It didn’t take too much longer, just a couple hours before Tubrock was walking into my room, closing the door behind himself. “Oi, I’m here now lad. You ready to do this?”
I smiled, giving a small nod. “Did you think about what other systems you want? The information globe says that you do need a magic system in order to make the whole thing work.”
“Aye. I’ll be using the same system as Earth. Already startin’ to get familiar with it, and it seems like the kinda thing that would fit in a world all about cultivating the mind and body.” He shrugged his shoulders as he spoke, seeming to think that was good enough.
“Alright. So… just a standard cultivation world then? Any other systems that you’d like to add in?” He had five hundred points to spend, and between the cultivation style world and geometric magic, that still left him over three hundred to work with.
His brows sank as he focused, giving it a bit more thought. “I think everything I need is already included, lad. The world package gives an affinity for cultivation, and longevity is easier to achieve. Ye got the laws already, so won’t need to worry ‘bout that. We’ve even got the first three tiers of all the energy types we’ll be havin’ in this world bought up to research whenever I want!”
“If ye wanted to give me anythin’… it wouldn’t be a system. There’s an item I’ve been tryin’ to study for a while, but it feels like there’s always somethin’ missin’. Feel like it could probably work pretty well in this kinda world.”
I nodded my head when I heard that. “Sure, just tell me what it is. As long as it doesn’t go past your balance, it should be fine.”
“Aye, this isn’t something so expensive, don’t worry ‘bout that.” Tubrock reached into the pocket of his blacksmithing apron, and pulled out a card. It took me a moment to recognize it as the same card he had walked off with after one of our first games of Keeper’s Cards. “I’m tryin’ to get the golems workin’ right. Problem is, they only ever perform preset tasks. None of the flexibility that this suggests.”
“Are you wanting golems as an entire race… or just something that can be crafted?” I asked as I turned towards the computer, opening up the market to search for the information he wanted.
“Crafted, for now. Maybe if the art is developed enough later on, then they can develop real sentience. ‘Till then, they just need to be able to follow proper commands. Also, I’ll be needin’ ye to get me some monster tiers. As many as the rest of my budget can afford.”
It didn’t take me too long to find the golem that he wanted. “A hundred points… if I get this, I’ll only be able to get you the first three tiers of monsters.”
“Three’s fine for now. I can save up the points to fund more later.” Tubrock nodded his head, accepting that decision.
Seeing that it seemed to be fine with him, I went ahead and purchased the information for golem production. At the same time, I went ahead and purchased a new Cultivation world in its own universe. I wanted this world to be completely separated from any other, for now at least.
Between the golems, the monsters, the magic, and the world type, practically all of the five hundred point allowance was immediately spent. Part of me marveled at how I was able to make such large purchases so casually now, when at first I had been scraping by with every point I could earn.
“Got a name in mind for the world?” I asked, glancing back towards Tubrock, who was fiddling with the recently created golem information globe.
“Aye… name it Lorek. In the original dwarven tongue of Earth, it meant Forge. Language has changed enough now, though, that I doubt anyone’d recognize it if they heard the term.”
I gave another nod, entering in the name to make it official. “Dwarven race, I take it? Same as Earth?”
“Aye.” He said without a moment of hesitation. I wasn’t honestly surprised. Dwarf’s gotta dwarf, and all that.
As soon as I keyed in the race, and they began to populate the world, I turned and noticed that… Tubrock had vanished.
“‘Bout time.” A young dwarven boy muttered to himself, separating from the tribe he had been traveling with. He looked no more than six years old, dressed in hides carved from wild beasts. His body short and muscular, his eyes betraying an age his body did not show.
In his hand he held the most advanced weapon in the world… a sharpened rock tied to a wooden stick. Yet he showed no hesitation as he fled away from the hunting party he had been previously moving with.
The boy, who had given himself the name of Hammer, grinned knowingly as he ran in a direction where there were no dwarves. The race was young, far too young. Just barely starting out on one small corner of a great big world.
It took him two full days of moving before he finally settled down, satisfied with the distance he had made between himself and the rest of his race. “Now let’s see… this law of crafting…” Without another word, he sat down in an open field, crossing his legs in meditation as he focused on absorbing the sun’s rays.
He had plans, great plans. The world was his forge, and he had all the time he wanted to prepare things in it. But first, he’d need to make sure that this body would last long enough to do everything he needed it for. Training new bodies was always a long, tiring task. But here… here he could train one body to live for as long as he liked.
