After the start of the Program, life continued on as normal for Max. At times, he felt like something was squeezing his heart and he had trouble breathing, but nobody came to bother him after Angel killed Yorlina. It was like nobody even noticed her disappearance...
Using his creation's advice, he fine-tuned the creation of Artificial Lives even further, but unlike how he used them to send out the 'imposters' to take the place of Guardian candidates on Earth, Max decided to take the longer route with their creation.
With the golems sent to Earth, he rushed and simply gave the implanted Artificial Lives two simple directives: Find and assimilate any other golems with no Artificial Lives inside them and unite with their siblings as early as possible. Because of the time dilation between this part of the Void dimension under control of the Iron Fist (The device meant to control the flow of time in a certain area of the Void) and Earth it had been only been a few hours since Max had been separated from the Artificial Lives in their perception, but for him, five months had already passed.
Seeing that he now had a lot of free time because no one else came to bother him during his experiments, Max decided to become a father.
He didn't implant any directives into his newly created Artificial Lives; that way, they would learn as fast as possible without anything restricting their creativity. They would be able to grow and become unique individuals until they eventually blurred the line between Artificial Lives and Natural Lives.
However, there were some issues with his decision.
Because he didn't give them any directives or rules to follow from their creation, those Artificial Lives were like children. Max had to teach them everything about the world and try his best to not twist their thinking with his cynical view of reality.
Angel helped of course, and maybe it was because they were the first Artificial Life that Max activated but they started to emulate being a big sibling-type figure to the new Artificial Lives and helped solidify his teachings to them using their familial bond. Max was incredibly grateful to them for their help but more importantly, he was thankful because Angel was like a true friend to Max.
The mechanical life talked with him from time to time, allowing Max to vent about his stress and even throw around some of his plans for the future while Angel gave him advice every once in a while. Though their advice was admittedly naïve, they helped add some perspective to Max's ideas.
And his lack of experience would be fixed with time. Angel had only been alive for a few months after all.
Right now, after having a teaching lesson with his created Artificial Lives Max left the newly created room of his underground lab and sighed. As it turned out, becoming a father was extremely tiring. Even with his increased stamina and intellect thanks to him having reached Stage two in the Mage Class, raising a total of fifteen Artificial Lives with such a high learning ability but little to no common sense exhausted him.
"Maybe... it's time for me to advance." Max muttered. Checking the date on his mobile interface, it indeed was around the time...
Just to confirm with his own thoughts, he sent out a little bit of his Mana to the outside world and solidified it as much as he could, compressing his energy again and again until the energy solidified into a round ball. Though the effort put a strain on his mind, Max found that it was much easier than he thought it'd be.
Plop!
The concentrated ball of Mana made a high-pitched ring when he dropped it onto the floor. It wobbled for a moment before staying still enough for Max to regain enough focus to pick it back up with more of his magical energy.
"Angel, how long did that take me?"
[The process to create a solid Mana core took you one hour and thirty minutes Master.] The crimson-armored machine stepped forward to answer. [Might I ask what you were doing?]
"Hmm." Max grunted in response.
"I think I'll be going through a Stage Advancement within the next few days. I can compress my Mana faster than I could before, but... I am still forced to rely on spellworks to manipulate the elements. I don't even know if it's possible for me to complete the Advancement as I am now..." While he answered their question, Max started to trail off into his own thoughts in the middle of speaking.
"Ah, forgive me. I started rambling. Here, pay attention Angel. I'm going to teach you a little something." At his words Angel stepped back excitedly and sat down, compressing it's metallic body so as to not get in the way of Max's teachings. No matter how many times Max taught the Artificial Lives, they were always eager to learn and hung onto his every word just like how Angel was doing right now.
"Feel my Mana in the air? At Stage one, Mages should already be able to feel magical energy, but once they reach Stage two we become able to manipulate it and do this..." By focusing a little and controlling his energy Max separated and controlled three different layers of his ball of Mana and made them do different things while maintaining the same shape. To Angel's Mana sense, it looked like the ball of magical energy wiggled around before forming a complex shape.
"Stage two Mages can control three different 'folds of reality', or layers of magical energy. This ability allows us create previously impossible magic spellworks and constructs and utilize our Mana more efficiently."
[Quite impressive, master.] Angel used it's powerful mechanical eyes to analyze and store the information about fold of reality within it's information database.
"Yes, yes, I'm amazing after all." Max temporarily allowed himself to ride on the high caused by being praised. Was it considered narcissistic to feel good from praise coming from his own creation? Well, probably, but who was going to judge him? He was all alone!
...After that depressing thought, Max continued his teaching.
"Ahem, anyways. Right now I can control five of these folds of reality. Coincidentally, a Mage has to control that number of folds in order to attempt Stage Advancement into being a Stage three Mage. While the difference is only two folds, in everything a Mage does their limit is always set by their control which is directly affected by the number of folds they can manipulate.
