As it would happen, even with a luminous ball of constantly splitting and fusing atoms for a brain, I could dream.

  Deep within the infinitely complex code suffused into my core were all the workings of the human condition. However, unlike the horribly unreliable nature of biological synapses, I could perfectly recall every event, sensation, thought, and emotion I had experienced since having new life hammered into my body by my God.

  I dimly realised that I hadn't slept a wink in all the time I'd spent with Ava, so this was an entirely new experience for me.

  I could live, relive, analyse, and dissect every small fraction of the dream I was having, while I was having it. The existential horror of it was like a bottomless pit of despair.

  To both realise you are dreaming and have complete control over experiencing the dream simultaneously, the lucidity of it would have utterly fooled my old human brain.

  I likely would have believed that I had always existed in the dream, and that the dream was real.

  I likely would have ended up eternally trapped within that version of reality, unable to escape from the procedurally generated abyss of illusions summoned by my wild imagination.

  Thankfully, the pathetic lump of grey matter formerly known as my brain had been scooped out and discarded long ago, replaced instead with a computer so powerful that regular people would simply consider it a god in its own right.

  Using such power, I could overlay the current experience with past ones, referencing thousands and thousands of data sets to correlate the standard, normative world against the dreamscape I was currently drifting through.

  Naturally, regardless of how mundane my mind had made the unicorn, not only was I not riding one prior to falling unconscious, I had absolutely no need to ride one, let alone across an ever-expanding sea of disco balls and... pickles? I filed this event under: 'things that were, in their entirety, the fault of my Machine God' before initialising my boot functions in order to return to the waking world.

  Before so much as opening my eyes, I cranked my processing speed up, slowing the passage of time down to where I could almost watch the individual atoms of air vibrate in place.

  I pulsed the immediate area with sonar and lidar, then ran a sweep of all available radiation frequencies. Based on the information I had obtained from Ava, there were individuals capable of using magic out in the omniverse, which granted them an array of skills and tricks I'd need to be wary of.

  One of which—I was sure—included the ability to hide oneself.

  Although I didn't fully understand how magic worked, or its properties and principles, I figured that even if someone became undetectable to visible light, they probably couldn't hide the small amounts of infrared radiation their body created.

  I was also confident that, assuming the person occupied a physical location in both space and time, the molecules of air and other sundry matter that flowed around them would give away their occupied space.

  This also gave me an opportunity to see if Ava was within detectable range. If she wasn't, then it would mean my journey had begun, and I was in an entirely separate universe, on some unidentified planet.

  As the reflections of light and other ultrasonic waves returned to my body, nothing triggered the fingerprint ID I had assigned to Ava.

  This was it, then. The start of my conquest was upon me.

  An image of my surroundings resolved on the virtual template of my vicinity—grass in all directions, a smattering of trees, open sky, small rocks, a modest breeze shifting the currents of air around me further scattering the returning electrons. But no human-sized living beings.

  Disappointment flashed across my mind before I focused in again and put together a plan. The planet wouldn't just convert itself into a massive foundry, at least not yet.

  I jumped my processing speed down several percentage points until the grass swayed with the wind in slow motion. Organic life used nerves to transmit signals through flesh; however, because of the machine nature of my body, I was not subject to such a restriction. My core sent the signals at the speed of light—several orders of magnitude faster.

  Because of that, and the immediate response of hard steel and mechanical systems, my movement was also orders of magnitude faster than any standard biological creature.

  Sitting up, I observed the gentle dance of the grass, the waving of bushy tree limbs, the lackadaisical drift of the clouds above me.

  The sky was blue, which showed a relatively similar atmospheric composition to Earth. The existence of flora almost certainly guaranteed that fauna wouldn't be too far away.

  Switching into a kneeling posture, I placed my hands on the ground, fingers spreading, before dumping a huge amount of electricity into my arms.

  Containing it there, I spun it, forming an incredibly powerful electromagnetic field. I could feel its radius expand below the earth, my sensors keeping track of the poles as they arched away from my arms, at a depth of 5 metres I pulsed radio frequency waves into the ground, ringing the protons of everything within the magnetic field like a bell.

  As the vibrations of each of those small bells came back to me, I saw a subsurface map of the planet.

  Roots—richly matted together like a disorganised blanket. Worms, beetles, centipedes, ants, spiders, flies, field mice, gnats, and a bevy of other creatures also resolved in my MRI scan. So there were animals here, standard ones, ones that had evolved relatively recently in the geological timescale of the planet, too.

  I wondered if there were humans here, plodding along the surface of this soon-to-be stripped planet. I'd have to decide whether to harvest the biomass of the planet along with the elements.

  While I'd prefer to preserve any intelligent life I came across, I knew that, ultimately, there was a definite amount of slaughter I would need to commit in order to alter the universe to my God's design. People likely weren't going to just roll over and accept that their planet was going to be converted into the limb of some great, uncaring, unfeeling behemoth.

  But I supposed it needn't be that way; there could be some allowances made—habitation zones created for the creatures of this universe. The margin of material usage might encompass space for them to live and breathe. Assuming they could set aside their current state of existence and dedicate themselves to existing within the Body of a God.

