Year 146

We had a lot of thinking to do, and as we seriously considered it, we discovered there were more options.

One of which, which also has some chance of success, is to break one of the heroes free of the god’s control, permanently.

The risk was, an independent hero could choose to do anything, including turn on me. Yet, unlike Patreeck’s idea of achieving godhood and altering the world directly, I had some idea on how to succeed. Already I have some inroads on this, with my teas and drinks, that helped to suppress the effects of the god’s influence. I’d have to figure out how to superpower my tea and drinks, to make a real anti-divine influence tea.

So, we started doing a lot more research on the tea.

What is it about the tea that makes it work? We performed various tests, and to most people, the tea... does nothing much. It’s just regular tea, for most people, though gradually, we noticed that most of them were healthier after a month’s intake of tea, daily.

There was a lot more research to do on teas.

Second, which was in the same league of difficulty as ascending to full divinity myself, was to create my own [hero]. If the levelling system allowed me to eventually reach full divinity, I should be able to alter the game either myself, or via my agents.

All in, we had a few options.

One, seal the demon king and heroes. Thus delay the summoning of the next demon king or heroes. The risk with this was that, what if there’s no real restriction? What if the gods’ heroes and demon king can just arrive anyway, when the time is right? Could the gods force a summoning

Two, ascend to full divinity. There’s significantly unclear what my options are at that point, or whether it allowed me to alter the systems at that point. But, this should be a default option. As long as I am strong, sealing the demon king and heroes will be ‘easier’.

Three, break a hero free of god’s control. Alternatively, would it be possible to also break a demon king free of their own control?

Four, make my own hero. May not need full divinity if there are worldly ways to reach that level of power.

Five, achieve the ability to kill the demon king and heroes extremely quickly. This would effectively minimise their threat level. Easier said than done, and again, requires myself to probably achieve full divinity. Only a god could kill a demigod, no?

-

In the past 2 years, I used my new [gifts] on the priests and Valthorns.

Since skills could be upgraded, and I had earlier started doing widespread screening of young children, I already had a decently sized dataset of skills. From what, it was a matter of triangulating those who are loyal, have good skills that could be taken a step further, and probably need the skill to make an impact.

The first time I used it 2 years ago, I used it on a Treeologist high priest with the skill [Presence of Calm], which upgraded it to [Aura of Tranquility (Strong], simply because he lived in an area where the population was angry and upset at the trade and industrial issues. It would take some time to solve the issue, since matters of industry can’t be fixed overnight. They do need a period of time for a new reality to sink it. The aura helped to suppress the dissent, for the changes introduced to take effect.

This was a people issue, sometimes. A solution is available, but when the populace is already angry, often the solution is rejected and resisted. It’s like trying to help the person in pain, first we must suppress the pain, then we can get to the cause of the pain. If the victim is struggling, it makes life difficult for everyone.

Last year, I used the skill gift on Edna’s [Grand Shield], and it transformed into [Suit of Grand Armor], which pretty much made her a walking tank. It was a little bit of a letdown, I thought it would evolve into Triple Grand Shield or something. But oh well. Skills don’t always work the way I want them to.

So, this year, I went to Arlisa instead, and I tried to upgrade the [Blessing of a Soul Tree (advanced)]. It didn’t work.

Then, I went to another of the Patreearchs. He had a skill called [Guidance of the Master], which generally helped the priests under his care gain new skills, or speed up their levelling. But, he can only use it on one student at a time, once a month. Again, I hoped it transform into an aura or something, but instead, it just upgraded into [Guidance of the Master (advanced)], which increased the number of students at any one time to three students.

Oh well.

I think I will try it on one of the blacksmiths or woodworkers next. Maybe he could make something nice.

Yeah. Actually I should totally make one of the blacksmiths into some kind of super blacksmith. No seal would work without high tier equipment to match, and I do need alternatives that are in the same tier as the hero-items.

-

I spent a lot of time thinking about how to use my new levelling skill, and my sticking point was mainly giving 60 levels and skills may very well be a handicap. From my understanding of the people as a whole, things that are given so easily, especially a level gift, would be wasted on most people who are unable to wrap their head around the sudden surge in levels. That they would lose the ability to estimate their own strength, because they jumped up so fast.

It’s like a man who just learned to drive, suddenly getting a 1000bhp sports car. He wouldn’t be able to cope with his newfound power and speed. Or how a person who just struck the lottery would soon squander his wealth.

It wasn’t earned. Unlike the upgraded skills, which are given to people who are already at high levels of power, the sudden surge in levels would be given to young folks with low levels, for my gift of levels to be most effective.

There was also the issue of free will and choice. Since my gift dictated that I select the class and levels, what if they don’t want this class? After all, this gift is most effective on the young with low levels. It’s like I forced someone to study through university for a degree he may not really like, but thought he liked when he was young.

I struggled with this power for quite some time, until I was then led back to the wolf with two ‘spirits’ in it. Akrenaf was content to live in the forest, and though it was clearly intelligent, it decided to do nothing but stay in its forest.

