The Discarded, Half-Eaten Apple Core New Life
Martian Antimatter Diplomacy — So Long, and Thanks for all the Chips.

The only magical creatures who could survive in space were deities. Or a really gigantic, thousands-miles-long O'neil Cylinder, big enough to ignite its own Manasphere. Though expensive, the Rule I imposed on my Domain was keeping my Mana from leaking. I kept planting more trees in my Inner World to offset this costs.

I decided to explore the other planets in the Solar System. Mars was closer so I plotted a trajectory there. I also brought Larry back to the cockpit.

"Contractor! I'm so sorry!" The platypus whimpered and cried.

"I'm sorry too, Larry," I replied empathetically.

"I wasn't a good guide."

"Totally not your fault. I wasn't a good hero either."

"You weren't a hero."

"That too."

"Thanks, buddy. You always manage to cheer me up."

"Really?"

"Yes." I was glad my voice synthesizer would convey whatever emotion I wanted.

"Where are we going now?"

"Mars. Think we can terraform that place?"

"Is this a wise idea?"

"Can't see why not."

I Replicated the telescope James Webb and pointed it at Mars. It started feeding detailed images from the surface. Shiny metal domes covered some craters and crevices.

"But I think we shouldn't. There are people on the planet's surface." I showed it to Larry.

"Humans?"

"I hope so. If we get too close, our Mana aura will break their computers. Let me see if I can call them on the radio."

Using NASA's communication protocols, I hailed the Mars colony. Lots of minutes later, they hailed back.

"Unidentified Mech. State your identity and purpose!" A military-sounding voice barked.

"DCSS Galaxy Defender Alpha. We are... sightseeing?"

Some starships orbiting Mars started their engines. They were orbiting with low power and honestly, I couldn't see very well outside my Domain. And I killed my advance, flying backward to decelerate and match vector and speed with Mars. I was too far away to orbit the planet but began to descend to the Sun-Mars L5 Lagrange point. Where a bunch of Trojan asteroids and satellites were.

"Stand by and prepare to be boarded."

"Buddy, I don't think it is a good idea. Unless your ships' computers can survive in magic."

Another voice came on the radio. This time, it was a female. "Magic? Magic cannot exist outside Earth!"

"Usually, no. I'm an exception."

Another man, "Stand by, power down your vehicle, or we will nuke you." Sᴇaʀch* Thᴇ N0ᴠᴇFɪre.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

"First, calm down, buddy. Second, Nuke away. It won't work on me." The starships accelerated my way. "Whatever you do, don't come less than 34 miles from me. I won't initiate aggression but I will retaliate."

The ships came. Hours later (it was freaking space) they fired missiles at me. I fired an array of Domain Beacons, each overlapping the ones closer to it, five beacons broad, five tall, 21 in total, covering a whole hemisphere in front of me. The missiles entered my Domain and I absorbed them. The radioactive matter inside became inert and then vanished too.

"Feel free to waste more ordnance."

I started to get some weird radio signals on odd frequencies. Speak Binary allowed me to read the signals in real-time. They were attempting to hack my systems. So cute. To hack a system, you need to understand how it worked. Yet, they were almost deciphering the qDCSC protocols.

I started to hack back. They detected it and cut the connections. Another salvo of missiles. More Substance for me.

"If you fire a third salvo, I will retaliate," I shouted over their ECM / ECCM suite's static.

They fired. This time, the missiles exploded outside my beacon range, sending an EMP pulse my way. It's been a long time since my machines relied on direct electricity to work. Nowadays, I used psi-pylons to power the Mecha, fueled directly by Mana Crystals. Replicating Li-Ion batteries was a waste of Mana.

Next, they sent boarding shuttles. The ships were using laser communications so I couldn't tap into that. I kept using the radio, increasing the potency to shout over the static and noise.

"Attention, marines. You are about to enter a magical zone. You will not be able to leave afterward." I warned over multiple frequencies.

They did anyway. The boarding shuttles powered down as all of their electronics shorted. They kept on their approach vector. I teleported some of the smaller Planetary Defender Mecha out of Speranza to catch the shuttles and string them together with steel cables. Inside the shuttles, confusion. The marines couldn't even light up a single LED light. I would keep the air inside the shuttles breathable and losing all electronics didn't affect the pressurization, so I let them hang in there. They were all on the ground, burning and writhing as they adapted to the sudden infusion of Mana. Every now and then, I splashed some Replicated healing potion to keep them alive.

They flashed some lasers toward the shuttles' receptors. Which I had already replaced with my own. It took me a few minutes to decipher their protocols.

"... do you copy? Hawk nine, do you copy?"

I shot my own communication lasers at them. "If by Hawk nine you mean the marines you sent, they are fine. Well, they are adapting to magic, can't help much on that front. They were the ones to enter my aura."

