World Keeper

Chapter 393: Spica

Two men were chasing one another through the starry sky, passing over mountains and valleys. Wherever they went, the echoing roar of thunder sounded. The one in the lead was badly wounded, a severe burn on his left side that scorched his clothes and revealed blackened skin. He had silver hair and eyes, wearing a blue jacket that was left open to reveal his slender chest and long, baggy black pants.

The man chasing him, however, wore a vicious expression. His hair was black, his eyes blue, but he wore a glistening silver armor. “You won’t get away, this time!” He shouted, waving his hand in front of himself. Multiple shining, yellow dots appeared in front of his hand, arranged into a lightning bolt. The sky itself seemed to shimmer, before lightning once again struck towards the man in the blue jacket.

He grit his teeth, being forced to take the full brunt of the attack to his back. His defensive spells had already been completely crushed by his opponent, which was why he was desperately fleeing through the sky. When the spell struck, he was flung down, crashing into a wide meadow.

His pursuer landed just a short distance behind him. The silver knight’s hand extended, and a staff appeared within it, several small topaz gems embedded in the length. “For the crime of assassinating Princess Matreya, you have been sentenced to death.” As he spoke, his staff tapped against the ground. “May the Mother grant you pardon in the next life.”

Again, lightning bolts crashed down from the sky, one after the other as the yellow gems within the staff lit up. The man screamed in pain as each strike depleted his health more and more, it dwindling at an increasing rate. Only when it was done, the bar disappearing entirely, did he stop.

Finally, he shook his head, turning and walking back in the direction he came. Blue, silver, and black dots of light surrounded him before he vanished, reappearing in a grand throne room. Immediately upon entering, he knelt down, his staff laid flat in front of him with his head lowered. “My queen, I have carried out your orders.”

I watched the scene of the pursuit, studying the magic that the knight had used while occasionally nodding my head. He knows teleportation magic, so the world should be in the late second stage of spells, maybe even the third stage.

It was hard to tell just from that one conflict how powerful the magic of the world was. I needed to be able to compare it. And even more, I needed to consider what effects would happen if I performed a law merger between Spica and Earth.

Given how mana rests in the atmosphere for Spica, it’s likely that a merge would cause the ambient mana of an area to rise to the surface. Any enchantments that rely on things like a constant supply of nearby mana would be weakened if that was the case. And then… there was Fyor to consider.

Fyor had no true stars, not until the outermost layer. And that distance would definitely be too far for a mage to connect with their energy. Even myself, with all of my Keeper power, I doubted that I would be able to touch any mana resting in Fyor’s upper atmosphere.

There is the chance that the system will consider that, and have the mana pillar substitute for the starry sky on each floor. But, that would be similar to casting during the day on Spica. It would always be one spectrum of light that mages could draw from.

Overall, it’s likely that a law merger would only affect Fyor detrimentally. I would need to do some more research, since there might be other ways that it could affect that world, but that is how I expect it would happen.

And then there was the question of how the other worlds would affect Spica… I took a deep breath when I considered that. Currently, the residents of Spica do not possess their own supply of mana. They are like antennae, tuning themselves to specific types of mana and calling it down to complete their spells.

If I perform a law merger, then they will be able to combine their own magic with the mana supplies of other worlds, likely to produce far more powerful results. That was something that I had to take seriously.

Shaking my head, I cast aside those thoughts, and began looking through the world again. I saw only two kingdoms that seemed to occupy the entire world. One to the east, and the other the west. They each occupied an entire half of the planet, and were almost literally as different as day and night.

For the eastern kingdom, Solace, they specialized purely in magic and enchantment. Many modern conveniences had been imitated through the creation of magical items. Each item drew power from the atmospheric mana, having specifically colored gems embedded in them to attune them to the proper spectrums.

They were fairly medieval in their structure, possessing mage towers that rose high into the sky and orders of armored knights that patrolled the land. Solace was the location where I had seen the previous chase.

The western kingdom, Demacry, was far more advanced, technologically. They still had magic and magical items, but they were primarily used to power various machines. Their hierarchy was more of a meritocracy than Solace’s matriarchy, with a council that elected rulers based on what they can contribute to society.

Unfortunately… it seemed that Solace and Demacry were locked in a war. There was no good or evil, just a simple difference of opinions. Solace fought because they believed that Demacry was damaging their world with their machines, while Demacry fought because Solace had more arable land that they could use to feed their people.

Looking back through the past, it seemed like this war had been going on for hundreds of years already, ever since the first Prime Minister of Demacry broke away from Solace, taking a portion of land for himself and his followers. He was an inventor, and such had been shunned from Solace’s society.

