Year 209 Part 2

The heroes arrived in our world for their first trip. They looked quite afraid to approach my clone, but when they arrived, they didn’t look back or turn around. Instead, they were quickly whisked through the tunnels, and out to Freshka where the rest of the Valthorns attended to them.

Snacks and food followed, and a health check, just to make sure they didn’t suffer any weird symptoms from moving worlds.

Even here, under the biolab’s inspection, these otherworld heroes largely used the same underlying template. No significant variation in their soul spring or natures, unless... it’s not something I’m able to see. Maybe there’s another layer to the soul, or an ability to look further into the soul that I’ve not ‘seen’ so far.

The heroes, on the other hand, quickly asked to visit the Hero Logs.

“This is it?” They watched the strange book, and then Kelly touched it first. I sensed a surge in star mana, and they were in a trance. Their bodies glowed, faintly, and I sensed her own star mana enter the book.

The book remained a black box to me, even now, and as more and more heroes used it, I felt the magical energies within the book seem to change slightly. It’s a blend of all their mana, and yet different.

Kelly eventually snapped out of the trance, and she immediately sat down. Prabu offered her snacks and some tea, said a few words and then walked away.. “Take your time. I thought about what I saw and learned for weeks. It’s alright if you want to cry, or want to just go somewhere quiet and shout for a while.”

She looked a bit teary eyed, and then nodded. “...I’ll be fine. Yeah. I’ll be okay.”

Prabu nodded and walked to rejoin Adrian. “Let’s give her some space.” Adrian looked at Kelly, and Kelly just nodded.

It was his turn.. An hour long trance, then he immediately fell to the floor. Adrian froze, and then sat on a sofa right next to Kelly. He sat, and rubbed his head, and then, “Can I sleep here? I think I need to sleep on it.”

“Yeah. It’s fine. No one comes here except us. Maybe except Stella, Kei and Ken, but they can’t use the book. Food and water is in that cabinet over there, Aeon’s powers preserve them so they’ll last. I’m going to go get something to eat, and we’ll come back after that. Do not to run anywhere, this valley is normally off limits. If you need anything the Valtrian guys are outside.”

Adrian nodded, and settled himself on the sofa. “Yeah. I’ll be alright, I think.”

Prabu and Colette left, and it was just Adrian and Kelly in the chamber of the hero’s journals.

“You’re gonna sleep?” Kelly asked.

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Kelly sat and leaned back onto the sofa. “Maybe I should too.”

“I’m not sleeping with you.” Adrian responded.

“Of course not.” Kelly laughed. “I’ll be here.”

They both took a nap. Prabu and Colette returned about three hours later and found both of them still sleeping.

“Huh. That really knocked them out. Aeon, can you let me know when they are awake?”

“Sure.”

***

“Is the entire continent like this?”

“No, not really. This level of development was only present here.” Prabu said. “But some of the other cities are becoming more modern, and more... Earthlike. It’ll take a few decades, though, before they get anywhere near this.” They walked the streets of Freshka. Freshka’s city core had become more dense, and some of the buildings began to tower into the skies, built into or integrated with the Giant Attendant trees that covered it.

My massive giant attendant trees served as the skyscraper-equivalent of their central support structures, and craftsmen built rooms and floors anchored to my trees. For now, beetles remain the primary source of ‘fast’ transport between places, especially for voluminous and bulky goods, but due to demand, there is also a basic teleportation network in place. “It feels like home, in a different way.”

“Yeah. It’s crowded. At the street level, it feels like any of the big cities.” Prabu nodded. They walked on elevated paths, separated from the common folk. A network of paths and ropeways crisscrossed Freshka, linking buildings to each other. The Valtrians built a network of dedicated paths for their own use, so that it was easier for the Valthorns to mobilise and transport goods around Freshka, away from general public traffic. We also had tunnels for that purpose, but the Valtrians advised that visibility had a value of its own. It was also good practice for my spies.

