World Keeper

Chapter 651: Not Just a Moon

Kiria’s figure flashed across the giant landscape of the moon, repeatedly hammering down against its broken surface. Every time his hammer struck, there was a golden light accompanied by a soft chime that seemed to echo in one’s soul. For those who were left on Deckan, they couldn’t even tell what was going on. All that they saw was a speck of gold flash within the distant moon.

There were thousands of fragments that had been broken off in the wake of the golem’s laser, and Kiria struck at each one. Naturally, such a large expenditure consumed a great deal of his divine power, but he was not worried. This was the first time since he had ascended to become a deity that he was truly using his divine power to its fullest, after building up a reputation with his many works scattered in the world.

That’s the last one, but where is James with the replacement ‘materials’? The God of Crafts asked inwardly, looking around. However, he soon got his answer as a strange ripple spread through the empty space. His dark-skinned customer appeared, pushing a massive asteroid that he had gotten from some distant corner of the solar system.

Oi, is that what you were talking about?! Kiria exclaimed inwardly, before shaking his head. The asteroid that had been provided was at least half the size of the moon itself, so his reaction was understandable. The fact that James had been able to transport it through space was perhaps the most shocking thing.

His figure flashed again, and he struck the asteroid with his hammer. Another golden flash, and he gave a nod. Material analyzation completed, and everything’s been seeded with my power. Let’s see… they called this material Dimensium, right?

Closing his eyes, Kiria focused inwardly on activating an ability that he had developed long ago. Archive of the Craftsman. This was a power that he had once invented to help him work with new and rare materials. If it was something that he had never interacted with, most craftsmen would have to struggle to adapt and learn their special properties.

With his Archive of the Craftsman, Kiria formed a resonance between a target material and a similar material that had been used in the past. He read the ‘memory’ of the material, learning how it had been treated and what the end result had been. This allowed him to get a tacit understanding of any sort of crafting material, so long as he was not truly the first person to have used it.

I see… so this material has the property to warp dimensions when fed with mana or spiritual energy, and can even create small microcosms with its residual energy. Kiria grinned as an idea formed in his mind, and his body soared into the black sky.

As the God of Crafts working on his largest project ever, there was simply no way that he could allow himself to just return the moon to its original state. His pride as the top crafter among all worlds would not allow something like that. If he was going to craft a moon, then he had to add in his own flair.

Material Forge. He drew a symbol in the empty space in front of him, and the fragments of the moon seemed to shudder. Stone broke away from dimensium, forming distinct layers and patterns, before a portion of the dimensium began to melt.

There’s not a convenient mana source on the moon, so I’ll need to get creative. Maybe when I’m done, they’ll set up a mana relay here to make it more stable. For now… convert solar energy to mana, and set up an accumulator array. On activation, trigger a spirit gate and funnel the energy to allow both to activate the dimensium.

Filter the energy through a coordinate receiver array, and establish a ten-second lock to prevent disruption. As he thought about this, numerous spell diagrams began carving themselves beneath the surface of the moon. Dozens of patches of blue light began to gather on the fragments as they came back together, forming a solid whole. Each patch showed the amount of mana that was being gathered by the sun’s rays, storing them for future use.

The moon is often a target for meteors, so let’s create a barrier to protect these spells. A firm shield would use too much energy to constantly remain active… A low-power detection array that triggers another spell should work. It doesn’t have to destroy the meteors, just shift their momentum away from the moon.

The individual materials of the moon continued to churn beneath the surface, rearranging themselves until they had finally reached the ideal state that Kiria wished for. At that point, a massive hole opened up on the moon itself, over a thousand kilometers wide. The hole seemed bottomless, an empty passage leading deep into the surface of the celestial body.

Off to the side, James tilted his head in confusion. Wasn’t he just fixing the moon? Why did it suddenly have another hole in it…? Do I have to get another meteor?

The researcher wasn’t entirely sure what the ursa was up to, but knew that it wasn’t a good idea to interrupt him while he was working. Regardless of the outcome, he was still creating a moon just as James had asked. It was a giant rock orbiting around the planet that would allow the world to maintain its ecosystem. Unless this giant hole was the sign of a thruster that would carry the moon away, he had nothing to worry about.

After over half an hour of steadily draining his divine reserves, Kiria was left with just under half of what he had started with. Nonetheless, he was confident that he had created a true masterpiece, something that would become an icon of faith towards him. He turned to look at his customer, nodding his head to signal that he was ready to return.

