Chapter 898: Heaven’s Gate

Chapter 898: Heaven’s Gate

I could hear several voices cheering by the time I had arrived in the Admin Room. Although they had managed to keep themselves mostly composed in front of the mortals, they couldn’t hide their excitement behind closed doors. Though, this was fairly understandable.

Not only had we won against a large number of enemy gods and successfully defended against what was undoubtedly the most powerful invasion that we had faced thus far, we had even recruited one of the enemy team to join us. In doing so, we had gained a secret that could help everyone advance their power by several levels, perhaps even push us into the next rank.

Seeing everyone celebrating in the living room, I couldn’t help but shake my head with a small smile. “Alright. Everyone should go and train for now. If any of you manage to successfully complete your divine circuits, send a message to the others so that we know that it’s not an impossible task.”

I was fairly certain that the method could be done, but I had to pass this instruction along regardless. Theoretically, there was nothing wrong with the technique that would conflict with our world’s divine energy. It was just a matter of actually doing the training.

Everyone nodded their heads and dispersed, creating their own isolated training rooms to prevent the energy released by the others from interfering with their training. Naturally, I was no exception, creating a room of my own and sitting down within it.

In the back of my mind, I went through Mara’s description of the process once again, making sure that the information was still fresh. Only once I had reviewed it and made sure that I had memorized the contents did I begin, cross referencing what she had said with the information that I had received through my World Sight.

With a deep breath, I began to control my divinity. This was not the first time that I had used my divine power to directly affect the traces of a domain within myself, but it was certainly the most involved. After only a brief experimentation, I was aware that it was not just a matter of condensing my domain to a single point. At the same time, I had to remove the traces of any other domain from that same area. Otherwise, the ‘node’ would be corrupted.

“What do you want to do now?” Dana asked, looking at Mara as the rest of the Greater Pantheon began to disperse. “The boss said that you’re free to go wherever you want, but we’re a long way from anywhere. If you can tell me your plan, I can try to send you over.”

“T-Thanks.” Mara nodded her head timidly, looking at Dana, Tsubaki, and Lifre. Gerard had appeared briefly, but quickly returned to his duties when he confirmed that the battle was won. “But if it’s alright, I’d like to go back to the divine realm. I... I want to apologize to Julia.”

“Apologize?” Lifre blinked, tilting her head. “Did you do something to her? I don’t think Miss Aurivy would let you off if you did, right?”

“Huh? O-oh, no!” Mara shook her head quickly. “It’s just... when I met her last time, I pretended that I was someone from this world, and even accepted a gift from her. I want to apologize for lying like that, and honestly tell her who I am.”

“Ohhh!” Lifre nodded her head quickly at that. “That shouldn’t be hard! You know how to get to Sanctum, right?”

Mara gave a small nod again, muttering under her breath. “I wish to enter the divine realm.” After she said that, her body was wrapped in golden mist, disappearing on the spot.

When she emerged, she was standing next to the same apple tree that she had been near last time, though Julia was nowhere to be seen. Mara took a deep breath to calm herself, walking over to the door of the house and knocking on it. “I’ll be right there!” A familiar voice called out from inside.

Mara braced herself, and soon the door swung open, Julia looking down at her and smiling. “Mara! I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. Would you like to come in?”

Mara hesitated, before offering a soft nod. Julia moved to the side, letting Mara through. “Give me just a moment, and I’ll get us a drink!” Julia said, moving to another room after leading Mara to sit on a large couch.

It was only a minute before Julia returned with two glasses of golden juice. “Here we are, freshly squeezed.” She said, setting one of the glasses down in front of Mara while taking a sip of her own. Mara could feel the divinity within the liquid, and could tell that it must have come from those golden apples.

You’re making this even harder... Mara thought to herself, giving a timid nod as she took the cup, taking a small drink. Her eyes closed as she felt the gentle divinity rushing through her body. “I... I wanted to come apologize, Miss Julia.”

“Just Julia.” The elven woman scolded, shaking her head. “We’re friends now, right? None of that ‘miss’ stuff. Besides, what do you have to apologize for?”

Congratulations, EarthForceOne! You have now qualified for a promotion!

Your worlds and your strength have been evaluated at Rank 4. You now have unlimited access to the previously restricted Rank 4 system, Fallen Companion.

Congratulations! You have earned an achievement!

For promoting a world to Rank 4 without resetting, you have earned the Stubborn Lord achievement. +100 points, Heaven’s Gate.

My eyes went wide as I saw the messages flash in front of me, one after another. Rank 4? So this really was enough? Who was it that finished their circuits? My words echoed out to the others, who all quickly responded.

Not me.

I’m still working on it.

One of you got it already?

I think I’m almost there.

None of them seemed to have been the one to do it, causing my brows to furrow. However, Terra’s voice soon spoke into my mind. It looks like Mara taught Julia the method, and she was able to succeed.

Mara had already taught the method to someone else, and they got through it so quickly? Well, Julia only had one domain, so it was reasonable that she wouldn’t face the same difficulty as they did. Okay... still, that’s good to know that it works. What can you tell me about these rewards?

Terra’s voice spoke up in a more pleased tone. Fallen Companion is exactly what it sounds like. From now on, you can create Companions as Fallen Gods as well as normal gods. The Fourth Rank is where most Keepers begin to get heavily involved in the void, so they put this reward here. As for Heaven’s Gate... that is a far more special reward.

As you have learned before, it is rare for a Keeper to climb this high without needing to reset their world. Maybe they didn’t like how things developed, they encountered some unsolvable problem that destroyed their worlds, or they suffered too much in an invasion. Many reset shortly after creation, wanting to get a more ‘optimal’ starting point. Regardless, about ninety-five percent of Keepers reset long before they reach this level.

As a special reward for doing so, you can spend points to designate mortals. These mortals are able to bypass the normal restrictions and enter the Admin Room. They won’t have the ability to interact with the Admin Room systems, but they will be able to freely come and go as they wish. Of course, because their bodies are converted to the same format as the Admin Room, they will be unable to suffer damage while here.

My whole body shook at that, the nodes I had been painstakingly filtering shattering as the information struck me. I thought that it was impossible for mortals to be brought to the Admin Room without going through the same process as Scarlet?

Without this achievement, it is. Terra confirmed readily. I can assure you, there is no other method for a mortal to enter the Admin Room. Furthermore, Heaven’s Gate will be locked after you reset. The individuals already granted permission will be able to still come and go, and can even seek shelter in the Admin Room while their world is reset, but you will not be able to grant this permission to any new mortals.

I gave a slow, shaky nod of my head. Then... wait, I’ve reset the worlds that I won in my invasions, though... Terra didn’t answer me at that, causing me to think back to those instances. Now that I thought back to the messages, I noticed something. Whenever I won, there had been a part of the messages that I overlooked. ‘For one Standard Day, I was able to refund any worlds won with no penalty’.

Terra had told me before that if I chose to refund a world, I would get back all of the points invested in it. Then, the penalty that the messages hinted at would be the fact that it wouldn’t count against the number of worlds I had reset? How... how much does it cost to grant someone the permissions with Heaven’s Gate?

Ten thousand points per individual. In order to activate the gate, the individual must focus for thirty seconds. While that seemed like a shocking amount, I felt that it was entirely reasonable for something that went against a fundamental system restriction. Furthermore, it was akin to granting whoever had that permission a limited form of invincibility, wasn’t it? Because of the cast time, it couldn’t be used in combat, but it could be used to avoid other forms of predictable disasters. And it would let them enter the Admin Room when I needed to pause the world for whatever reason.