“Smells like it too.” Adrian nodded. “I wasn’t expecting to smell coffee. It’s not present in the Mountainworld.”

Prabu smiled. “I’ll stop you there. Coffee was not invented by heroes. They already have it natively as a supplement and is popular with mages and priests as a study aid.”

“Huh.” Adrian nodded. “Does Coffee do anything?”

“Yeah. There are magically-enhanced and skill-enhanced versions. Some of them can essentially function like drugs back home. I’ve seen some Southerner soldiers have them to help them keep watch through the night.”

“Shit, that’s really wild. We could’ve used something like that on the Mountainworld to help with the demons.” Adrian said. “So many alarms missed because someone dozed off.”

Kelly popped in. “Sounds like something to trade. Maybe we can be coffee importers and connoisseurs back in the Mountainworld. I’ve always liked cafe culture.”

“Tea culture is stronger here, and honestly, I don’t even know what good coffee tastes like.” Prabu laughed. “Did your parents ever let you try coffee? They always told me it’s an adult drink, and I had to turn 18 before I could try it.”

“You have strict parents.” Adrian said. “I always get coffee when I have to cram for an exam. But it's home-made stuff, and my mom’s not very good with the coffee machine, so it isn’t that great.”

Kelly coughed. “Privileged. All I get is premixed stuff.”

Adrian rolled his eyes at the lady. Prabu just grinned. “It’s alright. There are some good ones, though their tastes would probably not match what we have back home. Honestly the only one who could judge is Stella.”

“Oh, speaking of which, when are we meeting her?”

“Now.” They entered the building through the elevated path, and into a large, airy chamber. This was normally the top floor of one of the city’s many eateries and tea houses. Stella was already there, a Valtrian nodded, and then left through the stairs. “Stella, meet Adrian and Kelly, the heroes of Mountainworld.”

Stella smiled. “Well met. It’s nice to meet someone from home without having to get a notification that someone died.”

Adrian didn’t get it. “Sorry, what does that mean?”

“It means, the earlier batch must die before I meet someone new.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, that was my bad. It was a morbid thing to say. Come, have some tea. Have they given these to you before?”

“I’ve had tea.” Kelly said. “But these are different?”

“Ah yes. Then you must try it.” Stella smiled. “Come. Sit.”

***

Separately, Alka, now with a domain, got the full briefing. A briefing that made his eyes widen, and made him shake in excitement.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t know or guess, but it was a strong hunch. He had suspected I had intended to stop the demons somehow, but now it was clear that I intended to somehow hack the system, and he naturally understood why I sent Lumoof to do all those otherworldly missions.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t tell you all this before.” Edna said.

“No. It perfectly makes sense now.” The part on the Aiva’s warning of the eventual end of the heroes’ summon and the full extent of the discussion was also revealed. He naturally had far more questions than I did.

Things he would take some time to figure out on his own.

“More importantly, now that you have a domain and with the protection of my pantheon, I can now send you to the other worlds too. If you can figure out something, that’ll be great.”

The next one for the domain would be Stella.

***

Year 210

The Aivan forces didn’t have much problems with the weakened anti-mana demons, but they struggled really badly against the demon champions.

The demon champions that came through were the supersized demons, larger than walkers, and it was their sheer size that made them difficult to kill. They were vulnerable, but it was really hard to reach that vulnerable spot without using magic.

Ballista and bows worked, but they needed to pack sufficient punch to actually deal damage, without getting crushed or killed by the anti-mana sludge they released.

Grandmaster Engka, naturally, appealed for help, and we continued to supply them with both weapons and manpower to deal with the anti-mana champions.

The heroes came too. Chung and Hafiz were eager to try out and see where they stood. They struggled just a little bit, their natural combat instincts was to use their strongest abilities, and these star-mana powered abilities were weakened by the champions’ magical resistance.

Once they switched to their mana-less abilities though, that made a huge difference.

They noticed that using star-mana to boost their own ‘stats’ did not suffer drawbacks, though the ‘length’ of that ‘boost’ seemed to be shorter, especially if they took a hit from the demons due to mana burn.

