Once again, the days seemed to pass without end. As time went on, I was forced to realize just how complex these higher level martial styles were. As the Keeper, I could immediately establish the highly intricate ki paths needed to perform the Twelve Shattering Hands, but even afterwards, the style required a considerable amount of practice and preparation.

In the end, I managed to successfully practice all twelve techniques, though I would by no means call myself a master of them. In doing so, over the course of a month, I managed to gain over a hundred levels as a martial artist.

Once I had finished practicing the first style, I began working on the second of the styles that I was interested in, known as Elemental Embodiment. This style combined the usage of ki and natural energy to allow you to temporarily flood your body with elemental ki, turning you into your respective element.

My goal in practicing this technique was the hope that I could use it with my Saint Energy, which was primarily based on elemental ki. If I could, I would be able to temporarily take on a pseudo-Saint Body.

What I found was that this was easier said than done. First of all, there were some conflicting paths between this style and the Twelve Shattering Hands, which I had to spend time finding a feasible means of correcting without compromising either technique. Secondly, although the Ki of Beginning was primarily rooted in elemental ki, it was not purely so. This made it such that it had difficulty adjusting to the style of Elemental Embodiment. There were multiple times when my digital avatar died due to the energy going wild, making me unwilling to practice it in the real world.

I was so focused on my training that I didn’t even notice when it was time to send off my invasion. Given that my opponent was a peaceful Keeper, I just sent over a random fish to end it immediately, and got back to work. It wasn’t until a full week later that I made a bit of progress, becoming able to briefly take on an energy form made of the Ki of Beginning.

When that happened, I went back to my Admin Room, wanting to check on who my next opponent would be. If it was going to be something dangerous, it would be best if I didn’t wait until the last minute, right?

With a sigh, I sat down in the living room, opening the menu to look at the name of my next match-up. “UpperLevel?” I muttered, arching an eyebrow. Without any other way to immediately investigate, I opened my guild chat.

EarthForceOne: Is anyone around at the moment?

Oldbeard: I’m here! What’s up?

EarthForceOne: I just got my pairing for next month, and I was wondering if anyone knew about my opponent.

Oldbeard: Sure, let me just check that for you. I’ve been at this rank for a while now, so I know most of the big names.

Oldbeard: UpperLevel? Ah, yeah, I know that guy. He was one of the ones to try to recruit me in my early days.

EarthForceOne: You mean…?

Oldbeard: That he’s a Gamer? Yeah, that’s a pretty safe bet. Looking at his battle log, he hasn’t had a defeat since I met him. He did reset at one point, but it’s not unusual for Gamer types to want to restart for a better world. It’s safe to say that he’s still hostile. It says you’re on the defending side?

EarthForceOne: That’s right. Do you have any information that you can give me about him?

Oldbeard: Not really. He never invited me over to his world or anything. The Gilded Branch might have some more details, or maybe Sarah would know something. She’s pretty popular among the Gamers.

EarthForceOne: Do you happen to know where she is?

Oldbeard: Oh, yeah! She said a couple hours ago that she had to do a new game presentation. It’s been pretty quiet since then. But she said she’d be back in a couple of days, once she had handled the opening events.

EarthForceOne: …Do you always have the chat open?

Oldbeard: Yep! I have it on the same screen that I use to watch my world, so any time someone posts a new message, I’ll be able to respond right away. And if I’m down in my world, I get my mom to watch it for me to let me know if I’m needed.

Honestly, that sounded more lonely than anything else. I kept Alice company for a little while, just talking with her about what had happened lately. How the rock people I bought from her were settling in, and how the new technology she sent me had turned out. She seemed pretty happy for the company, at least.

As I was finally closing the chat, I noticed Ashley standing not far away, seeming like she was waiting for something. “Is everything alright?” I asked, looking over at her. The new patch hadn't been released, so I thought that she might be getting ready to report on that.

“There’s something that I would like to purchase for our worlds, but it is… somewhat expensive. Okay, it’s obscenely expensive.” When I heard that, I raised a curious brow.

“Okay… what is it? We’ve still got around half a million points from the BloodBrother invasion, right?”

