World Keeper-Chapter 1225: Branching Out
The process of venturing into new technologies was… long and painful. For over fifty years, the Another World Research Group, as well as those living in Olympus, tried constantly to come up with a solution to the increasing energy crisis. During this time, the problem only became worse and worse as more people continued to level up, further reducing the amount of energy that could be provided by various facilities.
Additionally, these problems became more pronounced in worlds such as Deckan and Earth, where energy generators were operating with noticeably reduced efficiency. However, this was nowhere near as bad as it was for Desbar’s universe, where more than half of the mana production plants had to be completely deactivated. There were even spatial anomalies starting to appear due to the overdrawing of energy, resulting in Dana personally stationing herself outside of Desbar to supplement it with her own energy.
While all of this was happening, the research continued with increasing urgency. Every time that either Chelsea or Julia thought that they had made a breakthrough, they would go to the void and test it on an uncolonized universe. There were times, naturally, when the research group had to save up their own mana gems for months or longer, just to activate the machine to create another universe for them to test on.
Most of these results inevitably ended in catastrophic failure. Attempting to supply energy beyond a world’s capacity, or breaching its defenses with outside structures, would often lead to the direct collapse of the universe in question.
There were many times when Chelsea or Tsubaki considered sounding an alarm with the Keeper, and getting him personally involved. However, that was ultimately a last resort, as they needed every second that they could get of ‘Standard Time’. While this half-century of arduous research felt as if it would never end, they knew that it would be only a few seconds to him.
Finally, fifty-three years after their research began, Julia stood in the void. Her face did not show any expectation or excitement as she looked at a newborn universe in front of her. She had already destroyed more than a dozen of these in her experiments, and fully expected to add another to that list.
Tree, manifest. She thought, extending her hand and activating the first stage of the experiment. A large tree sprouted within the void, hovering in place as its roots extended downwards. This was a tree that Julia had painstakingly cultivated, one capable of drawing energy from the void when placed inside of a universe. Outside of a universe, however, in the raw, unfiltered void itself, the energy was too abundant, and would quickly destroy this tree.
Modification. Next, she began to rapidly mutate the tree by relying on systems that she had been building up over the last several decades. She reinforced the tree, changed its internal structure, and added multiple layers of filters to its roots.
At this point, the tree seemed to stabilize, but Julia kept her passive expression. The next part was where she most often failed. Pointing at the newborn universe, she manipulated the tree to wrap one of its branches around it. The giant tree responded to her will, carefully embracing the target universe.
As it did so, numerous root-like protrusions extended from the branch, sinking into the world barrier. Julia bit her lip gently, waiting for some sign of instability. She stood there for seconds, which turned into minutes, and eventually hours, waiting to sense even the slightest fluctuation.
However, no matter how she waited, nothing seemed to happen. Eventually, her eyes widened, and she sent an urgent message to Chelsea. Stage one has been cleared! She reported. We are ready to begin stage two of testing!
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Chelsea’s response was immediate. They had been waiting to get to this point for too long, and had long since made their plans for the second stage, which was a stress test of the world’s energy. Got it. I’ll send the Overload Generator.
This generator was, quite simply, an excessively powerful mana refiner. Its sole purpose was to generate every scrap of mana that a universe could offer, and it was one of the technologies that they had created in order to help their experiments. Unlike normal refineries, this one could potentially destroy a universe if it was activated at too high of a setting.
Stage two of testing involved leaving this Overload Generator active in the universe for one full month. If, during that month, the tree was able to consistently supply the universe with energy, then it could be considered a viable product. However, if at any point during that month, the tree failed, they would have to go back to the drawing board and try to find out what they needed to tweak.
Overload generator is in place. Chelsea spoke up again after a few moments, and Julia could see small vortexes of energy appearing around the roots of the tree. Glowing lines that resembled blood vessels extended up from these roots, eventually leading to the branch holding the test universe in place.
Now, it was just a matter of waiting…
Aznod stood within the kitchen of the Ashtanu palace, a saucepan sizzling in front of himself as he hummed lightly. Because of the energy restrictions of the last few years, he had opted out of high-energy cooking methods in favor of old-fashioned recipes. There were still plenty of delicious dishes that he could make without ever needing to use any special techniques.
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Though, he had to admit that he was thankful that the farming system had only been put in place on Lorek and Spica, where the energy limit had not yet been reached. Had that universe been subject to these same restrictions, it was entirely possible that the farming system as a whole would fail.
