Watching the fairy disappear into the stream, I simply blinked and began processing everything that had been said. However, it wasn’t that spoke up first but Irena, her eyes on the spot where the girl vanished. “You ntioned that we could buy a branch of the spring… does it have so actual function, then?”
Right, if it were just sentintal, there would be no reason to buy it… I gave a faint nod as I heard Irena’s words, and soon saw the small head of the pixie rising above the water. “Of course it does! This is the Spring of Origins, after all!”
Irena simply stared at her, prompting her to continue after clearing her throat. “The spring water suppresses the naturally explosive reactions between different energies. It makes it way easier for energies to mix together, even accidentally.”
I sucked in a sharp breath at that. That was… an incredibly powerful ability. That ant that even passively, the water would likely be generating any number of combinations between mana and natural energy in my world. If soone were to purposely take away so of the water, they’d be able to even create a saint level energy without having to worry about the consequences of failure.
“That… can’t be cheap.” I shook my head. Such a powerful ability would require an astronomical sum, no matter how small the spring was.
“I an… it’s not too bad.” The pixie shrugged her shoulders with a mischievous grin. “Only five hundred thousand points.”
It took everything I had not to kick so water at the pixie when she expressed that as ‘not too bad’. Half a million for a branch of a spring… that was an insane figure. If I didn’t understand just how potent the spring’s water could be before, I certainly did so now.
Irena seed to catch my struggle, directing a playful smile at . “Long term goals, Dale.” She gripped my hand lightly as she said that. I leaned against her, happy to be able to feel the warmth as we soaked next to the spring.
With our questions out of the way, it seed that the pixie had once again taken her leave. Unless we called her, it would just be Irena and myself for a while. Although it turned out to be more than just a simple spring, I wasn’t at all unhappy with where our random wandering had taken us. “Irena?”
“Hmm?” She glanced over to , before resting her head against my own.
“I’m sorry for making you wait so long.” That was sothing that had always been plaguing my mind, ever since I realized just how sincere her feelings were. Bihena had proven fairly quickly just how easy it was for them to recognize that the feelings in their hearts were sothing I gave them. Yet still, how long had she waited in the Underworld for ?
Naturally, she would have made the sa realization as Bihena did. But even still, those feelings burned strong. I don’t know exactly how she sees , but it was enough to convince her that I was worth the wait. That’s why I didn’t want to jump right into anything with her, I didn’t want to rush it after all of that. I felt like she deserved better.
Irena’s hand gripped my own, and I could feel the affection from the simple gesture. “It’s alright, Dale. I’m just happy to be here now.”
“ too.” Nodding my head, I pulled my arm back to wrap around her waist, below her wings.
Tsubaki found herself being guided towards a large building, where quite a lot of people could be seen going in and out. “If you want to earn points, this will be the place to start.” Terra directed a smile back towards her, leading her inside.
Within the building, there were people of all shapes and sizes, most of which were standing over a series of arcade machines. Although Tsubaki had never taken the ti to play one such machine herself in the past, she had seen what they looked like in various stores after the rging of Desbar with the rest of the worlds.
“There are… so many.” Tsubaki blinked, looking around, before she seed to notice a problem. “Aren’t all the gas already taken?”
Hearing that, Terra only let out a small smile. “That’s the magic of this place. Sothing only exists when it is wanted. All of these gas were called into existence by the people playing them. As for you… well, you don’t really play gas too much aside from Vision Expanse. Wait… that’s right, you got into Natural Seed as well recently.”
When Tsubaki glanced off to the side at that comnt, Terra simply chuckled. “It’s fine. Just think about what kind of ga you expect you would be best at. Consider your own strengths, and the arcade will prepare a matching ga for you.”
Tsubaki furrowed her brows, closing her eyes in focus. What were her greatest talents when it ca to gas? She had excellent reflexes, honed over all of her years of training. But, there was sothing more, wasn’t there? “Survival.” Tsubaki muttered that word, and Terra nodded, leading her towards the back of the arcade just in ti for a new machine to appear.
Whether it was the real world or any ga, the aspect which Tsubaki has always been best at was surviving. Making the best off whatever resources she had to get herself from day to day. She had done so in her trial of blood as a child, and again in Vision Expanse when she trained her second character through a similar thod.
“Since you’re wanting a survival-style ga, this should be just the thing for you.” Terra guided her to sit down in front of the machine. Unlike most of the arcade gas in the room, this was set up more like a basic computer terminal.
Tsubaki looked at the screen, and the ga was already at its opening nu. She brought her hand to the controls, signalling for the ga to start, and was amazed at what she found. The character that appeared on the screen was Tsubaki herself. Only, she was not the Goddess of Light with nine shining tails.
Instead, she was a little kitsune girl wearing nothing but rags, standing in a dark forest. For a mont, Tsubaki felt as if she were watching a scene from her childhood. Quickly, she found the pause button, turning her head to look at Terra.
Catching her gaze, the felyn goddess nodded her head. “This is a survival simulator. The avatar was chosen to be a younger version of yourself, due to the nature of the ga causing it to last a long period of ti. While this isn’t the sa as the trial you experienced… the difficulty will not be any easier.”
Tsubaki furrowed her brows, thinking over those words. After a mont, she turned back to the ga and began to morize the controls, as well as the gaplay chanics. If this was truly going to be as hard as what she had been through, she would need every advantage she could get.