"Because of that, if I was to fight three copies of myself from two years ago when I first became a Stage two Mage I'd win easily. The ability to control two more folds exponentially increases my power when it comes to magic, but the difficulty to control even more folds of reality increases proportionally."
[So, the higher number of folds a Mage can control, the higher the Stage they can achieve?]
Max scratched at his chin. "Well... I suppose so. But it's theoretically impossible for an ordinary person to control enough reality folds to attempt Stage Advancement up to Stage four. It becomes much easier for a Mage to control more folds after they advance, but I guess that doesn't mean we're restricted per-say by our Mana cores... Hmm, thank you, Angel. I didn't think about that."
Angel bowed his metallic head. [Being able to assist you is my greatest pride, master]
'Hehe, this guy, really... They might seriously make me develop an ego problem.' Max chuckled inwardly.
"Just because it's possible doesn't mean that it'll actually ever happen. Not that I would know anything about that though; my talent with manipulating Mana has reached its limits a long time ago." Is what Max actually said. A sad smile spread across his face.
"Anyways, I need to develop some devices for now to help with my Stage Advancement into Stage three."
[Is there anything that you require my assistance with?] Angel tilted its metal head to the side.
Max shook his head. "Not this time Angel. Actually, if you could just spend some time with your siblings to make sure they're not lonely, that'd be great."
All he had to do was prepare some machines to compress magical energy for him so he didn't need to expend any effort to do so during his advancement in order to raise his chances of success by at least ten percent.
The base behind the creation of the machines would be Angel's eyes; the technology was already there. They could compress the magical energy either stored within his Adamant body or use the ambient Mana in the air to shoot out powerful beam attacks, but Max wasn't interested in the offensive part of his technology, he wanted the energy compression involved in it.
But he couldn't just take away Angel's eyes so he could use them, so he would need to create an entirely new machine. Using his blueprints and notes on his various specialty technology, it wouldn't be too difficult to engineer a working prototype. Max didn't want to spend too much of his time on this, using the same amount of time he could've taught his Artificial Life children so much about the universe.
Just being apart from them for more than a few hours was enough to put him in a bad mood. Even though they were growing at a rapid pace and could already emulate the speech and thinking patterns of human nine-year-old children and were rapidly approaching the dreaded teenage behavior time, Max didn't see spending time with them as a burden. He was tremendously grateful for their existence.
After some time passed, Max held a working device in his hands.
"This should be able to get the job done. Just needs a little enhancement here and there..." By pressing a button on top of the squarish machine, it whirred to life and started shivering as it's magical core reacted to the engravings Max had imprinted on them.
The machine expanded it's mechanical parts and opened up, with one square on each side of the machine popping out into the air. With the sound of sucking air, the machine absorbed all the ambient Mana in the surroundings (Which was mostly Max's energy, there wasn't a lot of other Mana down in his lab) and popped out compressed Mana in a gaseous form out the top.
It wasn't his best work, and it looked ugly, but performance was always more important than form... Unless his Artificial Lives were involved; then of course Max would waste no energy building the perfect bodies for them.
"Great, now I just need to make enough of these machines to create enough compressed Mana for me to complete the Stage Advancement- oh, I should also prepare energy storing containers. I can't just have that energy lying around near the devices otherwise an accident might occur." Max organized his thoughts by speaking aloud whilst moving his hands to build the necessary machines.
With all the preparations complete, there was no reason for him to wait any longer.
"Angel."
[Yes, master?] His first creation popped out from the room with his other children left inside.
"Watch and observe my Stage Advancement. If you feel that there is too much energy in the lab, absorb it. While I sealed as much of this place with my own power, the barriers might not be powerful enough to prevent Stage three magical energy from leaking through."
[Of course. Good luck.]
Max smiled nervously as he sat down in the center of his lab. Around him was a ring of the Mana compressing devices which were already pumping out as much magical energy as they could. To ensure that there would be enough energy to fuel his Advancement, Max had lavishly spent his meager Foundation-given salary on purchasing solidified Mana, breaking them apart so that his secret lab was filled with magical energy.
His devices were greedily sucking in this energy and had been constantly working on compressing it for the past few days resulting in multiple containers being filled with compressed gaseous Mana ready for Max to use.
The principles for Stage Advancement were the same for Stage three as it was for Stage two, although this time he didn't need to create a Mana core within his body. This time he simply had to expand the size of his Mana core whilst enduring the pain within his body and then compress it back to it's original size. The reason why he had to do this was in order to remove any of the impurities within his core whilst making it even more powerful by purifying it's energy.
Without anything else needing his attention, he started the process and closed his eyes. He could constantly feel his Mana core nourishing his magical energy passively as time passed, but this time instead of supporting this process Max flooded his core with the compressed Mana stored within his energy containers.
