Putting aside Tsubaki’s current state, I explained to her what I had discovered about this floor. Seeing that I was being serious about the topic at hand, she diligently listened to my explanation, committing everything to memory. While she didn’t seem all too pleased by the way the Angel nation treated me, she was satisfied with how I handled the situation. “So, what do you plan to do with the Archons?” She asked tentatively, once I was done catching her up on everything that had happened.
“Their queen has agreed to have people move her palace. Once that’s done, I’ll establish a facility around the gate. Until then…” I shook my head. “I shouldn’t get too far ahead of myself. I still need to let the people of Fyor occupy the cities that I’ve built for them. I’m going to grab the orb from the fortieth floor to send down, but that will be the last that I’ll directly intervene for the moment.”
Tsubaki offered a small nod of understanding at that. “The fact that you have directly pushed them nearly a dozen floors ahead is already quite a large assistance.”
Thinking of that, I chuckled. “I just power leveled them a little bit. Honestly, you could do it just as easily as I could now. The requirements to do so are rather simple. First, you need access to someone that can open the gates. Second, you need a method like that bracelet for a high level individual to get to the next floor. Finally, you need a method to find the gate and level orb on each floor.”
“Once you have all of that, it would be easy to pass through the floors. However, while those requirements are simple for us, they would be daunting for anyone else. The first one is easy, and the second is doable, but the third… without access to the Admin Room, you would need a highly refined fourth-tier spell or equivalent ability.”
Tsubaki quickly nodded her head, before tilting it slightly. “Would you perhaps be able to create something like that? I recall that you passed an item to the researcher some time ago using a remarkably advanced piece of spellwork that allowed them to track primordial relics across the galaxy.”
I couldn’t help but furrow my brow, nodding my head. “One of my titles allows me to beseech the system once every standard month to ask a magic-related question. It’s a unique title that can only be acquired because of an action I did as a Keeper. Theoretically, I could use it to create a spell to locate either the level orbs or the gates. In order to get both, I would need a way to include both within the same spell.”
“That’s not all that hard, sir.” A familiar voice spoke up behind me, causing me to jolt slightly. Turning around, I saw Dana wearing a black dress, her hair hanging over her shoulders as she grinned up at me
You did that on purpose… I muttered inwardly, seeing the bracelet on her wrist. “Oh? What’s your idea for it?”
“Well, first of all, you’re oversimplifying the scale of magic. A spell doesn’t only have to have one function.” As the apostle to the Goddess of Magic, Dana had likely had that very fact drilled into her skull. “It’s entirely possible for a single spell of the fourth tier to have hundreds of different functions. Of course, doing so requires an exponentially increased complexity. But, if you are using the powers of the system to fill that gap, it wouldn’t matter all that much, right?”
I gave a small nod, agreeing somewhat with her words. “So, you’re saying that I should just package both as a single spell to submit as a question?”
To my surprise, Dana quickly shook her head. “No, that’d be too wasteful. If it’s a spell that only you can cast, there’s no difference between that and having you do the ‘power leveling’ yourself. You can design the spell as an advanced mapping software, requiring that an individual taps into the mana spire at the center of every floor. For a god, exceeding the speed of light is incredibly easy, as long as we reach a high enough altitude that our flight won’t cause negative impacts on the ground. However, even sub-light speeds would be feasible.”
“To go from here to the sky of this world, if I were to fly instead of teleport, would take about fifteen seconds at light speed. If I gradually increase my speed, and extend the journey to three minutes, I can prevent any substantial damage to the surface. Once I’m at the ceiling, I would be able to quickly locate the pillar by simply looking down. If I don’t see it, it would be on the opposite side of the layer, and I just spend an hour flying in any random direction.”
“Any god can do this same exercise without much trouble. Then, once they reach the mana spire, they just have to plug the device you create with the system’s assistance into it. At that point, the mana already being spread throughout the layer acts as your mapping spell. Make sure to make the spell penetrative, just in case the target is buried underground. Unless it is within a man-made structure designed to block divination type spells, this method would allow for most orbs and gates to be found at an average of one hour each.”
I couldn’t help but blink as Dana finished her explanation, about to speak up. However, before I could, she continued. “After getting the result of the scan, make sure to include the option to narrow search results to predefined fields, such as spheres matching the size and material composition of the level orbs, or the black stone gates. Oh, and I only think that this would give us another ten or fifteen floors at most, before the progress slows down.”
