28 The Lava

The trip was really stressful. Constantly dragging a giant caterpillar around was very annoying. After a week of agonizing and complaining, Torterra threw the Kaiju into a pit and covered him with a large boulder.

The problem with him was that the feel of the titans didn't work well on him. The caterpillar felt many times worse than the rest of the Kaiju. He couldn't just leave it alone, but he could float in a certain radius around the caterpillar as long as he sensed it. Losing sight of him completely was scary. What if he escapes somewhere or some other little Kaiju comes out from him? Or will he crawl somewhere underground and hide there? Therefore, Torterra never let him out of his control, constantly keeping him in his mind.

After he had explored the entire area around him, Torterra would return and move the Kaiju to the next location. The first time he went back to pick it up and picked up the rock, he was greeted by a spit from the web right in the face. "Damn, I forgot you could do that!" He thought as he released some fire from his mouth to burn away the web. It took 5 minutes to clear. After that, he collected the remnants of the web and covered the mouth of the ungrateful Kaiju with it. "You should be glad I kept you alive!"

So the days passed in search of the necessary something, which he himself did not know what. He checked the underwater mountains, but they weren't high enough to build anything on, he looked into the crevices of the ocean floor, but there was nothing interesting. During his search, he found quite a few sunken ships. He wondered if he would find any gold in them. He was tearing open their hulls and peering inside. Unfortunately, everything there was covered with mud and corals, so it was difficult to make out what kind of things were inside. Torterra postponed this interesting matter for later. When he builds a house, he can go diving in search of treasure.

Finally he found what he was looking for. A month later, he discovered a tall mountain at the bottom of the ocean with a broad, flat top. The top of the mountain was only 200 meters under water. It looked like a good place to build. A little deep, but he is unlikely to find a better one. He was tired of constantly searching.

The humans kept up, constantly annoying him with their submarines and ships. They didn't do anything to him, but it was clear that they were concerned about the presence of a living Kaiju in the ocean. "I'm concerned about your concern," Torterra joked as he moved the Kaiju to a new search location. And finally he found it. At a distance of 100 kilometers from the underwater mountain, he came across a volcano that constantly poured lava to the bottom of the ocean.

Torterra placed the Kaiju on the ground and stared at the lava. It was the first time he had seen anything like this. Hot, about 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,832 degrees Fahrenheit), the lava slowly flowed and cooled, creating ugly shapes. He moved closer to the gap in the ground where the lava was the most and touched it with his claws. The hot and viscous substance immediately began to solidify on the claw, turning into hard rock.

"If I'm not mistaken, the lava turns into rock after solidification (Basalt has a hardness of 5-6 on the ten-point Mohs hardness scale). Hopefully I can build a house out of this... Ouch!" As Torterra pondered, something hit him in the back and he began to fall forward. And in front of him was a hot bench. "No, no, no, no!" he shouted as he fell straight onto the bench. He was pushed. "Ha! I'm underwater and I can swim!" Remembering this, he was able to rise above the lava with quick movements, but his feet managed to get covered with hot lava.

Slowly returning to where he was, and placing his feet on the bottom of the ocean, he looked at this stupid caterpillar. His feet were covered in lava and glowed in the dark. The lava flowed from the feet little by little and cooled.

"Did you just try to kill me? What do you mean no? And who else could it be?" The Kaiju didn't really answer him, just growled and shook his head, as if he was unhappy that he didn't succeed in doing what he intended. After spending so much time together, Torterra enjoyed trolling him and pretending there was some kind of understanding between them.

"Looks like I treated you too well!" Clenching his fists, Torterra spared no effort in hitting the caterpillar. A few blows to the head were enough to knock him unconscious. It was no longer possible to beat him because his brain could be damaged.

After teaching the Kaiju some manners, Torterra stoned him and went back to his business. The outer layer of lava on his feet had already hardened, but what touched his skin was still hot. Surprisingly, he didn't feel much pain, just a tolerable burning sensation. "When I set myself on fire to get rid of the cobwebs, it didn't hurt either, and my fire is definitely hotter than this lava." Apparently, such a temperature is not terrible for him, if he has withstood the temperature of his own flame.