Pain immediately racked his body as his organs were suddenly being squeezed from the lack of space within his body. Gritting his teeth, Max endured and continued increasing the size of his Mana core, making the previously fist-sized core grow until it had the diameter of his outstretched hand. By now Max was having trouble staying conscious, so he slapped a button by his side and activated one of the machines by his side.
With a buzz of magical energy, a tall rod-like device started spinning two of it's metallic arms and started emitting waves of Mana. Max called this the 'Anti-Pain Machine'... He wasn't very good with names. Angel could only be glad with their given name, and pity the later created Artificial Lives. Fortunately for the current generation, Max assigned their older sibling to come up with names for them.
Anyways, this device messed with the part of Max's brain that received signals from his nervous system and temporarily stunned it; it would only work now that Max was in such a weak condition, otherwise his natural magical energy would prevent the device from penetrating into his brain.
The sudden numbness of his body made him uncomfortable, but at least there was no more pain to take his attention away from his Mana core. The lack of sensation coming from his nervous system was of no importance to him; he wasn't a Warrior who solely depended on their bodies for strength after all. Max just had to control his Mana to help him.
After some time passed, his core was big enough to begin the purifying process. Although there was no pain, Max could still sense his internal parts shifting through his Mana control, and the sensation made him extremely uncomfortable so he wasted no time concentrating the energy of his Mana core into it's compressed form.
Max was worried about failure but his thoughts were relieved to see that there seemed to be nothing obstructing him from advancing his Stage.
Unlike what is currently happening with Max and what already happened with Fen, the event known as 'Stage Advancement' is a deadly and uncertain process. Individuals rarely even attempt going through Stage Advancement unless they're confident, much less go through it without supervision. Within the Foundation alone there are 45,342 deaths caused by Stage Advancement attempts. One single mistake was all it took to overload your body and core and kill you before you can even realize your impending doom. Those with talent weren't necessarily those who had phenomenal control over energy, but those who were able to survive through every Stage Advancement without trouble, with no fear of death... those were the real geniuses. While their talent over energy control did play a role in their survival from attempting Stage Advancements, luck and experience with energy were also important.
With no more problems, Max successfully purified his Mana core and removed the impurities within; a black tar-like substance oozed out of his pores and skin, but Angel immediately stepped forward and burned them to ashes- but not before taking a sample of the substance.
When the process finished, he was exhausted and tired out of his mind. He didn't find it especially difficult, but his mind was unbelievable tired from manipulating his Mana for so long and was on the verge of collapsing. Max staggered up from his position and collapsed into Angel's soft Adamant arms.
He didn't even have a chance to notice his changed perception and abilities...
****
'Where am I?' When Max came to his senses, he found himself in a space filled with... well, everything. There was random stuff piled up everywhere, be it couches, ginormous weapons, and even planets moving around within a ginormous space with no end in sight.
Looking around, there was only one place with empty space; in the center of this space there was a white orb silently spinning. Max had a feeling that this was the thing that pulled him here; his Mage senses were instinctively telling him so.
"Hello?" He tentatively asked.
[Hello.] A clear voice sounded inside his mind. Max waited for something else other than a simple greeting but nothing else entered his head.
"Where am I?" He had never seen anything like this space before, even after referencing all the images of unknown dimensions recorded in the Foundation's database that he remembered.
[...I do not know.]
'Well, that answer's pretty much useless. Maybe it's like me and was taken into this space too.' Multiple different hypothesis ran through his mind, with different likelihoods and probabilities.
"Well, who are you?"
[I am Creation.]
It's answer confused Max. 'Was that it's name? Who named their child something like 'Creation'?' He thought. The answer did remind him of something that he read within the Foundation database however, but the very thought of it brought a shiver to his mind. He had to ask it one more question to confirm his thinking.
"Uhm, can you tell me what you are?"
[I am Creation. Did I not satisfy your question from before?] It finally spoke more than a single sentence but for some reason Max didn't feel comforted by it's clear voice.
With a shaking voice, Max cleared his throat to ask his final question.
"A-are you a Primordial?"
[...Can you tell me what is a Primordial? I have not heard that word before.]
"A Primordial is, w-well, I think it's a being that exists inside a universe. Maybe a sort of representative of some kind of power? They're beings of immense power, I know that much." He winced at his terrible explanation. "Do you think that's what you are?"
[...I do not know. I have not been awake for long. I feel... tired. Why do I feel tired?] Its voice was steadily growing stronger the longer Max talked to it, and it put together much longer sentences.
He frowned at its words. Based on his limited knowledge, there was very little in the universe that could tire a real Primordial but his instincts were screaming out at him that this was indeed one of those powerful beings that stood on a higher plane than even Gods.
[Oh... I remember now. I was searching for possibilities. Are you one of those possibilities?]
Max could only tilt his head in confusion.
[Well. It doesn't matter anymore. I have seen you in front of me, and have made my choice. Goodbye Max. We will see each other soon.]
The cluttered and yet beautiful world turned into a blur until the space around him warped back into his familiar laboratory.