Now that James was back in business, I had high hopes for the defenses shaping up in the void. Unfortunately, they weren’t quite there yet, and I didn’t want to risk my worlds being completely obliterated in the next invasion. As things stood, that was still a very real possibility.

I was still undergoing my weekly training with Leowynn, together with Tsubaki to make sure that both of us were fully adapted to fighting in the void. Similarly, my summons had been with Dana to gain practical combat experience. However, with the need for further advancement in technology, I had to fast forward time once again.

After notifying the others in Olympus, I left for the Admin Room. Unsurprisingly, Tsubaki came with me, though Dana said that she wanted to stay and continue to train my summons. The idea that Dana wanted to stay in the world for years without Tsubaki present… now that did surprise me.

Regardless, I had to get this taken care of, or my worlds would be at serious risk of being destroyed in the coming days. If, at any point, Dana decided to come to the Admin Room, she would be more than capable of doing so even if the world was being fast-forwarded still. As one last precaution, I set a number of alarms to track different technologies, and made sure that Leowynn and the others were all prepared to gradually increase people’s awareness.

With these preparations in place, it was time to get everything moving…

Ashley strode towards the office building across the street from the main Admin Room house, quickly making her way inside. She had just heard about Chel’s new world plan, and felt the rather urgent need to mention it to her team. When she arrived in the offices, she found that only about two-thirds of the workers were present, with the rest no doubt taking a well-earned vacation.

“Jamira, I have a new project that I want you to assign to someone.” Ashley called out, her team leader jumping to her feet and running over.

“What work do you have for us, miss?” Jamira asked excitedly, as Ashley’s personal presence meant that it was something important. Either a new system that she wanted to develop, or something had changed that they needed to reproduce.

“There’s a new world that would have just been created. It was built with the feature of doubling the efficiency of energy conversion between void and mana. I want the team to dissect this feature. This is a conversion process of one of the four basic energies, and it could very well be an important step to developing our own world.”

Jamira’s eyes widened when she heard that, nodding her head repeatedly. “Of course! I’ll get everyone on it right away!”

Ashley nodded her head, smiling slightly. “Good. Once you have the code broken down, I have a couple of side projects that I want you to work on. First, see if you can find a way to apply this code to other energy conversions, or increase the effectiveness. Secondly, I want you to create an ‘Admin Account’ for the Digital Conversion system. Tie in the energy conversion process to the account, so that those who have access will have their mana costs waived when they use Digital Conversion.”

Jamira’s gaze shook when she heard that. “O-Of course!” She knew what Ashley meant by these two projects. With the first, they could potentially automate the creation of any energy type, making the fundamental pillars of a world. With the second, they could allow the admins of the Digital Conversion system to create anything they wanted at no cost, as long as it had been previously scanned.

Even if only one of the two projects were successful, it could be a major help in terms of utility. Satisfied, Ashley nodded her head, getting ready to leave. “Oh, are there any new independent projects that anyone has been working on to report?”

Jamira thought it over for a moment. “Sorin has been studying Lorek’s time acceleration, and said that he has created a system that would allow such time accelerations to be crafted on a small scale. It’s more effective than the current time acceleration that most mages can craft, but it is more costly, so he said that it was a failure.”

Ashley blinked, glancing at one of the members of her team. “Does that mean that he created a crafting system?” She asked curiously, causing Jamira to hesitate, before nodding her head.

“That’s right. He registered the end product as a file with the Digital Conversion system, and then made a plugin that would let you substitute the energy cost with the related materials. It’s similar to the plugin we made before that lets you exchange the materials of an item. In doing so, as long as you have all of the necessary materials on hand, the ‘crafting’ process is free and instant.”

Ashley lowered her head in thought when she heard the explanation. This process made sense from her perspective. As long as a craftsman created an object once, they could register it with the system, and then could instantly craft it again with the required materials. The works created instantly like this would have all of the benefits or defects of the original work, and the only way to improve the design would be to make it from scratch again and register it once more.

Additionally, the patent system made it so that files could be sold, but not pirated. This would increase the likelihood of crafters coming together into unions or guilds. “Prepare the crafting plugin. I’ll go tell the Keeper about it now, and we should be able to include it in our next major patch.”

“My Keeper, there is something that I have been wondering about for quite some time. While we have the chance to talk normally, I was wondering if you would be able to provide an answer for me.” Tsubaki spoke up while we were waiting for the worlds to finish their acceleration, causing me to glance over.

“What is it, Tsubaki?”

