"I suppose we probably should have figured the Elves would arrive the moment we made ourselves our first cultivator." Greg snorted.

"I don't see how the two would influence each other." Chris frowned. "It isn't like the World teleported them over here. I think the two were simply on similar timelines due to having the same precipitating event, and the fact that they happened on the same day is pure coincidence." He paused. "Well, the fact that we were the ones to run into them was probably World fuckery. Maybe the timing could have been influenced as well at that point… could have found them tomorrow or the day before just as well." He shrugged. "Sure, fuck it, makes sense the Elves showed up the same day we made a cultivator."

"Damn straight." Greg chuckled.

"So, which one should we start with?" Victoria asked. "The healer or the barrier guy?"

"We also have another two who were dying, but not dead when they got thrown into the world." Chris added. "So we have four options."

"Okay, so, which one should we start with?" Victoria rolled her eyes.

"The barrier guy seemed marginally cooperative." Andrew shrugged. "Why not start with him?"

"Cooperative doesn't necessarily mean forthcoming." Greg pointed out. "You ever heard of malicious compliance? Just because someone is working with you doesn't mean they're helping you."

"So we should start with the healer?" Andrew asked hesitantly. "She's particularly un-cooperative."

"Why would you think someone who's already proven to be uncooperative would be a good person to talk to first?" Greg raised an eyebrow, suppressing a grin.

Andrew threw up his hands. "Then let's try one of the other two then!"

"But we have no idea whether they'll be cooperative or not." Greg grinned.

Andrew glared at him. "So who do you think we should start with?!?"

"Probably the barrier guy." Greg snickered.

"But you said he wouldn't be cooperative!" Andrew protested.

"Did I?" Greg cocked his head.

"You said-" Andrew began, cutting off as he scowled at Greg. "Oh fuck you." He growled as Greg burst out laughing.

"Alright, barrier guy it is." Victoria rolled her eyes.

"Wait, wait, hold on." Greg interjected. "Before we call the guy here, I think we should figure out what we're actually trying to, you know, figure out. I mean, we know why the Elves are coming, what they want, all that crap. What's this guy supposed to know that we don't?"

"Their strategy?" Chris offered. "I mean, this obviously wasn't an army. You would have seen that. This was probably a small scouting group, probably delivering an ultimatum or something. I mean, as much as we know the Elf King is going to come after us, we haven't actually heard anything from him yet… This was probably the start of that."

Andrew frowned. "Crap, did we just shoot the messenger?"

Victoria flushed. "I- may have jumped the gun by attacking immediately… they weren't necessarily hostile until I slit that one guy's throat. I just saw Elves and…" She trailed off, her expression twisting.

Greg cackled. "Perfect! Well, if we weren't in a war, we are now!" He continued to laugh, shaking his head.

"The war was inevitable." Chris waved dismissively. "Let's just see what these guys were up to."

"Yeah, yeah." Greg nodded, still snickering lightly. "Bring in the barrier dude."

Chris waved his hand, and the Elf appeared in front of them. The Elf blinked, looking around, not expecting to have been brought to a comfortable looking living room. "Have a seat." Chris gestured to a nearby chair. "We have some questions for you. Basically, why are you here?"

The Elf sat down nervously. "We- we were just- we're from the Elven Kingdom, and- we were supposed to meet someone… I don't know who or where, but- we- we were only here to escort someone back to our capital! We don't even know who! There- there was a letter, but-"

Victoria facepalmed. "Everything was destroyed in that clusterfuck." She groaned.

The Elf nodded. "I- I'm not sure how much I can actually help. Our- our contact was supposed to find us, not the other way around…"

"Eh, obviously you were here for me." Chris shrugged. "Don't need a letter to tell us that. Though it would have been nice to find whoever your contact is…" He paused. "Were you the only ones sent?"

The Elf blinked. "I- I believe so? Why would any more be sent? A full squad of fourteen is more than enough to escort a single person to the capital."

"You know, unless you get wiped out by two Eternals and a horde of mutated kobolds." Greg grinned.

"Hey, I was there too." Chris pointed out. "I didn't do much, but I was there."

