Chapter 109: Project Completed
Hugo's first order of business after his Omnitrix recharged was to remove the flames from the crystal forge, making sure the forge itself remained in perfect condition for future projects.
He then went to the workbench and put the items in front of him.
The compound bow, the boots and gloves, the leg bracelet and the sword hilt.
On the other side of the workbench lay a scattered collection of the technological parts he had gotten from the waking world, there was circuit boards stripped from old communicators, tangled wires, capacitors, microchips, and the faintly gleaming surface of a fractured hard drive. A disassembled PTV had yielded its power supply and cooling systems, while smaller components like resistors and diodes sat in neat piles, sorted by size and purpose.
Human technology, of the age of the Nightmare Spell, was advanced enough to hold similar concepts to Galvanic technology, so thankfully Hugo could use those parts.
He first needed to enchant the parts, each one with complex rune phrases that described their purpose and enchantments.
For this task, he transformed into Grey Matter once again, who was a better sorcerer then brainstorm.
Hugo followed the guide he himself had made as Brainstorm, which was a faster method that simplified a lot of the the steps his Galvan self had made.
'Arrogant prick.'
That said, it was undeniable that the rune array his brainstorm self had sketched was far more useful than the one Hugo made in his Galvan form.
Cursing himself, Hugo started working on the important runes that needed to be apart of every galvan tech.
They were quite simple:
"Technology", "Galvan" and more complex runes such as "Battery powers the runes that powers the internal parts of the item."
This was a baseline each of the components must possess in order to be able to withstand the upcoming enchantments. Then came the harder part, which was describing the phrases that each electronic part was responsible for.
The human electrical components were not enough to hold such complicated enchantments, so Hugo—or to be specific, Grey Matter—used [Lost Arts], and then activated [Fusion], partially transforming his hand into that of upgrade and upgrading the components.
That was when he finally cracked the Galvan secret.
Their sorcery was not something new, instead it was runic sorcery at its core. But instead of carving runes onto swords and armor, they wove them into complex electronic circuits. They turned the mystical power of ruinic sorcery into code, and created machines into vessels for that code.
Sorcerer of the war realm might see this sorcery and assume it was impossibly advanced, however in truth it was simply too complex for human minds to understand, or to be specific any mind below the Transcendant rank.
Hugo had only managed it because Grey Matter's mind operated on a different level entirely. In his human form, he would not even know where to start.
'Such sorcery... I would not be surprised if it was the creation of the fire thinker himself '
Even among the Galvans, the one known as azmuth was simply nothing short of an anomaly when it came to Intelligence, being able to create marvelous such as primus, the omnitrix and perhaps even this form of sorcery.
Hugo did not know what rank or class the first thinker was, but to be able to create something like the omnitrix, he would have to be at least a supreme being.
As of now, Hugo was certain that his own galvan form couldn't even begin to compare.
He had basically become a software engineer, writing codes of runes for each part. Such as:
interface GalvanComponent {
trueName: string; // The True Name of the component
rune: string; // The runic symbol
effect: string; // What the component does
}
const component: GalvanComponent = {
trueName: "Galvan Component",
rune: "$@@#",
effect: "Transfers data from point A to point B"
};
More complex runes required their own values to operate, and setting each value needed testing and careful calculations, but thankfully his Brainstorm self had taken care of that, so Hugo only needed to write down the value of the ruinic code:
function canBeEnchanted(object: any): boolean {
if (object.hasTrueName()) {
object.influence = true;
object.pull = true;
// Sorcery can stick. The object can be enchanted.
return true;
} else {
object.influence = false;
object.pull = false;
// Sorcery is tenuous and slippery.
// Nameless things cannot be influenced as much.
return false;
}
}
This was the underlying rule that all the advanced sorcery of the Galvans used.
It was merely an alternative form of runic sorcery that used the principles of software engineering instead of being written down.
To use such sorcery, one had to possess a refined mind—either through an attribute or through simply being higher ranked.
Hugo needed to make countless more runes like this, and imprint them carefully on each component to make sure they functioned properly.
He had to repeat this process four times, separating the components that held the enchantments for each item.
