Dana walked down the hall of the Admin Room, almost absentmindedly going through the information recording in the gem that the Keeper had given her. As she moved, she heard the clopping of hooves against the wooden floor ahead. Dana looked up curiously, seeing Alme walking by with an equally distracted expression.
“Alme, right?” She called out, causing the centauress to blink and look down at her. “Everything alright? You seem out of it.”
“Out of what?” Alme tilted her head in confusion, before shaking her head. “Sorry, I’ve just got to do some preparations. I promised my dad that I’d help solve Sher Dien’s cultural isolation, so I’m just thinking about what I should work on first.”
Dana blinked, glancing down at the gem in her hand. I can study this later… it will take a while for Fyor to get caught up with the boss’s advanced work. After she thought about that, she looked back up at Alme. “Well, what’s your to-do list?”
“Well, I want to get examples of how each different world’s specialties could help improve the lives of centaurs. Things like Deckan’s card magic and everything.”
Dana gave a small nod of understanding, a wide smile forming on her lips. “Do you want my help? Since I control the shadow world of Deckan, I can get you pretty much any cards you want from there.”
“Shadow world…?” Alme asked in confusion, having never heard that term before.
It took Dana a moment to realize that she had so rarely spoken to anyone that didn’t know about the shadow worlds, before she began explaining. “It’s this special energy that the Keeper taught me how to make. With it, I can create the shadow duplicate of a world, as well as produce people or monsters from it. Since my shadow world is Deckan, I also have the ability to defeat the monsters I produce to gather the cards from them.”
“I see…” Alme nodded her head. “Then, I suppose it is like the Ki of Beginning? That is an energy that he taught to a group of high-ranking centaurs.”
“Sort of!” Dana agreed quickly. “It’s a power on the same level, at least. Either way, it should be easy for me to help you get any kind of cards you want. I can probably help you with the other stuff, as well.”
Alme smiled softly at Dana’s offer, nodding once again. “I think I’d appreciate that, Dana. Can we go to my room to talk?”
Dana gestured for Alme to lead the way, the pair heading through the halls and to a large door, which led to a wide grasslands. “Wow, this is a lot of space.” Dana commented, looking around for any sort of structure.”
“Perhaps.” The centauress shrugged her shoulders, moving away from the door to lay her lower body on the grass. “Centaurs need a lot more room, because we have to exercise a certain amount with our lower body to avoid health complications. That doesn’t apply to gods or those with energy bodies, obviously, but it’s something that we’re simply used to at this point.”
Dana nodded her head. “That’s probably not helping the whole isolationist stuff. From the perspective of other races, centaurs would occupy a lot of unnecessary land that could be used for other development.” As she said that, she moved to sit down next to Alme. “Having an entire world to roam is probably a really good thing for you guys.”
“I believe that it is both good and bad.” Alme admitted with a faint sigh. “Back in the day, centaurs had to interact with other races as simply a matter of course. They didn’t have their own world to control, and so there was less for them to do to avoid that interaction. When the age of virtual reality began, we typically avoided it due to its nature of causing one’s real body to be idle.”
“It was shortly after that when my dad asked me if I could manage Sher Dien in its infancy. At first, I thought it was just such a wonderful thing. Centaurs would have all the land that they needed, and I would be able to be helpful to him. I spent… a very long time gathering the centaurs in one central point, leading them as the ‘eternal queen’. I thought that I had done a good job, but because of how I raised them, they’re now facing this crisis.”
Dana quickly shook her head at Alme’s worries. “This isn’t your fault. If anything, it’s thanks to you that the world lasted as long as it did. If we could predict the future, there would be no point in learning from the past.”
“I don’t think we need to worry about the centaur’s biological differences when thinking about how to improve them on a cultural level. If we came up with drugs or treatments that allowed a centaur to safely be lazy, that would have an adverse effect. Instead, let’s solve the issues that they would have when integrating with other races. The first is their need to occupy a wide area for their necessary exercise. This is probably both the easiest and most difficult issue to solve.”
“How do you mean?” Alme asked curiously.
“Well, if we just want to solve it on an individual level, I can create a card that allows a centaur to teleport to a predetermined point whenever they feel the need to run around. Then, when they want to go back, they simply need to use the card again. Individually, the card wouldn’t cost that much to produce, the problem is that the costs would add up rather quickly. In the end, it is likely to turn into a situation where the centaurs simply don’t consider it worth the expense.”
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Alme furrowed her brows at that, but couldn’t help nodding. “Do you have any thoughts on how to fix this issue?”
“I’ve got one.” Dana said, causing Alme’s face to light up with hope. “It’s actually the centaurs themselves that have the required tool for this. Their research is specializing in planar travel, right? And Deckan’s dimensium is a material with properties that would synergize well with that. If you combine the two, it would be easier to mass produce cards with planar travel effects. The price could go from about five thousand gold for a card to maybe two hundred, depending on how much the centaurs charge for the use of the planar magic component.”