Seeing that she was done, I figured it was as good of a time as any to ask a question. “Why do you say that? If the spell works how you described, we should easily be able to get another thirty floors.”
Dana quickly shook her head at that. “According to my estimations, floor fifty-five is our limit for now. Anything higher would be outside of our ability, even if you throw the high level fighters from the other worlds into the mix. Someone like Tsuba might be able to last until floor sixty-eight, but she would be the absolute minority.”
“Once we get past the sixties, you have to consider that the monsters we fight will likely have the same level of raw power as James. Even disregarding his research on different energy types, his raw power is nothing to scoff at. Most gods would be crushed under a full power strike from him.”
I gave a small nod at that. It was true, Tsubaki was an outlier when it came to the strength of my world. Especially given that she was always pushing herself to battle opponents that had higher raw power than herself, like in her trials of blood. “So, if I create the spell that you described, I would be able to allow people from my world to take themselves up to floor fifty-five with some relative degree of safety?”
Dana gave a more confident nod to my question, confirming my expectations. “That’s right. Though, you’d need to have a high-powered individual handling that process. Preferably one with Aurivy’s blessing.”
“You mean Petra, right?” I smirked, though Dana quickly shook her head.
“Nope! Petra won’t be enough for this. This time, you’ll need at least someone with the full power of Thelsa.”
My brows furrowed again, and I nodded. I knew that Thelsa was indeed a higher level than Petra, having briefly trained outside of Fyor. Like Tsubaki, she mastered a great many classes, all for the sake of putting that knowledge into her shadows. Were it not for her now staying within Fyor causing her level to be unable to climb any higher, she would probably be even higher than Tsubaki.
“I’ve got an appointment with Thelsa soon.” I told Dana, causing her eyes to briefly widen. “I promised that I would turn her into a god.”
“Oh?” Dana asked with interest. “Are you going to make her your subordinate deity?”
“At first, I didn’t want to. I was going to let her progress naturally. However, she is arguably Fyor’s greatest force right now, and her power is stagnating. Due to a trauma from her past, she is refusing to allow herself to pursue divinity. Thanks to a special title, she possesses a type of Saint Body like yourself, one made of the World’s Shadow. In theory, she should be able to wield power at the level of a god.”
“But she’s holding herself back.” Dana muttered, and I nodded my head.
“The world that she took in with her shadow is Fyor. I’ve been purposely having Petra add every layer we passed through in order to expand her world. As it gets larger, the shadow becomes stronger. If Thelsa was really serious about getting stronger, even if she did not take the power of a god, her ability to train shadows would allow her to have a billion soldiers at the level of Petra.”
“Because of the trauma that caused her to lose two of her closest friends, she is avoiding that pursuit of power, even if it would be able to save the world in the future. In her mind, that path doesn’t even exist. So, since she refuses to take that path, I am going to give her another one. As the hidden hope of Fyor, it would be irresponsible of me to not help Thelsa overcome her current problem.”
Dana gave a small nod at that. “That’s true. Some of the monsters I produce with my shadow are nearly at the god level, and that was before I became a Fallen. If I went all out, I could probably clear out every floor of Fyor on my own right now.”
I thought back to the time when Dana was taming the Stone Father, and some of the shadows that she had attached to him at that point. It was true that the aura released by many of them were nearly at the level of a god. In fact, that was largely what I was basing Thelsa’s potential off of. “That’s why I want to help her. She wants to be a true hero to this world, even if she is an unrecognized hero. I can’t bring myself to let that dream of hers fall to ruin.”
Dana nodded her head, before offering a small smirk. “Well, I guess that settles that, doesn’t it Thelsa?” She asked, causing me to briefly look around.
As soon as Petra returned from the thirty-ninth layer, and passed the information to Thelsa, Thelsa had been lost in thought. The Keeper’s offer was too tempting to simply ignore. Being able to reach divinity without the need to worry about sacrificing Petra or her other shadows was a very enticing offer.
Thus, while Petra was busy handing in the different orbs at the central spire, Thelsa slipped into the shadows, taking herself to the thirty-ninth floor. When she arrived, she heard the Keeper talking, seeming to be discussing his plans for her. Still hiding within the shadow of a nearby building, she bit her lip while she listened in.
