Dana stood at the edge of her manufacturing facility, holding a small clipboard in her hands. In front of her were five large buildings, each containing four of her mana refineries. It was ti for the regular maintenance, so she first walked into the building marked with the number one.
In order to lessen the risks as much as possible, this facility was within the sa ‘spare world’ as their world research center. However, it was over a thousand kiloters away so that they could lower the risks of the two facilities influencing each other. Given that they had the entire world to use, courtesy of the Keeper, there was more than enough space for them to create a variety of different facilities.
What was unfortunate, though, was that monsters had begun to naturally spawn after Dana’s visits to the world beca more frequent. As such, she was forced to install defensive asures to prevent either of her territories from being overrun. These asures took the form of sixteen towers evenly spread around the periter of the production center.
“Maybe we should create a World Spirit for this area to serve as the manager?” Dana mused to herself as she entered the factory. Inside were four large machines, each with a conveyor belt leading to their own assembly lines.
One of the machines suddenly lit up, a progress bar appearing on its forward screen. Once the bar had been filled, the conveyor belt began to move, retrieving a blue brick only six inches long and three high. This brick was then taken to the assembly line, where it was encased in a ki-forged iron box.
Finally, this box was deposited through a portal into an underground warehouse to be sorted and await an automatic order. Unfortunately, such precautions were entirely necessary. Each individual brick gave off very little residual mana. That mana, however, would constantly add up when the bricks were stored in large quantities.
As Dana was nodding her head in satisfaction, checking the performance of each machine, she felt a tremor run through the ground. Her lips tugged downwards as she glanced out behind her. That tremor naturally ant that the towers had identified and attacked yet another monster.
“Yeah… it might be a good idea.” She thought to herself, closing her eyes and concentrating on her link with Tsubaki. Before she did sothing as big as this, she first wanted permission. This wasn’t exactly sothing that could be taken back later.
However, Tsubaki seed surprisingly okay with this suggestion. It would be the first ti such a being was created by anyone other than the Keeper, so Dana had assud that Tsubaki would have so reservations.
Instead… I do not believe that this thod is necessarily one that the Keeper would want to monopolize. Regardless of their creator, the Keeper has inford that the world spirits would be unable to turn against him. If you want to handle the matter this way, I do not believe that he would be upset.
Blinking a bit at that realization, Dana nodded her head. “Well, I’m not going to do it here, anyways.” She muttered, looking at the sensitive machinery. The energy fluctuations of creating a world spirit here would no doubt disrupt the production line.
As such, she quickly swept through the other three factory buildings to ensure that there did not seem to be any parts that were breaking down in the refineries. Although they were a few years old, they underwent regular check-ups to prevent them from easily falling apart, and Dana was careful not to push them beyond the recomnded production limit.
Once she was done with her maintenance check, she wrote down which parts were starting to show damage, and made plans to place an order for those parts after she returned. Originally, the Sky Citadel was rather short on funds, but did not require money for most matters. The na of the Keeper was essentially a blank check for them to request anything they wanted that they couldn’t make themselves.
Now, however, they had more funds than they reasonably knew what to do with. Each mana brick was valued as being worth a single token of Ryone. A rather amusing rate for it, but the Goddess seed to enjoy it. With the speed of the refineries, they were producing an average of four bricks per minute.
Even if you converted the coins into the highest standard, they would be making almost a dozen tokens of Terra every day. This was all thanks to the Reality Marble used to fuel the refineries. Otherwise, even large businesses would have difficulty turning over such a regular profit.
With that taken care of, Dana walked outside of the production area, and began to take flight. The previously green ground had been scorched black for a thousand ters beyond the periter created by the towers, a natural effect from the constant battles. This area was treated as a ‘death zone’ by many monsters, so they only rarely approached.
Beyond that death zone, however, the world had been turned into a monster paradise. Left to breed and spawn endlessly, with no civilization to limit them, the monsters had already dominated the unoccupied territory of the world. This was the biggest concern for both Tsubaki and Dana, as more monsters ant a higher chance for their facilities to be intruded upon.
Naturally, neither of them could afford to spend all of their ti within this world to oversee it. With that thought in mind, Dana flew a dozen kiloters away from her production plants, before suddenly stopping in midair. Down below, she could see nurous roaming monsters, so of which looked up towards her and let out threatening roars.
