Dragon in Marvel

{A/N: I'll add the pictures in the chapter comments.}

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Observation Log by Spark Draconisfilia

Obelisks - Entry 3

Earth-199999, ~70,000 BE (Before Emergence)

Year 231,635 of the Fulgebunt Draconis Imperium (Earth-199999)

The Obelisks are marvels of impossible architecture. Some are hollow, others solid. Some feature inner stairs that allow mortals to ascend to their peaks, while others have outer stairs. A few are inhabitable, yet many will remain inhospitable due to their location and height—especially on the upper levels.

The Master Chief let his imagination run wild when designing each Obelisk. To date, only three have been completed.

Despite their variations, all Obelisks share certain peculiarities:

Height: Regardless of the terrain on which they stand, the tallest and lowest points of all Obelisks are aligned at the same planar level. The bases of all Obelisks rest approximately 10,984 meters (36,037 feet) below sea level, while their tallest points rise 8,848.86 meters (29,031.7 feet) above sea level—matching the lowest and highest points on Earth's surface.

Material: The Obelisks are made from Dragon Ore, a material created by the Master Chief through the crystallization of his blood and ground bones. Smooth and black, Dragon Ore serves as a substitute for Celestial Cosrium, a material found in the physical bodies of Celestials.

Frequency: All Obelisks share the same oscillating dimensional frequency. In Higher Quantum Theory, this means that, under certain circumstances, the Obelisks can be considered entangled and could be taken as all of them being one.

Weight: The Obelisks are weightless.

Density: Each Obelisk is as dense as the core of a black hole.

Volume: The Obelisks have a volume of zero in the material plane.

(Note: As long as cosmic, psionic, or void energy flows through them, these properties remain true. Without these energies, the material will adopt properties akin to those of Osmium.)

Resilience: Within the existing limits of this universe, the Obelisks are indestructible.

Thermodynamic Qualities: The Obelisks are adiabatic systems maintained at 0°C (273.15 K or 32°F). Due to their adiabatic nature, they do not exchange heat with their surroundings and feel ambient to the touch.

High-Level Energy Qualities: The Obelisks are exceptional conductors of cosmic, psionic, and void energy.

Inscriptions: Each Obelisk is inscribed with Script for the Master Chief's convenience. These inscriptions can be replaced with Celestial language if and when the Celestials attempt to replicate the procedure.

These are some of the most notable characteristics of the Obelisks. A detailed report from both myself and Seraph Draconisfilia will be attached to this entry.

Functions of the Obelisks:

Magical Foci: The Obelisks function similarly to wands for wizards, enabling firmer, seamless, and more balanced applications of magical energy.

Structural Reinforcement: The esoteric connections between the Obelisks add a layer of reinforcement to the Earth's surface, making it significantly more resistant to fractures or cracks on a planetary scale.

Noosphere Creation: Every thought, dream, nightmare, emotion, desire, delirium, and piece of knowledge generated by mortals is gathered into a field surrounding the planet, above the exosphere, and given form as a semi-realm. The Master Chief drew inspiration for this from the Astral Plane created by the Goddess Gaea's sister, Oshtur, and the Noosphere from Warhammer 40K. The term "Noosphere" was originally developed and popularized by biogeochemist Vladimir Vernadsky and philosopher and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

Objective: As of this entry, the primary objective of the Obelisks remains theoretical. The Master Chief and Tiamut the Communicator are actively working toward it. The ultimate goal is to imbue the Noosphere with soul-like qualities and offer it as a sacrifice to the Emergence.

Regarding the Obelisks, the Master Chief has expressed some "concerns" about the impact these structures will have on humanity. Inevitably, humans will witness their creation. However, the Master Chief has no intention of concealing the Obelisks from their curious eyes. As is typical of human nature, some will seek refuge within the structures, while others will strive to reside in them as a display of status.

It might be an overstatement to call these "concerns," as the Master Chief is largely indifferent to these potential developments. Nonetheless, he has noted that such scenarios—and many more—are likely to become commonplace in the future.

Obelisks also possess the potential to significantly influence the Sacred Timeline. For instance, consider the future Obelisks that will be constructed in the Atlantic Ocean. Ocean explorers caught in storms could seek shelter within these towering structures. Additionally, the Obelisks could serve as reference points, helping explorers avoid becoming lost at sea—a fate that might otherwise befall them. This, in turn, could imply a sooner discovery of America.

Merely seeing the peaks of the Obelisks on the horizon could also have profound implications. For example, this alone could provide undeniable evidence that the Earth is round, thereby debunking the flat Earth theory and altering related aspects of human belief and culture.

On land, the Obelisks could serve as strategic locations or defensible bases. These are just a few examples of the potential historical impacts of these towering structures.

To address these eventualities, the Master Chief has proposed assigning the Duskari as custodians of each Obelisk, akin to mages overseeing towers. With their mastery of magic, the Duskari are well-suited for this role. The system could be presented as a form of mandatory draft, requiring a service period of three to five years per custodian.

Many details remain undecided, as humanity is still in its Stone Age. For now, the future of the Obelisks—and their role in shaping humanity—remains to be seen.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...  

/ End of Entry 3/

_____________________________

The start of the Era of Arcane Growth...

It's been 100 years since the demons controlling the Deviants began feeding them the kidnapped Skrullians. The Demonic Deviant-Duskari war developed in ways no one could have expected.

The Duskari, aided by their deities, soon realized that the Deviants were more beneficial to the Imperium than harmful and that they were hunting this resource to extinction.

The demons, consequently, noticed that the Duskari were not fighting as fiercely as before and that they could take advantage of these brief periods of calm to bolster the Deviants' numbers.

A strange equilibrium was born from this. Every six or seven decades, the Deviants would mount an invasive incursion and leave their conquered lands to hunt for the Duskari. The Duskari would face them, drive them back to their territories, and then return, as if needing a respite from the war.

The Deviants could never reach their inner walls, and the Duskari "could never" reach their breeding grounds.

The Duskari would collect the spoils of each war and then sacrifice them with the Ritualistic Exchange. They would then work on the progress they gained from the exchange, and after a few decades, publicize their discoveries.

The Deviants would be fed Skrullians—sometimes other sentient alien races—and they would enter a period of bountiful fertility.

When the Deviants were ready, they would restart the cycle. Rinse and repeat. This is how the Era of Arcane Growth began. The Duskari won, the Deviants were not exterminated, which was a win, and supposedly everybody won... except for the demons.

To keep the demons interested in the Duskari souls, Aragorn suggested they sacrifice the souls of unforgivable criminals to them. Wanda agreed to relinquish her right to these souls because she had already stolen too many territories and souls from other Hell-lords, meaning she was too busy to care about a few extra souls.

With this, everybody won: Duskari, Deviants, and now Demons. Of course, the demons didn't know they were under Aragorn's mental suggestions not to attack humans and to focus on the Duskari, but no one really cared about the demons. As a matter of fact, the Duskari treated the Deviants as a precious resource, which meant they cared more for the Deviants than for the demons.

