World Keeper

Chapter 580: The World of Tomorrow, Today

Tower was incredibly pleased with the results of the deal he made with ‘Mother’. Although he was still experiencing the accelerated timeflow as normal with his primary consciousness, it had to be remembered that Tower had achieved divinity through the unity of ten thousand dungeons. He could easily tell how slowly the other dungeons were operating compared to his own, and use it as a point of reference.

For the first fifty years, he focused on gradually expanding the world that he had built around himself, until it was as large as Earth. After that, he began spawning in monsters from other dungeons. From the plant dungeons, he would spawn monster plants. From aquatic dungeons, he would spawn sea monsters. Over the course of five years, he created a living ecosystem that covered his world, with every plant or animal being some form of monster.

Next, it was time to work on a sapient race. This was actually quite easy for him as the God of Monsters. Up until this point, he had refrained from using his divinity as much as possible, due to the fact that time was being accelerated. With the outside world moving slowly, that means that the passive divinity regeneration he would get from those people that knew of him was weakened considerably.

For this matter, Tower considered it carefully. The easiest way would be to create a monster with a high rate of reproduction. Doing so would limit the divinity cost substantially. However, if he did so, the monsters would cause problems with overpopulation in the long run, and would create conflict when they eventually met the other races.

With that in mind, a race with a long life, but relatively normal reproductive capacity was more suitable. Thinking of that, his mind drifted towards the elves. Aside from his own race, they had the longest lifespan of any race he was aware of. It only made sense to him to use the elves as a base for this new monster.

The God of Monsters thought deeply about what characteristics he should give them. Personality traits can be taught over generations, but physical ability… that was more important to consider from the beginning. The lifespan of elves, with an adjusted breeding capacity.

I don’t want them to cause direct conflict with the races already in existence, so adjustments will be made to their physical bodies. Taller, ranging between two and three meters as adults. More muscular, with the women having pale white skin, and the men black skinned and bald. There is a shortage of races adapted to surviving in the arctic, so I should give them cold resistance and adjust my climate accordingly.

Having come to his conclusion, he created the race in his mind. Creating monsters was the greatest talent at his disposal, and soon a hundred portals began to open atop his world. From each portal, a dozen men and women emerged, with only the most basic intellect. While they had the capacity for sapience, granting it to them immediately would cost more divinity than he was willing to spend.

The full creation process for the race took one week, after which point he began to adjust the climate of his world, turning it colder and colder. Most of the monsters he had imported previously were tropical creatures, so they naturally began to struggle with their new environment. Plants withered and beasts starved, with each monster being replaced with something more fitting as they died.

Over the course of a hundred years, his tropical paradise for monsters turned into a frozen tundra. Few of his original creations were left, including his yet unnamed monster race. It was at this point where he began to guide them, reaching out and communicating with the monsters. Teaching them of fire, of tools, acting as their guardian over the course of their lives.

Over thirty years, there was a new generation to teach, and they were taught of their guardian. Because of the laws set in place by Irena and Aurivy, the souls of the fallen were not taken to the afterlife after they passed. Instead, Tower created an underground dungeon within his world where they lived in spiritual form.

Every so often, one of these spirits would emerge on the surface, guiding their descendants. This pattern persisted for a thousand years, at which point one percent of his planet had been colonized. If there was one thing that Tower was dissatisfied with, it was the fact that his creations seemed incapable of gaining levels.

The slimes on the neighboring planet, he had long since confirmed were growing stronger through the system. However, his own monsters were not… and he could not understand why.

“Terra, a little help here?” I asked out loud, knowing that Terra wouldn’t be too far away. Although I had been out in the living room with Accalia and Ashley, I returned to my computer after Aurivy told me the problem that she was having with the dungeon world.

“Haven’t figured it out yet?” Terra asked, appearing next to me and leaning forward with a grin while resting an arm against my chair.

“Wasn’t it supposed to be a loophole that sapient races created by inhabitants are automatically added to the system?” That was what I had seen from the golems, as well as the slimes. But… why wasn’t it working here?

Terra giggled, shaking her head. “If he had used any other domain to create them, perhaps… Think of it as a loophole for a loophole. He’s the God of Monsters, isn’t he?”

Hearing that, I blinked, letting out a sound of understanding. “So the races he creates are all treated as monsters instead of ‘people’, no matter what settings he gives them?”

“Got it in one.” Terra gave a small nod to confirm my theory. “You can still buy them the old fashioned way. No law against doing that. He may be the God of Monsters, but you’re still the Keeper. You kind of trump him in domain authority.”

