As for the Creator’s Blessing ability, I had to return to the Admin Room in order to use it. As expected, Terra was waiting for me in the living room, a small smile on her face when she saw me. “I thought you’d want to come and try it out. Let me guess, you want to boost Tsubaki first?” She asked with a small chuckle.
“Well, I was actually hoping to ask you some questions first, before I went ahead and made any big deecisions like that.” Terra arched a brow, gesturing for me to continue.
“First of all… is there a downside to using the Creator’s Blessing on someone? For instance, is there any way that it would stop their future development, such as preventing Tsubaki from becoming an Origin or anything like that?”
Terra tilted her head, thinking about how to answer that. “Yes and no. It depends on what option you select. Some blessings can be designed as curses as well. For example, you could choose to ‘bless’ someone to lower their abilities, like setting their affinity with divine energy to zero. This would effectively prevent them from ever becoming a deity or Origin.”
I gave a small nod at that, thinking. “But, if I were to bless someone with a domain, that wouldn’t interfere?” I asked to be sure, and Tsubaki shook her head.
“Blessings are not a part of the individual’s energy makeup. In a way… they are closer to anomalies, like my incarnation. They exist purely within the overarching world system, affecting specific individuals. That’s actually a good way to look at it. You are able to manufacture and customize anomalies.” She explained with a smile, causing me to blink.
“In other words, if you were to bless someone with the divine domain of life, they would have that domain completely independent of their normal abilities. They would not technically become a god at that point, but would still have access to the domain. Of course, if you did not also bless them with a pool of divine energy to pull from, then they would have little chance to use that blessing.”
Hearing it explained that way made me nod my head again. “In that case… it wouldn’t be possible to use the blessing to turn someone into an Origin, because they would end up like your incarnation, unable to fully use their abilities.”
“That and the price would be truly obscene.” Terra groaned, shaking her head. “The price of the blessing depends on what you are trying to bestow. So, a small boost to strength might cost points in the single digits. Making someone an Origin, and granting them the necessary energy pool to match… you’re looking at a cost in the millions, maybe even the tens of millions, depending on how you set them up.”
“...Noted.” With that in mind, I turned my attention to Tsubaki, thinking how I would be able to help her and the others with these blessings. “What about systems? Sarah told me that I could give unique systems to people with this blessing.”
“Yup!” Terra readily confirmed this information. “You can give anyone a system that you either create manually, or one that exists on the market. Again, the price varies based on the system, but it is typically ten percent of the system’s overall price.”
“So, it’s useful for giving someone a special magic or cultivation system to let them grow as a uique being, or if I want to give those I trust a system that has room for abuse that would prevent me from giving it to the general public.” I thought aloud, considering what systems would be good for something like that.
It was hard to think of anything that Tsubaki was truly lacking in. Physically, she was the strongest of all of my supporters, given the fact that she had trained every class with her avatars. “I don’t think a special system would benefit her as much as simply increasing her affinity with various energies.” I muttered, and Terra seemed to agree with me.
“Personal systems are a bit tricky to choose if you don’t already have something in mind.”
“Right.” I pulled up Tsubaki’s profile after focusing on her, and attempted to increase her energy affinities. The four basic energies only required five hundred points each to maximize. However, when I tried to increase her affinity with divinity and the void, I was astonished at the cost. Every percent I purchased for these two energies required five thousand points. This meant that I would need to spend a million points in order to maximize these two.
To clarify, this was a flat affinity percentage, not an increase. If I did not purchase enough points to match her current affinity, I would actually be lowering her affinity with the chosen energies. Thus, I couldn’t boost her divine or void affinities in this way without an obscene price attached to it.
Still, total affinity with the four basic energies was nothing to joke about. Just that alone would drastically increase her potential. “As for Lifre and Dana… I already know what I want for them, but I want your help figuring out how to set them up.”
“Oh?” Terra tilted her head, smiling slightly as her ears flicked. “I’m all ears, Dale.”
“For Lifre, I want to give her the ability to understand all runes on an instinctive level, like my own Keeper buff. Since she likes to write, this would let her incorporate runes into her activities more easily.”
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When Terra heard that, she nodded her head. “That’s rather simple. You already purchased the runic knowledge, so all you have to do is attach it to her as a blessing.”
I blinked, having not expected it to be that simple. “I see… the same might be true for Dana, then. With her, I wanted to give her the ability to instantly formulate any geometric spell she wanted, just by focusing on the effects that she wanted.”
“That’s right. However, for both of these, you’ll need to have access to the knowledge. In other words…” She let her words hang off meaningfully, and I nodded my head in understanding.
“If I want them to have access to the fifth rank of magic, I’ll need to purchase the fifth tier of magic knowledge for them.” Honestly, I didn’t think that fifth-tier magic was strictly necessary for either of them. Even world creation could be done with fourth-tier spells.
