World Keeper: Birth of a World

by Justin Miller

  I sighed, turning around and moving out. Since he already recognizes me as a strong being, I might as well capitalize on that. Channeling some ki into my feet, I shot away from the city with an explosive burst of speed. In under five minutes, the city was just a blurred speck on the horizon. By that time, I knew that I could do whatever I wanted at this distance without being disturbed, so long as the actual hunting party never stumbled upon me.

  Now… I guess I should grab the enchantment class while I have a free moment? I nodded at that plan, and then looked up to the sky. “Oh great Goddess of Fate and Stories. Mind sending me one of my swords down here real quick?”

  I stood there, waiting, wondering if Terra had heard my ‘prayer’. Just as I was about to call out to her again, I saw something in the sky, a reflective glint as light bounced off of what appeared to be… one of my swords. It was falling straight towards the ground, just a short distance in front of me. “Oh please don’t break…” This time, I earnestly prayed, because each of those swords had been forged with blood, sweat, and an ample supply of tears.

  Thankfully, the sword seemed to abruptly stop just above the ground, hovering there for a few moments as I watched. Then, it simply fell down to the side. Heaving a sigh of relief, I walked over to pick it up, and began using the sword to draw out the enchantment diagram on the ground. For this enchantment, I decided to fill in the eight circles with alternating Strength and Heal spells.

  Once again, I poured a full three hundred mana into the enchantment. I was hoping that this would create a regenerative effect, along with the strengthening. As such, once it was done, I examined the weapon.

  Healing Sword of Strength

  Sharpness: 7(+4)

  Weight: 1kg

  Durability: 97/97(+58/58)

  Special: Strength +12, Heal 10 to target on hit

  ...Fuck! I had made a healing sword alright, but it healed whoever was cut with it, instead of me!

  Enchanter class unlocked!

  Basic Enchantment recipe unlocked!

  I grumbled, and stomped out the few circles that had the healing diagram in them. “Terra…. Mind sending down the rest, too?” I had hoped to just make one good sword to hunt with, but now I needed to get Enchanter a couple levels, and hope that there was a disenchant ability I could learn. Otherwise, this would be a thoroughly useless sword.

  Just like before, I had to wait a little bit before the rest of the swords and daggers came down, but they all appeared around me. Thus, the enchanting process began anew. I made one sword that was given a normal enchant, and one that had a full strength enchant. Each time, I leveled up my Enchanter class, until it hit level 5.

  Strength Enchantment recipe unlocked!

  I wanted to go back in time and smack myself in the head right about then, because I was getting enchantment recipes I already knew. Think… did I put in a disenchant ability..? I am pretty sure I saw the option… what level was that…

  Thankfully, my mana was refilled every time I leveled up, so I still had a lot to spare. However, after that point, I went and enchanted all of my remaining weapons, only getting one level before I was done. Either I needed to do new things, or the Enchanter class was always meant to be a grind fest.

  Anyways, once I was done, I picked up two of the weapons I had enchanted. One was a dagger with a full general enchant, and the other was a sword with a fully strength enchant. With it like this, the dagger actually had a higher damage output than the sword, but I still held it in my off hand. It would feel too unbalanced if I held the lighter weapon in my right hand, after all.

  Now, it was time to hunt!

  * * *

  “What’s the matter, Jorm?” One guard called to another after seeing him cautiously backing away from a strange, unarmed man. He had never seen that kind of behavior from the other guard before.

  “I… don’t know. I just felt like I shouldn’t make things difficult for him.” Although he said that, the guard had a cold sweat covering his body. Moments ago, he felt as if one wrong move might result in him being crushed.

  “Think he’s one of the ‘nobles’ of the Bihendor clan?” The current queen of Thuul had discovered that she had the ability to confer the Noble class onto people. Doing so would give them a measure of influence over the people they were assigned to govern. It was rumored that some nobles had an intimidating presence, able to get what they wanted of people with ease.

  “It didn’t feel like that… I don’t know.” The man shook his head, returning to his guard duty.

  It was about fifteen minutes later when a commotion arose. Suddenly, the druids that had been assigned to constructing a stone wall around the city stopped their work, their heads turning to the east. As casters that are naturally more sensitive to the energies around them, they could easily feel a giant surge of power from that direction, stronger than anything they had felt before.

  Even some of the guards and artisans turned their heads to look in that direction, though they could not feel as clearly what was happening. All they felt was that some strange pressure seemed to be coming from that direction. The guard who had spoken to Dale when he left paled, remembering that the stranger had run in that direction. But, the feeling was from too far away, so it couldn’t have been him. Instead, it was more likely that the stranger he had met was running directly towards the source of that energy.

  However, a moment later, an elderly woman burst out of the queen’s hut, looking to the east. She felt the pressure as well, and it reminded her all too well of the feeling she felt in the presence of the goddess. A warm feeling rose in her heart, as if this was a sign.

