World Keeper

Chapter 1154: One Layer at a Time

Eventually, Lifre ended her stream after collecting the reward for defeating the necromancer. Granted, the kingdom wasn’t too happy about the method that she had chosen to employ, as it had permanently altered their geography. However, they had to choose between accepting the results or risk angering the very person that could perform such a nonsensical stunt in the first place. In the end, their choice was obvious.

Before leaving her stream, she made an announcement that she would return to climbing the floors of Fyor, and would resume her streaming schedule after she had finished that. There were few people as capable at climbing the floors of Fyor as Lifre, but that wasn’t simply because of her strength. The special spell that was used to locate the gates was not widely spread, meaning that it could take decades, maybe even centuries for someone to locate the gate on their own, depending on a combination of their luck and whatever searching skills they had at their disposal.

Thus, when Lifre closed out of her stream, she immediately ran over to meet Lena, planning to invite her along. Given that Lena was a moderator for Lifre’s stream, she had already heard about the slime girl’s plan to advance in Fyor and was waiting for her arrival. However, there was also someone else that was waiting for them, and this one surprised Lifre slightly. “Dana?”

Seeing Lifre tilt her head and look at her, Dana smiled slightly. “I need to test out my new abilities in actual combat. Also, given the nature of Fyor’s structure, I need to make sure that whether or not an Origin can use their powers within that world to begin with.”

“Uhh… sure!” She nodded her head, happy to have another member along for the fun.

Petra stood before the gate on the sixty-sixth floor of Fyor, waiting for the person that she knew was coming. She was a subscriber to Lifre’s stream, and had heard that she was planning to explore Fyor. Given the fact that Petra’s shadow world was Fyor itself, she felt the need to join them.

Once Petra saw the gate rippling, forming a portal along the solid, black wall, she took a step back to prepare herself. There was a good chance that Lifre would simply shoot off as soon as she entered, so she wanted to make sure that she was ready to intercept her if that happened.

However, fortunately, Lifre walked rather casually through the portal, and Petra discovered why a moment later. When she saw two other figures walking through, Petra was momentarily confused. Though, she was able to recognize Dana immediately, with Lena being less familiar to her.

“Oh! Hey, shadow demon girl!” Lifre grinned, waving towards Petra. “You waiting for someone?”

Petra cleared her throat, nodding her head at that. “You, actually. I was hoping to be able to join you? If I wouldn’t be in the way or anything?” She asked, looking at the two other people accompanying Lifre.

“Don’t see why you would!” Lifre shook her head, sending an invitation to their party. “You might not have much of a chance to shine, though. I’m planning a full blitz until… let’s say floor seventy-four? We’ll only be stopping to pick up the level orbs, unless there’s something super special about the floor.”

Petra blinked at that, but nodded her head. “Why seventy-four?” She asked curiously.

“That’s when the level cap will breach six thousand!” Lifre announced, and Petra quickly understood. “Have you already checked the location of the gate on this floor?”

Petra nodded her head in confirmation. “That’s right. Though, it’s a long ways away. About three light years in that direction.” She said, pointing off to the right.

As soon as she said that, Petra’s eyes went wide, sensing a powerful darkness surging from beneath her. Before she could say anything, she noticed that their location had changed. Previously, they were in a wide meadow, but they now stood at the edge of an overgrown forest.

“Guess that means that it works?” Lifre grinned, looking over at Dana, who nodded her head.

“Yeah, it doesn’t look like there’s any resistance.” She said with a happy smile, having transported the group three light years in the direction Petra indicated. Of course, they weren’t so lucky as for that to be the exact direction and distance, as both were only rough estimates.

Lena looked over at Dana, curious. “If you can do all of that, can you directly sense the next floor?”

While Dana was contemplating that question, Petra was left in shock, staring at her. She had seen Dana’s overbearing darkness before, but what she just felt was nothing like that. Clearly, something had happened to Dana that caused a clear, qualitative leap in her abilities. Where she was once on par with Petra in terms of shadow manipulation, it now felt as if Petra was staring at an unshakeable mountain.

“Sorry, but no.” Dana shook her head to deny Lena’s question. “I can sense the lower floors, or at least the one immediately below us. However, even that is only faint. The black stone layer between each floor is likely thicker the higher up you go, to prevent monsters from the upper levels from being able to just jump down to a lower floor.”

Lena clicked her tongue at that. “Was worth a shot. So, who wants to lead the way to the next layer?”

Immediately, the three girls turned to look at Petra, who had already confirmed her knowledge of the gate’s location. The young demoness flushed slightly, but nodded her head. “S-Sure. It’s not that far from here.”

