with the time almost over a strange sphere exited from the already spherical hazardous material sphere, it was full of engravings, but those had nothing to do with formations
when tickles entered Daniel was shocked because an alien figure, looking like a humanoid axolotl, appeared in his mind and was talking to him in a language he learned from one of Sophia's old books
"creature who found this, please hear my plea, this is all that is left of the once great naricu civilization, found it in your heart to find a planet in which life just developed and leave this there, this will modify that planet, terraforming it to bring back the extinct naricu, if you do the new naricu will in the future share their knowledge and technology with this great benefactor, we can see from your analysis methods, that you don't wish to arm our ark, please give the naricu a chance to rise again"
Daniel was still shocked, and just looked in the void, Vincent came in front of him and waved his hand in front of his eyes making him come out of his stupor
he relayed what the sphere asked, and Vincent said "your choice, it's not a problem to find a prehistoric era planet, but it also means that the life that was going to naturally develop will never do so, or one of the many natural disasters could destroy them even before they can develop, it's a big responsibility to play with things that are too powerful and advanced for you to comprehend, what do you want to do?"
Daniel thought about it and said "if it was possible to use a dead planet, it could not only be done, it would be the morally right choice, but steering the natural development of a planet seems wrong to me, after all, it isn't different from killing one civilization to save another, I don't feel like making that kind of choice"
Vincent said "indeed, it is morally wrong, but it's something that happens every day, take for example the thing that controls the black-eyed galaxy, and many other galaxies around it, our not-so-friendly neighbor, she uses the planets that have life as Petri dishes for her experiments
or also the hive, when they were at the apex of their power they used to destroy civilizations just because they were passing trough, it's all food for them, the truth it's that the probability of something like this ark succeeding, is even lower than a weak civilization has of surviving long enough to become someone in the universe, you are lucky to be born on verulus, well I'm ranting, I'll just close it in another sphere and you can decide in the future" said Vincent with a strange gloom in his voice, while quarantining the sphere again, and giving it to Daniel
they decided to stop here, there wasn't much time left anyway, and in the end, Daniel realized, while looking through the glass panels, that they barely scratched the surface, and went back to the lab with a heap of junk to recycle, 4 good things to study and the seed of a civilization to decorate the lab, also Vincent passed trough his vault room and brought 8 objects from the collection he kept in the vault, so Daniel would have his hands full for a while
they then went to dinner, but Vincent was still gloomy from the memories that surfaced back, so the discussion became Daniel recounting to the other 3 what they did in the vault, but as the naricu story was told, the three of them also got gloomy and the dinner ended on a sad note, with daniel who wanted to ask but felt like he shouldn't
since Daniel had finally finished school, literally finished, he had much more time to spend in the lab, or go fishing, but most of his time was now spent sleeping, and reading in the sun
he also had a lot of objects to study which made him happy, so Daniel felt like he had to at least crack the crystal's security system, and see what kind of data was inside, before asking Vincent to go 'dumpster diving' for more as he defined it because of the huge amount of junk that was recycled for materials
so Daniel decided to concentrate more on the books about hacking while studying on the tablet, instead of a little bit of everything
he was really bothered that he couldn't access the data, but at this point, after a few setbacks he had understood that things would not always go his way and had a more mature mentality
this was especially helpful after he decided to take a look at something else and couldn't find a way to give power to the bracelet personal device, it used some kind of biofuel cell instead of a battery, and since the fuel was biological, it was long gone and just a dried-up residue remained, at the moment Daniel had no way to analyze the residue lacking the knowledge and equipment
he had to find a different way to charge it, but without understanding how it worked, it was hard not to damage it while experimenting, and he didn't want to ruin it, so he concentrated once again on the crystal
as for the objects from Vincent's collection, those were still there to check, daniel was already too busy with those 4 items he had, to start messing with more stuff, so they rested in a corner of the lab
soon later was his sixth birthday, as usual after a small private party, Vincent brought him to the formation, and when they came back Daniel as usual slept and grew again, on this birthday nothing major happened he was just a little taller, his eyes were more intense, and the next day Daniel was back to crack the crystal
