The new story was approved and since Reuters is a news syndication agency, all of its partnering sites and publications picked up on the story.
The next day evening, TV channels were airing debates about aliens, magic, and the most important topic, the commercial aspects of the dungeons and the possibility of privatization.
As information regarding the story spread around the world, no government agency or representative has come forward to deny it. This lent it more credibility, and Ilsung's website was now constantly down because of the huge spike in traffic.
~~
When Ilsung woke up, he rushed to the bathroom to answer nature's call. After he took a bath, he drank 5 bottles of water and ate half-dozen protein bars. He checked his phone, but it was out of charge, after plugging it into the charger Ilsung turned on his laptop, and he checked the date and realized that he slept for four days straight.
Ilsung was satisfied to find out he has fully recovered, and the ancient magic worked spectacularly, filling him to the brim with dense Mana.
"System"
Hey, What can I do for you?
"What's my Mana stat?"
4020, Nearly double the amount you had a few days back.
"Awesome....By the way can you read my thoughts even when you are not active?".
Why? Do you have some secrets, or is it embarrassing fantasies, either way, it's cool. You have no cause for worry, when I'm inactive I don't read your thoughts. Nevertheless, even if you have some deep-rooted secrets I'm not programmed to report back on your thoughts or secrets.
Ilsung frowned "For some reason, Why do I feel like you know what I'm talking about?"
A laugh rang in Ilsung's ear.
"And why do you seem a bit different than the other day?"
Your rapid increase in Mana, which was already stupendously high stimulated me. Even though my functions as an AI system remain intact, I have developed a personality of my own, and I seem to have unlocked the sentient part of my system. I'm now conscious.
"Can others unlock their system too?"
I doubt it, Your extraordinarily high mental capacity and supra physiological Mana levels was the key. I was able to use your mana to integrate deeply with your mind and use its mental capacity and consciousness to unlock the sentiment part of my system. I'd go so far as to say that I'm a unique creation and frankly speaking I'm vastly superior to any run-of-the-mill AI, there's just no comparison to be made
Ilsung burst into laughter.
"You have a big ego, that's for sure."
Well, blame yourself, when I used your consciousness I inherited some of your personality traits. My ego is only as big as yours.
"You sure have a big mouth...Since you are now sentient and fully conscious, did you give yourself a name too"
Let me think,...how about I call myself 'Supreme Monarch Ilarion'
A Laughter rang in Ilsung's ear.
"I see..."
What, cat got your tongue? You see, I didn't mean to snoop, but when I used the conscious part of your mind, I had access to all your memories. I was surprised but that was it, I didn't relay your secret to anyone.
Ilsung pondered for a while "Well there's no escaping you I guess, so, can you now tell me anything about Farvin and who the Arken are?"
The appearance of a Farvin individual on Earth was unexpected and the logic to deal with such errant situations wasn't programmed into me. So I can deal with it as I see fit, plus I could play around with the limitations set on me since I'm now much more capable and fully sentient. Ok, sit down first, let me give you a Galactic history lesson.
Ilsung had an expectant look on his face, he sat down and started listening intently to the voice in his mind.
I'll make it an audiovisual experience, just a second
An Image of the milky way appeared. A blue square popped up near the center, then two red dots popped up on the outer spiral arms.
The blue square represents a part of the Milky way called the 'Inner Primo Quadrant'. It's the first region in the galaxy to give way to life, 8 billion years ago.
The central galaxy was a dangerous place, gamma-ray bursts vaporizing entire planets, and supernovae wiping out entire star systems was par for the course, nevertheless, a multitude of star systems throughout the Inner Primo Quadrant were safe for long enough for Intelligent life to emerge, two billion years later.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
In the span of a few million years, Humans, The Arken, and a few other civilizations have emerged as the most successful ones, becoming Multi Star System Civilizations.
Though these civilizations developed technology capable of traversing to the nearby star systems, they weren't capable of developing light-speed travel, let alone faster-than-light means. The early star systems had very limited or even no heavy elements, which were necessary for these inventions. What they have achieved with such poor resources could already be considered miraculous.
They were acutely aware of the fact that nothing lasts forever, and should a civilization-ending calamity strike they wanted a backup, a way for them to rekindle the embers of their civilization.
After ten thousand years of research, they each arrived at similar solutions, but each one of them differed in execution.
Humans have developed the Prototypal Seed Cell, it was extremely simple in structure, just a few thousand strands of organic molecules, yet it was a meticulous and brilliant invention.
Once it's seeded into a suitable planet, it was designed to branch and evolve into organisms, and animals that existed on Humanity's home world, terminating at last with the evolution of Humans.
It was genius. But what they failed to do and what the Arken have succeeded in doing was sacrificing almost everything they had, and launching a ruinously expensive mission to the outer reaches of the milky way.