In short, these anti-manas demons can ‘dispel’ magical buffs.

It was possible to ‘stack’ stat-boosting buffs to hit harder, but not buffs that had a ‘magical-element’.

Ken’s personal preference was to just somehow invent some kind of ‘bunker-buster’ bomb or ‘TNT’, since, this was a mountain-turned-demon, so just blow up the mountain, the old school way. Alka’s alchemists and researchers were able to find some substances that created small explosions, but were orders of magnitude weaker than TNT.

It’d be a long time before our technology caught up to Earth, especially on such non-magical matters. It was quite ironic to think it may be easier to kill this demon king conventionally by a nuclear bomb or tsar-bomba, than with magic bombs. Even if I understood the ‘broad’ principles of such bombs, the actual fact was making such a bomb still required technology I did not have. Technology is often built upon many little incremental steps, and even if I knew what I wanted, it still takes a long crawl to get there.

On the other side, we looked at stat-boosting ‘drugs’ and potions. Alchemists, witches, shamans, could make potions and draughts that temporarily granted boosts. The heroes themselves have magical boosts, but because these magical stat-boosts could be ‘dispelled’ whenever they took a hit from the demons, it made sense to now consider non-magical boosts.

We had these kinds of stat-boosting potions and equipment for a while, owing to my long research into [ginseng roots]. My ginseng roots provided permanent boosts, but their relative ‘strength’ was nothing like these temporary powerups.

One alternative was something like Lumoof’s domain ability, but [Empowered Faithful] did not boost heroes or my other domain holders. In fact, from my own prior research, only about half of all types of ‘boosting’ abilities worked on domain holders, but their effectiveness was average.

But better average than none.

Anyway, we gathered all these potions and elixirs and tested them out on the heroes and also my domain holders. We prioritised non-magical ones, and then, tested them against the demon champions on the Eastern Continent.

Those that were ‘dispelled’ were sent back for further studies, and those that didn’t would be chosen for use.

“Looks like we need a [domain]-level alchemist and shaman too.” On top of the barbarian/physical combatant, this was also an area we needed support. We already have the ‘knight’, the ‘archer’, the ‘priest’.

“You are supposed to be our alchemist.”

“I specialise in magical explosive bombs, not potions. I can make lesser ones, but they are not that great.” Alka was right, and generally, I could make a lot of kinds of ‘saps’, and these were the extended versions of stuff you could find in nature. Healing saps, hallucinogens, relaxants, stimulants, poisons, and in these types of stuff, I outclassed him significantly.

His stuff were also more magical in nature, because his research was extensive in the areas of magical bombs, runes and formations.

Oh well, at least we know there is another gap to fill in our [domain] party.

***

“Huh. This continent feels like how it is back in our world.” Kelly and Adrian commented as they visited the Eastern Continent for the first time, the magical-medieval nations and cities, the temples and priests. It was almost as if this was a template copied and pasted over the multiverse.

They were nobodies in this world, nobody knew they were heroes, so it wasn’t hard to smuggle them to that part of the world.

They were quickly guided to the location of the anti-magic demons, where they fought them for the first time. It wasn’t a hard fight, since the demons were ironically weakened by the ambient mana, but the mana-dispelling abilities were annoying, and they had to adapt. The demon champions were harder, but less so for Adrian who had a monk-build.

His heroic ‘chi’ based abilities were only minimally weakened.

Monks. I need my own version of Aeonic monks. I totally need monks and physical combat masters. I’ll need to start with a monastery on the mountains somewhere, or an island with peach blossoms.

Maybe they should be called the Seedlin Temple.

I needed physical barbarian types, monks, and alchemists. Only then I would have a balanced team able to weather the demonic storm, and perhaps, brave the storm and search for the eye. I’ll probably also need vampire hunters, exorcists, witches, doctors. In short, I need every major RPG archetype out there.

