Elias wasted no time. The moment Kaelen's brilliant idea of a neutron star skeleton clicked into place, he was off, his mind already spinning through complex calculations. Kaelen, still buzzing from the excitement, watched him from the bedside as holographic displays of energy equations and material densities sprang to life around him in the room. He moved with a focused intensity, but there was a new, almost eager quality to his movements.
"This is big, Kaelen," he said, not looking up from a swirling diagram of atomic compression. "Really big. For my bones to literally become as dense as a neutron star, the energy involved… it's staggering. It's not just about making them hard; it's about crushing atoms so completely that their very components merge. Think of it like taking all the air out of a giant stadium until it shrinks down to the size of a single golf ball, but you have to push with the force of an entire galaxy to do it."
He paused, running his calculations, lines of cosmic script flowing through the air before him. "Let's put it into perspective. Your skeleton, roughly ten kilograms of bone mass, if it were to become neutron star material… the energy needed to force that compression, to overcome the natural repulsion of atoms and merge them into a super-dense state, is immense." He tapped a holographic number floating in front of him. "Based on my current models, we're talking about an energy input equivalent to the total energy output of a medium-sized star, like your Sun, over several centuries."
Kaelen whistled, a low sound of awe. "Centuries? From one star?"
Elias nodded, his eyes bright with scientific fervor. "Yes. Or, to put it into terms we understand now, it's roughly the combined energy contained within hundreds of billions of my condensed star pills." He gestured to a corner of the room where a holographic representation of his pill reserves appeared – an incomprehensibly vast mountain of shimmering orbs. "That's just the energy needed to achieve the compression itself."
Next, he shifted to the matter requirements. "Then there's the matter. While my body is already highly refined Qi-matter, achieving neutron star density isn't just about compacting what's there. It's about achieving a specific state of matter. My existing cells will be incredibly compressed, yes, but for true, uniform neutron star density throughout my skeleton, I'll need to absorb an immense amount of additional, ultra-dense Qi-matter. It's like needing to pack more and more sand into a bucket that's already full, but you need to make the sand itself denser with every grain you add."
He ran more simulations. "My calculations indicate I'll need to consume at least an additional trillion or more of my condensed star pills to provide the necessary raw mass-energy for the structural integrity and density. That's beyond what my body could naturally compress just from its existing mass. It's a literal ocean of stellar matter."
Kaelen stared at the holographic mountain of pills, her mind boggling. Trillions? It was an impossible number to grasp. "That's… a lot of breakfast," she joked weakly, still reeling from the scale.
Elias offered a faint smile. "Indeed. But having the Stellar Devourer Furnaces already running at maximum capacity makes this feasible. I'm literally eating stars for breakfast now, thanks to your inspiration."
Finally, Elias spoke about the most critical requirement. "And then there's the most challenging part: Divine Sense control. Compressing my entire skeleton to this density isn't a passive process. It demands an almost unimaginable level of precise, continuous control from my Quantum Divine Sense. I'll need to orchestrate the Laws of Gravity, Matter, Order, and even Entropy at every single atomic point within my skeleton, simultaneously. I'm talking about micro-managing billions upon billions of particles."
He looked at Kaelen, his expression serious. "One tiny mistake, one moment of lost focus, and it could be catastrophic. Instead of a stable, dense skeleton, I could end up with an uncontrolled gravitational collapse, or perhaps even uncontrolled nuclear fusion within my own body. It will be the most delicate and demanding dance with universal forces I've ever attempted."
Despite the daunting scale, a thrill ran through Elias. This was the kind of challenge he lived for, a frontier that pushed the very limits of existence. And knowing Kaelen was by his side, ready to witness his absurd endeavors, made the prospect even more exciting. The path to true, boundless power was laid out before him, demanding everything he had, and more.