Within the world of my shadow, I took a deep breath, eyes roaming over the surroundings. It had been quite a long time since I acquired this pseudo-sentient energy. Long ago, I had tasked it with the creation of troops that could fight alongside me in battle, and I was curious how those troops had been developing.
Personally, I hadn’t devoted much attention to this project, so it would not have surprised me in the least if the training had stalled right from the start. However, as I stood above the shadowed recreation of the Sky Citadel, I expanded my senses outwards. Through the World’s Shadow, I was able to feel an insurmountable number of beings populating this world.
My eyes went wide in shock, as I could even feel three of these figures within the citadel itself. Turning around, I hurried back inside, moving towards one of their locations. Given the numbers correlation, I assumed that these three shadows represented the three Servants of the citadel, but that did not match up with what I knew of this power.
Following the trace, I soon saw Dana within her workshop, sitting down to begin a new project. When she saw me come in, she offered a small smile. “Hey, boss. I was wondering when you’d show up!”
“What… how?” Was this the real Dana, or a shadow version of her? It was rather hard to tell. Given that this was Dana we were talking about, it was entirely possible for her to be linked to the real world’s Dana, and yet that did not seem to be the case, going by her expression.
“How what?” Dana tilted her head in confusion. It was clear that she did not understand what I was talking about, so I could only back out of the workshop under her confused gaze.
Terra? Accalia? Can someone explain all of this to me? I thought that the World’s Shadow was supposed to create new people and train them based on my personal experiences?
That is normally the case. It was Terra’s voice that answered me, a playful tone within it. However, it seems that you had a… special circumstance.
Explain, please! This was too far outside the realm of what I was prepared for. After all, I came to train here because there would have been no problems even if I did accidentally destroy a planet or three. If they were all inhabited like this… well, that idea goes out the window quite fast.
It’s simple, really. You instructed the World’s Shadow to make people. You never said what type of people it should focus on, or gave it any parameters for creating them. Normally, the people created by a World’s Shadow are restricted to the classes that the user themselves has. As the Keeper, you effectively possess all classes.
Just like how Dana is able to use her World’s Shadow to create monsters due to her experience of being regarded as a monster by both the world itself and her own mentality, yours has the ability to copy people in their entirety. This is in part because you possess all classes, as well as the fact that you have an intrinsic link to everyone in your world. So, when you told your World’s Shadow to start making people… it started making them. It copied them in their daily lives, having the shadows of a person mimic their real world counterparts in order to decipher their very souls.
That… wasn’t really my intention, but I could not be sure whether or not I should be upset about this development or not. What about gods? Wasn’t it decided that the World’s Shadow couldn’t produce gods?
There was a brief mental giggle from Terra before her explanation continued. And who decided that? Aside from yourself, the other two wielders of the World’s Shadow simply do not possess godhood. Even if they did, they might not be able to recreate a domain that was different from their own. However, you possess all domains that your people do. Therefore, if anyone appears with a domain for you to create with your shadow, you already possess that domain.
This is the true form of a World’s Shadow, only able to be wielded by the Keeper themselves. While you are unable to create the monsters within your world through normal means, do not forget that you also have the Monsters domain from Tower. Your shadow has been using that as a supplement for its inability to directly produce monsters.
I could feel a headache coming on as I heard that explanation. Okay… new plan, then. I focused, willing the World’s Shadow to take me out of the shadow realm. Once I had emerged, I picked another planet within the Earth’s solar system to teleport to. Although the planet was a barren rock, that was exactly what I wanted right now.
Can you add this to the shadow world? I asked internally, feeling my shadow expanding in order to cover this world. With a sigh of relief, I was glad to know that the World’s Shadow really could handle more than just a single planet at a time. Thus, I patiently waited until the shadow had finished occupying this entire planet before once again entering the shadow world.
“Oh, for the love of-!” I shouted, looking up into the sky. The shadow copy of Earth was so close that I could make out the distinct features of the planet itself. It was likely that it was even closer than Earth’s moon, judging by how it appeared to occupy the majority of the sky. “Noted. This has been noted for the future. For now, please move this planet as far away from Earth as you can.”
I could feel a slight tremor as the planet was moved, but the change was barely visible. Most likely, this would be a rather slow process, leading me to grumble inwardly. My training of potentially world shattering attacks would have to wait for… hours? Days? Until I was confident that my shadow Earth was outside of the blast radius, that much was sure.
Shaking my head, I sent myself back to the shadow version of the Sky Citadel, sitting down within the rooftop garden. With a deep breath, I began to focus, sorting through my different domains. While I could not perform any world shattering attacks at the current moment, there was something else that I could do instead.
I concentrated my divinity into my voice, focusing on every word I said. I was going to be creating a divine law, but one that would not affect the world as a whole. “By the power of the Crafts domain, create a seed of potential. An object without shape, capable of growing into its final form to suit the power bestowed upon it.”
