I was… surprised when I learned that Ashley had gone to outsource the story of her gas to Galahan, rather than Lifre. From the start, I had simply assud that it would be Lifre filling the role of a writer for her. It was sort of her thing, after all.
However, when Ashley ntioned the sa argunt that she had given the halfling, that being Lifre’s total inability to remain still and focus on the task at hand, I suddenly beca more understanding. I an, sure, she has periods when she can focus on her writing. She has actually written quite a lot of books that have grabbed the public interest. But… those periods are few and far between.
Galahan, on the other hand, has few distractions. He was one of the first mortal gods, and has more divine energy than he knows what to do with. Literally, he doesn’t know what to do with his power, which led to him creating testing grounds for various scripts and performances in his own ho.
Ultimately, I think that Ashley made the right decision, though we’ll have to see how the cooperation works out. It will be pretty hard to actively work together on a project if I have to fast forward the world for any reason in the future. There could be decades where he was simply unable to receive a response back from them.
I brought this up with Ashley, and she simply shrugged her shoulders, telling that it was his decision. Granted, I didn’t really intend to fast forward more than I absolutely needed to at this point. There was a good chance that doing so would cause to suddenly advance in rank at this point.
Speaking of which… that brought to my current situation, where I was approaching Jas’s research facility. I had already sent Chelsea a ssage to let her incarnation know that I was coming, so I was unsurprised to see her waiting outside of the entrance for . There was an almost anxious look on her face when I approached, and I could guess what was going through her mind.
“Is he here?” I asked with a smile, and she nodded her head.
“Honestly, he never leaves. Makes it really easy to find him. You’re sure that it was the sa race, though? It wasn’t just a different race with similar characteristics, and his true race is on another planet in Lifre’s universe sowhere?”
I blinked at her question, before letting out a light chuckle. “Honestly, I had considered the possibility myself. If such had been the case, it was likely that we wouldn’t have been able to do this until I reached at least the sixth rank. Thankfully, I checked before I ca. He has all of the usual options when I highlight him now.”
Previously, because Jas was not considered one of my assets, I was not able to ‘highlight’ him. I couldn’t select him for any commands, or even directly follow his history. It took quite a bit longer to retrace his steps, as I had to follow the history of the world around him. Which ant, if he teleported, I had to manually figure out where he went. Now, however, there were no such restrictions on him within the system.
Chelsea nodded her head, turning and leading into the elevator. “Section Three, Corridor One.” She called out, and the elevator began to descend, before abruptly moving horizontally.
When the door of the elevator opened again, we exited out into the pristine, white halls of the research group. Not far away, I could see where Jas had his office set up… mostly because Treisha and Nora were waiting there in front of it. “Was everyone told that I was coming today?” I asked in exasperation.
Chelsea nodded her head. “I ntioned that you wanted to talk to Jas, and they got concerned. I didn’t tell them what it was about, obviously, but still.”
I gave a small nod, walking towards the office. “None of you need to worry. What I have to talk to him about isn’t sothing major. It’s just a topic that I felt needed to be discussed face-to-face.”
The other girls seed to relax slightly at that, Chelsea walking over to usher them away. “Co on, we have the data on the last set of experints to go over.”
When I entered the office, I found Jas sitting behind his desk, typing away at his terminal. He didn’t appear to have heard my entrance, too focused on his own work. It wasn’t until I cleared my throat that he looked up at , smiling. “Ah! You ca. Chel told that I should be expecting you.”
I smiled at that, moving to sit across from him. “Did she tell you what I was here for?”
To that, Jas simply shook his head. “Afraid not. She just said that you would be stopping by.”
“Well… to start things off, we reached the sixty-fourth floor of Fyor. You have officially been recognized by the world system.” Jas seed surprised at that, aning that that report had not yet reached his office. That or he simply didn’t pay much attention to the news on Fyor.
“Additionally, are you familiar with the system known as the Heavenly Gate?” When I asked that question, Jas shook his head again. “It’s a system that can only be activated by reaching the fourth rank as a Keeper without resetting any of your worlds. Because of that, not many people really care about the system.”
“Sounds rather extravagant. So, what does it do, let you turn a mortal into a god?” He asked, seeming to guess based on the na.
“Close, but not quite. I can pay ten thousand points to give soone access to the Heavenly Gate. Once they have that access, they can visit the Admin Room whenever they want. The only restriction is that the transfer process takes thirty seconds. So, it’s not like you’ll be doing it in combat or anything like that.”
Jas blinked, seeming to lean back in his seat and ponder that information. “If you’re telling this, that must an that you planned to offer this position?”
