Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 234: Spark of Genious

July 14th, 1945, the first nuclear test

December 3rd, 1967, the first successful heart transplant

April 30th, 1993, the public availability of the internet

And now, on February 2nd, the world got access to a functionally limitless source of electricity, available for the entirety of humanity to draw upon

Yesterday had been Isaac’s birthday, a sadly depressing event. When he’d visited his family, it had only served to highlight the difference between him, and who he’d been the last time around, how much he’d changed. And when the team had thrown a party for him, it had only served to empathize who wasn’t there, who didn’t know the real him.

But today, today was going to be incredible. This was going to be Karl’s big day, sure, but Isaac was still excited, to the point where Amy had asked him if he’d stuck his head into the reactor. Apparently, he’d been acting more than a little … hyper.

Isaac was wearing his full set of formal clothing. A three-piece suit, his armored bracers subtly concealed under his sleeves, Old Reliable in Kabar form attached to his belt at his back. A notepad took its place in his breast pocket, and the inside of his suit contained a few other bits of basic equipment, like a packet of healing pills. Nothing obvious, nothing in your face, just present for anyone who looked closely enough. Meanwhile, his boots were the newest iteration of the copycat cloud stepping boots, kept in a formal style, black leather shoes not out of place at any black-tie event.

From head to toe, he was every bit the warrior scholar he’d become. Equally at home in a place of learning and on the battlefield.

Isaac continued to pace, walking the full length of the basement in under a second, turning, and striding back at speeds that would fling loose papers around like leaves in a hurricane. But no one used paper anymore outside of a handful of documents and leaving them in a hallway with so many high-Level people storming through it, no, this place was the perfect one to pace.

One hour to go.

He poked his head into the room where the generators were being prepared. One was the “prototype”, all rough edges and it had a dozen different places that had been altered a thousand times before it reached its final form.

The other had supposedly been built in one go using all the knowledge gained from the original creation. That was the one that would be presented to the world shortly, the other would be made available for inspection, and then go straight into the university’s museum. Or, as Amy called it, “the hall of bragging”.

This was one of their museums, anyway. The university had a few. The astronomy department had an entire planetarium, complete with two stories of exhibits. The chemistry department had an entire hallway of metals, minerals, and individual elements.

But out here, in the boonies, all they’d had were the gardens belonging to the botanists and horticulture departments. Until now. With so much new construction, turning one of the buildings into a place to teach people about the [System] and display their accomplishments.

The first “trophy” within was a mass of slate shards belonging to the very first Slate Golem the team had ever killed, complete with the dissected core.

Several more monster materials were present, each impressive-looking but not particularly expensive, they didn’t want to make the place too tempting for thieves. The historical value was high enough, no need to add material value on top of everything else.

Then there was the shattered Zweihänder Isaac had used to kill the first Tier 5 monster in a controlled environment, repaired in a way that showed exactly where it had broken when the giant, mobile mass of titanium had gone and fallen onto the blade.

Some heavily censored video footage of the battle against the Demon Lord of Seoul at the booth that talked about [Raid Bosses].

In addition, small trophies from their other exploits lined the walls.

For example, the harness that would turn a normal horse into a Pegasus, a trophy from the very first Event.

A picture of the literal mountain of promotional gifts they’d gotten the first few times they’d appeared on the world stage, with Isaac standing next to it for scale, leaning on his Zweihänder.

And then there was a pot of literally fossilized stew, donated by Chef Caroline Ulrich. They’d been giving her all the monster bits that looked like they might work as food since she’d moved her restaurant into a food truck nearby, but sometimes, they were wrong about how fit for consumption something was. Well, no one had eaten anything and therefore no one had gotten hurt, and now, it was a funny story for them all to laugh about.

“So how are you guys?” Isaac asked as he looked into the room where Patrick and Karl were preparing. Well, overpreparing. Polishing every piece, even when it already shone like new, and so on.

“Nervous,” Karl said. He was wearing a three-piece, just like Isaac, but there was no armor in it, just technological gadgets. And his tie had a fancy circuit board pattern on it.

