World Keeper

Chapter 31: The Road to Perfection

So… the centaur god is a playboy… I’m glad that I took those precautions. I shook my head and sighed, before turning my attention to the screen again. The other races were all paused right now, so there was not much point to giving the other deities a personality yet. Instead, it would be more beneficial to focus on the centaurs.

But first… I looked at Terra, who was getting ready to vacate the room. “So, what happens if a god has a kid with a mortal?”

Terra froze as she was turning around, then looked over towards me. “That child will have an exceptional innate talent, such that they could earn a class like Hero far more easily than others. They will also typically have a small starting buff to one attribute, determined randomly.”

I raised a curious eyebrow at her as she listed the effects. “And the drawbacks?”

“Sometimes, the offspring will have an innate weakness in a field as well, and their strength can make them arrogant. The child of a god is not always good, and could plunge a world into chaos in the extreme scenarios.”

“Ahh…” I nodded my head at that, understanding. “Hopefully, he doesn’t cause any trouble, then.”

Terra gave a small smile. “What about you? Any plans for what you’re doing now that he is ‘taking care’ of the centaurs?”

I thought about that for a long moment, but did eventually come up with something. “There is something I want to work on, but I’m not sure if it’s already available.”

When Terra gave me a curious look, I continued. “Mana and Ki make Chakra with an even amount of each. Mana represents training the mind, while Ki represents training the body. But, what about other combinations? Could you combine Mana and Spiritual Energy, or Ki with Natural Energy?”

Terra’s smile grew a bit wider. “I can’t answer that question, but you know someone who should be able to.”

I looked at her for a long moment before understanding her meaning. Turning back to my computer, I heard her giggle before walking out of the room, only to hear the distressed cry of Aurivy when she realized that Terra was back. I didn’t worry much about that at the moment, though, as I was working on sending a message.

EarthForceOne: You free right now? Got a question for you.

I had to wait for a few minutes before a reply came in, but thankfully he did not seem too preoccupied.

Alkahest: Still at the meeting. Guessing you took off early?

EarthForceOne: Yeah, had some things to take care of.

Alkahest: Alright. What’s on your mind?

I repeated the same question I had asked Terra previously to Grimor. Since he has been in this for a long time, he should be able to provide me with some answers. At least, that’s what I was hoping.

Alkahest: Hmmm… There are some combinations, yes. Though, Chakra is the easiest since it is an even ratio. You’re using the Game System for your world, if I remember right, yeah? Look up the Advanced Classes for the next set of mixtures, and the Legend Classes for the highest one.

EarthForceOne: What’s the difference between an Advanced Class and a Legend Class?

Alkahest: An Advanced Class is accessible to anyone that meets the prerequisite, like a basic class. However, the classes tend to be considerably more powerful. Even the weakest advanced class would be on par with the Hero class. As for Legend Classes, they are unique to an individual. There can only be one of a particular legend class in existence at a time, even if others qualify. Other people can still diligently train the special abilities of the class by studying it, but they won’t get the class itself.

EarthForceOne: So, an advanced class is just a higher form of a normal class, and a legend class is the strongest, then?

Alkahest: Right. All of the basic classes are available to any world, no matter what other systems they have in place. However, some advanced and legend classes have requirements that you’ll need to meet first. It’ll be easier to understand when you see it for yourself.

EarthForceOne: Alright, thanks.

With that, I let him get back to what he was doing, and went to check the market for the advanced classes that he mentioned. The results I found were… numerous, to say the least. They even had packages available, to help narrow things down. However, there were a few that caught my eye, the ones that combined the different energies.

Elemental Monk Combining the energy of the body with the energy of the world, the Elemental Monk gains the ability to imbue their physical form with aspects of nature. 10 points

Martial Spirit Combining the energies of the body and soul together, the Martial Spirit is capable of existing as both a living being and a spirit, and gains special powers associated with such. 10 points

Elementalist By merging Natural Energy into their spells, a mage may greatly enhance the efficiency and power of a spell, and learn new applications for such elemental energy. 10 points

Summoner Using the spirit as a base, and the mana to shape it, a Summoner is able to create powerful entities to fight for them. 15 points

World Spirit By merging the spirit of a soul with the spirit of the world, it is possible to create a spirit born of nature. 15 points

Looking a bit further, there was even one other class listed, and this one actually amazed me.

Perfect Self By unifying the body, mind, and soul, one may find perfection. With this power, they will be the true masters of themselves. 50 points

If I were to buy all six classes, they are included in a single package labeled ‘Basic Energy Masters’ for a full hundred points. However, first I wanted to look at the Legend Class that Grimor mentioned. If the advanced ones already reached that level of power, I was curious to see what the pinnacle was.

