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He wasn’t just moving the iron around, either. He was breaking it away from the otherwise solid ground. Changing its shape. Its structure.

Could he still affect its temperature, too?

He gave the iron cube an emotional command, demanding it to become hot, and sure enough, it soon came alive with a fiery glow.

Wow.

Not only could he affect the temperature, he could do it in real time. He didn’t have to pick a new chunk of iron to “materialize,” first.

He continued messing around with the iron for a time, wanting to test various things.

This was just straight up manipulation, Hector decided after a while. Not iron materialization. Iron manipulation. He could move it all about as he pleased, change its shape or state of matter. He could even connect two separate chunks and have them blend seamlessly into one solid piece. That feat in particular was something that he’d only wished he could do with materialization.

He eventually started to wonder if there was anything he couldn’t do to it here.

This was utterly ridiculous to him. The kind of power that he could wield in this place... it boggled his mind, quite frankly. So many options. So much potential. Overwhelmingly so.

In a weird way, perhaps the limitations of the real world were kind of helpful. The restriction allowed him to problem solve more easily. With this, it was like... he didn't even know where to begin. 'Paralyzed with choice,' was what they called this type of thing, wasn't it?

Crazy.

The thought also crossed his mind that this might be some type of super emergence, but he just couldn’t convince himself of that. Emergence was only supposed to increase his volume limit and make difficult tasks easier. It wasn’t supposed to add completely new features like this. Plus, he hadn’t felt any kind of noticeable “response” from his iron like he usually did. And if this had been a “super” emergence, then surely the response should have been more pronounced than ever, no?

He stuck on those thoughts and questions for a while. Something in that line of reasoning was bothering him. Something that he felt like he was taking for granted.

The response. The emergent response.

He felt like he understood it, but... actually, that wasn’t true at all, was it?

What really was “the response” that he felt during emergence, anyway? It came from his iron? Did he know that for sure? How? And if so, why? Why did it come from his iron?