World Keeper

After descending back to the mortal world, I made my way to the Another World Research group. Upon my arrival, the receptionist seemed surprised to see me, which I took to mean that Terra hadn’t informed them that I would be coming. “I’d like to speak with James, if that is alright.” I said with a kind smile, and she quickly nodded her head.

“O-Of course, sir! I’ll contact him right away.” She said, and I could feel her mana shifting. The receptionist in front of me seemed to be a living spell, one that had been given access to the system in the same manner as James himself, through the use of a system sphere.

“I’ve informed the Head of Research, and he said that he is on his way.” The receptionist reported, still seeming somewhat nervous. I could only off her a comforting smile, standing with my arms behind my back.

Soon, the metallic door at the back of the room slid open, and the dark-skinned James walked out with a laugh. “If I knew that you were coming earlier, I’d have been here to greet you. What can I do for you?” He asked, gesturing for me to follow him back through the door.

“I consulted with Terra and Irena, and they suggested that I speak with you about obtaining some new Saint Energies.” I admitted, and James nodded his head as he led me through the corridor, strips of white lights shining from the edges of the ceiling.

“I see. You’re supplementing your personal powers with exceptional abilities, I take it?” He asked, stroking his chin. “Do you have any requirements for the energies you want to obtain? We’ve managed to study quite a few here in the lab.”

“I need a defensive energy, as well as an offensive one. Terra suggested your Eye of Ruin for the offensive energy type.” When I said that, James nodded his head again. “They also both suggested that I remove my Ki of Beginning, and potentially replace it with something more suitable for high level combat.”

“Did they, now?” He asked, thinking it over. “I suppose at the level you would normally be fighting, that energy isn’t all that practical. It’s good for being flashy, and for medium-level fights, but your own Martial Will would be more than capable of defeating anything that the Ki of Beginning would be useful against.”

As he spoke, he continued to lead me down the corridor, before finally stopping in front of a door marked ‘E.C.C. 17’. “This room should be free for today.” He said, opening the door to let me inside.

Within the room, I could see a large platform with a single chair, and numerous devices hanging from the ceiling around it. Most of these devices looked similar to tesla coils, while some took forms similar to ray guns. Near the platform was a large console, which James walked over to and powered up.

“The Eye of Ruin is a pretty basic Saint Energy, if I say so myself.” James commented, his fingers dancing on the keys of the console. “However, that’s not to say that it’s weak, merely that it doesn’t have as many varied uses. For your purposes it should be just right. Thankfully, I’ve already mastered the formula for this energy back in my original world. If you could just sit down in the chair over there, I can work on imprinting the energy into your body.”

I couldn’t help but blink at that, moving towards the chair in the center of the platform. “It’s that easy? I don’t need to do any sort of ritual, or study the combinations myself?”

James chuckled a bit at my confusion. “In the past, you definitely would have. We’ve been working on automating anything we can, so as to prevent issues like this. In these Energy Combination Chambers, we insert the formula for the energy we want, and the machine will siphon your own energy to guide it through the creation process. Think of it as a more versatile variation of the Perfection Chamber.”

“And there’s no risk of it conflicting with my existing energies?” I asked as I sat down, and James shook his head again.

“Nope. The initial scan at the start of the procedure will measure your energy flow and check for possible energy conflicts. If any are detected, it will use a mapping software we came up with to try and create a safe energy pathway that will allow you to accept the new energy. If you’d like, we can also run a program to optimize your current energy paths. I imagine you haven’t updated your pathways in… well, probably a very long time.”

That caused me to hesitate for a moment, but I nodded my head. “Sure. First, let me get rid of the Ki of Beginning.” I said, leaning back in the chair and closing my eyes. The Ki of Beginning occupied too many energy nodes within my body, so it was bound to cause problems if I didn’t deal with it before accepting this procedure.

Thankfully, it wasn’t hard to remove those paths. Using my Illusion domain, I targeted the energy pathways for the Ki of Beginning, and caused them to simply fade away. Admittedly, it left me with a brief moment of weakness, as I felt that something was missing inside of me, but it wasn’t anything major. “Alright, that’s done now.” I reported, and James nodded his head, activating the platform.

The platform began to hum, blue lights shining on me from every direction. “Try to relax as much as possible.” James spoke up, staring at the console. “If you resist the procedure, the program will automatically shut down to prevent any accidents.”

I nodded my head slightly, keeping my eyes closed. After a few minutes, James spoke up again. “Okay, the initial scan is complete. We’re going for a full optimization first, so sit tight. The computer estimates that your optimization will take about three hours to complete.”

My eye twitched when I heard this, realizing that I would be stuck in this chair for the next three hours. Wait, no, that was only for the initial optimization process… “How long will imprinting the Eye of Ruin take?”