Its temperature tolerance will make it much easier to work with lava. He could literally take lava baths. But there was a problem. "Back off, come on!" He tried to clear the lava from his feet, but it proved too difficult. The sticky lava got stuck in the crevices of his skin and froze there. It was very difficult for him to clean everything. Maybe when the lava solidifies he can knock it out and shake it. "I definitely won't take a bath, I'll look like a stone sculpture afterwards."

"Lava looks like a great material. I can use it to make bricks of the right shape or use it as concrete," Torterra thought. Of course, it won't be as good as real concrete, but it will do. It was necessary to conduct a lot of experiments, but it is possible. The frozen lava was quite strong.

"You need to get down to business." Spending days and weeks just studying the properties of lava, Torterra found out many interesting things. The best part was that he was able to mold most of the things he needed from the bench, such as ladles and jugs, various shapes - thick and rough, but they would make his work easier. When the lava hadn't completely solidified, it was like plasticine in Torterra's hands.

Another thing he discovered was that once the lava solidified, it could no longer be melted so easily. If you make a mold and pour lava into it, it won't be able to melt the walls of the vessel, but when Torterra unleashed his fire, the stones melted immediately. Obviously, the stones did not have too high a melting point than the lava itself. Maybe the difference was 200-300 degrees, but it was enough to create objects.

The last thing that was important for construction was the cooling time of the lava. And here there was a problem. Although contact with cold water accelerated the solidification of the lava, it was still slow. Perhaps the outer shell of the objects he made hardened quickly, but the inside could be hot for weeks. He could not create a large cube measuring 50 by 50 meters and immediately walk on it. It took a long time for it to become strong enough not to fall apart from any shock.

In general, it all looked very promising. Constant work with heavy forms filled with lava also seems like a good workout. It was all much more interesting than just bobbing on the bottom of the ocean in the dark.

After conducting many experiments, Torterra set to work. The first thing he needed was a foundation. He was supposed to flood an area of 1 square kilometer with lava. Torterra chose a foundation height of 100 meters to be sure. "This is going to be extremely hard and long work!", he thought, patting himself on the face to cheer himself up, and headed to the construction site.

First he had to level the surface and build a fence around it. He took a rectangular block about 100 meters long and began to clear the mud and corals with it. Some areas he had to level manually with claws and fire breath. All the unnecessary mud and stones were moved to the edge of the area, forming makeshift walls, which were then covered with stones for more strength.

This stage was not difficult and he managed it in one day. It wasn't too smooth or pretty, but enough to fill with lava. A day later, a huge pit with an area of 1 square kilometer and a depth of 100 meters opened up in front of him (he estimated the values approximately). "Something doesn't look wide enough. Maybe increase it to 2 kilometers? No, so be it, I can add to it if necessary."

"Next we need to work on the very foundation," Torterra thought. At first, he intended to simply move the stones and melt them with his fiery breath. But he realized that he could not breathe fire endlessly, it exhausted him a lot. It could emit fire for a long time, but not enough to continuously melt 100-meter rocks. So he had to carry the molten lava in a special box he made. Carrying a stone box filled with lava for a distance of 100 kilometers was quite difficult, especially when the box was slightly smaller than himself.

This process took a long time. After pouring the lava, he stirred it and heated it with his fire. He had no problems with the level of the foundation, because gravity did everything by itself. This monotonous process took six months.

Torterra did not pay attention to the numerous ships and submarines that were watching him. He has already opened up enough to people to let them know how smart he is. But he had to drive away particularly interesting people. He would capture their submarines and put them aboard warships, specifically damaging both submarines and warships. Constant losses did not make anyone happy, so the military took security more seriously and tried to detain intrusive observers.

Maybe he should have ignored these brats, but they were swimming right in his path. When you're carrying hundreds of thousands of tons of molten lava, it's annoying.

As he was almost done with the foundation, he felt the presence of the new Kaiju.

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