She paid no mind to these monsters, directly producing a scepter from her energy. This was not the mana-producing scepter she commonly used, but rather the one with produced spiritual energy. “Will of the world, heed my summons and take form.”
The scepter in her hands lit up, releasing boundless grey mist into her surroundings. At the sa ti, she controlled the natural energy in the air. It was ti to create a true overseer for this world, one that would always be able to maintain the peace.
There was a lot that could change in ten years, when I took a closer look. Aside from the great forest that had appeared in Lorek, there were nurous changes that created ripples through the other worlds, as well. For instance… it seed that Fafnir had finally managed to finish his ascension.
He was among the new gods that had begun to appear during this period of ti, but of all of them, he was no doubt the one that surprised the most. Fafnir no longer looked like a traditional western dragon, his wings having vanished entirely as his body elongated. For so reason, he chose to look far more like an eastern dragon, though I didn’t know for sure what the exact difference was between them in my own world.
As Fafnir jumped from his mountain peak to take flight, I realized that my previous assumption wasn’t entirely correct. He didn’t lose his wings, but rather changed them. Fafnir was the Dragon God of the Sky, and the sky itself had beco his wings. Whenever he flew, ripples would form in the air around him, air currents shifting into the shape of wings surrounding his body.
Part of wondered if he would ever be able to fly outside of the atmosphere with his current use of his power. After all, how would he create wings of air where there was no air? Where was the sky beyond the atmosphere? There was the possibility that Fafnir had limited himself unknowingly with his own domain choice, but I would find out in the future.
However, with Fafnir’s matter taken care of, there was sothing else that I wanted to look at a bit more urgently. I had simply been distracted by seeing my dragon in his new form. My view of the world panned off to the side, beginning to search through the bottom of the ocean…
A song rang out through the ocean floor, a call to the rkin from their fellow n. This was a summons unlike any that had occurred in the past, one that had been maintained for a full five years at this point. For so long, they had been scattered. A sea divided among many clans, many songs leading their path.
However, with the gathering song, these scattered clans were called to action. Their destination was the first true city of the rkin. Not rely a brine pool or coral forest, but a true city. Surrounding the city was a thin film, like the surface of a bubble. This film was a barrier that had been passed down from the people above the waves, the children of the land.
There were a number of reasons that had kept the rkin from truly advancing in the past. While the primary cause was their attention span, it was by no ans the only reason. With their dwellings beneath the sea, they had no true interaction with fire, and could not learn how to forge tal, even accidentally.
With no written language, they could only pass down their knowledge through their songs. And without the ability to properly pass down their knowledge, they had almost no interactions with magic. Whereas it was common for adults of any other race to reach a level of one hundred and fifty as a scholar simply through mandatory education, the average rkin had a scholar level of no greater than ten.
In an effort to establish a relationship with the rkin, the child of the land had given them a number of items to solve their shortcoming. One was a pearl bracelet that enhanced their mory. Another was the barrier surrounding their city. Finally, they had helped the rkin in learning the language of the surface world.
While their civilization was by no ans modern, the city was far beyond anything that had been accomplished before by this race. Houses made of coral were erected and renovated. Enchanters were being trained in the creation of the pearl bracelets, and forgemasters were beginning to erge.
However, the ‘forge’ of the rkins was very different from that of any other race. They did not create their tools with fire, but with the products of the sea. Weapons made from the bones of sea monsters began to appear among the guards of the city.
The most common of these weapons was the lance. Of all the different types of movent, a straight thrust proved to produce the least resistance in the water, making this type of weapon more highly sought after.
As for what the child of land wanted in return? It could be regarded as trash by the rkin. Cores dropped by the countless monsters littering the ocean floor, or the bodies of beasts that were too resilient for the rkin themselves to process.
He was happy to take these materials that were akin to garbage, trading them for valuable information and magical insights.
What the child of land didn’t realize was that the rkin were not an exclusive resource for him alone. As they realized the generosity of the people above, they began to take the initiative to make contact with others who passed above their territory. Unknown to them, their presence was beginning to cause a stir amongst the children of the land.
Where once it was rare for people to set out to sea, there were now various trading companies that sought to do so in silence. When people saw the ships leaving the harbor, they were confused. Why would so many ships set sail on a trading voyage, when they could easily take a portal to conduct most trading matters?
However, as those ships returned carrying nurous riches and rare materials, even the common people began to take an interest. The ti when the rkin would be known to all was fast approaching.
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