World Keeper-Chapter 1245: Choose Your Own Adventure

The High Mother sat within her lavish throne room, her silvery skin radiating with divine warmth. She leaned back on her throne, her eyes closed as she read through the various reports being sent to her in real time. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm

As she read through these reports, her brow twitched slightly. The Geer are back? She asked inwardly, seeing a report that an exploration vessel had stumbled across what seemed to be a newly colonized world full of the clockwork creations.

Naturally, this was of significant importance to the High Mother. The Geer had always been an exceptionally strong, warmongering race. Their downfall had come from their hubris, fighting directly against the primary worlds and the Greater Pantheon. Were it not for these factors, it was entirely possible that the Geer would have become a force capable of rocking the galaxy.

Now, however… they had fallen behind the times. They no longer had the numbers or power to influence matters on a large scale. With the recent monsters attacking the various planets throughout each universe, it was hard to even say if they had enough strength to defend themselves.

Still, the High Mother couldn’t completely overlook their existence. According to the report that she received, the Geer seed ship had been able to completely colonize a planet within a single day. Furthermore, there were distinct similarities between Metong technology and some of the objects scanned on those seed ships.

From what she could put together, it seemed as if there was an individual or group that was trying to combine the technology of both the Geer and the Metong. Given their artificial construction, it was even entirely possible that these weren’t strictly the same Geer as they used to be. It could have simply been the work of someone who wished to create a race with a similar aesthetic.

Regardless, the High Mother sent out a mission to track these seed ships back to their origin, wanting to map out the territory that had been claimed by this new Geer race. If they were truly peaceful, she did not mind sharing the galaxy with them. If not, she would have to prepare for the inevitable conflict that would arise as a result of two powerful races with differing ideologies vying for the same territories.

Cynthia tilted her head, a brief notification appearing in her mind, alerting her that the Metong had appeared near one of the recently colonized planets. Cynthia wasn’t entirely sure what to make of this herself, as she had never been involved with the politics between the three races.

What she did know was not to initiate direct hostilities. Even if she didn’t believe that Olympus would retaliate to protect one of their core races, she knew that the Geer were in no position to try to fight against a galactic force. More importantly, there was simply no need to do so.

There was no benefit for Cynthia to receive from fighting against the Metong, even if she was confident in her victory. Resources? Thanks to the Digital Conversion system, they could procure as many resources as they wanted. Furthermore, the planets in this universe had far richer deposits of the rare Dimensium material than their original universe.

Enslave races for increased energy production? That was also not necessary. There were multiple methods of increasing energy production, with the most simple being to increase the production of her own units. By siphoning off the excess energy that they produced, she was able to obtain nearly enough energy to operate most of their facilities even without needing to take other measures into account.

As for territory, that was even less of a concern. If she was truly concerned about territory so much, she would take the existing Geer population and relocate them to an entirely different galaxy. For now, there was still plenty of room in the galaxy to share with the Metong’s Network.

All in all, there was no real benefit to initiating conflict with another race, unless that race first attacked them. Instead, she would wait until such a time when her race had grown powerful enough to become its own political force, and then engage in trade deals with other nations. By that time, there would be a large number of other deities within her Geer race, and they would have no need to be so anxious when operating.

Lifre let out a short sigh of relief, reaching down and poking her arm. The skin seemed to ripple slightly, giving way as if her finger was sinking into a viscous fluid. Lifre couldn’t help but grin when she saw that, realizing that she was finally back to being a slime once again.

“Okay! …No what?” She thought to herself, crossing her arms in front of her chest and tilting her head. The SCRU teams were still able to handle the large-scale monster attacks with minimal difficulty. She had created all of the powers that she could manage with the ability that she had now. “Do I have… free time again?” She asked, her eyes widening.

It had been a while since Lifre truly had nothing important to do. She missed the feeling of being a carefree slime, running around and doing whatever random activity sprang to mind. Ever since she began to take on the extra responsibility to prepare for the others departing, she had been too busy to even think about goofing around.

Maybe I can go explore a hidden dungeon of Fyor? She thought to herself curiously, before shaking her head. No, that wouldn’t be much different from all the monster fighting I’ve been doing lately. And, now that I’m an Origin, there’s not really much that I can get out of doing that, either.

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Lifre pursed her lips, trying to figure out what she could do that would be interesting. She could write more books? Although she had prepared a large number of fictional works for her Origin powers, these were mostly all just short descriptions rather than proper stories. How long’s it been since I last published a book..?

