World Keeper - Chapter 1259: Unexpected Gains

It didn’t take long for Lyrica to begin implementing her defense plan for the guilds that had accepted her invitation. In addition, she set up similar defense systems within each of our main universes, considerably easing the burden of Thelsa’s SCRU unit. The change was immediate and noticeable, even to me in the Admin Room.

Meanwhile, information between the two realms was being shared more and more, with several people from Hal Tua visiting Earth, and vice versa. Admittedly, there were still some grudges from Hal Tua’s side, but nothing that would really cause major problems. The biggest thing to deal with was their natural racism towards non-human races.

For the beastkin, it was better because their traits were more minor than those of the Myriad Beasts Race. However, for races like centaurs, dwarves, or especially the dovah, they were treated with outright disdain whenever they went to visit.

We’ll definitely need to work on that. I thought to myself while sighing, keeping an eye on various regions from my position in the Admin Room. The world had yet to settle to a point yet where it really felt safe for me to descend to the mortal world for any prolonged length of time.

Roughly a week after Lyrica had set up her defense network, Chelsea walked into the living room with a small notebook, a satisfied smile plastered on her face. “Finished!”

“What?” I looked over at her curiously, and she waved the notebook she was holding.

“We got Sanction’s system optimization handled.” She clarified, causing me to blink in confusion.

“That fast? I thought it would take you a few months to get it all done.” When Chelsea heard that, she shook her head with a knowing smile.

“Maybe if this was back in the day. However, we know a lot more about what we’re doing now. Also, Blank was able to go through a large majority of the code all by himself, so that made our job a lot easier.” As she said that, she walked over and sat down on a chair with a light bounce. “Speaking of, the way that Sanction did it was pretty interesting.”

“How so?”

To my question, Chelsea flipped open the notebook, going through the notes that she had written. “Well, first of all, there was one thing that I had been curious about. Their secondary nodes, given their limited understanding of world creation, didn’t make much sense. That system would have been so expensive to make in such a detailed way.”

“However, the way that they did it was actually pretty clever. Rather than creating a comprehensive system full of various nodes that they could purchase, they went with a more fundamental approach. They made an add-on for that Celestial Phenomenon system, where people could register their creations and sell them on the open market. However, the price was lowered because of a change, where the range of the created phenomenon couldn’t be controlled. Instead, it applied to the entire universe it was purchased for as a secondary node, which also limited how many times it could be used for each universe.”

“In other words, all it really took was one person creating the privacy shield for one of their planets, and then selling that on their market. After that, it became a must-have for every big guild. That’s how they spread their game system, too. Sanction probably registered that himself to place on the market, so people wouldn’t have to run to Hal Tua in order to level up.”

“Anyways…” Chelsea shook her head, flipping through the pages. “We’ve worked on starting the code merger for the systems we want to keep around. Aurivy’s working with Tower to figure out how we can integrate Hal Tua’s dungeon system with our dungeon cores, giving them independent voids.”

I nodded my head at that, agreeing that it would probably be nice if the two could be combined. Given what we learned about their Origin ascension method, we could no longer completely scrap their dungeon system entirely, even if there were some downsides to it like dungeon breaks. There were too many benefits to be gained, and the risks could be very easily mitigated.

“By the way.” I looked over at her. “Has your team managed to study the dungeon core from Hal Tua yet?”

Chelsea nodded with a slight shrug. “Yeah, it’s not really anything special. I mean, it is, but it only works with Hal Tua’s system. See, the dungeon system there is normally in a ‘locked’ state, meaning that no new dungeons can be created. However, that core projects a field that unlocks that system in a limited area.”

“Even once we optimize their code, that core won’t work anymore unless we upgrade it. As for bringing it to your universes to get easy dungeon ascensions? That’s out of the question entirely until we finish this merge.” She said, dashing the hopes I had for the core.

Originally, I had thought that the core itself was the source of the dungeon system, but I suppose that didn’t make too much sense. Creating such a powerful item like that would have been beyond Sanction’s normal capacity. It was far more likely that the dungeon system was on by default, but he later put the lock on it when other guilds started taking over their own territories and incorporating the system into their worlds.

As I was thinking that, a system prompt appeared at the corner of my vision, causing me to look over. My eyes widened, my body freezing up. Chelsea noticed the reaction and blinked curiously. “What’s up, boss? Did one of your alarms go off somewhere or something?”

“N-Not quite…” I hesitated, shaking my head. “We just ranked up.”

Chelsea’s eyes went wide at that, clearly surprised. It hadn’t been long since we reached the fifth rank, and we were already charging into the sixth. However, Terra, who had been sitting nearby and listening quietly, spoke up with a knowing tone. “I did promise that you’d get something special if you managed to handle Sanction’s worlds well enough.” She reminded, and I hesitated.

