World Keeper

Chapter 156: A River of Tiers

When I got back to the Admin Room, I didn’t even care to read through the level notifications that I had received, simply sitting at the edge of my bed. My eyes stared at the floor, trying to remove the image of the bloodstained swords, of me cutting people in half. Leowynn wasn’t much better, and didn’t choose to come out for a while.

Faintly, I could hear footsteps approaching my bedroom door. However, their owner suddenly stopped, turning around and leaving with more care than they had come. I couldn’t be bothered to think about what they had wanted right now, my fists balling up in my lap.

I had fought before, when I trained against the plant monster. When I led the centaurs to burn the halflings. But this was the first time that I had done such a close combat with an actual person. I could still smell the burning flesh, hear their screams as they died, and it only made me remember the halflings again.

After a while, I heard a faint voice from inside of me. Father… I’m ready to talk. As she said that, Leowynn slowly left my body, appearing in her tangible form next to me. Her arms lightly wrapped around my own, and she leaned her body against mine.

I expected her to talk about what had happened, to say that she never wanted to do it again. Part of me even expected her to change her mind, and ask to become a goddess so that she wouldn’t be forced into that situation again. However, that’s not what she did.

Leowynn spoke not of the events that had just happened in Cau Buhnga, but of her life before she died. She told me stories seemingly at random. From how her mother had trained her to how corrupt nobles kept trying to court her. She had killed her own people before, as she told me of her duties as one of the queen’s royal knights. Criminals and usurpers, or those who wanted to kill the daughter of the goddess.

I don’t know how long we spoke, but gradually I felt my mind start to calm with the distraction. As I listened to her, I gave some thought to what I had done myself, in preparation. I had to make sure that everything was laid out, such that my efforts would not backfire and harm the relationship between the beastkin and the elves.

The swords were fairly easy to explain. Anyone who had reached the level limit would soon learn that there was nothing to stop them from really training as another class, outside of the loss of stats. I as a druid and spirit tamer could not have trained as a warrior, because my strength was abysmal. Same with a mage, because of my low mana.

A production class, however, can be trained by anyone at the level limit. The requirements on the physical body aren’t so harsh, so it would be a common choice to temper oneself as a blacksmith, a carpenter, or even an architect once one’s body couldn’t grow further. As for the swords, they could easily be explained by studying items found in dungeons. I didn’t have to worry there.

The biggest issue of all would be how I knew a fight was coming. However, that wouldn’t be for me to explain, as I wasn’t the biggest suspect. It was Emona who had set Soru with the hollowed horn to warn of an attack. So naturally, it would be her that would have to answer the questions. She could push the blame off to me, but Tebor still had the excuse of hearing the rumors around town and feeling the need to prepare.

Think, think… did I leave a loose end. The forge I used to craft the swords had been destroyed. I didn’t leave behind any essence blood. Everything had a proper explanation, a way to make it at least somewhat believable.

At some point while I was thinking to myself, Leowynn had stopped talking. Looking over to her, I found that she had fallen asleep against me. Smiling softly, I gently pulled my arm from her grasp and laid her down on the bed. Almost immediately, she brought her knees up and hugged them close to her, curling into a little ball on the bed.

I stood up from the bed, moving to offer her some quiet by leaving the room. She could easily find me as soon as she woke up, so I wasn’t too worried. Once outside the room, I found someone leaning against the wall at the end of the hall, waiting for me. To my surprise, it was the winged angel of death, Irena.

She had a gentle look on her face as she watched me, having likely been the one who I had heard approaching the door before. “Is she alright?” Irena asked softly when I approached her. I offered a small nod, and she gave a sigh of relief. “Good. The others asked me to give you the report on the Fairy Gate.”

“How long do they think it will take to complete?” It wasn’t surprising that Irena was involved in the gate’s production, since one of the requirements was spiritual energy. None of the gods or goddesses could compare with her when it came to that field.

However, Irena simply shook her head at my question. “We can’t make it yet, Dale. I can only imagine what the requirements would have been if you didn’t get those other ores. Even with them, we need tier three knowledge for natural energy, spiritual energy, ki, and mana. The only conditions that we meet right now are the materials, and the divine energy of one with a domain that can connect spaces.”

I knew right away that she must have meant Aurivy, as she had used her Travel domain on more than one occasion to help me cross vast distances in an instant. “So there’s nothing that we can do to prepare?”

Irena again shook her head. “What little symbols Ryone already knows have already been laid out in preparation. Aside from that, Tubrock is using his golems to produce the pieces that can be forged. Each one has to be individually enchanted before they can be put together, with Aurivy using her energy to connect them all as one.”