She knew better than anyone why she didn’t blindly pursue growth. If anything unforeseen happened, the cost would be too much to bear. How could she risk sacrificing Petra knowing that could happen if she seriously trained? However, she also knew that the Keeper was wrong about something. She didn’t have the ‘Saint Body’ that he described, and she didn’t even know what it was.
The body she had was not fully integrated with her World’s Shadow like he said, but rather the result of her seeking Perfection. Worse yet, she had only obtained perfection of the body, not of the mind or soul. The experience of her past had always prevented her from trying to take those extra steps, knowing of the potential consequences.
Did that mean that her shadow was weaker than they were saying? No, she knew that it wouldn’t be hard to mass produce Maxers if she really wanted to, but why would she? Just to create an army of people as strong as Petra? If one Petra alone was not enough to solve the problem, what good would adding numbers do? If she did make an army of people that strong, what would she even do with them when they weren’t needed? She didn’t want to keep them just locked up somewhere or anything like that.
That was the primary difference between Dana and Thelsa. Dana created monsters, and didn’t recognize those creations as independent beings. Thelsa, on the other hand, created people, and respected each one as their own person. Although Dana had similarly created a few individual people, Thelsa had never had the chance to meet them personally, only sense them during a brief visit to Deckan.
Then, she heard Dana calling her by name, glancing up and out of the shadow to find the black-haired girl staring straight at her, a small smile tugging at her lips. “You should be a part of this talk, not just sulking there in the dark.”
“I was not sulking.” Thelsa spoke out in retort, slowly rising to the surface. “I merely did not want to interrupt your conversation.”
The Keeper cleared his throat, doing his best to look more composed than he had been just a moment ago when he was talking to the other two. Thelsa merely shook her head at that. “It’s fine. If it makes you comfortable to speak normally, please do so.”
“How much did you hear?” He asked in return.
“Around the time that you were talking about making me your subordinate deity.”
The Keeper let out a long sigh at that. “So, what do you think?”
There wasn’t much point in clarifying the detail of her supposed Saint Body, as she didn’t even know what the term properly meant. Maybe if she upgraded her Shadow Saint title, she would get a hint. “It’s… possible. However, to prevent a clash of divinity, I would prefer if Lady Ashley was the one to do so, if that is all the same. Petra was created by her divine power. I had long suspected that if I became a god, Petra’s existence would cause me to become a Goddess of Shadows, subordinate to Ashley.”
“That’s true.” The Keeper agreed with a nod. “I’ll ask Ashley about it soon, but I don’t think she’d object. She’s probably your biggest fan in the pantheon.”
Thelsa’s brow twitched at that, suppressing the flush that threatened to rise in her cheeks. “I see. For the record… I don’t think that I will really be as strong as you claim my potential is until I become a god. If I do take the Shadows domain, that would mean that my divinity would extend to the shadows I have created. It’s… technically possible for me to train shadows like that now, but I wouldn’t want to create an army of puppets.”
“Then don’t make them puppets!” Dana rolled her eyes playfully. “You have exponentially more territory to work with than either myself or the boss here. You can create an entire civilization of shadows. When they’re not needed to fight, just let them enjoy life.”
“That’s right.” The Keeper added. “If you like, you can create a key between our worlds, to let your shadows freely come and go to both Deckan and Earth.”
Thelsa’s eyes went wide at that offer, having never heard of such a thing. “That’s possible?”
Dana blinked, clearing her throat and glancing off to the side. “Uh, boss… I don’t have that divine power anymore… I had to give it up when I was becoming a Fallen God. Terra warned me that trying to become Fallen when I already had that pseudo-divine power you gave me would result in, and I quote, an apocalyptic boom. So I severed the connection from my end and destroyed the paper.”
The Keeper hesitated for a moment, looking over at Dana. “To be honest, I had forgotten that I had made that title for you in the first place.”
“Of course you did.” She rolled her eyes at that, smirking playfully. “Anyways, if you want to give her a key to the other shadows, it’ll need to be done from your end. I don’t have the fine control to do so anymore, and I’m hesitant to mix the powers of the void with the World’s Shadow. Especially when you’re talking about making her a god.”
The Keeper nodded his head, before looking back at Thelsa. “Well, what do you say? Would you like to expand your shadow to connect with Deckan and Earth?”
Thelsa hesitated for a moment, thinking the offer over before nodding her head. “Yes, I would like that.”
