After spending some more time with the world spirit of Fyor, I finally left, returning once again to my cultivation location within Lorek. Part of me wanted to try to find James, to get a glimpse of his abilities. However, I was not naive to think that my mirrors were foolproof.

  If he truly did have wicked designs and was able to detect the mirror that I used to spy on him, he might be able to use an ability to follow it back to me. Worse yet, the elemental planes didn’t count as a realm that was within my domain as a Keeper due to how this world was set up. Meaning… even if I went back to the Admin Room, I wouldn’t be able to spy on him with the assistance of the system.

  The best thing that I could do was get stronger. If he turned out to be a friend, my strength would aid me in my next battle. If not, it would aid me against him. Either way, it was important that I allow my host to cultivate.

  Once I was set into the familiar rhythm of nurturing my internal star, I ascended back to the Admin Room. As I arrived, I saw Terra walking out of the bedroom, her face haggard. “Everything alright?”


  “No.” She muttered, before shaking her head. “Sorry, it’s just that this has really never happened. Keepers are meant to have only one chance, and that’s it. If you die, game over. Your soul is shattered into fine powder and thrown into the endless stream, your memories recorded only in the system’s archives.”


  I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at that. “So nobody has ever just done something like buying a companion with an old Keeper’s memories?”


  “Oh, of course they have, but that’s different.” Terra offered a weak smile. “No matter how rebellious a companion is, they can’t directly cause the death of a Keeper. Like when Bihena got mad at you for the emotions you put in her head when you made her. She could rain hellfire down on the world, lead the people to slaughter one another, but she wouldn’t be able to kill you.”


  “James, on the other hand… he’s not a companion, but a creature legitimately born in this world. There aren’t any rules in place to protect you from him. If something happened, and he did end up killing you, he’d have another go at being the Keeper.”


  I gave a small nod when I listened to that. If James was able to figure that out, it would be all the more reason to be wary of him. “I’m surprised that the system didn’t terminate him simply due to principle.”


  “For better or worse, it doesn’t work that way, Dale.” Terra groaned, leading me out to the couch and having me sit down so that she could drape herself across my lap. “If something happens, it happens. This may go against procedure, but that’s just how it is. Just a really, really unlikely coincidence.”


  “And since it’s never happened before, I can’t ask for help from other Keepers.” I gave a small sigh at that. Well, maybe Grimor. He seemed like good friends with James, if I recall. The news that his friend miraculously survived may be taken quite well with him. Though, on that note… maybe don’t tell him until I am sure of James’ intentions.

  If it really does turn out that James wants his ‘job’ back, Grimor might just find a way to help him get it. He was likely much closer to James than myself. Gah, why does it feel like I am paranoid about everything, all of a sudden?

  I shook my head, reaching down to stroke a hand through Terra’s hair. “Regardless… I’m quite curious. Did you see that dagger that the world spirit was using?”


  “Mhm…” Terra nodded her head, her eyes drifting shut. “Manifestation of natural and spiritual energy, the two working together to create a poison to target energy bodies. Pretty advanced technique, really. Would have been annoying for you to force the energy out yourself once afflicted.”


  “So that’s what it was…” I gave a small nod, continuing to pet her hair. “Did I miss anything else while I was down there? Any progress with the AI?”


  “Blank. It named itself Blank.” Terra informed me, but… really? Blank? “It’s been getting along pretty well with Vivi, and looks like it’s going to try to create its own game world soon.”


  “Interesting… we can have Ashley deify him once he’s done with it. It’ll be a good learning experience for him.” If we were going to make him the God of Games like we planned, having personal experience creating games would surely help.

  That reminded me about something else that I wanted, and I pulled up the system, checking my balance briefly before buying the fourth tier of ki. Now that I was focusing more on cultivation, it was especially important that I learn this. “Looks like it’s time for me to do my homework…”


  You can create a WORLD? Sora asked in shock from within the shadow, gasping. She had been asleep when the achievement came through, resting from a previous battle. Thus, the information was especially shocking for her.

