time, and done some work, I’ve looked around a bit more into current events and refining my work just a tad more, though I won’t be doing much with my Cerberium armor as I hope to replace it with an Elenium set soon. First, word about my deeds with the Chaos Butterfly, the Blackguard Foundry and Waluigi have been making the rounds. A lot of the general background buzz of angry backwater kingdoms has died down as they are too afraid of me to try and force me out of their territory. This hasn’t, of course, deterred MTT INDUSTRIES or the IUPC at all, and they were the primary sources of my problems anyways so not much has changed there. Actually, it has gotten rather worse. The sudden outbreak of chaos and political uncertainty in the Void gave Project Nexus the time they needed to get their production lines up and running despite the IUPC giving out large amounts of information in regards to taking down Nexus strongholds, and they’ve begun sending strike teams after me once more. Well, less ‘strike teams’ and more ‘invasion fleets’ but at this point the difference in capability is so high I can deal with them equally well. On the other hand, though, this ‘knight’ the IUPC has working for them appears to be a secret recruit they’ve been working with for quite some time now, specifically trained to use the continuitite weaponry they got their hands on ‘through an anonymous donor’ (so theft, I suppose) and she’s been making quite a name for herself. Leading charges against Nexus invasion forces, taking down major Voidic monstrosities single-handedly, and just in general making a big name for herself everywhere she goes. She’s also taken to leading IUPC hunter squads right to my position by abusing the continuitite’s timeloop capacity and sending my coordinates in the future to her past self every time she catches onto my trail again. I am honestly getting rather sick of what is now an almost daily routine of ditching pursuers and killing those I can’t lose normally. Once I’m done with this entry I’m going to see if I can figure out a way to perhaps lessen the heat, but first I need to give my calculation results: the latest compound, Equalized Chaos, is very hard to describe. It is a material imbued with enormous amounts of chaotic powers, between the liquid entropy and waluigi thyme its very presence should be capable of totally destabilizing entire universes in rippling waves of madness and structural degradation. Instead, somehow the interaction with the Blackguard and Voidstone makes it extremely stable. Or, sometimes. Equalized Chaos has two states, inert and active. While inert it is sturdy, strong, and nonreactive enough that it can actually be disposed of without releasing the dangerous energies contained within it. When switched to its active state it basically becomes a reality bomb, causing the very fabric of ‘things’ to unravel and tear at the seams until it eventually breaks itself down to a hyper-unstable state that quickly detonates with enough force to tear apart… everything in range. Said range varies depending on the quantities of Equalized Chaos present, but anything large enough to be detected by the human eye would likely have enough range to spell utter ruination for any universe it was detonated within the bounds of.”

Advancement Tier 21 (Axiomal): “Let’s… start with the newest tier first. That will be easier. When combined with Origin Metal, Equalized Chaos makes what I have named Axiomal. As a material, it… well, unravels. Sanity and meaning become much more relative, and it acts as an extreme booster to the powers gained during the creation of Blasphemer’s Alloy. Things which you wish to not be degrade and wash away, things which you want to be different will find themselves inexorably drawn towards their new state of being, and things which you want become the ‘resting state’ of reality around you. It maintains the transformative properties of Origin Metal even while doing this, granting those who fully grasp its powers those same strengths. You wouldn’t just be a reality warper, you would be a reality definer. Capable of writing into will the meaning of “is” and “isn’t”, ‘should’ and “shouldn’t”. Controlling entropy and energy flow itself. Next, I suppose, is the small piece of news that I am properly manufacturing Elenium in large enough quantities that I finally created an armor set for myself, and weapons and tools to match. Finally, is the long and hard news. You see, not all of my ‘holding stations’ for the harvester armies were destroyed. Just most of them, I had four of them left. The number is now down to three, but it was a worthwhile expenditure as the IUPC will not be bothering me anymore. I delivered them an ultimatum, that we would arrange a time and place at which they could send however much force against me as they wanted. Set up a trap, ambush or whatever to go down in history, and if they could beat me there, I would be beaten and surrender. If they were unable to beat me there, however, they would cease their assaults on me and any violation of that agreement would be met with retaliation. Retaliation that would not spare civilians or other innocents. They hesitantly agreed after I reminded them that retaliation was not necessarily exclusive to them losing this ‘bet’ we were making. We arranged a time, and a place, an empty universe that they had previously used as a sort of ‘testing range’ for artifacts, where life was unable to grow on its own and that they could prep with the strongest weaponry they had available. I brought an army of upgraded warbots, all that I needed, really. I hijacked the contingencies they put in place to neutralize the universe from outside should things go south enough, and turned them into precision artillery strikes working for me through the course of a timestop, and made my way to the ‘arena’, an entire star system packed with as many big guns as they could spare, and one very, very powerful knight. They knew already, I think, that the knight was their best bet at winning. Their forces started trying to pull out not long after my harvester swarms arrived. I let those who escaped escape, it didn’t matter much to me at that point, the knight was my target. She had a personal vendetta against me though I wasn’t sure why beforehand, and I wasn’t certain I could count on her abiding by the terms the IUPC set down as ‘loose cannon’ heroes are still very much an option in their hiring lines, though they do still do their best to keep them under control. The knight wasn’t ready though, she was a better fighter than I am, I think. But the gap in armor refinement was much smaller this time around, and I came much more prepared in terms of close air support than she did. I didn’t really wind up needing it, the Elenium armor I have and assorted specialty weapons I’ve designed wound up being plenty, but I suppose she still managed to get a strike off. The IUPC didn’t steal that continuitite, it wasn’t taken or repurposed or given. It’s original owner only let it out of her possession long enough for it to be upgraded, researched and refined. Lothrien herself moved to the IUPC protectorate, and after my later actions began to be more publicized around the Void (It seems I have Scratch to thank for that. Perhaps he got the last laugh after all.) she signed up at the IUPC. For quite a while she wasn’t certain I was really the one behind everything being attributed to me, and though I truly wasn’t, I suppose what I actually have done was enough for her. She’d already bonded with her continuitite gear, so the IUPC couldn’t loan it out to anyone else, and instead had to fast-track her training in the hopes that she’d be able to help deal with me. And all the time, as she watched and saw me do more and more, it seems she grew to hate me, viewed me as a demon who had tried to drag her into some kind of darkness and that she’d barely escaped. It… hurt, honestly. Discovering that she’s the one that had been hunting me, enough that I actually listened through her entire angry tirade. Enough that I learned her story. I wish I hadn’t, because I almost couldn’t put the sword through her chest when the fight finally ended. The last thing she said to me still rings in my mind, “I thought I knew you.” She didn’t recognize me. She didn’t see the man who rescued her from Project Nexus’ death trap and nursed her back to health. She only knew who I was by reputation, and looking in the mirror I see the same thing. I’m not who I was when I went on this journey anymore, I’m not just a scientist anymore, nor am I really… whatever I thought it was I was. It’s almost like the more I gain of this great power I seek, the more I lose of everything else. I don’t enjoy eating anymore, I don’t think I’ve mentioned that in any of my entries. After I started feeding on pure life energy and vibranse, food lost its necessity, and then its appeal. Something like that is quite small, in all honesty, but I think it paints more of a picture than any other single detail I could give. I have lost something important, maybe even crucial, in my journey. Something I should’ve perhaps been more protective of when I set out to do this. But it’s too late now, I suppose. I am not what I was before, and that which I lost is not going to come back. The only way from here is forwards, and I mean to reach the end. Otherwise everything I’ve sacrificed was wasted.”