By the time he noticed that they had moved, they were already back on the surface of Deckan, with a small kitsune girl running up to him. “Okay, what’s the big deal? Why is there still a hole in the moon?” She complained indignantly. “And why’s it glowing blue now?”

Although the patches of blue light did not surround the entire moon when viewed up close, they mixed with the light reflected by the surface of the moon to give it a light blue appearance from the surface of Deckan. Like this, it almost blended in with the clear skies of the world, but would stand out even more in the dark of night.

Kiria grinned at her questions, not at all offended by her attitude. “I call it the Lunar Gate!” He proclaimed, naming his newest creation. “I’ll give you the mana frequency to operate it. Once it’s charged up enough mana that it stops glowing, you can activate it.”

“Lunar… gate…?” The smaller kitsune blinked, processing his words. “You made it into a giant warp device?”

“That’s right.” Kiria admitted. “If you use the mana frequency I give you, and transmit a set of coordinates through the arrays, it’ll open a gate to your target destination. Just a warning, though, once the internal energy is depleted to the point where it begins glowing again, I’d say you would have… oh, about ten seconds to get to the other side before power runs out. And you don’t want power to run out when you’re halfway between dimensional spaces.”

“It’s my one-way gate to nowhere and everywhere.” Although he had never been one for space travel himself, he was familiar with the mechanics behind it. Or at least, the theory of them. His domain helped him to fill in a lot of the gaps for any missing knowledge, supplementing it from other areas in similar ways to his Archive of the Craftsman.

In an age where space exploration and travel was becoming more and more rampant, a gate such as this would be incredibly useful. Not only would it allow ships to reach a far-off starting point for their journeys, or even directly reach their destination, it would also allow rescue vessels to offer timely aid when used in conjunction with the smaller gates installed on each ship.

With this gate, he had turned Deckan into the unofficial hub for space travel, whether he had intended to or not. “Does it allow transfer to other realms?” Chel asked, looking to explore the possibilities behind this new gate.

Kiria chuckled, scratching the back of his head with a large hand. “It accepts the same format of coordinates as a high-level teleport spell. But given the properties of dimensium, I figure that it should be compatible with that, as well?”

Chel nodded her head again at that, while James spoke up to posit a question. “How long does it take to build up its charge?”

“That, I can’t tell you.” He shook his head, shrugging his shoulders helplessly. “It’s my first time converting solar energy to mana on a scale like this. There’s an accumulator array and a refinement loop in the gate as well. Any ambient mana, like that produced from the solar gatherers, will be captured by the accumulator.”

“Once it hits a certain charge, it’ll begin to feed into the refinement arrays to form solid mana, which is stored in a separate dimensium space tied to the gate’s function. So once the moon starts glowing blue again, that’ll mean that the solid mana has been used up, and it’s back to the basic accumulator.”

Chel nodded her head as she thought about that. It would take a lot of energy to power a gate that wide, so this couldn’t be used as a casual method of travel. At the same time, the Metong warp devices used a similar mechanic to teleport their ships across vast distances through the use of runic coordinates. Although they were still in the process of perfecting interdimensional warp without the need of dedicated gates, that could be seen as something that would come in the future.

“What’s the minimum runtime for a single activation?” She asked, running some calculations through her head.

Kiria blinked, thinking it over. “It’ll take about fifteen seconds to activate the dimensium rings, and they’ll last ten seconds after the power is cut off. That’s why you’ve only got the ten second window after the accumulators activate again.”

Chel gave another nod at his answer. Fifteen seconds was neither too long nor too short. It gave enough time for a crew to prepare for transfer, or to activate an automated payload. Ten seconds… a ship would need to be moving fairly quickly to get through the gate in that time, considering how they were moving through a gravity well.

Thankfully, the moon didn’t have an atmosphere to slow them down. And even if it did… well, it certainly wouldn’t after being blasted apart like it was. “Haah… at this rate, you might become a new God of the Moon. At least, unofficially.”

The world did not currently have a faith system that would promote people to godhood based on the faith of the people. Although faith enhanced a deity’s divinity, it would never grant them a new domain. Not unless the Keeper purchased a system for such.

“Huh, that wouldn’t be too bad.” Kiria laughed boisterously, tilting his head back as he clapped his hands on his waist. “Anyways, I think that’s my work here done, right?” He asked once his laughter had subsided, producing a small crystal and tossing it to James. “The mana frequency to control the gate.”

James caught the crystal delicately, as if afraid that he might break it by accident. To do so would mean that this had been for nothing, and that the hole in the moon was little more than a decorative piece. That was not something he was particularly keen on happening.

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