Amun.
***
Lucky fucker. To think Jaimess got to meet a trio of Tengu. I had no room to complain, though. Not with an immortal unicorn living in my shadow.
Regardless, it was an amazing accomplishment that deserved praise. But I was sure of his teammates running his patience dry with their never-ending questions regarding their match so I decided to save it for a later time. Naturally, however, such a start to the third day of encounters made an impossible standard for the other members of his party to meet.
While I still watched for something interesting- and indeed saw something interesting, the encounters only lasted until noon. Through it all, I remained in the library. Throughout the evening and most of the night, I scanned all the Tales and all the Paths. Once done, I migrated to our private training room for my obligatory routine and awoke the next day to repeat the same process with the Tomes while Ed casually finished off a Naga.
It was interesting to see his fighting style unchanged after so much training. However, I was sure that would change come next year when he began making his own enchantments. Like me, I was sure he had a long list of ideas and blueprints he couldn’t wait to test out. Possibly even more so, considering that was the only Class he was pursuing. Naturally, he’d be able to make most if not all of them come next year. I, however, would have at least three Classes, not counting The Monk class I wished to pursue. Even if I were to assume I could use my Doppelganger to level up in one of them, that still left three to develop over the course of a year. And so, I was going to need a plan. However, there was only so much planning I could do until I learned what Classes I had and understood what needed doing to level up in them. So with that in mind, I decided to tinker with my apps while the other matches got underway.
The first of the encounters was focused on Mary Farmer. A basic girl with a basic name who possessed Cotton and Acid Magic. She struggled against a large type of hairy goblin- a bearbug. As things went, most of my interest lay in the creature and after learning enough about it, my mind moved to my apps. Specifically Terranaut.
The many tales I scanned suggested that mage towers had the capacity to either be permanently set into the ground for more real estate or retain their ability to shrink to a portable size. While the precise method to ‘set’ a tower and the pros and cons of each were vastly a mystery, I elected to design something in between. Something with the portability of a traveling tower and the space of a permanent one. In the end, it was a mobile home that would remain high in the sky. An enchanted fortress for me and my squad that would remain suspended far above each country, continent, or realm I visited. A round castle, plain in features. A hollow moon.
My moon.
The first of many.
Holding that thought, I left the library for a quick smoke break and came back to see a dwarven woman taking the screens. Forgruna Drakehorne was her name. Her game was the same as any other dwarf my eyes have seen fight. An unmoving stance, loud bellows, and thunderous blows. While hardly entertaining, I took a seat that would give me a nice view of the match should something interesting arise and returned to my moon business. This time for my Legions.
I first opened the map in my Eternal Eye and focused on the route I plotted across the Mortal Plane to change it once again. While subject to change once more, the method of exploration I was altering now would not be changed. Instead of having my undead ceaselessly march across the lands as Grandpa Lich had done, my Legions were going to rain from the skies in choice locales and take it from there. Thus with that in mind, I went realm by realm, increasing the magnification until the fog that represented unexplored territory began to appear. Each region along my path was then divided into quadrants. And then further into sectors, zones, sections, and finally areas of operation that would be assigned to each squad, platoon, company, battalion, and division to be explored in a systematic, simultaneous order.
While vast, these planet-sized regions were still tiny fractions of the overall realms I was to explore. My route carried us around Betrarth, for instance. From the first region near the southwestern coast, closest to Maru, I envisioned us traveling counter-clockwise around the continent until we reached the fourth region on the southeastern coast. Then we’d cut towards the fifth at the center of the continent before pushing south towards the Steam Line to do it all over again. But even that was hardly a percent of Betrarth’s overall surface area, and the same principle applied to every other realm we were to explore. Vagua. The White Wall. The Inner Reaches. Nonus. Youtera. There would be virtually endless places to explore even after I left those realms. That equated to the need for what essentially amounted to fast travel. Fast travel for me, my allies, and, most importantly, my legions. But I also wanted my legions to retain permanence, so I decided that each of them would have moons of their own. Floating islands above each realm, acting as the headquarters for that legion and a link to the imperial capital. Also projected to be a moon. But one unlike any other.