As he was thinking of that, he heard a ding from a timer next to him, and reached down to pull a large casserole dish out of the oven. Afterwards, he slowly spread the sauce that he had been preparing overtop the food, and smiled in contentment.
Dinner is ready. He told Udona through a telepathic message. We’ll be having a lightly glazed Roasted Flame Bull steak, if you want to let everyone know.
Ooh, sounds good! Udona responded in a cheerful tone. I don’t think that Julia or Chelsea will be attending, though. Today’s the last day, after all…
Aznod blinked, but nodded his head a moment later in realization. I see. I’ll save their portions for them to enjoy later. How has it gone so far?
He was aware that Julia had been making frequent visits to the void for the last month, and noticed that she had been notably more hopeful in recent days. The light that had almost completely died in her eyes had returned, and she seemed excited for the conclusion of the test.
So far, everything’s been fine. If nothing happens by the end of the day, they’ll be moving on to stage three. Udona responded, causing Aznod to blink.
I thought that there were only two stages?
Hearing his question, Udona let out a light laugh. No, those are just the two stages for a tree to be considered as barely viable. In total, there are four stages of testing. First, creating the tree and connecting it to the universe without either the tree or the universe collapsing.
Second, maintain an Overload Generator in a constantly active state for one month to stress test the tree. If this succeeds, move to stage three, which is to enlarge the tree and bring in three additional worlds, each with their own Overload Generator. The extra worlds are brought in every week to determine if there are any problems with expanding the coverage of the tree.
Finally, stage four is to create void defenses for the tree, preventing void monsters from being able to easily attach to the connected worlds. Aznod gave a small nod as he listened to these four stages.
It sounds like their work isn’t quite done yet… He mused, and Udona replied with a quick confirmation.
That’s right. If we’re lucky, it will only take another year or so for the void defenses to be ready. After that, if the research works out, we’ll be able to connect every universe together, just like the World Tree Guild did.
Aznod nodded his head yet again. The progress of technology had slowed to a crawl due to this energy crisis. There were still advancements made in increasing energy efficiency, but there was nothing that could be done to increase production, and machines that consumed more energy than what was able to be spared simply didn’t work to begin with.
This didn’t just apply to the research being done by the Another World Research Group, but all universes where technology was being developed. The only one truly able to escape any misfortune in this event was Fyor, and many research groups had opted to move their bases to the lower floors of Fyor, where the gravity and natural conditions were as close to other universes as possible.
As he was thinking all of this, Aznod worked to plate the food that he had finished preparing, as well as prepare salads for each plate. At the very least, although technology wasn’t able to advance, it had also not had a major decline, especially with Dana helping to maintain Desbar’s energy levels.
The test proved to be a success, as was the third stage. With renewed vigor, Julia and Chelsea began to dive into the process of securing the tree against external threats. For this part of the development, the torch was largely passed to Chelsea, who was far more experienced when it came to creating security systems.
That said, Julia was not entirely out of the loop, as she had to be able to adapt whatever Chelsea made into a plant-based creation that would synergize well with the tree. This was by no means an easy project, but it was far more simple than the steps that they had already taken. Compared to the more than half a century that the initial tree took to design, this addition required a scant three years.
The new plant that they created was a black and gold vine, one that hung from the tree’s branches. If any entity approached the tree without being marked by a system contained in one of the tree’s worlds, the vine would lash out, sending waves of powerful attacks through the void. These attacks were naturally powered by the energy that the tree itself absorbed, granting it a powerful deterrent force.
Finally, after one last round of testing with this new vine, the World Tree was officially ready to incorporate the various worlds. Or… at least, most of them. There was sadly no way for it to fully encapsulate Fyor, given Fyor’s immense size. The best that it could do was attach a branch to the side of Fyor’s surface as a means of transportation.
When Dana was finally freed from ‘babysitting’ Desbar, she let out a sigh of relief, returning to Olympus. In truth, she was starting to reach the limit of what she could provide as an Origin, which caused her to do a bit of self-inspection.
From what Dana observed, her own internal world was no bigger than that of Desbar. And this was after it had absorbed the inner world of the Master of Shadows in the previous invasion. If that’s the case, most Origin universes are probably only size one or two worlds, right? Or at least, the ones that we have been making so far.
If she was right, that would certainly explain the upper limit of energy that she could exert when she first became an Origin, which was clearly far inferior to the total energy that could be produced by a universe like Desbar.