It didn’t take me long to find Tubrock’s incarnation within the world. It was instead exceptionally easy. He was the only dwarf in the entire planet that had begun to practice growing his ki. As soon as I suspected that he had gotten an incarnation, I just had to look for that.
Of course, it was somewhat hard to track, given that he was accelerating the world rather quickly to speed up the process. Ten years went by in just a few seconds, the young dwarf steadily becoming more and more powerful before he finally broke through the first stage, and formed his star.
I couldn’t say for sure what he had in mind, but the fact that his first action with this new world was to begin cultivating, using the cheat sheets we had already purchased… he definitely had something in mind. I could even see that he was practicing all three methods. Did he plan to become an iconic god within this world? Or is he simply using this body for something else that he needs the power for?
Time continued to pass, and after about five more minutes of watching, he broke through the second stage as well. Only then did he seem to stop, slowing the world down to a normal speed. By now, the young dwarven boy was a man, far more powerful than any other in the world.
He kicked off the ground, and began running, shooting like a bullet across the ground. When he got to the shore of the large island where the dwarves had originated, he kept running, pushing his ki to carry him along the water. It was only now that I realized how much he must have studied the information globes in order to properly control his ki to such a degree, keeping the waste to a minimum.
At his full speed, it took him eight hours to reach the mainland. And from there, it seemed the real work began. Time began to fast forward again, albeit more slowly this time, as he found a mountain and began to mine it out. His fists became his mining equipment, even…
Once he was done, he made himself a forge to upgrade himself from a stone spear to a steel hammer, one that looked quite similar to the one he wielded in the Admin Room. From there, he began to make… ruins? I wasn’t sure how else to describe it. He created buildings, but then used his ki to wear them down, making them look older and abandoned.
But… he didn’t just do this for that one mountain. No… as the years passed, he ‘crafted’ an entire ancient kingdom. If I hadn’t been watching him personally, I might have thought that there was a previous dwarven race living there that had already died out.
Once this kingdom was built, he resumed his cultivation, causing time to speed up a lot more. I had a feeling I knew what he was going to do next, so I stopped watching for now. If I was right, he was going to start ‘filling’ his kingdom. Broken magical items, old training manuals… maybe even a few golems, given that he just bought the blueprint for them.
So that’s what he wanted. Instead of directly guiding his people like the others did, he is going to manufacture a lost civilization, and give it the tools to set them on the right path. For all I knew, he might be planning to expand this out even further than just the one continent. He might give every continent their own ‘lost civilization’ with different clues on how to grow.
Of course, he’d need to set up defenses against monsters… which was probably where the golems came into play. Even if he made them purposely faulty, they’d still no doubt be enough to make the city untouchable to the wildlife.
Shaking my head, I checked with Terra to confirm that Balu had already left. Kathy, however, seemed in no hurry to go anywhere. And I couldn’t properly focus on cultivating the Perfect Soul until she had gone. Wouldn’t be such a good thing if someone came by to let me know she had left, only to find me training in something they weren’t supposed to see anyways.
Instead, I decided to take a look back at Lorek. Sure enough, I found Tubrock carving words into stone tablets. Looking closely allowed me to see that they were instructions on how to build golems, which seemed to take quite a while to finish. Once he was done, he set the tablets to the side, and began to manufacture the golems himself.
Every city received between five and fifty golems, each one smashed with his hammer a few times right before it was finished, giving it a damaged appearance. Though, with how quickly the world was moving, all that I could really make out were several golems limping quickly out of a forge, one after another, before he rushed off to the next area.
Meanwhile, back in the area he had left… it seemed like they hadn’t really made any progress. Their greatest tools were still basic stone daggers and spears, and I couldn’t find anyone that had purposely cultivated ki. I wonder if they will even realize that ki exists before they leave that island…
Either way, I was sure that this was going to be an interesting world to watch develop. Part of me even wanted to see what Tubrock’s final plan was for the world. Was he going to stop at ancient civilizations filled with lost secrets, or was there something more that he hoped to accomplish?
As I was wondering that, I got a message from Terra. Kathy’s leaving now. I’ve already let the others know that you’ll be entering a private training period. Do you want me to notify you before the monthly meeting?
I thought about that for a moment, before nodding my head. And let me know when we have our next opponent for the Games assigned. Need to know just what to prepare for.
