Even though Sonata had plenty of air, Walker held his breath when he got back.

That update would surely have consequences, and he just had to hope nobody would know what was coming because it was only going to be the first of many. Every system that would hold rewards in the future, with the exception of certain milestones, would tie back into the Mac system. His giant metal friend was going to hold all of Symphony's future inside of him. With that thought in mind, Walker hopped over to where his old Creation instrument used to be. Instead of a sizeable amount of Foundation Stones that he'd set up long ago, he found a large black wall built around the area.

Scratching his head, he circled once and found a door. He opened it while still trying to figure out why they'd placed one in the first place. A piercing light suddenly blinded his eyes. Thousands of Foundation Stones came pouring out of the room, each glittering with barely contained magic and further reinforcing the brightness of the area.

"What the fuck!"

It was supposed to make one a day, not this many. Virgil seemed to think each of these was a magical bomb. Something you could crush and cause a huge magical infusion in the area, and now, he had thousands of them. What would happen if someone just blew up a single one here. Would it create a cascading failure, where each caused the next stone's explosion to go off? What would happen to anyone nearby should that happen?

Knowing he needed to move fast, Walker hopped into the Item system to speak with the AI and find out what was going on.

The still relatively new advanced AI tilted its head when he questioned it.

"You set the Foundation Stone production with the basic AI system to create them once a certain magical threshold is reached. Specifically, you stated "Please begin producing them each day." I've followed continued to follow your command to the letter."

Walker threw his hands up, "Well fuck!"

"Is this not what you wanted Walker?"

"No.....I like John better." He said.

He clicked out of the Item system and found himself blinded again. Walker clicked on the Mac system after he came back to his senses, then chose the new donate button that had appeared. Looking it over, he highlighted every foundation stone in his view and sent them all away. Then he looked at Mac's chat to see what his reaction would be.

He of course had to scroll past several hundred random observations Mac had made as he floated around the sun.

Super cool that asteroids can do that!

Whoa! There's this giant thing way out there. It's huge! Compared to me....I don't even compare!

It moves!

Maybe I should float over that way, see what's going on.

Hold on....what's this stuff.

Did somebody put something in my stomach?

Whooaaa! They tickle kind of.

Walker clicked on the chat area and wrote to his friend.

Hey Mac, I sent some stuff over for you to hold onto. They're called Foundation Stones. Please make sure nobody can just grab anything they want from you, okay? Only systems, myself, or this guy you'll one day meet named Virgil. Okay?

Who are you?

It's Walker, Mac. I'm the only one who can talk to you like this.

Super cool, Walker! Okay! They feel super weird.

Weird, how?

I don't know. Like, they're changing me somehow. Feels funny. All of my metal feels...stronger. Like, more compressed somehow.

Remembering what Virgil had said when they first started creating Mana Trees, Walker had an idea. The dark black wall in front of him, which had previously been used to house the Foundation Stones, stared at him. Walker stepped up to it.

Wrapping his hands in darkness, he cocked his arm back and threw a light punch at the wall. A thudding sound echoed out, and for once, when he connected it was him he bounced back. He started to shake his hand to wear away the remnant pain punching a hard stone wall gave him. Calling out to his Icon, he pulled the shimmering Morningstar out. Walker swung it a few times to build up momentum and flung the spiked ball at the wall. A second loud echo struck Sonata, but when he looked closely at the wall, he found only minor damage.

"Son of a bitch."

The magic had inundated the wall so greatly that not even he could really hurt it. That was great and terrible news, all at once. It meant that as Symphony and Sonata, from that point, grew more and more inundated in magic, people wouldn't be able to damage anything. It was sort of the point he had wanted. Walker and Virgil had built a powerful steel undermesh beneath Symphony for exactly this reason. To protect it from future Slicers and anything else that came this way. Even Sonata had a metal underlayer nowadays.....but the Conservatory didn't. That was something that needed to be rectified. While he considered that he had more work for Virgil to do, Walker looked over and noticed that grass was peeking out from within the small building.

