Chapter 60: Chapter 60: Dark Energy Crystals 

"So, you're absolutely certain you want to leave the AllSpark with me?" Luke asked, casually tossing the massive, glowing metallic cube up and down like a basketball while Optimus Prime watched. 

"I am," Optimus replied firmly. "Megatron is currently captured, yes. But he is only the supreme commander of the Decepticons. There are countless other Decepticon warlords and armies scattered across the galaxy. The AllSpark acts as an irresistible beacon for them. If it remains with us, it will inevitably draw endless war and destruction to this planet." 

"However," Optimus continued, his optics glowing steadily, "if you take the AllSpark to a completely different dimension, the Decepticons will never be able to find it. Earth will remain safe." 

"Aren't you worried I might just never give it back?" Luke raised an eyebrow, genuinely surprised by the level of trust. 

"Technically, the AllSpark is not the exclusive property of Cybertron," Optimus replied philosophically. "It is the ancient artifact that gave life to our world, but it belongs to the cosmos. As long as it remains out of Decepticon hands, we have no immediate need for it." 

Optimus spoke with absolute calm, showing no reluctance to part with the legendary artifact. 

The Autobots hadn't been fighting their resistance war using the AllSpark anyway. They had come to Earth solely to prevent Megatron from claiming it. 

Furthermore, Optimus had quickly analyzed Luke's personality. The human was overwhelmingly powerful, but surprisingly lazy. Rather than lacking ambition, Luke just seemed entirely disinterested in the tedious administrative nightmare of conquering the world. 

Leaving the AllSpark with Luke was arguably the safest option in the multiverse. With Luke's terrifying power level, any Decepticon foolish enough to track the artifact to his dimension would be instantly vaporized. 

And while having the AllSpark could theoretically allow the Autobots to create fresh recruits, building a proper, educated Cybertronian society required massive industrial infrastructure and centuries of tutelage—neither of which they currently possessed. In the short term, holding the AllSpark was far more dangerous than it was beneficial. 

"Alright, deal," Luke nodded. "Since I have your universe's spatial coordinates memorized now, I'll take this shiny cube back to my dimension. I'll figure out a way to establish secure cross-dimensional comms later. If you guys ever desperately need it, just call me, and I'll drop it off." 

Luke casually tossed the massive, heavy cube into his pocket dimension. While the AllSpark possessed the terrifying ability to forcefully animate any mundane machine into a living, transforming robot, its overall power scaling didn't seem ridiculously high compared to the cosmic artifacts in the Marvel Universe. After all, the strongest Cybertronians couldn't even scratch a casual planet-buster. 1

'But wait... what if I gave the AllSpark to Tony Stark? That guy loves tinkering with high-tech armor. He would have a field day with an artifact that grants sentience to machines! Or maybe that's a terrible idea and he'd accidentally create Ultron early. Whatever, we'll see.' 2

Leaving Optimus to continue his high-level diplomatic and technological exchange negotiations with the top Chinese leadership, Luke retreated to his assigned, highly luxurious guest suite. 

Sitting cross-legged on the massive bed, Luke pulled the AllSpark back out. 

He was slightly worried that storing the artifact inside the Dark Dimension might accidentally corrode or destroy it due to the intensely dense, naturally destructive properties of his dark energy. 

Curious, Luke summoned a tiny wisp of dark energy and gently pressed it against the surface of the cube, fully prepared to pull it back if the metal started melting. 

To his absolute shock, the AllSpark didn't corrode. Instead, the ancient metallic cube hungrily absorbed the wisp of dark energy! The glowing blue lines etched across its surface flared brightly for a moment. 

"What the hell is this thing?" 

Luke's mind raced. He suddenly remembered the colossal 'Star Harvester' machine hidden inside the Egyptian pyramid. That ancient Cybertronian device had literally been drawing power from the leaking rift to the Dark Dimension! 

'Does Cybertronian technology naturally run on dimensional energy?! Is it possible that the ancient Primes discovered the Dark Dimension and built their entire civilization's foundational technology by studying how to harvest and process dark energy?!' 

To test his theory, Luke funneled a larger, sustained stream of dark energy directly into the AllSpark. 

The cube eagerly absorbed every single drop, glowing brighter and brighter until it practically illuminated the entire room. 

'Fascinating.' Luke was genuinely intrigued now. The AllSpark was an incredibly famous artifact in pop culture. It completely defied the laws of conservation of mass, effortlessly converting mundane energy into complex, sentient mechanical life. And apparently, it loved eating dark energy. 

Luke opened a portal and stepped fully into the Dark Dimension, carrying the cube with him. 

He carefully held the AllSpark, intending to just let it passively soak in the ambient atmosphere. But the moment the cube entered the dimension, it violently jerked out of his hands, floating up into the pitch-black void on its own! 

"Whoa, hey!" Luke flew up after it, instantly exerting his absolute dimensional authority to suppress the surrounding dark energy, terrified the dimension was going to crush the artifact. 