I lost track of how long Irena and I were next to the spring. Out in the woods like this, the only person around was a representation of the system itself. If we were truly afraid to do anything just because of that, we may as well never get the chance to act in the future.
By the ti we were leaving the forest, there was an almost ecstatic smile on Irena’s face. She held my hand as we walked, and I knew that I didn’t want to let go. Every few steps, her wings seed to flutter slightly, barely restraining her excitent.
When we arrived back at the main eting area, we looked around to see if there was anyone we recognized. Obviously, the most common gathering place would be the arcade, as it was where the majority of Keepers went to earn their points.
However, I happened to spot a familiar face standing off on her own, her brows scrunched up in focus. When Irena caught sight of who I was looking at, she nodded her head. The two of us walked over, waving towards the figure. “What’s up, Balu?”
“Hmm?” Balu’s long rabbit ears suddenly stood up as she was called out to, turning to face us. “Oh! Dave!”
“So close, yet so far…” I chuckled, shaking my head a bit. “Dale. It’s Dale, Balu. So, what are you up to?”
“I… don’t know!” She announced, as if she were proud of that fact. “I figured that I would co and do sothing… but now that I’m here I’ve totally forgotten what I wanted to do! And I left my notebook back ho, so I can’t go and find it to check.”
I stared, a bit dumbfounded. I knew that this girl had problems with her mory, but I didn’t realize that it was to this degree. “You’re not needing a ticket or anything, right?”
“Oh, no. I’m not in any trouble.” She assured with a bright smile, her nose twitching a bit from the gesture. “I haven’t gotten into any big invasions for a little bit. There was probably just so ga that I wanted to try out. I always make sure to bring my notebook whenever there’s a eting, so I know I’m not missing any business, either.”
Hearing that, I gave a small nod. “Well, would you like to talk with us for a bit? I’ve been wanting to pick your brain for a while now on sothing.”
“Nope!” She held up her arms, forming an X in front of herself with them. “That sounds painful! I’ve got enough problems with my brain where it is, thanks!”
Irena blinked, and again, her eyes still staring at Balu. “It’s an expression. It ans that he wants to get your advice.”
“Oh? It is?” The little white rabbit girl directed her gaze towards suspiciously, causing to let out a sigh and nod. “Okay, but if it’s anything that would need to be charged, I’ll have to call the boss.”
“It shouldn’t be. I’m more interested in your personal advice, rather than the advice of the Gilded Branch.” I smiled a bit at that, leading Balu back towards the grassy area. It was a better eting point than standing in the middle of the street, at the very least. If we hadn’t just eaten a little while ago, maybe I’d take her to the restaurant instead.
Once we were in a fairly secluded spot, Balu dropped down to the ground and crossed her legs, her body swaying from side to side. “So, what did you want to talk to about?”
“Cultivation worlds.” When I said that, her ears seed to perk up in interest. “I’ve been having so… issues with the one I’m running, and I wanted to get your take on it as a friend.”
“Sure! Just tell what the problem is, and I’ll see what I can do to help.” Balu seed quite excited for to ask her advice on this, so I didn’t hesitate to explain.
“I used the cultivation system that I got with your advice previously, and rged that world with one of my others. Now, when I rged the two worlds, I felt that their overall level of power should have been about right for a rge.”
Balu’s lips twitched into a grin. “Cultivation world has fallen way behind, hasn’t it?”
“Exactly.” I nodded my head. In truth, Lorek and Spica weren’t doing too bad. The main problem was that personal power progressed too slowly under the cultivation system. “With the introduction of our ga system, the world managed to speed up its power growth a bit, but their main developnt hasn’t been able to keep pace with my other worlds.”
Balu gave a knowing nod. “Yup! That sounds about right. Cultivation systems by nature really slow down a world. When everyone spends all their ti focusing on cultivation practice, they spend less ti on other things such as scientific advancent. Especially once you get to the point where cultivation prolongs their lifespans, then everyone sees it more as just ‘Another day of cultivation could an another month of living’.”
“Too bad it doesn’t always work like that.” I muttered with a bitter smile. “Anyways, do you have any ideas on how to settle this?”
“Actually, yeah! This is sothing I had to deal with a loooonng ti ago. I tried to integrate a ga world with my cultivation system after winning it from a ga Keeper. I had to tweak so balance to make everything work. Adjusting experience values and things like that.”
“Afterwards, to keep my cultivation world on par with the ga world I won, I set up a ti dilation between the two. From then on, my cultivation world moved a hundred tis faster than the ga world! Although it took longer for people in the cultivation world to gain ga levels after the balance adjustnt, the overall strength of the worlds started to balance themselves out.”
“A hundred?” Irena blinked, looking curiously towards the rabbit. “Would it really need to be that extre?”
“Probably! You could adjust the settings yourself to find the right balance, but it should be sowhere around there. Especially if you’re using one of those really big worlds that are recomnded for cultivators. They might need that extra ti just to keep up in terms of exploration!”
I hated to admit it… but she was right. There was too little of Lorek that had been properly explored. Unlike the other worlds, it had been far too easy for to find an isolated location to have my host spend years training.
Of course, Spica didn’t have the sa problem in terms of size. They had long ago fully explored their own planet. And they didn’t have the sa mindset as the cultivators of Lorek, despite their systems being rged. Even still, I had noticed that their progress began to slow after rging those two worlds.
Given the fact that Spica’s primary race is elves… a ti dilation between fifty and a hundred might not be such a bad idea.
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