World Keeper

Chapter 1168: Hacks

Aznod sat in his office, focusing his divinity on a pen that he was holding in his right hand. At the same time, his left hand was held up, palm facing upwards. He was experimenting with energy combinations, wanting to get a very specific type of new energy. However, this required quite a lot of trial and error, even with his Preparation and Optimization domains.

It was difficult enough that he had asked Udona to help him practice World Sight purely so that he could get this new energy. With his right hand, he was fusing very minute amounts of energy, which would occasionally crackle and spark if the fusion failed.

“No, no, not like this.” He muttered to himself. The energy that he was trying to create was more complex than any that he had ever seen or heard of to date. However, it was also extremely easy to understand the effects. The problem was that its existence could be considered a cheat in the system.

“I need to use mana as the foundation, with spiritual energy reinforcing it. If I can filter some of the ambient energy of the system with natural energy, and fuse that with the mana I’ve gathered…” He furrowed his brow, writing his calculations with his right hand as his left hand performed the experiments.

Step by step, he talked his way through the process. Filtering the system’s ambient energy was by far the most challenging task, and what had kept him stumped for more than a week. Once he got past that stage, it was a matter of keeping that energy without releasing it into the world.

However, eventually, Aznod felt a sudden, qualitative shift in the energy that he was experimenting with. He felt as if it had crossed a threshold, becoming denser and more stable. Yet, there was no prompt from the system about his accomplishment, so he knew that he was not done yet.

He followed the steps that he had planned with his divine domains, fusing more and more energy with his experiment. Until, finally, he knew that it could take no more. At this point, his instincts as well as his divinity was telling him that he had achieved the energy he wanted, so he began to absorb it into himself.

A moment later, a system window appeared, informing Aznod that he had created a ‘Unique Saint-Level Energy’. Aznod wasn’t sure what it meant by Unique, rather than simply calling it new. As the system was waiting for him to name this energy, he sent a message to Udona to inquire.

Udona, can you give me some information? I just created a new energy, but the system is instead referring to it as unique. He told her, and it took a moment for Udona to respond.

Give me a second, I’ll check with Terra. If anyone would understand, it’s her. The kitsune goddess responded, and then continued a few seconds later.

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Aznod blinked at that, but nodded his head in understanding. That was reasonable, since it was the world laws of Deckan that he had used when creating the energy in the first place. He’d likely need to repeat the process with Lorek’s world laws, or find a way to integrate those laws with this energy. Either way, he looked at the system window, and named the energy ‘Soul Stimulus’.

Once he had absorbed the new energy, and allowed it to grow within a new energy core, he focused on it. He drew on the power that he had designed, and a silver sphere appeared in his hand. Aznod smiled as he saw this sphere, before setting it down. “Excellent. I’ll need to increase the energy quite a bit more before I can use it in a dish, though.” He said to himself, before feeling arms wrapping around his shoulders.

Looking back, he found his head pressing against his wife’s bosom, and chuckled to himself as she spoke. “So, what is this new energy of yours?” Udona asked curiously, tail wagging behind her. “You can’t just say that you made a new energy and not tell me what it does!”

“I had no intentions of such.” Aznod assured her, closing his eyes and relaxing. “This energy, which I have called Soul Stimulus, is designed to bestow experience onto someone who ingests it. I can’t use it on myself, because the energy will simply return to its natural state. However, if used on someone that does not have the energy themselves…”

“First, it begins to dissolve, gently mixing with the target’s energy. It gives them a vivid hallucination of training the class that was used as the template for the ingested energy. This simulation is based on their own understanding of themselves, making them feel as if they were truly training the class. This is opposed to the normal level spheres, which contain the memories of someone else’s training.”

Udona blinked at that, looking down at the silver sphere on the desk. “So, your new energy is an experience cheat?” She asked, to which Aznod chuckled again.

“That’s one way of saying it. The more energy used in the creation of the ingested sphere, the more experience the target may potentially receive. However, according to my calculations, the target’s compatibility with the class will play a big role. If someone has no talent for magic, then they would not receive much benefit even if I used a large amount of energy to bestow them with experience.”

Udona nodded her head. “That makes sense. On the other hand, people can keep reusing a level sphere to study its contents. So your new energy is like a more customized version of that, and one that you designed to be an ingredient?” She asked, and Aznod quickly confirmed. “If that’s the case, you would be able to help anyone reach up to level five hundred in a class that they are talented with.”

“That’s quite possible. Though, I would assume that level five hundred would take quite a lot of energy to achieve.” He said pensively. “If someone were to eat the meals that I produced over a long period of time, and mix in their own training to solidify the experience that they gained from me, it would certainly make it easier for them to reach this level.”