Patrick, on the other hand, had a deep blue hybrid between a suit and a mage’s robe, still appropriate for a formal event.

“Just finishing the final, final, final checks,” Patrick added “Everything’s set up. Working generator, empty shell for the assembly demonstration, spares for both, generators in various stages of construction to give people a good look at the guts.”

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Isaac said and left, going right back to pacing. Up and down the corridor, thinking, preparing for disaster scenarios, coming up with counters for “gotcha questions”, and so on. For the dozenth time. Waiting until now to prepare … that would have just been plain moronic.

But the wait passed eventually and then, they stood in front of the crowd of reporters, scientists, politicians, industry leaders, and more.

Bailey and Raul had on simple but supremely well-made suits while Amy was wearing a dress that evoked the image of a mage’s robe seemingly without being one.

Karl stepped up to the mike and began to speak at the precise moment the press conference had been scheduled for, on the dot.

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Today, we will change the process of electricity generation forever. A functionally unlimited source of energy that can be harnessed by almost anyone, requiring next to no knowledge to use or even set up. All that is required is the ability to use mana.”

Using the party they’d set up ahead of time, Karl could easily ask for props to be delivered at just the right time, without requiring any kind of visible signal, so Amy teleported up the first generator the second he took a few steps towards the open part of the stage, manifesting the machine amidst a flash of light.

“This is a mana-to-electricity converter that is made up of standard, hardware store wiring, simple rubber insulation, and metal plates that, once again, you can get from any hardware store.”

He placed his hand on the plate that held a painted-on handprint, the only one connected to the elemental core. All the others were insulated using rubber, but this one required quite a bit of work to create, several runes had to be added that both prevented you from getting zapped when touching it and allowed mana to flow inside.

And a mere moment later, the lightbulbs on top of the generator lit up.

“These generators can generate up to 57 kilowatt-hours per day, at the cost of around a hundred mana per hour, and it’s possible to add additional mana to compensate for a period where the mana flow is cut off, up to five and a half hours’ worth. If combined with a battery pack, it can easily provide a constant flow of electricity for any standard home, and multiple could be used in concert to power larger buildings or devices.”

The one small issue with these things was that they were hard to scale up, using an elemental higher than Tier 3 should allow for the creation of more powerful generators in theory, but in practice, it didn’t work. And trying would just result in electrical burns and an involuntary game of “the floor is molten slag”. But these things were meant for small-scale use, there were alternatives for the bigger stuff. Generators that used the blood of a Demon Lord were replacing the nuclear reactors on aircraft carriers and the like.

“In other words, you can get unlimited energy for one’s household for less than two hundred euros, though you might need a few adaptations to keep the fridge running overnight, and something that works during the day if you don’t work from home. But devices capable of storing electricity have existed for decades and a list of the most useful and cost-effective models has been gathered and is available on the university’s website.”

Karl continued on for a few more minutes, going a little more in-depth on how everything worked, and then, he finally asked Isaac to do the demonstration.

Isaac simply nodded and stepped to the side, where a blank area of concrete was available.

Two kabars appeared above his hands, then promptly flew through the air and began to carve an intricate pattern into the ground, the Tier 3 circle taking shape in less than a second. As the dust settled, the summoning materials for a Lightning Elemental were revealed, he’d surreptitiously dropped them in during the creation process. A little showmanship never hurt anybody.

The kabars demanifested, then reappeared over his hands, clean. A small cut on the tip of each index finger and the blades’ tips were flying across his arms, drawing crimson runic patterns.

And lastly, the Summoning Circle flashed, spitting out a Lighting Elemental, though the monster promptly vanished, sucked into an orb hovering between Isaac’s palms, when he thrust his palms into the electric maelstrom.

Lightning Elemental has died to Environmental Hazard [Blood Magic Field] and has been transformed into Lighting Elemental Core

All in all, the process had taken barely five seconds.