Crystallized Paradox: “More developments have come my way since the showdown with the IUPC. First, I’ve drawn the interest of a new group. The other Descended. Or, at least, some of them. Descended don’t usually cooperate in large groups except when there’s Godmodders or equally large threats, but I’ve been having to dodge or get rid of a handful of individuals with Descendancy repeatedly ever since that last fight. While my weaponry is quite useful, they’re coming much more prepared than other groups seem inclined to, so I haven’t actually killed more than one of them, and even that kill I was unable to confirm. However, this did open up a particular avenue of forward movement for me, and one that has turned out to be quite useful. You see, the next material I needed was ‘crystallized paradox’ which is a somewhat paradoxical substance even beyond being made of paradox. Paradoxes tend to coagulate into a general breakdown of ‘logic’ within an area, resulting in a sort of ‘randomizer’ effect. That is when they aren’t controlled however, and certain individuals are able to manipulate the energy to produce a sort of reality warping effect. Alternatively something called an unresolved paradox can be manufactured, which is effectively just a gaping hole in existence. The only group known to widely utilize paradoxes is a cult called the Dark Carnival, currently led by an individual by the name of Dimentio though he shares power with a circle of “Princes”. A circle which I have managed to obtain contacts within through a bit of trickery and use of the rumor mill surrounding my actions and powers. While Dimentio (rightly) seems untrusting of my ‘joining’ the cult, I was still able to procure a few samples of isolated paradox energy, and crystallized paradox even, by giving them information on happenings around the Void and a shipment of some of my specialty materials. I’ll have to tread lightly as I move forward though, the Dark Carnival are powerful enemies, and much less self-inhibiting than the others I’ve made so far. I’m inevitably going to upset them as I have no interest in ending reality with paradoxes like they’ve somehow gotten into their heads is the right thing to do, but it would be best to be prepared when they do finally figure out what my real intentions are. Oh, yes, material properties. Crystallized Paradox holds many similarities to normal paradox energy, except compacted into a crystalline form. It radiates minor paradox energies, causing small incongruities and warps in reality around itself, and if not properly controlled with paradox magics will eventually destabilize and explode violently into an unresolved paradox.”

Multiversal Stabilizer: “While the constant attacks remain a thorn in my side, I’ve managed to accomplish a bit more research. The next piece to the puzzle is called “Multiversal Stabilizer”, a material name so bland it makes even my naming schemes seem interesting. It is a strange gel-like substance with a strange mirage like coloring to it, shimmering pale colors that don’t seem quite real. It is however, somewhat the opposite of unreal. It acts as a ‘reality grounder’ of sorts, making anything it is applied to more stable and grounded. Sort of an application-based reality anchor almost, except it provides extreme resilience to paradoxes and similar powers, as well as other things that can potentially attack one’s existential integrity. It was very difficult to procure this, a very long and convoluted path brought me to the old lab in the depths of a massive sprawling fortress in the depths of the Void. I had to make liberal use of blackmail to get the information I needed, but it definitely seems that my reputation carries a certain weight nowadays. The retrieval of the multiversal stabilizer has already proved immensely useful, using it I’ve managed to bolster my alchemiter lines by an extraordinary amount, to the extent that even with barely any idea how I need to use it most effectively, I already almost have Yorickite ready to produce. I also decided to try my luck at perhaps deterring some of my more organized attackers, which ranged from the World Guard’s terrified acquiescence, to Project Nexus’ reluctant agreement, all the way up to the response that MTT INDUSTRIES and the Advanced Superiors gave me which is best summarized as “piss off, go die in a hole” except with a lot more eldritch cursing of some kind. I suppose the attacks have gone down in frequency a lot since I issued my ultimatums as well, perhaps I can finally finish another material without something else getting in the way.”

Stabilized Paradox: “Something else got in the way, as seems to be par for the course. The good news is that I currently only have one major faction attempting to cave my head in. The bad news is that that is because I am currently drowning in so many apocalypse clowns and their assorted cohorts that nobody else wants to get anywhere near me. I am burning through very, very large amounts of Multiversal Stabilizer on a daily basis to keep my ship in one piece that isn’t duck shaped, and the only thing keeping them from overwhelming me through sheer numbers, determination, and raw firepower is the fact that I finished creating my Yorickite gear and am able to turn every wave of deceased jesters into undead warriors to help me protect my base. Actually, if they keep up the way they have been I may very well end up with another nigh-unstoppable horde at my disposal, but I find it much more likely that they’ll bring out the big guns before I get to that point. I do, after all, pose a very large potential threat to them now. Stabilized Paradox, the conglomerate which I have alchemized, acts as both the ultimate paradox channeler, and the greatest antithesis to paradox energies there is. I have not been able to make much, but it can be used both to channel and control paradox energies, or to stamp them out in their entirety. It even works flawlessly against unresolved paradoxes, something even multiversal stabilizer can’t always do reliably. You could build actual, consistent paradox-based technologies with this stuff, or even better, proper paradox suppression field generators. Which is what I’m currently working on, as since the clowns are currently hot on my tail, I need a way out. Since the only way to get people to listen to me these days is threats and overwhelming force, it is time for me to threaten the single most hated group in reality into submission.”

