Out on the surface of Lacrima, Pef examined the house of Shiru and their belongings.

Not that a mystery of this scale would be solved by a smart detective finding a hidden clue. On the contrary, Pef expected to find nothing amiss. And he did. The house was clean and perfectly normal.

In fact, the life and everything about this Shiru was perfectly normal. For a smart man living among not so smart people.

Conflicts with other kids, good grades, mixed reports from teachers...Pef could hardly imagine living a childhood again among regular children.

'That drawing on the east wall. It's a Black Magma strangling vine. And that thing being strangled is a bone, not a dead tree.' the glove mused aloud.

'So, it's an infection then.' Pef replied with a shrug.

That wasn't even important. An infection with something that could only affect non-standard humans...in a universe filled with qi users.

Exactly the opposite of the Worm brain plague, which was designed to infect qi users and transmute them.

Actually...perhaps that was the clue. Same origin perhaps?

'Compare the brain worms and the nanites.' Pef asked on a hunch.

After a long minute, the glove sighed audibly. 'Same technology, I would guess. Protein re-sequencing, femtometer scale engineering, stem cells modifications, bio-electricity source...no qi arrays, no formations, no pattern of cultivation at all.'

Pef nodded to himself. Someone was playing the same game from the other end, using advanced biotech to create biological vectors able to influence the qi, and yet staying off radar, giving out no emissions of traceable qi.

'Can we copy this tech for ourselves?' Pef asked his trusted orange glove.

'Of course. In fact, we can even incorporate these stomach bacteria as an Awakening scheme. Mass-produce them, and distribute them among the population...we could have a billion cultivators, not just a million.' the glove said with a slightly interested voice.

Pef sighed. So, that was it. A trap, presented as a potent cure and expecting dissemination. A billion infected, just waiting to be taken over.

'But we cannot control these things with qi. And their maker can. Probably using some form of technopathy...' Pef replied in a slow voice, while Blinking himself back to his capital.

Only Lia was home, the other women roaming around, looking for new places to colonize.

"Hey Lia!"

"Pef! Finished constructing that Taichi method?" His wife asked with a loving tone, and come to hug him tightly.

He patted her back and then Lia's muscled posterior. "Yes, my love. I also found something very dangerous. Like these."

Pef continued, holding his palm out and presenting a dozen nanites enveloped in a telekinetic barrier.

Lia's eyes flashed as she took over the field and began examining the tiny machines with her Maker senses and ability.

"It's like the worm plague...but inert." she mused out loud, then twirled a finger to produce a thin glass vial holding a creamy liquid.

"Yuan's tears?" Pef asked in surprise.

"It is the best cure in the universe, hubby. We all have a vial of life-saving tears." Lia replied with a tiny shrug, and drew out a single globe of liquid, barely visible.

Pef blinked. He didn't have a vial... Anyway, not the time to complain, right now.

The nanites were pushed into the liquid tear, and vanished with a spark.

"It's a plague alright. Not sure what it does, but seems to be able to survive some extreme conditions, like heat or acid." Lia reported as she reviewed the test in her mind.

"Yep. They grow inside the stomach. And they can fake a qi meridian, in large numbers."Pef answered with a frown, then confiscated the tiny bead of floating tears and moved it inside his inner world. His avatar self would know what to do.

"Okay, this does seem like a potential threat then. Sending a Legion-wide notification, to all Soldiers and higher ranks." Lia said with a determined voice, and began composing her qi messages.

Pef teleported for a minute into his Monarch office, scanned the officials and their documents with his glove and fled at speed. Sure, the title was nice, but he wouldn't actually do the work of a monarch, ruling over a billion people with 10 billion problems.

He could instead pay a hundred appointed Ministers to do it for him. And perhaps they even do a better job, as they were trained and had time to consider all those problems.

Sure, most of them were normals, and had to be replaced every 30 years or so, due to death. But new people always arrived to replace them.

The trappings of power always attracted people, and it seemed it was something of an honor to have served as a Minister, especially for normals.

However, there were a dozen or so cultivators that stayed as administrators for the past thousand years, and formed the backbone of the Monarchy. They even seem to like their jobs, for some strange reason.

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Pef Blinked away, reaching the General's Institute of Higher Qi learning, or the standard magic academy on the planet.

