Origin Seeker

Arcane Transmutation.

Simply explaining it, this skill allowed one to turn mana into matter. When it was a part of the skill known as [Summons from another world], along with the catalog, it allowed Dream to summon all kinds of different objects. As long as he had enough mana, there was basically no limit to what he could summon. 

Now, the skill had been given to him in its most basic form. To use it, all Dream had to do was pour mana into the skill and visualize what he wanted to create. Visualizing all the little details of an object was extremely easy with the catalog in his mind space. With that, he could conjure anything he wanted from thin air. However, not only had Dream refrained from doing this for many years, but he refrained from studying the skill itself. 

Dream knew that once he started studying the skill, he wouldn't be able to stop. This was the most mystical skill he ever had, and cracking its secrets was too alluring to him. Dream knew this, so up until now, he had been making preparations. 

For the past 8 years, all the research and experiments he had carried out were done to deepen his knowledge and understanding of the universe. However, this was all merely in order to make sure that when he finally went to study arcane transmutation, he would be able to get the most out of it. He had to understand magic and science at their deepest levels to even hope to find out how they were related. Dream didn't want to prematurely engage in study, so he waited until he found a limit to his physical research. 

Now, he had reached that limit. While he could further refine his theories, it would only be superficial. Dream had conquered some of the greatest concepts, so for the sake of moving quicker, he decided to move on. After all, he had people waiting on him to open the gates to the inner universe. He was also eager to leave the solar system for something greater. He wanted to find those more powerful than him. Hopefully, he would also find someone similar to himself that he could study alongside. In the entire universe, there had to be at least one, right?

Thus, he was brought to this day. Dream stood within the void of space. All around him were asteroids and floating rocks. He was within the asteroid belt of the solar system, surrounded by ice and minerals. 

Dream floated, his figure remaining unmoving. He was in his human form, dressed in a nice old-school suit. This was how he usually appeared when in his human form. He enjoyed the classy attire he wore despite the fact that he often got called an old man by those around him, particularly Melody and Alice. Melody especially loved to poke fun at him for carrying a pocket watch. 

He didn't mind it though. She wouldn't understand that the pocket watch wasn't a normal clock. It was a clock with a spatial loop within it, and it used compressed space and light to track time. Whenever the photons within revolved around the loop a certain amount of times, it would tick. It was the most accurate time tracker ever created, tracking time based on light's constant speed. He also inserted a spatial loop that was invulnerable to time dilation. With that, he would have one that tracked his personal time as well as the unaffected time on Earth. As of now, the two clocks within the pocket watch were basically exactly the same. 

With such an awesome marvel of science compressed into this little watch, Dream obviously wouldn't pay any attention to his sister than made fun of his cliche look. 

Thinking of this, Dream pulled out the watch from a pocket, clicking a button and flipping it open. The clocks were diverging slightly due to the differences in his personal speed and Earth's speed. Because he was farther away from the sun and Earth, he was moving slower through space, so from Earth's perspective he was aging slower. But of course, this time difference was minuscule. Dream did find it interesting to see nonetheless. 

After closing the watch, he took a deep breath. For a few hours, he stood among the rocks around him, his thumb tracing the ring on his finger. Through his mind flew myriads of thoughts, though none of them having anything particular to do with each other.

Eventually, he calmed down, his mind becoming void of anything superfluous. Suddenly, his cosmic form overtook his human shell. All the asteroids within a 10 mile radius momentarily froze before continuing to move. Without Dream's permission, nothing could do anything while within the range of his influence. Mana and matter alike were subservient in front of his power that could manipulate all things. 

Bringing up his hand, he activated his skill for the first time in a very long time. A sliver of mana was consumed, and a smooth ball of iron appeared above his palm. 

[Did you see anything?]

Sophia asked after the iron formed. To understand the process of transmutation, they naturally had to observe it. However, Dream was best at this, so Sophia would remain on the sidelines until he passed her data. 

Surprisingly though, Dream shook his head.

"No, not really."

[Nothing?]

"I saw mana, and then matter. It was an almost instantaneous transformation. Let's keep trying."

He generated more iron as he said that, the original ball growing larger. However, even after the ball doubled in size, he still had nothing. 

"...This is going to be harder than expected. Guess I gotta go all out."

Sighing, Dream braced himself. The next instant, the surrounding 10 mile bubble of space turned gray. This was his influence that was altered by the gray mist produced by the collision of Luna and Iris's energy. It was unlike other influences in that while the radius was smaller, it was all powerful within that range. People like Luna would have influence ranges of hundreds of miles, but even she couldn't overtake his influence with all her power. 

That 10 mile bubble rapidly shrunk all the way down to only a few feet. Dream concentrated all his influence on the ball of iron in front of him and on the skill strings within him. He was consuming copious amounts of energy doing this, but he wasn't sure there was any other way to go about this. 

He accelerated his perception to its max before activating the skill again. Time was almost frozen as mana gradually moved into his body. Then, it was transformed. The mana disappeared as iron took its place. This time though, Dream could witness the process a bit clearer. 