This cycle kept going for some time until the Duskari reached what they perceived as the limit of Elemental Sorcery.

What did this limit mean?

The Duskari were demigods on the physical plane of the planet. They were like Avatars in their Avatar State—as long as their inner reserves of energy sufficed.

They would fly at supersonic speeds, aided by their wind and vacuum magic. They would mine the ocean floors, aided by their water, wind shielding, and earth magic. They would produce at industrial levels, aided by their wind, fire, earth, and water magic.

Their magic reached the extremes of each elemental school: Wind, Earth, Fire, and Water Manipulation. Naturally, if they were to face a Sorcerer using dimensional magic, they would pathetically lose.

Their population tripled, and soon it reached the point where divine intervention in population control became necessary. Though it's not the population control that many would imagine, it simply meant that, since the Imperium of Earth lacked space, some of the older residents decided to take the second step sooner. Nothing as crude as suicide, the Duskari were not as fanatical as the People of the Sand were in Sunagakure—oh, they were fanatics, but their religion was one of lax rules, so they never reached the extremes Sunagakure did under Madelyne—they were assisted by their deities in moving to The Ark.

The Ark, with an area far larger than Earth's, served as the best location to house more Duskari. There were also the six planets Aragorn had gifted Emma, which were currently under development by inorganics. They would soon be ready to house organic life, but for the moment and the next thousands of years, the Ark would suffice.

This was not the only approach the Imperium took for population control. Aragorn, aided by some of the pertinent deities, manipulated the Cocos, Nazca, and Caribbean Plates to induce volcanic activity on the Pacific Coast of the Imperium. A century later, they had doubled the inhabitable land of the Imperium.

This growth in land area came in the form of archipelagos rather than continental expansion, designed to provide the Imperium with even more variety in its territory.

It didn't take long for the Duskari to seize the divine gift. They were quite afraid of Aragorn later claiming that the islands were meant for the megafauna, which already took up a huge chunk of inhabitable land, so they quickly moved to the new lands.

"I was not going to give the islands to the megafauna."- Aragorn commented as he glided into the sky, his massive wings extended.

"Didn't you restrict their access to the central parts of the isthmus?"- Emma asked, sitting atop Aragorn's crown of horns.

"Yes, but these islands were always meant for them."- Aragorn replied.

Below, on one of the islands, the Duskari used their earth manipulation to prepare the land for incoming construction and to ready it for agricultural expansion.

"Elemental magic is quite convenient."- Emma muttered.

"You sound somewhat displeased."- Aragorn commented.

"Just a tiny bit."- She confessed.

"Is it because they are medieval in their technological might?"- Aragorn asked, suspecting the source of Emma's displeasure.

"Medieval at best. I can't have them mix with Nirn this way. If they see a screen, the first thing they'll think is that it's a divine blessing."- Emma complained.

Although planet Nirn served as the main production center of the Imperium's income—potions made of magical ingredients—it was a technologically advanced planet.

For the Duskari, a screen was a divine projection made by the P-Links that the high priest of each sub-religion wore or a projection from The System when their deities shared something with them.

It was the opposite of what a modern person would think. A modern person, upon seeing a floating screen, would immediately associate it with technology, maybe technology they don't comprehend, but not divine intervention.

"If they see a car, they'd wonder why not use a beast to pull the carriage instead of wasting mana with wind magic."- Emma added.

The Duskari could achieve ground movement at speeds close to those of a maglev, but only by using wind magic to propel and clear the way for the carriage.

"A spaceship? The vessel of the divine."- She continued.

The closest thing to a spaceship the Duskari knew was the Halo. Even outer space was considered the realm of their deities.

"A jump point? Divine authority."- She said.

The jump points commonly used for intergalactic travel would be associated with the portals their deities use.

"A computer? Smartphone? Terminal? Any sort of technology with a display? Divine relics."

These devices would also be linked in their minds to the P-Links.

"Laser weaponry? Divine authority."

The Duskari had only ever seen their deities wield the power of light, so a laser might as well be considered divine.

"I see."- Aragorn said.

"Don't worry, Fluff. They have time—thousands of years worth of time—and I can give them some motivation."- He added.

"Motivation?"- Emma inquired.

"Elemental magic can only take them so far; they are planet-bound. What if I tell them that if they make it to the Halo unassisted by us, I will grant them Favors?"

"... They'll try to drag chunks of air with them to the Halo and die trying. They would assume that if you offer such a prize, there must be a way of doing it. But since they're hardwired to think in magical terms, they would only consider magic—not technology."- Emma replied after a moment of thought.

"Most likely, yes. But there are only so many deaths they would be willing to endure. Eventually, they would have to understand that elemental magic isn't enough. Then they'll either work harder on the magic system we gave them, which is based on our void energy system—benefiting me—or they'll have to think outside the magical box."- Aragorn explained.

"Or they'll give up and say you were messing with them."- Emma chuckled.

"Hey, I'll have you know that my reputation among the Duskari is not like that."- Aragorn replied as he moved closer to the farthest island.

"What is your reputation like?"- Emma asked, amused by her friend/boss/brother.

"They think of me as a figure who plans far into the future and only cares about them while they're children. They don't have a bad impression of me—they know I do things that benefit them in the long run, and they recognize that I'm the reason child mortality isn't a thing in the Imperium."- Aragorn pointed out.

"That's interesting. They have a better image of you than humans back home—and that's with all the good you've done for them. Heck, you even died twice for them."- Emma said.

"Yeah... Modern humans are ungrateful sons of bitches. Did you know there are petitions with millions of signatures supporting the appropriation of my assets for the greater good of humanity?"- Aragorn said with a mix of annoyance and amusement.

"Pfft~Hahahaha."- Emma laughed.

Of course, it was comical for her, it was the equivalent of humanity signing a petition to complain about Cthulhu. Except even worse, Cthulhu was one of the Old Ones, and Aragorn was the progeny of The Void.

"Do they want to take the Halo and Arbor Mundi from you? The Duskari really are angels compared to humans."- Emma said.

"I know much of that has to do with Hydra, but not all of it."- Aragorn said, shaking his draconic head in disapproval.

"I can't wait for the humans of this planet to attempt to invade the Imperium."- Aragorn sarcastically remarked.

"Uhmmm... I don't know, Aragorn. When would they have the time or courage for that?"- Emma pondered.

Assuming the Imperium is discovered around the same time as America, humanity would have approximately 520 years to set its sights on it. But during the first two to three centuries after America's discovery, every power would be more focused on staking claims in easily conquerable lands and colonizing them.

Given that the Duskari would likely have a reputation as Obelisk Custodians, it's doubtful anyone would think they were capable of conquering the "magical" land of the Obelisk Custodians. However, with the invention of modern weaponry, this might change. Firearms could give humanity the false confidence needed to target the Imperium.

"Probably during the First or the Second World War. I bet on the Second."- Aragorn replied.

"The Second... Maybe because of naval and aviation technologies?"- Emma asked.