Advancement Tier 22 (Oyxm): “Well, that went… okay I guess. I have a very large mess to clean up and a decent portion of my labs to restore to working order, but I believe I have time for a breather and to disappear from everyone’s maps and radars before they figure that I have scared off the Dark Carnival. I finished my plan just in time, three of the Princes themselves came pounding on my door with their twisted magics, Dimentio himself among their number. While I did have quite a good supply of muscle, I did not have nearly enough to withstand the combined might of 3 Princes, and so they broke into my base, wreaking havoc as they and their minions flooded in. Until they reached a somewhat inner portion of my base, where I had constructed the Paradox Engine. Using the Stabilized Paradox I created, I crafted a large machine, built to allow me full control over paradoxical energies within range. I have finished ironing out the kinks since sending the crazed fools packing, but at the time I need the princes closer to it to ensure I had all three of the biggest present threats on hand for my demonstration. One flip of a switch and every cultist in even the near vicinity found themselves running on fumes and then not even that, the princes found their most versatile and powerful abilities gutted, with me, fully armed and armored, standing over them. Dimentio was smart enough to target the engine, but he was mistaken in his belief that his own dimensional magics would protect him long enough to complete the assault. He, and his fellow who tried to protect him from my blow, were killed and disposed of with a singular motion. A single quick pre written monologue later (monologuing is actually very cathartic I must admit, no wonder it is such a ubiquitous problem) I delivered my ultimatum, quite similar to the one I gave to the IUPC. If they didn’t stop trying to hinder my research, I would remove every trace of paradox energy from reality. Of course, that’s not a threat I can follow through on properly, but the poor creature quivering before me had no way of knowing that. With that, the Dark Carnival is out of my hair and I can use the mass of paradoxes they left behind to conceal my escape. Now, with that recorded, the newest tier which I have done calculations for: Oxym. Oxym horrifically powerful, existing in a peculiar flux state of mixed reality and nonreality. While it doesn’t give full metacongruous extension, it gives access to many of the ‘can nots’ and ‘should nots’ that exist on the fringes of reality, including paradox energy. I have honestly very little idea what the full extent of the power of this material would be, the calculations get ever more complex the further I go and despite my best efforts I really don’t have the grounding needed to fully interpret all of it.”

Voidfabric: “Work has been going quietly, but quite well ever since my showdown with the Dark Carnival. While Descended still manage to track me down occasionally, I’ve retreated far enough out of the more densely populated regions of the Void that nobody is really able to find me well enough to send things my way. Though, I suppose not many folks want to anymore anyways. With proper peace and quiet I’ve been able to better develop my alchemiters using the Paradox Engine and Multiversal Stabilizer stores and am getting rather close to creating Eselion already. The first material I’ve sampled is Voidfabric. It is similar in function to reality fabric, except for the Void instead of universes. That isn’t a totally accurate manner of speaking, there are areas with more or less density to Voidfabric’s presence, and even some places where it is totally absent while still being part of the Void itself. Voidfabric acts as a sort of… energy conduit, almost like wiring carrying specific energies throughout the Void. I’m currently looking into these energies and getting some rather interesting results. Voidfabric is normally very hard to isolate and obtain, but honestly I’ve done far harder things while under far greater duress. As a note, my next entry may be a little late, as the next material I need samples of is back within the bounds of where everyone hates me.”

Raw Tetromino: “So, I have a few interesting things to report. First, one of the major powers that Voidfabric seems particularly attuned to is the same power which the Advanced Superiors make use of. Curse energy, supposedly formed from the raw power of the ‘4 Pillars of the Void’, a set of energies which can be found in trace amounts almost everywhere in reality. Legends state that long ago a being named METATRON enacted his vision upon the face of existence, giving it life and form through the power of the Pillars, and while I am not totally certain of the veracity of those statements, there is definitely some kind of piece of truth within it because the Advanced Superiors seemed very upset when I made a visit to the Gardens of Geometry. I suppose the visit in and of itself isn’t what upset them, as many pilgrims of the Church of Metachronistic Light make their way there quite regularly. They were probably a bit more upset about me desecrating the holy grounds to harvest Raw Tetromino (one of the supposed Pillars of the Void). They haven’t talked to me directly, and I think any attempts would be thinly veiled assassination attempts anyways. How I know they’re angry at me is that they’re partaking in some slightly riskier endeavours to try and track me down and kill me, to the extent that they’ve started directly using some of MTT INDUSTRIES’ front organizations to bring more organized and advanced firepower to bear. They have quite a few interesting ways to do such things I suppose, but they inadvertently led me back to MTT INDUSTRIES itself. I don’t have a full map or anything, but I know where several of their facilities are, and from there I can see about doing something more permanent about the Advanced Superior. Finally, it seems that the Descended have redoubled their efforts. There’s even a handful of minor Godmodders joining their ranks. This is turning into an actual problem for me because even with all my abilities a Godmodder is still capable of being something of a threat. I’ll figure something out, but for right now it’s just one more thing slowing me down. As for the material, Raw Tetromino is unique. I’m hesitant to call it ‘supersolid’ as that is already a term in a few other scientific fields but I think it describes it quite well. Tetromino has extra spatial depth, adding weight and size in extra dimensions beyond just those that the item it is formed into possesses. A weapon formed of it in motion could be treated as having infinite cutting power and mass, and armor as having infinite resistance and internal strength. Obviously other means of manipulating it is required to keep it from crushing you under its weight, but once you have those methods, it provides a singular, final answer to all forms of purely physical conflict.”

Curse Essence: “Another round of research and blackmail later and I have removed one of the final remaining obstacles in my path. I think I’ve made my status quite clear in the minds of those… well, sneople I guess. I hadn’t really expected them to be nth-dimensional snake people hiding in the shell of cloned human bodies calling upon the power of a dead god, but that’s what they turned out to be. And once again, I proved my scientific knowledge superior to any sort of feigned divinity. I was originally going to wait a bit longer, but then I discovered in my workings that the Advanced Superiors, based on readings from my one previous direct encounter with them, had a very high chance of containing the next material I needed; Curse Essence. So I did a bit of trickery with their communications technology (my Descendancy came quite in handy there in fact, the first time I have really seriously needed it for a while) and jacked into their private channels. After tracking down their preferred meeting place, I began making a mess. Destroying facilities, leaving ‘messages’, and intercepting strike forces sent to various locations. My apparently omnipresent mayhem (in truth performed by well-scheduled time travel abuse) worried them enough to call a full council of their number. Right to the location I had staked out. A quick systems hijacking, a quick barrage from another reactivated harvester swarm, and the entire facility was on high alert but crippled enough for me to focus on the Superiors. They didn’t stick to one place of course, they headed out to where the disturbance was strongest, where I would be. Where I had been before I hijacked their reality and temporal anchors and looped backwards in time. Even with the element of surprise, the Advanced Superiors are still some of the strongest individuals I have ever seen, so I had to act fast and thin their number with my initial attack. Ampersand was my primary target, with his control over time I couldn’t leave him active to contest my meticulously assembled time loops. Interrobang was also a very large potential problem, as while there was far less information about his capacities available than the others, what information I did have clearly made him the most dangerous combatant. With those two properly disabled, and my ambush sprung, the fight began in earnest. It was by far the hardest fight I have fought so far, even with just 8 of them I was greatly straining my powers and weaponry for a good deal of the fight. Without the full Eselion outfitting I had prepared, I may even have lost. A few interesting notes for myself should they decide to try their hand again later; Caret went down like a chump. His power seems very versatile and powerful, but it has to do with holy energies of some kind, making him very vulnerable to the powers obtained from Godslayer Steel onwards. He should be an immediate target in all cases as he’s dangerous offensively but goes down easily. Backslash and Octothorpe are all very dangerous as well, I’m still going over the information gleaned during the battle, but their powers both seem to have domains that can skirt the edges of my own strengths, and were the only ones who I couldn’t directly contest or intercept. I would make some notes about Interrobang’s powers, as he was definitely the most dangerous opponent (the fact that he was able to rouse himself during the battle and rejoin the fray as I was finishing up with his co-Superiors is a testament to that fact in and of itself) but it is not necessary, because ‘was’ is the proper tense to be using when talking about the withered husk once referred to as Advanced Superior Interrobang. He put up a good fight, almost as good as the other 8 of their group combined. Without any form of backup, and with me still having plenty of energy and minions to draw upon, he too went down. And since he was on hand, he was the perfect candidate for being the example. Using a quintessential concept blade I forged in the fires of the Paradox Engine, I carved into his being and ripped the Curse Essence right out of him, and the curse he carried. My work done, the material retrieved, and the Superior’s order reduced in number by one, I set out for my ship. Curse Essence is very peculiar, it taps into something else that I’m not totally certain how to define. It powers Curses, symbols drawn in the basic ‘being’ of reality, calling forth the energy of Curse Essence seemingly from nothing to enact meaning and power upon the face of whatever is branded. Holding this power in my possession, and such a great supply of it no less… Once I have finished my work with the Ultimate Material, I think I may need to investigate how these ‘Curses’ work more thoroughly. I suppose it may not matter at that point, but still.”