  “Soldiers!” Clarissa yelled, gathering the attention of the various men that had been running through the dirt streets to train. “Gather the men, anyone you can, and head for the rising sun! Our goddess has descended again!”

  The soldiers raised their fists to the sky, shouting an affirmative. Every able soldier, as well as the two druids who could more clearly sense the energy, immediately began traveling east. Although the energy only lasted half an hour before it faded, they still moved.

  Almost two hours into their journey, Jorm saw the man he had seen running in this direction. He was returning to the town, carrying a full boar over his shoulder. Jorm called out to him from his position near the front of the expedition force. “You there!”

  The man looked side to side, before realizing that Jorm was talking to him. “Yes?”

  “Did you see anything in this direction?”

  The man shook his head. “I don’t believe so. I was just on my way back from hunting. Why, did something happen?”

  “Drop the boar and join the group. All forces are required to march! The Goddess has descended!” Jorm wasn’t sure why, but the man’s face had a momentary look of panic, before he nodded and joined the group. Another boar could be hunted later, but they were moving on the orders of the queen!

  They walked until the sun was setting at their backs, before the druids told them they had arrived at their destination. There were no traces of the goddess, but they could still feel that overwhelming energy in the air. The two druids knew, without a doubt, that this was the spot that they had sensed the energy from.

  Some of the guards searched the ground around them, before finally finding something. “Over here! The dirt seems to have been disturbed!” One of the guards called the others over. They found a large patch of dirt which seemed to have been overturned recently. Expecting that something may have been buried, they ordered the men to dig.

  And so, the men dug. Without rest, throughout the night, they scraped at the ground with their stone tools. When their tools broke, they scooped the ground up with their hands. It wasn’t until the sun rose in the morning when they were allowed to stop. By that time, the hole they had dug was deeper than a grown man was tall, but they had yet to find any trace of anything the Goddess may have left behind.

  After letting the men who had been digging rest for an hour, they
began their walk home. This took another eight hours, but when they arrived they reported that there had been nothing unusual, aside from some upturned soil. Clarissa, who had been eagerly awaiting their arrival, nodded to herself.

  “I see, I see… this must be a sign from Bihena… she wishes for us to take notice of that area. We will construct a new city at that location, men! It is a place blessed by the Goddess of Battle and Peace, and we shall treat it as such!”

  Nobody noticed the statue of the very goddess they spoke of in the temple changing slightly, one eyelid starting to twitch in annoyance. Nor did anyone notice a single man among the group lumbering out and into an alley, where he promptly vanished.

  Chapter 44

  “Owww….” I complained, collapsing on the bed as soon as I got back into the Admin Room. “Never… again.” I didn’t have any tools with me while I was down in the world, so I ended up having to dig with my hands the entire time. Even worse, I had to do it with my normal body stats, not even able to tap into my Keeper abilities due to all the witnesses.

  On the bright side, I did have some gains during my hunt. I managed to get a couple more levels in the Ninja class while fighting some large boars. And, after killing them, I absorbed and refined their spirits. I was tempted to also refine the boar spirit I had contracted with, but I wanted to wait to do that until I found something suitable to replace it.

  Since I was lost in thought, I didn’t even notice Terra sitting next to me with a wide grin on her face until she spoke. “Aww, there there, Dale. Are you ready for fun kitty time~?” She teased, bending down to give me a seductive show of her cleavage.

  As much as that sounded nice… “Too sore… can’t fun. Words. Oww.”

  When I said that, she tilted her head back and laughed uproariously, holding her stomach with one hand. “Really, Dale. You do have to be more careful at times. I mean, yes you went several hours away from the city before you did your work, and I applaud the foresight that took. But, was it enough?” She asked me with a grin.

  “No… How… found out?” Words were not currently my strong suit, as I was physically and mentally fatigued. I needed a nap, desperately. Like, for a century.

  “Dale, you have mana that is roughly fifty times that of the next most powerful being, and you were using that energy constantly while enchanting. At that distance, anyone would be able to feel the presence of your power, thanks to your auras. Once the world gets stronger, you can mitigate that, but what did you learn today?”

  “You’re… mean. Knew?”

  It took Terra a moment to decipher my half-speech. When she did, her grin grew a bit wider. “I knew that you’d probably want to do your enchanting, now that you found out that the class was available to you, yes. But, I figured you would have gone far enough away that only the druids would have had any idea of what was going on. Instead, you stayed just close enough that even normal people with just a little sensitivity could feel it. Congratulations, you just inspired a Holy City for Bihena.”

  “Not cool…” I closed my eyes, grabbing one corner of the blanket and wrapping it around myself. I could vaguely hear Bihena burst into the room a short while later, before her and Terra spoke to each other, and they then left. Finally, sleep.

