World Keeper

Chapter 783: Friendly Advice

Elisae let out a soft groan as she awoke, eyes slowly cracking open to take in the afternoon sun. Glancing over at the clock she placed next to herself, she realized that she had ‘slept’ for two full days. Her cheeks puffed out at that, realizing that the time she spent was quite a bit above the average to ascend. “I guess there’s still some work needed to figure out the exact timeframe…”

After muttering that, she slowly sat up, letting out a light yawn before inspecting the messages that had piled up in her slumber. Did I get it…? As those thoughts passed through her mind, the achievement appeared before her. Sure enough, the domain that she received was that of Wishes.

With a grin, Elisae jumped to her feet, throwing her fists into the air. “Yes!” She cried out excitedly. Now that her domain was set, there was more work for her to do in order to become the type of queen that she wanted to be.

“First thing’s first… I need to test if it still takes power from someone else’s divine spark in order to unlock my divinity. I’d try to work it in as a new rule, but… that would require me to be able to use it in the first place.” She let out an awkward chuckle at the realization that her first rule had effectively prevented her from being able to amend the rules in the future if they had any flaws.

“Who should I ask?” Elisae had chosen to ascend on the roof of her palace, simply to ensure that there would be no damage if her divine ascension got out of hand in any way. Thus, there was ample room for her to pace back and forth. “I could try to test it with one of the staff again, but… if I’m a full god, it might take more of their divine spark to make a wish. I don’t want to cause any permanent damage. And if that is the case, how am I going to be a queen that answers the wishes of her people?”

“This is why you should listen to people all the way until the end…” A new voice spoke up from not far away, causing Elisae to look over. There, in her red dress, was Scarlet. One foot tapped impatiently on the ground, red distortions warping the space around her. Clearly, she had only just appeared.

“Ah, Scarlet!” Elisae turned with a wide smile to face the Empress of Bloodhaven. “I apologize, I didn’t realize that you were coming by today.”

“I know.” She said in a flat tone, her brow twitching. “I sensed your energy suddenly spiking, so I came over to find you in the middle of your ascension process. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up for two days now.”

“Heheh…” Elisae scratched her cheek awkwardly, glancing off to the side. “Sorry, I wasn’t really planning it to take so long. Is there something that you need, then?”

“No.” Scarlet shook her head, sighing and starting to walk closer towards Elisae. “But it seems like there might be something that you need, isn’t that right? You do have a bit of a tendency to mutter to yourself, it seems. Something about ‘locking’ your divinity, even before you ascended?”

“Ah, there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for that.” Elisae’s eyes darted back and forth, seeing the serious look of her friend.

“I’m listening.” Scarlet stopped just before Elisae, having to stare up at her due to her shorter stature. However, this did not detract from the reputation of the First Blood, or the pressure that she released as the Goddess of a primary energy.

“W-Well, I wanted to be able to answer wishes, right? Yeah!” Elisae nodded quickly, doing her best to explain herself. “All of the studies have shown that creating rules for your own divinity is a way to refine it and allow it to release an even greater power than normal, especially if your domain is typically broad in scope. I needed that type of rule in order for me to operate as a wish-granting goddess.”

“That applies for specific abilities, not your entire divinity!” Scarlet scolded, causing Elisae to flinch. “With how your lock is structured, you wouldn’t be able to fight with anything but your physical body, right? You can’t access divine ki or mana, and you probably don’t have the training yet to filter those energies back out of your divinity.”

“A-ah… I don’t really have anything to say to that.” Elisae knew that Scarlet wasn’t really wrong. In fact, the normal process of placing your divine spark within your mind to complete the final step wasn’t possible for her. Instead, she had to wrap her mana around her divinity. Effectively, it was the same process, but it showed that she was unable to mobilize her divinity as she wanted.

“Undo your lock, and I’ll help you set your restrictions right.” Scarlet said in a firm tone. Without waiting for Elisae to explain what was needed, Scarlet immediately spoke up again. “I wish for the restriction on your divinity to be unmade.”

Elisae let out a small sigh, nodding her head. “Yes, Scarlet…” She muttered, the lock snapping free in response to the wish. “So… what should I do, then?” Thankfully, Scarlet was far more experienced as a goddess than herself, so she should know firsthand the tricks that Elisae had only read about. This was only more evident by how Scarlet understood what the locks on her divinity were about.

“First, you want to partition a piece of your divinity.” Scarlet said, her expression somewhat softer as she lifted a finger to point at Elisae. “It’s fine to want to be able to answer the wishes of your people. However, if you are unable to even use your divinity for other basic tasks, you will never be able to protect those that can’t speak up for themselves. You set yourself on this wish-granting path, so we’re going to make sure you see it through to the end.”

Elisae could only nod her head again at that. “How much should I partition?”