Ancient Conglomerate: “Something is wrong. Everything has gone quiet. I was too elated with my apparent clean getaway at the time to realize it, but everything stopped as soon as I left the MTT INDUSTRIES facility. No attacks of any kind. No hailings or scouts. The only thing I have caught on my scanner that isn’t a settlement or otherwise mapped location is an energy signature of some kind that is pulsing on regular intervals, growing stronger and clearer every time. Even the attacks from the Descended and Godmodders have totally dried up. I need to keep an eye out. The combined material I have calculated out, and just barely made (it’s almost as charged with power as the Yorickite is, and something else keeps trying to interfere with the process as well, though I don’t understand how that’s possible.) is now dubbed Ancient Conglomerate. I am still testing all of its powers, but it seems to act as a full solid and compacted form of Curse Energy, with a number of extra additions as well. It channels other energies (though not all) with extreme efficiency, holds the extra-solidity of Raw Tetromino and manifests concepts into being in a similar way to Curses when shaped properly. I don’t possess enough of it to properly test all of its features, but I will hopefully be able to procure enough.”

Advancement Tier 23 (Levitite): “I have seen the face of God, of the fire unquenchable and the power from which power itself springs. I do not know how long it will be until my strength fully returns to me, but I have stood in the will of divinity and only the machinations of the ungodly saved me from oblivion. METATRON lives, and has proclaimed me his enemy. I… I must go rest, I cannot do this yet. Pardon me for the ramblings from before, but I think I understand now what people mean by “divine wrath”. It turns out that the energy pulses from before were the Superiors attempting to exact retribution on me by calling forth METATRON in their name. I suspect this was not without price on their end, but had fortune not been with me that would have been the end of my journey. He arrived like a storm, a whirlwind of metachronistic fire that scourged my creations as if they were little more than paper in the depths of a star. I felt reality sear away from my bones, when suddenly something else came. The reason the Descended and Godmodders were not attacking me was because I was bait in their trap. The awakening of the voice of God’s wrath was apparently seared into the dreams of many around the Multiverse, and they laid in wait around where I would draw his ire. When he awoke, and prepared to strike, they unleashed their plan, a whirlwind of powers from every corner of the cosmos, sealing METATRON within a prison of deep slumber, rows upon rows of locks, charms and wards. An entire universe crafted solely to act as a prison and monument until such day as the powers of reality collect themselves from the current wars and can perhaps work on a more permanent method of disposal. I myself escaped under the cover of the maelstrom, but attacks have resumed since they finished their project. I have little idea as to how to deter my attackers, but as the Descended and Godmodders now remain the sole thing left hindering me, as opposed to METATRON having reduced me to conceptual ash… I think I shall count my blessings. The most recent tier in my calculations I have dubbed Levitite. Oxym is already a blasphemously powerful material, but Levitite would be even more so. Calling upon and exerting utter dominance over the basic fabric and powers upon which reality is built. A way to call your most basic or complex ideas into being within a single thought or expression, drawing all power needed forth from the ether into a solidified extension of your own willpower and might.”

Piece of the Conflict: “My journey brings me to ever darker corners of reality. I have another force intent on my destruction, but at the same time it all seems to far away. The more I move around, the more I have seen, the more it feels like my mind collapses in upon itself, withdrawing more and more to the dark hallways buried within my psyche. My most recent expedition led me to a place often referred to as The End of Light, a place entrenched in chaos and destruction at what is frequently considered to be the far end of reality. It is a place where the Conflict itself, the plot force of change and destruction that fights the Narrative for control of reality, is at the height of its power. Beings that travel there can find themselves unraveled on a conceptual level, breaking apart into pieces, then ideas, then nothing. So I journeyed into the heart of that swirling, all consuming darkness. The shadows seemed alive, yet dead at the same time, and I could feel their malevolence attempting to rip into my hull. Pieces of dark power too weak to leave and find things to feed on aside from each other, and also too weak to withstand the defenses of my voidship. I did not travel to the true heart, I think that beyond the end of light would come an end of being, a place so wild and ravenous that even thought and meaning devours itself, leaving only violence without direction in its wake. I didn’t need to go that far though, all I need was to travel far enough in that what I was shielding against was not merely the aura of the plot force, but its being as well. Where flashes light and chaos flicker within the murky soup, signs of where the Conflict’s power grows too dense and feeds on itself in a pulse of self-inflicted annihilation. I reached into the depths of hidden power within that region, and ripped free a small piece of that power, containing it within the best seal I could construct, and fled ahead of the rippling waves of rage that echoed through it all. I don’t totally know what happened as a result of my actions, but word has reached even my ears that the violence of the Multiverse around me has driven itself to new heights, and that Agents of the Conflict are openly behind this surge in chaos. I suppose that makes it all the better that I don’t feel much connection left with what is being lost. The piece I have taken has very peculiar properties. As it is a metaphysical energy construct it has to be restrained in more exotic ways to keep it from dissipating back into the ether, but it has an almost bestial intelligence to it. It writhes in its container, seeking to find a way to escape and rip free of its bindings. I have to periodically feed it new energy, as it devours itself little by little in its attempts to be let loose and starts to break up if I let it damage itself for too long. It also seems capable of exerting its influence on things outside of what it can detect or directly interact with, I had to place it in its own section of the lab after the ecosystem samplings closest to its container began ripping themselves apart in a fervent bloodlust. It is to be noted though, that this is very condensed Conflict energy. In order to collect it into a ‘piece’ I have to have far more power condensed down than happens anywhere outside of where I obtained it. I suspect that its properties would be a good deal less unrestrained were it to be dispersed into more usual concentrations.”