Alme had to think for a moment, converting the currency into the old tokens system that she was familiar with. With the new currency created through divine power, a goddess like her could make a black gold coin or two a day, which equated to ten to twenty thousand gold. However, that was on the prerequisite that she spent all of the divinity she received in a day into this currency, instead of stockpiling it. A god’s divinity was their life, so most wouldn’t choose to spend it so easily.
On the other hand, a commoner would make anywhere from a few dozen copper coins to a single gold coin when they offered a sincere prayer, based on the quality of their faith. The majority of their income still came from their occupation, but it was rare for someone to earn more than ten gold coins a day without either being divine themselves or having an incredibly well-paying job.
Still, two hundred gold is a rather big expenditure, roughly a month of average income. Compared to the more than one year’s income required to purchase the card without Sher Dien’s planar research, though… “I suppose that is like buying a vehicle. Expensive, but most people will pay for it when they realize the convenience.”
“That’s right.” Dana agreed readily. “The problem is that this vehicle only goes to one location. In order to create a card to take the user wherever they want to go, that will shoot the price up again. However, the increased cost would be on the centaur’s end, as it is still likely to cost the same amount of dimensium either way.”
Alme nodded her head. “I’ll speak to the current ruler of Sher Dien about this cooperation when I get back to them. If the necessary spell can be mass produced, that would make things far more convenient.”
“That’s right. Of course, we’re talking about a teleportation spell that anyone can use. There will naturally have to be a privacy ward that people can purchase to prevent others from teleporting into their home and robbing them while they’re away for work. We already have anti-divination wards available to the public, so this can probably be packaged together with that.”
Alme smiled, looking over at Dana. “Thanks. That should be enough to cover Deckan’s side of things. Do you happen to know enough about rune magic to offer advice on that end?”
Unfortunately, Dana shook her head. “My specialty is geometric magic. I’m decent with runes, but if you want to bring in a cultural specialty of Fyor that will impress the centaurs, you’ll want something else. After all, learning a magical language like Runic isn’t something that you can simply expect every centaur to be able to pick up.”
“I had not considered that…” Alme lowered her head, unsure what to do. “Does Fyor have another specialty that we could use?”
“They do!” Dana revealed with a bright smile. “Are you familiar with the Mage Heart stones? It’s a natural crystal, rich in mana, that only grows in Fyor.”
“A crystal that… grows?” Alme blinked in surprise. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure that I follow. I’ve heard of the gem, but what do you mean by growing?”
“Looks like someone hasn’t been paying attention to Fyor’s business.” Dana teased, though it wasn’t surprising. From what she knew, Alme hadn’t had a major role in any big cities lately, and had been mostly wandering the wilds. “It’s something that Dale got a little while back.. Every week, like clockwork, the Mage Heart veins in Fyor replenish themselves. By now, I think the market should have started to stabilize, so it wouldn’t be hard to supply them commercially to other worlds.”
“According to my research, the average human can use a magic crystal valued at one gold to replenish their mana. If you don’t want to buy from Fyor, it’s also possible to buy them from Ryone on the Boundless Caravan, though the price is increased by five times. This is to keep the flow of currency primarily in the mortal world, instead of just sending it back to the gods.”
Alme blinked, nodding quickly as she processed the information. “How much would a gem capable of fueling a fourth-tier spell cost?”
“Ehh… that’s hard to say. It depends on the specific spell, as fourth tier magic varies wildly based on magic system and complexity. Let’s say you’re talking about your average fourth-tier geometric spell… the crystal needed to fuel the activation of that spell would cost between one and two white gold coins.”
Alme pursed her lips, starting to put it all together. “Then, if we create an item that uses mana to project the spell needed for the teleportation card, and capture that spell with dimensium, can we further reduce the cost of the teleportation card?”
Dana blinked slowly, before smiling wide. “That’s right! After all, when you are capturing a spell with dimensium, you don’t need to use enough magic to fully activate the spell, you just need a solidified mana framework for the card to capture. Then, the nature of the spell card will act as a mana generator to prepare the card to be used at a moment’s notice.”
“If we go with this method, we can probably reduce the cost of the card down to one hundred gold, or one white gold coin. By the way, Earth has a similar product, known as the Blood Heart. It’s a specialty of Scarlet’s territory, and functions the same as the Mage Heart, except for the fact that it contains ki instead of mana.”
Alme’s eyes went wide when she heard that. “This could be used for trade with Sher Dien. Ki is a very important energy to centaurs, especially those of higher level.”
The two smiled at one another, discussing various different trade items that could be used to benefit Sher Dien. Dana was rather up to date with the market prices of most goods, having a strong connection to Ryone, so it was easy for her to come up with various products that might be useful at an affordable price.