In Loop 01, I had treated the construction of my village as a hobby. I had been a "kind benefactor," showing the Goblins how to weave better baskets and stack stones for huts. It was a picturesque, pastoral dream that ended in a nightmare of fire.
In the Iron-Crag, there was no room for aesthetics. There was only the brutal geometry of efficiency.
"Line up!" Baron's voice echoed through the massive central cavern, which we had hollowed out using a combination of my [Molecular Shear] and the Direwolves' brute strength. "If you can't tell a capacitor from a cathode, you aren't a smith, you're a paperweight!"
The Goblins—once starving scavengers—now wore leather aprons and goggles made of polished volcanic glass. I had organized them into "Guilds," but not in the traditional sense. These were specialized labor cells.
"Archivist," I pulsed, my silver body expanded to cover the ceiling of the cavern like a living liquid sky. "Initiate the Hive-Mind synchronization."
< Logic Sequence Initiated... > < Linking 142 Sub-Nodes... > < Network Status: Stable. >
Using my own slime-spawn—tiny, non-sentient droplets of my own mass—I had created a telepathic intranet. Each Goblin foreman had a "Slime-Bud" perched on their shoulder. It didn't just allow me to speak to them; it allowed me to stream technical blueprints directly into their visual cortex.
[Image: A schematic of a Starmetal-reinforced mana-battery]
"Today," I vibrated, my voice descending from the ceiling like the roar of a distant engine, "we move away from 'Spells.' A spell is a variable. It depends on your mood, your mana pool, and your concentration. We are building 'Tools.' A tool is a constant."
I dropped a silver pseudopod to the central assembly table. On it sat a pile of Capacitor Stones—refined quartz from the mountain's lower veins, etched with micro-runes of Starmetal.
"This is the Mark I Mana-Battery," I explained. "It stores 5,000 units of compressed thermal energy. A standard Goblin mage would take three days to gather this much mana. Now, any child in this mountain can release it with a flick of a switch."
Baron walked over, picking up one of the stones. "It's a terrifying thing you're doing, Aris. You're taking the 'talent' out of magic. If anyone can be a mage, then no one is special."
"Special people get executed by the Inquisition, Baron," I replied coldly. "I don't need 'special.' I need a phalanx that doesn't tire."
As the days bled into weeks, the Iron-Crag transformed from a cave into a fortress-factory.
The Foundry: Using my [Thermal Manipulation], I created a closed-loop smelting system. We recycled the heat from the furnaces to pre-warm the incoming air, a basic heat-exchange principle from Earth that made our fuel efficiency three times higher than any Dwarven forge in this world.
The Armory: We weren't forging swords. We were forging Starmetal Spiked Shells. These were essentially magical claymore mines. If a Holy Knight tried to breach the tunnels, they wouldn't find a warrior; they would find a hallway that exploded into ten thousand mana-laced shrapnel pieces.
The Logistics: The Fang-Pack wolves were no longer just pets. I had Baron forge them Starmetal "Harnesses" that acted as sensory boosters. They were the mountain's nervous system. If a squirrel moved on the peaks three miles away, the vibration was picked up by the harnesses and fed into my Hive-Mind.
But the centerpiece of my work was the Project Ascension chamber.
Deep in the mountain's roots, where the Starmetal veins were thickest, I spent my nights in a state of deep meditation. I was no longer just a "Spirit Slime." My core was becoming a dense, metallic singularity.
"Archivist," I thought, watching the Goblins below assemble a prototype "Flash-Caster"—a tube that fired condensed light-mana. "How is the progress of my own evolution?"
< Answer: Current mana density is 89% of the 'Demon Lord' threshold. The Chimera's core has been fully synthesized. > < Warning: Structural transition from amorphous (Slime) to crystalline (Humanoid) will require a massive energy dump. The current forge output is insufficient. >
"We need a catalyst," I muttered.
"You need a heart," Baron said, appearing at my side. He was holding a small, pulsating stone that glowed with an eerie, violet light. "This is the Heart of the Crag. It's what the Chimera was actually guarding. It's a concentrated knot of the mountain's ley-lines."
I looked at the stone. It wasn't just energy; it was a "Fixed Point" of the world's geography.
"If I take that," I said, "the Miasma will clear. The mountain will stop being a 'dead zone.' The Holy Kingdom will see us."
"They're coming anyway, Aris," Baron said, his eyes solemn. "The white crow was spotted yesterday. They know the Forest of Jura is empty. They're looking for the 'Ghost.' You'd better be a God by the time they find you."
I looked at my silver body, then at the Goblins working in the blue light of the Starmetal forge. I had saved them from the fire, but I had turned them into cogs in a machine of war. Was I any better than the Inquisition?
I pushed the thought away. I didn't need to be better. I just needed to be alive.
"Assemble the Twelve," I commanded. "We're going to initiate the final phase."
The "Twelve" were the elite of my new society. Six High-Goblins and six Silver-Moon Wolves. I didn't give them names like 'Bob' or 'Rex.' I gave them Titles of Function.
Vector (The Wolf-Commander)
Entropy (The Lead Alchemist)
Kinetics (The Siege-Master)
I stood before them in the center of the forge. "In the first loop, we died because we were weak. In this loop, we will survive because we are a system. I am going into the Core. Do not let the furnaces cool."
I slid into the "Project Ascension" vat—a pool of liquid Starmetal and concentrated mana.
As I submerged, I felt the world begin to stretch. The Archivist's voice began to distort, becoming a symphony of data.
< Evolution Protocol: INITIATED. > < Final Goal: The Iron Sovereign. >
The last thing I saw before the silver liquid claimed me was the red eyes of the wolves standing guard, and the blue glow of the railgun prototypes being wheeled into position.
The Inquisition was coming. But they weren't going to find a "Spirit Slime." They were going to find the end of their era.
[Volume 2: Chapter 4 End]