World Keeper

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?”

Mara gulped, nodding her head. “I… I lied to you. I’m not from this world… I am one of the invaders. I’m sorry, I should have been honest when we first met…” She lowered her head in shame, though Julia simply shook her head again.

“That? I already figured it out a while ago.” Julia said, simply taking another drink from her glass.

“Wait, what?” Mara blinked, looking up at Julia, who gave a quick nod.

“Yeah, I thought that it was weird at first. A god at your level, one that I had never heard of, and had never been to Sanctum? Okay, there was a small chance of that happening. But one that didn’t know who I was?” Julia gave a wry grin. “I don’t know how to say this, but I’m a bit famous in the divine community.”

Mara couldn’t help but blink at that. The information that they had received about Sanctum came from Kione, and was primarily from the minds of mortals. She knew that the gods had largely left the world long ago to seek out their own planets to control, so there was little intelligence that they could gather from them. Thanks to this, Mara was only aware of the gods who were popular even among mortals. “You.. knew?”

“Like I said, not at first.” Julia shook her head to deny the comment. “I just got to thinking about it after you left. Aurivy said that there was going to be another invasion happening. With you being a triple deity, having that much power in you, not knowing who I was, and having never been to Sanctum? I figured that there was little doubt you were one of the invaders.”

“But you… you invited me into your home.” Mara said, her voice cracking. “You’re still treating me so well.”

“Of course. We’re friends, aren’t we?” Julia asked with a warm smile. “So what if you came here with the invasion? You came here to apologize for lying to me, not to attack me. Isn’t that right?”

Mara quickly nodded her head. “O-Of course!” Seeing her reaction, Julia couldn’t help but let out a warm laugh.

“See? I know you’re not the kind of person to attack others out of nowhere.” Julia spoke in a comforting tone. “The fact that you came here really means a lot. Aurivy hasn’t returned yet, so the invasion should still be ongoing. Is it safe for you to be away from your group like this?”

Mara blinked, her cheeks going a bit rosy as she dipped her head again. “The invasion is over…” She admitted softly. “Everyone else is already dead.”

Julia paused at that, her eyes on Mara. There were a few things that she could infer from that statement. If the ‘everyone’ that she mentioned referred to the mortal incarnations and the Keeper, Aurivy would have descended with her true body in a panic to pull Julia somewhere safe. She had a certain understanding of how these invasions worked after all this time. Thus, the side that won was naturally the Keeper, and Mara had decided to switch teams.

But for Aurivy to not return to celebrate the victory… “Did something happen to Aurivy?” Julia asked, and Mara felt a chill in her words. Julia knew Aurivy better than anyone, even among the Greater Pantheon. If Aurivy’s incarnation died, or was seriously injured, Aurivy would find a way to buy time until she could either create a new incarnation or let her previous one heal. She wouldn’t want to cause Julia to worry by seeing her injured or defeated.

Mara looked up, and saw a faint coldness in Julia’s face as she looked off into the distance. It was obvious that the hostility wasn’t directed at her, but rather at anyone who would have harmed Aurivy. Still, Mara shook her head quickly to dismiss the misunderstanding. “N-No, there weren’t any casualties on this side! I-I think that they’re all training. I told them how we control divine energy in my world, and everyone seemed really eager to try it out.”

Julia blinked, letting the tension flow out of her body when she heard that. “Is that so? Would you mind telling me, as well?” She asked with that same smile, turning her attention back to Mara. Mara hesitated briefly, before nodding her head. Julia only had a single domain, so she was far more suited to creating her divine circuits than the others.

“Of course…” Mara nodded, going through the lecture once again. She was glad that her first friend in this world had accepted her, even knowing her origins.

My brows furrowed as I focused on filtering my divinity. Like Mara had said, creating the node itself wasn’t really difficult. The problem was that whenever I created one, I would always find traces of my other domains tucked away inside. In order to prevent that, I would need to manually filter every strand of divinity that I possessed, separating all three of my domains at once. The idea of creating my nodes one at a time was flawed by its nature.

As I was thinking that, a message flashed in the corner of my vision, the world around me shaking with a flurry of confetti. My eyes went wide, quickly checking the message.

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.