World Keeper

Chapter 618: Lost and Found

A young kitsune man sat atop a stone rooftop, staring up at the starry sky above him. Two moons could be seen hanging in the air, the only indicator he had that he was not on his home world. “It’s almost time now, I guess?” He muttered, feeling the chaotic energy starting to boil up inside of him.

This was Sinclair Song, whose apparent age had regressed after attaining the perfect body. Nobody wanted to look old if they could help it, after all. Once he had attained this form, he chose an appearance that he found more pleasing.

Of course, even if his need for food and water had disappeared, that did not mean that he was entirely safe. His random transportation energy would still misfire on its own every now and again, causing Sinclair to take more drastic measures in an attempt to fix his predicament. The next step after perfection was, naturally, divinity.

After numerous jaunts through different worlds to find a safe location, Sinclair had succeeded in creating his own Divine Soul. His goal was to incorporate this energy into his domain, as doing so should allow him full control over its power. Thus, after considering the different suitable titles for his domain, he eventually coined it as ‘Lost’. Lost adrift through countless worlds, he must find his way home.

He had lost count of the months, the years that he had been gone. He guessed that many worlds had different rates of time passing, but that was only his conjecture. At one point, he spent what he believed to be months in a world of elves, mingling with their culture.

However, after a few more jumps, he had found his way to a nearly identical world. Only, this world was in ruins, plants having overtaken the city. Vines and moss grew atop buildings, and only bones remained of the elves. If not for a few natural landmarks that he had remembered, he would not have been able to associate that world with the one he had visited before.

Ever since then, Sinclair felt that it was meaningless to count the days that had passed. Even if he managed to do so, the date would most likely not be accurate by the time he had returned home. Home… he struggled to remember what that place was like.

His original notebook had long since worn out and faded away, its pages crumbling. His memories that had been written down could now only be stored within his mind, which was becoming crowded with the information of every world he visited.

“I haven’t seen winter here, yet.” He muttered to himself as he stared at the twin moons. “Have I not been here long enough, or does this world not have such a season?”

Sinclair had never managed to stay in a single world for a full year, or at least that was his assumption. Especially after he advanced his soul to the divine stage. There was something that he had forgotten from the notes left behind by the first mortal god, Jonas of Community.

Once one advances their soul into divinity, their divine power would continue to build. However, their body would not be able to handle the growing power, and would need to vent it regularly in the form of ‘miracles’. After Sinclair achieved his divine soul, he could indeed control his transportation to a certain degree. At this point, however, it was merely the timing that could be controlled. And even then, he could not wait too long.

From what Sinclair felt from his divinity, he had at most two days before it would force him to travel again. Shaking his head, he stood up from the roof of the stone house he had made himself, moving inside to gather what little belongings he could carry with him. Unfortunately, this was not a world that permitted the use of either geometric or runic magic, so he was unable to use any of his storage devices.

Looking about, he ultimately walked over to a painting on the wall, hanging above the doorway. This was something that he had made over these last few months. It was a painting of a kitsune with golden fur, wearing a magnificent crown atop her head and a flowing silver dress.

The last time that he had appeared within the world of Deckan, before he had achieved his divine soul, he had learned that the goddess Udona had taken the throne of Deckan. Unfortunately, he had been forced to leave before being able to contact any acquaintances.

Sinclair was not planning to take the painting with him. To do so would only be to put it in danger in the event of a hostile environment. Instead, he focused on the natural energy of the world around him, erecting a small, crude statue of Udona in front of his house.

Walking out to the statue, Sinclair leaned the painting against it, before kneeling on the ground. “I dedicate this painting to you, Goddess of Life, Education, and Entertainment. May it find you in good condition. And may my next journey not be my last.”

After he said that, the painting began to dissolve in a golden mist, leaving behind a few glittering coins depicting the face of the goddess. Sinclair picked them up, planning to add them to his collection after he visited the next world. It had become a tradition for him to spend his days on a craft, and then dedicate it to Udona before he left.

Although he had been saving those coins for what he felt was many years, he had never found a place where he could spend them. Clutching the handful of coins carefully, he urged his divinity to act. With a golden flash, he disappeared, leaving behind the home and statue on an uninhabited land.

When he appeared again, he was hovering in midair, forced to immediately support himself with mana. The sound of lightning filled his ears along with the howling wind. However, no matter where he looked, there were only endless stormy clouds.

Sinclair felt a powerful energy sweep over him, drenching his back in a cold sweat as he immediately activated his divinity once more. A moment later, the cloud he was next to shifted, a great mouth forming from the storm itself to devour the space he had been in.

His next two locations were no more friendly than the first. His next destination was the vast void of space, where not a single star could be seen. After that, he appeared in a world where the atmosphere itself ate away at his body as if it were acid.

Finally, in his fourth world, he landed on fertile soil. His immediate surroundings seemed to be a garden of different herbs. As Sinclair pulled himself to his feet, he immediately began to perform his routine check to investigate his temporary home.

Hopping slightly, he was happy to find that the gravity was relatively normal, if not slightly higher than what he was used to. Placing a hand in front of his forehead, he squinted his eyes and stared at the horizon. “Horizon distance… one kilometer. This is a small world, then. Atmosphere is… obviously suitable for vegetation. No signs of wildlife, though.”

