The appearance of the memetic monsters was… really quite annoying for me, personally. I sat in the living room of Olympus, thinking where I should go for training now. Typically, I would just go somewhere in deep space where I could release my power without worries. Otherwise, it would be easy for me to destroy whatever planet I was training on. But… how do I do that when the things I need to worry about now come from deep space?
Normal monsters wouldn’t bother me in the slightest. Even if a monster god came along, I could destroy it without much concern. Memetic monsters, though… for all I knew, destroying it could be what causes the memetic monster to unleash its effect.
Currently, my only options to train were… either create an entirely new world for myself, or accept the possibility that my host could be destroyed because of simple bad luck. If my host was destroyed… that meant that Clover Kyr would vanish, the planet on which Olympus was located would vanish, and I would lose my Illusion domain.
None of these things were something I particularly wanted to get rid of. Sure, it would be possible for me to recover my domain through other methods. However, if the planet for Olympus was destroyed, that would cause a lot of chaos in the world. Additionally, if Clover died… well, even if I wasn’t in frequent contact with that side of things, I didn’t want to cause something like that.
I could do all of my training in the Admin Room, like I used to do a long time ago. However, the reason that I stopped doing that was because of the special ‘protections’ that the Admin Room had in place. For instance, my energy never running low. I can’t properly assess how powerful my abilities are if I can’t measure how much of my power they consume.
At the same time, I could obviously not just give up on my training. Even if I didn’t get into many fights, those times when I did were rather crucial to the survival of the worlds. Closing my eyes, I focused, thinking.
Leowynn. I called out mentally, and the silver-haired elf immediately appeared in front of me.
“You called?” She asked with a sweet smile, causing me to blink.
“Didn’t expect you to come in person.” I chuckled, but smiled and pat the seat next to me for her. “I was just thinking… would you be able to make something for me? I don’t know if it’s possible, but I need an early warning alarm when I’m out training, so I can get away from memetic threats. Since memetic powers use the void, I thought that might be your area of expertise.”
Leowynn moved over to sit next to me, thinking. “While I would like to help… I don’t think that is something that I can cover with my domain.” She told me, catching me off-guard. “Although memes typically use the void, these monster don’t come from the void. The best that I would be able to do is make something that tells you when a memetic effect is being used in your vicinity. However, that would only register once something had been hit by the effect, so it would be a bit too late at that point to leave the area.”
“Right…” I nodded my head, falling silent for a moment, before thinking of an alternative. “What about Tower? He and the slimes made it through V-Day, right?”
Leowynn nodded her head. “They are part of the Hyperlane Network, though travel to that sector is largely restricted according to his wishes. He might be able to make you something like that.” Given her tone, I could sense that she wasn’t at all confident in her answer.
“I sense a pair of boneheads!” A voice spoke up from behind us, seeming to startle even Tsubaki, who was standing not far away. Turning, I saw Aurivy standing there with her hands on her hips.
“Does that mean that you have an answer?” I asked, thinking. Sure, she could make an automatic teleport device or something. I just didn’t know if that would work for memetic beings, or if they would be able to follow it back to the destination.
“You’re talking about consulting a dungeon for your problem, and you didn’t even consider the Goddess of Dungeons!?” It took me a moment to recognize that that was indeed one of her domains. I so often associated Aurivy with Love and Travel that it was easy to forget that. Her dungeons really didn’t make sense together, and I wanted to smack the guy that gave them to her.
“You want me to train in a dungeon?” I asked, brow furrowed. “Wouldn’t a dungeon be destroyed if I used my full power in it? And what’s to stop monsters from getting in?”
“Well, duh.” Aurivy rolled her eyes, before extending a hand and creating a small, golden sphere. “If you use a normal dungeon, that’s all totally valid.” As if to demonstrate, she grinned, causing the sphere to light up.
I felt a small shift in the space around me, but everything seemed to be normal. “…What did you do?” I asked, looking around to try to find the inevitable change.
“This is something that I’ve had on a shelf for about… two hundred years now?” Aurivy said with an uncertain tilt of her head. “It’s an Instance Generator! Basically, it copies the dungeon core’s ability to create independent spaces. I was thinking about converting it into a super storage device, but Ashley’s got the inventory system set up already.”
“Anyways. Once you activate this, any creatures around the sphere will be sent into an instanced area that mirrors the real world in all regards, aside from having a lack of life. Making lifeforms would have made this way too expensive, so I had to give up on that and just planned to install multiple mini-dungeons that would automatically generate. That ended up not going anywhere, so I shelved the project.”
“Regardless! If you use this, you’ll be in a completely isolated space where you can train, just so long as you don’t destroy this core.” She said as she tossed the core to me, forcing me to hurry and catch it.