“In order to get Fragments of Acidia working with the Virtual network, we need a system that can materialize people and objects from Virtual in a real world. It was fine for Vision Expanse, because there is no power profile for it. It was just creating an avatar and saving it like a normal game. Fragments of Acidia is a lot more involved than that, and so we need a system that can handle the full translation.”

I furrowed my brows when I heard that, thinking about the implications. People could bring their items out of the game, or digitize their inventory. Depending on the rules behind it, they could even infinitely replicate powerful items. But also… “Geoff and Hana.” I said softly, Ashley smiling a bit.

“That’s right. This would also let us bring their Virtual selves back into the real world like we promised. There are two systems that I found that can achieve the level of effect that we need. The first one is two hundred thousand points, while the second is five hundred thousand.”

My eyes went wide hearing the two price tags. Each of these would be far more expensive than any system that we have purchased before. “Okay… what’s the difference?”

“The first system, known as Digital Conversion, is a Multi-World system that allows you to materialize people or objects at the cost of the relevant energies. For instance, to create wood, you would need a suitable amount of natural energy. If the item’s ‘digital file’ was created from a real world’s item, any properties possessed by the item will be translated to the new world’s systems.”

I gave a small nod, thinking that was already quite impressive. “So to make entire people, the four basic energy types would be needed. Is Fifi prepared to provide that energy?”

Ashley’s smile grew a touch wider. “That’s right. She said that providing energy for new accounts was one of her capabilities. Now, this other system… It is also a Multi-World system, but it has one key difference. From what I can make of the description, it only requires large amounts of energy for complicated entities like people. Otherwise, it can function off of any designated energy.”

That was… far more powerful. Depending on the prices, that meant that it might be able to create infinite energy by making an efficient fuel source, and then using the energy from that to make more. For half a million points, I could see it being able to break the law of conservation of energy. It was tempting, but also far more open to abuse than I wanted.

“We’ll go with the two hundred thousand system. By Multi-World, I assume that means that I only have to purchase it once?”

“That’s right.” Ashley confirmed readily. “According to Terra, Multi-World systems like this are similar to the Heavenly Game system. You only purchase it once, and you can configure what worlds have access to it.”

That was reassuring, at least. “In that case, what about AI? I can understand the Virtual selves being able to use this, as they were directly created from a real world ‘schematic’, but would artificial intelligences be able to do so as well?”

“That’s… unlikely.” Ashley said. “It depends on what the system defines as ‘real world’. If it doesn’t work, then they should be capable of exiting the Virtual world, using a Virtual converter, and then sending that version of themselves in.”

Unfortunately, it seemed like that was the best that we could hope for. “Alright, let’s go with it.” I said, pulling up the system and reading through it, making sure that I had everything right. “Two hundred thousand points… well, I suppose I had been wanting something to get.”

“Thanks.” Ashley smiled wide. “Once we have this system set up and added to the patch, I’ll be able to release everything at once together with the new game.”

“You’ve already gotten everything else set up?”

She nodded her head confidently. “My team finished it last week, but we were wanting to wait to release the patch until we had whatever we needed to release Fragments of Acidia, as well. Like you said, the more patches we release, the more chaos it will cause. I just had to work with Fifi to figure out what system we needed to take care of this, or if there was a way that we could do it with what we already had.”

If that was the case, the patch should be ready relatively soon. “I see… let me know when it is ready, please. I’d like to be able to welcome those two back into the world.”

After purchasing the system, I set it so that it would currently only apply to the two test worlds. Once that was done, Ashley rushed out of the room, likely to tell her team that they had a new project that they needed to get started on in order to finish the patch. Hopefully the rather pricey system didn’t destroy much of their already established work.

As I was getting ready to make an appointment with Balu to get information on UpperLevel, I saw Udona humming to herself with a wide smile on her face as she came out of her room. “Looks like someone’s having a good time.” I grinned in her direction, to which she nodded firmly.

“That’s right! I haven’t been able to enjoy games like this in ages. Aznod’s really getting the hang of it. I think that he’s even started incorporating the game’s techniques in his real world cooking. And it’s fun being able to properly team up with people that don’t feel like they have to maintain a safe distance or face divine wrath. We’ve even started saving up to get our own ship together in the game.”

I couldn’t help but blink at that, Udona’s voice coming out more and more energetically. It seemed that she truly liked spending time with her new chef like this. As long as she was happy, that was what mattered.