New Buds

New Buds

Year 179

My sensors were glued to the skies, waiting for the moment. The forest was dark, and then momentarily, a flash of light. The darkness of the void momentarily twisted and swirled, and a ring of light appeared. Ten flashes of light shot out, like little meteors streaking through the dark night sky. Despite our best efforts to observe the phenomenon of a hero summoning, the magical energies were extremely subtle.

[Ten heroes have been summoned].

Another 10 landed, and instantly I sounded the alarm. I wanted eyes on the ground to look for them, whether they are on the Central continent, or elsewhere.

I didnt see much... Stella frowned, upset at how the path back to her original world eluded her. It was faint, and there was that strange ring like thing. Something Ive not seen before until I had this astral sight ability.

Still, while my forces kept watch for the heroes, we both tried to follow that path back. Myself and Stella. A few of the other senior Valthorns, Kei and Lausanne all dropped by at times.

What kind of people do you think well get? Stella asked, she tried to make conversation while we tweaked with the daemolite and attempted to retrace the path of the heroes. There was no path. Its as if someone just airdropped the heroes. No, someone just drop-shipped the heroes.

Probably the same type. Young kids, 14 to 18 years old, too young to know how shitty the world truly is , and easily controlled by the gods.

That bad, huh? Stella said. Keis pretty alright, isnt she?

She has this weird hang up about helping former earthlings.

Some people are helpful like that. I think too much skepticism and suspicion would just paralyse her. Its good that she still cares, even after what she has seen and been through. I know I certainly dont have that kind of mental strength.

You survived 40 years in other worlds, I think you deserve some credit. Our experiments didnt really seem to go anywhere. Its frustrating that the gods have even more unique powers that even void mana cant breach.

Heh, practicing magic for 40 years hardly counts as hardship.

Well, you did lose some body parts? Which have all fully healed.

Shit happens. You know... bad mistakes when practicing magic. In fact, if it wasnt for your familiar skill, Id probably be dead. The healing abilities of your familiar saved my life a few times.

Stella just shrugged when it didnt work. A part of me suspected this wasnt going to work. The rules of our home world were too different. Our planets and galaxies dont float on some kind of interstellar fog.

So thats one data point for earth being an entire alternate universe and demonic worlds existing within our present same-universe. But, that raised the next question, why do the gods summon all of the heroes from these alternate universes?

My guess?

Yeah. Go for it?

Were blank slates. Clean, untouched by mana ever. Maybe its just easier to control us that way.

Isnt every soul a blank slate when they die?

Hmmm... thats true. Then the next likely thing is that theres something interfering with the gods ability to capture fresh, clean souls from this world. Maybe they just cant see this world very well. Maybe our homeworlds are godless, so that makes it easy for them to pick and choose who they want.

Then why do they need administrators?

I dont know? Stella laughed. Maybe its just specialisation, I guess?

Ever wondered how they came to be? LIke... how did those reincarnation administrators, become reincarnation administrators?

My bet? The gods made them. Theyre not real individuals, just a system personified and anthropomorphized.

Huh.

Wild, right? I mean, back home we have AI and machines that could mimic people, why wouldnt the same thing be doable via magic

Thats really true. The gods could easily achieve self-aware and mostly autonomous operators. If I can create artificial souls, the gods surely can go further.

Within two weeks it was clear that the heroes did not spawn on the Central continent. It was also a good point that none of them died soon after summoning.

I want to spy on the heroes. Kei said.

Huh? Why?

I want to see what kind of shit the temples throw at them at the start, whether its the same as us.

Stella immediately rebuked her. You do know that volunteering yourself to be a heros secret guide is a huge death flag, right?

I have no idea what you are talking about. Kei rolled her eyes.

Its a story trope, come on! Mentor occupational hazard! Ever heard of it? Stella repeated. I say, dont do it.

Why is it that you believe all these norms? Kei responded.

One of the heroes went missing, and I wanted to know whether hes dead.

Huh. Strange. Heroes dont go missing, normally? Not on some secret training mission or anything?

Kei isnt sure. If he isnt dead, thats a good sign. We just need to wait and watch out.

There was another group on the Eastern Continent. 5 of them. They too managed to survive their initial scare with regular monsters. Kei quickly relayed that this batch of heroes were conventional heroes, as in two of them was a super-knight, and the other two was a super-mage. The missing hero was a super-mage too.

Conventional heroes and conventional demons, eh? It felt like theres a larger supercycle of demons and heroes. Are the gods just playing some kind of Magic the Gathering campaign throughout the expansions and blocks, and are just moving through the gimmicks of each block?

Stella sat. Kei messaged to say she will continue to observe them.