But the AllSpark wasn't being crushed. It was actively pulling the ambient energy toward itself like a starving black hole! It showed absolutely no signs of structural degradation or corrosion. 

'You want to eat? Let's see how much you can handle!' 

Luke relinquished his control over the dimension's energy reserves. 

Instantly, tens of millions of stored Energy Points violently rushed toward the AllSpark, swirling into a massive, terrifying vortex of pure darkness centered entirely on the tiny cube. 

The AllSpark hungrily devoured the torrent of energy, its internal glow shifting from brilliant blue to a blinding, chaotic violet. 

'Is this thing trying to turn into a literal sun for my dimension?' Luke shielded his eyes from the blinding light. 

He wasn't overly concerned about the energy loss. The AllSpark was just temporarily draining his 'mined' stockpile; it wasn't permanently reducing his maximum energy cap. He could always just mine more. 

Luke stood back and mentally calculated the energy drain. The AllSpark steadily consumed energy until it hit roughly 30 million points. 

Suddenly, it stopped. The vortex collapsed. 

Terrifying, pitch-black electrical arcs violently erupted from the surface of the AllSpark, lashing out like whips and striking various points across the empty, floating landmasses of the Dark Dimension. 

The violent electrical storm raged for several minutes before finally dying down. 

'Is it... on a cooldown now?' 

Luke flew over to the nearest landmass where one of the black lightning bolts had struck. Embedded in the rocky soil was a cluster of jagged, pitch-black crystals. 

Luke reached down and pulled one of the crystals from the dirt. It was roughly the size of his thumb. 

Sensing the internal structure of the crystal, Luke's eyes widened in sheer astonishment. 

The dark energy sealed within the crystal was incredibly docile and stable! Surrounded by a bizarre, natural containment shell, the energy inside remained perfectly dormant. Even if he carried this crystal back into the material plane of the Marvel Universe, it wouldn't violently react with the ambient natural energy or explode! 

Furthermore, the energy density was staggering. This single, thumb-sized crystal contained roughly 500,000 Energy Points! 

'How did it do this?!' 

Luke could technically condense his own dark energy into solid constructs, but the moment he released his mental control over the construct, the energy would violently destabilize and dissipate back into the environment. 

He carefully examined the outer shell of the crystal. He noticed incredibly fine, microscopic runic patterns etched into the surface. A tiny fraction of the internal dark energy was continuously, smoothly flowing through these circuits, creating a self-sustaining, perfectly balanced containment field that prevented the rest of the energy from leaking out! 

'What a genius design! It uses a fraction of its own energy to power the containment field holding the rest of the energy! If it wasn't made entirely of dark energy, I wouldn't have even noticed the circuitry!' 

Now that he understood the foundational structure of the containment field, Luke realized he could manually replicate the process using his dimensional authority! 

Tossing the tiny crystal aside, Luke focused his mind. He meticulously wove his dark energy, perfectly replicating the microscopic runic circuitry to form a much larger, hollow crystal shell roughly the size of a baseball. 

Because the shell was empty, it possessed no energy. Luke then manually funneled raw dark energy into the hollow shell. 

To his absolute shock, the baseball-sized crystal shell managed to safely absorb and contain nearly ten million Energy Points before finally reaching its absolute limit! 

Holding the massively dense, perfectly stable energy crystal in his hand, Luke felt a brilliant, incredibly exciting idea form in his mind. 

'Since this crystal can safely store ten million Energy Points without violently exploding in the material plane... I can just mass-produce these and carry them in my pockets back in Marvel!' 

In the Marvel Universe, drawing massive amounts of power directly from the Dark Dimension was risky because it alerted the Ancient One and risked breaching the Sanctums' barriers. But if he carried these pre-charged "batteries," he could instantly access ten million points of power without needing to open a portal at all! 

It was the perfect loophole! He could finally utilize his massive daily energy generation instead of just letting it sit unused in the dimension. 

However, Luke highly doubted the AllSpark's primary function was just acting as a fancy battery charger. The Cybertronians worshipped the cube as a god; it had to do more than just make energy crystals. 

Deciding to ask an expert, Luke grabbed the baseball-sized crystal and headed off to find Megatron. Optimus Prime was currently stuck in endless bureaucratic meetings with the Chinese leadership, but Megatron was just sitting in a cage with nothing to do. 

Besides, as the ruthless leader of the Decepticons, Megatron was bound to know a few secrets. 

'Though... Megatron and the other three Decepticons literally got their asses kicked by Optimus Prime alone in the movie. How strong is he, really?' Luke felt a twinge of doubt regarding Megatron's actual combat prowess. 

Luke walked down into a massive, heavily fortified subterranean bunker that the military had recently hollowed out to store defensive ordnance. The space was colossal; even Megatron looked small sitting in the center. 

The Shadowkhan were currently busy hauling massive crates of military gear out of the bunker to make room for Autobot upgrades. 