“I thought you meant their Origin ascension method making everything easier for us in the long run.” I said, and she shook her head.

“Strictly speaking, Sanction already had more than enough power in his systems to reach the sixth rank. His systems were comprehensive, and capable of taking him to the very limits as a Keeper. The problem was his management style. Because he made no efforts in actually managing his people, or uniting them against any form of danger, there were too many problems in his world that kept them from advancing any further. Otherwise, he could have basically speedrun his advancement after resetting.”

I nodded slowly, processing that. I supposed it was true, with how many Origins they had. However, because they used those shortcuts to get their positions, and none of the Origins were actually united, they didn’t account for much. “Oh, also, I can say this now.” Terra grinned, before continuing. “The reason that the system brought out the big monsters wasn’t strictly because it was punishing you or anything for overcoming other hurdles or anything. Rather, that was the only challenge left that it could throw at you within the realm of the ‘fifth rank’.”

“The system was never going to start throwing Origin monsters or anything like that at you if you created a method of fully combating those planet-destroying creatures.” Terra said with a wry chuckle. “If anything, it would have just promoted you sooner, since you would have overcome the final obstacle.”

I paused, blinking at that. I had thought that the system was looking for ways to challenge me, but had completely overlooked the possibility that we might have already been near the end of this tier of power. “But wait, we just got to this rank not long ago. How did we already blast through it?”

Terra leaned back, stretching her back and groaning. “Origins are a high-tier power within the fifth rank to begin with. Additionally, because of your work in the earlier tiers, you had a solid foundation to help your Origins grow stronger, and the ones you created actively used their powers to help your people.”

“On the other hand, Sanction had more Origins, and those Origins had larger inner universes, but their actual combat power was lower on average, and they were too swept up in their self-interest to have a positive effect on his realm.”

In other words, it was our accidental discovery of the concept of Origins early on that paved the way for us to advance this fast. I thought to myself, looking at the message that appeared again. Something caught my eye about the typical achievement that came with not resetting. “Why is there a bit of corrupted text here?” I asked, pointing at the window.

Terra smiled, about to say something, before pausing and biting her lip. “Looks like I’m not allowed to say that part, yet. You’ll learn about it soon, though.” She promised, a somewhat nervous smile on her lips.

Looking at her expression, I had to wonder what was making her nervous. Shaking my head, I decided to save that for later, since there was no way that she’d be able to explain anymore at the current moment. Instead, I opened the guild chat, and could already see people congratulating me.

EverLasting: Wow! You actually beat me to Rank 6?! Oldbeard: Grats. I’ll be sure to ask you for help sometime. EarthForceOne: Thanks. It was kind of sudden, so I wasn’t really expecting this… EverLasting: Hey, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. Upgrades like this can sneak out of nowhere once you cross the threshold.

Looking at their messages, I nodded my head. They knew already that I had defeated Sanction, so some of them may have already suspected that I’d rank up soon.

Still, now I had other things to worry about. Would there be bigger problems emerging now that I had increased my rank? For instance, Terra said that the system wouldn’t throw Origin monsters at us before in the fifth rank, but was that still true?

At the very least, I needed to put a rush order on stabilizing the current problems. If some new major issue arrived while I was still dealing with a divided group like Hal Tua’s residents, it was guaranteed that we’d run into trouble.

“Chelsea–” I began, but the small kitsune nodded her head seriously, anticipating what I was going to say.

“Got it. I’ll ask Blank if there’s anything he can do to speed things along. As for the others, I’ll let Ryone contact them. She’s the one that got in touch with them about the council, so they are more likely to listen to her than any of the rest of us.” Chelsea said, before quickly getting up and walking towards the hall. I could see her knuckles whiten as she gripped her notebook. Clearly, she was just as anxious about this upgrade as I was.

Once she was gone, I closed my eyes, sending messages to Tsubaki and the others about our new promotion. Given what Terra had said, they needed to be prepared for any situations that may emerge as the result of our rank increasing.

Finally, after all the messages had been sent, I turned the TV on, and opened a map of Earth’s universe. If anything was going to happen, I had an idea where it would start. Thus, I created a filter on the map to look for calamity-level space monsters, showing maps from half an hour ago and just now.

On the map from half an hour ago, there were thousands of monsters scattered across the universe. Most of them were far away from any colonized planet, just roaming aimlessly. However, on the newer map, the number of monsters had spiked by several times, with a large number of them being clustered within a few dozen lightyears of a populated planet. “Yeah, we’re going to be busy again…”