Back home, we continued on with our weapons program. Alka and his group of artificers and mages were very busy, with multiple concurrent projects running. He preferred it that way, the multiple projects seemed to allow him to gather magical inspiration from many places. They worked on many types of ideas for anti-demonic weapons, from suicidal golems, flying golems to airdrop rigged crystal bombs, and just better crystal bombs and weapons all round.

My woodsmiths and blacksmiths made thousands of anti-demonic spears, and enchanted them. The Central Continent had a thriving defense industry, linked by my network of carrier-beetles. Throughout the continent we built multiple weapons stockpiles.

It was overpreparing in a sense, but high quality weapons took time to make, and even master smiths and workers labored months on a special weapon, or a special knife, or a special rod. Some enchantments took just as long, especially those that required the threading of multiple different spells.

We didnt have the heros overpowered [Hero Forge] to shortcut a lot of that. If I needed superweapons, I needed to make them early. 10 years early.

The Demon King continued its raid on the kingdoms, and the heroes rushed to gain levels. The Eastern group apparently started to sail to the South, to join their compatriots, the regular monsters of the Eastern Continent insufficient to feed their growth. I wonder whether they have an experience multiplier for killing demons. I suspect they do. .

Kei commented that the Southern group reached level 60 within a month. Level 60 is enough for a champion, at least, with their hero powers, but the demon king needed them at the level 100 range. If they were too weak, theyd die quickly.

The missing hero was still missing. I wonder what would happen if the missing hero never appeared? Would the gods summon new heroes? Or the demons would destroy the world until they find that hero?

-

> Are they coming? < Reefy asked.

The demons are still on their continent.

> I have new spiky weapons Id like to use on them. I dont like this heat. But I gained skills now. I have [Perfect Waters]. <

What in the world does that do?

> My environment is always perfect for reefs! <

> Of course. But can you get me some of the demons. I wonder whether my fishes will eat them. Are they food? <

> Spiky corals then. Poison hurt them? <

I dont recall seeing a hero with a poison focus, or maybe I just cant remember. Maybe its a bit dumb to have a poison focus when the demons arent even human, so the poisons just dont hurt them.

> Ah. No poisonous corals then. Just really hard and pokey corals. <

I thought back about the Tainted Demon Core captured from the demon king. It remained a puzzle I am unable to crack, even as I levelled. Demonic mana remained key, at least, master of it.

The Rottedlands on the Central Continent are extremely small now, a tenth of what it once was. This space was preserved, mainly to hold the hybrid plants that I can control, and for my Valthorns to continue their combat practice. With the smaller size, the relative strength of the demonic hybrids that spawn naturally dwindled.

This is a limited space for me to practice the mana these hybrid plants sometimes produce.

Perhaps an artificial mind fused with a hybrid may be the solution? Patreeck proposed one day. I sometimes wonder why I cant think of these solutions myself. Did I try it before?

Well.... it didnt work. The artificial mind collapsed soon after exposure to the demonic mana, like trying to boot up a faulty computer. Or maybe, a computer with insufficient parts. Why? Or perhaps... like a computer, its not...

Wait. Is it a power source issue then? But artificial souls generate their own mana. Is that why theres a conflict between a hybrid plant that passively generates tiny bits of demonic mana? Its like a computer getting both AC and DC power simultaneously, so it fried the computer?

I suppose its time to revisit the fundamentals of this artificial mind. Like, what is an artificial mind, and what differentiates them from regular people. Why are they limited?

I suspect the issues maybe... about the creation of life. Patreeck theorised. That a full soul is essentially a life and a living being.

You dont feel like you are a living being, Patreeck?

Well, no. I am always a part of you, even if I am capable of independent thought, master. Huh. Perhaps it is that sense of self? Their soul, being incomplete, like a very good AI, but lacking that last spark that truly makes an AI more than just an AI.

But... What am I trying to achieve here? These are dangerous grounds. Do I want to create life unwittingly? My goal is to achieve control over demonic mana, and thus, hopefully, gain another color for my soul forge. Already, one of the ideas I had was to use the huge stockpiled void mana and attempt to unlock a new soul forge color, but I suspect the system required me to generate my own void mana, not just rely on stored mana.

It was a deconstruction of the artificial souls. Artificial souls are pieced together from the remnants of the dead. To use a computer term, they are salvaged from the usable parts of many dead computers, and pieced together into a whole. But, they lack the core which differentiated a person from a machine. Ive developed quite a significant understanding of these parts over the decades, through my analysis of hex. The hex is when these parts are combined in such a way that generates toxic negative thoughts. In other words, hex is pretty much weaponised negativity.

Again, what else can the parts make? Can the parts be better made, than how I currently know them? After all, I learned it by way of skills and levels. There should be better versions.