By synchronizing with her shadow world, she was able to easily determine her position in relation to the portal that she had previously marked. With a burst of speed, she shot out, her body becoming a blur. Of course, the other three weren’t far behind her, keeping pace without any problem.

It took roughly thirty minutes for the group to reach the gate, Dana smiling slightly. “Let me send an avatar through. If there is some kind of problem on the other side, I’ll be the safest to investigate.”

“You will? I always thought that was my thing?” Lifre asked, confused. However, Dana didn’t elaborate, simply creating an avatar of herself to step forward and into the nearby wall of black stone.

Petra carefully watched Dana’s expression, wary of the elven girl being infected by some sort of memetic effect. She had heard that there were powerful memetic entities that were responsible for all of the havoc on the sixty-fifth floor, after all.

Sure enough, Dana furrowed her brow a few moments later. “You girls will need to give me a few more minutes. There are memetic traces all over the place. If I let you go through right now… let’s see… ah. You’ll be turned into a living shrubbery and take root in the ground after three hours.”

Petra’s eyes widened in alarm, jumping back a step. “Do you have a way to stop the effect from hurting you?” She asked, knowing that the only way that Dana would know about this influence was if her avatar was going through it now. And, if that was the case, the mental link between them would have also transmitted the memetic influence.

However, Dana simply smiled, shaking her head. “I’ve recently become immune to things like this. That’s why I said that I should go first, because I am the one with the highest chance of survival in an unfamiliar environment.”

“I still really thought that was my thing!” Lifre called out in confusion once again, before turning to look at Dana. “How long do you need to remove the memetic traces?”

“I’m seeing them all over the sixty-seventh floor.” Dana explained, her eyes closing. “I’m going to guess that other people have made it here in the past, but were killed after going through the portal. Although there wouldn’t be many that can get to this gate, that’s not to say that there’s nobody that would have been able to. Especially on such a peaceful floor like this.”

Petra thought about that for a moment, before nodding her head. “How are you going to make the area safe, then?””

“That’s the easy part. I just need to spread a shadow over the entire floor, and devour everything that registers as a memetic influence.” As she said that, her avatar was doing exactly that, a massive shadow encapsulating the entirety of the sixty-seventh floor. “Ah, even the level orb had gotten infected… I’m going to destroy it, so we can grab the next one when it respawns.”

After a few more minutes, Dana’s eyes opened, and she walked towards the portal. “Alright, it should be good now.” She said, leading the group through the gate.

On the other side, Petra saw a barren wasteland. There was not a single blade of grass, no greenery anywhere in sight. It looked as if the top layer of soil had simply been melted away. While Petra spread her own shadow to claim this layer of Fyor, Dana quickly crafted a spell.

Both of the girls finished at roughly the same time, the spell surrounding the group with a vibrant, blue glow and teleporting them into a dark cave. Naturally, Petra recognized the other gate that was resting just ahead of them, and looked at Dana in surprise once again.

The magical device containing the spell that she used to find the gates took an absurd amount of mana to activate. So much so that she had to connect it to the floor’s mana spire in order to fuel the device. However, Dana had casually crafted a spell that took them straight to the gate.

Dana, meanwhile, seemed somewhat surprised herself. She looked down at her hands, causing Lena to question her. “Is everything alright, Dana?” She asked, and Dana could only nod.

“Y-Yes. Sorry, I just discovered something new about my abilities.” She said. “Give me a moment. I need to report this before I can send an avatar to the next floor.”

Chelsea was reading through the code of the locking system that James had sent her, making sure that she understood it well enough to implement it within her world as a void script. As she did so, she received a sudden message from Dana. Chelsea, I have something new to report.

Do you need to meet? Chelsea suddenly stood up, getting ready to leave the lab and go to wherever Dana specified. If Dana was reporting something with this timing, it had to be related to their new powers as Origins.

No, that’s not necessary. Just, listen for a moment. I’m on an exploration with some others from Olympus, as well as a friend. After using a high-tier spell, I noticed that my mana didn’t deplete from the spell’s usage.

Chelsea’s eyes widened at that, understanding the implications. In other words… it’s not just your Origin power that is being supplied by your inner world, but all of your basic energies?

That’s right. I don’t know if there’s a limit to this, so I wanted to report it to you, just in case.

Chelsea quickly nodded, agreeing with Dana’s opinion. Don’t push your mana beyond what you can normally do. Most likely, your mana is directly tied to the mana core of your inner world. If you use too much at once, you could destabilize your inner world, and perhaps even cause it to collapse.

That said, Chelsea would need to run tests of her own. They had to determine the rate that the output that the inner world was able to sustain, and if there were any damages from prolonged usage. For that reason, Chelsea immediately prepared to set up an educational stream, the only way that she could be sure to perform her tests in a safe environment.