Looking at the foundation for my soon to be lab I prepare for the incredibly long process ahead of me. Of course I obviously have to build it first and that will definitely take a very long time considering the size I want to make it. I'm not even sure I'll complete it before the Orc War.
That's actually a problem because one of the first devices I want to build with the lab I'm about to make will be perfect to test out during the Orc War. A massive long range weapon that covers a massive area of the battlefield taking out everything in its wake, a bomb. I can't afford to make it after the war because it'll be my only chance to test it in a while so I came up with a solution. I'm going to only build the main part of the lab for now and build the rest after.
That shouldn't take too long assuming I have all the materials I need. [Great Sage], is everything ready?
{Answer- The needed materials to make the planned building are all in your stomach.}
Alright then, let's get building.
Laying the wood foundation doesn't take too long. Now that I actually have a human form this is way easier. Honestly, this lab might prove to be easier to make than my house. I just have so many more ways to interact with the world now.
By the end I look at the massive structure. It's huge, dwarfing my house in size and taking up a massive amount of space. If it wasn't in the middle of the forest it would definitely draw a big crowd. Luckily, this is the middle of nowhere.
After I finish the base I get ready for the time consuming part. The walls. I'll use the same technique I used on my house to build this building which is on the outside made of a slightly weaker material that still contains trace amounts of Magisteel.
Reverting back into my Slime form I position myself in the base of the building and move around laying the walls behind me on the frame. Due to the impending Orc Invasion though I'm on a time crunch so I lay the walls way faster than I did with the house. Finishing in only a day I go inside to the empty building.
I look around and see that it's pitch black inside. It doesn't have too many windows due to being the place where important discoveries will be made in the future so there isn't much light inside. In the future I plan on making functional magic powered light bulbs but I guess for now I'll just see with [Magic Sense].
Making it to the center of what's already built of the building where I plan to build two devices I plan to make. The first being the weapon, and the second being a utility device.
I choose to make the utility device first because in the chances that goes horribly wrong at least the lab would have been used for something useful right? For reference of the device I pull out my version of the type of mask Shizue and now Rimuru have. The reason why is because it functions as a base.
What I plan to make is a tiny little device that hides your Magicules. It's important that it's as small as possible, small enough to fit specifically on a fly sized being. This will be important when I use this in about a year. Why make a device like that now when you don't need it until so much later? Well, it's simple, I just want to get it out of the way now rather than later.
{Notice- Unique Skill [Genius] has been activated.}
I activate [Genius] to increase my intelligence dramatically as I ask [Great Sage] explain the device. I had it analyze Magicules in the cave for reasons like this. Now I can use all that knowledge to my advantage. By the time [Great Sage] is finished explaining I fully understand the concept and start making the tiny device.
Finishing it after a few hours I hold up the tiny device. It fits on my fingernails. That's how small it is. Impressive for a device that can completely conceal your Magicules.
I store it in my stomach and move on to the next device. This one will be quite a bit more volatile.
It's called the Magicule Bomb. A powerful weapon made using relatively little materials. It requires a chunk of Magistone or Magisteel and a type of magic stone called a Heat Rock. With those two materials I can make a devastating weapon capable of wiping out entire armies in one fell swoop. There's one major problem though. The weapon itself is highly unstable and incredibly dangerous to untrained people.
Time to explain how the bomb works. The concept [Great Sage] came up with is actually pretty ingenious and simple.
The Heat Rock is a magic stone with some interesting properties. What heats up the magic stone is Magicules detonating on a microscopic scale inside the Heat Rock. This makes the rock constantly heat up, hence the name Heat Rock. This means that once they run out of Magicules they cool down and never heat up again. Well, of course unless it reabsorbs it's lost Magicules.
To remain Heat Rocks they must take in equal or more Magicules than they are expanding in the detonation process. A pretty obvious effect of this constant use of Magicules this magic stone uses.
Now back to the bomb. When an especially hot, and in turn Magicule rich Heat Rock touches Magistone or Magisteel they have a tendency to explode. This explosion scales to the amount of Magicules inside the Heat Rock and Magistone or Magisteel as well. This explosion is caused by the Heat Rock absorbing the Magicules inside the Magistone or Magisteel.
This reaction happens every once in a while but of course, it is limited due to the relatively low levels of Magicules in the air. At most, they are usually no bigger than a spark but occasionally they can get big enough to cause an accidental death or two. [Great Sage] weaponized this reaction by figuring out that by essentially supercharging the two materials and making them touch the explosion grows exponentially.
