World Keeper

Chapter 738: Memetic Hazard

Nora and Thea were hard at work with the assignments that Chel had given them, though their difficulties were on two entirely different levels. For Nora, she had to catalog all of the known psionic powers, including those from the vast Metong Network. However, while this seemed like an incredibly daunting task, the Metong themselves had actually done most of the work for them.

All she had to do at that point was sort the list by the threat that their abilities posed to themselves and others. This took a little consideration for each ability, but most were cut and dry. Only for those abilities with dangerous properties would she have to consider it in more depth.

Meanwhile, Thea… she had to contact dozens of different Mana Towers of Earth, using her authority as a researcher to request access to their records. After that, she had to go over each one, isolating the exact moment when the wave hit that tower to find their recorded mana readings.

While Nora’s task was of a far larger scale, it was Thea’s that was more daunting. That was why she was incredibly grateful when Treisha arrived the next day to help. After a good day of rest, the elf was back in top form and ready to return to work. Without any special assignments from Chel, she quickly made her way over to Thea and offered her assistance.

“Have you found anything yet?” Treisha asked curiously, copying the files from Thea’s terminal over to her own, that way she could share the workload. Thea let out a small sigh, nodding her head.

“Vaguely. I can tell you that the pulse was not truly instant, at least.” She tapped at her screen and flicked her wrist, sending a number of timestamps over to Treisha. “These are the logs I’ve gone over so far. Although the times seem nearly identical, there are very slight differences.”

“According to my calculations, the pulse spread at the speed of light, radiating outwards from the hospital. As for how it hit other planets at the same time… my guess is that it was able to spread through the portals we have open to allow easy transport and communication with our offworld colonies and various ships.”

Treisha furrowed her brow when she heard that. “There are a couple of things wrong with that theory, I believe.” Thea looked over in curiosity at her words, so the elf explained. “We have similar portals leading to the other dimensions, used to bridge network cables. If the pulse could jump through those portals, then it would not have waited several hours before it arrived at Deckan.”

“Additionally, the Metong worlds do not benefit from such a portal network, and yet all of their networked worlds were hit at the same time. There has to be more to this than simply the speed of light.”

Thea glanced at her files again in thought. “For the cable portals, I have an explanation that could potentially work. To ensure that the portals use as little power as possible, their size is reduced to the extreme. These portals are utterly airtight, with less than a nanometer of extra space. Furthermore, the cables themselves are shielded against mana to prevent signal interference. It’s likely that the pulse simply couldn’t penetrate these portals, and had to wait for a more convenient method of transmission.”

“As for the Metong…” Thea had to give that one a bit more thought, before an idea struck her. “It’s possible that it attached itself to the Network signal. The big deal with the Metong Network is that they are able to keep track of their worlds with their network terminals. The signals between these terminals are mana-based, and have properties to allow immediate interstellar transmissions.”

Treisha gave a small nod, feeling like the explanations were plausible. “I suppose… Though, for that matter, how were the Metong even affected? Chel said that the pulse affected brain chemistry, but the golem races are mechanical. There shouldn’t be any brain chemistry involved for them to have modified.”

This time, Thea had no answer to offer, though she was sure that there was one. After all, anything in the world could be explained if the logic was followed. She simply shook her head as Treisha sat down at her desk, preparing to work. However…

“What’s this…?” Treisha muttered suddenly, seeing a notification of a missed message. Tapping the icon, she saw that it was another report from the same hospital where the carrier of the pulse had been held. Treisha sighed, ready to simply skim through the contents and chalk it up to a standard follow-up report.

“What…” The contents of the message shocked her, and she had to go through and read it more clearly, before jumping to her feet. “Chel, we’ve got another high-priority report related to the pulse!” She shouted, eyes turning in the shorter Kitsune’s direction.

The eyes of the others in the lab immediately turned to face Treisha, with Chel herself jumping from her seat and running over. “What’s the problem?” She asked with an anxious expression, as if expecting Treisha to report side effects of power overuse or something similar.

“I just got a new report from the hospital we talked about before. They’ve become increasingly concerned due to the births that have happened since the pulse occurred.”

“Were the babies born deformed, or perhaps stillborn?” Chel asked, her face becoming more and more anxious.

“No, not that… the babies are actually stronger than normal.” Treisha reported, showing Chel the message that the doctors had sent. “Every day since the incident, the new births have been registering an average increase in one statistic point over the previous day. This is happening regardless of race, with the only reported exception being the heroc.”

Chel looked at the numbers written on the page, and nodded her head. Although her nerves were calming down, this was still something to take seriously. “The pregnant mothers that were hit with the mana pulse had more than their brain chemistry altered… Tell the doctors to run placenta tests. There should be a dramatically increased concentration of nutrients, as well as some trace energy readings.”

Treisha immediately began typing up the reply, nodding seriously. “Of course. Do you have any ideas?”

“One…” Chel chuckled slightly, shaking her head. “It looks like the Keeper chose to kickstart our evolution.” If it was just the pulse itself, Chel could have believed that to be the result of a natural or manmade phenomena. However, with the rising strengths of newborn babies it was clear that this was meant to be a qualitative evolution.

Thinking it over, Chel soon realized something. “The heroc aren’t being affected by this rising strength. Either the new benchmark for their evolution was lower… or he’s rebalancing the stats, and bringing everyone up to their standard.” Given what she knew of the Keeper, she felt like the latter was far more possible.

Treisha glanced over, nodding her head. “Should we warn the Metong?” Although she was not entirely sure how the process of kickstarting evolution on such a scale worked, it was clear that there were races in the Metong Network that were suffering under the effects.

