World Keeper

Chapter 1160: Collaboration!

The trio of Lena, Lifre, and Petra were walking through a maze of massive walls of green grass, trying to find the level orb of the seventy-fifth floor. They had gone to the spire of this floor, and Petra had activated the magical device that she had been given to scan for the orb. In doing so, they had discovered that it was in this ‘meadow’, though they had to do at least a little bit of legwork to find it.

By this point, Thelsa and the other shadows had long since returned to what they were doing before, leaving the trio to themselves once again. However, as they pushed their way through the twenty-meter wide blades of grass, Lena suddenly paused, blinking. “Huh, that was fast.” She muttered to herself, causing the others to look her way.

“All good, Lena?” Lifre asked, looking back at her.

“Yeah, I just got a bit of feedback from one of my projections.” She explained, before noticing Lifre’s expression suddenly turn solemn. “No, not one of those projections, don’t worry. Nothing related to the Keeper.”

Lifre let out a long breath of relief when she heard that, but nodded her head. “Sorry, go on?”

Lena nodded, and began to explain about the knowledge crystal that she had left with Estyle, as well as the defense mechanism that she put within it. Lifre had a look of realization, while Petra simply tilted her head. “How’d you know that the Heart Father would turn against him like that, though?”

“Honestly, I didn’t.” Lifre shook her head with a shrug of her shoulders. “There was no public information in what I scanned that would indicate that he would do that. Ah, right, you don’t know. My divine power that I used lets me access publicly known information, but not personal information. If I were to try to scan personal information of billions of people at a time, even my brain would explode.”

“Anyways, I just figured that it was likely that someone would make a move. You see it everywhere, right? People who stand above others get scared when something appears that will shake their position. They’ll either try to remove the thing entirely, or take it for themselves.” Lena explained, Lifre quickly nodding her head.

Petra blinked, glancing between Lifre and Lena. “Is… is the Keeper like that, too?”

Lifre simply snorted in response to that. “Oh, gods no! Well, maybe it’s different because his life is kinda connected to the fundamental existence of all reality. But he doesn’t really act like a ruler scrambling to maintain his grip on his power.”

Lena chuckled as well, agreeing. “Honestly, I don’t think he likes being in charge at all, from what I’ve seen. It looks like he’s bored of rulership at this point. I like to think that I’m pretty good at reading people, and the vibe I get from him is just wanting to settle down and live a quiet life somewhere with his friends and family.”

When Petra heard that, her eyes briefly widened, as if not sure that this was something that an outsider should really be listening to. “I-I see.”

“Found it!” Lifre suddenly shouted out, pointing up towards a nearby blade of grass. About eighty meters up, a tiny, crystal sphere could be seen embedded in the green ‘wall’.

“At least that isn’t supersized like everything else around here.” Lena smirked, her body silently teleporting up to the sphere and extracting it. “Alright, girls! Let’s go home. We had our little field trip.”

“Aww, but I wanna play more!” Lifre shouted, though there was a playful smile on her lips. “Eh, it’s fine. You said that there weren’t really any supersized hostile creatures in this layer, right? If we stuck around, I’d just be tempted to hunt one of those big crawler guys, and they don’t seem all that dangerous. Just really big.”

“Oh, and this totally gives me a new idea for my next stream!” She beamed, and Petra’s ears immediately perked up. “I can tell my viewers about the seventy-fifth floor, and we can set up an adventure focused around traversing a massive environment like this! It’ll be kind of cool, right?!”

Lena couldn’t help but chuckle at Lifre’s enthusiasm. Especially when she noticed Petra sneakily opening her inventory, glancing at her coin balance.

Dana had long since returned to Olympus as the others were finishing their adventure, unaware of what shenanigans they had gotten up to after she left them on the seventy-fifth floor. Her only real concern when going to join the group was testing out the abilities of an Origin, and she had done that.

Although she hadn’t had much chance for direct combat, the tests that she had run were able to show her more than enough. “From now on, I should create an avatar of myself when I go out, and leave my main body back at Olympus.” She said with a serious expression.

Although she was now acutely aware of her own power, she was similarly aware of her vulnerability. Her inner world was her weakness, something that could be used to kill her with minimal effort, if an individual knew about it. Dana herself could easily create a spell to target an Origin’s inner world, so long as she knew the theme of the Origin.

Of course, there were limits to such spells. From the feedback of her blessing, she knew that it would not be effective unless it was cast on the main body of the Origin. If it was simply cast to resonate with the void, or through one of the Origin’s avatars, the impact of the spell would significantly weaken.

