One of the twins let out an audible sigh of relief as she felt her divine powers returning to her. “Finally…” She muttered under her breath, knowing that their trials had come to an end. While it couldn’t be said that they had received nothing from the experience, the feeling of constantly having to be cautious against outside dangers had left both sisters incredibly tense.
“How long were we even in that?” The other asked, seeming to have lost track of time. Although they had eventually left the dark forest, the sun never rose in the sky, making it much harder to track how long they had spent testing out the new ability of Lifre’s.
“I think… at least three days?” The divine sister asked, though even she was taking a complete guess.
“More like seven!” Lifre spoke up, appearing directly between the two with a wide smile on her face. She hadn’t managed to recover the full amount of energy that she had used to seal the two in the first place, and yet her face continued to look as excitable as ever.
The twins flinched back as they heard Lifre’s voice, clearly having some lingering trauma that disaster came whenever she spoke up. Seeing that, Lifre puffed her cheeks out in a pout. “That’s not nice. Ah, maybe I should send you back in for more challenges? I just thought of another one…”
“N-No, that’s fine.” The divine sister quickly spoke up, shaking her head. “Really, it’s fine. Though, that was quite the experience…” She glanced at a window that appeared for both herself and her twin, detailing the rewards that they had gotten from the trial. There were quite a lot of stats earned, increasing their total power by roughly ten percent.
Lire giggled, having not been planning on sending them back in the first place. Although she didn’t show it, she was quite tired herself after using her divinity to create those trials. I’ll need to find a better way to recover energy while using the technique. She thought to herself, not wanting to overly rely on the power of Terra or the Keeper’s divine energy.
For the first few trials, she was able to gradually recover due to the low intensity of the trial itself. However, as things became more extreme, they started to take more energy to manifest. The reason that she had cut the trials where she had was simply because she didn’t wish to use any more energy on the experiment.
There are some ways to take care of that. Terra told her mentally, attracting Lifre’s attention. Most people haven’t discovered this method, but there are ways to create beings with certain divine domains, and turn those beings into worshippers to provide divine energy. Dale does the same with an internal illusion world.
Do I have a way to do something like that? Lifre blinked curiously, not sure how she could do so with the power of her current domains.
If you add in the power of Stories, you do. Terra confirmed. It will take a large initial investment, but you can write a story where you are revered as the creation deity worshiped by the inhabitants of that world. As long as you use the power of the domains at your disposal, you could turn that story into its own living world, one where the worshipers send you a steady stream of divinity.
Lifre’s eyes went wide as she listened to Terra’s explanation, the twins looking at her in confusion. “Think she’s talking to the big sister upstairs?” One of the two asked, the other nodding her head in confirmation.
I know how to fill up my library now! Lifre thought ecstatically, briefly confusing the true Terra.
N-No, you can’t just keep making divine batteries like that, or you will waste the utility of the library itself. Besides, with your current reserves, you’d drain yourself dry before you finished the third book. It takes time for the energy to accumulate again. Terra explained, as if trying to dissuade Lifre from a suicidal action. Though, Lifre shook her head.
No, not that! She thought, before looking at the twins. “Thanks, you two! You were a load of help!” She reached out, giving each of the twins a tight hug before running into the library, the door slamming shut behind her.
“I can’t follow along with that one.” The void sister shook her head, glancing at the now-closed door. Her twin nodded in agreement, finding it especially difficult to keep up with the little slime’s thought processes.
Inside the tower, Lifre waved her hand, grasping a golden pen from the empty air. “It wasn’t an original part of the floorplan, but a minor addition like this shouldn’t hurt.” She said, muttering to herself as she walked to the very center of the first floor of the library.
Golden light streamed up from the floor, condensing into a marble pedestal, atop which sat a large, blank tome. Lifre licked her lips as she flipped open to the first page, twirling the pen in her fingers as she thought about how she should begin the book.
Terra’s figure flew out of her body, landing just on the other side of the book before turning to face her. “Just so I don’t accidentally let you do something completely crazy that destroys your divinity… mind filling me in on the plan here?”
“Oh, it’s simple!” Lifre said with a nod. “Like you said, I can create a story world where the people worship me as the creation deity. But, then I thought, why stop there? I can link that world to the library itself! If the people within the world are considered real, then that means they have their own stories. There will be brave heroes and cruel kings, fierce beasts and lonely saints.”
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Lifre brought the tip of her pen down to meet the first page, slowly beginning to write as she talked. “If I connect the world within the book to the library, setting it so that the library is populated with the legends of that world, they will be tales nobody has heard of. And since the world within is a story, it can advance at the speed of plot!”
“And… how fast is the speed of plot?” Terra asked, although she was somewhat worried to hear the answer.
“Hmm… I’ll devote a portion of the divine energy that I receive from the book to accelerating its flow of time. For now, I need to decide what kind of world I want to create.” When Terra heard that, she gave a faint nod of her head.
“That’s right. If you’re aiming to create a single world, the theme of the world is important. Technically, you can write them at any stage of development that you want, though if you want to build up legends, choosing to start them a bit earlier might be better.”