“Right… is there any kind of entrance left behind where you enter? I know dungeons have to have an opening.” When I asked that, Aurivy blinked.
“Well, not really? I mean, there is something, but I wouldn’t call it an entrance. There’s a small, golden token left hovering behind at the point where you enter, but that’s just to serve as a ‘do not disturb’ sign. Technically, you don’t even need to come out of the instance at the same point you enter. Because the instance reflects the universe it’s used in, you can come and go from any location you can physically reach. Travel domain is nice, right?”
My eyes widened when she said that, looking at the golden orb in my hands. “You… you realize that you made the ultimate burglary tool, right?” I asked, causing Aurivy to giggle.
“Why do you think I never released it? There are way too many ways to take advantage of something like this. I already have enough trouble keeping tabs on other gods with similar domains that try to abuse their power. Just last week someone tried to break into Traveler using their divine powers, so I had to… educate them.”
Don’t focus on what horrors that poor soul had to go through. I thought to myself, swiftly changing the subject. “Traveler’s still around? I was worried he would have been destroyed on V-Day.”
“Hmm? Oh, no, Traveler’s fine. The world that got hit hard with tech was Deckan, and he was over in Kione at the time. Kione’s apocalypse didn’t really have anything that could hurt him, so he mostly just ignored the whole thing.”
I nodded my head in satisfaction, focusing on deactivating the core that Aurivy gave me. “Just checking, but… how many of these do you have? And do they all lead to the same instanced space?”
Aurivy blinked at the question, before shaking her head. “I can make however many I want. But, no, each one leads to its own space. I never managed to crack the persistence feature, so the instance collapses when you exit it, removing any foreign entities still inside. That’s another reason that it failed to work as an inventory.”
I gave another nod, sweeping my World Sight over the sphere. There was an incredibly complex series of interconnected energy pathways within it that I couldn’t decipher. “In that case… my last question would be whether or not it is safe to have it in my inventory while it is active? If I can’t, it might just break from the bursts of power I release during training.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that!” Aurivy grinned. “It still works just fine. I was feeling especially vindictive at one point, and used a system sphere to give an energy-based monster an inventory, then stuck it and some guy in an instance together. Put the sphere in the monster’s inventory, teleported it to a random planet in the universe, and told the guy to have fun. Since the instance is still a part of this world, he can’t use void travel to escape without one of Chel’s tokens.”
She seemed proud of herself… but I had the feeling that this was the same guy that tried to break into Traveler. A shiver ran down my spine, trying to imagine how difficult it would be to find a single monster in an entire universe. If he was trying to break into Traveler, he had to have some kind of power related to transportation, but that was still a lot of places to check. I’d sooner expect the monster to die by natural causes than be found.
“R-Right. So, what you’re saying ultimately, is that I can just use this to train, and I won’t have to worry about any collateral damage? Nothing done in the instance would reflect back onto the real world?”
“Exactly!” She nodded her head with that same, happy grin. I couldn’t help but reach out and pat her head, and she chuckled. This halfling could be incredibly cruel when someone upset her… but most of the time she was just adorable.
“Anything else you need while I’m here?” She asked, her hands behind her back.
“No, that should be good. I’ll let you get back to Julia.” I smiled, shaking my head. “Thanks for this, and let her know that I said hi. Also, let her know that I’m thinking about seeing if Ashley or Tubrock can set it up so Olympus enjoys the farming system from Lorek. I’m sure she’d be able to enjoy that.”
Aurivy blinked at that, before nodding her head. “Sure thing. I don’t know if she’ll want to come live here, but I know she’ll appreciate it.”
After she said that, she vanished in a burst of golden mist. Leowynn and Tsubaki both turned to look at the golden orb in my hands. Leowynn looked rather thoughtful, offering a small smile. “There weren’t any void fluctuations when it activated, so it should be safe to use. Just to be certain, I’d like to go with you when you test it out.” She said, and Tsubaki quickly nodded her head.
Naturally, I had expected Tsubaki to want to join me. Going out into space wasn’t safe anymore, even for me, so she would of course accompany me. Leowynn asking did surprise me, however. “Sure.” I ultimately nodded my head. “In that case, shall we go? I’d like to test this out as soon as I can.”
Leowynn nodded her head. Her eyes briefly went black before the three of us vanished from the living room, reappearing on a desolate planet. “This should be a good spot to start.” She said with a warm smile, Tsubaki’s senses sweeping over the area before giving a small nod of approval.
Shaking my head, I simply activated the core with my divinity. My eyes widened slightly at how much energy it cost to activate, and I understood why this was one of Aurivy’s failed projects. It wasn’t at all practical for any of the reasons she designed it. Thankfully, I had enough divine income to handle the energy consumption.
