Chapter 1034: Dark Knowledge

The next day didn't bring Max much progress with the Orbital Lance development. There was no safe middle ground. Either you didn't get the full effect, or when it contacted the element that it was attuned to, it would cause a runaway reaction.

While that did limit its use, they were going to store it away as a weapon of mass destruction and start on a new approach before Nico's team called a meeting to discuss the data that they had been working with.

"Welcome, everyone, to our daily meeting. With the amount of new information that we have compiled, we are going to have to do this daily to compile the information with the other technologies that we are already working with.

First up, we have a collector-developed combined energy weapon. It utilizes the best aspects of a particle weapon and a Plasma weapon. The data is up on your screens now. As you can see, not only is the material superheated to plasma, but it is energy stabilized into a beam, the same as an Ion Weapon. That gives it the sort of accuracy and long-burst stability that most Plasma weapons are lacking.

We will start on the practical applications of it later, as we have more technology to go over today as well. We have also been granted knowledge of the unique energy weapon that they have optimized for the Energy Beings that we know as the Demons, who have proven resistant to our Disintegrators.

The technology is similar, but it uses a pulsed wavelength generator that destabilizes the layers of space, much like a portal opening. That destabilizes the Energy Beings, as we found out during our conflict with the Greater Energy Being, and we can effectively stun-lock them or banish them outright.

However, while this effect does remove them from our layer of space, it does not permanently disperse them. It is highly effective, but short term.

That is why I've called your team over here. You are working on the integrated weapon already, and this technology is ripe for integration." Nico explained.

Max's team immediately saw the potential in it, and Nico had updated the information about the various layers that Ranarth had given them so they could properly test the system in their VR simulations.

"Alright. We were working on a combination of Plasma Fusillade and a Disintegrator-based Orbital Lance, but we have determined that our primary objective to stabilize a nuclear secondary reaction in the beam is unsuitable for general use. There is no way to prevent it from becoming a runaway reaction when it comes into contact with similar elements in an atmosphere or planetary body." Max explained.

"That still sounds fun," Nico noted.

"We stored it in the official records as a last-resort weapon of mass destruction. You can look at it and the results we produced later." Max agreed.

"Ranarth has provided us with more data to go over, so we will return to integrating that with our current computer systems, and then we will update you in a few days when we are complete and ready to move on to the experimentation phase with the other teams." Nico finished.

"We will give you daily updates on our progress as we try to integrate this weapon with other forms of energy systems." Max agreed.

The most obvious of them was going to be the Disintegrator, as it was so effective against everything except the Demons and the shielding of the Cathedral Ships. Logically, the weapon that was designed specifically for those targets would be the place that they started since just nuking them into oblivion had proven to be problematic.

Max's team returned to their work and began to delve into the technical aspects of the new weapons system that they had obtained. As described, it functioned much like a Portal Generator but without the stabilizing field. It essentially destabilized space around the enemy and caused them to be thrown between layers.

That was fun and all, but Max saw potential. The Disintegrator would further destabilize the region, and if he introduced something more substantial, like an Ion Beam, they could tear the afflicted target apart and send the pieces through the layers to different locations.

Even if it was an energy being, that should be enough to disperse it in the long term.

All the members of the team were busy coming up with their own base idea to present to the group, so Max started coming up with schematics and a basic configuration for his three-part Orbital Lance configuration.

It was an incredibly complex weapon, and miniaturizing it was going to be an issue, but for a ship's main weapon, where space was not at a premium, it would be quite suitable if it worked.

Some of the other ideas were pretty brilliant, though. The goal was a combined weapon that worked on every target, and they had worked it into a number of different fashions. Torpedos, Mass Driver rounds, and even a Laser Array with the new energy modulation as a carrier wave were being designed.

If even a few of these worked, they would have the rest of the teams on weapons development busy for months.

It was not a fast process, and when the next day's daily meeting happened, it was mostly an update by Nico on their work and Max assuring them that the designs were coming along.

The same with the day after that.

But on the third day, they were ready to start the presentations.

The first up was the Mass Driver round idea.

"As you can see, I went with a standard Thunder Gun round as the carrier and combined the current nuclear explosion with the Portal Technology that has been developed by our new allies. According to the initial data, the effect should be to disperse the energy beings when they are destabilized, and I am hopeful that testing will reveal that this is a long-term solution." The researcher explained.

"Excellent work. As you won the draw to present first, we will attempt to construct your weapon first. The next presentation will be tomorrow." Max reminded the group.

That was their basic schedule. One day to attempt to make the weapon functional before they passed it off to another team and tested the next idea in line.

The most promising would be brought back to their own group for further exploration, or they might combine two of them together to try making something completely new.