“Where is the Underworld located?” She asked, a curious look in her eyes. “I have always been curious about this. The Underworld connects all worlds, but I have never found it within the void. Is it simply too far away for me to locate in the void, or is there another answer?”

I blinked, not sure how to answer that. In fact, I myself didn’t know where the Underworld was located. Thankfully, someone else did, and she came to my rescue. “The Underworld does not exist within the void in the first place. Strictly speaking, that is.”

“Lady Irena.” Tsubaki quickly turned, bowing towards the winged goddess as she made her way over. A small smile tugged at Irena’s lips, and she shook her head.

“You don’t need to use that title with me, Tsubaki. I won’t stop you if you insist like Aurivy, but I want you to be comfortable here.”

Tsubaki simply nodded her head. “You more than most, as you are the wife of my Keeper, I must maintain the proper respect.”

Irena’s smile grew a touch wider at that, and she moved to sit down next to me. “As I said, the Underworld isn’t in the void. Rather, it is a third layer of existence. Its name as the Underworld is, actually, rather apt.”

Irena waved a hand, and three circular discs appeared in the air in front of us, layered atop one another. “The uppermost layer is the void, which encompasses all things. Then, you have the world itself.” She pointed to the central layer, and dozens more discs appeared all at the same level. “All of these worlds exist within the void, but are of equal hierarchy.”

“Finally, beneath those is the Underworld. It’s not wrong to say that the Underworld is tied to every world that possesses spiritual energy, so long as Dale doesn’t choose to apply a different afterlife to that world.”

When Tsubaki heard that, she had a look of hesitation on her face. “Does that mean, when the worlds had been previously destroyed by James’s experiments, was the Underworld implicated as well?”

Irena blinked, before shaking her head. “Not at all. While the Underworld is connected, it is through spiritual energy alone. When those worlds were destroyed, it did indeed produce a massive amount of casualties, but there was no spiritual energy created in the process. Do you know why?”

Tsubaki hesitated again, before her eyes widened. “The deaths were caused by being assimilated into the void. They didn’t leave any souls behind.”

“That’s correct. When a world is destroyed in such a way, it does not bring any feedback to the Underworld in one way or another. The connection to that world is simply severed. That does not mean that the Underworld is immune to the interference of the void, but that it must be done in a more roundabout method.”

“For instance, if someone were to open a path between a living world and the Underworld, it would be possible for an existence of the void to enter. I doubt that they would choose to do so, however, as the Underworld itself is of little value to a void beast.”

“Why is that? Should it not be more valuable, if it contains the information of countless souls?” Tsubaki asked hesitantly, but I widened my eyes as a thought occurred to me.

“It’s because it’s only souls. Spiritual energy is the second thinnest of the four primary energies, right behind natural energy. Although there are countless souls, the energy is so thin that there is little information to digest between each soul.”

Irena nodded in satisfaction. “That is correct. It would take roughly five hundred pure souls to equal the amount of information a void creature could obtain from devouring a single living being. For that reason, there is simply no need for a void beast to attack the Underworld. At most, if they had the power to open a gate of their own, they would use the Underworld as a transit point to attack another world. And the only reason to do this would be that they could not reach that world through the void.”

“I see…” I suddenly had a bad feeling. “That’s something that we’ll need to watch out for. The enemy this time specializes in apocalyptic monsters. It’s entirely possible that there will be one that has powers related to souls, and can get into the Underworld. If that’s the case, defensive barriers in the void will be ineffective.”

Irena’s eyes widened at the realization, nodding her head seriously. “I shall instruct my forces to prepare. If anything invades the void, they will stop at nothing to eradicate it.”

“I have one more question, if that is alright.” Tsubaki spoke up, causing myself and Irena to look over at her. “What about Fyor? We know that every level of Fyor is defended from the void by the black walls, but what about the Underworld? Surely, you’re not receiving souls from every level of Fyor, are you?”

Irena simply smiled when she heard that. “That’s easy to explain. Only those creatures listed as Dale’s ‘assets’ are included in the afterlife system. On unexplored layers of Fyor, those creatures that die simply have their spirit trapped, and will either reincarnate as a new life, turn into an undead beast, become food for something else, or disperse over time. Once a layer is explored, it is connected to the Underworld. This was a feature designed when creating Fyor, in order to prevent Dale from being able to send creatures from the uppermost level as an invasion force before his level had reached that point. It also stops his rank from suddenly increasing. In fact, you can consider Fyor as a nested doll. Every layer operates as an independent world, and only belongs to Dale when it is explored.”