  Apparently. Thelsa confirmed hesitantly. That’s what the window said, at least. I haven’t actually tried it, yet.

  Well, what are you waiting for? Maria urged her excitedly. They had all waited for Sora to wake up so that nobody was left out from this event.

  Okay… let’s see how this is done. Thelsa rose up from Petra’s shadow, patting the demoness’s shoulder. “You’ve done very good so far Petra. Would you mind watching over me for a few minutes?”


  Petra gave a bright smile, nodding her head. “Sure thing, Thelsa! I won’t let anyone bother you!” After she said that, she turned around, her back facing Thelsa as her eyes began to scan the surroundings. Thelsa could already feel the darkness moving to Petra’s will, shadows shaking along the ground. However, the seriousness she gave to this gave Thelsa a warm feeling.

  “Alright, let’s try this out.” And so, Thelsa focused, calling up her new ability. “Shadow of the World…” A quiet pulse of energy echoed within her words, the trees surrounding Petra and Thelsa beginning to grow darker. Her shadow began stretching at unnatural angles, spreading out in every direction.

  You have created the Shadow of Fyor

  Due to local interference, the Shadow of Fyor is incomplete. Name changed to Incomplete Shadow - Twenty Third Layer of Fyor.

  The Saint of Shadows has claimed her first domain. While within her realm, her power will be increased, and shadows are more likely to come to her aid.

  Thelsa read through the windows that appeared, but… they didn’t seem to register entirely. Her legs shook, and her head spun at an unfamiliar sensation. Her body suddenly felt… no, light wasn’t the word for it. As if there was a powerful gust of wind just at her back, supporting her.

  Okay… this is cool. Maria muttered from within the shadow. Or, to be more accurate, from within the shadow realm. Previously, their shared shadow had been something akin to a large room. Thelsa had shaped it with her will over time to make it more comfortable, and because doing so helped train her abilities. She was able to create other rooms to help raise her shadows, but they always tried to stay in that one room to make it easier on her.

  After she used the Shadow of the World, however, the walls of the room seemed to crumble. Maria and Sora found themselves standing within a dense jungle, one which almost perfectly mirrored the world outside. However, there was one key difference, that being that light and shadow had been reversed.

  Anywhere that light shined on the outside world, there was only darkness within this realm. However, those areas of darkness beneath the canopy of trees instead became fairly well-lit.

  While Maria and Sora were adjusting to the view, Petra spun around to help Thelsa stabilize herself. “Are you okay?” She asked, her eyes wide with concern.

  “I’m… fine, I think.” Thelsa shook her head. “I just… need to adjust. This isn’t like leveling up.” As if the very inside of her head had expanded, Thelsa knew that she would need to take time to get used to this feeling. “For now, do you think you can make us a home in that world? I think the old one broke…”


  Thelsa may be the Saint of Shadows, but Petra was the Demigoddess. She knew that reshaping a terrain made of her domain would be an even easier task than it would be for Thelsa herself. However, her words weren’t met with a confirmation. Rather, Petra’s eyes went wide once again in panic.

  “Mister Snookums!” She cried out, diving into the shadow. Where are you… come on, Snooky, where’d you go?

  Is she… looking for her stuffed cat? Maria asked hesitantly within the shadow, watching Petra run through the forest hurriedly.

  I think so, why? Did you see where it flew off to when the room changed? Sora asked in curiosity, eliciting a nod from the warrior.

  Yeah, you could say that… I think it might have fused with one of these trees when the area was still forming… Maria pointed off towards the ‘bright shadow’ of a nearby tree, where the faintest tip of a black paw could be seen.

  Sora went pale when she saw that/ May Ashley have mercy on all of us… Uhm… Petra, sweety? He’s over here…


  “No, no, that won’t work at all.” Blank muttered, shaking his head quickly. He sat at a large table within a vast expanse of nothingness. Atop the table were four floating books, two on either side of him. Each book was open, their pages slowly flipping.

