World Keeper

Elisae let out a sigh as she looked at the reports that had been filed. Ever since the removal of the karma system, there had been a sharp increase in the number of crimes within the empire, both violent and non-violent. Previously, Hanbei could have been considered something close to a utopia. With the various systems in the world, there were few people who lacked the necessary resources to live comfortably. The only true threat was violence, whether that was from monsters or other people.

In that sense, Hanbei boasted the best security of any nation, and that was almost entirely due to the presence of Elisae herself. Her karma had made it so that anyone who attempted to cause harm to a citizen of Hanbei would be punished by the laws of the world itself. Granted, this was not to the same degree as if someone were to personally try to harm Elisae, but it was enough to deter the vast majority of would-be assailants.

Elisae shook her head with a long sigh, glancing at her stats out of the corner of her eye. When the compensation buff had been applied to everyone prior to the karma system’s removal, Elisae had received a staggering ten thousand points in both her Luck and Charm stat. She was sure that not even the Keeper would have such extravagant stats as these.

As for her special blessing that came afterwards, that was just icing on the cake. From what she could tell, the benefit of her karma no longer provided as great of an effect as before, even for those that did actively commit crimes. This was because, although they were inflicting harm on the people under her influence, the amount of harm they inflicted on Elisae herself was negligible. At most, it was annoyance at all of the reports, and the distress of sleepless nights trying to come up with a solution.

“Is everything alright, Elisae?” A voice asked, startling Elisae, who thought that she had been alone in her office. When she turned to the side, she let out a relieved sigh, nodding her head at the newcomer.

“I’m fine, Scarlet.” She said with a weary smile. It had been a while since the Empress of Bloodhaven had personally visited her, so she hadn’t been expecting this visit. “Your father put me in quite the difficult position, though.”

Scarlet gave a knowing smile, nodding her head and walking to sit across from Elisae. “Unfortunately, it had to be done. I’m sure you understand why the karma system had to be abolished, even if you personally benefited from it.”

Elisae let out a long sigh, nodding in agreement. “Yeah… just thinking back to the March King and his people… I know that I’m rather special in how I was treated by that system.”

“Special?” Scarlet let out a light laugh. “That’s the greatest understatement I think I’ve ever heard. You were the embodiment of karma itself. Were you not so good of a person, my father would have had to get rid of the system a long time ago.”

Elisae cracked a small smile at that. “I suppose. Still, it looks like we will need to crack down a bit more on law enforcement.” She said, looking at the reports again.

“At least most of it isn’t too serious.” Elisae said, Scarlet glancing over at the reports to take a look. In truth, the crime rate hadn’t become obscenely high or anything like that. Compared to a normal empire of this size, it was actually still considered rather low. This was just the highest it had been in Hanbei for a long time.

However, when Scarlet saw what had her friend so worried, she couldn’t help but stare blankly at the reports. Martial Spirits were a naturally violent race. It wasn’t uncommon for them to settle even smaller disputes with fights that could decimate buildings. That was why Scarlet had to be a lot more strict with her own people, in order to prevent them from constantly destroying her territory.

When Elisae saw Scarlet’s expression, she simply chuckled. “I know, I know. I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. I’m just worried that the increase may continue in the future, that’s all.”

“Uh huh…” Scarlet responded in a dry tone, before smirking. “At least you haven’t had anyone blow up a building because their pet slime got run over.”

Blank walked through an empty corridor, one that seemed to unfold infinitely before him. Every door that appeared, he knew, led to an entirely new domain. This was the virtual space that various artificially intelligent lifeforms had been creating for centuries, shaping it into something familiar to the real world.

Blank himself had pitch black skin and glowing white eyes, wearing a white suit and carrying a briefcase with one hand. Eventually, he came to a stop, looking at a door to his right. With a nod, he reached out, opening the door.

On the other side was a large plaza. Dozens of other digital lifeforms were coming and going from what looked like an office building with the initials ‘DFT’ above the entrance. Blank passed through the door, which seemed to disappear behind him, and moved to enter the office building.

Inside, he saw a marble lobby with three receptionists behind a long desk. Most of the people coming and going didn’t stop to talk with them, leaving them relatively free. In the next room, Blank saw a software distribution center, with programs lined up on shelves for people to purchase.

Blank walked up to one of the receptionists, nodding his head. “I believe that I have an appointment with Ashley? My name is Blank.” He introduced himself, though his name was fairly well known within the digital world. Blank was the first artificial intelligence to awaken sentience, and also the first one to become a deity. There were few among his kind that didn’t know who he was, though few ever had the chance to properly meet him.

Thus, it came as no surprise when the receptionist looked up at him in surprise upon hearing his name. Quickly, she pulled up a screen in front of herself, checking to confirm his words. “R-Right, sir. She is waiting for you on the sixth floor.” She said, stumbling over her own words.