Piece of the Narrative: “I have added another mark onto my list of ‘powerful individuals whose deaths lie on my hands’. As seems oddly fitting, I had to retrieve a piece of the Conflict’s opposing plot force, the Narrative. This search drew me deep into the End of Shadow, considered by many to be the ‘center’ of reality. A glowing core around which all things seem to orbit. Whereas the End of Light is a realm of shadows and chaos, the End of Shadow is a place of order and silence, still images and forms frozen in fractilline perfection, moving only in prescribed orbits in an unwavering dance of geometric absolution. While it was just as alien and dangerous as the other end of the spectrum, the feeling of fear and worry I felt there was much deeper than that of the End of Light. There it was a physical force, a raw power trying to consume me and the things around me. Here it was impersonal, an observation of irritation rather than rage. I was a splinter to be plucked out, or woven into the whole, not something to be bested and consumed. Much like I did not travel to the true heart of the Conflict’s chosen throne, I did not for the Narrative. As I drew closer to the depth I needed, there were glimmers, like tiny threads, pulling at things to keep them in perfection, saved against the ripples and distortions introduced by the forces moving about in the reality outside. And then there was something else, an empty space, where the mirrors and twisting patterns fell away from each other making a perfectly spherical opening. At the center of that opening was a being of black and green, a great dragon coiled, with its eyes looking dead into the cameras of my ship. It was the Secret of the Void, one of the greatest Agents of the Narrative, a bringer of knowledge and salvation across reality, yet here they were, sitting in my path. I do not know how describe what happened after that all the way, yet I feel like I don’t really want to either. I left, we talked and they tried to dissuade me from my path. I think there was an understanding, from the beginning, that no matter what was said both of us were set on our opposing paths. That only one of us would be leaving that place. They showed me some things, things that I do not know how to shake from my head, either through word or in image. Of shattered symmetries spiralling into an empty infinity, and an endless desert of grey dust with nothing but light and shadow in every direction. And then we fought. Or would have, I suppose, had it been an even match. Even the great Secret fell before me, though that may have just been a hollow resignation on their part. I think they could have nearly matched my power, or at least tried. I haven’t ruminated on that much though, as I did not really stop to think about the… collateral damage my more forceful actions tend to have. My blow was singular, and heavy, and shattered the patterns in the Void as far as my eye could see, and the Narrative retaliated in kind. I felt the threads lashing themselves to my form, attempting to tear me apart, to subdue me. I felt more coming. Had I hesitated a moment longer I likely would still be there, no more than a floating ornament in the middle of a closing scar in the Narrative’s artificial jewel of ages. I did escape though, with what I went there to obtain no less, but I only did so just barely. The piece of the Narrative I have quarantined is much easier to handle than the piece of the Conflict. It spent its first while feeling out the contours of its container, but the not-really-consciousness within it was content to fill those boundaries and suspend the energies and minor particulates trapped with it in a tiny slice of facsimile perfection, like a miniature version of what I had ventured into before. It also has peculiar effects on the world outside, and after discovering that I had built the containment unit for it too close to the one for the Conflict piece (the two, even across a rather large distance, became single-mindedly focused on trying to breach their confines and tear at each other) was forced to store it a bit closed to the ecosystem samplings. When I came back the ants had stacked their food into symmetrical four-sided pyramids, arrayed in the shape of an ancient rune for ‘bounty’. The piece is better contained now though, and far enough away from my lesser research projects that it is no longer causing trouble. I hope.”

Terminae ‘Soul’: “Things grow ever stranger as I dive deeper into my work. The next item I needed was something I thought would be impossible. An item long thought disproven in Voidic theory, a Terminae Soul. Terminae are not well known among most people, so I suppose I shall give a rundown of what they are. Terminae are, in essence, the strongest reality warpers in existence. Sometimes, extremely rarely, when a powerful reality warper exits their home universe, they will become entangled in the structure of the Multiverse and shatter their being into pieces across it trying to escape. Some time after this shattering, usually eons in length though sometimes less, their consciousness will reform in a sort of ‘twist’ in that structure’s being. Essentially, they become pieces of reality itself, with full control over the things within it. An unrestrained Terminae would theoretically be capable of, with time and effort, spreading their influence across all of reality and making themselves all but omnipotent. In practice, their power is curbed both by the existence of other Terminae, and the animalistic territorialism of the only known things to have uncontestedly greater power than them; the plot forces. Because of this overlap and vulnerability to the plot forces gained of being made of the only thing that is always directly targetable by the plot forces, most Terminae do not actively engage in Multiversal affairs, and those who do often find themselves pushed out of the limelight. The only known way to kill a Terminae is to shred the center of the ‘twist’ that holds their consciousness with an unresolved paradox, but this is dangerous both because Terminae are vastly powerful and will throw forward their full might to prevent this from happening, and because doing so gives the unresolved paradox a massive surge in power, making it magnitudes greater in scope, power, and danger. The item I need is called a Terminae Soul, thought to be the ultra-powerful soul attached to these beings, but as you may have guessed, Terminae do not have souls. They are sentient twists in the fabric of existence, there is nothing for a soul to affix itself to. The twist itself, the thing which the Terminae’s very existence is centered around, contains very similar properties however. This presented me with a conundrum, attempting to kill a Terminae so I could carve out the wrinkle in which their consciousness is housed would result in the destruction of the very thing I was risking my existence to retrieve in the first place. I did not linger on it very long though, because a visitor arrived for me soon after I began contemplating it. Upon going to answer the door, I discovered that the someone outside had already let themselves in. It was a man dressed in a jacket, casual pants, but with taloned claws where his lower legs would be and a black mass of mist in his eye sockets. He introduced himself twofold, as a terminae who had been created from a pair of beings sharing a body, who had both been scattered upon entry to the Void, and then merged slightly incorrectly when reforming. One of them, Jared, had been a mostly human scientist that accidentally gave himself near omnipotence in his home universe, and then gotten himself possessed by the other being, a demon that called itself the Whispering Wind. Merged incompletely, and at odds with each other, the two have been… I suppose I shall say suicidal though I don’t know if that expresses it well. Apparently a Terminae’s existence is very painful, and theirs even more so. At Jared’s request, they’d been watching my progress periodically, and both of them desired to be the source for the material. A mutually beneficial exchange, giving them time to prep themselves a mortal body, and me a source of the material I needed to continue my research. It probably would’ve gone better for them was Jared a better liar. Their actual plan was to wait until I was occupied with finishing the extraction of the ‘Soul’ and then jump me, Jared downing my mental defenses with reality warping capacity transferred to the new body, and the Whispering Wind possessing me while my guard was down, allowing them to take over my research for their own personal gain. This plan went well for as long as it took for my Descendancy to serve as an quite solid wall to their plan, and the timer I’d set on my defenses to vaporize them. With two further miscreants defeated by their own hubris, and my next material obtained and secured, I moved onwards somewhere else before the sudden absence of a Terminae’s power could draw me more unwanted attention. The Terminae ‘Soul’ is a very powerful reality warping artifact. It taps into the hard coding and patterning of reality itself, acting as a direct conduit into the underlying structures that make and define everything. Basically it gives you omnipotence within a limited range. Unfortunately, it does not give the awareness or knowledge needed to properly utilize that power and I disintegrated three different sections of flooring and wall before I gave up for the time being.”