“I’ll do that, then!” She said, her pen moving faster as thoughts flowed into her mind. “A world of sorcery and martial talent, where the power of technology is largely unknown. Great threats loom at every corner of the world, challenging the inhabitants to rise up to defeat them.”
Terra cleared her throat slightly at that. “Don’t make the challenges too strong.” She warned. “It’s fine to have risks, but if the world was facing constant danger that the average person couldn’t stand against, it would be wiped out before long. Take a look at the real world. Yes, there are powerful monsters, but none beyond the scope of the world itself. If you write in threats that are too powerful, you’ll only be destroying your people. At the same time, if the threats are too weak, you will not gain the legends you want.”
Lifre pursed her lips, continuing to write. “This needs to be a library that I can use to fight other gods… how do I achieve that, then?”
Terra held her chin, thinking about it for a moment before snapping her fingers. “I’ve got something. Write in your story that those who complete challenges on behalf of the goddess are awarded the power over a single word related to their legend, fueled by the energy of the world itself.”
“Although this won’t make them true gods, it will give them pseudo-godlike powers when they are brought out into the real world. For instance, if someone earns the word ‘Fire’, they would be able to wield power in the real world as if they were the God of Fire. Their use of this power will consume your own divinity, but it will allow you to essentially activate the effects of different domains in the same way that Dale does with his Mirrors domain, or Ryone does via domain trading.”
Lifre’s eyes practically lit up, her pen dancing along the page. At times, it seems that the words even began to write themselves in before her pen got to them, the world within the story starting to take on a life of its own.
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It didn’t take long for the research team to finish constructing the field projector, now that they already had the blueprint. After only two days, the finished product was sitting on the central experiment desk of the lab, everyone having moved back a safe distance. James held onto the system stone, taking a deep breath as he caused it to lift up with the power of his ki, moving towards the device.
After being humbled by his previous mistake, he was no longer willing to bet everything on the assumption that this would not strip away the system from whoever was inside the field at the moment of activation. Thus, he was playing it safe with the rest of the team, having set the device to only radiate a field five feet in radius. According to his calculations, this was the minimum size for it to begin the feedback loop that they needed.
The spherical stone hovered through the air, landing in a groove perfectly sized for it. Having waited for the opportunity, Chel took out her omnitool and activated it, causing a glass lid to close up over the top of the socket. With this, the system stone was locked securely in place, and the field projector activated.
There was a hum of machinery, but no visible indication that the field was operating. There was now hazy bubble, or shimmer of energy. If not for the sound of the machine itself, they would likely not be sure that it had properly turned on. However, this did not discourage James, who was using his inherent senses to monitor the sphere within the device.
After roughly twenty seconds, the first change appeared, an almost innocuous energy connection altering while he was observing it. James himself couldn’t be sure what that connection represented when converted into the power of the system, but it let him know that things were really changing.
The rest of the team couldn’t properly analyze what was happening, as they did not have access to the same energy that James was using. Instead, they watched various measurements closely, ready to cancel the project if anything started to look like it was going to fail catastrophically.
Ten minutes passed, and Nora lifted a brow, looking at the sphere. “Does it seem a bit more pale to anyone else?” she asked, drawing their attention away from the devices for a moment. Indeed, the sphere had lost a considerable amount of its color during the first ten minutes, and seemed to be flickering between blue and gray.
At those point, James could see that nearly a tenth of the connections inside the stone had changed, some having outright lost the energy that had been passing through them. For the first time, he was able to take a look at the raw structure of those connections, penetrating them with his senses to figure out how they were constructed.
After thirty minutes, the sphere had turned mostly gray, barely containing any small spots of coloring. Most of the sphere had entered a ‘neutral’ state, but sparks of energy were still being transmitted intermittently. It wasn’t until the one hour mark that the sphere went completely white. In this state, there was no longer any energy transmission within the sphere itself, and the entire internal structure had been reconfigured.
“This is quite brilliant.” James muttered as he examined the inner workings of the item. Now that he was able to observe the system stone in its inert state, he was able to glean some insights into how it was put together. This practically confirmed his theory that the technology of the world where the item came from relied heavily on spherical design.
“Does that mean you understand how it’s made?” Treisha asked with wide eyes, James nodding his head.
“It will take time to understand the theories that led to its creation. However, if we’re just talking about copying what is already there, it won’t be too hard. We’ll need to develop a spherical three-dimensional printer with mana, spirit, and natural crystals. From what I can see, ki doesn’t seem to be a component in this one.”
“A spherical printer…” Chel gave a bitter smile, knowing that would take a bit of research itself to get working. A spherical printer implied some way to keep the object within the printer perfectly steady, suspended at the very center of the device. At the same time, the fact that they were doing this with energy mixtures meant that they couldn’t simply use an anchoring spell to achieve this effect. If they did, there was likely to be a contamination of energy, resulting in a loss of effect.
“Well, at least that should be easier than before. We’re one step closer, now!” Thea said happily, lifting her arms up and stretching. “I’m totally going to need a day or seven off when this is finished…”