Udona gave a playful giggle, hugging Aznod a bit tighter. “Only you would create what was essentially a system cheat with the express intention of using it as a cooking ingredient.” She said in a teasing tone, and Aznod awkwardly cleared his throat.

Lifre hummed to herself as she tinkered with the control systems on the pirate ship. This was the first time that a viewer had invested into giving her a white gold class all at once in one of her streams. There had been times when a large group had contributed to a single class, treating it as their shared goal, and eventually elevating it to white gold. That’s what they had done with the archer class in her previous stream.

However, there had never been a time when they had simply donated that much all at once. So, she was curious to test the limits of her abilities. Besides, she had already eliminated the rest of the crew with the help of the ship’s internal defenses. And doing this was a natural way for her to gain class experience.

After what seemed like hours of training in ‘montage mode’, Lifre ceased her training and returned the stream to its normal operations. “Hank, I’ve managed to take control of the pirate ship that had been targeting me, thanks to the new class that appeared. I’m accessing their systems now, and will link the associated files. I don’t suppose these guys have any kinds of bounties on their heads?”

“You took on an entire pirate ship alone?” Hank asked in a surprised tone. “That class must have been more powerful than expected. I’m reviewing the information you’re sending now… From the looks of things, these are mid-level pirates belonging to the Black Space Brigade. Looking at the crew manifest, their total bounty comes out to ten thousand, five hundred credits.”

“Ooh, nice. I assume I’ll need to take the bodies back to civilized space to receive the bounty.” She said, to which Hank confirmed. “What about the ship? Am I allowed to keep it, or do I need to hand it over?”

There was a pause at that. “Unfortunately, you’ll be asked to turn over the ship, as it is connected to various criminal activities. However, there is an additional reward of fifty thousand credits for doing so, and that becomes sixty thousand if the navigation data is intact.”

“Got it, boss!” Lifre nodded her head. Part of her wanted to try to take this ship to the pirate’s main base and raid that, but even a white gold class wouldn’t be enough to get her out of that situation alive. “Send me the coordinates where I’ll need to hand this over. I don’t suppose seventy thousand credits is enough to get my own ship, while I’m there?”

Hank hesitated for a moment, before ultimately answering in the negative. “Unfortunately, no. A new ship, even a small one meant to be run by a single person, would need at least half a million credits to purchase.”

Lifre let out a whistle at that. “Oh, wow.” She spoke aloud, before grinning as she input the destination that Hank sent over. She was already thinking of how she could either make the money to get her own ship, or make the ship itself. “The autopilot has been set to the coordinates you gave. I’ll arrive in six hours to handle the delivery.” She spoke up, before closing the connection.

“Now, what to do for six hours~?” She asked herself with a playful tone, opening up the engineering database of the ship. “I’ll need to upgrade my tools. Hank said I need to hand over the ship, but he said nothing about the ship’s cargo. As long as I use it before I get there…”

Lifre began to comb through the database of the ship, finding a storeroom that had a more advanced building tool used for maintenance. Once she had acquired it, she made sure to download all of the ship’s blueprints onto the new tool, and even created a backup in her suit.

Then, for the next several hours, she went into yet another montage, knowing that the viewers wouldn’t want to sit through six hours of studying. Lifre was experimenting with the new engineer class, finding that she could design her own blueprints as long as she had compatible reference materials. Additionally, she attached a scanner to her suit, which would allow her to scan unregistered items to create new blueprints for them.

With all of this, she had managed to level up significantly during her travel, giving her engineer class ample data storage for all of her needs. She made copies of the ship’s core programs, planning to use them if she made her own ship in the future to save herself some trouble.

Eventually, the montage mode was automatically canceled, an automated announcement ringing out that they were approaching their destination. With a grin, Lifre finished her preparations, having attached a fully armored exoskeleton to her previously skintight suit. This would certainly add some credibility to her claim of having taken down the pirates, given that she had wiped the security footage of the entire event. A girl’s got to have her secrets, right?

Lifre felt the ship being docked with a large station, and stood at the airlock. Once the airlock had opened, Lifre was greeted by a blonde, human male with striking red eyes. He wore a white and blue uniform, and offered a salute to Lifre. “It’s a pleasure to meet you in person.” Spoke the familiar voice of Hank.

“You too, boss! Thanks for taking care of me until now.” Lifre grinned, returning the salute and stepping out of the ship. “I did my best to collect all the bodies, but some of them may have been vented out too far from the ship. I had to get a little sneaky if I wanted to survive, you know.”

Hank nodded his head in understanding. “That’s perfectly fine. Our people will handle the processing, and then the funds will be directed to your account. In the meantime, I have been tasked with continuing to assist you as I have until now.”

Lifre smiled at that, nodding her head. Since she had set Hank up to be her narrator for major events, she knew that the system would come up with some excuse to keep him relevant. “Then I guess I’ll continue to be in your care, boss.”