When Treisha heard James’ words, she felt a sense of relief flowing over her. Having ones power go out of control was a very real, very dangerous concept. In the worst case scenario, they would need to urgently come up with some way to strip one of her domains away to stabilize her. Now that this was not an issue, she allowed her body to relax. “Then, what should I do now?”
James thought it over for a moment, nodding his head. “With the domain of Possession, there are really two main ways that you could grow. The first would be possession of things, while the other is the possession of people. The former would allow you to steal objects by taking them into your possession, while the latter would let you directly exert control over people. Really, it’s up to you which path you pursue.”
Treisha had a wry smile on her face when she heard the researcher’s explanation. “I meant with today’s work, sir. The asteroid you had prepared is shattered, and it’s evident that the energy cannot be transferred so easily.”
“Ah…” James nodded again, thinking it over once more. “Don’t worry too much about that. I knew that there was only a faint chance of success from the beginning. There was just no true danger of anything going horribly wrong, or I wouldn’t have tricked you into doing that.”
Treisha’s brow twitched at his words. “Tricked me…?”
James froze for a moment, chuckling. “Uhm, I mean… the energy isn’t really like an enchantment at all, any more than a person’s own power is. But, if I convinced you that it was, and you believed it, there was a chance for the process to happen smoothly.”
Treisha’s brow twitched further as he explained, before letting out a long sigh. “Sir… did you know that I would end up with this second domain?”
“Oh, that? There was about a thirty percent chance that your own power would tap into the energy within the crystal. Though, I am surprised that you managed to do so without draining the energy from the crystal entirely. In its current state, it can still easily be used to create another God of Possession.”
Treisha brought one hand up to massage her forehead as she listened to his explanation. She realized that he knew she wasn’t in any real danger, and would only potentially get benefits from this. Thanks to that, she couldn’t truly get upset at him. However… “Next time, lead with the potential side effects, will you?” She complained, having been seriously stressed out about the idea of her power going out of control.
“Ah, sorry.” James nodded his head. “Anyways, we should finish cleaning up before Three-Fifty and the others get back.” He said as he looked at the debris from the failed experiment.
Thea and Nora agreed with his words, not wanting to create any additional worry for the other members of the research team. “Still, what do we do with the crystal, though?” Treisha asked as everyone got to work.
“It’ll be fine. If worst comes to worst, we just shove it in storage until we get a second one. If I hadn’t been wanting to keep up the idea that you could transfer the enchantment to the rock, I’d have used the monitoring equipment on you when you did that earlier. But, I doubt you wouldn’t have seen through that, if I had started measuring your energy during the transfer.”
The elf naturally agreed, as she wasn’t so naive as to have missed something like that. James was hoping to copy the power of the crystal, something naturally unachievable unless Treisha had wholeheartedly believed it could be done with her domain.
Progress within Fyor seemed to temporarily slow to a crawl. Now that they were aware that the dungeon had truly become hostile against the town of Gate’s Rest, the people within the city acted far more carefully than before. The construction of the metallic barrier around the city was by no means a sure way to resolve the problem, after all.
Every few days, they would hear the sounds of something pounding or scratching against the outer shell. Scrying beyond the barrier showed that this was caused by further waves of monsters being directed towards them. As it was inconvenient for physical combatants to fight through a solid barrier, only mages capable of indirect casting could take part.
For this reason, there was a briefly heightened trade between Fyor and Deckan. The card spells of Deckan could easily be created with an indirect attack feature, and the low mana cost meant that even non-magical combatants had the chance to use them. Of course, the higher the tier of the spell, the more mana it would need to recover after each use. Without the aid of a mage, that recovery speed would be quite slow.
Even so, that only meant that they needed to buy more of the cards, that way they could activate in rotation. For craftsmen at a level to support the Maxers of Fyor, it was easy for them to amass a small fortune.
Due to their purchasing of high level cards in bulk, the prices of cards began to rise quite a lot within the world of Deckan. While the cards could be artificially produced, they required both mana and spiritual energy to do so. Spiritually energy could be obtained in virtually endless amounts from the underworld, siphoned directly into the construction process.
Mana, on the other hand, could only be provided manually, making it a more limited resource. The executives of the synthesis factories implored the Sky Citadel to allow them the use of one of their endless mana spheres, but were flatly refused. The Sky Citadel was doing its best to cycle out the use of these items, to the point that they themselves no longer used them in combat.
Tsubaki had become distinctly aware of the possibility that continuing to use the reality gems would lead to a catastrophic explosion. In the worst case scenario, every single mana gem they had created would erupt with a force capable of wiping out a planet. With such a possibility in mind, there was no way that they could continue using them. In fact, they had already begun to destroy those items that were already in use to reduce the risk.
