Chapter 100 - Chemistry

*( mood song: "Iron Maiden - The Alchemist")

The next morning, Erik woke up energized as he had just changed rooms in the end, as Inky refused to clean his room, saying she liked the smell.

He went to the genetics lab and laid down on the surgery table, letting it scan his insides, then saw in the 3D model that the 2 babies seemed to be growing correctly 'interesting... an umbilical cord is also connected to the egg, octopeople don't have a placenta in their DNA, so I wonder if her eggs can't grow inside octopeople now...' he smiled looking at the 2 growing babies 'can't wait for you two to be born...'

Rose: [yeah, me too (◉ω◉)]

Erik: [yeah, they will be perfect]

Rose: [so... what are the plans for today?]

Erik smiled widely: [remember when you told me you didn't have much sodium metal?]

Rose: [yes..? I would need oil to store it so the filters operative right now are focused on getting iron and other minerals and metals necessary for the alloys]

Erik: [well, storing it won't be an issue now, salty water contains sodium chloride(NaCl), commonly called table salt in my world, I just need to filter seawater and boil it to extract the salt, or a much more efficient way, if I use osmosis membranes for extracting fresh water out of the seawater then I would end up with a really salty brine, much easier to evaporate to get salts out of it, then I will need an industrial oven to melt the salt and remove the impurities from the surface, then I will insert 2 iron rods and run a current through it, separating the sodium from the Chlorine gas, useful for disinfecting and other industrial products but... I intend to use it as a weapon as it dissolves in water... so, from seawater we would get freshwater, impurities from melting the sand, sodium and chlorine gas, how about that?]

Rose: [....work with the power armor on... I remind you you aint a chemist...]

Erik: [with proper measuring machines... I should be able to manage, I also need you to print me this] and imagined the components.

Rose: [a torpedo? oh, for the Chlorine gas?]

Erik: [yep, also with a sodium solid charge]

Rose: [well, just for safety issues I will dig a new room with thick walls, and setting up the machines and components you envisioned should take at least 4 or 5 days, so what will you do in the meantime? ( ͡°- ͡°)]

Erik: [a trump card for my avatar]

Rose: [...more specifically?]

Erik: [a chemical bomb, Nital, it just needs 1 titanium container with nitric acid and 1 alloy container full of ethanol, when the container inside opens, the mix will generate a big and really toxic gas explosion, I don't know what will be in those caves, but this should do the trick]

Rose: [that sounds interesting, a bit of a waste of your limited lab materials though]

Erik: [sigh... yeah, even if I start distilling alcohol and hide it from the octopeople since I don't want any alcoholics, I would still need a source of nitric acid, I could even make TNT if I had a stable source, so I make just one for now ]

Rose: [HNO₃... In the lab materials from your spaceship it says using Nitrogen and Oxygen you can generate NO2 using a heat source like lightning, and then once mixed with freshwater it should produce nitric acid (◉ω◉)]

Erik: [....aren't there millions of pages in those documents, it took me days just all this...]

Rose: [well, don't beat yourself over it, my brains are gigantic so I can read really fast ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

Erik: [...if I didn't have an empire to build, anyone would become lazy with you around, didn't researchers ask for your help in the past?]

Rose: [Nah, they all had their secrets so they used their own AI's, in fact, some should still be around in abandoned facilities, maybe you will find one, but they won't be as fun as me~ (≖ᴗ< ✿)]

Erik: [well, then can you start producing the sodium, freshwater, salt, and chlorine by yourself?]

Rose: [yeah, I will get the room ready branching from a long hallway from the Third floor to avoid accidents, you know... after millions of years of boredom and loneliness, it's refreshing to put the good old brains to work again ( ๑˘ω˘ )]

Erik stood up [well then, I better start working on the torpedoes and the bomb casings, also make me that diamond growth coating machine and titanium knife blanks please]

Rose: [just make a 3D model and I will make them, don't worry （＾ω＾）]

--- 5 days later - Chemistry module ---

Erik took his safety glasses off as he had finished concentrating the acid and ethanol, getting them ready, and pouring them into nearby sealed containers ready for the bomb, in these 5 days he had also 3D modeled the torpedoes and launch system, they would be using propellers to come out of tubes once pointed at their target and exploding on impact.

Rose: [come to the new lab! I finished making a good batch! (･ิω･ิ)]

Erik stood up "alright, I will be there"

--- Third Floor ---

At the end of the corridor leading to the third floor now there were a pair of thick metal doors to the left, and then a 10 meters long hallway, the walls still a bit rough as mecha crabman slaves worked on smoothening the stone walls, to reach a second set of doors.

Once inside the lab, the view was magnificent though, the room inside being the size of half a football field, with all the machines connected.

Erik: "wow... Rose, can you give me a resume?"