“Ten percent should do. This ten percent will be your permanent reserve. For the other ninety percent, I want you to ask yourself. What constitutes a wish? Is it simply the act of saying the word before a request? Is it something that you do on a special occasion, or is it something everyone does on a regular basis?”

Elisae blinked, not entirely sure how to answer that. “A wish is… a desire, right? Something you want to achieve, or something you want to protect?”

Scarlet lifted her brow. “Oh? Are you saying that you’re a Goddess of Desire, then?”

The human woman’s cheeks went bright red at that, shaking her head. Scarlet simply chuckled at that expected response. “Everyone has desires, everyone dreams. If you define a wish as simply a desire, then what about for all of those people that want your hand in marriage? Are you going to go through and marry each one of them to fulfill their wishes?”

“I-I…” Elisae truly didn’t know what to say about that. She had not gotten a marriage offer in some time, but that was mostly because of her position acting as a shield to prevent most people from approaching her for such things. Naturally, she knew that there were those that had taken a fancy to her.

“What about people with petty desires? Those who wish misfortune on others just to make themselves feel better? Are those also the kind of wish that you want to grant?”

“O-Of course not!” This time, Elisae was able to let out a proper response. “Why would I want to harm other people in granting a wish?”

“Then tell me… what is a wish that you want to grant?” Scarlet asked, a playful smile on her face.

Elisae’s eyes closed, and she placed one hand over her chest. “I… I want to be the kind of queen that is there for her people when they need her most. When their voices cry out for justice, I want to answer them. When the people are suffering, and are pleading for support, I want to offer them my shoulder. What is a god if not someone who can grant such simple boons?”

Scarlet’s playful smile turned even more mischievous. “Divine law, first act. Flow your divinity into those thoughts. When a group gathers at a depiction of your likeness and shares a common wish, you will be able to hear it. We will call this ability ‘Answering the People’.”

Elisae’s eyes snapped open at that. Realizing what Scarlet was saying, she quickly began to flow her divinity through those thoughts, focusing on the words of the red-haired goddess. As she did, she could already begin to hear faint whispers in the back of her mind. Voices asking for a good harvest or protection from storms.

“Ugh… that will take some getting used to.” Elisae gripped her head, shaking it a moment later. This was part of what she wanted. Training herself to be able to follow multiple voices at once would just be another routine she had to adapt to.

“You’re just getting started. Remember, don’t touch that ten percent that I told you to leave aside.” Scarlet said in a firm tone, causing Elisae to quickly nod her head. “Divine law, second act. There will be times when those who want to make a wish are unable to gather in a community. Some will be able to come face to face with you, while others are unable to leave their homes. Perhaps they’ve been wrongly accused and are in prison to face crimes they didn’t commit, wishing for someone to bring forth the truth. How will you answer those people?”

“A strong desire, one born in isolation and unable to be shared…” Elisae thought about that, not immediately sure how to respond. “I… I don’t know.” Her dreams felt like they were crumbling around her, but she clung to the hope that her friend would be able to guide her. It was clear that Scarlet was doing this for her sake, so she wanted to know what Scarlet would say next.

“You need a divine artifact to contain this second law. The second law will parse these individual wishes according to their intensity. Just how strongly does someone want something? Those with the strongest wishes will be at the top of the list. Thankfully, I know someone that is quite good with crafting divine artifacts, and he loves odd jobs like your’s. For now, take five percent of your divinity and separate it, condense it into a physical form while focusing on that law. It will become the embodiment of the law until you imbue it into your artifact later.”

Elisae quickly nodded her head, working according to Scarlet’s instructions. She held her hands out in front of her, and a golden orb of light began to manifest. Focus on the power of a wish, separating them, listing them, storing them to be reviewed. Thankfully, these wishes would not all be blasted into her mind, which was likely why Scarlet had her separate the manifestation in the first place.

Seeing the ball taking shape, Scarlet gave a small nod once it became completely solid. “Good. So far, you have two laws to listen to the wishes of your people. One allows you to listen to the wishes of a community, and the other allows you to listen to the desperate wishes of an individual. Next, we want to address people that come to you directly.”

“Divine law, third act. This works in tandem with both of the previous acts, so keep that in mind when forming this law. When receiving a wish, you are able to glimpse the history of the wisher to understand their circumstances. Normally, this would require a lot of work, but thankfully there is a way to ease the process.”

“Lately, there have been a number of natural-born abilities appearing in the world, divided by race. One of these belongs to the elves, the ability to read the history of an object. Base your ability to view the past of an individual on this mystical power.” Elisae gave another nod at Scarlet’s instructions, starting to feel her collapsed dreams once again taking shape around her. Only, now they were clearer than ever before, allowing her to see the full grasp of what she wanted to do.