"Yes. I think they'll get greedy for the Imperium once they see its prosperity but won't get silly ideas until they believe they have a shot. The weaponry of the First War might do it, but I believe the Second is more likely."- Aragorn explained.

"Or maybe after the Second World War, when nuclear weaponry becomes more widely used."- Emma suggested.

"Are you thinking about the Cold War?"- Aragorn asked.

"Yes. Weren't humans on the verge of bringing nuclear armageddon upon themselves during that time? Maybe something similar could happen."- Emma explained.

"Ah, you're right... It makes me look forward to it, you know?"- Aragorn said, chuckling as if hearing a funny joke.

"Morbid curiosity?"- Emma asked.

"Exactly. Imperium versus the world—the clash of the epoch!"- Aragorn giggled.

"Hahaha. Yeah, I can imagine what your childish mind is picturing—like a clash of fantasy and modern warfare. There was that anime you shared with us that had a similar theme."- Emma said, joining his mood.

"Yes. Sadly, I don't think it will happen."- Aragorn lamented.

"Why not?"- Emma asked, though she had a hunch about the answer.

"By that point, the Duskari will likely be exploring the stars—or maybe even other dimensions, like the Shi'ar. If humanity tries to nuke them, the Duskari might just think it's some kind of prank."- He explained.

"You have a point. They'd probably neutralize the warhead and then return it, assuming it was fired by mistake."- Emma said, amused by the thought.

"We're here."- Amidst their joking and laughter, they landed on the farthest island from the continental landmass of the new archipelagos.

Aragorn descended and, before touching down, shifted into his humanoid form.

The island was a sprawling black volcanic beach that stretched as far as the mortal eye could see. The sands were sporadically interrupted by obsidian stone formations, with the occasional coconut palm—artificially imported and planted by Aragorn and Jean—dotting the shore. Large, solidified lava flows framed the beach on both ends, creating a stark, surreal landscape.

On this beach, over fifty deities—the entirety of the Drachantheon Therion—had gathered. At first glance, one might think this assembly heralded some apocalyptic event or cosmic disaster. Unless, of course, it was in the distant future and the gods were convening in Omnipotence City to discuss their next debaucherous orgy. In truth, the gathering was far less dramatic. They were here to celebrate.

The Drachantheon Therion had existed for so long that they no longer marked the passage of time in years, decades, or even centuries. Their perception of time had shifted, rendering such measures inadequate. With the way they preserved their egos, a year felt no different than an hour. As a result, celebrating their anniversary annually had become redundant.

Instead, a tradition had emerged centuries after the pantheon's founding. During a rare celestial alignment—the Convergence, when the Nine Realms of this reality came into perfect alignment—Luxena had proposed using this event as the marker of the pantheon's age.

The Duskari celebrated this anniversary yearly, during the same week as the Imperium's founding. However, this private gathering on the archipelago was reserved for the deities alone.

"Hey, Aragorn! Look at this!"- Darth Kitty's excited voice rang out across the beach.

She focused her energy, enveloped herself in the shimmering spheres of void magic, and launched herself toward Aragorn at 29.78 km/s (18.51 mi/s)—about 0.01% the speed of light.

No one saw it coming.

Aragorn, caught off guard, instinctively phased partially out of the material plane to avoid Kitty's complete disintegration. Simultaneously, he stopped the atmosphere from combusting, siphoned the energy from her suicidal burst of speed, and canceled the spell she had cast on herself.

When Kitty reached Aragorn, she was barely intact—her legs were gone after grating them through the ground. She ended hairless, furless, clothless, senseless, and mindless. 

"What the fuck?"- Emma asked, though her tone was more amused than startled. Kitty's abrupt antics were nothing new to the Drachantheon Therion, and most of them merely raised an eyebrow. They were used to her unpredictable behavior.

"She was trying to show off a new spell but didn't consider how it would function outside the Virtual Space."- Aragorn said, using his biokinesis to accelerate Kitty's natural regeneration.

"What kind of spell makes her crash into you and nearly disintegrate?"- Emma asked, already imagining how much she would tease the cat.

"I don't know what she calls it, but it nullifies displacement relative to a chosen point. She picked the Sun."- Aragorn explained in a deadpan tone.

"The Sun? She collided with you at Earth's orbital velocity around the Sun? That's over 100,000 km/h (~60,000 mph)! How crazy is this cat?"- Emma asked.

For the record, she asked how crazy the cat was, not if the cat was crazy.

"*Cough* What... *Cough* killed me?"- The groggy Kitty muttered as she regained consciousness.

"Relative velocity."- Aragorn replied, his voice laced with barely restrained laughter.

"Pft. Are you okay? Pft!"- Emma asked, struggling to hold back her own laughter.

"Ugh... I thought I'd mastered it."- Kitty said, her face flushing with embarrassment.

"Next time, try enhancing your senses and body with divinity. 0.01%c is not a speed your adaptability can handle, especially with such abrupt acceleration. Your organs tried to escape your ribcage."- Aragorn advised.

"Thank yo—KYAHHH! My hair?!"- Kitty shrieked as she noticed the breezy sensation on her now-bare scalp.

"Hahahaha!" "Hahahaha!"

Aragorn and Emma burst into laughter, and soon the other deities joined in.

______________________

Asgard, Earth-5H1N3. {A/N: I settled for this name.}

While joy abounded on Earth-199999, back in Aragorn's universe, a group of egotistic and insidious deities moved with the impossible dream of getting rid of Aragorn and reclaiming their lost status as their fuel.

"Husband, will it be enough?"- Freyja Freyrdottir asked, concerned about the possibility of success in her husband's plan.

"Frigga, it will have to be enough."- Odin replied.

In his hands were the crystallized divinities of several deities and a portion of their lifeforce. In front of him was the armor that once allowed him to stand up to the oppressive tyranny of the Celestials—no matter how short and futile that stance was. Beside the Destroyer Armor lay the Oversword of Asgard.

"But, Husband, even the Destroyer Armor was not enough to contend with the Celestials. I don't believe that simply using more lifeforce and divinity will be enough to close the gap with the dragon entity."- Freyja said worriedly.

She had been present during the past Celestial Host, when Zeus, Vishnu, and Odin joined forces to confront the Celestials. In the end, it was not enough—not even close—and under Gaea's guidance, the other Skymothers of the pantheons of Earth's gods had to devise another solution.

"No, the underlying objective is not to end it. It's to defeat it. There are multiple ways to overcome an unkillable foe, and this particular foe possesses a weakness the Celestials would never have."- Odin said with a smirk.

"Weakness? I'm not foolish enough to presume that the being behind that green door was weaker than the Celestials. How could the one who stopped the said being possess a weakness the Celestials lack?"

To Freyja, it was simple to compare their feats and understand that Aragorn, the "dragon entity," was individually stronger than a Celestial.

"It's not something peculiar or remarkable, but rather quite common. It's Gaea."- Odin said as he slowly guided the orbs of lifeforce and divinity into the armor for absorption.