Closing her eyes, Dana’s body rippled with dark energies. A large, black staff emerged from her chest, seemingly made of smooth obsidian. There were no intricate adornments, no engravings or radiating aura of power. It looked simply like a black staff that one could buy from a market vendor.

Once the staff was created, Dana moved it to the corner of her room, propping it against the wall. Although the staff appeared inconspicuous, this was Dana’s main body. It held her inner world, the core of her power and soul. However, without something like World Sight, it would be difficult to identify the nature of this staff.

The Dana still walking around, meanwhile, was a new avatar that Dana could spend most of her focus controlling. With this, she would have an added layer of protection against those who would otherwise be capable of harming her.

Turning, she left her room, making her way to the communal living space of Olympus. There, she found the Keeper sitting on a couch with Keliope and Scarlet, simply enjoying a movie being projected in front of them while Tsubaki naturally stood at attention behind the couch. “Welcome back, Dana.” Scarlet said with a bright smile as Dana entered the room, turning to greet her.

Hearing that alerted Dale to Dana’s presence, and he paused the movie to greet her. “Welcome back. How did your tests go?”

“Pretty good, boss.” Dana grinned in acknowledgement. “I can say with some confidence now that I know how to kill an Origin, as long as certain conditions are met. At the very least, we won’t be needing to scramble in panic if one gets sent through on an invasion.”

Dale’s eyes widened slightly when he heard that, though Dana could see the relief in his gaze. She knew that this had been a major concern for the Keeper as soon as they had begun to approach the new rank. Undoubtedly, an Origin would be the best attacking force that a Keeper could send, though at the same time they were incredibly expensive in terms of the time and effort it took to nurture one.

Thus, Dana could assume that they would very rarely have to deal with just one Origin. If a Keeper was serious enough about an invasion to send one over, they would want to send an entire team of Origins to ensure that their resources did not end up going to waste. As long as the Origins survived to kill the Keeper, they would be able to return to their original world after the invasion was won.

“Do you wanna join us for the rest of the movie, Dana?” Scarlet suddenly asked, snapping Dana out of her thoughts.

Dana considered the offer for a moment, before shaking her head. “Next time. It’s less fun to start watching a movie that’s already half over.” She said with a brief chuckle. “Besides, I’ve got to get to work on my next project now.”

“Lemme guess, now that you’re an Origin, you wanna make some kinda Origin-tier weapon?” Keliope grinned from the couch, glancing back at Dana. “You going for another whip like your current artifact?”

Dana blinked, but shook her head. “You’re not that far off, but not quite.” She chuckled. “Something that I’ve understood through testing my powers is that an Origin has no need of items like a divine relic weapon. It’s possible for us to casually make them, imbuing the powers we possess into the shape of an item, but those items will only ever have the powers that we ourselves already have.”

“Typically, a divine relic is made to expand the available options of the god wielding it, right? Origins can’t do that anymore. If we want to do something, we need it to be something from within our inner world to begin with. Exterior artifacts won’t help us to that level.” She explained, causing Keliope to blink in surprise.

“I see. Didn’t know that, but good to know! So, what’re you making then, if not a new weapon for yourself?” She asked curiously, and Dana looked towards Dale.

“The boss needs an item to protect him against Origin powers. I’ve got an idea on how to make one, I just need to go talk with Tubrock. This’ll probably be a joint project between the two of us.” She said, before the sound of a hammer dropping startled everyone in the room.

“A joint project, ye say, lass?!” The gruff, dwarven voice appeared from the doorway. Tubrock looked at Dana with a wide grin, clearly excited.

Dana couldn’t help but feel like Tubrock had been waiting to get invited to collaborate on an Origin-level project ever since he found out that she and Chelsea had reached this new rank. Still, what was with the sound effect when he entered? She looked back, and saw that he actually had dropped a rather large hammer at his feet in his hurry to arrive.

“Yeah…” She gave a wry chuckle, suddenly questioning her decision to work with the eccentric craftsman god. “You don’t mind working together on a project like this, do you?” She asked, before suddenly feeling a large hand clamp down on her shoulder.

Without hesitation, she turned to face Dale and the others. “Boss, is it too late to apply for emergency sick leave?” She asked, feeling her feet being dragged along the floor towards the door.

Dale simply chuckled, shaking his head. Seeing that, Dana resigned herself to her fate of becoming the blacksmith’s collaboration partner until the new artifact was complete. She just had to make sure not to let herself get drawn into any more projects, or who knew how long it would take for her to get free!?

“Oh, don’t get yerself too worked up, lass!” Tubrock huffed, though he was still dragging her out of the room, eagerly taking her towards the nearest elevator. “We’ll have a grand time!”