  I wasn’t sure how long I slept, but when I woke up I was feeling refreshed. All the soreness from the activities down on the world had faded, and I felt like I could actually form a coherent thought. Sitting up, I stretched, yawning as I let out the last bit of tiredness that I felt. When I was about to get up, I saw the human goddess sitting in my computer chair, watching me. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and she did not look entirely happy.

  “Uhm… how long were you sitting there?” I asked, cautiously.

  “Too long.” She immediately replied. “I didn’t want to take the chance that you’d run away the moment you woke up.”

  “Ah…” I couldn’t help but gulp slightly. “Can I help you with something?”

  “Yes, you can.” She showed a wicked smile on her face. “The next time you go down, you’re going to do a quest for me. And then one for Aurivy, and Irena, and Tryval. We had a talk about this, and this is the only way to curb your bad habit of rewriting history accidentally.”

  I must have shown my confusion on my face, because she took a deep breath and explained. “If you do quests for us, we can be added to your patrons for your Priest class. Terra’s idea. Anyways, there are limits to how much we can talk to you if you aren’t our Priest. If you become our Priest, we can warn you whenever you are about to do something colossally stupid. Like, say, announcing your presence to a major city, and having them establish a holy site?”

  Ouch… true, but ouch. “Okay, okay, I get your point. I suppose I’ll have to do this for all the new gods, too?” When I asked that, Bihena nodded her head. “Okay, well, can you go tell the others that I was planning on giving the elf goddess her personality now?”

  Giving Ryone a personality has two big benefits, thanks to her domain. With her Magic domain, she can start researching new kinds of spells more easily than I can. With her Wealth domain, she can help me manage my points, so that I don’t spend more than I need to. At least, that’s what I’m hoping for.

  Bihena grumbles under her breath before standing up. “This time. But, I’m not a messenger, so don’t get used to it.” Saying that, she turned and walked out of the room. While she was letting the others know, I focused my mind. Reaching out, I changed the Admin Room just slightly, moving Ryone from her position in the ‘god storage locker’ to my room.

  Appearing before me was the elven goddess, her lithe body covered with a green dress that went down to her knees. Her golden eyes looked lifeless, staring at the wall. Her ruby-colored hair swept down half of her back, pointed ears just visible on either side of her head.

  While I was waiting for the others to show up, I went ahead and decided to skip ahead ten more years in the world.

  * * *

  After traveling for over a year, the beastkin finally reached the center of the Great Forest, the position labeled on the quest scroll. Now, there was only one step left before they were done, and that was to construct permanent houses. Due to the dangers of the travel, they had lost five people before finally arriving, bringing their total members down just below fifty. Thankfully, they still met the requirements of twenty ninjas to complete the quest.

  Constructing houses did not take too long. One man, a felyn who had joined just after they left, was a Priest to the Goddess of Fate. Through his prayer, they were given the knowledge of how to make a home for themselves. These homes came in two types. For the Ninjas, they were given designs to build their houses among the tallest of trees, using the thickest branches for support. For everyone else, they had homes along the bases of those trees.

  This was not an attempt to discriminate against those who did not hold the aptitude to become a ninja. Rather, it was simply because it was dangerous for them to live so high without that class. At the same time, having houses up in the trees made it possible for their residents to have a safe place to retreat to if a monster attacked.

  This was clearly explained to the Priest, who in turn explained it to everyone else. While the main focus of their fighting force consisted of their Ninjas, they could not oppress those unable to use chakra. It was said that one day, the limit of power would rise again, and those who had trained to their fullest would be able to break their previous limits. Those who had been unable to train as a ninja would likewise become able to do so.

  Like this, the group spent weeks getting their homes made. The Priest of Terra promised them that, after the quest was over, there would be more people joining them. Lost souls in need of their own homes. Although many in the group were skeptical, they had no reason to doubt the man’s words. Even after they had finished all of the houses on the ground, they continued making more, all in good faith that they would indeed gain new members.

  Over a month later, they had finally c
ompleted their quest. Along the trees and ground, dozens of homes had been built. At this time, a gentle voice spoke within the wind, heard by all in the village. “Thank you, my children. You have done a great deed, and will be rewarded.”

  The leather scroll, which had always been held in the hands of their leader, suddenly changed. Spiderweb cracks of light formed along its rough surface, and it exploded in a blast of energy. This energy then poured out in streams, which targeted each and every Ninja among the group. Aside from those who had long since hit the limit of power, all Ninjas received an immediate five levels.

  * * *

  It took a few minutes, but eventually Terra and Aurivy came back to the room. From the others, including Bihena, I received messages saying that they weren’t really interested in watching this event, and that they’d meet Ryone later. Only Aurivy seemed truly excited, because it meant that she’d get another big sister to play with.