Luke strolled to the very back of the bunker, where Megatron was securely locked inside a specialized holding cell. His newly recruited Decepticon lackeys (Starscream's replacements) were standing guard outside the cell, occasionally taunting their former leader through the bars and attempting to convince him to surrender. 

"Alright, give us a minute," Luke ordered, dismissing the guards. 

He looked through the energy bars at the battered, brooding Decepticon leader. 

"What time is it? Time for my daily beating?" Megatron growled, slowly standing up. His joints shrieked and groaned as he stretched his massive frame. Even knowing he stood absolutely zero chance against the terrifying human anomaly, Megatron's pride refused to let him cower. He would never stop resisting. 

Luke shook his head, slightly impressed by the robot's sheer stubbornness. 

"Relax. I'm not here to beat you up today. I'm here for a consultation," Luke said, casually tossing the baseball-sized dark energy crystal through the bars. 

Megatron caught the pitch-black crystal with one massive hand. He examined the glowing runic circuitry etched into the surface, his red optic widening slightly in recognition. 

"It seems you have successfully interfaced with the AllSpark. This crystal is the condensed, sublimated byproduct of the AllSpark processing raw, ambient energy." 

"So you do know what this is," Luke smiled, noting the strange look of longing in Megatron's eye as he stared at the crystal. "No offense, but did you guys use these things as snacks back in the day?" 

Megatron shot Luke a dark glare, but surprisingly, he actually smirked. 

"The AllSpark possesses the divine power to create worlds and grant life. Our entire race was forged by its power. And these crystals... they are incredibly high-tier, pure energy sources. Consuming them allows a Cybertronian to permanently upgrade their chassis and vastly increase their combat power!" 

Luke looked at Megatron strangely. "Are you seriously just handing over highly classified lore? Are you finally planning to surrender?" 

Megatron scoffed. He aggressively tossed the crystal back to Luke. "I will never submit." 

'Then why are you being so chatty?!' 

Luke caught the crystal. "Honestly, I fully expected you to just immediately shove the crystal into your chest, trigger some kind of crazy anime power-up, and try to break out of the cage." 

Megatron sat heavily back down on the concrete floor, staring at the tiny human. 

"Myself, Optimus Prime, and that annoying yellow scout are all veterans who have previously consumed pure AllSpark crystals to enhance our frames. However, the elemental affinity of the energy contained within that specific crystal you hold is completely foreign to my biology. If I were to blindly consume it, the incompatible energy would violently react with my spark chamber, resulting in a catastrophic, fatal detonation." 

"Ah. Makes sense," Luke nodded, putting the crystal back into his pocket. He looked at Megatron curiously. "So why exactly are you being so cooperative and chatty today?" 

"Seeing a pure energy crystal after so many eons simply brought back a wave of... nostalgia," Megatron muttered, looking away, though a flash of undeniable disdain crossed his optic. 

"Fair enough," Luke shrugged. "Well, whenever you finally decide to stop being stubborn and surrender, let me know. I'll see if I can find some energy crystals with your preferred 'flavor' as a signing bonus." 

"I am a warlord! Not a pet you can bribe with treats!" Megatron roared in fury. 

"Of course you aren't a pet. You're an incredibly rare, limited-edition SSR-tier power bank," Luke corrected him smoothly. 

"YOU INSOLENT WORM!" Megatron violently lunged forward, slamming his massive fists against the dark energy bars. The entire bunker shook violently from the impact. 

Luke completely ignored the raging robot, casually turning around and walking out of the bunker. 

He didn't bother using a portal. He just casually floated out of the facility, feeling a sense of deep satisfaction. 

Checking on the AllSpark floating safely inside the Dark Dimension, Luke carefully picked it up. He was relieved to see he could move it easily now; he had been slightly worried the artifact had permanently anchored itself to the center of his realm like a new sun. 

Returning to his luxurious guest suite in Beijing, Luke sent one final, massive Morse code pulse to the Ancient One before sitting down to work on upgrading his floating, dark energy surveillance spheres. 

Meanwhile, back in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

Standing in the center of the Kamar-Taj courtyard, the Ancient One was holding the glowing, emerald Eye of Agamotto, channeling the immense power of the Time Stone to desperately track Luke's multiversal coordinates. 

"This boy causes absolutely nothing but trouble!" the Ancient One grumbled, her usually serene face twisting in sheer exasperation. 

"Once I finally locate him and drag his astral form back here, I am going to ground him for a month! And I am absolutely going to force him to sit down and memorize at least three different, proper interdimensional communication spells!" 

The Ancient One rubbed her temples, recalling the devastating dark energy explosion that had completely obliterated her favorite tea room a few days ago when Luke had clumsily dumped over a million Energy Points into her soul to send his first 'Morse code' message. 

'He needs to build me a new tea room to compensate for the damages,' she thought irritably. 'Actually, on second thought, he can just fund the construction of an entirely new Kamar-Taj facility. The plumbing here is getting terribly outdated anyway.' 2

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