Chapter 1182: Rematch

    Dana glanced over at Aurivy, having been meditating in her bedroom when the halfling goddess arrived. “You want me to help make Julia into an Origin?” She asked, to which Aurivy quickly nodded her head.

    Dana looked pensive at that, as if she wasn’t entirely sure herself. The reason that she had been so confident for turning herself and Chel into Origins was the extensive testing that they did in the educational streams, letting them iron out any problems that would arise due to their specific constitutions. This was especially the case for Dana, since she wasn’t quite your ‘standard’ entity to begin with.

    “I’ll need to borrow her for a while.” Dana said, still deep in thought. “We don’t have enough data to reliably get the process right every time, yet. Also, I’ll help her get World Sight to a level where she’ll be able to undergo the process. It just may take some time.”

    “How long?” Aurivy asked with a tilt of her head.

    “Hmm... if I’m doing this myself, maybe about a month? I can cut it down to a week if I get Chelsea to help out, I think. She’s better at making ‘world code’ than I am by far.” Ever since becoming an Origin, Dana had been studying the information that makes up a world, as it would be the source of her future growth. However, she had been distracted for quite a while making the Keeper’s ring, so she hadn’t been able to make too much progress.

    Aurivy bit her lip, but nodded her head after a moment. “Either way, it’ll be after the month cycles over.” She said, before ultimately looking Dana in the eyes. “Please, help Julia become an Origin!” She pleaded earnestly, and Dana chuckled slightly.

    “If you ask me like that, how can I say no? Have her meet me at James’s research facility, and we’ll get started. You want her to be the Origin of Plants, right? Keep in mind that after she becomes an Origin, her future growth will require her to study world creation mechanics.” She reminded, her mind already racing to figure out all of the different types of plants or plant-based effects that she could include in Julia’s world.

    As usual, I found myself sitting in my office, leaning over my desk and thinking to myself. Alkahest hadn’t responded to my trade list yet, so it was safe to say that there was likely nothing from it that he particularly wanted. I wasn’t really surprised there, honestly.

    Instead, I was thinking about my future opponents. In order to properly plan for what I would face in the future, I had to get an idea of what sorts of worlds would allow a particular kind of Keeper to advance all the way to the fifth rank. For instance, I had recently learned that pure Monster Keepers have a hard time reaching this stage, due to them typically not creating a civilization.

    For a Monster Keeper to reach the fifth stage, they would have to take one of two paths. Either they would have to ultimately nurture a civilization and advance it to world creation, like DarkestNight did, or they would have to create monsters that themselves were able to freely create worlds.

    There were pros and cons to each of these paths. Nurturing a civilization would be a foreign concept to most Monster Keepers, so it would be considerably difficult and more time-consuming. This is evident in the fact that DarkestNight had still not achieved this stage after so long. Additionally, they would need to make sure that this civilization was protected in some way from the monsters that they were raising. However, if they managed to reach this stage, they would have a strategic force capable of complex planning as well as their monstrous armies.

    As I thought about that, I quietly watched the timer ticking down. There was no time left for Alkahest to request a trade, and even if he did ask for something, I wouldn’t have the time to prepare it for him.

    Another hour passed, and I casually selected a low level monster from the lower layers of Fyor, one that was bleeding out and about to be killed by novice adventurers. This would be a good unit to send to simply pass the round. Thus, I received another notification only a few minutes later that the invasion had failed, but I simply shrugged my shoulders.

    That is, until I saw the announcement for my next opponent, which caused my eyes to widen. Terra, are you seeing this? I asked with a tone of urgency in my thoughts.

    I am. Shall I call everyone to the Admin Room for a meeting? She responded a few moments later, but I shook my head.

    No. If I recall, Aurivy’s in the middle of something right now, as are Dana and the researchers. Pass along the necessary information, and get Ashley and Tubrock to work on countermeasures. This is probably going to be a full-scale raid. I thought, looking at the name that appeared on the message.

    As I had expected, my next match was a defensive battle. My opponent was none other than Sanction, the high-level Keeper that I had been concerned about previously. At the very least, I knew the basics of what to expect, though there might have been some new information developed in the last few years. Tell Ryone to look for any systems on the market that are marked as add-ons for the Comprehensive Skill Tree system. Some of them might be red herrings, but that will give us an idea of what he’s capable of. We might even be able to find a link with the system he uses to make his dungeons.

    Got it. Terra responded right away. And yeah, after you sold his information last time, he’ll probably want to take you out now that he’s got a second chance.

    I couldn’t help but nod my head. Part of me was debating whether I should go ahead and use one of my tickets to get out of this match. I had managed to get both an attack and defense ticket in the last annual meeting, but there was no guarantee that it would work, unless I was willing to use both of them.

    If I simply used my attack ticket to change my target to someone else, and Sanction noticed, he might have an attack ticket of his own to change his target back to me. The only real guarantee I could have would be if I waited until after the invasion began and used the defense ticket. Then, I could have the Greater Pantheon smite the invaders once the invasion was cancelled. Even if he had an attack ticket at that point, I’d still have my own to negate it.

    Of course, I would prefer not to have to play things this way at all. If I used both of my tickets, and then got stuck with a powerful enemy afterwards... I would be left hoping that the next meeting had a ticket that I would be able to easily acquire. It was better to save in case of an emergency.

    In my head, I was already imagining a ‘worst case scenario’, in which Sanction I fought back Sanction this time, but he then gained an attack ticket during the next meeting. Depending on how heavy his grudge is against me, he might be willing to specifically target me every time he gets a ticket. If that did happen, my only recourse would be to try to get an attack ticket of my own and send an all-out invasion force against him. Such a grudge wouldn’t end unless one of us managed to kill the other. And, personally, I wasn’t that keen on dying. Shocking, I know.