Godmodding Essence: “The Descended and Godmodder attacks keep getting worse. It’s ramped up slowly, but they’re definitely trying their hand at taking me down more often than they were before, and they’re doing it in groups more often too. I don’t know why I mentioned it now, specifically, except that it seemed to be a good time to mention it (and maybe that my attack on the Narrative had similar results to the attack on the Conflict, though I suppose I should have mentioned that sooner. I just didn’t really care enough to check.) since I wound up finally being able to make use of those attacks. To cut a long story short, I captured one of the attacking Godmodders (low rank of course) and cut her power right out of her metaphysical chest. It took quite a bit of work, and I nearly killed her prematurely a few times, but I was finally able to do it, and now have a large sampling of extracted Godmodding Essence available for testing and analysis. This power is… peculiar. I don’t know how describe it except as ‘other’. There seems to be something else associated with it, something that doesn’t conform to the usual rules and underlying guidelines everything else functions under. This would explain why I’ve had to use my best engenuity and tricks to escape or defeat Godmodders whenever they come after me, even more than Descended. This power just… doesn’t have to follow the rules. It makes them. Logic, consequentiality, everything. It does what the wielder wants it to do, and makes everything else go along with it because that’s what it’s telling everything else to do. Worse, a lot of the alchemical data seems more like garbage data. Bits of information that shouldn’t parse, and even more that just don’t mean anything, but trying to remove those bits makes the alchemiter unable to transmit or read it. Then again, I suppose that’s fine as the alchemiter gives me some kind of error code whenever I try to make more of it. I… just don’t know what to make of this.”

Spark of Descendancy: “I have news, of assorted kinds. First, I have burned through a lot of my Godmodding Essence reserves, with amazingly good results. I have given myself and my labs a replica of The Veil which most Godmodders possess, and as a result all the incoming attacks have stopped. I have not been hailed or assaulted a single time since activating it, I attempted to use it to upgrade the alchemiter such that it can make more godmodding essence and although that failed I have successfully fully outfitted myself with Merged Sunsteel equipment, with a fair amount of progress towards Aponagos creation completed as well. Finally, I was finally able to work out the weird kink my ship’s piloting AI picked up after my encounter with the Secret of the Void. I don’t know what the problem was but hitting it with godmodding essence made it go away just fine. Secondly, I am no longer in possession of Descendancy. Though my actions so far definitely warranted that status, it turns out that I needed the core of that power in order to complete the next stage of my research. Upon examining my current options, I decided that I can live without it. Having fully equipped myself with Merged Sunsteel and continued my life energy and vibranse regimen, I think I can replicate that power closely enough that I don’t really need it anymore. It left me feeling… rather empty though. Hollow. Hollower than I already felt I suppose, looking back at my previous entries I seem to have become somewhat listless, especially since my encounter with METATRON. But I think I am coming close to the end, I really do not think there is much further I could possibly go with this. Using a specialized surgery procedure I was able to extract that power, that spark of my Descended power, from within my own being. It seems to have rendered itself inert since then, though, and I haven’t been able to run proper tests on it as a result. It springs back to life a little when I get close to it again, but never on the scale it must have before I pulled it free. It has a strangely similar makeup to the Godmodding Essence, and yet, very different. The two energies oppose each other vehemently, with great power. Even inert, a tiny fragment I pulled off annihilated itself violently when put into contact with some of the Essence, and both flow extremely differently as well. But at the same time, they seem so similar. Both of them feel like outside power sources exacting their will upon this reality, maybe even the same one but in different ways. The alchemical data for it is just as garbled as the Godmodding Essence though, so I have not been able to decipher it at all.”

Plot Catalyst: “Well, I was able to put the calculations together, but surprise surprise I can’t alchemize the result. The alchemiters don’t even get to giving me the error when I try and properly alchemize it, they just explode instead. I’ve dubbed the result ‘Plot Catalyst’ and even though the code gets ever more confusing and garbled I’ve still been able to mostly piece it together somehow, and then fill in the blanks based on association with the readings of the base materials. This material gives depth and view over plot and reality, not just warping it, but seeing and breathing it. You could probably use a core of this stuff to create a new plot force, provided you fed it enough power to keep the Narrative and Conflict from crushing it in its infancy.”

Advancement Tier 24 (Finalium): “An end is coming. I tried to do the math, and even though I’m sure I did it correctly after my seven hundredth time going over it again, I feel like its off somehow. My head starts to hurt when I try and interpret the data in more detail, and I am somewhat worried about where my next steps will take me. I know where my very next step will be, and that almost scares me more than the unknowns lying beyond it. Finalium, the latest tier in my work, is even further removed in terms of power than the previous ones. It’s bearer, the one holding its power, would be a plot force. Not just a plot force, greater than a plot force. Not limited by the chains of non-intelligence or purely metaphysical being. You would simultaneously be a comprising force upon the face of reality and the greatest, most devastating agent of that force anywhere within or beyond its reach. A sentient plot force, something so great no mind living today could hope to comprehend it. And yet still the end to this path of madness stretches away into the dark mists of uncertainty before me. I know what I will do next, what I must do next. I do not know if I will succeed, I do not know if I can succeed, but everything I am and have done has led to this moment. It is time to step forward, into the light, and challenge the final challenge. If this is the last recording within this journal, then I failed. If there is more, I succeeded. I do not know which would be worse.”