Monsters.

I should use my gift on monsters. Monsters after all don’t have an issue of class. Monsters can’t gain classes, like how I couldn’t gain classes.

I decided to use my gift on a spider. It gained the levels alright, it transformed into a giant spider...

I felt static in my telepathic connections. It was trying to communicate and the spider was extremely confused.

Then it went on a rampage.

I had to kill it.

Damn this gift. It’s a trap. I’ll need to figure out how to use it properly. Maybe on my artificial souls instead.

--

“Ms Astia.” Kei bowed and then sat opposite Astia in her living room. They are neighbours, at least, for now. “Apologies for intruding. May I sit here and talk?”

Astia paused.

“You don’t have to reply. I understand it makes you nervous. But just hear me out.”

She nodded. Kei had declared herself a resident of the Central continent, and I agreed. Strangely, most of her decision making was guided by the journal.

“I read in the journal that the heroes receive fragments when their friends die in battle, but I want to know whether you get them too. Is it something all of us earthlings get?”

Astia nodded.

“I see. Thankfully I don’t have a fragment, at least, not yet. Tell me, what do you remember from earth? Technologies, things. Do you remember any of the scientific formulas and equations?” The older girl shook her head.

Kei sighed.

“Me neither. I curse myself for not studying harder. Who knew all these things would be handy anyway? I wanted to make gunpowder, like, real gunpowder.”

Strangely, Astia interjected. “Why make gunpowder when there are local powders that do the same thing? Spark-powders.”

“...ah. Yes. True, true. There may be native equivalents of our human things. I suppose you don’t remember anything about computers, either?”

Astia was baffled. “Computers are incredibly hard to make. The level of precision...”

“Well, like you suggested, there’s magic. Magic and precision crafting can be a substitute for clean rooms and industrial manufacturing processes...”

“But, why do you need computers when magic can do the same, and more?”

“Scale? For those without magic?”

It was a bit strange for Astia to be the advocate of this world’s methods. “Miss hero, you might think your way is the right way, and this world might seem primitive. But I don’t think you should be introducing the things you want, without thinking it through.”

Her heartbeat was fast, and even weirder for her to defend this world’s way of life. Kei was silent, as she considered Astia’s words. Patreeck peeked into her mind, and I sensed she was nervous, but yet she did truly feel that this world wasn’t that bad.

Kei sat and looked out. “My friends are going to wage war, eventually. They will think it is right to continue the god’s divine crusade against Aeon. They are not doing so because the temples are consumed by the massive reconstruction efforts and funds needed for the Eastern Continent. I hoped we could have an advantage.”

We?

Astia shook her head. She was too nervous to say it, but we could read her mind. Once again, heroes are fools. They don’t know anything, but since they have power, and someone tells them of the issues, they’ll champion it even if they don’t know the truth.

Kei had enough and walked away.

-

She then brought her concerns to Jura. “The crusades will come again. This time, there will be two heroes on their side.” She wasn’t here for the first one, but she seemed to think there will be a second one. Indeed, the heroes are overpowered. If they attempt to attack anyone, it’s unlikely they’d lose. If anything, I should force them to a stalemate.

What countermeasures do I have against heroes?

Could I use poison against them? Did they have poison immunity as default, or only for certain types of heroes?

Rather than have a discussion, it was better to just have a serious fight. Kei and Jura have a serious fight deep in a secluded forest.

“So, Aeon is watching?”

“Yes.” Jura nodded. “If your two friends are coming, we must first know how far we are. As it is, I’m one of the highest leveled.” Well, he IS the highest level. There was no one else at level 100. Everyone else was stuck in their caps at Level 80 to 85.

“I see. Then I shall not hold back.”

“Well, but don’t kill me.” Jura laughed and prepared his spear. Bamboo floated around his body, forming a wooden structure.

Kei levitated, she didn’t even need to say a word, then a massive array of magical guns appeared, and floated around her. The guns started to aim and fired rapidly.

Jura immediately used the [Triple Steelwood Barriers of Aeon], and the guns hammered the barriers, breaking off the wooden barriers chunk by chunk. But here was our first learning point, Kei was using star mana attacks, but it didn’t deal exceptional damage against my shields. This meant star mana is super powerful, but it probably had a special perk against demons.

It held briefly, the multiple guns did destroy the barrier in after 15 seconds. Jura had to quickly move, weaving through the hail of bullets. It was like watching an expert dance through a bullet storm. Kei was a shipgirl, and this was Touhou’s bullet hell.

The shield had a recharge period, so Jura couldn’t use it again, but it was time to go on the offense. Return bullet hell with bullet hell, as Jura’s Bamboo expanded massively, forming multiple flowers. The flowers took damage from the bullets, but some managed to activate and fired shells back at Kei.

Yet, the same shells were shot down by Kei’s array of guns. She had an array of close-range anti-projectile guns as her defense. Most of Jura’s shells didn’t even get close, and the few that did, didn’t do much damage to the array.

