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A working Fusion Forge at his disposal. It was truly magnificent.

There was so much to learn and do. The potential spurred him on. He'd have to rest at some point. Probably. But for now, he was entirely consumed.

And loving every minute of it.

In here, the outside world mattered so much less. He was still aware of the urgency of his tasks, of course--they were perhaps the largest aspect of his motivation. But it was a process. It couldn't really be rushed. Urgency had no real weight.

He'd had to test the Forge's capabilities, first and foremost. Barring an imminent attack from Abolish, nothing else could have possibly pried his attention away from this place.

It began with merely trying to fuse simple materials together. Small, molecular bonds. Could the Forge create water from hydrogen and oxygen, for example?

And the answer to that was yes, though it had taken a few tries for him to get the hang of it. But that was a relief. He'd had a feeling since the beginning that this Forge specialized in organics, so it would have been quite the problem if it couldn't even synthesize water. Sure, he could've just synthesized it himself--a trivial task for even a mildly experienced integration user--but it wouldn't have boded well for the Forge's more advanced capabilities.

Which he was finally beginning to get glimpses of.

The giant glass globe was apparently an all-purpose chamber. Everything happened in there. Collection, analysis, breakdown, fusion, refinement--and perhaps more that he hadn't yet discovered.

Even now, a month later and with a whole host of assistants at his beck and call, Abbas felt like he'd only scratched the surface of what this thing could do. Half the time, he didn't know whether he was frustrated or excited beyond words.