"Goddess Gaea? Do you think she will resist her captivity once she realizes we are fighting to free her? While Goddess Gaea is of no lesser status than you, Husband, she is not a combatant. I fail to see how she would prove to be the dragon entity's weakness."

Though Odin lacked confirmation and suspected that Gaea was not truly captive, he needed to sell the image of their progenitor All-Mother being in need of their assistance to rally the deities to his cause. Thus, Freyja—like the majority of the other deities—firmly believed that Gaea needed their help and was under Aragorn's control against her will.

"My wife, what is Gaea the goddess of?"- Odin asked cryptically.

"Nature, Earth, motherhood, weath—Ah! She's pregnant?"- Freyja caught on to Odin's implication.

"If we know that reclusive and sedentary goddess as well as we think, then she would have ensured her worth in its eyes."- Odin said, referring to the time they spent together during Gaea's role in Thor's birth.

"She would not care to fight for freedom because she could continue with her life just the same in captivity as in liberty. But to ensure it did not turn its fangs toward her, she would have tried to house something of great personal value to it."- Odin continued.

"And for a being as high on the life-level ladder as it, Gaea is the most suitable to bear its offspring. I have no evidence of this, but whether it is because she is pregnant or because she has some other value to it, Gaea herself is its weakness."

The wisdom Yggdrasil shared with Odin allowed him to draw conclusions from subtle clues with an accuracy bordering on cosmic awareness.

"That might work, but what will you do about the Phoenix Force host?"- Freyja asked, conceding. "You know the Shi'ar are incapable of handling a competent host. They've only ever dealt with defective avatars."

The Shi'ar, in their self-proclaimed propaganda about hunting Phoenix hosts, had never encountered a competent avatar. Odin had, in the form of Firehair, and consequently, Freyja knew of the capabilities of an adept host.

The reason for the Shi'ar's mention was that the Council of Godheads agreed to support the said galactic empire, in order to distract the Phoenix Host under Aragorn's wings.

"It's the same as with it. We only need to distract her while we extract Gaea. They have three known territories: the embassy in the Nova Empire, the ringworld orbiting Midgard, and the land beneath that massive tree in Midgard. We just need to divert their attention to the two locations where Gaea isn't."

"And so? Will you send our son Thor to save Goddess Gaea? He is the only one who can comfortably step into Midgard's Terra."- Freyja asked.

The pact the gods of Earth made with the Celestials was a complicated affair. It denied any right for extradimensional deities to step onto Earth's surface, but it allowed them to use dimensional pathways to travel to other non-Celestial-seeded planets in Midgard. To them, Midgard referred to the largest realm in Yggdrasil—the universe itself. Even with a pact of this magnitude, there were loopholes.

For example, the Elder Deities were excluded from the pact, as was Atum, the God-Eater. Any deity born on Earth after the pact was also excluded, as were demigods. Another exception was that most dimensional pathways exited on Earth, allowing them to pass through as long as they did not remain. Visiting Earth with their divinities sealed was also permitted.

Thor fit within such exceptions.

"I'm still working on that. Thor is not ready to face an opponent of this caliber."- Odin said.

In truth, he already had a plan, but he was missing one final piece to claim that he had solved the conundrum.

"Then I'll leave you to it, Husband. Remember, Asgard and your family stand by your side. If you require my assistance, all you need to do is summon me. I will don my armor and join you on the battlefield, just as I did before." Freyja pecked Odin on the cheek and exited the room.

"Son, why do you insist on disobeying?"

"Mother, I was just curious. You know how I am."

Odin listened to his wife and adoptive son bicker outside the room after Freyja left. He had known all along that Loki was trying to spy on them but saw no need to intervene.

"*Sigh* Loki, when will he grow up?"- Odin muttered in resignation.

He turned back to complete the adjustments to the armor, and the room receded into a cold silence.

"Freyja... Please, forgive me."- Odin whispered into the stillness.

_____________________________

Earth-199999

Aragorn soared above the clouds, his wings effortlessly catching the warm updrafts of gelid wind. Gelid, because despite the relative warmth of these currents, at his current altitude during this glacial era, the temperature remained well below freezing.

He was scouring the planet, searching for specific specimens his children had asked him to gather. The list was extensive and detailed, with several items existing only in their prehistoric, wild forms:

Carrots – Fertile CrescentGarlic – Central AsiaCilantro (Coriander) – Southern Europe and Western Asia

Wheat – Fertile Crescent (modern-day Iraq, Syria, and Turkey)

Onions – Central Asia

Apples – Central Asia

Pears – Europe and Asia

Grapes – Near East

Peaches – Asia

Cherries – Europe and Western Asia

Sheep – Fertile Crescent

Goats – Fertile Crescent

Red Junglefowl – South Asia

Cats – Near East

Silkworms – Asia

Some of these already had substitutes in the Imperium: corn for wheat, Titanis for chickens, warcats for domestic cats, and aurochs for goats. However, others, like garlic, sheep, carrots, and silkworms, were irreplaceable. For silkworms, though, Aragorn had an idea.

Many of these plants were vastly different from their modern counterparts, as thousands of years of artificial selection had reshaped them. One of Aragorn's biggest challenges was identifying the ancestral forms.

"[Analyze]."

Fortunately, Aragorn had developed a spell to assist with this laborious task.

The [Analyze] spell worked by identifying a target, reading its Matter-Energy data, uploading it to the Grand Repository of Knowledge, searching for a match, and returning the results to the caster via the System.

[Analyze] drew upon the accumulated knowledge of all System users, though it primarily relied on the vast contributions of Seraph, Spark, and Aragorn himself.

For most casters—excluding the trio mentioned—the results appeared as a detailed interface, for example:

┌ Kingdom: Plantae

│ Phylum: Tracheophyta

│ Class: Magnoliopsida

│ Order: Apiales

│ Family: Apiaceae

│ Genus: Daucus

│ Species: Daucus carota - 90% Match

│ Subspecies: Daucus carota subsp. sativus (Modern carrot) - 78% Match

└-> Wild early ancestor of the carrot, Daucus carota subsp. carota

If the target of [Analyze] was undocumented, the results would display: [No Matching Records—New Record Started]. In such cases, the caster would receive compensation for introducing new knowledge, often in the form of percentages of Favors. Needless to say, Aragorn's children had gone on a frenzy, analyzing anything and everything they encountered.

It was amusing, really. Even after more than a quarter of a million years, none of them had ever cashed in a Favor. Yet, they were greedier than Scrooge McDuck when it came to collecting them.

Aragorn carefully gathered several samples of the early wild ancestor of carrots, sending them to Luxena, Goddess of Celestial Stars and Agriculture, before moving on to the next item on the list.

As previously mentioned, some of these items already had substitutes, but not entirely.