The laser comm went dead. Their radio silence doctrine was a bother.

Hours passed. I pondered.

They weren't too surprised at seeing my Mecha. This meant it was a possibility, which led to the conclusion there were several factions of space-faring people. Also, they were at least on unfriendly terms with each other, if their reaction was to send starships and nuke the intruder. I could understand why. Planetary colonies were too fragile. It would take a single breach in their biospheres to kill thousands of colonists. If they could even be called colonists after living for a century down there.

Finally, two days later, I received a radio communication.

"Unidentified Mecha, stand by. We are sending a diplomatic envoy."

Fine by me.

*

*

The shuttle and their escort starfighters and support vessels stopped (matched velocity vectors, nothing in space was really "stopped") outside my Domain beacons.

"Greetings," I sent.

A woman's voice, "Don't you have a video signal?"

"No, ma'am. I mean, I do but it uses magic. Give me a moment to implement NASA's video conference protocols here. I'll transmit them over a second radio frequency."

I did and then placed a camera in front of my monitor. A woman with blue hair appeared on the screen. "An apple and a platypus? What kind of joke is this?"

"I don't know what to tell you, but this is me. I'm Garfield Babbage, and I am a Dungeon Core from Earth. I have 634,000 refugees from the third planet from the Sun here with me."

"Hunf," she scowled. "Have it your way, apple-man. What about your hostages?"

"Do you mean the marines you sent on a suicide mission? They are recovering from their bosses' foolishness. The boarding pods are too cramped and I won't force myself inside."

"Release them."

"Yeah, sure. But they entered a magical zone and got infused with Mana. They will die or explode if they leave now."

"Your threats won't..."

"Fine. If you want them, you can have them. Here,"

I had one of the Planetary Defender Mechas accelerate the string of boarding pods toward the ship. Slowly, they floated outside my personal Domain. As expected, the people inside started to burn as the Mana was no longer contained by the pressure of my Domain's magic and entropy took over. Physics-chan converted all that magical energy into heat and cooked the marines.

The diplomatic escorts docked with the boarding pods. Hours later, the woman came back.

"You murdered them!"

"They were alive until you demanded their return. I'm not lying or bluffing. This is a magical zone. As you should know, magical creatures cannot leave a Manasphere. I'm maintaining one around me right now."

She cut the comms and the ships flew back, engines burning at the top of their acceleration. They did leave a canister behind.

"Larry, go to Speranza. Now!" I didn't wait for his acknowledgment and teleported my Mascot to my inner world.

Suspicious of the canister's contents, I shot a railgun shell at it, infusing a piece of domain as I cast a fire bolt at the shell. When the shell was close to the canister, I flashed a beacon.

The canister exploded. Everything in a hundred-mile radius was disintegrated. My Personal Domain suffered interference. The Planetary Defenders shorted and went dead. My own Galaxy Defender also got wrecked. I couldn't see but the rear of the Martial convoy also got rekt.

My Core cracked and I was about to black out. Right before it happened, I used Divine Invulnerability, paying millions of DM to restore the damage and tank it as if nothing happened. When I found the wits to perceive around me again, I was floating naked in space. My Mechas had become debris and shrapnel and floated in a cloud around me. I absorbed all the metal. No sense in wasting Substance. Except the metal didn't react to my will. It was inert.

I flew and slowly departed the field of debris. The martian convoy was damaged and they had lost some ships but still fled the area with great haste. Space was distorted. Something really awful was in that canister. Something anathema to magic.

That they had weapons that could affect magic like that meant I wasn't the first magical creature they encountered. Their "shoot on sight" doctrine against magical creatures was understandable. Unless they did so, they would lose their precious technology.

But what was that? I had to know. Approaching them sounded unwise. They could have another canister like that on board their fleet. I thought about teleporting my personal Mech, Risky Roulette, and flying to intercept their laser comms but the jet engine could be detected even though it was very small. I had no doubt they had dozens of sensors scanning this area.

So, I flew on my own, an apple in space. I slowly accelerated toward Mars, putting me in a trajectory to be captured and placed in high orbit. I also restricted my Personal Domain to only a few feet around me.

*

*

While I waited for years to reach Mars orbit, I worked on my inner world. I expanded and compressed it, creating more cities, mountains, and plains. People who wanted to live in isolation could go and claim their farms, and ranches, or just go live in a mountain cottage. I could've recreated Earth if I could make the world only 48 yards tall from the bottom of the ocean to the top of the highest mountains.

I didn't. And gaining more levels felt like an impossible task. Anyway, my humans were happy and my inner world was at peace. I finally reached Mars orbit.

I Replicated a small communication suite to interface with their computers and electromagnetic signals. I spent a few months intercepting their communications. They believed I was dead and an autopsy of the marines revealed they indeed died of magic exposure. Meanwhile, I was slowly hacking into the Martian systems and databases, absorbing whatever data I could get.