When it was done, his perception decelerated. That moment had only taken a few seconds but felt like a day. Dream was used to this though. He recollected the experience.

"The mana, it coagulated before being transformed. But there was an instant where the mana vanished before reappearing as iron. The disappearance is the key..."

He delved into thought. The mana would disappear and reappear as iron atoms, then proceeding to move toward the iron ball and gather around it. Other than guiding the iron atoms to form the ball, Dream did nothing to guide the process of transmutation. Everything happened by itself. 

For a normal person, this would be perfectly fine. Dream had spoken to Alice about skills before since she had rich experience in the inner universe. Apparently, his way of going about things was abnormal. Skills, according to most people, were meant to be used autonomously. Their effects would simply happen, and people wouldn't know why or how. While some people did study their skills to use them better, their level of comprehension never came close to Dream's level. Dream would understand not only the how, but the why. He broke down his skills until there was nothing else left to learn. He would understand them through and through. 

Now, Dream was going through this process with his [Arcane Transmutation] skill. He did not enjoy not knowing why something worked the way it did, especially if it was a skill of his. If it had anything to do with him, he wanted to understand it in its entirety. 

But this skill was unlike any other. This skill wasn't a manipulation skill like [Arcana] or [Particle Manipulation], Dream's two main skills. This was a transformation skill, and it combined the expertise of both skills in order to bring about an effect. 

Thinking about it, Dream found it similar to when he had to combine the opposite energies of Luna and Iris. It wasn't simply controlling the energies, but combining them to create something new. One had to merge the energies, bringing them together to become one. 

This time, he had to turn one thing into another. This was beyond anything science could explain. It wasn't simply a reformation of atoms and molecules. This was a fundamental change in the nature of a concept. 

"Changing something from ethereal to material. Like reverting a ghost back into a human. Though, I'm sure there's a lot more to this skill than that. The Keeper in the legacy space had a star that could power his magic. That material could affect mana. Imagine being able to use the power of a fusion reactor to propel my magic. The possibilities with such a thing would be endless. But... I need to actually understand this crap first."

Dream frowned, turning his attention back to iron ball. Although he knew that the mana disappeared before transforming into matter, he had no idea what happened in that instant. He could feel nothing, and there was no indication as to where the mana went. The disappearance was the key, but Dream had no idea where the door could be. 

"Well, I guess I'm walking blind for a while. Let's see how many times I run out of energy before I figure this out."

Saying that, he went back to experimenting. With nothing else to do and no one to disturb him, he worked in total peace. 

...........

......

"Dream... Hey Dream! Husband!"

"Huh?"

As he was working on his project, Dream heard some yelling in his ear. He pulled some of his attention away from the condensed ball of energy in front of him.

"Luna?"

"Yea, I want you to come back."

"That's nice. Why?"

"Because you've been gone for a year!"

"...Is that right."

Dream was a bit surprised at her words before pulling out his pocket watch. He checked the times and saw that a little over a year really had passed since he got started on studying his skill. This was the 9th year since he had come to Earth.

This caused him to frown though. In this time, he had accelerated his perception plenty of times, meaning quite a bit more than a year had passed for him. The true amount of time was easily more than several times longer. 

Despite this though, he hadn't made hardly any progress!

He had underestimated how ridiculous this skill was. He had tried everything he could think of thousands of times over, but he came out with nothing more than a better understanding of mana. 

He had even gone back to trying out previous ideas of his. One of his biggest focuses had been mana atoms. By condensing enough mana and flux at the right ratio, one could make an atom of mana. At the time of first creation, he hadn't been powerful enough to do much with that idea. Now though, he had done plenty of experiments to see if there was an insight to garner from it. 

But there wasn't. Now, Dream had a huge chunk of mana atoms just floating around. Technically, this was the most powerful magical substance he had ever laid eyes on besides the class 6 Heart that Aegis used. But it brought him little joy. He had frequently called it useless. 

Sighing, Dream dispersed the ball of energy in front of him. The ball exploded, tearing a small hole into the chaotic void. The void quickly swallowed everything up, and once it was sealed, nothing remained. Dream didn't give this two thoughts. He had frequently used the chaotic void as a dumpster after many failed experiments. 

He then turned his attention to Luna who spoke to him over their soul connection.

"So I've been gone for a while. I doubt you called me for that reason though."

"You're half right. Believe it or not, I actually like seeing the man I married. It's unfortunate that in our first four years of marriage, you were gone for almost all of it."

"I'll try to make up for it in the future. Some traveling around the inner universe might be the perfect opportunity."

"I don't think things are that easy over there, but I like the romantic idea. Anyway, I want you to come back. When you meet me in the capital, I'll let you know why."

"Hm, alright. Be there soon."

With that, their connection cut. Dream looked around him. He was still drifting among the asteroid belt, so he wasn't too far from Earth. He pointed himself in the direction before activating his aether supply. 

Space warped around his body, encompassing him before affecting the space around him. Suddenly, the space in front of him was compressed, and he flew forward.

Even a slight movement forward pulled him hundreds of miles away. And as he moved, space was continuously compressed. This rapid compression and movement resulted in being able to move thousands of miles in an instant, and millions of miles in minutes. 