  Kris was asleep, so Blank chose to slip away unseen, moving to his testing ground. “I like Geometric Magic the most, but… something is missing. Without full understanding of the magical laws, I can’t perfectly recreate the system. Anything less would simply be a flawed copy that restricted the ingenuity of a caster.”


  “No, I need something better. Something mine.” Blank didn’t even seem to realize that he was talking to himself. But, in a way, he wasn’t. There was another pair of eyes watching him from the distance, the silver-skinned Vivi keeping watch on his progress. “Something that takes aspects from each of the three systems of magic.”


  He thought on that idea for a moment, internally simulating the end result. “It won’t be useful for mages to practice with such a unique system. However, this is still only a trial. If I decipher the magical laws, perhaps my next world will include something better.”


  Snapping his fingers, a pen appeared in his hand, and a fifth book materialized directly in front of himself. “Now, let’s get this started. I think I’ll call this… Binary Call.” As he said that, Blank began writing within the book, recording his ideas for this magic system. While understanding an existing set of magical laws fully was an insurmountable task for him, he found it much easier to envision how mana would react with his new system of magic.

  “Pytharian’s Loop Casting might pose a bit of a problem here…” Blank muttered, one of the four books flipping its pages. “If I work the mana like this, it should be able to resolve itself…”


  Within the void, Vivi gave a playful smile, nodding her head in satisfaction. She knew that he was almost ready, and was quite pleased in how this new AI was growing. After studying him for so long, she had even completed the second objective that Ashley gave her. She had found his God Key, the shifting string of characters within his code.

  Naturally, she wasn’t able to solve his key herself, but she could give it to Ashley. The Goddess of Technology would no doubt have her ways to crack the code.

  chapter 481: Creeping Closer

  “Here.” A voice spoke up from behind an elven man in a white robe, briefly startling him. When he turned around, he saw a halfling woman holding out a small, styrofoam cup, steam rising above the rim.

  “Thanks, Rin.” The man smiled, nodding as he took the offered cup. Rin moved over to sit at her terminal near him, studying the almost graph-like representation of the starry sky.

  “Anything interesting happen while I was gone?” She asked with a knowing grin.

  “Oh, yeah. Proxa three through five started dancing. Totally missed it.” The man laughed, shaking his head. “Nothing new so far tonight.”


  Rin nodded, leaning back and staring at her screen, which was alternating between close up shots of various celestial bodies. “Ever wish you could actually get out there? See the stars up close?”


  “Well, yeah. But the first warp expedition isn’t scheduled till next year. Even if I wanted to go, not much I can do about it for now.”


  “That’s true. They get back to you on your application yet, Regas?” Rin glanced over towards the elf as she asked that, but was rewarded with a hollow sigh.

  “Nothing yet. Mason from the second shift managed to get on, so here’s hoping.” Regas gave a helpless shrug as he said that. “I hear that Spica’s making a modified warp drive that uses their own system of magic as well, so maybe I’ll have better luck there.”


  “Help a girl out if you do, will ya?” Rin smiled sweetly towards Regas. “They’re pretty harsh on their immigration laws.”


  As the two joked, one of the screens near Rin suddenly flashed red. They quickly looked over at the screen in question, seeing a rather large rock drifting through space. Regas was the first to speak up, his brows furrowing. “I don’t remember any large meteors in that sector, do you?”


  “Nope.” She rolled her chair over to another keyboard and entered in a few commands. “Weird, it’s not showing up on mana sensors. We only caught it through the optical scope.”


  “Think it might be made of that Void Concealing stuff they have in Fyor? I hear it disperses the mana around it.”