As he said that, he noticed one of the plants near him moving. Sinclair was rather familiar with this plant, as it was one he had used as an alchemic material in the past. It was known as a sunblossom, a flower that contained within it a faint essence of fire, but would only open its flower for an hour every year. At high noon of the summer solstice, when the power of the sun was at its most potent, the sunblossom would bloom.

Now, however, Sinclair was quite certain that it was not noon, regardless of whether it was this world’s summer solstice. After all, the sun was nowhere near the highest point in the sky, and seemed to actually be setting. Regardless, the flower was blooming, emitting with it a faint red glow. This was the moment when it was most valuable, when the essence of flame was at its strongest.

Sinclair did not plan to take the flower, though. At this point in his life, he felt that it had little use for him. Who would he sell it to, the old ginseng growing at the root of the thousand-year oak? Perhaps he could barter it off to the evening bloom, the flower that absorbed the last light of day.

As those nonsensical thoughts were occurring to him, Sinclair saw the flower vanish before his eyes in an all-too familiar golden glow. Clearly, a divine power had taken this flower away, but Sinclair was not able to determine which divinity had done so. Of course, he did not even know if it was a divinity of his own world. The idea that there could be divinities in other worlds was certainly not impossible, after all.

As I checked in on our own little ‘lost traveler’, my gaze became somewhat… awkward. Naturally, I had noticed his current environment, but there was something about it that didn’t quite fit. Tryval? I called out for the centaur god mentally.

Yes, sire? As he responded, I could tell that he had not noticed the situation himself. Moreover, he was surprised to hear me calling him, as I often did not need his particular services.

There seems to be someone that wandered into your garden. That’s right… the world that Sinclair landed on was the garden that Leowynn plucked from the void and gave to Tryval so that he could grow the various herbs that people would buy from him off the trade platform.

That is impossible. Tryval responded, though his voice seemed slightly shaken. After having taken a moment to investigate and discover Sinclair himself, he sent another message to me. Do you want me to get rid of him?

I couldn’t help but think back to when Tryval first killed many of his own people out of his sense of duty. Hastily, I shook my head. Is his presence going to prevent your garden from functioning properly?

It shouldn’t. His response was quite swift, allowing me to breathe out a sigh of relief. I have numerous planets in that region that have different conditions, allowing me to grow a wider variety of plants. The garden he landed in nurtures plants with the fire and wood attributes. Although they have some uses, there isn’t anything that I can’t re-plant.

Then you can leave him be. I don’t imagine he’ll be there for too long. As I thought that, I glanced back through his personal history. Although it had only been a little over ten years since he had left the world in Deckan’s time, it would appear that he was quite unfortunate. Most of the worlds he hit must have had an accelerated timeline, as his personal history showed over a century since he last set foot in a world I owned.

I could likely arrange things with either Terra or Aurivy to ensure that he is sent to a friendly territory next, if I wanted to. However, I quickly decided against doing that. Until he had reached the next step of divinity, his stay would only be temporary. It was better not to waste their time on something like that, when he would not be able to appreciate it for too long.

“Have you found anything, sirs?” Doctor Ballan asked, rubbing his temples through his mask as he looked at the two individuals seated before his desk. It had been a week since they had appeared to help with Eternity’s comatose scientists, and the two of them had been making steady progress by the day.

Jonas turned to look at the Metong first. “You can start, Researcher Night.” He spoke with a warm smile, earning a nod from the silver male.

“Thank you. According to my calculations, there should be an energy capable of reversing their condition within the Network. However, this information has a high clearance level, so I will require a gate to be opened to my homeworld in order to contact the High Mother. This energy directly relates to the control of the soul, so even Researchers like myself require permission to study it.”

Ballan let out a resigned sigh. “We don’t have a portal to your realm on the ship… Are you able to make one, or will you have to return to seek this permission?”

Researcher Night considered this for a moment. “I could construct the portal with the materials you have available. However, it would be less time-consuming for me to return. I shall save my decision until after we have heard the discoveries of the God of Community.”

With that, Jonas offered a small nod. “Thank you. While crude, the method you use to communicate with the patients has allowed me to establish another of them as my community earlier this evening. While this did not allow them to wake up, I did discover something else.”

Ballan gestured for Jonas to continue, and so he did. “Now that I have two of them as my community, I can guide their souls to meet with each other. While I can’t bring their souls out of the worlds they are trapped in and back to their bodies, I can ensure that they are able to gather within a relatively safe world.”

Night immediately spoke up after this revelation. “I would prioritize the evacuation of patients two, six, and eleven. The safest world from my research appears to be that of patient five.”

“Eleven?” Jonas furrowed his brow, glancing towards Night. “I thought that his was a relatively safe world, was it not?”

“Indeed. Two days prior, I detected a pathogen forming in the patient’s blood. Although a treatment was quickly prepared and administered to keep it from spreading, it is unknown how long it will take the pathogen to evolve beyond my treatment procedures. If possible, I would hasten his removal from his world, for the safety of himself and all living creatures aboard this vessel.”

Jonas’s eyes went wide briefly, before he nodded his head. “I’ll make him my next goal, then.”

“As for me.” Researcher Night slowly stood. “I believe time to be of the essence. Now that Jonas has found a way to reunite the patients, morale should increase. As such, my temporary departure will not impact your performance too much.”

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