***

My forest on the Mountainworld expanded quickly, and within months we saturated the area under my rule with trees, turning what was once a demonic wasteland into a verdant, monster-filled land. There were some familiar accidents, of course. Exploding demonic trees were also present in this world, but thankfully no major damage.

With the land ‘reclaimed’, creatures spawned, and the native fauna reemerged. They were slightly different, as with all worlds. The dogs were slightly different, the lizardpeople of this world are different from the lizardpeople of Treehome.

Miniscule problems appeared everywhere. There were linguistic problems, and the small group of Valthorns sent to administer this land on my behalf was quick to discover that the language had a lot of minor differences, each carrying different emotional weightage. Even if we understood what each other said because of system shenanigans, there were meanings and context that was missing.

That led to diplomats and young graduates of FTC taking their first trip to the Mountainworld, in an attempt to truly understand this strange new world. I wonder whether I had facilitated the first true alien civilisation encounter, even if they were more similar than not.

This land was a blank slate, and knowing what I knew now, there were a few things that I had my new ‘settlers’ work on. Mistakes to avoid back with Freshka.

One, a clear constitution for this new land, with clearly set out delegations of authority. The central continent of Treehome is a troublesome, cobbled together hodgepodge of nations, many subservient to different degrees, each with their own set of rights and laws. It worked on Treehome essentially through the brute force of my artificial minds, providing the much needed oversight. I could crush those who oppose it, but I didn’t think it was necessary to force such a change when it worked so far. Again, since this is entirely new, I hoped to avoid that by having a simpler constitution, a leaner organisation, and clearer laws.

Two, clear boundaries, and standardised currency. Back home the currency system is frankly a mess, and I wanted to avoid that. Even boundaries between internal disputing nations gave rise to unnecessary wars.

Three, better planned cities and nations. When Freshka was built, it was planned, but there were flaws. Mistakes, due to lack of foresight. Every time I had a new addition, like the Treeology colleges or FTC, I had to earmark additional land outside of existing city boundaries. It made for a city that sprawled outwards, that worked only because of a constant network of beetles that transported people from one part of the city to another. Defensive structures were added sometimes proactively, sometimes reactively, as and when we needed them. I had indirectly built a version of suburbia.

So, before any major construction was done, my settlers would first do up a structural plan for the entire land, together with a defensive plan for both demon kings and other enemies. Mountainworld will face it’s own demon kings, and naturally, any new nation or city must be designed with that in mind. We’d also try to consider how we could accommodate future needs.

One of which was my domain transportation ability. Right now, anyone who wanted to visit Mountainworld would have to make a visit to the Valley of the Unrotten, because the teleportation ability only works between my main body and clones. So, they have to at least ‘touch’ my roots in order to work. With this place acting as a center for trade between the two worlds, I needed to design the cities to enable that to be a seamless process.

A city around my clone body, instead of Freshka’s design where I’m located far away from the valley. Freshka was essentially travelling two hours to an airport far from the city center. If possible, I wanted to have this new nation have what’s the equivalent of a ‘city airport’.

It made sense back then because I wanted to protect the Valley, the Valley had things I wanted kept away from others. Again, historical baggage that I could change with this new piece of land.

Four, it’s likely that the diplomatic relationship with the other nations would deteriorate over time. Our contribution to their security and victory would be forgotten in decades, and what was a friendly relationship, would eventually turn to war. I hoped to avoid that, so to do that, I wanted to significantly reach out to all the temples and find ways to stop it.

I have nothing to fear, since I was confident I would win, but another crusade was a waste of resources, and an unnecessary sacrifice of the high leveled individuals of the mountainworld, who would be inescapably summoned to fight against me.

So, my expansion in this world must be accompanied by a significant spy-arm to intercept negative intelligence and take out unfriendly parties, and a significant propaganda arm in order to build a positive public impression, such that the nobles are dissuaded from war.

Five, if Treehome falls to some demon king, this world will serve as our backup plan. The land must be designed such that it can accommodate Treehome refugees for a reasonably long period of time.