While Isaac took care of procuring the elemental spark, Patrick demonstrated how to create the reactor from scratch without an [Engineer’s] [Skills]. Just [Telekinesis] to move around the metal plates and a magnification spell to allow everyone a better view.

The crackling orb of energy was carried into an awaiting receptacle that Amy had teleported onto the stage and placed within. A brief burst of [Hydra’s Regeneration] fixed up the small cuts on his fingers and that was that.

“As you can see, the process of creating this generator is not complicated. Granted, this is their hundredth time doing this, so they might be slightly faster than most people, but the principles remain the same.” Karl announced, “Now, does anyone have any questions?”

Of course, the questions immediately began raining in, but Isaac only half-listened, paying more attention to his new prompt.

Congratulations, Incarnations of the Promethean Spirit, for embodying the very essence of your Class!

You have taken a weapon of a divine war, unleashed to help humanity destroy itself, and turned it into a driving force for progress.

For creating such a spectacular of irony, you have been awarded 500,000 XP.

Excellent. Isaac grinned. Apparently, his past gains hadn’t been a big enough deal, but now, his actions had been acknowledged.

Most of the questions Karl got were either technical or of the softball variety, but then, one of those highly annoying gotcha questions got tossed their way. It was also the single most predictable question there was, so they’d been able to prepare for it well ahead of time.

“What would you like to say to the employees of power companies who will lose their jobs as a result of your invention becoming available to everyone?”

“As the vast majority of them have already been fired due to [Lead Engineers] being able to do the monitoring and maintenance via [Skills], I suspect most of them will be very happy to not have to deal with an electric bill anymore.” Karl responded evenly “Incidentally, said bills have not been reduced to reflect the companies’ reduced costs and are no longer appropriate, given the current economic situation. This machine will take a lot of pressure off the people who, up until now, had to pay the inflated bills.”

“Ah, I see.”

And that was all she wrote. Seriously, that had been so bloody predictable.

Isaac kept a straight face because the massive grin threatening to creep onto his face wouldn’t exactly have been great optics, but he was laughing his ass off on the inside.

A few more questions were asked, but there was only one more that Isaac really paid attention to.

“Professor Bailey, your team has produced several incredible innovations. What would you say is the secret to your success?”

The very epitome of a softball question, but Isaac was interested in hearing the answer.

“It’s simple. Priorities,” Bailey said “Companies look for profit, expanding the use of their current products, as well as creating new ones, but only when there is money on the table. The military is always looking for more destructive power and utility. We’re chasing knowledge for knowledge’s sake, and quite often, we find something that no one could possibly find by actively looking for it because there was no prior indication that it existed. We do foundational research and I work with some very smart people who come up with some very creative uses for our findings.”

Really, what had he expected to hear? “We have a time traveler working for us” might have given that reporter the scoop of the century, but it would have really set the cat amongst the pigeons. Much better for everyone if that was kept on the down low.

The press conference part ended soon and the mingling portion of the event began, which went as those kinds of things usually did. That, too, ended eventually, and they fled back down into the bowels of their building once they could safely do so.

***

“… telling you, things will stop after two, maybe three attempts,” Amy said with vehemence.

“This is Isaac we’re talking about, he’s terrifying when he wants to be. One and done, that’s my bet.” Raul responded.

“Guys, I’m really not comfortable with this bet,” Karl said.

Ok, what was going on here?” Isaac wondered. He’d been out of earshot for barely a few minutes, what on Earth had they gotten up to in the meantime?

“Oh, we’re making a bet about how many people are going to try to kill Karl and fail before they all realize it’s futile,” Amy said.

Karl grumbled something uncomplimentary under his breath. Amy did have a point though, they’d just punched a whole bunch of very influential people right in the wallet. Oil and power companies, non-electric car manufacturers, and more besides. Someone was bound to do something stupid.

“I can answer that: Zero,” Isaac said, “I already took care of everything. The people who already have skeletons in their closets are under arrest, and those who don’t, but are likely to do something drastic, are being watched. So, what do I win?”