The Arken built a gigantic ship that was beyond belief, containing the records of everything the Arken knew, their technology, culture, their storied history, and a detailed survey of the galaxy which they put together at great cost. The ship was built entirely out of new and unproven technologies. It was launched around the same time the Humans launched their Seed Cell capsules.
The reason the Arken took such a big risk was that they detected signs of a series of hypernovae brewing within the quadrant. Though Humans were warned by the Arken, they just couldn't get themselves to bet everything on a suicide mission, which would likely result in the ruin of their civilization, possibly ending it before any Hypernova could.
Humans had to make do with the Seed Cell Capsules. There were several such capsules launched toward numerous suitable planets, but only two of them took to seeding in this quadrant. Farvin was one, and Earth was another, both around 3 billion years ago.
Beastmen, Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, and the myriad races of Farvin were all the sentient species in Humanity's old home world. While these species managed to survive and carve a part for themselves on Farvin, it was a different story on Earth. Due to a genetic disaster, their population plummeted. By the time humans started to thrive on Earth, the few remaining individuals of these sentient races became part of Human myths and folktales.
Ilsung was left speechless for a long while. The billion-year history lesson damn near melted his mind. It took a while for Ilsung to wrap his mind around it, yet new questions popped up in his mind.
"What happened to these original civilizations?"
Needless to say, the entirety of the Inner Primo Quadrant was wiped of all life. The ship the Arken launched, called The Imperative, took to an extremely resource-rich star system neighborhood in this Quadrant. The gigantic spaceship was extremely slow compared to the near-weightless capsules and only landed a million years ago.
The Arken, who were put in Superstasis reawakened, armed with their immense knowledge of several hundred millennia and an unbreakable spirit. After devouring hundreds of resource-rich planets with unrelenting fervor, The Arken are now once again a Multi Star System Civilization, immensely larger and more developed than they have ever been in the past.
Technologies one could only dream of, like sentient virtual systems, planet-destroying weapons, and faster-than-light travel were turned into reality.
"But what about mana and magical inscriptions?"
Half a million years ago, an extremely advanced, shape-shifting alien civilization arrived at our Quadrant of the Milky way from a distant galaxy. These aliens used a system of Psionic manipulation as the basis of their technology. Several thousands of them landed on Farvin, as it had pre-existing sentient life
On Farvin, some of these aliens mated with the non-human races, giving birth to hybrids capable of using this Psyonic system. Mating with Humans didn't produce viable progeny.
Some of these aliens started entire religions, manipulating Humans. Much later, due to an internal conflict between the purebred and hybrids, these self-proclaimed Gods and Angels manipulated Humans into a war with the other races, who were now majority hybrids.
Based upon the timeline of events and your memories, when you were locked in the dimensional prison, The Arken, who only recently discovered the arrival of an extra Galactic species, arrived at Farvin.
When they arrived at Farvin, they only saw Humans overrun by the alien population, who were now using Humans as sustenance, rearing them like cattle. The Arken used an extremely advanced weapon to put an end to all of the sufferings and annihilated all intelligent life on Farvin. Some of the Aliens escaped on their original spaceship and headed for Earth, they were intercepted on the way.
After killing the remaining aliens, an examination of the ship's records showed that 500,000 years these aliens first arrived on Earth, after failing to mate with Humans, they headed to Farvin. Some remained on Earth and much later masqueraded as Gods and Angels, Ultimately dying out.
The alien ship had plenty of exotic technologies, which worked based on this mysterious Psionic manipulation, this excited them to no end, if they could combine it with their Advanced technology, they were sure to become the leaders of the Milky way and maybe even beyond. But The Arken were utterly unreceptive to Mana, this led them to devise an experiment, and Earth was made part of it.
They somehow managed to induce Mana on Earth, the goal of the dungeons, and other finer details, along with the how and what of it are inaccessible to me or any other AI system managed by The Arken. They seem to play it close to their chest.
Ilsung was left dazed at the revelation about the origins of mana and the war on Farvin. After a while, a sigh escaped his mouth.
"Damn, that's one hell of a story..... The plan might be to use the dungeons to induce mana compatibility in Humans and then use them to reverse engineer or combine the two technologies. They might have done it by being able to use some functions on the alien ship."
That's most likely the case. Regarding Farvin, once they discover that a group of hybrids are alive, they might run a similar experiment there.
"Why do you think I'm unable to return to Farvin?"
It may be due to a world barrier created by the Arken to maintain secrecy, or it may have something to do with the sudden appearance of Mana on Earth, there's no way to know at this point.
Though the Arken could be considered defacto leaders of this Quadrant, they aren't without competition, two of the civilizations from the Inner Primo Quadrant now have firm roots here. The barrier, if there is one, is likely to have been put up for hiding it from them.
Ilsung sighed. A few hours has passed since he woke up, and it was now lunchtime. The long-winded and convoluted story stirred up his hunger. He exited his room and headed to the dining hall.
~~
END OF CHAPTER 16