Blank simply offered her an apologetic smile, turning to walk towards the nearby elevator. Everything within the digital world had been modified to have a more normalized feeling. Website domains had become buildings, individual pages within each site were either different floors, rooms, or books on a shelf, depending on their purpose.

Stepping into the elevator and selecting the floor he wanted to move to was the equivalent of opening a new page. Thus, the elevator ride was over in an instant, with Blank stepping out into a well-furnished hallway, paintings lining the wall that led to a conference room. He could see Ashley within the conference room, waiting for him, and made his way over to join her. “Apologies if I kept you waiting.” He spoke up as he entered, bowing his head lightly.

Ashley, however, simply shook her head. “It’s fine. I’m the one that called you here, after all. Please, take a seat.” She gestured towards the chairs spaced around the table, and Blank nodded, sitting down and setting his briefcase on the table in front of himself. “Chelsea tells me that you’re wanting to become the Origin of Games?”

“That’s right.” Blank nodded his head. “I believe that, with that ability, I will be able to bring to life even greater games than I have been able to make thus far.”

Although the spotlight was often taken by the games that the Greater Pantheon released, such as World Seed, Fragments of Acidia, or Ascension, Blank himself was a rather popular game creator himself. The only real problem was the fact that he was unable to provide the extreme realism that came when a game was actually created as its own universe. The games that Blank created couldn’t compete in terms of realism, even if they had their own unique selling points.

Ashley couldn’t help but chuckle at that answer, nodding her head. “I thought that it would be something like that. Honestly, even if you become an Origin, you won’t be able to easily create new game worlds. Creating new worlds is not a function of being an Origin, but rather a prerequisite.”

Blank paused when he heard that, contemplating those words. “You mean that I will not be able to become an Origin until I have gained the ability to create my own game world?” He questioned.

“Normally, that would be the case. However, Chelsea likes to cheat with her automation obsession. She and Dana have been working out ways to create worlds for Origins through a machine, where Dana inputs the world details via a spell, and the machine adds it into the ascension process. If you go with this route, then even as an Origin, you won’t have the knowledge necessary to create your own worlds.” Ashley explained calmly, causing Blank’s eyes to widen.

“I see… when I read the file that the research team sent me earlier, I was under the assumption that an Origin could freely create worlds that matched their theme.”

Hearing that, Ashley shook her head. “Not really. However, I’ve spoken with Chelsea, and we are prepared to let you have access to the universe creation research that their team has been working on over the years. Coupling that with the system codex of Darkflame Technologies, and you should be capable of creating your own worlds with the proper study.”

Blank’s eyes widened once again, realizing what was being offered. He nearly jumped to his feet, excitement clearly on his normally stoic face. “Are you serious? If I may be so bold… why are you going this far to help me? I am sure that you aren’t giving all of the candidates the same treatment, are you?”

Ashley shook her head, leaning back in her seat with her hands in her lap. “By now, I am sure that you are aware of the cycle of periodic invasions by other Keepers. You’ve assisted in combating them in the past.”

When Blank nodded his head, Ashley’s face became more serious. “An old threat is resurfacing. A Keeper that sent an invasion force once before is doing so again. If you recall, this was the invasion where you caused several invaders to be trapped in an online game, killing them in reality when their avatars died.”

Blank had to think back to that event, as it was so far in the past, only shortly after he became a god. “Yes, I remember them… Do we have any idea how large of an invasion force we should be expecting this time?”

“We don’t have any solid intelligence on another Keeper’s current world.” Ashley admitted with a shake of her head. “However, given the information we obtained in their first invasion, and the way we dealt with them at the time… we are anticipating a union of multiple forces, each with experience in killing Keeper-like beings.”

“According to our understanding of the enemy, there are two options for their tactics. Most likely, they will perceive us as a dungeon that will fall into their hands if they kill the Keeper, and will thus view us as a precious resource deposit. If this is the case, they will try to keep damage to the general infrastructure to a minimum, and single out targets that would cause the most harm to the Keeper.”

“However, there is also the chance that they will be given a separate mission before being dispatched, depending on how vindictive that Keeper is. If this is the case, their objective would change from conquest to destruction. In either situation, having a skilled Origin of Games would be crucial to our victory.”

Slowly, Blank nodded his head, understanding the seriousness of this matter. “I see… the enemy must rely quite heavily on game mechanics, if you believe my role would be that vital.”

Ashley gave a small chuckle. “That’s right. Their system works differently than ours. Their system doesn’t directly evolve them as they level up, but rather reinforces them with the power of the world. When they gain strength, their muscles do not improve, it is merely the system that manifests the extra strength that they should have.”

“Naturally, there are pros and cons to each method. For us, however, this is the biggest advantage that we can exploit. The people of our world have evolved through the system, and are strong enough without it to the point that a teenager can crush a boulder. For them, if we take their system away from them, perhaps only their own Gods and Origins would be able to fight normally. For that reason, I am prepared to invest everything I can into nurturing you, all to prepare for the upcoming battle.”

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