They'd built a box around the Foundation Stones but left the bottom out, meaning the magic from the Foundation Stones had been soaking into the grass all of this time. Walking over, he carefully tried to pull the grass up. It came easily, parting with barely any sound, as if it wanted to be taken. He noticed it had shifted from the standard green found across Sonata to an off-turquoise as he looked at it. Rather than use reveal and burn more of his slowly regenerating origin, he cast identify.

Magically Enhanced Verdure

A piece of vegetation thoroughly saturated in powerful magical potential, it can be used in different alchemical productions to create magical potions.

Walker's mind went back into dictionary mode. He found an old memory explaining that verdure meant fresh vegetation. Having an idea of what that meant, Walker collected all of the grass while considering the ramifications of the Overwhelming Mana Trees on Sonata and the basic Mana Trees everywhere else. It seemed that the non-living would be reinforced by magical potential over time. He was naturally curious how it was doing so, but even in his own time dilation he was on a short schedule. It needed investigating when he finally had a breather.

Walker started messaging Mac again.

Those tickling things inside of you are going to strengthen you, Mac. After a while, almost nothing will be able to hurt you.

Cool! Thank you for looking out for me Walker!

You're welcome, Mac; I gotta go.

Okay! Thanks again!

Walker had a funny thought as he clicked out of the Mac system. A moment later, he clicked back in.

One more thing, Mac. You'll have a friend see this chat in a moment. I'm sure he'd love to have a long and serious chat.

Yayyy! More friends.

Walker gave himself a manly giggle as he assigned Virgil to the Mac system. He clicked on Territories and popped up in front of John. The Cardinal looked at him with a surprised chirp, "Hello, Creator."

"Hello, John. How are you doing?"

"I am well, as is Neus there," he said, nodding to the chair next to him.

Walker looked over and discovered the previous subsystem assistant. He'd gained his promotion to full assistant not long before Walker had disappeared for a time. "Whoops, sorry Neus, I didn't see you there."

The green squirrel waved a hand, "It is no problem, Creator. May I ask what you are doing here? Is it perhaps time to get the territories started?" He said with a tinge of excitement in his voice.

Walker shook his head. "Not yet, pal. I'm afraid you and John are going to have to wait another few months. But soon. I do, however, have this," he said, showing the green and blue grass in his hands. He placed it on a table that popped up in front of him. A moment later, Walker watched as John took the Verdure collection.

"Interesting," John said as his screen populated with the information he'd discovered. "I've noticed that I am now able to store living objects in stasis, although I'm not sure where I'm placing and taking items from anymore."

Walker coughed, "It's...um....somewhere safe. You shouldn't have to worry about it."

"I see..." The Cardinal replied. A moment later, he changed his tune: "How are you, Walker?"

"I'm fine, thank you."

"I ask because you've gone through so many different physiological changes recently. For instance, your arm hair-"

"I'm fine," Walker repeated with a smile, "But thank you again for thinking about me."

"What about arm hair?" Neus asked from beside him.

"Walker," John replied after a moment, "All of our lives are tied to you. Should you lose the next battle, or not make it through the protocol to the finish line, none of us would be here. Myself, my fellow AIs, and your assistants would all be reabsorbed into the protocol. Your creations, including the new humans you've focused on so much lately, would be destroyed. The resources used to create them are returned by a member of the psi protocol. I do not ask for yourself, necessarily, but for the preservation of all that you have done thus far. It isn't every Creator who has a chance to spend more than a year building their world through the alpha protocol."

Walker hadn't considered it from that angle before. He recalled his conversation with Virgil at the beginning, where he'd stated that if Walker should fail he would be reabsorbed by the alpha protocol. But, now that he had monsters, sapients, and a plethora of different programs and systems running at once, they'd all be taken away and "returned" to the protocol. It was a terrifying moment.

For just a second, he considered not making monsters or humans anymore. His confidence, which had recently seen a major lifting through the growth of his soul and empowerment of his awakening, wavered. But the second quickly passed, and he gave the Cardinal a smile.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Don't worry about me losing, John. I'll always be better than them."

The Cardinal paused all movement, then nodded, "I believe you."

That moment over, Walker looked at Neus, who was fascinated with his arms. "Neus......," the green squirrel didn't look at him, "NEUS!"

"Huh, what?"

