The Power Stone was not intelligent.
It wasn't alive.
It wasn't secretly manipulating us.
It was simply a tool.
An absurdly dangerous cosmic tool with nearly limitless energy output.
And honestly?
That made it even more useful.
Alex and I stood inside Laboratory Theta-Black beneath Site-19, surrounded by holographic schematics, magical circles, and enough power regulation systems to vaporize a small country if they malfunctioned.
At the center of the room floated the Power Stone inside a reinforced containment prism.
Raw purple energy pulsed softly through the chamber.
Contained.
Controlled.
Barely.
My focus wasn't on weapons anymore.
Not primarily.
The Foundation already possessed terrifying military technology.
Star Destroyers.
Reality anchors.
Anomalous weapons.
Magic.
Mutants.
Entire armies.
No—
what I wanted now was infrastructure.
True infinite infrastructure.
Because once this succeeded—
the Herta Space Station could finally become reality.
I already had most of the external structure under construction on Mars.
The colony there had expanded massively over the last decade under Foundation oversight.
Officially, it didn't exist.
Unofficially?
It was one of humanity's most advanced settlements.
Massive shipyards stretched across the Martian surface beneath hidden atmospheric domes.
Automated construction drones moved constantly.
Entire industrial sectors operated twenty-four hours a day.
And in orbit above Mars—
the skeleton of the station already existed.
The outer frame had been constructed using advanced Foundation alloys combined with off-world materials recovered through anomalous acquisition programs.
The structure was designed for:
long-term deep space habitation extreme radiation resistance self-repair systems military-grade shielding artificial gravity support dimensional stabilization fields
But there was one major problem.
Power.
Originally, I planned to use massive Arc Reactor arrays combined with the new element Howard Stark had theoretically designed before his death.
Or rather—
before I cloned him using SCP-2000.
Howard's recreated mind had been invaluable.
The man was genuinely a genius.
His Arc Reactor designs alone had accelerated Foundation energy technology decades ahead of the modern world.
But even Arc Reactors had limitations.
The Herta Space Station was simply too large.
Too advanced.
Too ambitious.
I needed something greater.
And that something floated in front of me inside containment.
Alex adjusted several calculations rapidly.
"The dimensional conversion ratios are stable."
I checked the magical regulator rings surrounding the containment prism.
"All rune structures holding."
That was the core problem we'd spent weeks solving.
The Power Stone's energy output was too extreme for direct usage.
It had to be filtered.
Converted.
Regulated.
Which led to the creation of the Infinity Reactor.
The prototype stood behind reinforced glass.
A massive cylindrical device composed of:
vibranium energy channels adamantium reinforcement plating Foundation superconductive circuitry magical rune stabilization arrays dimensional energy regulators
At its center floated a tiny fragment of filtered Power Stone energy contained within a stabilization core.
Not the Stone itself.
Just converted output.
Alex looked almost excited.
Which, for them, was basically the equivalent of normal people screaming.
"Ready?"
I nodded slowly.
"Activate it."
The reactor powered on.
For a moment—
nothing happened.
Then the room shook softly.
Purple energy flowed through the containment channels like liquid lightning.
The regulator rings spun.
The runes ignited one after another.
Energy readings exploded upward across every monitor in the chamber.
Five percent output.
Ten percent.
Twenty.
No instability.
No overload.
Alex stared at the readings.
"…Impossible."
The reactor continued climbing.
Thirty percent.
Forty.
Still stable.
The energy output surpassed an entire Arc Reactor complex in under six seconds.
Then doubled it.
Then tripled it.
I felt myself smiling slightly.
"We did it."
Alex immediately corrected me.
"No."
They pointed at the reactor.
"We built the greatest power source in human history."
That was also true.
The Infinity Reactor produced absurd amounts of usable energy while generating almost no waste.
The dimensional regulators continuously converted Power Stone output into stable electrical and plasma-based energy systems.
Meaning:
Infinite energy.
Or close enough that the difference no longer mattered.
Alex immediately started pulling up applications.
"Ship weapons."
"Planetary grids."
"Orbital infrastructure."
"Massive shielding systems."
"Deep-space warp engines."
I added calmly:
"The Herta Space Station."
That made Alex pause.
Then slowly grin.
"…You've already started building it."
I nodded.
"Years ago."
The hologram of the station appeared above the laboratory.
Gigantic.
Elegant.
Terrifyingly advanced.
A massive orbital research station inspired by Herta's own station from my memories.
Except larger.
Far larger.
Research sectors.
Fleet docks.
Containment zones.
Artificial ecosystems.
Anomalous laboratories.
Reality anchor arrays.
Defense systems capable of destroying fleets.
Alex stared at it for several seconds.
"…You planned this entire thing before obtaining the Power Stone."
"Of course I did."
Planning ahead was how the Foundation survived.
The Infinity Reactor simply accelerated everything.
By centuries.
The reactor suddenly surged slightly.
Warning symbols flashed briefly—
then stabilized again.
Alex checked the systems.
"Minor fluctuation."
I glanced toward the Power Stone.
"Expected."
The Stone itself wasn't unstable.
The problem was scale.
We were converting energy from one of the fundamental forces of the universe into usable infrastructure.
That naturally required precision.
Still—
the prototype worked.
And that changed the future permanently.
Because humanity had officially crossed a line.
No longer limited by energy.
No longer limited by Earth.
No longer limited by normal civilization.
The Foundation was becoming something else entirely.
Not just protectors of humanity.
Not merely rulers behind the shadows.
But architects of humanity's future among the stars.
And somewhere on Mars—
construction drones continued building the Herta Space Station piece by piece beneath the red skies.
Waiting for the day infinite power would bring it fully to life.