“I’ll send them a message. This aspect of the pulse shouldn’t prove harmful to any races, but we can’t be sure how exactly it will affect those outside of the system’s guidance.” Naturally, the system she was referring to there meant the game system of the world, which only truly benefited those races that the Keeper had purchased. For everyone else, they simply saw those other races as being outside of that system’s guidance.

“Understood. Anything else we should take care of for this?” Treisha asked, Chel giving it a moment of thought before nodding her head.

“Contact hospitals and baby nutrition companies. Tell them to immediately begin research and production of nutritional formulas from the middle of the first ring up to the low second ring. If the growth continues following this pattern, it’s reasonable to expect that they will hit that threshold within three months at the latest.” Treisha’s eyes went wide when she heard that, quickly beginning to type up another email.

It had to be known that most current babies were born too weak to even be considered the first ring. With an average physical score of less than ten, they were known as ‘half rings’. And while it was fun to talk about the half ring halflings, it was known never to give them food beyond their capabilities. For infants to be born with a body as high as the second ring… they would have the body strength equivalent to a trained teenager.

Chel let out a sigh as she shook her head. “After this generation matures, we’ll need to start using the heroc standard for measuring candidates of the Perfection Chamber.” Previously, the heroc had a natural advantage over every other race, being born several times stronger. Naturally, this difference could be overcome with levels, but their stronger bodies also allowed them to contain more energy before reaching their ‘natural limits’.

Thankfully, that was a problem to worry about decades down the line. For now, Chel was relieved to have identified this as something caused by the Keeper himself. If it were a natural or manmade event, there were far more concerns for hidden dangers. Events instigated through the system often had some measure of safeguard to prevent it from being directly harmful to the Keeper’s races.

At the same time, she knew that this directed evolution meant that they had likely become a Rank Three world. This was the same as what James had been at his peak, so they knew how strong the enemies that they were bound to face would be. Shaking her head, she moved back to her desk, pulling out a piece of blank paper and calling back to Nora. “Hey, Nora? What’s the name of that ninja elder? I wish to write him a… strongly worded letter.”

“Sebastian Wanke, why…?” Nora asked nervously, glancing back at Chel. However, Chel had simply pulled out a pencil and begun writing on her paper. Nora had a hard time believing that Chel would let the matter rest with just a harsh letter, and she was… partially correct.

The letter that Chel was preparing was far from a normal letter, a black light evident at the tip of her pencil. As she wrote, the light seemed to sink into the page, producing a series of abstract images that soon faded away until they were indiscernible from the page itself. “No reason.” Chel said with a mischievous grin.

Ultimately, Chel was not one to let go of a grudge so easily, especially a grudge that threatened James’s work and potentially the well-being of countless people. Although the current situation required them to make the pulse their primary focus, the recent revelation had given Chel enough breathing room to settle this score.

The letter itself seemed quite ordinary, simply confirming that Chel knew the elder was targeting their research. From an outside perspective, it appeared as though the letter was meant as a simple warning. The energy she was embedding into the page itself, on the other hand, contained a far deeper importance.

If left to her own devices, and with the motivation to personally get involved, Chel had dozens of ways to kill the man and shock the ninja clans back onto the path the gods intended for them. However, she was busy at the moment, and could not afford the time to handle this herself. Although she found it regretful, she could only harness the power of the void to do the work for her, in the form of a memetic agent.

Similar to how Julius Kyles had used the void to hypnotize people through written or spoken words into accepting his agreements, there were many ways to utilize void energy when transmitting information. These were collectively known as memetic agents. The particular agents Chel was using right now were two-fold.

First, the envelope itself would remain unsealed, with the name and title of its recipient written on the front. This title would contain a memetic agent that gave someone a fairly simple effect. Under normal circumstances, they would simply seek to ensure that the letter found its way to the recipient written on the envelope. Due to wanting the letter to reach its recipient unharmed, they would not do any damage to either the envelope or the letter within, including copying it down to send digitally.

This was actually a fairly standard memetic agent in James’s world, used by postal companies to ensure that people did not try to steal packages meant to be delivered to someone else. As long as the person recognized that the package was not addressed to them, the agent would activate. And if it was, the agent would compel the recipient to open the package themselves. Granted, this was taken advantage of by many scam companies and insurance salesmen, but it produced a drastic decrease in stolen packages.

The second memetic agent was far more sinister. When read by the person who identifies the text as targeting them, this memetic agent caused a powerful sense of guilt. Unless the reader truly believed that they had not done anything written within the affected text, there would be two commands implanted within their mind. These commands would be carried out naturally, without the host even aware that they had been targeted.

The first command was for them to confess to all crimes related to the affected text in a public manner. This could be anything from a standard public confession to a large press conference, with the confession always meant to spread the belief that what they did was wrong. After they completed this command, the second command activated. With this, they would find a method of self-termination that appeared outwardly natural.

In James’s old world, a common method of carrying out this command was for a space pirate to unintentionally sabotage their warp drive during routine maintenance, not even realizing as he gave the command to launch. In this world, Chel could imagine it as someone attempting ascension to divinity or perfection, getting distracted at a key moment. They could even just create a more basic energy type and perform a reckless mistake. Either way, the result would be the same.

Chel smiled as she grabbed for a blank envelope, writing down the name and title of Elder Wanke. “I’ve got to go deliver a letter, so I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She said as she hopped up from her desk. She hummed lightly to herself as she left the lab, eyes scanning the signs of every business she passed to look for the ninja clan’s hidden trademark. Unless someone had the proper level of void protection, or knew the specific anti-memetic agent to counter the letter, Chel was confident that it would have its desired effect.

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