World Keeper

Chapter 1188: Exploration of Shadows

Thelsa’s brow furrowed, looking at the stack of papers in front of her. These were all of the reports that she had to file regarding the various different worlds of Fyor. Thankfully, most of the negotiations went well, though there were a few things that she had noted.

For starters, none of the other worlds had a ‘true’ understanding of divinity. This was because none of them had reached a floor capable of guiding one on a path of godhood. However, they still had faith. The issue was that most of them had faith centered around either the mana spire, the black gates, or both. These cultures worshipped the natural formations of Fyor due to their special properties.

Whenever Thelsa’s diplomatic envoys appeared in a world where the local culture worshipped the spire, they were immediately treated as messengers of their religion’s deity. Most of the time spent in negotiations with these races was spent to clear up this misunderstanding.

Now, all of the other worlds had been contacted, and the envoys were rapidly gathering the shadow worlds of the higher floors. Given that they could use the crystal spire as an elevator, this would be over very soon.

All that Thelsa personally had to worry about at this point was organizing all of the paperwork to submit it to the guild. So, with a heavy sigh, she sat down, and began to sort the files based on which worlds proved peaceful, which ones showed hostility, which ones displayed useful resources, and things like that.

As she worked, a notification suddenly appeared in the corner of her vision. She glanced over at it, before her eyes suddenly widened, a smile spreading across her face.

It had been a long time since her title had leveled up, a very long time. Long enough that she had forgotten that such a thing was possible. However, she wasn’t entirely sure what the reward meant. She didn’t immediately feel any different about her shadow or anything.

Thelsa? Petra’s voice spoke up in Thelsa’s mind, seeming concerned.

Yes, Petra? Did something happen? She responded, worried that this upgrade might have influenced her other shadows.

You should come and see this.

My simulated training was interrupted by an alert from my nearby terminal. Opening my eyes, I saw that there was a request for communication from Thelsa Whitefallow, using a secure line. Arching a brow, I leaned forward and accepted the call. “Thelsa? I would have expected you to arrive in person if you had something to report, or to call one of the others. What’s going on?” I asked curiously.

On the other end of the call, Thelsa sounded confused, but also excited. “Sir, I’ve made an important discovery regarding Fyor. I thought that you would need to know immediately, so I decided to go ahead and call.”

I blinked in surprise, before quickly shaking my head. “What discovery is that important?” I asked. Unless there was a new special material or something, I wasn’t sure what else there was to discover from Fyor at this point.

“There are more than the originally assumed ten thousand ‘dungeon’ planets of Fyor.” Thelsa reported.

Thelsa stood upon a layer of smooth, black stone, before a towering crystal spire reaching up towards a sun that seemed infinitely far away. Scientifically, she knew that it was approximately a billion light-years between these planets and their suns. All of these ‘dungeon’ planets were roughly the same distance, and could be compared to the ‘goldilocks’ zone. Still, a billion light years, just the number felt unreal. Yet, due to the sheer size of the sun, it still appeared similar to the sun of Earth or any other world in scale.

Shaking her head, she looked at the nearby crystal pillar. This was not one of the worlds registered as possible destinations when using the pillar to travel, which Petra had confirmed by having all ten thousand teams stand on the surfaces of their respective planets. In fact, there were hundreds of thousands of such planets that they had identified.

When Thelsa arrived through her shadow world, she had placed her hand on the spire, curious if there would be a reaction. As soon as she did, another message appeared in front of her.

This was why Thelsa had urgently called the Keeper. This wasn’t just another dungeon world. This was a hidden dungeon world, one which they had only discovered because of Thelsa’s upgraded title. When Petra investigated the new update, she tried to scan the empty space of the shadow world, and found all of these other ‘extra’ planets.

If I’m right, these planets were meant to be discovered gradually, through highly advanced space exploration. She mused to herself, glancing to the side when she saw a cloud of golden mist appear.

From within the mist, Aurivy emerged, wearing a set of advanced armor. She had a golden helmet with a thin visor, and nodded towards Thelsa. Without delay, Aurivy placed her own hand on the crystal to register herself, and then teleported the two of them to the black gate elsewhere on the giant planet. Only when they stepped through did Aurivy speak, as the surface layer of this world lacked any form of atmosphere.

“So, we have hidden dungeons now?” She asked in surprise, and Thelsa nodded her head. Thelsa wasn’t surprised by the fact that Aurivy and the others were unaware of these dungeons. It had long been established to her that even the Keeper himself did not have full knowledge of unexplored regions of Fyor.

“It would seem that way.” Thelsa answered, looking around. “However, it only gave us the ability to teleport to the surface. Does that mean that we have to manually travel downwards, and register each floor as we go?”

“I don’t know, but let’s find out!” Aurivy grinned. This floor of X-392 appeared as a barren desert, so she didn’t waste any time. “You go ahead and register your shadows as we go. I’m going to speed run this.” She said, golden mist enveloping them again.