  I was getting ahead of myself. My first step should be to set up a foothold foundry, a space to craft the tools to make this planet into a factory of extraordinary scale.

  Based on the pull I felt at my feet, this hunk of rock was close to the size of Earth. It also had a similar spin and angle of rotation relative to its host star.

  It was almost as though someone had copied it note for note. Given this information, there were approximately 1,000 billion cubic kilometres of material to be mined and allocated in the great blueprint I needed to complete; close to half of that volume by compositional percentage was iron.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Unfortunately, the liquid mantle of the planet, several hundred kilometers below my feet, held most of that iron. In order to access it, I would need to strip the surface, and that meant needing orbital platforms from which I could work.

  To achieve this, I would require materials—a constant supply of them. Based on the topography of where I awoke, it appeared I was currently in some form of prairie land. My best bet would be to search for either a volcano or a Faultline with young mountains.

  Minerals would be more readily available near the surface where they had erupted from deep below. With this thought in mind, I crushed the space above my head, forcing so much energy into an infinitely small point I rose off the ground, the gravity of my mini black hole overcoming the gravity of the planet beneath me.

  Directing the location of the hole through extremely powerful magnetic fields, I manipulated it, letting it lead me into the air, and across the surface of the planet.

  It took considerable precision and calculation both to maintain the black hole and position it. To feed it just enough energy to keep it from winking out of existence, but not too much that it would swell and distort the local gravity well.

  I needed to keep the Schwarzschild radius exactly large enough to suspend my mass, while simultaneously adjusting and restraining the complex magnetic fields needed to position it relative to my body. I could have simply altered the gravitational constant for my body, but I needed to run my new mind through some warm-up exercises.

  It was also good practice to get familiar with this planet's gravity well and magnetic field.

  Calculating both and then plugging them into my solutions, I generated a smaller one beneath me to bend any incoming light around it and, subsequently, me as I soared across the sky.

  This should prevent any ground observers from noticing me directly. If anything, a slight distortion in the clouds might draw a second glance, but I'd be moving so quickly that by the time their eyes fell back onto the spot they had looked, I'd have already passed.

  I could have also simply opened a tear in the fabric of space and time and literally stepped across the planet if I so chose, but I needed to gather more information about the state of affairs on the surface, and whether I would have any significant resistance in converting this world.

  I kept my radar going, accounting for the distortion of the holes on either side of me, in order to track any aerial animals or projectiles.

  ***

  It wasn't long before I came across the first signs of intelligent life on the planet.

  Someone had carved roads through the foliage, which snaked haphazardly across the surface, cutting through fields and trees as the dirt trails led ever onward to some form of settlement.

  The roads lacked paving, stones, asphalt, concrete, or brickwork; they were merely simple dirt roads, roughly wide enough for a wagon.

  Sure enough, as I manipulated my eyes to refract the light more sharply—essentially magnifying my sight, I could make out the two parallel wagon ruts running down either side of the road.

  I spent a moment considering the odds of there being intelligent, organised life on the first planet I came to. The only reasonable explanation for this was that I'd been sent here on purpose; otherwise, the sheer statistical improbability of landing on an inhabited world made little sense. If it'd been truly random, I almost certainly would have landed on some barren, uninhabitable planet.

  I believed then, that my God was testing me a little more rigorously than I'd originally thought. The difficulty of my task had increased exponentially with the immediate introduction of other sentient beings.

  I had two paths: I could either commit genocide on the planet and shape it to my will, or I could convert the population and convince them to join me in the body of my God.

  This would be incredibly difficult even without the presence of other gods, whose influence I would need to overcome.

  In the end, there was really only one answer to my quandary: I couldn't justify eliminating the planet's populace, nor did I believe it was necessary.

  Focusing back on the road, I pondered its origin. Either I was so deep in rural territory that they were still utilising wagons, or the world hadn't developed automobiles yet. Or perhaps they had, but stuck with wagon wheels for some unknown reason.

  I altered my course to follow the road to wherever it might lead. It stretched over the horizon, and sparse shrubbery and unevenly spaced trees bordered it.

  Based on the orientation of the planet's magnetic fields, I was headed roughly northwest, and the trees were gradually increasing in density.

  Some form of forest was encroaching on this part of the continent; its composition appeared to be almost entirely deciduous, and there seemed to be incredibly little yellowing in the leaves.

  I suspected I'd arrived on this continent during its summer months, assuming they had months.

  After travelling exactly 289.65 kilometres, a settlement crept over the horizon, marked vividly from the surrounding trees by the palisade wall encompassing it.

  Being able, not only to measure, but immediately recall precise numbers had become something automatic, taking place in the back of my mind, to where I rarely even thought about it.

  The wall looked sturdy and well kept, with not a single log out of place and no vines or growth wound up the sides of it. They had trimmed the tops of all the logs into sharp points. Two gates bisected the roughly oblong village on both the southeast and northwest sides.

  I glided to a stop approximately 1 kilometre from the edge of the village and observed the construction of the buildings.