“It shouldn’t be that long.” James answered in a casual tone. “About thirty or forty-five minutes. The optimization process is longer because it needs to carefully adjust all of your internal energy paths. You should be happy it’s only three hours. Back when I tested the first iteration of this machine, I was sitting in the chair for two full days. Thankfully, we’ve made some improvements since then.”

Yeah, if you asked me to sit here for two days, I would just ascend to the Admin Room and fast forward… I retorted mentally, though chose to keep my mouth shut. I couldn’t help but blink in surprise, having to force myself not to move as the system operated on my energy pathways. Beams of light were shooting from the gun-like devices, tracing paths along my skin.

“Anyways, while this is working, we can start talking about defensive energies. We’ve got a few in our database that you might be interested in, it’s just a matter of choosing the right one.” James said, pulling up another screen on the console in front of himself.

“The most popular one among the research staff is Adaptive Resistance. This energy passively builds up a resistance to any form of damage your body takes, and adjusts itself to properly defend. If a fight lasts long enough, it’s theoretically possible to develop a total immunity to your enemy’s attacks.” Hearing his description, my eyes briefly widened.

“Okay, what’s the catch? There is always a catch when something sounds that good.” I asked in surprise, and James chuckled.

“I wouldn’t call it a catch, more like the natural process of the energy type. See, it adapts to anything that happens to you. If nothing is happening, the energy gradually returns to its default state, removing the resistances that you built in the previous battle. This means that you’re always starting a battle essentially defenseless, but your defense quickly increases against the abilities of your enemy.”

I let out a long sigh, shaking my head. “That’s not good for me. If a battle lasts long enough for me to build up the necessary resistances, it means that the enemy is likely strong enough that they have some trump card to kill me before my defense would adapt.”

James nodded his head, flipping to the next window. “Alright, we’ll ignore that one for now, then. Next up, we have the Intelligent Barrier Field. We created this one by accident, trying to make our own sentient energy like the World Shadow. This is a defensive field with its own awareness, and will automatically activate to defend against attacks, increasing the energy consumption based on the perceived danger level of the incoming attack.”

That sounded interesting, I had to admit. Though, I’d rather any energy I used be under my control, if possible. “Keep a pin in that one. What else do you have?”

“The last of our big three defenses is a bit more complex. We call it the Variable Shielding System, though Chelsea tells me that the system name for it is Grim Deflection. Unlike the other two, this one starts off pretty worthless, and we nearly overlooked its potential. It took us a few tests in order to confirm its properties. With the VSS, you can save a barrier technique within the energy itself, and that technique can then be triggered at a later point.”

Seeing my confused look, James simply chuckled before explaining. “The VSS defines a barrier technique as any technique that creates a field of some form around the caster. If the user manually activates such an ability while activating the VSS, they will be able to store the activated ability inside of this energy. The cost and ritual to activate the ability has already been paid, but its activation has been delayed.”

“In simpler terms, you can cast a grand ritual to create a powerful barrier around yourself, one that would take you too long to cast in battle, and then store it in the VSS. After doing so, you can instantly activate that barrier during a critical moment in combat. Additionally, if you choose to do so, you can create additional charges for an already-stored barrier by spending the same energy required to initially cast it.”

I nearly jumped up from the chair when I heard that, forcing myself to calm down. Honestly, each of these three energies seemed remarkable, and like they’d be an absolute pain to fight against for any enemy. “I can guess with the other two, but what is the benefit of cultivating more of the Grim Deflection energy?” I asked, and James let out a groan when I used its ‘system name’.

“I really liked my name for it, too… anyways, the benefit is a larger storage. The more you cultivate the energy itself, the more barriers you can store in it. I take it you’re interested in this one?”

“It sounds like the best option for me, since I can store a lot of different barriers with my various domains.” I pointed out, and James nodded his head in agreement.

“In that case, I’ll queue up the Eye of Ruin and Variable Shielding System to begin imprinting once your energy paths are optimized. Are there any other types of energies you want to look into while I have you here?”

I thought about that for a moment. “Not off the top of my head. These were also the only two types of energy that Irena and Terra suggested I get. Why, do you have any suggestions?”

James chuckled, shrugging his shoulders. “We’ve created a few really powerful energies over the years. Some of them are pretty quirky. There’s this one, Bestowal of Soul, that allows the user to impart a soul into any spell or object, granting it sentience and the ability to freely move on its own. There was never a more awkward experiment than when Treisha got chased around the lab by a sentient fireball who refused to be used as a test subject because it had made friends with the equally sentient chair yelling for them to stop in the background..”

My brow twitched at that, deciding that I would definitely not be taking that energy. “Yeah, I think I’m good with what I have.

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