“What level are you again?” Jura ducked as bullets flew over his head.

“After killing that weak demon king? Level 112. I think my friends barely crossed Level 100.”

“And you can keep shooting?” Jura managed to create another set of Steelwood Barriers. They were blown up rather quickly. He tried to use the temporary cover to activate long range spear attacks, and then launched them.

“Well. Yes. For a few days, in fact.” Kei’s gun arrays fired like multiple machineguns, and knocked the flying spears out of the way.

“Shit it’s like cheating.” Kei kept firing. She didn’t even have to move, her array of cannons did most of the work for her. Jura on the other hand, had to keep moving. At this point, I wondered how’d she react to long range attacks, so I arranged for a spear-beetle to shoot a spear at her from afar.

The spear was shredded in midair, but only after it reached a certain distance.

Jura launched a few ranged skills, one of which created hundreds of wooden spears and flew at her. The guns shot down most of them, but for a change, about 20% hit the array and destroyed a few of them.

Kei frowned and activated an ability. The gun was healing!

“Aeons, curse you.” Jura cursed, he did his attack again. More spears, and even more spears. The guns kept firing, and then he did a ground-based attack . It exploded right underneath Kei and destroyed one of the arrays!

Jura immediately amped up the pace, using his skills to create a massive dust storm. Kei’s cannons fired wildly in all directions, but somehow their aim was slightly worse, so more of the spear projectiles got through the defensive guns.

Point 2. She can’t shoot what she can’t see. She has some kind of super-sight, but even then it can be blocked or weakened. Powers like [mist] and [hidden forests] would be useful in a conflict with the hero. I would also have to consider various ‘passive’ attacks.

Kei’s body glowed, and instantly, a massive shell appeared around her, and it fired bullets in all directions like a turning multi turret. It blew some of the smoke and dust away, and whatever bullets that were her way.

“That was pretty good.” Kei said, she emerged unscathed. “But you know, one of the heroes has missiles, kinda like flying super arrows, and the other one has lasers. I mean beam-light attacks.”

Damned bullet hell. They have beam dancers too.

Jura still couldn’t close in. Kei levitated further up in the sky, and I wondered whether lightning weapons would perform against her. Jura clearly thought of the same thing, as he switched weapons and took out two purple spears. He stabbed one into the ground, and then ran. The guns seemed to have a sense of where he was going, and would fire ahead.

Jura took a few shots to the leg, thankfully, Bamboo immediately activated thick wooden armor to absorb the shots.

He ran again, Kei still levitating towards him, her guns had never stopped shooting. The ground was battered with mini gunshot explosions, and then he stabbed the other purple spear into the ground.

“Oh what is this?” Kei wondered, her guns shot the spears too.

Jura immediately activated them, and two large lightning bolts arcs towards the other spear, and in doing so, zapped Kei and her array. She screamed in pain, and it seemed her arrays stopped shooting for that brief 1 or 2 seconds.

Then it resumed shooting.

“Ouch.” Kei said, she was fine, even if the shock did slightly hurt her. “That kinda, kinda hurt.”

The spears only have one single lightning charge each.

Lightning works. I would need more lightning weapons, and lightning arrays. In short, extremely high speed is necessary to counter this generation of heroes. My roots could still be effective if they were levitating not far from the ground, but if they floated too high up my roots would be useless.

Jura stopped. “I think we can have a break. I’m out of ideas, and my leg hurts. Consider it my loss.” Jura was being honest. Kei could keep this up all day, since she doesn’t really get tired if she activated her star mana. Her cannons did all the work, whereas Jura, even though he did have immense stamina, has been dodging bullets the entire fight.

“Oh. Okay.”

“And there’s two of you on the other side.” Jura shrugged. “I need more levels to even think of keeping up.”

“Yes.”

Lightning would work, and I’ve activated my artificial souls to gather all sorts of high speed weapons. Lightning, light beams, death rays, all the sort. I’ll need them in large quantities to hurt the heroes.

The heroes would be exceptionally tough from the extra stats of their [hero] class and their blessings, and they would likely to have high natural healing ability too. But they do not have a dedicated healer, and that’s a weak point I need to exploit. If I can wear them down over long periods of time, I can still win.

“How long does it take for your star mana to regenerate?”

“About a day if I sleep. If I keep fighting... I don’t know.” Kei said. “Aeon has a plan?”

“Well, they are two of them, and we are a continent.”

I can’t feed the heroes too many kills though, they might gain levels. In fact, the tactic would generally involve clearing out wherever they land, and using poison abilities to weaken them. Then only engage them with a large team of high levelled individuals.

“I’d never think I’d have to fight a hero. Not in my entire lifetime.” Jura said. “Certainly, I’d never think there would even be a reason where I’d have to fight against a hero... well, except if they hunted elves.”

Kei smirked. “So... what does Aeon have in mind?”

For Jura, a lot of [experience seeds].