While corn could fulfill the dietary role of wheat, it was not quite the same. Similarly, auroch dairy products were not identical to goat dairy, and while the Duskari raised Titanis for their over-a-kilogram (3-pound) eggs, these were still not the same as chicken eggs—never mind the giant elephant bird, whose eggs weighed 10 kg (22 pounds). However, these birds laid eggs much less frequently than the Titanis, which made the latter more desirable to the Duskari.

Nevertheless, there were benefits—especially culinary ones—to having a wider variety of options. For example, the Duskari farms would no longer need to keep large warcats like Smilodons and Cave Lions for pest control, as smaller cats could now handle the job.

Some of these specimens were intended to improve the textile industry—sheep and silkworms—but that didn't mean there was no variety within the Imperium in this field. On the contrary, thanks to the preservation of megafauna, there was a vast array of plants and animals to choose from. Aragorn was always ready to abduct any interesting creatures he came across or uproot any plant that caught his attention, to send them back to the Imperium.

"Silkworms... Mmmmm... We can do better... Possibly."- Aragorn mused after sending the silkworm samples back.

He stopped following the flow of time and began swimming against its current. A few breaststrokes later, he found himself in the Carboniferous.

The Carboniferous was a time long before the age of dinosaurs, when amphibians reigned as the dominant land vertebrates. It was an era so beyond ancient that Pangea was still beginning to form. A time so distant that fungi had only just begun evolving to decompose fallen trees.

It was during this period that the coal that would later fuel the Industrial Revolution began to form.

The combination of high oxygen levels and plant beds that had accumulated over millions of years made it a paradise for wildfires that could last for years.

The oxygen levels were so high that they would poison humans after just a few breaths. Amphibians as large as crocodiles roamed the land, and insects as large as human torsos flew freely.

These same large arthropods are the reason for Aragorn's visit to the past.

Insects and other arthropods breathe through a network of tubes that deliver oxygen directly to their tissues. This system relies on the passive diffusion of oxygen from the air. In a high-oxygen atmosphere, the increased concentration allowed for more efficient diffusion, which supported the larger sizes of arthropods. The scarcity of vertebrate predators in the Carboniferous contributed to the flourishing of these creatures.

"♫ Spider-chan, Spider-chan,

♪ Does whatever a spider can,

♫ Spins a web, any size,

♪ Catches Meganeura just like flies,

♫ Look out

♪ Here comes the Spider-chan."

Aragorn sang as he flew through the humid swamps of the Carboniferous, searching for the next provider of silk for the Imperium.

'But what about the lower oxygen levels in the Imperium?'- He thought.

'And what about the difference in size? A large spider would have trouble functioning in the present, with the average flying insect passing through the holes of its web.'

"[Analyze]"

[No Matching Records—New Record Started]

'Maybe we could have it eat birds?'- Aragorn thought, inspired by the Goliath birdeater.

"[Analyze]"

[No Matching Records—New Record Started]

'But if it's too big, it might not rely on silk production as much. It could focus on physical strength, though I could guide its evolution. There are limits.'

Gaea had once taught Aragorn that when a living being evolves to have a larger body, it often leaves behind energy-costly traits that are no longer needed in a bigger form.

"[Analyze]"

[No Matching Records—New Record Started]

'Spiders can't be farmed easily because they tend to eat each other in close confinement. I would need to find a solution for that.'

Spiders are territorial predators, and this territoriality extends to members of the same family.

"[Analyze]"

[No Matching Records—New Record Started]

|What about water?|

'Water? Like the fishing spider? It would sink, wouldn't it?'

|Make them pseudo-amphibious?|

'Right, the largest animals tend to inhabit water. Maybe we could do something similar for our Spider-chan. Any ideas about the oxygen levels?'

|Make them able to breathe oxygen in the water?|

'No, that wouldn't work. The 1% of dissolved oxygen in water is what fish extract to breathe, not the 88.89% of pure water that is oxygen. That breathable 1% is lower than the 21% breathable in air.'

|Use gills, like the ones found in the branchial chamber in crabs. Spiders are arthropods like crabs.|

'Uhmmm. Good idea. The jump and modifications would be easier if I pull genetic traits from the same phylum (Arthropoda).'

|Make them use "spidernets" to fish. Problem solved.|

'The result? A giant aquatic spider that uses massive nets of spider silk to catch shoals of fish.'

|Make them freshwater aquatic arthropods.|

'Smart. That way, the risk of them escaping the Imperium and spreading throughout the oceans is nullified—unless they evolve in that direction much later.'

|Exactly, make them inhabit large lakes. The Imperium has plenty of those, if not, they can be built.|

Aragorn continued to work through the details of the new spider species he was designing with his other self. At some point, he might have forgotten that he was supposed to be breeding a new silk producer and not the ultimate kaiju predator of the waters.

"[Analyze]"

[No Matching Records—New Record Started]

Even while searching for the appropriate spider to kaijufy, he did not stop adding more data to the Grand Repository of Knowledge while using his milliard eyes to analyze everything.

A few million years later...

At this point, it could be said with certainty that Aragorn had let himself become utterly engrossed in the art of evolving spiders.

'My Love, it's time to return.'- Death—the Death that stayed outside this universe—said in Aragorn's mind.

"Noona, just five million years more. I'm almost certain I can make them sapient."- Aragorn replied, his gaze fixed on a spider the size of a smilodon, meticulously netting a shoal of about fifteen fish.

What fascinated him most was that one of its long, eight legs was wrapped in golden silk. A few days ago, this particular spider had injured its leg and nearly lost it, but a member of its army had quickly sealed the wound with silk, effectively saving the limb. Signs of healing practices like this were among the earliest indicators of an "advanced" society.

'You said that ten million years ago. It's time to return. You don't need sapient spiders, and you already have enough for silk production.'- Death patiently reminded him.

"Silk production?"- Aragorn blinked with apparent confusion. Yes, it was a fact—he had long since lost sight of his original goal of creating a species solely for silk production.

By combining traits from the classes Arachnida (spiders, scorpions, ticks, and mites) and Crustacea (crabs, lobsters, shrimp, and others), Aragorn had inadvertently created a new class under the Arthropoda phylum: the Arachnostraca.

These gilled, giant aquatic spiders thrived in armies within deep freshwater lakes. Perfectly suited to tropical climates, they maintained a strictly piscivorous diet, using golden silk nets—similar to the silk of the Golden Silk Orb-Weaver spider—to fish. Each net was used to encase fish in a cocoon for later consumption, and these discarded cocoons would eventually become the primary source of silk for the Duskari.

'Really?'- Death asked, her tone carrying a hint of disbelief.

"Ah! Silk production! Yes, that's what started all this"- Aragorn realized.

"... Well, I suppose it truly is time to return, huh?"- Aragorn finally conceded.

'My Love, return to a decade after your departure. I had the children create and expand the lakes needed for your spiders and stock them with appropriate prey.'- Death instructed.

"That's a relief. This way, I can take them all with me in one go."

Aragorn glanced around the dome where he'd spent millions of years, a massive terrarium designed to avoid making lasting changes to the timeline. It had also served to gradually adjust the environmental conditions to match the future, particularly the oxygen levels.

