World Keeper

Chapter 562: Grudge

Within a far corner of Deckan’s galaxy, space seemed to tremble. Light distorted and gathered around a particular point in space before erupting into a circular passageway. Following that eruption, numerous small and large ships appeared with crude designs, looking like slapped together scrap metal connected by tubes and rough welding.

At their back was a single massive ship that they appeared to be escorting. Unlike the others, its design seemed more deliberate, with a rough spherical shape. Within this vessel, sitting at the bridge, was a golem with a single red lens for an eye. When it spoke, there was static in its tone, the digital synthesizer it used sounding damaged. “Activate scans.”

“Class three yellow star system. Three intact orbiting planets. Five clusters that suggest destroyed planets. And… dimensium readings from all eight!” One of the other golems on the bridge spoke up after reading the data on the screen.

“So, can I finally do it?” A peculiar young centauress asked her father as they walked across the plains. “It should be safe enough now for me to seek perfection, right?”

Her father, a centaur that anyone would easily be able to recognize as one of the Greater Pantheon, hesitated. “Very well, Alme.” He nodded after considering for a moment, realizing that it was truly the time for her to do so.

Alme was undeniably the oldest being of the races within the various worlds that had yet to attain an energy body. In fact, her level had long ago approached the dangerous threshold, causing her to stop any actions that could result in further leveling. But even still, Tryval had hesitated to allow her to attempt the Perfect Self. The dangers were simply too high.

Now, with the existence of the Perfection Chamber, those dangers were lowered drastically. Given Alme’s level, the odds of her failing were less than ten percent. Was he comfortable with risking her life on a ten percent chance? Not at all! However, the alternative would be her eventually being forced to take a far riskier gambit when she reached the limit of her physical body.

Tryval had personally seen the effects of the Perfection Chamber, as well as its use on a number of major public figures. Even a few national rulers used the chamber, including the Queen of Deckan herself recently. When people saw how she had put her faith in this invention, their willingness to participate increased by several times. As of now, there were a total of one hundred Perfection Chambers built across the known worlds, providing easy access to those willing to make the visit to certain major cities.

When Alme heard her father agreeing to her request, her hooves halted, stunned for a brief moment. Then, her back legs kicked at the ground in excitement. “Really!? Does that mean that you’ll let me become a goddess, too?!”

Tryval could already feel a headache forming as his daughter asked that, shaking his head. “One step at a time. I’ll find some promising figures to study how they ascend, and then I’ll help you through it. For now… the nearest chamber should be this way.” As he said that, he turned, beginning to walk to the east.

Pilot has increased to 10!

A middle-aged human man with graying hair smiled as he saw that notification appearing in front of him. Level ten had required him to establish his energy core within his body, so he cast his eyes to the silver bracer on his wrist. In order to get this band before the rest of the market, he had spent a sizable sum to buy the tokens of faith for Leowynn, Tubrock, and Ashley as soon as the announcement was made.

Now, his energy was naturally gathering in his abdomen, forming the essence of the new class. Because of that, he no longer needed the Pilot’s Band. Reaching out, he unclasped the item and pulled it off his wrist, torn between keeping it as a memento or selling it to make up for some of his losses.

In the end, he shook his head, deciding to keep such decisions for later. For now, he wanted to test out his new potential, combining the Pilot’s Essence with another energy that he had painstakingly created.

He slowly stood, stretching until his back audibly popped before leaving his house. Surrounding his house was a large pile of metal scrap, some pieces still seeming somewhat functional while others were obviously cracked.

“Open archive, blueprint seven.” He muttered, triggering the commands for his Scholar class while stretching one hand out before him. There was a reason that he lived in such an environment, as he was an engineer who sought to perfect his craft.

In order to cross the threshold of level three hundred as an engineer, there was a requirement to first create a specific type of energy. This energy had eluded him for several months as he followed the system’s hints to try and create it. Once he did, he was quite amazed by its effects.

Black strands of light shot out from his hand, drilling into the piles of scrap around him. These piles of scrap shook and rumbled before scattered pieces shot up, each emitting a dark glow. The pieces flew together in midair, screws and nuts working into position to piece together a large machine. It looked similar to a large helicopter, with two sets of propellers on either side.

The man climbed into the cockpit, focusing on gathering his Pilot’s Essence. There was a flaw in the energy created to advance the engineer’s class, and that was that the assembled machine rarely had any power in it. Only if the disassembled parts themselves were charged would the finished product be able to function properly.

