World Keeper

Chapter 1170: Back to the Future

Later that day, Vespa held a meeting with the other elders of the ninja clans. Understandably, they were shocked by Vespa’s report, hearing both Chelsea’s new power and her plan to relocate tens of thousands of their people to another universe that was cut off from the outside. This was by no means an easy decision to make, even though it did align with their original objectives of helping to secure the Keeper’s realms.

In the end, they accepted Chelsea’s requests, but had to carefully select the people that they sent. After listening to what was required, they knew that they shouldn’t focus on sending only strong individuals, as those individuals would likely be dead by the time their mission were to truly begin. Instead, their combat units were focused more on those with the talent for training others. 

At the same time, the non-combat personnel were selected from the younger generation, making sure that they had a suitable selection to kickstart the population of their new world. Clearly, Vespa herself was the oldest to be sent, as the presence of an elder was still required. While Vespa had reservations about being chosen for this mission, she decided that it would ultimately be the best way to put her remaining lifespan to use for her people.

The entire selection process took ten days, after which Chelsea had returned to the ninja planet. At this time, there was a large plaza filled with people, and Chelsea nodded her head in understanding. Closing her eyes, she focused on manifesting the effects of a teleporter, one of the security features that she put in place in her machine empire through the drones.

A flash of light filled the plaza, causing Vespa and the others to cover their eyes. When they opened them again, they found themselves standing within a technological metropolis. Aside from the humm of machinery, there were no other sounds in their surroundings, so Vespa took a step forward to calm everyone down.

“Everyone, we need to understand our surroundings. Groups three, five, and six, prepare to scout the city.” She began, before seeing a spherical drone flying in her direction. It came to a stop before her, speaking in an electronic tone.

“Greetings! I am Ava, the Artificial Voice Assistant in charge of this planet. The creator has tasked me with helping you and your people acclimate to the city.” The drone spoke up, and Vespa looked at it curiously.

Despite their advancements in fields such as energy research, the ninjas did not pursue the cutting edge of technology to the same degree as the Metong. Thus, she wasn’t entirely sure what this drone was capable of. “Can you show us a map of the city?” She asked probingly.

The drone spun with e brief whir, speaking up again. “Of course! You are currently in City One, which is awaiting a proper designation. City One is equipped to host up to five million inhabitants, and has been tailored to the specifications provided by the creator.”

As Ava said that, a holographic map appeared in front of it, displaying a large city. Several sections of the city had been dyed with different colors. “The green region is the training center, containing obstacle courses that will adjust their difficulty based on the skill of the challenger. The blue region is the education center, fully equipped to advance one’s scientific understanding. The yellow region contains the information network, allowing the host to monitor the progress of Species X-7A. Finally, the red region is for live combat training. As per specifications, there are no life-saving features installed in this training center.”

Vespa nodded her head in approval. These were the basic amenities that she had asked for from Chelsea, after it was decided that they would accept her proposal. “In that case, can you lead us to a residential area first, so that we can unpack our belongings?” She asked, and Ava whirled again.

“Of course! The residential area is nearby, so please follow me!” It spoke, guiding the group. Although Vespa still had her reservations about everything, there was no turning back now.

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Chelsea looked at the now-empty plaza and let out a sigh of relief. Now that this was taken care of, her inner world should be able to advance at a much more acceptable pace. Without lingering to speak with anyone else, she teleported back to the entrance of the research lab, and made her way to her office. Now, it was a matter of accelerating her world to reap the benefits.

Once she was in her office, she entered a meditative state to allow her to focus on increasing the flow of time in her world to the limit. As with before, this limit was still a ‘mere’ one million times, but that would be plenty now that the ninjas were involved.

Every hour that passed like this, more than a century passed. She kept this meditation lasting for five full hours, before gradually returning the flow of time to normal. By the time she was done, nearly six hundred years had passed in her inner world, and so she sent her consciousness into her inner world to investigate.

Chelsea smiled as she realized that the two civilizations were now well and truly at war with one another. To be more precise, Species X-7A, a bipedal elephant-like race which had taken to calling themselves the Tuskens, was living in a state of constant danger. 

They had never managed to discover the homeworld of their enemies, which they referred to as the Shadowless Stars. As the Tuskens advanced, understanding their world more and more, and even using this understanding to colonize more planets, the Shadowless Stars began to launch probing attacks. They would swoop in, destroy a vulnerable facility, and then vanish without a trace.