"I need you and John to work on something together. I'm about to create an event system that includes rewarding people with points, but first, I have to create a reward system. I can't do any of that without first having some rewards to give. I need you two to brainstorm together and develop a few that our Founders would want to strive for. Can you do that for me? Your focus would obviously be on preliminary territorial upgrades."

"Yes...yes, of course."

"Thanks, buddy," With a nod to John, Walker stepped out of the Territory system.

Once he re-entered Sonata, he closed the indestructible building door and quickly hopped over to the crafting district.

Walker moved into Heph's smithy, for once finding no Founders around the God of Crafting. The large bearded man held a piece of metal with tongs in one hand, while the other was held up against it. When he moved around the corner further to see what the bearded man was doing, he found the Primigenial's other hand pulsing in red and orange coloring as if it had just been taken out of a forge. He guessed their powers were returning even faster than anyone had expected.

When the scarred god noticed him looking, he placed the burning hand against the metal, shaping it a little bit at a time, then put it down on a nearby anvil with a last look at it.

"What can I do for you?" he said, putting the tongs away on a nearby hook.

"I'm trying to come up with some rewards for the Founders; that way, the Event system will hold more value in their eyes. I was hoping you'd have some ideas about what we can do for them."

"I've got much more than ideas, lad. Come on, let's go see Caddy."

"Caddy?"

"Aye," Heph replied with a smile. They quickly exited the smithy, heading toward a small house in the near distance, "The little fella has all of my most precious possessions nowadays. He was a great gift, and I thank yeh."

"Oh, umm...you're welcome."

The two men entered Heph's squat home. Just past the entryway was a small opening leading toward a room smelling of coal and copper. Beyond that was a table holding some fruit and little knickknacks in odd shapes. Overall, it was a cute place with only one glaring issue.

Everything was painted in pink.

Walker struggled not to show his revulsion to the entirely pink interior decorating, but the god of Crafting wasn't watching him anyway. Following behind the burly man, they went over to a door set aside in the corner. Walker heard a muffled voice drifting through the walls as they got closer.

"Oh, this is quite nice, yes. You're a wonderful dresser, Caddy."

Two thumps sounded out of wood dropping on more wood.

"I wonder if he would like it with...." The sound cut off momentarily as Heph yelled, "Woman! Are ya decent?"

A brief pause held the air, "Noooooooooooo!" Walker heard what he assumed was Aphrodite call back in a titillating voice.

Heph stomped a foot on the floor, "Well, get decent, we got the Creator here, and he's too busy for yah to be delaying us."

The sounds of more thumping wood rang out, and then the door opened a crack, some blonde hair spilling over the divide, "Ah, you weren't kidding, darling. Is he here to join us for some....fun?"

Heph smacked a meaty hand to his forehead, "Yah know if Athena heard that ya'd not sit right for a week!"

"Mmmmmmm." She replied, not seeming to dislike the idea.

Heph looked over at Walker, whose cheeks were a slight red, then turned back to his wife, "Yah get dressed and get out of here!"

Some quick shuffling occurred, the door cracked a little too wide for Walker's comfort as his eyes caught a full view of the goddess of love changing, then the barely contained woman exited the room in all her splendor. With such a small outfit on, he had no idea why it took her so long to get dressed.

"Come along, Caddy dear. Let us go and see what prizes we might gain with the day."

Heph held up a hand, "No, no, leave Caddy. He's important for what we're doing here. Ya can gain yur worship another time."

Aphrodite, mimicking her husband, stomped a small barefoot into the barely affected ground, then hiked up the bottom of her dress and quickly exited the room. But, not before throwing a wink at Walker while eyeing him up and down.

The god of crafting caught it all of course. Walker assumed he had to have excellent spatial awareness and eyes in the back of his head in order to keep all of the Founders from accidentally hurting themselves.

Pushing past the moment, Heph turned to Caddy, "How ya doing, me boy?"

The living chest bounced from side to side on its wooden legs, thumps ringing out clearly in the room. Noticing Walker, it quickly bounced over to him and rubbed against his leg. The Creator laughed and reached down, rubbing the top of its lid as it slowly opened and closed.