Moments later, they were standing before this floor’s pillar, which they both touched while Thelsa spread her shadow out. Then, Aurivy took the two of them to the next floor’s gate and stepped through.

However, as soon as she stepped through the gate, she paused, her brow furrowed. The new destination was a lush forest, but Aurivy did not immediately advance. “Something’s wrong.” She said in a concerned tone, causing Thelsa to look over.

“What is it?”

“The monsters here are stronger than the ones I saw in the last floor.” Aurivy responded, and Thelsa looked confused for a moment. However, she soon realized why that was a problem.

“But, we’re going down, not up.” She said, and Aurivy nodded her head seriously.

“Yeah, we are. According to the standard rules of Fyor, the lower floors mean lower leveled monsters. However, the average level of the monsters here, according to what I’m sensing, is roughly one hundred levels higher than the ones above.” Aurivy had been confident in speedrunning this hidden dungeon specifically because she was sure that this rule would have applied here as well, thinking that there would be no actual threats to be faced. However, if every floor represented a jump of a hundred levels, she no longer had that confidence. In terms of pure stats, perhaps only Tsubaki could confidently say that she was superior to the monsters that would lurk in the deepest floors of this hidden dungeon.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

“Let’s stop here for today.” Aurivy said, shaking her head and sending the two of them to the crystal spire on this floor. “If the threat level is increasing per floor, we need to reconsider our approach to this world.”

Thelsa nodded her head in agreement at that. While she was confident that she would personally be able to survive on the current floor, she did not keep that confidence if it came to the deeper floors of this ‘hidden dungeon’.

Using the crystal spire, Thelsa returned to the original world of Fyor, while Aurivy disappeared with her golden mist. We probably could have gone quite a ways further, if we purely relied on Lady Aurivy’s teleportation. Especially since the layers would become smaller with every passing floor. However, perhaps going beyond our personal limits would be seen as dangerous, and that was why we stopped early…

As she thought about that, she began to wonder what benefits this new ‘hidden dungeon’ could have. Surely, if there was a level of danger involved, there would be an equal chance for rewards, right? Otherwise, why would whatever system created Fyor as it did have removed those ‘hidden dungeons’ from the normal list of destinations.

She considered creating a team to explore the two floors of X-392 that they had visited, but quickly changed her mind. It would take too long to train shadows that were capable of fighting monsters with an average level nearing eight thousand.

Thankfully, although Thelsa was unable to properly explore the new floors of the hidden dungeon planet, Aurivy faced no such difficulty. Her main body lay on her bed within the Admin Room, on her back with her hands stretched up into the air. Her fingers flicked from side to side every few moments, observing a map of X-392.

“Like I thought… there are rewards.” She muttered to herself. However, these rewards were not what she expected them to be. She thought that she would see new, exotic mineral veins that could only be found in these hidden dungeons. Or maybe there would be treasure chests containing loot generated by the system. That would have fit with the theme of a dungeon, as well.

However, what she found was a crystal sphere buried in the ground. Examining the sphere identified it as a Reward Sphere, awarding one hundred points, which could be redeemed at the crystal spire.

On the uppermost floor of X-392, she found over ten thousand of these spheres scattered around, all across the massive floor. Most of them were buried, but some were sitting on the surface. On the second floor down, she found another large batch, but these all awarded two hundred points.

Out of curiosity, she sent her incarnation to gather one of these spheres, and take them to the crystal spire of that floor. Thankfully, Aurivy had studied her runes properly, and kept the translation guide nearby so that she could read the interface.

Upon entering the spire and placing the sphere against the wall, she was informed that she had one hundred reward points, which could be spent to redeem rewards of her choosing. To her surprise, there was nothing like a shop for her to browse through, only a blank screen.

Pursing her lips, she had her incantation draw out the runes to write ‘Comprehensive understanding of third-tier runes’. This would be a good test, she thought.

Immediately, a line of runes appeared beneath her writing, asking her to confirm the expenditure of fifty-two reward points to claim the chosen reward. Shrugging her shoulders, she confirmed the choice. As soon as she did, a jolt of mana pushed her incarnation back, and Aurivy could sense a flood of knowledge entering the incarnation’s mind.

Aurivy’s eyes widened as she realized the significance of this reward system. Now, she needed to see just how far this reward system went. Hesitantly, she wrote ‘An object capable of allowing one to ascend beyond the level of divinity’. Unfortunately, there was no rune for Origin in the third tier, which the interface used as a base.

Naturally, Aurivy wasn’t expecting to be given this reward just because she asked for it. After all, she would have nowhere near enough points to claim it. She simply wanted to see what would happen if she tried.

Moments later, a line of runes appeared beneath her request. ‘Reward unknown. Please define the reward more clearly and try again.’

Makes sense. This interface probably has no concept of what an Origin is to begin with. If it can’t be described in third-tier runes, it probably isn’t possible as a reward. Still, this needs to be experimented with.