I rolled my eyes, pulling up the information for the race. Thankfully, they weren’t as versatile as Aurivy’s slimes. The entire race only cost a hundred points, which I was more than willing to provide to help with Aurivy’s plans.

Fifteen hundred years after the birth of the race, which Tower had taken to calling the Nethrak, there was a sudden change. It was small, almost imperceptible at first, but grew within days until it was impossible to miss. His people were becoming stronger, smarter, their evolution accelerating dozens of times faster than before.

With a simple check, he knew that the Nethrak had been accepted into the world’s system, and were now able to properly gain levels. Once more, he took an active role in their education, imprinting himself on their culture as a creator and guide.

From there, the race exploded in all aspects. Whereas it took them fifteen hundred years to occupy five percent of the planet, it only took them another hundred before they had explored half of it. Their population and technology levels underwent major advances with the knowledge that Tower was able to provide.

Once two thousand years had passed, they had created a stable civilization built on the cultivation of ki and technology. Although their technology had yet to reach a modern standard, they were by no means archaic.

“All rise.” A man’s voice called out within the brick building, dozens of multicolored, translucent individuals rising to their feet. As a side door in the building opened, a pink man walked in, his almost liquid eyes scanning over the crowd. He moved to stand at the front of the room, before clearing his throat. “Podium.”

At his call, a podium rose up from the stone floor, looking gelatinous for only a moment before it solidified. “Leaders of your respective colonies. I’ve called you here today for a very important reason. I have received a message from Atraxi.”

There was a buzz of conversation among the gathered slimes at his words. As two thousand years had passed for Tower, that same amount of time had similarly passed for the slime world, which led to some rather… interesting changes. They did not have kingdoms or countries, only colonies. All colonies held a unified leader, and that was the God of Slimes himself.

“Atraxi has informed me that we shall soon be capable of moving beyond this world that birthed us.” The pink leader spoke passionately. “We will be able to see the stars as was spoken in the legends.”

“To achieve this goal, our lord has requested us to bring together ten ripe metal slimes, which his brother shall evolve into a new form. With this new slime, we will be carried to a nearby world, one which promises to be full of life.” After he said that, his eye seemed to shift a bit, noticing a health bar that appeared over one of the benches. “Greg, you’re eating the chair again.”

“Ah, sorry.” A green man spoke apologetically, moving his leg a bit further away from the bench. As the leader of a colony of sentient acid slimes, it was harder for him to resist passively consuming anything he was in contact with.

Within this world, which had been named Id by its inhabitants, less than one percent of one percent of the slime population were sapient. It was deemed impossible to maintain a peaceful society when everyone was aware that everything that they ate was no different from themselves. Imagine that…

Instead, the unintelligent slimes were domesticated. Each slime type would naturally grow an outer body composed of a substance similar to their element. For instance, metal slimes would produce a body made of liquid metal. This Slime Metal could be filtered and cooled to create metal that could be forged by a blacksmith.

Similarly, water slimes produced bodies made almost entirely of water, wood slimes a liquid wood, and so on. A slime was considered ‘ripe’ when it had consumed enough and grown to a point that it was ready to split. This was when they were typically harvested, as the ‘farmer’ could receive the greatest yield.

Of course, not all slimes were kept as raw materials such as metal and water slimes. Most larger objects were themselves entire slimes. The building that they were holding the meeting in, for instance, was a slime that had been trained to take the shape of a building. The benches were also individual slimes. Generally, handheld items were crafted, while larger constructs were ‘trained’.

With this in mind, it came as no surprise to anyone that Pietra would be able to combine ten slimes to create some form of vehicle. “When does he want them?” A red woman asked, raising her hand to pose the question.

However, the pink leader shook his head. “There is no set deadline. The first vehicle will only carry five hundred once it has been fully grown. He has said that he will evolve as many vehicles as we bring him the materials for. However, he has passed down a strict set of rules which we must abide by after we leave this world.”

At the mention of rules, everyone stood more stiffly, unwilling to disappoint the twin gods. “These rules come not from the brothers, but from Aurivy herself.” As he said the name, everyone in the building changed shape on instinct, assuming the form of an identical, thin woman with short hair of their preferred color.

“First, the places we are to go are not slime worlds like Id. We must be mindful not to consume in excess, or accidentally harm those we encounter. If we find debris in space, we may consume it as we see fit, but never another intelligent creature or said creature’s possessions.”

As everyone processed the first commandment, the leader moved on to the second. “Secondly, the Goddess has decreed that we must make it clear upon our first encounter that we are not a bad slime.” Perhaps on reflex, he inhaled a wet breath after saying that, before letting out a long sigh. “The slimes of other worlds are not as advanced as we, and we must make it clear that we mean them no harm.”

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