  Rin tilted her head at that. “Maybe. Let’s see where it’s heading.” After typing away at her keyboard for a few moments, a new graph appeared to display the meteor’s trajectory. “Looks like it’ll be a pretty close one…”


  Regas let out a low whistle when he read the chart. “Yeah, we’ll need to report that one. Best be prepared with the defense grid.”


  Rin chuckled, shaking her head as she began drafting up the email. “Saving the world, one giant rock at a time.”


  As she was writing the email, she would occasionally glance towards the screen which displayed the meteor in order to get accurate readings of its size and speed. Which was why she was so surprised when she looked up and saw… nothing. The screen which had shown the meteor on a near-collision course with Earth had simply vanished.

  “Regas…?” She asked her partner, who had already gone back to sipping his coffee while watching his own terminal.

  “Yeah? Need help with something?”


  “You could say that. I’m not crazy, right? We saw a big rock just a second ago, right?” When Rin asked that, Regas had a sinking feeling in his gut, looking over and catching sight of the now-empty screen.

  “Check the coordinates. Make sure the telescope didn’t shift. Could be nothing…”


  Rin gave a hasty nod, linking up with the orbital telescope. “Angle’s good. No collision detected that would knock it off. Doing a wider scan now-my goddess…” Rin’s eyes went wide suddenly, and she began to type away again.

  When Regas looked over, he saw that the meteor had been found, so he wasn’t quite sure what she was upset over. Until, that is, he saw the sector coordinates displayed at the bottom corner of the screen. “Wait, isn’t that…”


  Rin had already sent the email, rising up from her seat and moving towards a blue spherical crystal embedded in the wall. “Emergency communique, please put me through.”


  A small pulse of mana rolled out from the crystal, washing over her face before pulling back. Afterwards, the energy formed into a circle. After a few moments of waiting, a figure appeared within the circle. A golden-haired kitsune with faintly shining eyes.

  “What is the emergency?” She asked, cutting straight to the chase.

  “Ma’am.” Rin nodded her head. “Moments ago, we detected a large meteor, roughly Delune-sized within the system. After confirming that the meteor did not appear on mana scans, we estimated it to be on a course that would have it just missing Earth.”


  “You wouldn’t use this line for a near miss.” The kitsune said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Correct. As we were submitting the report, the meteor… moved. It advanced along its path considerably. In doing so… it is now on a direct collision course with Earth.”


  The kitsune froze up at that, her face becoming serious. “Give me a timeframe.”


  “Ma’am, according to the computer, it will arrive within two days.” Originally, the rock had been at least a full week away from the planet, which would have given Earth plenty of time to naturally move out of its path. Now that it had advanced so much closer, such a thing wasn’t an option. “If it vanishes again… it could be here at any moment.”


  Terra and I sat down at the dining table with Ryone, Bihena, Aurivy, and Leowynn. In front of us was a collection of cards, Keeper’s Cards to be exact. Given that I had only just finished my excursion to the mortal coil, we decided to play a game to relax.

  “Let’s see… this battle will be between…” Aurivy started to speak up as she hit the button on her own interface, readying the battle phase. Everyone at the table had a card appear in front of them, two each of yellow, blue, and red. Aurivy held a blue card, and smirked mischievously as she saw me holding the matching blue card. “You and me, bro.” She looked down to her own card, seeing the image of a sword on it. “And I’m attacking.”


  We were still in the early stages of the game at this point, so nobody had been eliminated yet. It also meant that we hadn’t had as much time to build up powerful decks. I simply offered her a small smile, confident in my defenses.

  Keeper, hear my prayer. At least, I was, until I heard a familiar voice speaking into my mind. My eyes went wide with shock, having not received an actual prayer since Leowynn died.

  “Just a second, Aurivy…” I spoke, closing my eyes and focusing. Tsubaki. What is it?

  I fear that your world may yet be at risk. A meteor has been sighted, now on a direct collision course with Earth. Its size is roughly comparable to Desbar’s moon, ensuring that it would do a substantial amount of damage, possibly on a global scale.