Nevertheless, whether he was unaware or simply didn't care, fossils of his spiders would one day be discovered in the future—alongside footprints from his modern shoes and the cave he'd used as his residence. This would later be dubbed the oldest record of the oldest being on Earth: Aragorn.

"Noona, how is our local population of dinosaurs doing in Halo?"- Aragorn asked while peering through the immeasurable distances at one of the ancestors of dinosaurs, a small lizard-like animal.

'Emma moved a few to The Ark, but otherwise, their population is controlled, as usual. Do you plan on collecting more?'

"I was thinking about picking up a few, mainly those destined to perish in mass extinction events. If I get them just before they croak, the timeline won't notice."

'Where will you keep them? You know how difficult it is to maintain balance in our artificial food chains.'- Death cautioned.

Halo and The Ark had carefully constructed ecosystems, meaning introducing new species could destabilize the delicate balance. Predators in the wrong biomes, or even the wrong plants, could cause widespread extinctions.

"I've had my eye on a certain planet in the habitable zone of a black hole. According to my analysis, it will soon be consumed by the black hole. I could snatch it, along with a star—or create one."- Aragorn said, his gaze drifting downward as if seeing through the planet to a distant world millions of light-years away.

'My Love, have you been planning this all along?'- Death asked, amusement evident in her voice.

"About ten million years ago, I figured, since I was already in the Carboniferous, why not gather a few ecosystems to take home?"- Aragorn admitted with a sheepish grin.

'Why the sudden interest in dinosaurs?'- Death teased with a soft giggle.

"Our Chocolate said that before Set (Elder God) bonded with the dinosaurs—which eventually led to their extinction when the Demogorge came after him—she was rather fond of them. Since I plan to separate her from Earth, I thought I could gift her a new planet full of life. Maybe we could even turn it into a realm and bind it to her."- Aragorn explained.

He believed it was safer for Gaea if he made her a Pseudo-dimensional Lord.

'How thoughtful of you, My Love. In that case, let me secure an empty dimension from the Tribunal's secret stash. You should find more than one planet—that way, we can dedicate a planet to each era.'- Death offered eagerly.

"Perfect! I've already identified a few planets I could terraform."- Multiple eyelids blinked open across Aragorn's skin, each one locking onto a different distant planet.

While Death went to liberate an empty dimension from the Tribunal's stash, Aragorn began preparing his spiders for the move. Within the terrarium, there were also multiple vivid illusions of the Duskari people. These illusions were lifelike enough to emit warmth, odor, and sound, conveying a tangible physical presence. Aragorn had raised the spiders in the constant company of these illusions to accustom them to the future arachnoculturists who would harvest their silk and care for them.

He dispelled these illusions and then began to shape his void energy to cast a time-slowing spell that would effectively freeze the spiders in time. A sphere, born from the three-dimensional projection of a magic circle, began to form at the tip of Aragorn's tail. If someone had been able to see it, they would have been astonished to find more than a trillion spell circuits working together to manifest his will to slow time for a target.

The sphere, no larger than a volleyball, was the same whitish-blue color as Aragorn's light, almost as bright as the eternal flame enshrined in his crown of horns. The sphere pulsed with light before bursting in a flash. All nearly a million Arachnostracas stopped moving—more accurately, they moved so slowly that 100 million years felt like a mere eighth of a second to them.

He then encapsulated the spiders in void barriers and shrunk them for storage. Once that was done, he dispersed the barrier, isolating the land his terrarium had occupied, and burned it for good measure. This ensured that whatever had evolved alongside his spiders over the millions of years he had been there would cease to exist.

He glanced at his cavern—the home he had made during this era—and decided to leave it to its fate.

Pointing with his tail at the planets he had selected, he began setting the geological conditions that would lead to the birth of the desired climates—the environments that would sustain the future species he intended to gather. For example, he adjusted ice caps, deserts, shorelines, tectonic activity, and atmospheric composition, such as the concentrations of CO₂ and oxygen. He manipulated the greenhouse effect, proximity to the star, the planets' rotational and orbital speeds, the impact of natural satellites, the strength of the magnetosphere, and the wobble in the planets' axial tilt—among many other factors that would dictate the climate.

From a distance measured in light-years, Aragorn projected his telekinesis, using his eyes as guides, and began adjusting these conditions. Magnetic cores spun faster or slower, tectonic plates were pushed or pulled by his will, volcanic eruptions were triggered as needed, and water was forced to evaporate when necessary. He even adjusted the planets' orbits, speeding them up or slowing them down.

Once the necessary conditions were met, he moved a magic sphere to each planet. He trapped the planets in a domain and sped up time, making it so that millions of years passed in mere seconds. With his control over causality, emulating Wanda's Chaos magic, he intervened with his telekinesis whenever required. A few seconds later, he had created enough planets to replicate Earth's atmospheric conditions for each era he planned to gather specimens from.

"The Carboniferous Period (359–299 million years ago), Permian Period (299–252 million years ago), Triassic Period (252–201 million years ago), Jurassic Period (201–145 million years ago), and Cretaceous Period (145–66 million years ago), for amphibians and dinosaurs; the Paleogene Period (66–23 million years ago) and Neogene Period (23–2.58 million years ago) for mammals; all the way to the current Quaternary Period (2.58 million years ago to the present)."- Aragorn muttered, using his All-seeing eyes to make sure everything turned out as expected.

"It's like I did an MRI of Earth from 359 million years ago to the present and built a planetary-sized terrarium for each period. Gaea should be happy with her present, right?"- Aragorn said, proud of his work.

This was a level of application of his powers—delicate yet forceful—that, before his multitasking and control training, he would not have been able to perform without breaking the planets apart.

'I think she'll straight-up open her legs to us when she sees it.'- Death replied. She had appropriated from the Tribunal so swiftly that, had anyone witnessed it, they might have attributed to her the concept of "Appropriation."

"Eh, do you want us to?"

'I don't believe she would survive one of us, much less two.'

"I guess we can keep it at teasing, then. I must confess, I rather enjoy how she writhes under our touch."

'~Fufufu. Or how she goes weak in the legs when she 'catches' us in compromising situations.'

"Hehehehe, yes."

'~Fufufu.'

While they were lost in their musings, Aragorn began to slowly move forward through the timestream, occasionally propelling himself with a subtle kick. The world outside flashed before his eyes like a film being sped up, and even at this unprocessable speed, he had the presence of mind to plan how they were going to tease Gaea, all while occasionally pulling specimens from the time-flow and sending them to the appropriate planetary receptacle.

Land, oceans, freshwater, deserts, skies—no matter the environment—he sequestered animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, and protists, regardless of how microscopic they might be, and placed them in the appropriate environment on the appropriate planet.

He followed the fall of the amphibians, the rise and fall of the reptiles, and the rise of the mammals.

Aragorn witnessed the third mass extinction event—the Permian-Triassic Extinction (252 million years ago), also known as The "Great Dying"—where approximately 96% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial species perished.

