Watching the fairy disappear into the stream, I simply blinked and began processing everything that had been said. However, it wasn’t me that spoke up first but Irena, her eyes on the spot where the girl vanished. “You mentioned that we could buy a branch of the spring… does it have some actual function, then?”

Right, if it were just sentimental, there would be no reason to buy it… I gave a faint nod as I heard Irena’s words, and soon saw the small head of the pixie rising above the water. “Of course it does! This is the Spring of Origins, after all!”

Irena simply stared at her, prompting her to continue after clearing her throat. “The spring water suppresses the naturally explosive reactions between different energies. It makes it way easier for energies to mix together, even accidentally.”

I sucked in a sharp breath at that. That was… an incredibly powerful ability. That meant that even passively, the water would likely be generating any number of combinations between mana and natural energy in my world. If someone were to purposely take away some of the water, they’d be able to even create a saint level energy without having to worry about the consequences of failure.

“That… can’t be cheap.” I shook my head. Such a powerful ability would require an astronomical sum, no matter how small the spring was.

“I mean… it’s not too bad.” The pixie shrugged her shoulders with a mischievous grin. “Only five hundred thousand points.”

It took everything I had not to kick some water at the pixie when she expressed that as ‘not too bad’. Half a million for a branch of a spring… that was an insane figure. If I didn’t understand just how potent the spring’s water could be before, I certainly did so now.

Irena seemed to catch my struggle, directing a playful smile at me. “Long term goals, Dale.” She gripped my hand lightly as she said that. I leaned against her, happy to be able to feel the warmth as we soaked next to the spring.

With our questions out of the way, it seemed that the pixie had once again taken her leave. Unless we called her, it would just be Irena and myself for a while. Although it turned out to be more than just a simple spring, I wasn’t at all unhappy with where our random wandering had taken us. “Irena?”

“Hmm?” She glanced over to me, before resting her head against my own.

“I’m sorry for making you wait so long.” That was something that had always been plaguing my mind, ever since I realized just how sincere her feelings were. Bihena had proven fairly quickly just how easy it was for them to recognize that the feelings in their hearts were something I gave them. Yet still, how long had she waited in the Underworld for me?

Naturally, she would have made the same realization as Bihena did. But even still, those feelings burned strong. I don’t know exactly how she sees me, but it was enough to convince her that I was worth the wait. That’s why I didn’t want to jump right into anything with her, I didn’t want to rush it after all of that. I felt like she deserved better.

Irena’s hand gripped my own, and I could feel the affection from the simple gesture. “It’s alright, Dale. I’m just happy to be here now.”

“Me too.” Nodding my head, I pulled my arm back to wrap around her waist, below her wings.

Tsubaki found herself being guided towards a large building, where quite a lot of people could be seen going in and out. “If you want to earn points, this will be the place to start.” Terra directed a smile back towards her, leading her inside.

Within the building, there were people of all shapes and sizes, most of which were standing over a series of arcade machines. Although Tsubaki had never taken the time to play one such machine herself in the past, she had seen what they looked like in various stores after the merging of Desbar with the rest of the worlds.

“There are… so many.” Tsubaki blinked, looking around, before she seemed to notice a problem. “Aren’t all the games already taken?”

Hearing that, Terra only let out a small smile. “That’s the magic of this place. Something only exists when it is wanted. All of these games were called into existence by the people playing them. As for you… well, you don’t really play games too much aside from Vision Expanse. Wait… that’s right, you got into Natural Seed as well recently.”

When Tsubaki glanced off to the side at that comment, Terra simply chuckled. “It’s fine. Just think about what kind of game you expect you would be best at. Consider your own strengths, and the arcade will prepare a matching game for you.”

Tsubaki furrowed her brows, closing her eyes in focus. What were her greatest talents when it came to games? She had excellent reflexes, honed over all of her years of training. But, there was something more, wasn’t there? “Survival.” Tsubaki muttered that word, and Terra nodded, leading her towards the back of the arcade just in time for a new machine to appear.

Whether it was the real world or any game, the aspect which Tsubaki has always been best at was surviving. Making the best off whatever resources she had to get herself from day to day. She had done so in her trial of blood as a child, and again in Vision Expanse when she trained her second character through a similar method.

“Since you’re wanting a survival-style game, this should be just the thing for you.” Terra guided her to sit down in front of the machine. Unlike most of the arcade games in the room, this was set up more like a basic computer terminal.

Tsubaki looked at the screen, and the game was already at its opening menu. She brought her hand to the controls, signalling for the game to start, and was amazed at what she found. The character that appeared on the screen was Tsubaki herself. Only, she was not the Goddess of Light with nine shining tails.

Instead, she was a little kitsune girl wearing nothing but rags, standing in a dark forest. For a moment, Tsubaki felt as if she were watching a scene from her childhood. Quickly, she found the pause button, turning her head to look at Terra.

Catching her gaze, the felyn goddess nodded her head. “This is a survival simulator. The avatar was chosen to be a younger version of yourself, due to the nature of the game causing it to last a long period of time. While this isn’t the same as the trial you experienced… the difficulty will not be any easier.”

Tsubaki furrowed her brows, thinking over those words. After a moment, she turned back to the game and began to memorize the controls, as well as the gameplay mechanics. If this was truly going to be as hard as what she had been through, she would need every advantage she could get.

