After the meeting had finished, the other immortals of Lorek and Spica both requested to meet with the thirteen students who had received Mora’s stars. This was only natural, as the method she was discussing was not only taboo, but also one that had always led to the deaths of those involved in the past. Mora was, of course, prepared for their request.
Without a moment’s delay, she summoned her students outside the venue. Seven young men and six young women stood outside in black robes, their backs straight with their arms folded behind them. What surprised the representatives of the two worlds the most was what happened after Mora issued a command. “Release your starlight.” She told them, and the students nodded without reservation.
Although they were at various stages in their cultivation, their light was nothing much to the immortals present. It could even be said that those representatives could squash them with a thought. Yet, hidden inside that starlight, they could sense the will of an immortal. This served as proof that they had indeed inherited a star from Mora, containing both a strand of her power as well as her insights.
“I plan to find one thousand candidates to seed with my stars.” Mora said calmly as she sensed the changing emotions of the other immortals. “At this expenditure, my remaining stars will still have the power to sustain me through combat. Are any of you brave enough to join me in this gamble for our future?”
The dwarven Flame Immortal who had been angered by Mora previously seemed to have calmed himself with the evidence of her conviction. “Aye. I’ll find some lads to share my stars with.”
With the Flame Immortal taking the lead, several others stepped forward as well. However, others remained unmoved, unwilling to take part in this exercise. Mora didn’t blame them, though, as this was indeed a gamble
Depending on the path each immortal pursued, and their understanding of that path, they possessed billions of stars within their inner sky. At a glance, it seemed as though a mere thousand would cause no significant loss of power, but that was not truly the case. The power offered by the stars was not the sum of their parts, after all.
Not to mention the power needed merely to sustain her body and her current level, Mora was sacrificing roughly a tenth of her power by seeding these stars in her future students. Assuming that her conjectures were correct, and that her power would increase once again when her students achieved their own immortality, this would all be worthwhile. If this proved not to be the case, however, then she would permanently be weaker than others of the same level.
Several of those who refused were waiting for exactly this information, as they were unwilling to deal such lasting damage to their own power. Others were simply those who had never established their own forces and did not possess worthy candidates. For instance, there was a Sky Immortal who had been inspired by the Keeper’s dragon Fafnir. After reaching the pinnacle of his power, he had not yet managed to establish his own force.
Mora was not personally worried about the drop in her power, as she had numerous methods to make up for it. First of all, her path was strictly combat-oriented, giving her an advantage in battle against those with less focused paths. Additionally, as she followed the path of swords, she was able to nurture countless powerful swords within her inner sky.
Each sword formed the heart of one of her stars, containing various powers based on those insights. A heavy blade that can crush mountains, a flowing sword to divide an ocean, or a swift blade that can split the sky itself. In times of need, she could summon one or more of those swords to increase her power. Thus, the reduction was far less meaningful to her than it would be to others.
“Now that I think about it, I’ve got a question.” I said as I hit the pause button, watching a smile grow over Mora’s face. “You might be able to help me with this, Keliope. Or maybe Leowynn could.” Thankfully, both of them were still out here with me.
“What’s up, boss?” Keliope looked over curiously, leaning back in her chair. She seemed interested, as it wasn’t often that I asked for her help with matters.
“The inner skies of cultivators. When they become gods, they turn into what seems like a fully functioning universe. That won’t make them targets for void monsters, will it?” Seeing as void monsters had become more and more of an issue in recent days, this was something of a concern for me. Especially as I myself had such an inner sky with my world host.
Keliope, however, simply chuckled. “Ah, is that it? No, you don’t really have anything to worry about there. It’s all part of how the profound laws are set up, see?”
“Starting with the third stage, Constellation, people begin to create a sky within their energy paths. You felt this at one point, too. Their entire ‘sky’ is essentially a single node of energy. While the exterior remains fixed, the interior changes and grows as they cultivate. In Nebula Cycle, they shatter their stars to create a nebulous cloud that fills this node, which constantly pushes their sky to grow.”
“At the Inner Sky stage, the nebulous cloud condenses into new stars, representing the idea of them linking their insights to create new ideas. As the energy is condensing, it creates empty space to allow the starlight to shine.”
“With Binary Union, stars are paired together, and they begin to transfer their insights between each other. After they’re done, they move along an orbital path to encounter another star. Once all the stars have shared their insights, the next stage is Nova Merge. I think this is the last stage you reached manually, right? Here, all of your stars come together once again, forming the seed of your future world.”