As time went on, Demacry grew more and more powerful, until they were an even match for Solace, each occupying half of the world. As things were, although they were at ‘war’, their conflicts were little more than border skirmishes, and the occasional infiltration. Neither side had any desire to fully wipe out the other, due to the losses that it would cause their own people to achieve. Furthermore… with the low reproduction rate of elves, they truly could not afford to gamble on an all or nothing battle.

Now… aside from those two kingdoms, there were many scattered colonies all over the world that did not consider themselves to belong to either side. And it was in these that I was finally able to see the difference between Ryone’s elves and the elves that occupied Earth.

Within the vast forests, there lived the Wood Elves. Their ears had grown longer than even those of normal elves, their eyes sharper. Their bodies were typically more slender while their skin possessed a faint tan. As they moved through the trees, their houses reminded me of the ninja villages, entire cities suspended within a forest. With the thick canopy overhead, they relied far less on magic than either of the two main kingdoms. They used their ki, emphasizing their physical agility and acrobatics.

Next were the elves that had moved to live in the deep caves. I expected to see them named Dark Elves, but instead they called themselves the Deep Elves. Their skin was almost entirely black, their ears a touch shorter than normal. Their eyes had black sclera with white pupils, and they were able to see perfectly within the dark. From what I could see, they were mostly mining colonies, having moved into the caves with their families to offer a steady source of trade with the kingdoms.

Finally, and this was perhaps the elven variant that surprised me the most… Sea Elves. I had to look back through the records to really understand how they came to be. When elves first moved to the beaches, and spent most of their time swimming within the water, hunting aquatic wildlife, their children began to evolve.

At first, they were simply able to hold their breath longer, spending more time underwater. Then, they actually gained a set of gills along their upper abdomen, enabling them to breathe underwater just as easily as above. This process lasted thousands of years, and now… both their hands and feet were slightly webbed, their ears spread out like fins while their skin had turned blue.

The Sea Elves possessed undersea cities contained within air pockets. The abundance of flora helped keep their air fresh, and the elves themselves would often renew their air supply by tapping into druidic powers.

Although these scattered colonies did not possess any true kingdoms, each one had managed to become self-sustaining. They did not offer prejudice against the changed elves, or at least not anymore. Likewise, the colonies did not involve themselves in the war between the two kingdoms. They remained neutral, having found their own paths through life that did not disturb either agenda.

Giving a small nod, I took a look at the overall levels of the world. This would be a big indicator as to whether they were ready to meet with Earth and the other worlds yet. And, as it stood… I felt that they were a little lacking. Not by much, mind you. Over the last few weeks, Ryone had asked me to purchase higher monster tiers for the inhabitants, allowing them to train more than they had been.

Perhaps, what I was most pleased with wasn’t what was on the surface of Spica, or even resting beneath it. Instead, it was what I found orbiting the world. Demacry had already launched several satellites into orbit, both manned and unmanned, and seemed to be studying how to replicate atmospheric storage outside of the atmosphere.

As for Solace… it looked like they were trying to create suitable methods to travel into orbit as well, but were finding the process to be more difficult with their primary reliance on magic. They had managed to create flying structures that could make it up to the top of the atmosphere… but beyond that, the enchantments shut down, so they were only able to hover there, unable to reach the same heights as Demacry.

Honestly, I had to give credit to the engineers of Demacry for what they had achieved. Spica had two moons orbiting at different distances, and Demacry from what I saw had managed to place people on the closer of the two. Not as a colony, mind you… but visiting their moon is better than what the rest of my people had achieved, from what I could immediately recall.

When I looked closer, I could see that they were planning yet another voyage. And this one… it was just that type of colony. Aiming for the further of their two moons, they were planning on which plants they would be able to take. It looked like they were planning to establish a long-term colony, maybe even try to terraform.

Well… if they use natural energy, it should be possible to terraform a moon over time. As I thought that, I sent my gaze towards their target destination, the second moon of Spica. It was there that I saw what happened with the atmospheric mana when there was no atmosphere to speak of.

Once I adjusted my screen to look into the spectrum of mana, I saw lights dancing along the surface. On the side of the moon facing the sun, it appeared to be a burning red, while the other half of the moon danced with yellow, blue, purple, every color of the rainbow. However, those lights weren’t able to ‘hold on’ to the moon, splashing off of it like wet paint. On the horizon, where day turned into night, there was a halo of violent light that surrounded the entire moon, clashing magical energies that created unseen storms.

Okay… I’m definitely going to have to be careful with this world.