World Keeper

Chapter 773: Golden Apple

“Oh, you know, this and that.” Aurivy said with a light laugh as we watched Scarlet create a new material on Sanctum. My eyes went wide at the sight, and I couldn’t help but blink slightly.

“Aurivy, please explain what just happened. You know more about Sanctum than anyone…”

When she heard that, Aurivy’s laugh only grew louder, and she wiped her eyes for a moment before looking at me. “James probably doesn’t know that I used the Dungeons and Evolution domains when making Sanctum. Because of the Dungeons domain, the planet operates in a similar basic principle to a dungeon core. It maintains its own environment, which is the reason why only divine power can alter the world in any way.”

“However, the Evolution domain did more than just merge everything together and save a few million years for the world to properly take shape. That domain is still present in the world, after all. Going by what we just saw… if a new domain is wholly infused into Sanctum, it will trigger another evolution.”

I gave a small nod at that. It made sense, in a way. Aurivy didn’t have a true elemental domain for stone, so she had been forced to use the Dungeons domain instead. I just never thought that it would have such long-lasting effects. “Then, do you have any idea what sort of material that is? If Sanctum still counts as a dungeon, it should technically be part of your domain, right?”

Aurivy blinked at that, before closing her eyes and focusing. “I can tell you that it’s definitely been constructed by the Gold domain, but it’s more than just that. Several of the different domains used to create Sanctum are in the ore. It… seems to have some special properties depending on the balance? Here, take a look.”

Aurivy pointed at the screen, and the scene shifted to a coastal region of Sanctum. There, we could see the water slowly creeping up from the shoreline, defying the normal flow of gravity as it stretched out and covered a nearby area. “That area’s ore vein has a higher concentration of the Oceans domain from Bihena. And this one…”

The scene shifted again, this time showing an underwater territory. However, there was a large, irregularly shaped bubble spread across the ground. “That vein has a higher concentration of Accalia’s Wind domain.”

I gave a small nod at that. “I wonder how long it will take Tubrock to dig some up and get to work?” When I said that, Aurivy gave a wry smile. “…Did he already get started?”

“He’s trying to.” She said, shaking her head as the scene changed again.

A lone dwarf stood atop the slope of a tall mountain, a heavy pickaxe in his hand. Lifting it up, he struck down at a small lump of gold that had emerged from the side of the slope, shattering the rock around it. However, it did not seem to have any effect on the lump of gold, other than exposing even more of it.

“Ye little rock think ye can say no ta me!?” The dwarf shouted indignantly, slamming his pickaxe against the rock again and again. The more he failed to excavate the golden rock, the more eager he became. In his head, he was already devising countless experiments he wanted to conduct with this seemingly invulnerable material. However, he soon realized the critical problem, the reason why he was unable to extract the material.

The seemingly benign material was absorbing all of the divine power that he infused into his pickaxe with every strike. Using this divinity, it immediately recovered any damage that the pickaxe could achieve, while considerably lessening the power of each strike.

Once he realized that, his strikes came to a halt. “Yer a resilient rock, ain’t ya?” He asked, looking down at the golden lump with interest. “Well, I don’t like ta cheat, but I think in this case…”

The dwarf extended his hand towards the golden lump, grabbed onto it and pulled. Instead of relying on pure strength or the power of his pick, he directly channeled the Metal domain into his hand to pull the ore away.

As before, he could feel his divinity being drained by the golden stone. However, this time he felt it leaving the node with his hand. This caused him to release a raucous laugh… right up until he saw that the node remained unchanged. Shocked, he looked at his hand, verifying that it still held a lump of this new mineral. “Well, I’ll be…”

At this realization, he pulled yet another piece of the ore from the node, this time without using his domain. Merely channeling his divinity into the node allowed him to remove a sizable chunk. And yet, the node itself remained unchanged. “Greedy little bastard.” He said with a wild grin, starting to understand the properties of these nodes.

This time, he did not pull, but rather pushed. The exposed lump of gold began to sink into the slope of the mountain under the weight of his push. At the same time, the dwarf was able to hear a series of cracking noises, the node being forced to reshape itself under the pressure and disrupting the nearby stone. “Well, at least ye won’t be totally in the way now.”

Satisfied with the results of his test, the dwarven deity vanished with the two lumps of gold rock that he had extracted from the vein.

“It’s pretty much like that.” Aurivy shrugged her shoulders. “The metal, I’m calling it Divine Gold, is able to absorb divinity to sustain itself. Thanks to that, the normal rules of Sanctum don’t apply to it, and you have to use a method of equivalent exchange in order to extract it. Simply put, infuse your divinity, and you will get a similar amount of divine gold. As for what it can be used for… that’s Tubrock’s expertise, not mine. It’ll be a race between him and Kiria to see who can figure it out first.”

