Chapter 3

Arcius was quite curious about the rest of his new home. He’d technically been here for a decade or two now, but, between the work and the sleeping, he’d never actually left the room. Admittedly, one reason for this was so that he could avoid having to deal with the others after CoG’s announcement, but still, he was curious.

He got up from his desk and moved to the door, opening it and stepping outside. He now found himself inside a circular room. All along the outer wall were 15 doors, including his own, which were obviously the rooms of the Gods. There were three corridors leading out of this room, which split the doors into equal groups of five.

At the centre of the room was a kind of dining area, encircled by cupboards at waist height, with three gaps to allow entry, each in the middle of a group of five doors. Inside the circle of cupboards were 15 circular tables, each with five chairs. It provided a space that meant every God could sit on a separate table if they so choose, but groups could also sit together.

Interested, Arcius entered the dining area through the gap in front of him, and looked in the nearest cupboard. There was nothing inside, which was strange unless… he closed the cupboard, concentrated on it, and opened it again. This time, there was a glass of his favourite wine inside the cupboard. We may not need to eat or drink, but it seems like we’re still able to. Grinning openly now, he took the glass and moved to the nearest table.

As he sat down, he took note of who was in the room. On the other side of the area were the two wolves, who seemed to be discussing something. The lack of any tension about them pretty much confirmed that they chose their adjacent islands so they could team up. He could also see one of the roach-men and the green-leaved tree-man on another table, and judging from the body language, assuming it translated relatively evenly between roaches and humans, their discussion was less cordial. They may be negotiating something, after all, those two weren’t too far away from each other.

While he was observing the others, he heard someone sit down across from him, and judging from the sound, it was one of the slimes. He looked over to see his suspicions confirmed, for the green slime had sat down opposite him. It spoke, with a distinctly feminine voice, “Hello, I hope I’m not intruding.”

Arcius was surprised. He would have thought that the slimes wouldn’t have a gender-based voice tone, after all, they seemed to be genderless. His surprise must have shown on his face, for the slime spoke again, sounding almost amused, “You are not the first to be surprised at my chosen voice. My people can change the sounds of our voices as we see fit. I use the voice of my bond-mate from my old life, as my way of honouring her.”

“Bond-mate?”

“Yes. Humans and slimes in my segment of the universe co-exist through the bond. Every human child bonds with a slime not long after birth, and then they are like siblings, facing the challenges of the world together.”

“Fascinating. How did this come to be?”

“That would be because of the gargoyles, the other sentient race in my segment. Nasty things, they are creatures that look like humans with claws instead of fingers or toes, and bat wings. Not to mention that they’re made of stone.”

“So in order to defend against these creatures the humans and slimes of your segment created this bond?”

“Yes.”

“As I said, fascinating.” He paused for a second to take a sip of his wine. “Now, I do not wish to sound rude, but I must ask. Why are you here, speaking to me?”

She seemed to smile as she replied, “There are two reasons, well, two main reasons. Despite what you must be thinking, your ‘ingenuity’ as CoG put it, is not one of them. The first reason is that we seem to share a similar attitude to the others, although yours seems slightly more extreme than mine.”

Raising an eyebrow, he replied, “And that is?”

“Neither of us wishes to deal with the politics. Our Dungeons are the only ones the members of neither continent can interact with easily. Yours for obvious reasons, but mine because of the fact that it is located on an island separated from all else by a large expanse of water.

Admittedly, mine is not the only one on an island, and it is not the Dungeon furthest from the others. However, although the wolf sisters are…”

“Wait sorry, I hate to interrupt, but wolf sisters?”

“Yes, they’re sisters that reincarnated here together, an interesting occurrence, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes, it’s certainly strange. Please, continue.”

“As I was saying, although the sisters are located on islands, their islands are right next to both each other and the smaller continent, meaning they are not hard to get to from the continent. When it comes to the other, my fellow slime is the one farthest from the others, but he is still on the larger continent, meaning it is still fairly easy for his Dungeon to interact with the other Dungeons on the continent.

“The other reason I have is curiosity. You are the only one of us to pick a Dungeon underwater, never mind one on the ocean floor. I am interested in knowing why that is.”

Sipping his wine again, Arcius carefully replied, “So then, I can assume this is just a discussion, and is not political.”

Definitely smiling this time, she replied, “Yes.”

Smiling in return, he replied, “Very well, I’m Arcius.” He held out his hand to shake.

Shaking hand with him, she replied, “I’m Aisha, pleased to meet you.”

They spoke for some time, mostly discussing their respective segments, although the question she asked was shortly answered:

“I chose my starting point based off of the research I had done in the past, into the development of life. My findings indicated that life that develops on its own, nine times out of 10, came forth from the oceans. Something about an underwater environment makes it easier for complex lifeforms to develop.

“But wouldn’t the aid of magic mean that a magic-based strategy is faster and easier to use?”

“Not necessarily. Think about it, they both have pros and cons. Magic would allow you to skip some of the stages of evolution and thus save time, but has the downside of having to tailor the environment for your new creatures, as they did not develop with your current environment in mind. On the other hand, evolution takes longer, but means that your creatures are now tailored to the pre-existing environment, resulting in no compatibility issues.”

“But what about the endgame, the development of sentient life.”

“Similar issues. In Evolution, the problem with the development is to do with a combination of environment and resources. To get a sentient mind to develop means you need resources such a mind would be able to use to develop things such as tools, as well as an environment that rewards sentience. Both of these things, combined with the issue of time, can easily cause issues if they are only slightly off the desired amounts.

With magic, on the other hand, the issue is almost solely one of resources, and much more so than evolution. A sentient mind is an incredibly complex thing to create, meaning it costs a colossal amount of Mana to create, and will probably cost a colossal amount of Capacity to unlock as well. So both have their ups and downs.”

“I see. So then, you’ve chosen to use evolution.”

“I’ve chosen to use both where I can.”

After a few hours had passed, they both chose to leave and talk again another time. Aisha headed to her room, while Arcius finished his wine and then headed to his own. Once there, he decided to sleep for three years, after all, that would allow his Gems to finish forming.