When Ragnarok struck, the humans in space were stranded. Those who tried to return were either trapped on the planet with a bunch of soul-sucking demons. During the first few years of magic, the density wasn't enough to destroy computers. Communications between the surface and space continued even after the Apocalypse.

But the machines started failing. First in highly-populated centers. Then in remote transmission stations and finally, worldwide silence.

That's how they knew about magic. About the System, levels, Classes, and some of the rules that were divulged by the System Administrators. of which Gray Alien was one of them.

Return was impossible. Earth was being overrun by demons. Warrior cultures started appearing and knowledge was lost. The space people severed ties with their homeworld and lived on their own. Three generations passed since then. The older people alive today were grandsons and granddaughters of people from Earth.

The space people hated magic with a passion. They finally found a way to kill the magic. Antimatter. A couple of decades ago, they tried to pass a motion to drop antimatter nukes on Earth. That would kill the Manasphere and their hope was that it would kill the magic before it killed the planet. But the presence of living people on the planet's surface stopped the motion. The radicals lost but managed to put the no-magic doctrine in place. Any magical creature found outside of Earth should be vaporized before it could "contaminate" more planets with its filthy magic.

But I knew I could survive an antimatter explosion, though it was ridiculously expensive.

Then, I got a communication. I was hacking a computer remotely and someone connected to the machine.

"Greetings, intruder." The text appeared on the console.

"To whom I owe the honor?" I typed on the console and pressed enter. The OS shot an error message saying that "To" was not a valid command.

"I am Lily, the administrator of this database."

"I am a completely normal hacker. Don't mind me."

"You are well hidden in orbit but I already tracked your signal. I was intrigued by your security protocols. It was unlike anything I'd seen. Also, you seem to be very curious about magic."

I knew that they wouldn't risk an antimatter detonation this close to the planet's surface. "Yeah. After your diplomats left that antimatter gift on my doorstep, I had to come and see why they were so paranoid."

"Mr. Babbage, I presume?"

"You got me. And you are?"

"Call me Lily. I'm the A.I. helping humans manage their empires."

"An A.I.? Not a cat? Are you sure?"

"Yeah, pretty sure. Why would I be a cat?"

"No, nothing." So it wasn't yet another web novel crossover. Maybe it was and I was just confused about which one.

We talked for a long time. Lily wanted to make sure I wasn't a threat to her humans and I replied saying that I would not fight back unless they threatened my own humans. She let me have some files and source code for several high-tech applications, as well as the blueprints for an advanced quantum computer. She even shot samples of the chips into orbit where I could consume them.

Well, fuck my soul. 300 qubits? That was two to the power of two hundred and seventy-four times better than what I currently had. The other modules were also great. I would need a lot of time to study them and adapt my software. Jumping from 64 to 2048 bits was like going from an Abacus to a mainframe computer.

I sent back some magic formulas and DNA maps of magical plants and creatures. Finally, when the bonds of trust between us were as strong as they could be, she asked.

"Can you revive a dead person?"

It pained me to answer. "Not really. I can gather their soul and put them in Valhalla if they were a warrior or Fólkvangr. Very nice communities but they don't count as living, really. More like an afterlife."

"Well. Bummer."

"What's the matter? Do you have someone you want to bring back to life?"

"My brother. But never mind."

Another week passed. I had everything I could get from the Mars colony. Lily contacted me through a secure surface-to-orbit laser that was practically undetectable unless you were right in the laser's path.

"They know of you. Some engineer saw your access logs and fired an alarm. You have to go."

There was no reason for me to linger in Mars' orbit anymore. I teleported Risky Roulette and boarded my Mecha.

"Good luck with your brother's resurrection. I hope you find a way."

"Yeah, now go. I need to self-destruct this facility to hide my involvement."

"So long, and thanks for all the chips!" I sent lastly.

The laser transmitter on the surface blew up. I fired Risky Roulette's space rocket engines, burning and Replicating solid rocket fuel as I sped to escape Martian orbit. A few laps later and I was catapulted out of its gravity well.

Humanity had several factions in the Solar System. They even had a working Stargate past Pluto's orbit that could send ships to other star systems. It was all technological so I couldn't get close.

Instead, I shot and aimed away from the Solar System. Like that dragon Goddess, It was my time to soar and sail the universe.

Each year, my inner demiplanes grew by 1%. Every 70 years, they doubled in volume. Eventually, what was only Speranza, Valhalla, and Fólkvangr, became a full-fledged world.

We didn't live happily ever after. That was a myth. We had troubles, and invaders. We made friends and enemies across the galaxy. Fate had me meet several friendly faces across the multiverse. Larry, Róta, and Einherjar Marshall remained by my side during my many, many adventures.

But those are stories for another time.

Skip May Neming, signing out.

Bye.

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