I gave a small nod at that. In fact, there were currently over a hundred deities with domains related to crafting. Unfortunately, most of them were only roped into their position as subordinate gods, made to work low-paying jobs for ‘divine corporations’ from the early days of Sanctum. Kiria was undoubtedly the greatest crafter deity that had emerged in the world.

“By the way, there’s something that I’ve been wondering for a while now.” I spoke up, glancing over at Aurivy. “Why aren’t there any monsters appearing on Sanctum? Usually, they begin appearing a year after people settle a world, right?”

Aurivy simply stuck her tongue out playfully. “I thought about it. But, any monster that appeared on Sanctum would be at least semi-divine, or else they wouldn’t be able to eat. So, I asked Accalia to take care of that. She used her Hunt domain to prevent monsters from spawning.”

Makes sense. Last thing we need is an army of monster gods spawning on Sanctum. I honestly thought she just sent them off to Tower or something. I simply nodded my head in understanding, turning back to look at the screen when I realized that a new scene was being displayed.

Julia hummed lightly to herself as she walked out of the house, carrying a large basket under her arm. She seemed rather pleased with herself at the moment due to the efforts of her Virtual self, and decided to help herself to some apples growing from one of the trees she had planted long ago.

Deities do not need to eat, but they can still enjoy the sensation of taste. Furthermore, these were no ordinary apples. The apples that Julia grew were nourished by her Eternal property, and grown on the divine world.

She had allowed a mortal to eat one of her apples once on a whim when she went to Earth for a shopping trip. The mortal was an elderly woman, but her body quickly became rejuvenated upon consuming the apple, as if it regressed her age by several years. This surprised not only the woman, but Julia herself, who tested it again with juice made from the apples.

Merely this juice was comparable to a powerful healing potion, and one that she could easily mass produce on her own property. Ever since then, Julia had begun to see those apples as a true luxury. Especially given the fact that they did not fall from the tree or become overly ripe.

Whenever enough apples had grown, she would simply harvest a few, treating herself while making more of the ‘potions’ that she could sell over the Boundless Caravan. After all, she couldn’t just rely on Aurivy to always pay for everything for her. Well… she technically could, but she definitely did not want to.

Thus, Julia entered the grove of trees that she had planted, and absentmindedly began picking some of the fresh apples that had grown. That is, until she noticed one with an exceptionally smooth texture, closer to the feel of metal than the skin of a fruit.

Looking up, she saw that the apple in her hand was golden. When she plucked it, it easily fell into her hand for her to investigate. “What’s this?” She mused to herself, turning the golden apple over in her hand.

As she had already gathered a few other apples at this point, Julia decided to simply turn around and head back inside. Out of the corner of her eyes, she noticed that every tree had at least one or two golden fruits on it, whether they were apples, peaches, or even oranges. This was definitely something that had never happened before, so she wanted to get to the bottom of it and make sure that the fruits were still safe.

After taking the apple back inside, Julia placed it on the counter, grabbing one of the knives from nearby and cutting it open. “Well, you’re at least not pure gold…” She muttered, seeing the familiar texture inside the apple. Granted, it was still tinted gold, but it otherwise appeared normal.

She carefully scooped out the seeds to save for later, cutting the apple into fine slices. Rather than eating one of the slices herself, she crushed one of the slices with the flat of the blade against the counter. Once that was done, she lifted the blade back up to look at the juice which had been secreted onto the counter.

This counter, as well as the rest of the house, was all created from Julia’s Wood domain. If the juice from this golden apple caused any harm to the counter, she would know that the apple was not safe to consume. However, there did not appear to be any immediate damage, showing that the apples were not innately harmful to divine entities.

With that test out of the way, she grabbed one of the thinner slices, taking a small bite out of it. As soon as she did, her entire body shuddered. There was a rich flow of divine energy contained within the apple, far beyond what the normal ones she produced held. Furthermore, she tasted something different. It was as if another domain was present in the apple, one that she was unfamiliar with.

Thankfully, the trace of this domain was incredibly weak, and did not clash with her own. Instead, it only nourished the energy within herself, and she quickly found herself eating the entire slice in her hand.

Eyes wide with realization, she pulled out her portable terminal and began making notes about the potency of the fruit. Now that she had experienced it herself, she wanted to see how the others turned out, as well as see if the effects that they had on mortals would improve. This might be an even more powerful healing potion than her normal supply, after all. Though… it might also not be safe for mortal consumption, so she’d need to find someone trustworthy to help her with the tests.