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Chapter 166: Alme Dien

When I got back to my room, to my surprise I found Terra sitting on the bed. However, her usual playful demeanor was nowhere to be seen, and instead she had a more serious, troubled look on her face. “What’s wrong?” I asked as I moved over to sit next to her, and her tail came up to gently land on my wrist, as if by instinct.

“Something happened on Earth.” Terra told me as she turned her head to look at me, her brow furrowed. “Tryval broke your rules.”

Wait what? It took me a moment to process that, as it was definitely not on the list of things I expected to be troubling Terra. “Which rules?”

With a long, drawn-out sight, Terra explained. “The ‘no fornicating as a god’ rule you gave him. From what I can tell, he was good and hasn’t broken it since you told him that, but now he did it.”

“And something about it made you notice.” I interjected with a curious glance, earning a nod from the goddess of fate.

“Yeah. The kid’s fate lit up my domain like the New York skyline. If nothing happens to her, she’s destined to make a massive impact on the world.” Well, this was sounding less and less good by the minute. “I’m looking into it more now. That’s what I was doing when you showed up. Right now, I know that she’s a demigod, like Leowynn. The first one born aside from your own daughter.”

Okay, now I understand why Terra would be so concerned. Out of all of Tryval’s first several generations of children, none had been a true demigod with the powers to match. “Does she have a special gift like Leowynn did?”

Terra gave a small nod. “Yeah, and hers is the reason why her fate became so big. Her gift is Divine Youth. According to the system information, she will eternally remain in an adolescent body. She will never grow old, so her death would have to come at the hands of another, or a disease.”

“That is… certainly powerful.” I could only stare blankly at Terra as I thought about that. Leowynn had a divine gift that doubled the strength gains she received from all classes. That alone made her likely the single most powerful person of her generation. And now this, Tryval’s child could outlive anyone but the gods themselves.

Shaking my head slightly, I gave another look at Terra. “What about her character? She’s not using this gift for evil or anything, right?””

Terra shook her head, her eyes slightly unfocused. “Not that I can see. So far, she’s not even made much of a public appearance. Alme Dien, born eighty-seven years ago. Her current level has reached the limit, but she is learning how to suppress her power from Tryval. He’s with her right now, using his current incarnation.”

“Alright, thanks for letting me know about this.” I offered a small smile towards Terra, and she nodded, leaning against my shoulder. Closing my eyes, I sent a mental message towards Tryval. Mind explaining why you broke the rule, and had a child as a god?

It took a long moment before a response came in, to the point where I thought he was going to ignore me. Apologies, sire. However, this time was a special circumstance.

How so? Rather than refute him, I wanted to know what it was that made him disobey that rule. Out of all of the gods, Tryval has always been the one to show the most… official type of loyalty. I would not say that he is more loyal than Terra or Irena, or even Bihena, but his actions are more that of a knight serving his king.

T’was love, sire. Tryval explained simply. I lived a life with Alme’s mother, and found myself loving her more than anyone I had met before. I could not bear the thought of hiding myself from her so, so I showed her the true me. I did not expect such a blessing to come from our union, and believed that you would never even notice this transgression. However, now that it has happened, I can say that I have no regrets.

My brows knit together as I listened to him explain himself. To a degree, I had already expected something like this, given Tryval’s character. And I wasn’t going to do something like smite his kid to punish him. I’m not a heartless bastard.

Tryval, this can’t happen again. I warned him. We can’t just have demigods wandering around all over the place.

I understand that, sire. I believe that it will not happen again. I now have Alme as an eternal reminder of her mother, and that should be enough. I am training her so that she may walk among the mortals, letting none know of her identity. And when that’s done, I shall watch over her.

Tryval’s response actually surprised me. He had never shown this much affection towards any of his offspring before. Back when he was first brought to life, he had raised an entire herd of variant children several generations long. Yet, at the first command he had left them without question. Now, one child was enough to make him change his ways.

Honestly, I didn’t entirely believe him at first. “Terra, would you mind keeping an eye on him, to make sure that he sticks to the rule from now on? At least for a while.”

Terra gave a small nod against my shoulder, still resting against me. “‘Kay…”

I brought my hand over, gently grabbing Terra’s and giving it a small squeeze. She seemed comfortable, and I didn’t intend to push her away to get up. So instead, I kept my eyes closed, and mentally summoned the map. It was still not as clear as when I used the computer, but it was getting better as I practiced.

Checking the alarms, I soon discovered which one had been triggered. After three hundred and sixty years, someone had discovered Alkazar’s resting place. Alkazar had chosen to rest on the continent that had remained completely uninhabited until now.