Interpunct: “I’ve done it. Every blasphemy I’ve committed before now is nothing to the blood that now stains my hands. METATRON is dead, fallen, slain. I ripped the still pulsing core out of his being with my own two hands and now it sits in my labs, pulsing with the power that once was the lifeblood of the voice of God, left listless in a container because I do not possess the will or knowledge needed to shape it. I… I will not speak of how I performed this feat. If someone were to somehow try and repeat it I feel like the blood of such a doing should not be on my hands a second time. Though… I guess… Perhaps I have done worse things before. It all seems a blur of blood and betrayal now, searching back through my memories. So few things are clear, a few faces, a few places. One in particular. I can’t stop now though, my Aponagos gear is quite damaged and I should do my best to fix it up, as I don’t know how long it will be before I can upgrade, if ever. This would be the part where I give alchemical information, but the power of Interpunct is an entirely closed door to me. It seems to be a curse, much like those held by the Advanced Superiors, but in a way it is very different. I have no idea how to quantify it though. Perhaps I can find a way to break into its secrets if I just search a little harder…”

Universal Essence: “It’s there, I know it’s there, but I can’t find it. The numbers just keep running in circles and every time I get my mind to push further so I can reign the numbers in and get them on the page or in the computer everything winks out like I’ve pulled a plug on my brain. I’ve tried everything I know or can think of, I’ve juiced up on life essence I’ve tried hyper-intelligent AI systems devoted purely to the calculations I’ve tried brain wiring I’ve tried quantum recomposition I even tried LSD Ascension and that’s never even any good for numbers why can’t I make them WORK It always worked in the past and I don’t think I’m just missing something in the math its almost like I’m missing something inside of me and I can’t find it it’s not there anymore but it’s also still there and everything just comes and goes but nothing ever stays long enough to hold onto it anymore and I think the ants starved to death because I forgot to feed them but thats okay I guess I wasnt going to feed them anyway but now theyre dead and theres nothing left I killed everything and theres nothing but this great big sucking hole in the center of my mind. Is that where it went? … I just wrote dots on a paper without anything next to them maybe I should go back to bed maybe if I sleep it will be better in the morning. A few minutes of rest and clarity to find it, to find the last piece and write it down put it in numbers and letters and NO I AM GOING TO BED.”

???!??!??!???: “Its gone its gone its gone its gone its gone its gone the numbers are gone i cant find them where are the numbers its all just a mess and my mind wont work i cant stop yet i killed her for this i killed all of them for this i broke everything i had and wanted just for this it has to be there it needs to be there i cant let this be where it all stops there has to be somethingineedtheretobesomethingwhycantifinditijustneedabreakthroughicanfinditifijustlookharderanditsallbrokenupinmymindandicantfinditany
morenomatterhowhardilookforkaleidoscopiceyesofdarkandicantreaditilookedbackagainandtheresnothinginthenotesandthenumbersaregarbagej
ustlikethelettersmeltingtogetheronthepageliketheyrestonmywearyheadnotenoughspacetherejustisntenoughroominmyheaditallblendstogetherlik
eapieceoftreacleinthesundoiknowwhattreacleisyesirememberthatbutidontrememberthesunihaventseenthesunsincefromnowtillthenillneverresta
ndilostiticantevenrememberwhatimthinkingaboutanymoreitsalljustamessofnumbersandletterslikeicanseethewordswrittenonthepapersthattellabo
utourstoriesandthelightsicantseehaveigoneblindnothepowerjustwentoutiforgottoturnonthegeneratorsagaindidifallasleepitfeelssoillsleepnottillimd
eadfortheloveofmetatronwherediditgoiknowtherewassomethinghereifeellikeimtearingthisplaceaparttryingtofindmyownmindcantfinditcantfind it all of it’s gone and i cant even find the light switch how am i supposed to find the numbers in my head when they aren’t even there anymore?! I… I… I’m… I’m going to take one last pull from the life crystal. I don’t have much life essence left in there, now. It’s been a long time since I went out for supplies. Then I’m going to go to sleep again. And then… And then I’m going to try and figure out what to do next.”

Advancement Tier 25 (Unknown): “This is the end. I don’t know how far away I was from achieving my goal, but there is no where left for me to go. No reason left for me to go. It seems that this entire journey of mine was in the end nothing more than an exercise in madness. I have killed and destroyed, wrought a path of chaos and pain, all for nothing. Not even the knowledge which I sought out at the beginning. I killed gods, and worse than that, the people who trusted me and who I should have trusted in return. To all of you, Lothrien, Cole, Maria, every single individual whose names I was too self absorbed to commit to memory, I hope that you found greater peace in whatever existence you fell to than that which I left for you. To whoever may find this journal; do not go looking for me, if I am even still around to be found, it is not something that I wish. As I finish penning these words I shall move onwards, either to some form of restitution and solace, or perhaps just to some kind of fitting end. This small object of wood pulp and ink, bound with leather and protected by a few charms will be the last record to tell of the scar I left upon reality. Farewell, and goodnight. Do not repeat my mistakes.
- A. Levit”

The next few pages of the journal are blank, but after that, there are a few more pages with writing in them. You can tell immediately that this writing is someone else’s. Even before the original author’s descent into madness his penmanship was nothing you would call ‘neat’, but these new sections are. Not just neat, the writing is precise, calculated. Each line is done with near perfection, you could almost mistake it as typed and printed, as opposed to hand written.

Interpunct: “It seems that despite my ‘nudges’ along the proper path, Levit was unable to finish the task I sent his way. Fortunately, he got far enough for my own knowledge to fill in where he came up lacking. For completion’s sake, I’m filling out the rest of this. A compilation of this data will be useful, and unlikely to bring any real harm should someone else find it. First, the Interpunct. The first and greatest of all Curses, crafted by METATRON when he framed himself into the basic form of reality, and used as a focusing point for his power. All other Curses must be formed in the Interpunct’s metacausal image, which is, I think, the reason why Ancient Conglomerate doesn’t seem to function. Interpunct is a two space-dimensional sigil, and so too are all the lesser Curses sprung from it’s power. Ancient Conglomerate requires a third spatial dimension, and without a wellspring with equivalent geometries to draw that power from, it short circuits and fails to grant any real meaning. The Interpunct itself is very powerful, and so METATRON makes very few of them, and hides those that he makes extremely well. Anyone else who comes into possession of the Interpunct and gains the capacity to wield it can tap directly and fully into all of METATRON’s powers, without METATRON’s supervision. Essentially, full control of the Interpunct gives you full access to METATRON’s powers, or would, at least, should anyone actually achieve the feat without burning to cosmic ash in the process. Notably, Levit did not kill METATRON, rather greatly inconvenienced him, as METATRON is capable of regenerating from external points of the Interpunct given enough time. He’ll probably be quite cross, as given the nature of that last hit on the head he’ll be awakening with quite the headache. Good luck if you live… anywhere really, when he wakes back up. Kaleidoscopic fire will probably consume the Multiverse as soon as he does.”