"Hey Caddy! I've missed you buddy." Walker said with unrestrained happiness in his voice.

The chest of course didn't respond, only continued to enjoy the affection being granted to it.

"He's a good boy, that Caddy. I repeat, he was a great boon for me life. Not to mention meh blasted wife's." Heph sighed, "but yah didn't want to hear about me marital troubles. Caddy, attention!"

The chest heard the god of crafting and hopped back a few steps, his lid falling all the way back.

"Ihve been training him a bit, although Aph tries to corrupt him any chance the damned woman gets." Heph took his hands from his sides, holding them out in front of him, "Item fifty-seven!"

A pair of boots flew out of the chest's mouth, Heph catching them with his waiting hands. He smiled at Caddy before handing them over to Walker, who immediately identified them.

Flying Boots of Speed (Superior)

Item Tier: 5

Crafted by: Hephaestus, the god of Crafting

Description: This item was created using a monster hide seeped in magical energy and designed for use by those with an adventurous spirit. Hermes, the god of travel and messengers, further modified it to increase the movement speed of anyone who wears it.

"Flying Boots?"

Heph nodded with pride, "Aye. Hermes owed meh a few favors, and once our powers started coming back, we discovered that the systems yah've built into this place let us put some of our soul into em. It ain't easy and takes a bit of time, but yah see what yah've got there."

Walker looked at the black boots in his hands. They looked like any other set of boots one might find, with the unique exception of a pair of wings glowing on their sides.

"How did Hermes modify them?"

Heph scratched his chin, "It ain't hard. Yah just take a piece of your soul and, whatever the influence it may have, transfers over. Yah do need to push a bit, though."

That gave Walker a series of new ideas for how things worked. Before, he'd been compressing souls into constructs, but with the impressive power of his own soul, what would happen if he started doing this as well?

Filing that away in his mind, he asked, "Do you have any more items like this? As well as just serviceable items that are solid enough for the Founders to use during their trial in the Conservatory?"

Heph laughed, "Of course, who do ya think you be talking to?" The god of crafting looked over at Caddy, who started bouncing back and forth from the attention, "Give meh numbers four, fifty-six, seventy-two, and two-hundred and fourteen." He quickly held up a hand before Caddy could start to regurgitate his requests, "On the ground please."

Caddy turned to the side and spit out a sword, taking away Walker's question of why Heph didn't want it shot at him, as well as a bow, a quiver, and ten bagged collections of variously sized leathers.

Heph showed each to Walker who began identifying them as they went.

Sharpened Sword (Fine)

Item Tier: 4

Crafted by: Hephaestus, the god of Crafting

Description: This item was created using an Ethereal and Faer ore alloy. It is deadly sharp and will dull at a slower-than-usual pace.

Exquisite Bow of Great Accuracy (Exquisite)

Item Tier: 6

Crafted by: Hephaestus, the god of Crafting

Description: This item was created using a branch from a Mana Tree soaked in magically inundated water and then carved into the likeness you see in front of you. Any arrows fired from this will move faster and gain an imbuement of magical discharge upon landing. Artemis, goddess of the hunt, further modified this item to assist the hunter who holds it with great accuracy.

Tough Quiver (Improved)

Item Tier: 3

Crafted by: Hephaestus, the god of Crafting

Description: This item was created using an unusually tough amount of monster hide, then sewn together using a fine thread of ethereal ore by a master craftsman.

"Damn Heph," Walker said after reviewing each of them, "You haven't been playing around."

"Yah don't say?" Heph said with a large belly-slapping laugh, "I love me work, Creator. Nothing like taking a piece of raw material and forming it into something that can last. It's like having a new child in my arms each and every time I've finished."

"I feel the same way about my systems. Speaking of which, give me a moment please."

"Yah don't want to look at the leather's?" He asked with a pouty look on his face.

Walker waved him away, deciding to test something out. Now that he'd identified each, they glowed in his eyes. When he'd created the item system, he'd imbued it with a basic valuing system, and the results were showing that to him now. The boots gave off a green color, while the sword was yellow. That fit what they'd originally intended within the interconnected item system that John and Neus ran.

Making a decision, he said, "I'll be right back."