"Fine, three Eternals." Greg rolled his eyes.

"Also, wouldn't the kobolds technically be Eternals as well?" Andrew added.

Greg frowned. "Well, they're part of the Eternal Sect, but I'm pretty sure only the four of us count as Eternals."

"It's actually the Eternal Tribe here." Chris corrected.

"Same thing." Greg waved dismissively. "My point is that just belonging to the organization based around the Eternals does make you an Eternal. You gotta be… well, us."

"Or anyone else like us." Victoria commented. "We aren't necessarily the only ones out there."

"Unless there's some hidden fifth building block of reality, I'm pretty sure we are." Andrew retorted.

"No, no, the building blocks thing isn't what makes us Eternals." Victoria shook her head, before pausing. "Well, I mean, it is, but- okay, the important points are the fact that we're immortal and we can travel between Worlds, but we aren't Immortals. Since we exist, it's feasible that there are others out there who are similarly immortal, capable of traveling between Worlds, and not Immortals, and what would they be except Eternals?"

"Is that how we're defining Eternals?" Greg raised an eyebrow. "Just immortal World travelers who aren't Immortals? Seems a little broad."

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Not necessarily." Chris interjected. "You're forgetting how integral a World is to one's existence. All life is sustained by its connection to the World. Even Immortals rely on their connection to their Worlds to function. In order to travel between Worlds without that Immortal connection, you'd need to base your existence on something that can survive in any World, or even without a World, and that can't be common."

Greg cocked his head. "I suppose that's fair… but going back to my original point, that still means Chris's subordinates aren't Eternals, because while they may be immortal, they can't travel between Worlds like we can."

The Elf looked between the four of them with a mix of confusion and incredulity. They'd asked him one question, and then proceeded to talk amongst themselves on some (presumably) tangentially related topic! He coughed lightly. "Is- is there anything else you'd like to know?"

Greg blinked. "Oh, right, you." He paused for a moment, before turning to Chris. "Do we want to know anything else?"

Chris considered the question for a moment, before shaking his head. "They're a small force that wasn't even trusted with more than a basic understanding of their mission. They wouldn't know anything about a potential army invading, let alone what strategy or tactics said army would be using. I suppose we should talk to the other three just to make sure this guy's story checks out, but otherwise they're useless." He paused. "Well, I may have a use for them as subordinates, but intel wise, yeah, useless." He eyed the Elf strangely. "I wonder how easily their wills will break…"

"Save that for later." Victoria interjected. "Bring out the next one."

*

The other three Elves didn't know much more than the first. They'd all assumed they were on a simple escort mission, and the idea that anyone might attack them just for being Elves was practically unthinkable to them! Chris would see if he could get any more out of them after he forced the connection to his world, but for now, it seemed like the Elves were exactly who they said they were: expendable pawns who had absolutely zero idea what was actually going on.

With that settled, Chris moved on to the other project he wanted to work on now that he had some energy. He'd attached a portion of his world to Andrew to study what was happening with him, and the results were fascinating. It wasn't that the World was ignoring the rules to give him energy, it was that the rules were taking effect automatically. Andrew's body was developing at just the right rate to take in the energy around him, speeding up when he hit denser pockets and slowing down when the energy was sparse, ensuring that he would reach the physical and ability peak simultaneously. All he needed to do was keep exposing himself to energy, and the process would take care of itself!

So now all Chris needed to do was figure out how to get his world to do that. It wasn't just a matter of telling his world 'do that'... he'd tried, and it'd done nothing, so he was missing something. It wasn't enough to tell his world to mutate him, because then he'd just mutate. He needed some sort of pattern or standard… it needed a 'if you have x energy, develop y percent' or something. Based on the rules he'd gotten from Gaia, he knew how much development was needed to absorb a certain amount of ability energy based on the density of it in the area, so that part was easy. The part that wasn't easy was tying the development to the density of the ability energy. Or more accurately, he didn't have a way to develop more than he already had. Definitely not enough to reach the physical peak. He needed to reach that point first in order to have a blue print of the process. He also needed to know what the ability peak was, so he knew how much energy actually needed to be absorbed. Basically, he needed to reach the peak before he could automate the way to the peak.