I gave a small nod of confirmation. “That’s right. I wanted to give you the chance to be able to visit Chelsea in the Admin Room. Additionally, this is a form of life insurance. Should anything happen to you in the mortal world, you will imdiately be transferred to the Admin Room as a full companion. Personally, I don’t see any downsides to this, aside from the cost, but I didn’t want to just apply it to you without coming and talking to you about it first.”
“I appreciate that.” Jas said, still mulling it over. “Like you said, there aren’t particularly any downsides. I assu that those with this gate are able to participate in defensive invasions?”
I gave a nod at that. “As for offensive ones, I don’t know what would happen if I tried to send them. It might invalidate the gate entirely, or only register you as dead when the invasion ended. Either way, I wasn’t planning to send you on any invasions to begin with.”
“I’d certainly hope not.” Jas snorted, shaking his head. “I’m all too aware just how high the mortality rate is for an invasion. Besides, there’s too much of a risk that sobody would recognize , right?”
I fell silent when he brought that up, and he looked at with a knowing smile. “Even if I accept your invitation, it wouldn’t be a good idea for to go to the regular etings. I’m in a rather… unique position, from my understanding, and we can’t afford to let other Keepers catch wind of it.”
“That’s right.” I nodded my agreent. Sure, there may be ways for other Keepers to create a forr Keeper as a Companion, but their System Companion would likely be forced to limit what knowledge they kept in the process. For instance, if I created Jas back when I was only at the second rank, it’s unlikely that he would retain his knowledge from the fourth rank.
By that logic, it was the exposure to Jas that allowed to recreate Chelsea in such a complete state. Even if he wasn’t one of my ‘assets’, the system did acknowledge that I interacted with him in so form.
“Personally, it doesn’t matter to much either way.” Jas admitted, stretching his arms out above his head. “Whether I have access to the Admin Room or not won’t change anything for , aside from that life insurance you ntioned. And… let’s be perfectly honest. If anything did happen to , Chel would travel to the ends of creation to find a way to fix it. We lost each other once, after all.”
I couldn’t help but give another nod, imagining what would happen. A shiver went down my spine, picturing Chelsea just appearing in my office, demanding I make it better. “Right… still, I think that it would be better to do it than not.” I said, planning to apply it the next ti I was in the Admin Room. “At the very least, it will be there if we decide that we need it.”
Jas simply chuckled, not imdiately responding. Looking over at his terminal, I couldn’t help but ask. “How is the world creation research coming along?”
When I asked that, Jas broke out into a genuine grin, seeming pleased to discuss his findings. “It’s going great, actually! Now that we are beyond the level of developnt that my world was at in terms of energy control, I am learning so many new things. So far, we’ve still only done the first round of world creation experints, but just that has already given us so much data to review.”
“I’m not sure if you’re aware, but one of the worlds that we created was a potentially viable world. The only problem was that it was created without any form of ti acceleration inherent, so there was naught but cosmic dust. Chel believes that if we add in enough of a ti factor, that world would have been perfectly livable. Unfortunately, such a ti factor would require millions, if not billions of years, so we couldn’t exactly wait.”
“That’s why, for our next batch, we’re planning to include a ti scale like that! As you know, ti is rather subjective in the void. With the proper tampering, it wouldn’t be difficult for ti to be rapidly accelerated for a single world, similar to the Keeper’s controls in the Admin room. If we use that, we could turn a ‘potentially viable’ world into a new frontier.”
After he said that, he let out a long sigh. “Of course, this is still only creating a world with the existing structures. It would be similar to a more advanced version of how Tubrock and Ryone created the universe where the March is, just more independent. If we want to get into the real at of the research, we’ll need to figure out how to create a world that has its own, custom system.”
I couldn’t stop myself from blinking as he began talking passionately, making sure that I was keeping up with him. “If you can do sothing like that… doesn’t that an that it’s possible to rapidly accelerate ti in any world?” I asked, hesitantly. That would be an awful form of attack, accelerating a world so much that all life simply dies.
“Personally, I’d be more concerned with the opposite happening.” Jas pointed out, lifting one hand. “If the ti is accelerated inside the world, that ans that they literally have all of the ti in the world to co up with a solution. They could have Fallen Gods leave the world to fight the enemies.”
“However… if it were the other way around, and they instead froze ti inside a world, it would be the enemies that had all the ti that they needed to destroy that world. Regardless, I’m not sure how one would achieve such a thod of ti control in either direction, just yet. On an incomplete world, it is feasible due to the thin barrier surrounding the world. Once that world barrier becos dense enough, such manipulations are naturally prevented, and the flow of ti is stabilized. At that point, it would take a higher order of technology to alter the flow of ti, or intervention from the Admin Room.”
I gave a small nod at that, glad that I wouldn’t need to worry about such attacks. At least, not for a while yet.
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