Kai's bow held enchantments of "Energy Projectiles" and "Fold and Unfold."
Nephis's sword held enchantments of "Plasma Blade" and "Retract."
Effie's exoskeleton gloves and boots held enchantments of "Unfold and Fold," "Convert Soul Essence into Kinetic Energy," and "Distribute Kinetic Energy."
And lastly, Cassie's leg bracelet contained the enchantments of "Release Sound Waves" "Sense Sound Waves." And "Return sound waves"
Hugo had understood the concepts behind each True Name and rune due to the simple fact that the inspirations for each enchantment came from something he himself possessed.
Kai's bow came from Hugo's [Proto-Tool] Memory. Effie's exoskeleton was copied from the [Asura] attribute and the [Polymorphic Crystal] Memory. And Cassie's leg bracelet came directly from Echo Echo.
As for Nephis's blade, the inspiration came from multiple sources, such as the [Proto-Tool] once again and the Heatblast form.
The hardest part here was not the complexity of the runes, instead it was the fact that he had to make each rune basically the size of an ant to fit all the runes together on the components. For that he used the partial transformation of upgrade to manipulate the tech parts and make the runes a part of their system.
Hugo exhaled deeply, as he quickly finished the battery part of each set of components, which was the easiest to finish due to their simplicity, as it only needed simple runes such as:
"Battery", "Soul essence", "Recharge"
And finally, after nearly another day of careful work, he had finally finished working on the components, completing their enchantments.
'Lifeform Lock to the save once again.'
He had really been abusing that function lately.
Now, he only needed to place the electronics into the items, which was easier said than done.
To do that, he needed to enchant the items separately, making them accept the components.
The runes used here were specifically crafted in neat runic circles that would connect to the components the moment they were placed. They were:
"Hold Components," "Fuse," "Accept."
With that done, Hugo unlocked his Lifeform Lock and transformed into Brainstorm.
"Hmph! My Grey Matter counterpart did a decent job, although he took much too long with this rubbish. Truly an amateur."
He used his bioelectricity to raise the components into the air, and then carefully started implementing them into each item, tracing them carefully over the runes.
After that, he added the battery to each part and looked at the scene for a moment...
Everything was done. The runes were written down correctly, the items themselves accepted the runes, and the materials were durable enough to withstand their strength.
He only needed to fill the batteries with soul essence and the items will activate automatically.
By all means, he was finished...
But his Brainstorm mind was telling him there was still more that he could do, More that he could improve upon...
But he was not an idiot. In this form he did not possess the ability to enhance the items without breaking them apart and starting from zero. However, another one of his transformations did.
Hugo slammed the Omnitrix and transformed into one of his oldest aliens.
Upgrade, which he had only been using partially before.
The alien was still the same as ever, with blue lines running over his black gooey body.
"Upgrade time!"
Hugo latched onto each item, upgrading everything about them. The materials, the runes and even the True Names themselves, Elevating everything to the next level.
As he did, Hugo felt as though he himself had become a machine, interacting with the runic code he had carefully constructed, enhancing it even further and making it infinitely more complex.
After he was done, the items truly looked like Galvanic items, with even their colors having shifted to the classic Galvan colors, white and black.
Only this time, Hugo had decided to make a unique color instead of green for each. Effie's had orange alongside black and white, Kai had light green, Cassie had light blue and nephis had silver.
"Oof."
Hugo breathed heavily, as he laid on the floor, detransformed and utterly exhausted, both mentally, physically and spiritually.
He had a smile on his face though.
Hugo had done it. He had successfully created Galvanic technology on his own, and more than that, he was sure now that his skills as a sorcerer had reached the expert rank.
Perhaps not truly a master yet, but a master was already much more than even certain smiths of Valor... perhaps not the legendary Spellsmiths, but still.
He was not mad about that, though. Hugo valued the journey to improvement, so he would continue to cherish that feeling as he created even more projects in the future, such as recreating the Asuras, communication badges and perhaps even the Galvan supercomputers.
And why stop there?
Hugo could even bring human technology to the Dream Realm, establishing electricity on the streets of bastion, ravenheart and the nightgarden.
The future was bright indeed, and Hugo's ambitions only kept rising.