Thankfully, James had long since finished the void drive that would power the newer models of the galactic fleet, so they didn’t have to worry about those gems anymore. With Leowynn’s help, the reality gems were being taken into the void where they could be harmlessly destroyed, removing the threat that they posed to the world.
For the people of Deckan, this made mana once again become a hot commodity. The Sky Citadel had a surplus of mana bricks that it had saved up from their factories over the years, forcing Deckan to order those in bulk. However, that surplus would not last forever.
Back within the Sky Citadel, Dana slumped against her desk, glancing over at Tsubaki. “I just handled the last delivery for the day.” She groaned, having taken advantage of her World Shadow to directly transport those bricks to Deckan. “Really, isn’t there another way to do mana production?”
Tsubaki thought about that, before shaking her head. “It’s possible, but I’m not sure. Perhaps… perhaps the next time the Keeper takes us to ‘that place’, we can ask for the knowledge of a safer production method?” Tsubaki’s words caused Dana’s eyes to light up.
“Right! There’s the Keeper! Even if we can’t come up with a solution, there’s a way for him to find one, as long as we do our part.” Realizing that there was a potential solution to their problem in the long term considerably lightened the load Dana was feeling.
The two of them had been to the annual Keeper meeting once before, at which point they had earned some ‘points’ for their Keeper. According to him, these points enabled him to purchase knowledge or upgrades to the world, and he had given each of them the right to ask for one thing that he would get them with the points that they had earned. At the time, Dana had used her request for a more efficient mana refinery.
Next time, in order to properly make use of those refineries without the existence of the reality gems, she would need to ask for a safer method of mana production that did not rely on mass-creating worlds in the void. Thinking about that, Dana crossed her arms in front of her, pondering the situation carefully. “What kind of games should we play to maximize our earnings? Maybe we can do another performance?”
The last time that they were in the meeting, they had performed a song and dance for the other Keepers in order to earn points. However, that was something that they couldn’t really improvise on the spot all the time. It worked when they did it previously because Dana was simply singing about her past, releasing her bottled up emotions. The same type of song would not be able to get the same reaction from them again, and they’d need to write something new.
Tsubaki leaned back to stare at the ceiling, recalling her own experience at the meeting. “I’ll be returning to the survival game that I started previously. It’s rather similar to the game you and Blank are making, actually. If you can make enough progress in that game, you can earn quite a few rewards.”
Dana blinked, turning to look at Tsubaki. “It’s like our game? How come you didn’t mention that sooner, we could have used your experience to help with the production!” She pouted, puffing her cheeks in indignation while Tsubaki chuckled.
“It’s similar, but not quite. In that game, it has its own set of rules for magic. We can’t just apply all of our real world knowledge like you want to do for your project. Besides, I had only ten days to play it before, so I wasn’t able to get that far. This time, I’m aiming to get myself to the point where I can start mass producing items.”
Dana let out a sigh, nodding her head. “Alright. Still, I guess I’ll give up on the performance. There should be plenty of games there for someone like me. Speaking of which, though… do you think he’ll be taking Lifre with him, when that time comes?”
Tsubaki suddenly froze up when she heard that. “I’m sure she would be… great at various games. However, it’s her behavior that has me concerned. Both how she interacts with others… and how others may perceive her.” Lifre was an incredibly energetic individual, and one that had a tendency to be… eccentric. Tsubaki was worried she might say something she shouldn’t.
“What’s she up to, anyways?” Dana asked, as it was Tsubaki’s avatar that was currently training with the mimic girl.
“She’s playing cards with herself.” Tsubaki let out a faint sigh, shaking her head. “She said that she could ‘definitely’ split her attention properly with an avatar as long as she learned how to play cards against one without cheating.”
Thinking of that, Tsubaki directed her attention to the scene of two Lifres sitting at a table, focusing intently on their individual cards. Sure, it was a solid plan in theory, but…
“I saw that!” One of the Lifres shouted out, pointing to her counterpart. “You peeked!”
“Did not!” The other retorted. “You’re the one that looked at my hand!” That said, the mimic threw down a card with a triumphant smile. “Let’s see you beat this.”
The first slime looked aghast at the indirect admission, knowing that the other Lifre wouldn’t have played that card without really looking at her hand. Still… “You think it’s that easy?” She grinned mischievously, throwing down a card to counter her counterpart.
“But… but that’s not fair! You didn’t have that in your hand!” The other slime shouted, pointing her finger at her opponent. “You’re changing your cards!”
“Nope~.” The first slime’s grin grew wider. “I just set up a false vision. You only saw the hand I wanted you to see.”
“That… that’s still cheating, right?!” Lifre asked, looking at Tsubaki for help. The kitsune let out a resigned sigh, wondering in her heart how anyone could get into such a heated argument with themselves, even to the point of playing mindgames against their own avatars.