Universal Essence: “This is a complicated object, almost more than the Interpunct. One could say that they share a duality, the Interpunct holds all meaning, the Universal Essence holds all being. Between the two, you hold the very crux of existence in your palms. The Universal Essence has not actually been created at any point in this timeline as far as my very extensive checks have uncovered, which may have been what led to Levit finally snapping. There was no evidence pointing towards his last piece, since it didn’t exist except maybe in a few very fringe pseudo-scientific theories. A Universal Essence is the result of a theoretical event known as a United Synchro-Singularity, where a majority piece of reality is collapsed down by some great power run amok (usually a Godmodder or Descended, though I suppose a Terminae could do it as well under the correct circumstances) and all of everything happens all at the same time as the same thing. This obviously undoes itself extremely fast, but it tends to have peculiar effects on the areas of reality that got pulled in, centered around the location that triggered the event. It also forms a Universal Essence somewhere in the mess, usually floating about in the Void where no one finds it for a long time. As for what a Universal Essence does? Well, best imaginations will have to do because the short answer is the entirely unhelpful ‘pretty much everything’ and the long answer is equally unhelpful but also wouldn’t fit in this journal so I won’t write it down.”

Multaecos: “Being and meaning, force and direction, matter and energy, all coalesced into a singular point of power. I’m not even certain if alchemiters are capable of making something like this anywhere beyond the realm of theoreticals so far under the shadow of ‘what if’ you don’t actually have any light left to see your prepositions by. I’m not going to waste my time explaining what this does though, if I’ve forgotten by the time I come back to this I’ll just confuse myself trying to re-explain. To future me: go check the primer book on “metacausal shadows” and then once you’ve refreshed on that find the personally notated copy of “the best of bad ideas” by Professor White and look up the appropriate sections in the index.”

The Ultimate Material (Unity Steel): “The Ultimate Material. Poor old Andrew was so close to the goal he probably could’ve tasted it had his mind been less jumbled by that point. What does Unity Steel do? Everything. Anything. Makes you God, makes you the devil. Makes reality whatever you want it to be and more. Makes you all of reality and then makes more reality so that you don’t get bored. The only thing that Unity Steel doesn’t do is the one thing I need it to do so serves me right for leaving that inspiration shard burning in Levit’s head unattended for so long I guess.

Oh, who am I? Mysterious voice at the tail end of someone else’s story? I’m just someone passing through and checking up on old projects, but you can call me L.D.
I’ll be seeing more of you around though, won’t I? You’ve got more stories you want to read, and I’ve got more stories to sneak my way into. Say hi to whoever winds up on the wrong side of fate next for me.
As someone else you may know used to say, Ciao!”

The initiative is building up to become a conquering military force and betray him, aren't they.
as for my thoughts, I quite love this so far. The character you've made is quite interesting, and the story has come a long way from a drunken bet. The materials themselves are quite interesting, and I love how they're being built up.

QUOTE (FlamingFlapjacks @ Feb 14 2019, 05:11 PM)

The initiative is building up to become a conquering military force and betray him, aren't they. as for my thoughts, I quite love this so far. The character you've made is quite interesting, and the story has come a long way from a drunken bet. The materials themselves are quite interesting, and I love how they're being built up.

I promise you they aren't in the process of becoming a military force.
Thank you though, I appreciate the feedback.

Anyways, I hath updotted the story once more.

I'd be willing to give some stuff that could work, I know a guy ;)

QUOTE (TheMadHarrison2 @ Feb 16 2019, 04:24 PM)

I'd be willing to give some stuff that could work, I know a guy ;)

Hey stop trying to hire away my main character.


Also, next part has been released!

damn illegal institutes stealing souls
this is why we need insert politics rant here

QUOTE (FlamingFlapjacks @ Mar 7 2019, 05:36 PM)

damn illegal institutes stealing souls this is why we need insert politics rant here

I'm not sure if it's illegal if there's not any law enforcement policing the area you're operating in.
As a wise old gruncle once said: "Anything's legal when the cops aren't around!"

Speaking of which, things got decidedly less (or maybe more?) legal in the latest update, so now I get to ruin a stealth joke I made earlier by explaining it:

QUOTE (pionoplayer @ Feb 15 2019, 01:15 PM)

QUOTE (FlamingFlapjacks @ Feb 14 2019, 05:11 PM) The initiative is building up to become a conquering military force and betray him, aren't they. I promise you they aren't in the process of becoming a military force.

Because they already are a military force!

Cerberium, huh...

What next? Using the Phantom Ruby?

QUOTE (TheMadHarrison2 @ Mar 8 2019, 07:01 AM)

Cerberium, huh... What next? Using the Phantom Ruby?

Nope. The Phantom Ruby isn't planned, but that would've been a cool one to add.

Also updop

The updates never don't stop not coming (I really hope that's the right number of negatives)

Life is a strange creature. Terrifying weapons born from deadly concepts become blazing starlight in the metaphorical fires of the great forge.

on the plus side, materials continue!

New Fanfic: The Ultimate Drink. In which Levit goes on a quest to alchemize the strongest drink he possibly can

QUOTE (Nedben @ Mar 11 2019, 08:59 AM)

Life is a strange creature. Terrifying weapons born from deadly concepts become blazing starlight in the metaphorical fires of the great forge. on the plus side, materials continue!

Indeed... Indeed...

QUOTE (FlamingFlapjacks @ Mar 11 2019, 12:50 PM)

New Fanfic: The Ultimate Drink. In which Levit goes on a quest to alchemize the strongest drink he possibly can

It ends with someone coming in drinking pure alcohol and the MC realizes that the entire thing was an exercise in pointlessness.

Also, the updop train has pulled into the station once more.
We have but 8 sections left to go, and things seem to be getting rather... perilous.

Another step forward...
And in other ways another step back.

Ascend, descend, rise up, abscond. Wink out the starlight of the doom drum and know power, new one.

👏 the fun continues

QUOTE (Nedben @ Mar 12 2019, 11:32 PM)

Ascend, descend, rise up, abscond. Wink out the starlight of the doom drum and know power, new one. 👏 the fun continues

I'm starting to question whether or not you're actually saying anything or just being ominous at this point.


Anyways, have another update. The longer this goes on the less our protagonist looks like a hero...
But as my local lemon salesman once said, "Science isn't about why, it's about WHY NOT."

" There is some confusion, as Starfire is the material that the Sun(s) of most magic-run universes is made of, and it too is extremely hot and bright. Starfire, however, is more of a form of liquidized primordial fire. "

I can't tell the difference between the two Starfires in name, how could I tell if I got the liquid starfire instead of the material starfire?

QUOTE (TheMadHarrison2 @ Mar 17 2019, 04:09 PM)

" There is some confusion, as Starfire is the material that the Sun(s) of most magic-run universes is made of, and it too is extremely hot and bright. Starfire, however, is more of a form of liquidized primordial fire. " I can't tell the difference between the two Starfires in name, how could I tell if I got the liquid starfire instead of the material starfire?

Oh, it's contrasting Starfire against sun plasma, I'll clean up that wording

thx

Here we are again. It's been a week but the next part is finally here!