As for the race that discovered him, it looked like it was the herocs. After their failed first expedition, they set out to the west instead and began to colonize the second uninhabited continent. After three hundred years, they had only colonized a small portion of the continent, but instead focused on exploring the new land. This led them to finding the mountain that Alkazar had chosen as his final rest.

Unsurprisingly, the first thing that the heroc did when they found a giant sleeping monster of unimaginable strength… was to kill it. Alkazar had placed himself in a coma from which he could never awaken, all of his defenses lowered. As such, it was easy for a group of heroc to slay him.

Looks like I can expect to see some items made using Alkazar’s remains as ingredients in the near future. I nodded inwardly at that thought, before I once again began to fast forward. To my surprise, it actually only took another two hundred years before the final alert went off, signifying that the second tier of magic had been fully understood.

Really… thousands of years for the first tier, but only just short of six hundred for the second? I raised a curious brow at that, but there was a small chuckle from the catgirl leaning against my shoulder.

“Ryone.” She murmured. “She knew all about the first tier already, so it was just a matter of finding out how the second tier altered it to make it more advanced.” Her explanation made sense, as there were still a large number of items that had yet to be completed. Things like portable magic guns that anyone could use, items that would increase the overall power of the world.

Just as I was beginning to wonder what I should do now to pass the time until I had enough points to buy everything, I received a small alert in the back of my head.

Chat request has been received from Alkahest. Do you accept?

Ah, he finally has the chance to get back to me. I smiled slightly, choosing to accept the call.

Alkahest: Still Dale, right?

EarthForceOne: Haven’t died yet. Sorry, was on a boat trip.

I decided to briefly summarize what had happened. Given how long he’s been around, he should understand why a boat trip would take so long, especially on a world as big as mine.

Alkahest: Ah! That explains it. Thought something mighta done you in.

EarthForceOne: Not yet. I take it that the Keeper meeting is coming close?

Alkahest: That’s right. Thought that I would call and see if you were free for this one. This’ll be your one year anniversary as a Keeper, or close enough.

I gave a small nod as I read his message. It was still hard to believe that all of this had happened over just one year, but then again that one year was really closer to one and a half. Still… Lot to happen in that amount of time.

EarthForceOne: I’ll be free for this one. Don’t have anything to do but wait at this point.

Alkahest: Your world is just about ready, huh?

EarthForceOne: Almost. Just need to buy one last thing. I should have a pretty decent set-up at this point, I think.

Alkahest: About that. I took a look at the Card Law and Card Magic. I even asked one of my companions to monitor a world with it for roughly a hundred thousand years, just to see how it developed.

Well, that surprised me. I know that I had asked him to take a look at it after Udona created it, but I didn’t expect that he would go that far with it.

EarthForceOne: Oh? Did you find anything interesting?

Alkahest: I was able to figure out why it was enough to make into a basic world of its own, at least. To test it out, I purchased up to the fifth tier of cards by the end of that hundred millenia. There’s a hidden secret in the cards, once you reach that point.

EarthForceOne: Well, don’t keep me in suspense…

Alkahest: Sorry, sorry. Anyways, a fifth tier card can be considered its own world. A small one, no bigger than a size 2 world, but still a world in itself. With the right combinations, you can create spell cards that open gates to these new worlds.

I couldn’t help but open my eyes wide when I read that, briefly losing sight of the message window I had been visualizing in my mind. I didn’t expect that the Card Magic would open up a new version of space travel as well. However, I quickly shook my head and called the message window to appear in front of me, so that I wouldn’t need to keep my eyes closed.

Alkahest: The worlds discovered by the Card Magic have the same rules as normal. The system rapidly accelerates the time in the new world until either it becomes uninhabitable or a sapient race appears. Alternatively, you can set it to prompt you when the world is discovered, and create it yourself.

EarthForceOne: I’m going to guess that the worlds get bigger with tier six and seven cards?

Alkahest: I would imagine so. However, six and seven are a bit too expensive for me to buy to test them out. The best that I can tell you is that a card at the very limits of the fifth tier can open up a world of size 3.

I felt my head nodding briefly as I read that. So, tier six can probably open up earth sized planets, maybe even ones like my new Earth. I would guess that tier seven can open worlds of any size.

EarthForceOne: Thanks for the heads up. I’ll have to look forward to that later.

Alkahest: Not a problem. I’ll pass along that you are planning to attend this meeting. Anything else that I can help with?

EarthForceOne: I should be good for now, thanks. I’ll see you at the meeting.

With that, the two of us ended our brief chat, and I was left with more to think about. Earth was nearly ready for the Gate, Tryval had an eternally young demigoddess running around… and Udona’s world had a lot more potential than I originally thought. At least I have plenty of time to practice my martial arts for now?