Thus, I checked how much it would cost. Like with systems, I would need to pay ten percent of the total cost, which amounted to exactly eight hundred points for a fourth-rank magic system. I gave that to each of them, while also maximizing their affinities with mana.
“Do you have anything planned for Lena?” Terra asked curiously, leaning closer to me. I thought about that, curious what I could give to Lena. I hadn’t known her as long as the others, so my impression of her was a bit lacking compared to them.
“What could I give her that she can’t already do herself?” I thought aloud, not wanting to simply copy the blessing that I gave Tsubaki. Everything that immediately came to mind for her was ultimately something that she could already do with her domains. However, then, I considered something. “Is it possible to grant someone a theoretically bottomless reserve of energy?” I asked, looking at Terra.
“It is.” She nodded. “You will need to set a limit for their maximum output, though, and that will determine the price you have to pay.”
I nodded my head, focusing on Lena. Setting her maximum output to be at the level needed to sustain her Origin transformation was unreasonable. Not to mention, unreasonably expensive. However, she was the one among my group that received the least divine energy. Giving her access to a bottomless reserve would resolve a lot of her problems. Though… I was quickly discovering how expensive this would be with divinity.
“What if I limit what she can use it for? A truly bottomless supply would let her just constantly print divine coins, after all. There’s not really a need for that.” I looked at Terra, who smiled and nodded her head. She helped me find the options to limit the energy pool further, and limiting it to just domain abilities reduced the price by a substantial margin.
Like this, I was able to set a maximum output for her at a much more reasonable level for only five thousand points. “Just to be clear, this won’t prevent her from using bigger abilities, right?” I asked, and Terra confirmed.
“That’s right. If the ability that she’s using doesn’t exceed the limit that you set, it will automatically pull from this blessing, rather than her own reserves. This will let her save her reserves for other uses of divinity, whether it is generic powers or those that exceed the limit.”
That was what I wanted to know. With that in mind, I finalized the blessings for the four of them. Afterwards, I thanked Terra for her help, and descended back to Olympus with a smile on my face. As expected, Tsubaki was waiting for me with a curious expression, but it seemed as though Dana and Lena had also rushed over, and even Lifre had ended her stream to appear.
“I’m going to guess that this means that you all received prompts about your new blessings?” I asked, and they nodded their heads.
“Yeah! What’s all that about?!” Lifre asked, practically bouncing on her heels. “Like, is this something new that you learned how to do with your Keeper stuff?”
“You could say that.” I chuckled slightly. “We were upgraded a rank, and the new ability that I gained allows me to bestow blessings. Given your natural talents, I thought that these blessings would suit each of you well.”
After saying that, I looked at Tsubaki. “You likely have the most extreme change, so I want to make sure that it isn’t causing you any problems.”
Tsubaki hesitated for a moment, thinking. “I do not feel any adverse effects from this blessing, my Keeper. Instead, it feels as though the basic energies under my control simply follow my will, more than ever before. They become more tricky to control after combining them, however, but no more than they always were.”
I hadn’t thought of that. So, each advanced energy would require its own affinity, like with divinity and the void. “Got it. Let me know if there are any problems.” I said, before turning to the other three. “What about you all?”
Lifre quickly shook her head, as did Lena. “Nothing wrong here. Not sure how my blessing could be a bad thing.” Lena asked with a laugh, while Dana seemed a bit more focused.
“Is something wrong?” I asked, looking at her. Dana looked up at me with a curious expression.
“I think that I will be able to become an Origin soon.” She said, causing the rest of us to fall silent. “I’ll do a little experimenting in my stream workshop first, but… given how my blessing works, I think that I can create a spell that will cover the necessary steps for me. I just need to properly understand the process of becoming an Origin first, so that I can put it into that spell.”
I hadn’t thought about that. World creation, again, was the epitome of fourth-tier magic, so it was naturally included in the blessing that I gave Dana. “You should visit Chelsea.” I said with a nod, knowing that she was the one most likely to be studying that field. “If anyone has answers to your questions, it will be her. Hopefully, the two of you will be able to figure something out.”
Dana nodded her head, quickly turning to leave. Though, as she did, I couldn’t help but worry. I had been a Fifth Ranked Keeper for only a day, and the blessing that I was able to give as a result of that was already leading to a substantial breakthrough in creating an Origin. I knew that Origins were a high-tier power of this rank, so it made me question how I was able to get to it so fast. Was it simply because I had the foreknowledge to prepare? Was an Origin something that was easy to gain access to, but hard to master?
If it was the latter, then the odds were even greater that I would be facing off against Origins sooner rather than later. They might not be incredibly advanced Origins, but they would still be able to casually destroy entire universes.