Divinity began to swirl around me in a golden cloud, gathering together to form an egg-shaped item in front of me. This egg appeared to be golden in color, with swirling patterns depicted within it. If my mental image was accurate, this would be the embryonic form of what I wanted to do next. “By the power of the Crafts domain, copy this item once for every unique domain in my possession. Whenever a new unique domain is acquired in the future, create an additional copy.”
With the first use of the power being to create a template, the second was to copy the template, and establish an automatic process. As such, golden mist shot from my body, filling the garden with more of these golden eggs. “By the power of the Enchantment domain, bestow each of these items with one of my unique domains. Whenever a new domain is acquired, bestow it on the corresponding item embryo.”
What I was creating was essentially a mass-produced version of a divine artifact. However, there were a few key differences between these items and a true divine artifact. For instance, these embryos would not turn into items that bolstered the power of a domain, or gave new effects. Instead, if I was creating them right, these would become items capable of allowing the wielder to use the domain themselves.
On the one hand, this meant that they would not be able to offer me any form of a true power boost, due to the simple fact that I already had every power contained within the items. However, it should be possible for me to let others use these items to give them access to the domain themselves. The main reason that I was doing this, though, was to preserve any domains that I acquired.
Due to the golem God of Storage having died already, I could no longer access his Storage domain. However, if I had done this back before he died, I would likely have an item that allowed me the use of that power. That was what I was after, ensuring that I would never lose access to a power that I had grown fond of.
As for what form the items would take… I didn’t really have any control over that. In order to create these mass-produced relics, I had to sacrifice a degree of customization. It was either that or manually descending every time a new deity was born to personally construct a relic. Given the rate that people were advancing, I did not find that to be an ideal solution at all.
That said, I also did not know how long it would take for the embryonic forms of the items to mature. For that part, at least, I was not worried. I had all the time in the world after bestowing them with their domains.
Smiling, I rose from my seated position, my eyes turning away from the dozens of golden eggs. With a wave of my hand, I sent these items all into my bedroom within this shadow copy of the Sky Citadel. There, I could be sure that they would not be disturbed before they were ready.
I’ll have to test those out once they grow to make sure that I was right about them. There were a few potential holes in my theory, but I would not know for certain without personal experience. In the worst case scenario, I would have simply wasted some time and divine energy, requiring me to invalidate my previous divine law.
Within the world of Lorek, the time had finally come. The first of the ‘seeded’ disciples from the Immortal Sword Clan was ready to ascend and reach the rank of Sword Immortal. This would be the moment that determined whether or not the original Sword Immortal’s gambit all those years ago had paid off.
Nearby, Mora stood with her eyes closed, silently sensing the surrounding atmosphere. She had already prepared her disciple to the best of her ability to allow him to ascend. This was the most talented of her initial batch of recruits, and also the hope for her power to grow beyond its previous limits.
Her heart was bursting with excitement, but her training allowed her to keep herself tempered. As for the disciple himself, he saw within a pillar of starlight. His silver hair danced in the air above him, his focus entirely on his internal sky.
At this point in time, all of his insights had been compressed into a single mass. This mass was incomparably larger than any of his previous stars, and resonated with every idea he had ever had that was involved with the path of the sword.
Feeling as if the energy within him had reached the boiling point, he took a deep breath, drawing his attention to the very heart of the giant mass. There is only the Sword. This was a mantra that had been taught to every on the verge of reaching this final level. In order to succeed, they had to clear their minds of all distracting thoughts, so that they only held their own Paths in their heart.
When the disciple recited this mantra, he saw the shadow of a sword appear within this stellar body, moments before it erupted. Countless motes of light shot out in all directions, forming an entire galaxy within his internal sky. He could feel the strength of his body rising to an unprecedented level, feeling as if he could crush mountains with his bare hands.
Nearby, his master basked in the radiance of his ascension, sensing the changes within her own inner sky. True enough, she felt the presence of the star she had donated returning to her body, but there was something more. The star felt as if it were connecting to something.
Following this connection, she saw an entirely new galaxy within her inner sky. The mere sight of it brought her to the heights of ecstasy, but her mood was quickly soured. She realized that she could not draw on the power of this second galaxy. The only power that had been acquired was that of the single star that returned to her.
Furthermore, there was something unusual about this second galaxy. Although most of its stars were shining brightly, there were several that were only dimly lit. When Mora brought her attention to one of these stars, she found that it contained insights that differed from what she possessed in her own galaxy.
As she studied this star, she found it beginning to shine brighter and brighter. At the same time, an additional star had appeared within her own galaxy, representing the birth of a new insight. Mora let out a silent gasp, quickly understanding what this meant.
Even if two people both pursued the same paths, they ultimately arrived at different insights. Those paths, when taken to the extreme, would give birth to entirely different ideals. Although most of the insights were shared between the master and disciple, that was purely because she was his teacher. By connecting their galaxies, they would be able to learn from the insights of one another, adding to their own inner skies and growing their power.
Mora was suddenly looking forward to the results of her other students ascending. If each one provided their own galaxy of insights, it would truly be worth finding disciples both inside and outside of her clan to seed with one of her stars.