Lifre paused, giving that question some serious thought. It had been… a really long time! Well over a hundred years, because she had taken a break from writing ever since her streaming career started. The closest she came to writing a book was to transcribe the events of her stream into a book to use for future powers.

“Yeah, maybe that would be nice…” Lifre muttered with a playful grin. “The first story published by the Origin of Stories. Now, I just need a gimmick to make it stand out. After all this, I can’t just release a standard story, right?”

At this point, Lifre’s excitement began to climb higher and higher. She was getting inspiration for new Origin abilities that she could create, and just needed the key components to get them to work. My inner universe was created using runic magic as its magic system, so I should be perfectly fine on that front. If I can create a high-level runic spell that involves stories, I should be able to manifest that spell’s effects, as well.

Lifre quickly dropped to the floor, crossing her legs to enter a meditative stance. While not strictly necessary, this helped her focus on her inner universe. I can supplement the power of the runic spell with void scripts, and then integrate that script with my world laws.

The only question left was what effect she wanted to give these books. It would be possible to create a story that allowed someone to level up to match the hero just by reading it. Alternatively, she could create a story that imparted special knowledge or simulated experiences, or even entirely new skills!

I want something that everyone will be able to enjoy. This is my big re-debut as an author, so I need to make it count!

After giving it some thought, Lifre’s eyes seemed to glow with an idea. Yeah… that’s something everyone would like, right? She asked herself, rubbing her hands together with a grin. I can’t do this story on pen and paper. It needs to be a digital media, or maybe a magical one. Yeah, that would work…

Runes seemed to pass through Lifre’s eyes in a flurry, one hand drawing out a void script to absorb into her body. I wonder just how crazy I can get with this… It’s time… to experiment!

Four days after Lifre entered her isolation to prepare her new project, she synchronized her mind with her virtual avatar, which was hosting her regular stream. As the rush of new memories flooded in, the virtual avatar blinked, her grin growing wide.

At the present moment, Lifre’s stream was a high-science space adventure. There was no magic to be found, and Lifre herself took on the role of a merchant, having worked her way up to the top of a galactic trade network. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that she had gained the power to influence galactic civilizations with her words.

Of course, this alone wouldn’t have captivated her audience for so long. For this reason, Lifre had a second, secretive identity known only to herself and her viewers, the Night Lily. This was the code name of a powerful assassin, one that could slip into even the most secure facilities, get past any form of defense, and silently remove her target.

Lifre was flying between star systems when the synchronization came in, and quickly stopped her ‘montage mode’ to address her audience. “Hey, everyone! We’re taking a quick moment to go off script here!” She announced from her private room on the ship. “My main body out in the real world just sent me some really interesting news that I want to share with you all!”

Lifre’s chat was filled with a series of question marks, the abrupt tone shift confusing many people. “I know, I know, we’ll get back to the normal story in just a minute, don’t worry! This is super important!”

“As of this moment, my main body has made a really big move! She has created a magical story that can be enjoyed by anyone, anywhere, and with very little effort! This story is free for anyone to enjoy, aside from a very small mana investment. As for what it is…”

Lifre gave a playful grin, seeming to look directly at her viewers. “How many of you have wanted to create your own worlds? Thought at different points in your life, what if I had that power? Well… now you can! And it’s super easy! I can’t do it in the stream, but that’s because there’s no magic here. Still, I can tell you how to do it!”

Lifre snapped her fingers, activating a holographic program in front of her, and drew a complex rune. “The scholars among you slimeballs might recognize this as the fourth-tier rune for ‘Story’! On its own, this rune doesn’t really do anything. No fourth-tier rune has a direct effect on its own, aside from a few special ones.”

“However… as the Origin of Stories, my main body went and got sneaky! Now, when someone activates just this one rune on its own, a magical interface will appear in front of them, allowing them to view their created world story!”

“This world starts off really simple, allowing you to describe your starting race or races, and a few special systems you want in your world. From there, the narrative takes over! Your interface will show you different stats, or even let you create a three-dimensional view of your world to see for yourself! At any point in the story, you can choose to fast forward or rewind the flow of time, and can intervene to add new world systems or plot events. However! Anything the writer of the story adds becomes a ‘canon event’, and everything up to that point in the story becomes locked! You can still view it whenever you want, but you won’t be able to change it!”

“That’s all I’ve got to say! Have fun, slimeballs, and be sure to share the stories that you create with others! Let’s see what fun we can all create together!”