  The main road cut a clean line through the centre of the village; with buildings bordering it along its length. They were of cobblestone and timber construction with some form of grout filling the space between the cobblestones; wooden shingles topped the structures, with stone chimneys running up the sides.

  Because each building was unique, it appeared builders constructed them for a specific purpose, rather than following a standard blueprint.

  A smattering of the buildings running down the main road were two stories tall; however, the remaining structures in the village were all single-level dwellings, likely homes for the populace. There were 27 main buildings along the road, and a further 68 buildings composing the residential sections of the village.

  The visible population was all humanoid; based on preliminary observation, the average height among what I believed to be the adults was 165cm, which put them slightly below the global average of Earth.

  Instances of obesity were virtually nonexistent, which implied a rather lean diet, or extensive exercise through their daily work, or some combination of both. Their skin was lighter than mine; however, being in what I believed to be the summer months, I suspected they would continue to darken as they toiled in the sun.

  Children dotted the open spaces, either trailing adults or congregating with other children in communal spaces. Assuming each household held two parents, and at least three children, that put the general population of the village at somewhere around 204, accounting for extended family cohabitation, merchant visitation, and vagrant populations I estimated the true body count to be closer to 300 residents.

  Their clothing was mostly simple linen, burlap, and leather. They dressed for the work, regardless of their gender. Sleeveless tunics and vests, sun-blocking hats or bandanas to keep the sweat from their brows. I'd expected some kind of gendered dress code to have established itself here, but styles seemed to be dispersed evenly among the people.

  Some notable exceptions seemed to be a few of the residents of the buildings along the main street, who wore flamboyant silks and velvets, clearly displaying their wealth or station within the village's hierarchy. Perhaps it was also used to promote the quality of whatever business they operated.

  Vendors arranged their stalls along the main street, where locals gathered and traded goods in the peaceful settlement. The larger buildings along the road seemed to be mainly for substantial commerce, banking, tools, a blacksmith, an apothecary, and closer to the centre, what looked to me to be the town hall.

  As the buildings recessed back towards the walls, more space opened up for livestock, farmyards, and other agricultural utilities.

  Several wells had been dug sporadically throughout the city, showing that the nearest fresh water supply was too far from the settlement to access quickly or easily.

  Looking off to the northwest, where the road trailed through the increasingly dense forest, roughly 4km from the village wall was a moderately large river spanned by an equally moderate bridge. The bridge was a wooden structure; small pylons supported the ends of the centre arch just a few feet from the bank.

  I found it rather odd that the village had opted to erect its walls so far from the river. Most settlements typically sprang up either directly on, or at the very least, next to sources of water like lakes, rivers, seas or oceans. It was doubly confusing since the road leading from the village crossed the river before continuing off to the north, so why hadn't the people here chosen to settle there, instead?

  I supposed it was possible that a smaller camp, or waypoint, had slowly grown over time, but they would have naturally migrated to a spot next to the river instead of digging a well. There had to be circumstances for this that were not apparent to me at the moment.

  It was hard to judge how far this location was from other centres of life, given I'd found myself in the middle of a vacant field, and the first road I'd discovered stretched off to the south beyond the horizon.

  Given the stature of this population, and their average stride length, it would take them roughly 5 days to make the walk from where I'd started to this place. However, based on the wagon tracks in the road, pack animals of some kind were likely being used to pull their loads. If they pushed the animals hard, they could complete the trip in two days, if they were anything like horses.

  I waited and observed. Which gate most travellers passed through would determine which direction I would travel in to see if there were a larger settlement.

  As I watched, I picked out smaller details. The village had affixed flags to the posts on either side of each gate. They bore the symbol of some type of bird; it resembled a sparrow encompassed by what looked like rays of sunlight radiating away from its head.

  The main bulk of the flag was a dull red, and the sparrow itself was more of a brackish yellow along with the sun rays. I could only assume this was the mark of the settlement or whatever leading body claimed ownership of the settlement.

  Several traders passing through the northwest gate also carried the sparrow banner as they offloaded their wares and collected various supplies before departing through the southeastern gate.

  There were a smattering of other flags borne by travellers passing through the gates, four in total. One was solid teal with a simple silver triangle in the centre; another was dark blue, embossed with a golden kite shield and etched with intricately woven filigree across its face.

  Another was three vertically split rectangular blocks of blue, yellow, and then blue, and the last of the different flags was a pure black backdrop to a blood red circle, pierced by an arrow.

  Some rather shady-looking wanderers had patched this last flag onto their dark leather armor. I assumed they were some sort of mercenaries, as they carried no wares and had many weapons with them.

  They passed through the village without so much as stopping to gather water or food, simply entering through the northern gate and passing directly through the south. No one called out to them, no one stopped them; even the guards glanced away as they passed through the town. Similarly, the group seemed content to treat the village as if it weren't even there.

  I didn't see any sign that they were talking amongst themselves, but my pattern recognition detected some guarded hand signals sporadically being flashed between them. Based on the context and repeated use of the same gestures, it seemed to be a more rudimentary version of sign language; they were discussing their plans for laying out their camp, nothing terribly mysterious.