World Keeper

Chapter 1117: Presentation

With Lena’s introduction to Olympus out of the way, there was little left for me to immediately worry about when it came to the management of Olympus itself. For problems arising in the various worlds, we would receive reports as needed, so that was more efficient than me going down to investigate things myself.

That wasn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy entering the mortal world every now and then in order to relax and walk around. However, it wasn’t a critical part of managing the world, and was actually more of a risk for me to do so. Which is why Tsubaki always insisted that she accompany me whenever I take such outings. Especially with the increase in memetic activity. The last thing any of us needed was for me to be hit by a stray, mutated meme.

There was one other thing on my mind, but I wasn’t quite sure when I should go about it. And that was bringing Lena into the Admin Room, using the same Heaven’s Gate system that Tsubaki and the others were under. Lena’s loyalty had already been proven, this much was true. However, the fact that she had only just joined Olympus remained, so I wasn’t sure if it was right to do so just yet.

When I thought about that, I couldn’t help but think about whether or not I would be taking her to the annual meeting at the end of the month. Given her skills in information gathering, she might be able to do quite a lot for me. With some coaching from Tsubaki and the others, she could drastically increase our earnings for this year.

Shaking my head, I turned my focus back to the guild chat. Ever since I had been told about the system that would let me access chat from the mortal world, I had been keeping a closer eye on this. I’d even contribute to the conversation now and then, at least when I thought that I would be able to contribute something useful.

For instance, I had consulted with Sarah about the new game that Ashley was working on, and she seemed to think that it would do well. Or at least, better than our last one. At the very least, we could expect a return on the amount of points we’re putting into the project.

However, for the most part, I was learning from the others in the guild. Even those of a lower rank than myself had been Keepers for considerably longer than I had. This was because I had accelerated through the ranks more quickly than most, thanks to my refusal to reset and other decisions that I had made.

As I was thinking about that, a message came from Tsubaki, snapping me out of my focus. My Keeper, Dana and Aurivy are waiting for you in the main lobby.

I arched my brow at that, curious what the two of them could want. Still, the fact that they came looking for me together meant that it must be something important, so I got up from my desk and made my way towards the elevator.

Once I arrived, I saw Dana with a somewhat pleased smile, and Aurivy with the smug grin she had whenever she wanted to unveil a new project of hers. “The two of you have come up with something?” I asked, to which both nodded their heads, Dana considerably more reserved than Aurivy.

“That’s right! With the help of Dana here, I’ve finally managed to complete two of the projects that I’ve been really struggling with for a while!” She said, snapping her fingers to produce a spherical crystal, roughly half a meter in diameter. “This is my prototype for a new type of auxiliary dungeon core. I say auxiliary because this core doesn’t have a mind of its own, and only functions when placed next to an active dungeon’s core.”

“Right… so, what is special about it?” I asked, and Aurivy gestured towards Dana to let her explain.

“First of all, this core reads a challenger’s party status, making sure that they only enter an instance with their own party. Secondly, the challenge level of each dungeon’s instance is automatically adjusted to match the level of the party challenging it.”

“This is why we had to make it a secondary core, so that the primary core was in charge of creating the individual monsters and traps, with the secondary core in charge of creating and populating the instance. Additionally, the secondary core is able to automatically evacuate anyone from the dungeon who is about to receive an attack that would drop their health into a negative value.”

“This won’t prevent everything, as damage over time or natural hazards could still cause the death of an adventurer without being regarded as a new attack. However, there is one last mechanism that we managed to work in.”

“Loot!” Aurivy’s grin grew wider when she suddenly shouted that word. “In order to make the dungeons more appealing, we’ve integrated the Digital Conversion system into this secondary core, creating an admin account for the dungeons themselves.”

“Originally, we were using this to help them more easily print the monsters to fill the dungeons, since it would be too taxing on the primary cores. However! We realized that we could tie this into their loot rewards. Any item can be fed to the secondary core, which will scan it and create a Digital Conversion blueprint file that is contained within the core itself, and the dungeon in charge can share the file to other dungeons to use for their own loot tables.”

“Once the file is uploaded, the auxiliary core measures the amount of energy needed to produce the item, and assigns it an appropriate item level. Afterwards, that item will generate into suitably level instances, contained within scattered treasure chests.”

I gave a small nod as I listened to this. “How is this going to work with the dungeons that are already partnered with a mortal using the old Dungeon Master pact?”

Aurivy, surprisingly, shook her head. “Because the core is independent of the main dungeon core, any dungeon master won’t be able to access or alter its functions. They won’t be able to use the free Digital Conversion system, and any attempts to access the auxiliary core in this way will cause it to immediately shatter. That and we were going to put it on ownerless dungeons, or new ones. I’ve even already run a test!”

When I arched my brow, Aurivy quickly explained. “I’ve started placing dungeons in Fyor, and giving them cores like these. Just recently, Lifre and Lena rushed into one of my new experimental dungeons. Just to make sure that everything was working fine, I kept an eye on them, but there were no problems!”