“Divine law, fourth act. You now have the power to listen to wishes of groups, of those in isolation, and of those that appear before you. However, you do not have the power to grant any of these wishes yet. Currently, you’re just the ultimate divine peeping tom.” Elisae’s cheeks went red again at Scarlet’s teasing.

“The fourth act is the power to grant a wish. However, you said that there was a problem with the divinity of the person who made the wishes before, right?” Scarlet asked, causing Elisae to nod her head.

“I noticed that their divine sparks weakened slightly in order to unlock my divinity…”

“That’s not going to work anymore.” Scarlet grumbled. “Your divinity itself should not be sealed. Your divine power answers their wishes, but if you ask for their divine sparks as payment in return, you will bring ruin to your people. Therefore, this is how I want you to establish your power of wish granting…”

“I will not grant the wishes of my people.” Elisae’s eyes went wide when she heard what Scarlet said, caught completely off guard. However, Scarlet’s lips crooked up into another grin. “Instead, I will grant them the method for their wish to be granted.”

“Uhm… what’s the difference?” Elisae asked in confusion, not sure what Scarlet was getting at.

“The first method requires them to unlock the power to grant a wish.” Scarlet pointed out, shaking her head. “We don’t want to do that. So, instead, we’re changing it. This narrows the scope of your wishes, but it will be more than enough to fit in for most of the wishes you would want to grant.”

“As an example, let us assume that there was a terrible storm bearing down on a village, and the inhabitants wished for their village to be spared from disaster. If such a wish came through to you, how would you answer it?”

When Elisae heard that, there were naturally many answers that formed in her head, though some were more obvious than others. “I would weaken the storm.”

“That’s certainly one method. Now… what sort of power would it naturally take to weaken such a storm, wish-granting aside?”

“The power of a druid to control nature would be best, no?” Elisae tilted her head, finding the answer to be a bit too easy.

“Exactly! What they need is not the power of a goddess, but the power of a druid!” Scarlet pointed straight at Elisae’s forehead. “Furthermore, druids do not use much of their own power, only their will to control nature. For those of a lower level, they only have to expend some mana to communicate with nature until they have established their token.”

“Following this divine law, you would not grant them your power and directly disperse the storm. Instead, you would stir their mana to interact with nature, turning each villager into a type of druid all working together to weaken the storm.”

Elisae gave a slow nod, finding the example viable. “But then… what about a village that is being attacked by monsters too strong for them to defeat?”

Scarlet gave a low chuckle at that. “People are often stronger than they believe, only lacking the skill. However, if there is truly such a difference in level, the wish is even easier. What they need is not to defeat the foe, but to survive. This gives you a number of options. Potentially, you could answer the wish by using it as a path to send troops. You could bless the villagers with more skillful ways of fighting, or use the wish to combine the energies of those gathered to trigger a spell that would teleport everyone to safety.”

“Don’t lock your divinity in such a way that it must be undone from the outside, or else you will always be robbing your followers of their future. A wish is only the path for your divinity to follow, nothing more. If you set this restriction for granting the wishes of others, it will save both you and them a majority of the burden.”

Elisae gave a small nod at that. It was… a bit hard to accept hearing that she had been using a completely unacceptable approach, but Scarlet was a very… stern teacher. “I understand. Is there anything else?”

“Divine law, final act.” Scarlet grinned, nodding her head. “Granting your own wishes. You might think that it is selfish for a Goddess of Wishes to be able to grant her own wish, or even that it will dilute your divine power by breaking any previous restrictions. However… isn’t everything you’re doing right now your own attempt to grant your ‘wish’? Your wish is to become a good queen for your people.”

“Let us take the Goddess Ryone as an example. With her mercantile domains, she trades her divinity for other domain powers for a limited time in battles. She hasn’t had the chance to show this off much, but the information is there if you know where to look. In the same way, you could wish for yourself to temporarily become a goddess with a different domain.”

“As an example… ‘I wish for the power of fire’. Once you use this type of wish to temporarily alter your domain, you will be able to use the bulk of your divinity for combat without worrying about any restrictions.”

Elisae blinked, giving a slow nod. She hadn’t thought of wishing for other domains, though it certainly seemed like a viable option. “I understand, but… what should I do with that ten percent you had me set aside, then?”

Scarlet simply grinned wider in response. “Aside from what you have already converted into previous divine laws, and that ten percent, I want you to use everything else for the fifth law. Aside from that ten percent, and the parts allocated to the first four laws, the rest of your divinity should be in a state of flux, ready to shift itself into one or more forms at a moment’s notice.”

“Normally, I’d tell you to slowly train this as a specific power over time instead of making it a divine law, but… your domain has almost zero utility in combat without the power to grant your own wishes. And anything you would normally want to use it for, you can do so with this law as well. Thus, in your specific case, it would be better to create it as a divine law, and then have you train specific powers after wishing yourself into new domains.”

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