“So it will take quite a while…” I gave a slight sigh at that. I had hoped it’d be done sooner, so that we could connect the worlds before they grew too much. But now, it seems like we’ll have to wait. It might even be that once we connect the three worlds, with Earth having tier three knowledge in the various fields, we will immediately register for the games.

If that happens, we’ll still have a hundred days to settle everything and get the worlds to work together… but if we can’t do that, then we might be in trouble. But if we wait until Earth is ready for the games first, the situation Terra warned us about could come up, and we get thrown against an enemy we can’t handle.

Terra, what level do people have to be to unlock the third tier techniques of their respective classes? I sent a message out as I considered the problem, wondering if there was some way I could help.

Level one to fifty has first tier techniques. Terra began to explain in a patient tone. I remember the first second tier spells started showing up right after the mage class hit level fifty. From fifty-one to one hundred and fifty is all second tier techniques. Third tier starts at level one hundred and fifty one. Right now, out of all of the inhabitants of the world, only two warriors, one mage, and a single bard have crossed that threshold due to the level restriction.

A mage, huh? Part of me was curious, now. I thanked Terra for the information, and then sent a message to Ryone. Terra told me that there is a third-tier mage in the world. Would you like to give me a demonstration of new magic?

As soon as the message ended, I felt something shift next to me. Irena, who was still standing quietly in front of me, let out a startled gasp when Ryone suddenly appeared. “Sure! I had completely forgotten about that, since you had that big voyage and everything.”

There was a broad grin on Ryone’s face as she shifted the two of us to her typical training grounds, which seemed to have even more random spell diagrams etched into the ground. “So… this third one is actually really interesting, as it kind of breaks the logic behind previous spells.”

I looked at her curiously while she happily explained it, but then she stopped and looked back at me. “It’ll be easier to just show you. Right now, the best mage has unlocked just one third-tier spell from the system, so it’s all I really have to show right now.”

Saying that, Ryone turned away and aimed a hand at the far all. “Third-tier spells have their power and range increased several times above second tier, and also allow another degree of complexity.”

In the air above Ryone’s head, a giant spell diagram began to take shape. Unlike a second tier spell which typically combined multiple overlapping diagrams, this only had one. However, its size and detail were enormous, and it seemed to be composed of several layers itself, all in one. An outer circle, an inner circle, and a middle one.

Furthermore, there were ten glowing spheres located throughout the outer circle, evenly spaced apart. Each one seemed to be composed of various individual patterns all merged together. “Like the first first tier magic spell, and the first second tier magic spell, this is another fire-element spell. Its name is ‘Sunbeam’.”

When Ryone finished her explanation, a pillar of burning light shot out from the spell diagram above her head, crashing against the far wall. Even though the wall was over a hundred meters away, I could still feel the ground shake where we were standing. I even had a feeling that I’d take a lot of damage from that spell if I had my full Keeper powers unlocked. Not enough to kill me outright, but definitely enough to threaten me.

“Sunbeam’s range is three hundred meters, before it begins to disperse. At five hundred meters, it loses all effectiveness.” Ryone turned to me with a smile, the spell diagram above her head blinking out of existence. “As for the logic it breaks, I’m sure you noticed. It includes three dimensional symbols in its construction, which has not been used in any previous spellcasting.”

I gave a small nod as I heard that, unable to refrain from asking. “What’s the destructive capabilities of the spell?”

Ryone tilted her head in thought as she considered that. “It’s hard to say. The mage who unlocked it hasn’t used it against anything that could survive more than one hit. At the very least, I know that it can take out a level two hundred monster in a single shot. The problem casting it is its complexity. He can’t use it without the system’s guidance because it is too complicated to properly picture.”

“Given its mana consumption, however, it should be able to deal massive damage. In order to fire the spell once, it requires a minimum of ten thousand mana. Even the best mage in the world is only able to cast it twice before running out.”

Ten thousand mana for a single spell? I began to think about the first tier ki information that I had bought, and how a single essence orb required fifteen thousand ki to create. However, the two were fundamentally different, as essence orbs could be created and saved for later, making the ki spent less valuable by comparison.

I gave a small nod of my head as I considered the value of the spell. “Can you make a model of it for me to study? If I descend as a ‘great mage’ in the future, something like that could come in handy.”

Ryone smiled and easily agreed to that request. “Alright! Terra’s been teaching me how to create information orbs, so this should be a good test. Can’t really draw out a three dimensional diagram on a piece of paper so accurately, and a physical model would be too cumbersome. I’ll try to have the information orb to you some time tonight.”

Thanking her, I turned and left the underground training area. I needed to check up on the other worlds, see how they were really doing now.

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