I let out a low sigh at that, nodding my head. “Right. As long as they work properly, I am fine with you installing them wherever you see fit. But, you said that you had two projects that you were presenting?”

Aurivy blinked for a moment, having clearly distracted herself away from what the other project was, before Dana cleared her throat and spoke up. “That’s right, sir. Our second project is something that needs a bit more consideration on your part. We’ve created a new fast travel device, an inter-universal teleporter that doesn’t rely on direct traversal through the void.”

“Okay… I’m curious. How did you manage to get that working?” I asked, and Aurivy’s eyes lit up in recollection.

“Oh, yeah! That one took a little more work. You know that old idea of teleportation, where your body is broken down into its constituent components, transmitted across a vast distance, and then instantly reassembled? We based this fast travel on that! It’s made so that it won’t consume any of my divinity when someone needs to travel. Instead, the fact that it came from me could cause it to increase the divinity that I gain over time!”

“See, what we did is we set up multiple terminals, each linked to the same Digital Conversion account. When you enter one of the terminals, the terminal scans you to create a temporary file, and then painlessly dissolves you into your base energies. Because all of these terminals share the same account, that energy is then used at the target terminal, together with the temporary file, to print the traveler at their destination.”

“Because the Digital Conversion system exists within the void itself, across multiple universes, this eliminates the typical hazards of traveling through the void. Moreover, it won’t interfere with our void defenses, whereas conventional travel methods have to consume far more energy to pierce those defenses.”

I gave a small nod at that, before looking back at Dana. “You said that this would require more consideration on my part?” So far, I had only seen the benefits, but that statement made me believe that there was more to be seen.

“That’s right.” Dana confirmed. “If we implement this technology, you specifically will be incapable of using it. We even added a safeguard in the device that would disable the terminal if it detected your admin account.”

“What? Ohh…” Once she said that, I realized what she meant. “It’s another one of those, huh? Albeit brief, the act of dissolving my body into its base energies would count as a momentary death.” This was the same reason that I was unable to achieve the Perfect Self, because it required the user to enter a brief ‘death’ period.

“That’s right.” Dana confirmed again, before Aurivy immediately cut in again.

“But that’s fine, isn’t it? Whenever you really need to go somewhere, you typically have me take you anyways. You’d never have a reason to use this device anyways.”

I gave a small nod at that, before thinking. “Are there safety mechanisms in place to prevent a failed transfer? For instance, if someone tries to tamper with a person’s file before it can be printed?”

Dana gave a small smile at that. “For regular mechanical failures, this won’t be a problem. The temporary file is set to be deleted only after it is printed. Until then, it will simply wait in the system’s registry. Should it remain for too long, it will be sent to the destination closest to their original goal.”

“As for tampering with the file itself… that would require one to have the skills necessary to hack into the system, and access the files stored within the account itself. Furthermore, they would have to do this all within the brief period during the transfer, or else the file that they are looking for will already be deleted.”

“Now, assuming that someone had the skills to hack into this system account, and also were able to delay the transfer long enough to get ahold of that file… well, that’s just a really inefficient way to murder someone. The amount of skills required to do that would be far more than it would take just to outright kill someone. It’s also considerably easier to track, given how much would need to be done to make it work.”

I nodded my head in agreement. “How many of these terminals do you plan to install?” At present, there was only the single Fairy Ring located in every universe, meaning that travel had to be conducted at a set schedule, sometimes needing to wait days before you could make a trip you wanted. Or weeks, if you were in Spica or Lorek.

“That’s the best part!” Aurivy grinned broadly. “There’s no limit to these. We could set up hundreds of them on every colonized planet in each universe. Travel would have never been easier.”

When I heard that, I hesitated. “I think that might not be for the best. If you placed them on every colonized planet, then you will be heavily impacting space travel. With people able to freely and instantly travel between any planet, there would be no need for passenger ships to ferry them.”

“Although these ships could be converted to exploration vessels, the demand for exploration beyond the colonized worlds has never been lower than it is now, because of all of the memetic hazards that exist beyond the Hyperlane Network.”

“Furthermore, if these passenger ships become defunct, the development of spaceships will be impacted negatively, as there will be even less demand for new innovations there.”

Aurivy tilted her head, blinking as I continued. “My suggestion would be to have these terminals on each of the base worlds, where the Fairy Rings are currently positioned. Aside from those, the only ones that should be installed are emergency points to allow necessary personnel to quickly travel from place to place. For instance, if a high-ranking memetic expert is needed to help solve an outbreak on an outer world, they can take the transit terminal to arrive immediately, rather than needing to go through your church.”

Under normal circumstances, I might not have had a problem with shifting the focus away from passenger ships and letting these terminals take over. However, with the upcoming invasion by DarkestNight as a reference, I knew that we couldn’t afford to let this branch of technology lag behind.