However, as the Pilot’s Essence began to flow from the man’s hands, and into the craft around him, he was happy to discover that he had found the solution for this shortcoming. Although slow, the propellers began to spin, picking up speed until the vehicle lifted itself off the ground. Unfortunately, the essence that he had gathered wasn’t much, and was only able to lift the craft a few feet before running out.

Regardless, he knew that he would be able to do far more with the combination of powers shortly, as his essence would be constantly recharging. As an engineer, he had finally unlocked the next stage of their abilities, rapidly crafting machines from memory.

I gave a satisfied nod as I scanned throughout the worlds. Granted, not everything was going ‘perfectly’, but quite a lot of the world’s major problems were taken care of. Things that would lead to the downfall of the entire civilization, at least.

Crime… well, there was still plenty of crime. Greed knew no racial boundaries, afflicting humans just the same as elves or spirits. There were those who murdered or stole from others for personal gain. Some even swept away entire cities to pay back a grudge against a single person or family.

However, the core issues had been taken care of. These were the matters of safety and resources, and the two went hand in hand. I hadn’t been aware of it before, but there were quite a lot of materials that had simply been offered up to the gods over the centuries, resulting in the world having far less to work with than it should. Without those resources, they couldn’t build defenses that could keep up with the ever-growing monster threat.

Now, I could safely say that I was happy with where my worlds were in terms of culture, magic, and technology. The only thing that could be considered lacking was their military force, with Deckan leading the charge in production of large-scale military vessels. Well… excluding the three golem races. None of them could ever be considered lacking when it came to military might.

With that taken care of, I turned my attention towards something that I had been putting off for a while. Opening up my menu, I sent out a call towards Sarah.

EverLasting: Hey, Dale! What’s going on? Didn’t see you at the meeting!

EarthForceOne: Yeah, I was enjoying my time with my people mostly. I’ve been meaning to get in contact with you regarding my next match, though. This time, I’m on the offense, so I wanted to see if you knew anything about my opponent.

EverLasting: Of course, just fire away. If I know anything, I’ll be sure to share. If not, I’ll ask around and get back to you.

EarthForceOne: My opponent this time is Grudge. Felt like it was ominous enough to warrant attention.

EverLasting: Grudge, huh? Haven’t heard about him in a while… can’t say I know anything about the current generation for that name. But let me ask around and I’ll get back to you. What I can tell you is that he’s likely to be a black-winged angel with a cultivation-style world.

EarthForceOne: Oh? What makes you so sure of that?

EverLasting: The last generation’s Grudge. He only had a single race that he nurtured, and was known to be a cultivation fanatic. At any point in time, he’d have up to a dozen different worlds, each with their own unique cultivation system. Odds are that whoever killed him would have been from that race, and would have the same cultivation culture. Not a guarantee, but it happens more often than not.

I thought about that for a moment, and nodded my head. I could be considered an outlier there, as I swapped from a technology-based world to one mostly of magic after becoming a Keeper. But I could see how most people would want to stick with what was familiar to them.

EarthForceOne: Well, if you find anything out, let me know.

EverLasting: Will do! Also, I made some more progress on studying the elemental seeds, if you want to hear it. I know it’s a little late for the last invasion, but it might come in handy for the future?

EarthForceOne: Go ahead?

EverLasting: Well, the elemental seeds themselves are like external cores of energy formed by the world themself. The reason that they are able to respawn after a set period is that they system regards the ‘planet’ as a living creature with its own unique energy cycle.

EverLasting: Thanks to this, as long as the proper conditions are met, the seeds can be respawned endlessly. At the same time, those that are able to stay around longer will naturally grow in power, just like how an internal core grows by naturally converting energy.

EarthForceOne: Okay… not seeing where this is going.

EverLasting: Let me put it this way. The world is able to create these cores because it is regarded as a living entity. Therefore, a true living entity should be able to establish them as well. Each elemental seed can be considered a mutated elemental ki or elementalist core. By studying them, it would be possible to reproduce their effects, even outside of a world that bought the system. The only real requirement is that the world has access to all four basic energy types.

Okay, I had to admit that that took me by surprise. I wasn’t expecting Aurivy’s creation to be something that would be directly useful to use without buying the system for our worlds. Thinking about it, I decided to forward that information to Aurivy, letting her undertake the task of studying the cores to try to find a way to reproduce them outside of the game.

EarthForceOne: Thanks for the heads up, that will come in handy. So, if we fight someone with those abilities, we should consider them just another type of elementalist, then?

EverLasting: That’s right. Functionally, there is no difference between magic empowered by these elemental seeds, and those empowered by an elementalist equivalent. The only change is the fact that the seed itself is a mutated core built with altered elemental properties.

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