  Immediately, I pulled up a mental map, zooming out from Earth. It didn’t take me long to find the meteor in question. It was… massive was an understatement. “Terra… why didn’t I get a system prompt for this?” I knew from experience that the system would warn me whenever any natural disasters were on the horizon that threatened a significant percentage of my population. ‘All of Earth’ seemed like it should qualify there…


  “Hmm?” Terra blinked, before focusing. “Oh. Oh my. Sorry, after that whole thing with James, I’ve been kind of out of it. Let’s see… according to this, you weren’t given a warning because the matter was destined to be discovered by mortals, and it is within their collective power to avert the disaster.”


  “How can they- right… gods.” I muttered, shaking my head. The sheer scale of the meteor had me slipping back into my old mentality. Tsubaki, you have my permission to act. If need be, request the assistance of Jonas, as well as the dungeons. Between the three of you, it should be entirely possible to ensure the safety of the world.

  …I shall do as you wish, my Keeper. Tsubaki spoke solemnly before ending the prayer.

  Just to be safe, I glanced over towards Ryone. “Would you mind keeping an eye on the situation, making sure it doesn’t get too bad?” Although Terra said that the system evaluated it as ‘possible to avert’… that didn’t mean that they would necessarily be safe in doing so. It could be possible that they had the power to divert the meteor at the cost of their lives.

  Ryone hesitated for a moment, before giving a firm nod. “Sure. I’ll step in if things look too bad.”


  “That might not be such a good idea, Dale.” Terra spoke up. In my mental map of the meteor, I could see it zooming in, and a geological survey was displayed. “The material that meteor is made out of… it’s a sort of natural counter to Ryone.”


  “Similar to the Void Concealing Stone, it obscures the mana that enters its territory, preventing it from being located through magical means. However, it’s not quite the same substance. If I had to give it a name… I’d call it the Void Traveling Stone.”


  Aurivy’s eyes went wide at that, just as she was picking her cards to use in the game against me. “Wait, does that mean…”


  Terra simply nodded her head. “Whenever it obscures the mana around it, it actually devours that mana, fueling a short-distance teleport. If Ryone were to act, with her powers focusing heavily on magic, it is likely to trigger another teleport. There is the chance that the meteor could appear out of harm’s way… but it could also teleport inside of the planet, and shatter it from within.”


  Don’t use any magic on the meteor! I called down to Tsubaki immediately, relaying Terra’s words. Don’t even let them scan it anymore. Mana triggers its transportation effect. Make sure that Tower knows to restrain his mana aura.

  Understood, my Keeper. Tsubaki spoke up, this time with a far more relieved tone than previously.

  “So…” Ryone spoke up. “I’ll leave the reinforcement to Ashley. But, when that thing gets blown up…” There was an almost sparkling look to her eyes, making it clear what she wanted to ask.

  I spoke up with a faint sigh, agreeing to her unspoken request. “Yes, you can have as much of it to study as you want.”


  “Yes! You’re the best!” Ryone bounced in her seat happily, grinning from ear to ear. She always loved to study minerals that had magical properties, so this ‘disaster’ was like a treasure to her, offering itself up for her to unravel.

  Thankfully, and I did make sure to check this, there weren’t any creatures living on this meteor or anything like that. We didn’t want Earth to turn out like Eingard, after all. A world ravaged by monsters brought from the furthest corners of space…


  In the worst case scenario, a common meteor like that is something that I should be able to forcibly move if I descended to take care of it. I might even be able to do so through the Keeper interface. However, thinking about Tsubaki rising into the air to confront the meteor… it made me flash back to the dream that I had during my time as Clover. The dream that Nyx had given me.

  It was just a bad feeling, I knew, but I still didn’t like it. Probably because it made me remember everything I saw in her memories, or how she had set up a scene to watch me ‘destroy’ my own world. Either way, I was suddenly wishing for this meteor to face the most unpleasant of endings.