False Divinity Only one who has reached the pinnacle of perfection, and learned how to merge their energy with the world around them may step into this realm. A False Divinity will never age, and fears none below the true gods, able to establish themselves as the height of power. Those with this class are granted a powerful domain, and can use their domain to bestow power on their followers, generating their own priests. 100 points

Wow… just, wow. That definitely qualifies as a legendary class. The class name had me curious, so I searched a bit more, finding something else. Surprisingly, this wasn’t listed as a legendary class, but in a different ‘Special Class’ section.

True Divinity This class may be granted, but never sought. Only the gods themselves may grant it, and only with the approval of the Keeper. Once a mortal has risen to True Divinity, they will be treated as a Companion, with all the rules and restrictions that entails. A True Divinity will be granted a domain, and retain all of the powers they had in life. 45 points per True Divinity

Looking through the Special Class list, it seemed that all of them were cases that had to be approved by either a Keeper or a god, and typically all of them were paid per unit, rather than just paying once to unlock the class in the system. I suppose that made sense, though. With the False Divinity class, only one could exist within the world’s system at a time. Though, from what Grimor said, it might be possible for other people to train themselves to that level.

Anyways, with this I had an answer to my question about the energy types. The different combinations do possess their own results… But with Ninja being the only basic class, the others must all be either incredibly difficult to achieve, or else incredibly powerful.

I was tempted to buy up the advanced classes with what points I had remaining, but managed to restrain myself. The world was not yet ready for the stronger powers to be known. They hadn’t even finished discovering all of the current classes, yet.

…I forgot to ask how to do enchanting! I had wanted to ask that at the Keeper meeting, but the games distracted me! I even forgot to ask about other achievements! I hurriedly opened up the message window to consult Grimor about that again. While I didn’t want to rely on him too much, the only other option was to go back to the meeting and find random Keepers to ask. Even then, I’d have to rely on Grimor to get me an invitation back.

Now, onto the things he told me, because this was pretty helpful. Enchanting wasn’t possible yet with the level of magic unlocked in my world, because none of the known spells had the ‘bestowal’ component. I could manually carve a spell into an item and ‘technically’ it would be a magic item, but rather than an enchanted item, it would merely serve as a container for the spell.

For achievements, he did manage to tell me about a few that I could unlock early on, but he wasn’t of as much help here. After all, it had been a long time since he himself was at the stage to unlock these personal achievements. He could help with the world achievements, but that was it. Nonetheless, it was good information.

I doubted that I would be earning some of those achievements, like the one for me to ‘breed’ a hero, by knocking up mortal women like Tryval is doing. I mean, the only reward for that one he mentioned is higher potential for any of my own offspring, so that’s not major. Sorry, Earth girls, but I have Terra. She’s much more attractive than anyone in the present age of Earth.

Now, achievements that I can do. If I personally unlock all of the basic classes for the world, then that will be an achievement. Apparently, the reward for that one differs based on the number of classes. Likewise, I can make my presence known to the world, and become an ‘unofficial’ King of the Gods. The reward there is actually pretty good, as it allows me to grant each god a second domain for free. However, according to Grimor, it makes interfering in the world harder, because perceptive people will be able to see through to my true nature and know who I am.

Maybe I can do that one later… I thought to myself. An achievement that I could do now… There is one, but I wasn’t sure if the reward was worth going out of my way for it. Shrugging, because I didn’t have much else needing done at the immediate time, I went ahead and decided to go through with it.

Opening the menu, I chose to remodel my current Keeper body. This achievement required me to get used to a body considerably different from my own. Unsurprisingly, simply adding fox ears and a tail didn’t cut it, so I had to do some more drastic changes.

As the only race different enough from humans for me to interact with were centaurs, I based my new body off of that. Unlike Tryval, I gave myself brown hair, and kept the features of my upper body the way they normally are. Once I confirmed the changes, I closed my eyes and waiting for the light to descend and change my body.

The first change I noticed was a crashing sound, reminding me both that I had been sitting in my computer chair at the time, and that horses don’t tend to fit in those. Whoops… Next, I felt extreme discomfort from my lower body. I could feel that I was standing, but my legs felt as if they had fallen asleep.

I knew what I would see when I opened my eyes, but that still didn’t stop me from being surprised by my large, equine half. Glancing back, I saw my chair had blasted itself back to the far wall to make room for me. Startled by the noise, Terra and Aurivy soon threw the door open and ran into the room, looking at me in wide eyes.

“Big bro got bigger…” Aurivy said, looking up at me in amazement.

“Yes… he did.” Terra grinned, though she wasn’t exactly looking up. No, bad catgirl! This form isn’t for that!