Lifre hacked away at the dense foliage around her with a machete that seemed to grow out from her arm. Her clothes had changed to a brown jacket over a tan shirt, brown pants, and a wide-brimmed hat. In her left hand, she held a bag that contained a single green gem. “Squirt said that she needed more of these, but where are those dens?”
She had been lucky enough to find one den shortly after her arrival, but her luck had not continued to pan out for her. The natural energy world was far smaller than the floors in the sixties, but it was still incredibly large. “Why aren’t the puppies coming to play with me anymore? It’s no fun if there aren’t any challenges along the way!”
Though she complained, Lifre had a fairly good idea of why the spirit hunting wolves weren’t tracking her anymore. The first one could be explained as desperately defending its den, but others wouldn’t take the initiative to hunt a creature of a higher level than themselves. If there were one of those stronger variants that the world spirit had mentioned, that might change things, but she hadn’t run into one of those.
“Well… let’s see what we find.” She said, the machete-arm growing exponentially as she swung it, clearing out a wide swath of trees and even cutting into a large hill. Once the clearing had been made, she took flight, aiming to escape the canopy before the natural energy had the ability to regrow the trees she had just cut.
As she flew up, the severed trees surged around her, leading to her only just being able to escape. Her eyes widened, seeing a massive ‘star’ of water hovering in the distance above. Off to one side, a star of stone, and to another, a swirling vortex of wind. She could already guess that the last one would be a true star of fire.
However, she did not see a ceiling here, nor did she see any black stone walls in the distant space. This region did not follow the same structure as the rest of Fyor, causing her to focus. “This should be the ‘source’, then? I wonder what will happen if I tried to make a lightning or a shadow star here?”
She shook her head, dismissing these thoughts. If this was one of the four pillars of Fyor’s creation, that implication was far more terrifying than just an additional layer. Now, Lifre understood why she had never seen those spirit hunting monsters before. It wasn’t that they were native to this place at all.
Instead, it should be because they were native to another planet within Fyor’s realm. “Wait… does that mean that the other people from James’s race aren’t from the planet Fyor either?” Lifre asked in shock, eyes widening. She had fought one of them in the past, but knew that they had the ability to pass through the minor gaps to enter other planes. That was how James had managed to become known in the first place, after all..
Lifre held her head in both hands, though one was still a giant machete, and shook her head quickly. “No, no, don’t think about that. We’re only a few floors from knowing the truth, either way. Right now, I need to get the shinies for the squirt.”
Lifre turned her focus back to the world of lush forests, her eyes focusing. She applied World Sight to her gaze, scanning over the forests to look for any sign of the gems that the World Spirit had been seeking. However, after a few minutes of staring, she blinked. “...I may possibly be an idiot.”
She took the shining green gem out of her bag, and placed it into her inventory. Going through the options, she found the button to register the item in her Digital Conversion profile. “I may definitely have been an idiot.”
She puffed her cheeks out, crossing her arms and simply standing there for a moment to sulk, her machete disappearing. Afterwards, she let out a sigh. “Little friend, little friend, it’s time to go home.” She said in a tired tone, a green portal opening next to her. When she walked through, she found herself in the same bedroom from which she had departed.
There, the World Spirit was waiting for her with wide eyes. “You managed to find them already? I knew I could count on you!” She said brightly, not noticing Lifre’s despondent expression.
“Yeah, yeah…” Lifre sighed, pulling the gem out of her inventory. “Is this what you were looking for?”
“That’s it!” The World Spirit nodded, before blinking and noticing something. “Uhm… how many more do you have?”
“How many do you need to get it done quickly?” Lifre countered, causing the spirit to blink again.
“W-Well, if they are this big… about eight hundred should do?” When Lifre heard that number, her eyes widened again.
“Y-You expected me to find eight hundred of these!?” She asked, raising her voice.
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The spirit shrank back in surprise. “N-No? I thought that maybe five would be good, but it would take me about ten years to do it without destroying the gems.”
“Okay… okay… five is way more reasonable. I’m sorry for shouting.” Lifre patted her chest. “So, eight hundred. Right…” She opened her system menu again, and pressed a button under the curious gaze of the World Spirit.
Suddenly, pure natural energy rushed into the bedroom, condensing into a gem identical to the one that she had retrieved from her inventory. And then another… and another. The World Spirit’s eyes widened, seeing the power of the Digital Conversion system first-hand for the first time. She knew what the system was in theory, but had never had a reason to witness its use before.