Very rarely had the Tuskens managed to defeat a raid by their eternal foe, and in doing so learned that their opponents were of a smaller breed that resembled various types of animals. Despite their diminutive stature compared to the Tuskens, their strength and wisdom far outclassed the larger race. The worst part was that they seemed to be adapting to the Tusken defenses, as they always sent just enough forces to break through without causing excessive damage.

To the Tuskens, they were an ever-present foe that lurked in the shadows behind the stars, waiting for them to show a moment of weakness. This forced them to develop their military defenses, bringing a rapid spike in their technological development.

Over on the side of the ninja clans, the world was far more calm. Chelsea could tell that every citizen had a certain degree of training, but the true elites were those who had undergone strict training in the live combat zone. Thankfully, she didn’t see any signs that a god had emerged recently.

In order to prevent a sudden rise to godhood among the ninjas, she had put several hidden machines within the cities given to a ninja. If divinity ever exceeded a certain level, it would deploy a robotic strike force capable of crushing a newborn god and annihilate them during their ascension process. A similar countermeasure had been put into place against fallen gods, and both would only be lifted when the Tuskens had reached a stage where such troops were deemed appropriate.

That said, even setting aside those two, there were other forms of immortality that began cropping up, such as those who pursued the path of perfection manually, or those that chose to become martial spirits. Chelsea considered these paths acceptable, so long as the immortals did not attempt to assume rulership of their race.

Thankfully, this did not seem to be a problem, and the ninjas were acting as she had expected them to. The first generation had long since passed, so all that they knew of the outside world were the stories and images brought in by the first migrants, passed down over hundreds of years.

With a smile, Chelsea withdrew her consciousness from her inner world. “The way things are now, I should be able to get away with meditating for a single minute every day.” She mused to herself. Now that things had really picked up, she didn’t want to progress the world too quickly anymore. If she did, she would lose track of what had been invented within her inner world, and wouldn’t be able to properly display her abilities.

It was better to meditate in short bursts, and then use some time to acclimate with any new technology that she could make use of. Already, she was seeing several devices within the ninja world that interested her after five hundred years of research.

“This should be why the fifth rank is such a major barrier.” Chelsea thought to herself, eyes widening slightly. “Once any Keeper is capable of creating an Origin, they could simply create an Origin of Technology or Magic, and allow their civilization to advance at a breakneck pace. Then, they can take the compatible discoveries from that Origin’s inner world to apply them to the main universes.”

The only real downside was that not every advancement would operate the same way as they would in an inner world. This was especially true when it came to magic. The reason behind this was the change in the world’s laws between the main world and the inner world. Most technology could still be exported, but anything that relied on special systems would become useless when brought out.

Though, I suppose another downside would be the fact that an Origin can only have a single inner world. She thought to herself. Multiple times during her meditation, she had felt a tremor within her body, which she found to be traces of the ninjas attempting to exit their world and explore the void, or travel to another universe. All of these results inevitably ended in failure, however, as the void-like energy of her body simply consumed anything that left her inner world.

Now that she had reached this stage, she was ready to consider the possibility of helping to create more Origins in the future.

Within Tubrock’s forge, the sounds of advanced machinery could be heard slowly dying down, together with a soft humm of fluctuating energy. “Did we get it?” Dana asked hesitantly, watching from behind a reinforced barrier.

Next to her, Tubrock simply smirked. “Only one way to find out, lass!” He insisted, gesturing for her to take the lead.

Dana let out a small huff, but did indeed lead the way inside. As they entered, they found a pitch-black ring sitting on a pedestal, looking like it had been carved out of obsidian. When Dana approached, her face twisted slightly. “Yeah, we made it…” She said, causing Tubrock to look over at her curiously.

“Ye can tell that without even touchin’ the item?”

Dana nodded her head, taking a step back. “Yeah, the effects extend out to about here. If I get any closer, I can feel the energy making up this avatar weakening. I can still force my way in, but any powers I cast into the field should be weakened considerably.”

Tubrock grinned broadly at that. “Excellent! Now, we’ll just have to see what other side effects it has!” He said, already preparing to enter the next stage of testing.

During the process of creating this ring, they found that it had a strong effect on stabilizing the information from the void in the vicinity of the user. This meant that Fallen Gods would also be weakened, but had the side effect that void portals could not be established easily around the wearer. “We’ll need to see if it can be stored in the inventory, and whether or not it would still function from within it.” Dana spoke up. It would be the best case scenario for it to be cut off when in the inventory, that way Dale could just put it away when he needed to get around its side-effects. However, Dana wasn’t sure if that was possible.