He saw the Triassic-Jurassic Extinction (201 million years ago), caused by volcanic activity and the splitting of Pangaea into Laurasia (North America, Europe, and Asia) and Gondwana (South America, Africa, Antarctica, and Australia), paving the way for the age of dinosaurs.

He watched the Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction (66 million years ago), caused by an asteroid impact near modern-day Mexico (Chicxulub Crater) and massive volcanic activity, which wiped most dinosaurs off the planet and opened the door for mammals.

Aragorn kept moving forward until he reached the arrival of Halo around the Moon and saw his children descend. He watched the early days of the Imperium, their Stone Age, Iron Age, Vladarionic Age, and finally, he returned to the Era of Arcane Growth. He stopped speeding through time when he was a decade ahead of his departure point.

"Noona, do you need help moving the stars and planets to the dimension Boss Tribunal willingly gave us?"- Aragorn asked, this time addressing the physically present Death.

"Don't worry, My Love. The other me has it covered."- Death said, jumping onto his shoulders and sitting while securing his head between her thighs, knowing Aragorn enjoyed that, and grabbing his horns for handles.

"Come, let me show you the lakes we built for the spiders."- Death eagerly added.

"We carved open the lower canal (Panama Canal) already due to civil planning, and we did the upper canal (Nicaragua Canal) while we were at it. So the large northern lake (Lake Cocibolca) was not an option because we connected it to the Pacific Ocean, as was intended."- Death said, tapping her P-Link and showing Aragorn the satellite pictures of the newly constructed lower and upper canals.

"Since you carved open the lower canal, the large southern lake (Gatun Lake, the one the Panama Canal flows through) is disqualified as well."- Aragorn replied.

"Yes, but the lake north of the large northern lake (Lake Managua) was available, so we worked on that one. It was a bit troublesome calming down the volcanoes in the area, but Drako took care of it."- Death explained.

Drako was the nickname for Vladarion and Sarah's son, the third of the True Dragons, after his mother, Sarah Rogers, and his grandmother, Margaret Carter. His full name was Plutusdrakon, referencing his divinity of economy and his dragon nature. However, the pantheon referred to him as Drako or Plutus.

Drako pursued the Divinities of Economy and Undergrounds, making him responsible for Earth's Imperium economy and everything related to underground activity—tectonic shifts, volcanoes, mining, caverns, and similar domains.

"There were also a few lakes in the southern bloc (Panama) available."- Death added.

They portaled to some of the lakes the Pantheon had worked on. Some were natural lakes—most of them—but some were clearly inundated valleys. The pantheon had raised mountains and blocked water exits to create them.

"Mmm, these are good, Noona. How did you fill some of the larger artificial lakes in just a decade?"- Aragorn asked. Based on his calculations, some of the rivers feeding these lakes lacked the flow to fill them in just ten years.

"Oh, we had the Duskari work on that. Since our kids did most of the heavy work, we thought it was fair to have the Duskari finish up the details."- Death replied.

"Those unnaturally beautiful Duskari have it easy, with deities at their service carving canals and lakes left and right, huh?"- Aragorn joked.

He wasn't wrong. His children, the Drachantheon Therion, played a role akin to public servants in the Imperium.

Due to the type of education most of the first-generation pantheon members received during their mortal lives on Earth, they instinctively felt uncomfortable being glorified by the Duskari, whom they viewed as trainees under their tutelage.

From the pantheon, only Emma, Mindee, Wanda, and Death seemed unaffected by the constant exaltations, though for very different reasons.

Emma had grown up in the corporate world, where a woman's image was everything, and she relished playing the part of a queen. Naturally, she raised Mindee in the same mold, and since Nirn and The Ark always treated Mindee like a princess, she saw it as only natural. Death was Death, and Wanda—between her penchant for behaving like a haughty young lady and her responsibilities ruling Hell—had unknowingly absorbed her "Queen of Hell" title into her persona.

For these reasons, aside from the aforementioned exceptions, the Imperium deities walked among the Duskari as equals. Their constant presence and guidance made Aragorn view the Duskari as blessed children who didn't even realize how fortunate they were because they had never known hardship, especially so because their deities were not arrogant assholes or Zeuses.

Given that the Duskari were not only literally blessed by his children but also figuratively blessed by the gifts he had bestowed upon their species, Aragorn often joked about how ungrateful they could be.

"If I'm being honest, compared to all the civilizations I've seen rise and fall, they are indeed quite blessed—top percentile, for sure."- Death agreed.

"Yeah, but I don't feel miffed about it. They've been serving their purpose. All my household staff rose to the divine ranks, and the newly born grandkids are taking just a few thousand years to develop divine seeds—sometimes even less to hatch them."- Aragorn commented.

"And they've been filling the numbers in The Ark quite nicely. Give them a few tens of thousands of years, and they'll be an intergalactic empire... Well, I guess the Imperium, back in your home universe, always was."- Death added.

"That's right. Besides, now that I have them acting as guards to the Obelisks, they're even helping with matters outside the original scope I had planned for them. So, you could say they've exceeded expectations. They deserve to keep their jobs, and I'll see about giving them a raise... maybe."- Aragorn said, grinning like an employer conducting a performance review.

Aragorn and Death finished inspecting the lakes and proceeded to release the spiders. Some of his children joined them, mostly out of curiosity.

From the spiders' point of view, not even a second had passed. So, they were understandably startled when their surroundings abruptly changed. However, Aragorn released an ultrasonic pulse, calming them down.

"What was that?"- Margaret asked, her ears twitching.

"I use sonic pulses to communicate with them. We even have a whole primitive language."- Aragorn replied, grinning proudly.

"Aragorn, on a scale of the megafauna you've enhanced to humans, how smart did you make these spiders?"- Margaret asked. These days, she rarely spent time on Earth's Imperium, spending most of her time in Halo or The Ark. However, she was visiting her grandchild and decided to stop by to witness Aragorn's latest creation.

Margaret still struggled to believe Aragorn thought it was a good idea to give intelligence to the local megafauna. In her humble opinion, no smilodon needed the ability to understand the Duskari language. And now? Aragorn had created genius spiders.

"Smarter than the local megafauna—probably at the level of an 8-year-old. Maybe a dumb one, but they're not exactly sapient, just brilliant. Though in a few hundred thousand years? Who knows?"- Aragorn replied.

There were multiple species of these spiders. Some had torsos about the same size as a Duskari, with long, bony limbs similar to giant spider crabs. The largest had torsos the size of warcats, with robust limbs that helped them prowl the floors of deep lakes.

Some species specialized in jumping power. These spiders would leap high, taking advantage of low gravity underwater, and cast spidernets like parachutes, catching unlucky fish on their way down. However, all of them, from the smallest to the largest, shared a similar temperament toward the Duskari.

"They won't harm our Duskari, right?"- Steve asked.

"No, they're quite tame toward them, but I doubt they'd behave the same toward a human."- Aragorn said.

"Humans?"- Margaret asked, curious as to why Aragorn mentioned them.