I lost track of how long Irena and I were next to the spring. Out in the woods like this, the only person around was a representation of the system itself. If we were truly afraid to do anything just because of that, we may as well never get the chance to act in the future.

By the time we were leaving the forest, there was an almost ecstatic smile on Irena’s face. She held my hand as we walked, and I knew that I didn’t want to let go. Every few steps, her wings seemed to flutter slightly, barely restraining her excitement.

When we arrived back at the main meeting area, we looked around to see if there was anyone we recognized. Obviously, the most common gathering place would be the arcade, as it was where the majority of Keepers went to earn their points.

However, I happened to spot a familiar face standing off on her own, her brows scrunched up in focus. When Irena caught sight of who I was looking at, she nodded her head. The two of us walked over, waving towards the figure. “What’s up, Balu?”

“Hmm?” Balu’s long rabbit ears suddenly stood up as she was called out to, turning to face us. “Oh! Dave!”

“So close, yet so far…” I chuckled, shaking my head a bit. “Dale. It’s Dale, Balu. So, what are you up to?”

“I… don’t know!” She announced, as if she were proud of that fact. “I figured that I would come and do something… but now that I’m here I’ve totally forgotten what I wanted to do! And I left my notebook back home, so I can’t go and find it to check.”

I stared, a bit dumbfounded. I knew that this girl had problems with her memory, but I didn’t realize that it was to this degree. “You’re not needing a ticket or anything, right?”

“Oh, no. I’m not in any trouble.” She assured me with a bright smile, her nose twitching a bit from the gesture. “I haven’t gotten into any big invasions for a little bit. There was probably just some game that I wanted to try out. I always make sure to bring my notebook whenever there’s a meeting, so I know I’m not missing any business, either.”

Hearing that, I gave a small nod. “Well, would you like to talk with us for a bit? I’ve been wanting to pick your brain for a while now on something.”

“Nope!” She held up her arms, forming an X in front of herself with them. “That sounds painful! I’ve got enough problems with my brain where it is, thanks!”

Irena blinked, and again, her eyes still staring at Balu. “It’s an expression. It means that he wants to get your advice.”

“Oh? It is?” The little white rabbit girl directed her gaze towards me suspiciously, causing me to let out a sigh and nod. “Okay, but if it’s anything that would need to be charged, I’ll have to call the boss.”

“It shouldn’t be. I’m more interested in your personal advice, rather than the advice of the Gilded Branch.” I smiled a bit at that, leading Balu back towards the grassy area. It was a better meeting point than standing in the middle of the street, at the very least. If we hadn’t just eaten a little while ago, maybe I’d take her to the restaurant instead.

Once we were in a fairly secluded spot, Balu dropped down to the ground and crossed her legs, her body swaying from side to side. “So, what did you want to talk to me about?”

“Cultivation worlds.” When I said that, her ears seemed to perk up in interest. “I’ve been having some… issues with the one I’m running, and I wanted to get your take on it as a friend.”

“Sure! Just tell me what the problem is, and I’ll see what I can do to help.” Balu seemed quite excited for me to ask her advice on this, so I didn’t hesitate to explain.

“I used the cultivation system that I got with your advice previously, and merged that world with one of my others. Now, when I merged the two worlds, I felt that their overall level of power should have been about right for a merge.”

Balu’s lips twitched into a grin. “Cultivation world has fallen way behind, hasn’t it?”

“Exactly.” I nodded my head. In truth, Lorek and Spica weren’t doing too bad. The main problem was that personal power progressed too slowly under the cultivation system. “With the introduction of our game system, the world managed to speed up its power growth a bit, but their main development hasn’t been able to keep pace with my other worlds.”

Balu gave a knowing nod. “Yup! That sounds about right. Cultivation systems by nature really slow down a world. When everyone spends all their time focusing on cultivation practice, they spend less time on other things such as scientific advancement. Especially once you get to the point where cultivation prolongs their lifespans, then everyone sees it more as just ‘Another day of cultivation could mean another month of living’.”

“Too bad it doesn’t always work like that.” I muttered with a bitter smile. “Anyways, do you have any ideas on how to settle this?”

“Actually, yeah! This is something I had to deal with a loooonng time ago. I tried to integrate a game world with my cultivation system after winning it from a game Keeper. I had to tweak some balance to make everything work. Adjusting experience values and things like that.”

“Afterwards, to keep my cultivation world on par with the game world I won, I set up a time dilation between the two. From then on, my cultivation world moved a hundred times faster than the game world! Although it took longer for people in the cultivation world to gain game levels after the balance adjustment, the overall strength of the worlds started to balance themselves out.”

“A hundred?” Irena blinked, looking curiously towards the rabbit. “Would it really need to be that extreme?”

“Probably! You could adjust the settings yourself to find the right balance, but it should be somewhere around there. Especially if you’re using one of those really big worlds that are recommended for cultivators. They might need that extra time just to keep up in terms of exploration!”

I hated to admit it… but she was right. There was too little of Lorek that had been properly explored. Unlike the other worlds, it had been far too easy for me to find an isolated location to have my host spend years training.

Of course, Spica didn’t have the same problem in terms of size. They had long ago fully explored their own planet. And they didn’t have the same mindset as the cultivators of Lorek, despite their systems being merged. Even still, I had noticed that their progress began to slow after merging those two worlds.

Given the fact that Spica’s primary race is elves… a time dilation between fifty and a hundred might not be such a bad idea.