There are two ways to supercharge the rocks.
1- Place the two rocks in a Magicule rich environment for extended periods of time or 2- Transfer your own Magicules into the stones.
The first method is very limited because the more Magicules a Heat Rock has, the faster it burns through them. Once the heat rock reaches a kind of equilibrium where it loses Magicules just as fast as it absorbs them from the atmosphere it stops charging. An example would be this reaction happening outside vs this reaction happening in the Sealed Cave.
Outside the reaction would only lead to a little spark due to the low Magicule density. In the Sealed Cave however, the Magicules are much denser because of Veldora's presence there for so long. Inside there if a Heat Rock fell onto a chunk of Magistone the explosion would've been a few meters in diameter according to my and [Great Sage's] calculations.
The second method is much more useful. If you supercharge a Heat Rock with your own Magicules, while yes it can become unstable you can cram it with much more Magicules than with the other method. This makes them much more potent making it so if it touches a standard piece of Magistone the resulting explosion can cover a city block assuming it's current me who put in the Magicules. It scales to the strength of the user. Another thing is the rock gets really hot but that's a given.
That explosion is good. Covering a whole city block is really good but we can get better. I've only been talking about using normal Magistone for this, by refining it into Magisteel and supercharging it as well using the same method that it grows in strength exponentially depending on the strength of the creator of the bomb. In my case the bomb would be 30 miles wide. Pretty huge for a bomb capable of ripping you apart from the inside out.
What I mean by this is this bomb isn't simply powered by the Magicules inside the rocks themselves. Making the two rocks explode causes Magicules around the initial explosion to explode as well in a chain reaction. This can even happen to the Magicules inside monsters ripping their bodies apart. A gruesome way to go. That is the biggest danger with the Magicule Bomb. It even works with Humans who don't have many Magicules inside them but instead of exploding from the inside out they implode as the Magicules around them crush them.
This also means this bomb basically has bonus damage to people made of mostly Magicules. The True Dragons especially would have a hard time defending against them.
As powerful as this bomb is again, it's highly unstable. Even without being supercharged a Heat rock touching Magisteel can still cause an explosion due to having more Magicules than Magistone so the two ingredients for the bomb in the end can't touch each other at all costs. Another problem is the Heat Rock rapidly loses Magicules after being supercharged so these bombs can't be prepared ahead of time easily. The Heat Rock must be supercharged right before the bomb goes off so they will likely be awkward to use.
The way these bombs will be used is to put the two materials in a specialized container. Pre-supercharge the Magisteel before putting it in the container. Set up a barrier around the Magisteel and leave it there.
The Heat Rock would need to be manually supercharged and thrown into a compartment before dropping the bomb. From there the barrier can then be turned off causing the two to touch and the reaction to begin. Then, run like hell.
Wouldn't the Magicule barrier cause an explosion as well? Actually no, weirdly enough it doesn't. It seems the Heat Rock only reacts to what I'll call "inactive" Magicules. Or Magicules that are just sort of sitting there. Even if Milim fired her Dragonova at the supercharged Heat Rock it wouldn't react despite the absurd amount of Magicules around it because the Magicules are "active."
There's a reason for this. The way the Heat Rock detonates is it starts absorbing the Magicules inside the Magisteel from touching the rock. As it absorbs more and more Magicules it speeds up it's rate of absorption. Once it runs out the reaction begins, triggered by the sudden stop to the flow of Magicules. That's when the explosion begins.
However, if the magicules are doing something they don't get absorbed by the Heat Rock because they resist it's pull. So that means that the Magicule barrier wouldn't trigger it. Even if some magicules leak out and go into the stone it wouldn't be enough to do more than cause it to heat up a little.
I'll only make one of these bombs for the Orc Invasion. I've done the math and one of these bombs is enough to take out 15% of the Orcs in one fell swoop. That should be more than enough considering monsters like Benimaru will also be in the fight. Not only will having two be incredibly dangerous right now, it's also unnecessary.
I make the bomb by refining a chunk of Magistone from the cave, refining it into Magisteel and transferring my Magicules into it. I then make a safe using my stomach and some iron and a few other minerals I still have in my stomach, lock the safe, cast a Magicule barriers around it, and lock it in a shelf I made in what I will eventually make into my office in the lab. For now there is only one shelf in the room, freshly made by [Great Sage], [Predator] and [Stomach], but eventually the room I am standing in will be a full on office.
Keeping the Heat Rock I plan to use for the bomb inside my stomach I leave the lab.
Now that that's done, let's head back to the village.. It's been a couple days.