With Earth being around 150 million miles away from where he was in the asteroid belt, Dream took around 16 hours to get back to the planet. This was a bit under 10 million miles per hour.

This was about Dream's fastest speed that he could continuously go. Of course, when traversing shorter distances, his speed wasn't much different from teleportation. This was only able to be done because he could manipulate aether so well. His years of study into the nature of reality wasn't for show. 

Like this, he appeared over Earth by the end of the day. Right now, Luna's Oasis empire was glowing with prosperity and technology. The Oasis landmass had basically become the capital of the world. The only other places that could compete were the cities built around the space elevators, and even those were all under her wing. She was the single most influential person in the world, by far.

And although Dream had given her the ability to become the sole superpower, the level she reached was by no means handed to her. Dream could give her all the resources she wanted, but if she didn't have the skill in managing those resources and using them with purpose, then she wouldn't be able to create prosperity. She would just be a money pit for those who could actually grow an economy. 

But she proved otherwise. Through her management skills and grand vision, she had gradually shifted the world toward boundless advancement. Mega-cities, dirt-cheap energy, scientific leaps, the elevation of all peoples of the world through economic empowerment. She opened the gates for a new era.

The world thought that it couldn't get better than this. They were living in a world where fantasy had become reality, in almost every way. But little did they know, this was only the beginning. Luna was about to bring forth an even greater step forward for the entire planet.

Dream lowered himself to the city. The cool atmosphere made his clothes flutter. He looked down, seeing thousands of flying cars, thousand meter tall skyscrapers, bright lights, and a bustling population. This was literally a city that never slept. This city was the icon of prosperity itself.

"Hello dear."

Suddenly, Luna appeared next to him. They could sense each other through their connection no matter where they were, even hundreds of millions of miles away. She noticed his arrival right away. 

Luna appeared in her own modest dress. Gentle but sharp eyes, graceful demeanor, a maturity beyond her years. Dream had been 23 when he came back to Earth, and Luna was only a year younger. Now with 9 years having passed, they were both around 32 years old. It was the same for Iris and Alice. 

They were truly adults, no longer the young kids they used to be. Though, Dream only laughed at those kinds of statements. They would live for thousands of years, like Vythica the elven ancient had. Along such a timescale, there was no difference between 20 and 30. They would look exactly the same at 1000 years old. 

The two smiled at each other, exchanging a kiss. Luna locked her fingers with his before they both gazed at the city below.

"What do you think?"

Luna asked. Despite having built such an empire, there was little pride in her tone. 

Dream nodded.

"It's amazing, even by my standards. You did well."

"All because of you."

"You could do it without me."

"I don't have the material abilities to construct such things."

"...Well, I guess it's good I'm here then. Here."

Dream suddenly put out his hand. Luna looked to see a large black blob of metal. It was about a foot in diameter and lacked any luster.

"What's this?"

Luna took it, feeling the perfectly smooth surface.

"It's a ball of my nanites. But it's obviously a little more special. Remember that tiny marble I had several years ago? Well, I perfected that to some extent, making it my most powerful fusion reactor ever. There's one of those marbles in there. That thing could power a quarter of this planet by itself. Anyway, with that marble and that cluster of nanites, drop it anywhere and you can kickstart what I call a plague. The nanites will intake material and multiply. With the onboard AI and your own intelligence, you can control it to build anything you want. Of course, it's purely physical, so anything magical will have to come from you."

Dream spoke casually, letting her know what it was. Despite the amazing abilities, Luna wasn't that surprised. Nearly all of the constructions on the planet were comprised of these nanites, so she was well aware of their abilities. Still, this blob could allow her to attain nanites anywhere else. It was basically a mobile factory.

"Throw that in your inventory and you can build a city just like this anywhere you go. Now you don't need my direct assistance."

"...Thanks."

Luna thought for a second before slightly smiling. The ball disappeared from her hand, inserted into her inventory. Dream saw this and pondered. 

"I should probably take some time to study the inventory."

"So you're probably wondering why I called you here."

Luna spoke as he muttered. Dream raised his head.

"Yea. You want me to build something? A transit to Mars?"

"No. I want you to fulfill your promise."

"Promise?"

Dream tilted his head. He hadn't really made any promises to Luna, other than their marriage ones of course.

He thought back, thinking of any promises he had made. Suddenly, he remembered. 

"The school. You want me to teach?"

"Yes! You told the president that you would open a school. Well, I want you to do it now. Sophia told me you hit a bit of a roadblock, so I thought it would be a good time."

Luna smiled brightly, thinking about how great of an idea this was. Sure Dream could build awesome structures, but his knowledge was far more valuable. It would allow the world to replicate his technology on their own, pushing them forward decades, maybe even centuries! This was the only thing she could think of that would bring forth a greater era. 

Luna wanted this both for the world and for Dream. By opening this school, he would be recognized for how amazing he is. He would be able to leave his legacy on this planet, and his name would be remembered for generations to come. 

This was what Luna wanted, and it caused Dream to think for a while.