His power armor than approached and put an arm over his shoulder: *Sure, let me give you a tour (≖ᴗ≖✿)* she pointed to the right *there I put the osmosis filters, the fresh water is pumped to a fresh water deposit to be used to drink, or other uses like the rain systems on the third floor and farms to water the plants, on the other part, the salty brine is filtered to erase all organic matter, then the water is boiled to extract the salt, the steam is cooled into pure water for later, and the salt is melted by electric plasma, separating into sodium that a robotic arm with a suction heated needle separates and puts into a non reactive filtered kelp oil container so it doesn't react with water, and the chlorine is cooled into a liquid and stored into a deposit* she pointed to the left *and that to the left is a distillery using some sweet algae processed sugar, fresh water and yeast, this produces small ammounts of alcohol that evaporates at room temperature along some water and they are cooled and separated in another 2 decantations* she pointed to a big and bulky red hot machine *thats the nitric acid lightning reactor, the water alcohol mix from the distillers circulates around it on tubes to cool it down and recycle the heat, also just so you know, I got a 99.99% alcohol bottle (≖ᴗ≖✿), as for inside the lightning reactor it happens what you thing, lightning is continuously circulating inside, the NO2 gas is then pumped into a deposit with pure water were it forms into nitric acid HNO₃ , once it is highly concentrated the acid is cooled and pumped into nonreactive alloy containers... so? are you impressed? (◉ω◉)]

Erik's jaw was hanging open by now as he pointed to a machine that was transforming "...are those machines... moving?"

Rose: *well, they readjust and become more efficient by themselves, so as time passes the productivity should increase*

Erik: "really impressive Rose... it's so precise... steampunk lovers would go crazy here..., anyway... did you finish the torpedoes?"

Rose's power armor softly twisted his head to look at the left corner, seeing a hidden door there that looked almost no different than the stony rock wall *I hid it for obvious reasons and to avoid a chain explosion, I'm still building it but there will be a room there to store the finished torpedoes, I've already printed some along with the launchers in the armoury*

Erik then started softly laughing and got louder "hehehe~ hahahaha HAHAHAHA! AMAZING ROSE! as always, you went far beyond my expectations, we should be much safer once we install the launchers"

Rose: *well, we could have just used railguns but they ain't that efficient underwater, and the bullets would use up precious metals, with this way we can make near infinite ammunition*

Erik: "also fertilizers as the nitric acid once it reacts, it can be used as a fertilizer... our future looks bright Rose..., by the way, did you make the diamond growing CVD machine?"

Rose: *yeah, it's on the workshop*

--- Base of the cliff ---

The shadow claw scouts came out to see a hellish scene in front of them, rock fragments and pieces of exoskeletons dispersed everywhere as tons of predators swum around devouring the corpses from their army.

The scout leader looked at the horrified faces of the others and said "we need to inform the King, our army... was annihilated...."

Their heads hung low as they gave one last look to the hellish scene, before running back to the caves stealthily, even barricading the tunnel with some rocks on the way in.

--- Shadow Claw tribe ---

Some hours later, in a big hut made of carved bones and stone, the king waited while eating raw oysters on his oversized throne. The scout leader soon came, bowing to the king.

King: "so? where is my army?"

Scout: "...annihilated..."

The king paused his eating "what?"

The scout gritted his teeth and said again "they are all dead... out of the caves there's an entire field full of corpses and big rocks, with thousands of predators feeding on their corpses, we sealed the tunnel just in case"

King: "....what killed them?"

Scout: "well... judging by the giant stones, I would say an abyssal killed them my king"

King: "an abyssal? what bad luck... then -"

He was interrupted as another scout came running.

scout: "my king! bad news! the scouts have detected fire tribe scouts around the perimeter, they seem to be evaluating our defenses"

The king slammed the food plates in the table near his throne as he roared in a high pitched voice "THOSE DOGS! they want what's mine just cause they can make better weapons and armor hmph!" looked at the first scout that still hadn't left "inform everyone, we need to start fortifying the tribe and the entire perimeter!"

scout: "yes my king!" and ran to follow his orders.

King: "those bastards... trying to destroy this system that has lasted generations"

--- base, workshop ---

Erik used small diamonds and stuck them along the edge of the knife on both sides, putting it inside a cubic machine as it was pressurized with hydrogen and methane, microwaves heating the gas to 900*C.

Erik: "now in around 2 or 3 weeks it should be ready..., can't wait to see if it works..., my very own diamond knife..."

--- chemical plant, third floor ---

Three power armors were dancing as they worked dangerously close to explosive torpedoes, and listening to loud music.

Rose: 'hehe~ I wonder what he will say when he sees me dancing... I copied famous people from his memories, so it should be perfect!'

( songs: "Eminem - Go To Sleep Ft Obie Trice And DMX", and "No Doubt - Just a girl").