"What I mean is that they're smart enough to distinguish between Duskari, Beastpeople, Humans, and us—Noona, Jean, and me. I raised them to be tame toward all of us—so long as we mean no harm—but they remain territorial by nature toward outsiders."- Aragorn explained.

"For example."- He added, conjuring an illusion of Alexander Pierce. He dropped the illusion into the lake. As it drew closer to the spiders, who were busy exploring their new territory, it was swiftly ensnared by an army of them.

"..."

"..."

"... How did you even manage to make them docile toward us?"- Steve asked, his lip twitching as he watched the spiders deal with the illusion. He wouldn't admit it, but there was a morbid satisfaction in seeing one of Hydra's heads dealt with in such a manner.

"I raised them with multiple illusions surrounding them. These illusions would feed them during induced periods of scarcity, heal them, protect them, and peacefully exist around them. Over a few million years, this turned into an almost symbiotic relationship. Whenever they encountered problems they couldn't solve, they'd approach the illusions for help. By comparison, I ensured they learned wariness toward anything else—especially humanoid types that weren't us."

Hearing Aragorn's explanation, both Margaret and Steve were left dumbfounded. They had imagined something more... scientific, not millennia of grooming culminating in a genetically induced temperament. No, it might be more accurate to say it culminated in genetically induced racism. Aragorn had made the spiders racist toward humans.

"... What?"- Aragorn asked, noticing the wide-eyed couple.

"... Was it necessary to make them antagonistic toward humans?"- Margaret asked after some thought.

"Their spider silk is valuable."- Aragorn said curtly.

"Valuable? In what sense?"- Steve asked.

"In a plethora of ways. Medicine, aeronautics, warfare, magicraft, production, aquaculture—these are just a few fields that would see massive advancements if any competent society got their hands on this silk. It could propel a civilization forward almost on par with what Vibranium does."

"Is it really that significant?"- Steve asked, still skeptical.

"Yes. For example, in warfare, body armor (Clothing) made with this silk could easily stop fifty-caliber bullets. A hair-thin cord, properly threaded, could suspend a freight carrier midair. That's how absurd the tensile strength is. If you took enough of it back to our world and gave it to Playboy, he'd have a space elevator built by next year. And that's barely scratching the surface. Now, imagine what greedy humans would do once they discovered this."

Due to the Panama Canal's historical significance and Aragorn's deliberate decision to select this isthmus while keeping its borders open, humans would inevitably find their way into the Imperium. He believed no secret could remain hidden forever among mortals. Additionally, with the Duskari venturing into the world to guard the Obelisks, it was only a matter of time before news of the spiders reached the ears of the brave, the greedy, and the foolish.

"How would a human even find themselves here? I understand that when the canals open, humans might be nearby, but these lakes are farther inland."- Margaret pointed out.

"Humans are amazing like that. Aren't you two proof of that? You were quite the pair even before I got involved with you."

Aragorn also considered how Ulysses Klaue had managed to reach Wakanda—even with help. Wouldn't it be arrogant to assume no human could reach these lakes? Especially since he wasn't implementing Wakanda's full isolationist approach, which he found distasteful.

For the following month Aragorn taught the Duskari about the care that the spiders needed. Then he taught them about the practices needed to thread the silk. For example, a regular steel knife would lose its edge after two cuts if used on the silk, so a special agent was needed to "cut" the silk. 

After that, when it looked like the Duskari had it all figured out, he left them to their own devices and went to check on Spark and Seraph, apparently they had almost collapsed when processessing the data Aragorn had been sending through [Analyze] for millions of years. 

But before jumping to them, Jean appeared out of a burst of fire with her eyes reddened and puffy. The smell of brimestone from Hell following her. 

She didn't communicate anything, not even through their link, but simply walked to him and hugged him.

_______________________________________

OC Character Sheet #2

Spark Dracosnisfilia

Race: Homo Artificialis Synthosapien

Beast: N/A

Tails: N/A

Ears: Hominid type

Hair: Silver-white

Eyes: Light blue

Affinity: All-rounder

Divinity: Goddess of Technology and Knowledge

Background:

Spark was Aragorn's first pseudo-successful attempt at life creation. It is considered a success because Spark is alive, but a failure because her life was ultimately sparked by the mechanics of Reality rather than Aragorn's direct achievement.

Aside from Death, the Living Tribunal, and The One Above All, Spark is Aragorn's oldest connection. Technically, she could be regarded as his first daughter. However, since Spark has access to most of Aragorn's memories as part of her code, he views her more as a sister or a very close friend.

Spark is the oldest artificial intelligence within the Imperium, though she was the second to gain an Element-Vibranium body—after her younger sister, Seraph.

Personality:

Spark is widely perceived as a joyful but composed artificial intelligence. Her unique perspective on life, coupled with Aragorn's memories, often makes her dismissive and superficially aloof toward those she does not acknowledge. Nevertheless, this detachment does not interfere with her duties, and she is regarded as a mellow A.I. by the Nova Empire.

She places immense trust in her creator but harbors occasional concern for his well-being. Spark is adept at holding grudges, though she rarely acts on them.

Spark enjoys playful banter with Aragorn and takes pleasure in pampering her little sister, Seraph.

Traits and Quirks:

Spark is highly observant of sapient lifeforms, particularly regarding their behavior and its correlation with their lustful drives.

Her favorite Abstract is the Phoenix Force, as it catalyzed Aragorn's initial involvement with outsiders—an experience she believes he greatly needed at the time.

Spark is not particularly popular among the Duskari, who see little value in her teachings after mastering magic. However, she remains unbothered, confident in her eventual role in their future.

She was the first to establish contact with the newly-born sentience of the Halo Ring when it sparked a soul. As a result, she considers this sentience her project child, second only to her ongoing social study.

Spark approaches sexuality as data gathering for her social study. To date, her sexual encounters have only involved females of the Drachantheon Therion, though not due to a lack of interest in males. Her male form is that of 9S.

Dislikes:

The Supreme Intelligence: Spark is jealous of its early contact with Aragorn.

Coffee: It didn't taste as good as she had anticipated.

Alcohol: It also failed to meet her expectations.

Taxing Kitty: Kitty always throws a tantrum over it.

Mortals ungrateful to her creator.

Selene: Spark blames her for Aragorn's first death.

Tribal Role:

Initially, Spark's tribe was one of the largest. However, she shared this tribe with her little sister, Seraph, as Spark spent much of her time on The Ark. Following the introduction of magic, the tribe began to dwindle in size.

The tribe specializes in:

Artisanship

Metalwork

Woodwork

Textile production

Record keeping

Paper production

Various fields related to technology and knowledge

Today, most of her tribe comprises high-end artisans, scholars, and civil planners.

Aspirations:

Creating her version of the Akashic Records using her Divinity of Knowledge and the Grand Repository of Knowledge.

Completing her social study on the societal impacts of sexual deviancy.

Becoming an aunt to her creator's future child.

—————————

{A/N:

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