"Sure, I'll be waiting here," Heph said, sitting in a nearby chair and calling Caddy over for some quick pets.

Walker picked up the quiver and stepped into the Territory system. He needed to have a quick conversation with the two people controlling the largest created system in Symphony. They held a spirited debate for a time, until the AI put his metaphorical foot down.

"I don't think it can be done," John said for the second time. "Each of those items imbued with the soul would have to take even more soul-power to reproduce. That'd mean having the imbuer there every single time you need to make a new copy and somehow connecting to their soul during the process. It's not possible!"

"Can't we make...I don't know...I soul bank of some kind?"

Walker's chest heated up for a moment, giving him some confidence in what he was saying, but John shook his head, "No. From what I can understand, and please keep in mind it's what you understood when first creating me, the power of the Awakened is chiefly internalized. Their power is their power alone, with the only exception being the initial awakening of a new entity."

Walker paced for a few minutes, going through some things in his mind. When nothing came from it, he held up the quiver, "This is an item without any imbuement. I'm donating it." He placed it on the table and John pulled it into the Item system.

"Done."

"Please give me two more back."

Two quivers popped up in front of him on the table. He lifted them up and looked at John, "How much magical potential did it take to produce those."

The Cardinal did something for a moment and then spoke up, "Not as much as you would think; however, that is because it is draining directly from your resources rather than the magic in the area."

"Shit." Walker replied, making a face as he did not like all of his resources being drained.

Neus commented from the side, "Why not do this, Creator? You can pull directly from your resources for anything you want to be created. For anything a different person wants, make it pull from their magical surroundings."

Walker snapped his fingers, "Good idea, Neus. Make it happen, John."

"I will."

While he tinkered with that, Walker put one of the quivers down and held the other in front of him. Imbuing his hands with darkness, which he felt was starting to get stretched thin, he put them on the quiver. Remembering how he made the system work as well as what Heph had said, he put his emotional intent into the power of the soul held in his hands. He felt, rather than saw, his Icon exit his chest and float over his shoulder. A moment later, a not inconsiderate drain hit him. He stumbled for a moment then identified the item in his hands.

Exquisite Regenerating Quiver of Toughness (Exquisite)

Item Tier: 6

Crafted by: Hephaestus, the god of Crafting

Description: This item was created using an unusually tough amount of monster hide, then sewn together using a fine thread of ethereal ore by a master craftsman. Walker, the Holder of Origin, further modified this item to create and regenerate arrows at a slow rate.

Looking at the quiver, he saw that it now had a cyan coloring to it. Nothing else had changed to the naked eye except for a small arrowhead slowly growing from the bottom.

Walker pumped a fist as he looked into it, "Fuck yeah. Only..."

Neus looked over, "What?"

"It's not tier seven. I know we intentionally made it difficult to reach, but still. I would think that a tough ass quiver that makes its own arrows would really get up there as far as the ranks are concerned."

"There must be something else that you are missing," John commented.

"Yeah, and I don't have enough time to look things over. Okay, one more test."

Walker put the tier six-item down and picked up the other Quiver. After looking it over, he focused for a moment and imbued it with a small amount of darkness this time.

Quiver of Extreme Toughness (Exquisite)

Item Tier: 6

Crafted by: Hephaestus, the god of Crafting

Description: This item was created using an unusually tough amount of monster hide, then sewn together using a fine thread of ethereal ore by a master craftsman. Walker, the Holder of Origin, further modified this item by infinitesimally shrinking it with his soul, further increasing its durability.

"Okay," He put it down on the table, "John, absorb this."

"We talked about this Walker," John said in a reproving tone of voice.

"Yeah, but I need to know what'll happen."

The Cardinal sighed, then absorbed the quiver into the inter-connected Item System.

"A copy please," Walker said, wondering why the AI hadn't done so already.

A moment later a large puddle of melted black goo with a startling likeness to ice cream appeared on the table, spreading and slowly dripping off the side. Walker tried to identify it, but nothing came up other than question marks.

"Well," He said as he looked at the mess dripping onto the floor, "At least it didn't explode."

"What?" Neus said, shrinking in his chair.