“W-Wait, where are you getting that energy from? That system should pull natural energy from the surroundings, but there’s not enough of it unpolluted in this layer for even one gem!” She cried out in shock upon realizing that the tenth gem had already been created.
“Perk of being the Keeper’s servant, I have an admin account.” Lifre shrugged as if it was something normal. “The energy comes straight from the void. Wish it would go a bit faster, though… but I guess that’s because of how thick the world barrier is. Still, at this rate… I’d say it’ll take a little over an hour for all of them to finish?”
The World Spirit looked at Lifre in confusion, with one gem appearing roughly every five seconds. “R-right… I’ll take these to get started.” She said as she gathered up the couple dozen gems that had already been made. Afterwards, she walked out of the room, leaving Lifre to sit down on the bed and wait for the gems to all be finished.
Outside, the World Spirit had created a simple vine necklace to hang one of the gems around her neck. When she reached the exit of the underground lab, the slime-door opened for her without hesitation. Pink mist began to flood in, but was pushed back as soon as it approached the World Spirit.
Once she had made it outside, the door closed again, a pair of eyes blinking at the top of the door to watch her. The world spirit grabbed one of the gems from the bundle in her arms and threw it into the air. “Come play, little ones.” She shouted, and tiny sprites began to rush out of the gem, circling it in the air.
Wherever the sprites passed, the pink mist seemed to be erased. These were lesser World Spirits, those that acted with a swarm mentality. The girl smiled, watching them. “Let’s get rid of all of this nasty mist, okay?”
One of the spirits rushed out to nod at her, before flying back into the swarm, which carried the gem around the pit. In less than a minute, the entire base of the crater was fully revealed, and the gem began to fly upwards. Afterwards, she began throwing the other gems out in groups, more and more swarms of World Spirits appearing and carrying them up into the gradually clearing sky.
“So… when you said you needed five of them originally…” The door spoke, causing the World Spirit to jump in surprise.
“Y-Yeah, I’d just have to move more carefully.” She admitted. Between the gem’s ability to release pure natural energy and the World Spirits getting rid of the corrupted energy, it was just a matter of keeping up with the flow of power.
The door opened again, spitting one several dozen more gems, which the smaller girl controlled to fly into the air, each one summoning another swarm. By this point, the top of the pit was already visible, and even the sky above it could be seen. “Once you have all eight hundred, how long will it take?”
Hearing the door’s question, the World Spirit thought it over. “A week? This layer is super big, but that’s not a problem for us. Once the little ones get started, they’ll call more and more over, and they can move far faster than light.”
“Well, at least Petra will be happy.” Lifre chuckled. “By the way, is there anything you can do about the giant iceberg that is the next floor?”
The World Spirit blinked, closing her eyes to investigate. “There isn’t anything inherently stopping me. In theory, I could melt the entire floor, but that would cause everything to be swept up by a flood instead. Also, it would probably freeze again in a few years if I did it like that.”
“Huh? But why, though?” The door asked in confusion, spitting out another pile of gems that was quickly launched off.
“The mana spire on that floor has a strong ice element. Every floor has a different basic elemental attunement that contributes to the ecology of that floor. That’s why you’ll get really hot floors or cold ones, or ones with massive storms. The tamer the attunement, the more ‘normal’ the floor. This one leans heavily towards cold, so it will naturally release blasts of cold during the day when it is in ‘mana release’ mode.”
Somehow, the door managed to pout. “So we just have to deal with it?”
“Unfortunately.” The World Spirit confirmed. “I don’t know about the future, but right now there isn’t any method of changing the spire’s attunement. Look at it this way, though, it’s a type of adventure, right?” She asked with a smile, causing the door to groan.
“Digging a billion kilometer tunnel in the ice is not a fun adventure!”
The World Spirit chuckled, before shaking her head. “If it makes you feel better… once the energy here is cleared up, monsters should begin spawning, so you’ll be able to help with that while they get the gates protected?”
That seemed to perk Lifre up a bit, her eyes fully opening. “I guess that would be fine. Beats running off to Deckan to fight random monster gods in space.”
“It does?” The World Spirit asked in confusion. “That sounds much more like an adventure…”
“Yeah, but it takes ages to find them. Plus, after V-Day, pretty much all of the monster gods roaming space had been killed, so all of the ones left are newly born. They won’t have any major combat experience. Give it another century or two, and it’ll be worth hunting.”
“Right…” The World Spirit blinked.