“Stellar Expanse is sort of a dry run for universe creation. As you continue gathering new ideas, these ideas form satellite stars around your main one, gradually growing as they learn from each other. Once they finish, they branch off and begin accepting their own satellite stars.”
“What you’re probably concerned with is Void Giant. You’re thinking it would be what puts your world out there into the void, yeah? But what it actually does is draw a strand of the void into your inner sky, creating your own void territory.”
Leowynn blinked at that. “Since the void is a massive body of information, it becomes a conduit for the stars to transfer insights?”
“See, she’s got it.” Keliope grinned, nodding her head. “At the Devouring Darkness stage, the void consolidates all of the information from your scattered stars into itself, returning everything to nothing. At the same time, it configures its own information to match your chosen path. By that point, it is entirely separated from the void itself. The only time you need to worry about interference is when one is breaking through to the Void Giant realm.”
“And finally, the Universe Born stage.” Keliope raised a finger as she said that. “Once the void has finished gathering all of that information, and has the necessary fuel to advance, it is able to create its own micro-world. This world is specifically created with the laws that the cultivator studied, and the void surrounding it has no connection to the primary void that exists outside of reality.”
I gave a slow nod as I thought about that, furrowing my brow. “Life can be created in these universes, though. What would happen if someone nurtured a race of cultivators within their world, and one of those cultivators reached the final stage themselves?”
Keliope blinked, thinking it over. “Well, the only law within that universe is the one they practiced. It’s possible that they could shatter the inner sky entirely by trying to cultivate to the same level as their creator, killing both in the process. Or, maybe their skies will overlap? Maybe they will even form nested universes within one another.”
Okay, that was easy enough to understand the possibilities. “And this plan for Mora’s students to ascend and increase her own power? If their voids aren’t linked to the main body, how would that power flow back to her?”
“I think I can answer that one.” Leowynn smiled, crossing her hands in her lap. “The voids formed by her students will intrinsically carry an identical set of information as the void within Mora. This would allow for a form of potential resonance that crosses the boundaries of space.”
“Think of it like a radio. They exist in two separate spaces, each being used by different people. However, if they are tuned to the same frequency, they will be able to communicate with one another. In this way, I think that it is possible for Mora’s plan to work, establishing her students in the same way that we create Subordinate Deities.”
“Only…” I followed that train of thought with a sigh. “When we create a subordinate, they have their own domain, which we gain access to. Here, they can only create subordinates with the same paths as themselves.”
“Well, that’s the prevailing theory, at least.” Keliope shrugged her shoulders. “We don’t even know if it will work like that yet. Until we see the results, it might just be a case where each student has their own independent universe. Even if that’s the case, I wouldn’t really call it a loss for their world. After all, they’re sacrificing a bit of power in order to double or even triple someone’s cultivation speed.”
Leowynn nodded her head in agreement at that. Neither of them could say for sure what would happen, but each had their own theories. This was unexplored territory for us, after all. I could just ask Balu, as I was pretty sure she’d have the answer. But, in the end, I decided not to. This would not pose any danger to my world in either scenario, so I was happy with just letting it unfold.
“Okay… I think everything’s ready for release.” Dana said as she looked through the design documents of the game that she had been working on. “Have you set up all the systems for it? We’re totally using that new tech, now that it’s available.”
There was a sigh over the speakers as Blank’s voice came in. “I assumed that you would, and have already made the appropriate preparations. The full suite of laws from your world will be copied onto the game, allowing total compatibility with the individual’s personal power.”
Dana grinned happily, nodding her head. As the machines being implemented within the game functioned with mana as their fuel, this would allow for a wider range of people to be able to properly enjoy the benefits. Otherwise, they would have had to spend a lot more time merely training up the necessary skills to survive in this new world.
“Okay, then once everything’s compiled, we’re free to launch.” She said with a confident smile, closing the design document and letting out a sigh of relief.
“Do you not want to perform a beta test first, or a marketing campaign?” Blank asked curiously from within his virtual office, causing Dana to blink.
“I trust your coding. And the laws are taken directly from reality, so what bugs could there be? As for the marketing campaign… I’ll call someone later to release the information that the Servants of the Keeper have personally launched a new online game! That should get a lot of people’s attention.”
Blank gave a small nod, as that was certainly a name that anyone would know. “Then, I suppose I’ll just need to make sure that the client is available for download and purchase.” He couldn’t help but feel that Dana was rather unprofessional about how she handled this game’s design, but it was nothing outside of his expectations. After all, she was not a professional game designer. Had it not been for her authority and contributions to the world, the game would never have likely been made. As it was… he would see how well it performed.