after an entire month, the crystal cyber defenses were still holding on strong, and Daniel decided to take a break and started working on the much less complicated lance
feeling the progress, Daniel got inebriated on the feeling, and finally threw behind his back the previous two failures, the lance didn't involve any special space technology, it could become two meters because the metal unfolded, turning from a solid cylinder to a long hollow pipe,
Daniel worked on it for several months and finally, he was able to replicate it, when he finished a new idea came to him, and a month later M.A.R.U v2 was born
the new maru shot bolts, instead of ballistic bullets, cutting the weight by a little more than 60kg, it wasn't enough but it was a good start, it also had a close combat mode in which he used a spear with an electrified blade, the body shape was slightly more streamlined, to allow a wider array of movement necessary in close-quarter combat and Tickles as the brain of the M.A.R.U v2 studied many martial arts involving quarterstaffs and spears
sadly this improvement wasn't enough for the demanding Daniel, maru was still a heavy, and noisy robot, even if slightly more nimble, but a partial success was still something since it became officially a low third-stage weapon based on Phoebe's assessment
this partial success gave Daniel an idea, if he wanted to make the robot lighter, why not use the antigravity technology in the belt, if he could reverse engineer it the same way he did with the lance, he could even make them fly
so the crystal was left aside again for several months, but this time even if he understood it in and out, he couldn't recreate it, because the mineral that allowed it to work was a rare one he didn't even know the name of nor did the scanning function of the hexagon, in any case when a precise amount of joules per second was applied, it freed himself from gravity, creating a stable antigravity field, too much would cause adverse reactions, while too little would create a much weaker effect
that was why it was a belt, this element was formed into a mesh and fixed inside a metal casing, creating an antigravity field that was wrapped around the body, and allowed the user to free himself from the constraints of gravity
with more of this element, Daniel could easily create a mesh inside the maru with the same effect, and with some small thrusters allow them to fly, he could also use it in his armor, or in the flying vehicle he wanted to build in the future completely ignoring the weight issue and using the best materials even if they had insane weights
so since he couldn't recreate it, he did the best thing that came to his mind, he extracted it from the belt, and brought it as a sample to dinner, to ask if anyone knew what it was, or where to find it, while in his mind that 100 grams of metals became already some divine treasure he hoped they could find more off
Joseph shook his head and said "never saw it before" looking at the solid mesh made of what looked like dark gray sand
Vincent stared intently at it, but then shook his head and said "I seem to recall something similar, but I really can't remember"
Sophia also had no idea, so she cut down to the solution "we should contact a refiner, no one knows about materials more than a refiner, is Barry still alive?"
Vincent nodded and said "yes, but he's working on the frontline now, repairing the soldier's weapons, he said something about going back to his roots, typical fifty thousand years old crisis"
Phoebe looked at Vincent and said "we can call that snobby kid, how is he called?"
in a big circular room, with a big green fire in the middle, a regal-looking teenager was performing the delicate procedure of fusing two metals with the use of fire elemental spiritual energy, he had a concentrated look but was also sporting a slight smile, knowing the audience was looking at him with an open mouth in amazement, this young man was Reginald greenfire the fourth, a real refining genius, ruined by his family dream for power, turning him in one of the most famous obnoxious people on verulus
Vincent made a serious frown while shaking his head, and said "I really don't want Daniel to talk to that idiot, why not call Marguerite, she's such a nice junior"
on cronosh in a smith workshop on the side of a volcano, a delicate-looking young female, with honey-colored skin was welding a big hammer professionally, without sweating, while controlling the spiritual energy to fix the imperfections in the metal she was forging, a stern looking older male was looking at her work, to judge it and give her a list of what she did wrong afterward, this young woman was another refining genius and was known for her silly behavior and excessive innocence
Daniel was totally uninterested and cut down the discussion "I don't really care who it is, I just want to know what this is, where it comes from, and if possible where to get more, because I need as much as we can find"
Joseph smiled and said "if it was something related to musical instruments I could help, but with strange stuff like this I really don't know"
Sophia was also for the fast solution and said "since none of us know what it is, there's a good chance it isn't anything cultivators use, just tell them both to report, and ask, there's no need for Daniel to be exposed to this people"