Chris frowned. "Maybe if I could convince one of those cultivators to connect to my world…" Even with their new power, immortality was a big draw. He bet he could probably get at least one. Plus he had all those Elf corpses to analyze and he could mutate the Elves that survived… Though that might not be the best idea, considering what had happened with Alexander. Empowering people who might break away from his world was probably not the smartest way to play things, no matter how immortal he was.

Still, there had to be a way to at least test the concept… Chris snapped his fingers as he created an unmutated version of himself. He did know how to develop from that state. Then all he had to do was set his development rate to absorb a certain amount of energy- Chris paused, before smacking his forehead. Why did he need to pace his energy absorption so he hit the two peaks at the same time?!? Maybe the World did things that way, for whatever reason, but he didn't care when he reached the peaks, as long as he reached both of them! So all he needed to do was set the rate so that he maximized his energy absorption, taking all the energy he could for the amount of development he did.

Chris let out a sigh as he set the rule and surrounded his other self with ability energy, watching as he slowly developed and absorbed the energy. It was great that it worked, but it didn't solve the issue of the fact that he didn't actually know what his ability was. Just like in the Beast World, there was only one form of ability energy, and even after he'd analyzed all his subordinates, that hadn't changed. What he could tell was that the ability energy was shifting into the same type as whatever ability he supposedly had as his body absorbed it. What was even more interesting was that in both the Beast World and Greg's World, whenever he analyzed a new creature, the ability energy he had would change, which led him to a theory.

As Andrew said, he didn't have a core, but abilities were based on cores, so if he didn't have a core, what was his ability based on? It had to be his world, right? Whenever he analyzed a new ability, it would change the nature of his world, which changed the nature of his ability! He already tested and learned he didn't have exact copies of the abilities, so it was probably some kind of mix of them, which he'd need to do a bit more testing to figure out, but the real question was why his ability in this World didn't change. Unless it was somehow already a combination of all the other abil- Chris froze, letting out a groan as he buried his face in his hands. He was an idiot! Who was the Half-Elf Prince based on? Him. What ability did the Half-Elf Prince have? The ability to mutate and absorb the abilities of creatures he killed. So what was that damn mysterious ability energy?!? Probably the damn Half-Elf Prince's ability! What other core would he have analyzed without realizing it? It probably happened when he was born or something. Chris pondered his other self, which was still absorbing energy. He was going to need to do a lot more hunting.

*

Beth fell onto the couch next to Chris, cuddling up next to him. "So, how was your day?"

"Well, we have a Doppelganger mutating with a crapload of ability energy, so they should be a cultivator by the end of it, Andrew made himself a core from another World and started automatically developing and absorbing ability energy, which gave me the idea to do the same using my world, though I'm kinda capped by my own stage of development, but I still managed to absorb a decent chunk of ability energy and finally realize that the mystery ability is most likely the same one Alexander had, cause you know, that's who I supposedly am. Oh, and we stumbled on a squad of Elves, killed most of them and captured four." Chris replied.

Beth scowled at him. "Why is it that everything always happens at once with you?!? Months of nothing, and then in two weeks you go from a dude to a freaking god. Take a week break, and then suddenly you've made a cultivator and fought off the Elves!"

"I wouldn't say we fought them off… it was just a squad, and not a strong one." Chris corrected.

"Not the point!" Beth snapped.

Chris shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you. It's just how things happen. It isn't like I'm trying to do things this way."

Beth sighed, cuddling closer to him. "I know. It's just frustrating sometimes… it makes it feel like we're always a day away from everything going wrong." She grumbled.

Chris blinked. "Well… that's not entirely inaccurate. Ruins and Beast Tides just kinda pop up out of nowhere sometimes, and you just gotta deal with it."

"That is not making me feel better!" Beth complained, digging her elbow into his side.

"Gah!" Chris yelped. "Okay, okay! Look, bad things happen, but… you have me, and the other guys. Even when shit goes wrong… we take care of it."

Beth glared at him for a moment, before letting out a humph. "You better."