A hundred Saints as teachers and mentors, a few Legion Deities as overseers, and a sometime itinerant visitor known as Lady Winter.

Pef landed on the couch next to Cellia, and glanced at the mind-jade she was reading. Reports on the exploration of Phi-09 galaxy, by Ji Firalli.

Pef had read that report as well. Forty-five planets able to support life, and a thousand more terraformable.

"Dropping by, again?" the stern woman asked him in a glacial tone.

"Why not? Visiting friends is a basic human right..." Pef explained with a joyful tone, and hugged Cellia with one arm.

The Ice Goddess glanced at him with an annoyed look. "You're still not forgiven for recruiting Artus in your Legion."

Pef shrugged and leaned into her side. "Artus was an ignorant shaman with delusions of godhood. Don't tell me you don't see it."

Cellia grit her teeth and set down the green mind-jade. "Perhaps. Just like I am just a lowly country witch, who has lived for too long..."

"Well, it's never too late to start reading and educating yourself. Now both Artus and Volcanis can serve a greater purpose, and without damaging the environment with glaciations and heat waves."

"Damn idiot. Just because you're right...you don't have to be smug about it." Cellia muttered in a tiny voice.

"How far along are you, to become One with the World?" he asked, referring to her sword arts cultivation.

The blonde goddess shook her head, making her blue light blue hair highlights shimmer. "I can draw out eight blades now. So perhaps a few years..."

Pef held his palm out, and drew just four telekinetic swords out of his fingers. "Look Cellia. I only have four swords, and I'm halfway towards the next stage. One with Heaven. The number isn't that important."

Cellia sighed. "You don't count, with your cheating glove. We, the other people have to take it all step by step. No jumping stages, just because some spirit makes it so."

'Hey! I'm not cheating...just expediting things, a little.' the glove complained in outrage.

Pef chuckled. 'So, my orange glove how likely is it, for a 12 years old boy to beat up a Core beast, with his tiny fists?

'That's...well. You needed an impulse. It worked out, didn't it?' the spirit replied in fake shame.

Pef kissed Cellia on her cheek, and Blinked away before her retaliatory strike could hit him back.

This time, he reached orbit first, then Blinked again into the outer atmosphere of this system's gas giant.

'Zeus is a stupid name for this planet.' the glove commented as Pef began descending into the hellish depths.

A huge thunder bolt crashed into Pef's body as he passed through a gigantic methane cloud.

'Zeus is the god of thunder. Works out fine, right?' Pef muttered back, as he circulated his qi and absorbed the energy of the lightning.

Layer by layer, the atmosphere of the gas giant became denser and hotter.

However, Pef was now a High Divinity, a 3rd Tier God. He could survive even inside a sun, and did.

The gas giant was merely a test bed, where he refined various types of qi energy. From lightning to heat and ice, metal and water from metallic hydrogen, gravity and wind, and lastly his sword skills.

Deep inside the gas giant, moving a sword was a billion times harder, and only a Saint ranked sword would resist getting crushed by pressure and heat.

But telekinetic blades were basically planar forcefields, not really impeded by the material world.

Pef opened both his palms, and extended 8 telekinetic blades of his own. Sure, he had reached One with the World with only two swords, but that wasn't enough for the next stage.

He would need a hundred swords at least, before trying to achieve One with the Heaven stage.

And if he had tricked Cellia a little, it was for her own good. Now she would stop having this block about sword numbers and focus on the important part.

Just like he had. Wisdom.

But wisdom without power was also useless.

Pef set aside wisdom for a bit, and focused on gaining more power.

Hands out, he slashed around, with one hand, and defended with another. A million forms in quick succession.

Slowly a ninth blade emerged on top of is finger. Then a tenth, on the other hand.

Ten blades! It seemed a huge achievement, but Pef also remembered his Oracle wife having ten telekinetic blades at Saint rank. He was four orders of magnitude dumber than her...not a godly incarnation of sword talent.

Perhaps a thousand swords, to compensate for his meager skills?

Pef spun around in another set of sword katas, moving at impossible speed, though the metal-dense atmosphere.

Two more telekinetic blades formed, after another million repetitions.

In his inner character page, the sword stats climbed another percent. Knowing yourself to the last decimal was a bit of a cheat, but not that much. Not when he would have to conquer entire universes.