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Naturally, I was so far down the rabbit hole at that point that I hardly took a glance at Elurial’s match. Not that the half-high orc showed any new skills other than refined techniques. Her match did, however, serve to make me remember that the majority of my legionaries would be unpowered. Able to evolve once I obtained my own divine tree, and capable of manipulating the elements, but little else. Initially, that issue was meant to be solved with enchantments. But I wanted to take it further. I wanted my legionaries to be the pinnacle of existence. Demigods. The only way to do that was to augment them. Cybernetically, Genetically, and Magically.
To do that, I used the standard sensory implants used outside and what was known of the Empress’ might, the Saturnian Knights, to add a slew of folders to Lapland and got to tinkering. It was overkill, but overkill was needed if my troops were to freely explore these realms. If they were to oppose anyone or anything standing in their way, they needed any upgrade I could give them. And I could give them a lot. The problem was the infrastructure needed to bring nanotechnology, AI, and automation into this world, magical or otherwise.
I had the blueprints for everything- all of the Starfarer’s Archives were tucked away in my Eternal Eye. I only had to build it. That was the problem, however. Building it was a monumental task. But once the work was done, even the lowest of my troops would be superhuman. Even the boots would have skin that could stop arrows and bones incapable of being shattered. Their muscles would be augmented far beyond their station and so too would their senses. They would have everything. And so too would my undead. Every skeleton and zombie would have boron-carbide bones or would be powder-coated with metals- adamantine, hopefully. I envisioned hinged ribs on my skelly boys for them to store anything from poison gas to explosives in their torsos. I designed enchantment-infused spines and feet that would grant them the ability to fly and walk on walls and more.
Both sides of my legions, living and dead, would be just as unfuckwithable as I would be. And my empire would be untouchable. Or rather, unreachable. Hidden inside a divine domain I was to create once I became a God; or if I didn’t, then in the void of deep space. Either way, I designed the imperial capital to be composed of floating islands. Drifting mountains, continental in scale, and self-sufficient to the highest order.
It took all through Ritrix Mildbluff and Zeke Smeal's fights to design the core structure out of what was currently Hill Base, though it was always subject to change. Their fights, on the other hand, were rather interesting. Well, Ritrix’s was. She fought a large type of wolf, one too large to be a dire wolf but too small to be a warg. It was almost human-like in appearance, but certainly not a werewolf. I wasn’t even sure if werewolves existed in this universe, with there being no moons yet.
Regardless, the fight wasn’t so much of a fight as it was a spectacle. Armed with a lute and a torch, Ritrix came through the portal serenading the land with a peaceful lullaby. A magical tune, infused with mana to lull the beast asleep. Then, rather hilariously, she snuck around the creature. Pouring oil around and atop its fur while her lullaby shifted into a bolero of burning and searing and shredding flesh until nothing remained.
Then, she lit her torch.
I couldn’t help myself. The lyrics were perfect, the timing was impeccable. I spilled laughter out into the otherwise vacant library, enough to nearly keel over and howl in joyous pain like the creature she’d killed with pure skill. And then Smeal came on screen to give a lackluster performance, killing the mood enough to bring me back on track.
I wound up finishing my task just as Smeal’s long-winded match came to an end and the literal son of light’s hand appeared on screen, a small black ring of stone wrapped around his middle finger.
“Interesting.” I leaned forward to study the screen closer. In turn, it zoomed out enough to focus on Lance’s body, crouched into a low stance while his eyes darted around what looked to be an abandoned town. “Now why’d they nerf you?”
It was either because few things were immune to his light or because they thought he was that strong. If the latter was the case, there was a strong possibility of me wearing a negstone ring as well. But even then, I wouldn’t be without power.
As my father once said, even in the brightest light, there exists darkness. Thus even with negstone, I could use the darkness around me. And so too could Lance with light.
He appeared before what seemed to be a hulking ogre with red, almost glowing skin and long black hair that flowed down his back to a primitive loincloth of leather and iron straps. Armed with a crude shard of metal that functioned as a greatsword, it turned its wrinkled demonic visage towards Lance and let out a shockwave of nefarious red energy in the form of a scream before it crouched low and disappeared.
It reappeared next to Lance in the blink of an eye, mid-swing, and snarling while Lance casually ducked out of the way at near-lightspeed to kick the beast in the abdomen.
While his movements were spectacularly fast, I quickly grew bored with the battle up until the point Lance reached overhead to grasp onto the light itself. Then, holding it against his chest, he pulled his fist apart to form the light into a sword. And then another epiphany hit me.
I still knew nothing of magic.