World Keeper

Chapter 931: Lab Grown, Stomach Approved

It only took a few minutes for Aznod to send the materials back to Chel’s lab, each of the ten ginseng roots neatly packaged and labeled according to their growth and analyzed property. For the most part, Chelsea wasn’t too concerned about these changes. She had only delved into this case because it looked interesting in the first place, and she felt that it may have something to do with the void.

As it turned out, she was right, but not in the way she expected. There was no great void beast targeting them, no powerful memetic virus spreading through the city. Well, not yet at least.

Chel’s eyes focused on the last two ginseng, those from the ninth and tenth cycles. Just from the information that Aznod provided, Chel could theorize what was happening. Pieces began to fall into place to reveal a potentially horrifying image.

Dimensium was a material that allowed one to temporarily alter dimensional properties such as distance, depth, or even create individual spaces. While dimensium itself did not have a powerful connection to the void, it could be used to form one under the proper circumstances. Such things were already widely used for cross-world teleport gates.

The ninth level touches the void, creating a very slight memetic effect. The effect should be something along the lines of ‘after this material is done being digested, the consumer will die’. I’d need to experiment with some low-grade life-forms, but it might be possible to counteract the effect by eating more until the antimeme can be used.

The tenth level, though… it directly harvests the energy of the void to create a minor space within this dimension. The space is chaotic, so it can’t be used to reliably store anything in its raw form. However, it wouldn’t be hard to refine it further to create an efficient storage device.

The problem is that this space doesn’t come from our own world, but from the void. If the space was harvested from our own universe, it would be perfectly safe. Although the universe would shrink slightly, the effect over a million years would be as negligible as removing a single grain of sand from a beach.

If it comes from the void, though… it will likely be harvesting from just outside our dimensional territory in the void. If any void beast is close enough, it might get sucked in.

After thinking that far, Chel’s brows furrowed. A single growth cycle takes two years to shrink, and eight to grow. That’s eight years where microscopic portals will be opened in the void… sixteen if the ninth layer is included.

Chel quickly ran several simulations in her mind. It’s safe to say that our shield is working right now, keeping the void monsters far enough from the barrier that they can’t make it through these tiny gaps. However, once that is no longer the case, it could be disastrous.

“If we want to harvest an item like this, we can only do so in a safe location, completely shielded from void interference while also being bathed in the background energy of dimensium.” She muttered to herself, drawing James over when he heard her voice.

“What are you working on?” He asked in confusion, unused to seeing Chel working with plants as she was.

Chel merely gave a bitter smile. “There’s been a mutation in a certain root species that has led to it being able to harvest the void and open up an interior space.”

“Naturally grown storage items?” James asked in shock, looking at the ginseng. His energy pierced through the ten fruits, easily able to determine their attributes. When his eyes came to rest on the final fruit, he pursed his lips.

“Is something wrong?” Chel asked, tilting her head at his expression. Then, under her shocked gaze, James grabbed that tenth ginseng and brought it to his mouth, swallowing it whole. “What are you doing?!” Chel jumped up in fright at his action, but James held up a hand to silence her, focusing for the moment.

Chel bit her lip, staring intently at James as she watched him, worried that something might happen. James was still not considered a part of Dale’s assets yet, because his floor had yet to be reached in Fyor. If something happened to him, the only way to bring him back would be to beg the Keeper to create a companion version of him, similar to her own state.

However, why would she want James to have to start over from scratch? He was already one of the most powerful people in the world. As those thoughts crossed her mind, James revealed a satisfied smile. “Just as I expected.”

“James…” Chel spoke in a dangerous tone, reaching for a large wrench that she hadn’t needed to use for quite some time. “It would be in your best interest to explain quickly, or there might be a sudden lab accident.”

James blinked, looking over at Chel. Seeing her dark expression, he jumped in fright, quickly shaking his head. “It’s just, the space was formed, right? But it was formed in a complete, unrefined state, in a food item!”

“And you just grabbed that food item, and shoved it into your mouth.” Chel nodded her head, lifting the wrench. “You know that people who ate the ninth stage of this fruit all died, correct?”

“W-Well… I didn’t know that at the time?” James gave a bitter laugh, able to understand why she was so upset. He had seen the lingering traces of a memetic effect in the ninth fruit. However, for the simple reason that he recognized the existence of a memetic effect, he refused to investigate it in detail. “I thought it’d just be an effect like ‘wow, this tastes good’.”

“No. No it is not. Now explain. What was it you ‘expected’?” Chel asked, maintaining that same, firm glare.

“W-Well, the space was refined as a food, right? But it was in an incomplete state. I thought that eating it and digesting it would allow me to complete the space, and I was right!” He said in a proud tone, before abruptly ducking his head as a wrench flew through the air.

“You randomly picked up and ate an herb containing an internal space, because you believed that it might complete the space inside of your body?! What would you have done if the space escaped the ingredient, or if it had a hazardous void effect?!”

Nobody knew how dangerous the void was better than the two of them, so she found it hard to believe that James was willing to take such a huge risk over an experiment. James had a somewhat guilty look on his face at that, pointing over to the distance. “That’s why I only used my avatar to perform the test. My main body is still over there, working on the void entanglement system.”

Chel blinked, looking over and seeing a timid looking James waving back at her. She couldn’t help but let out a low groan, rubbing her face with her hand. “Okay… now, go over the details of what happened.”

Seeing that she had calmed down, James gave a nod of his head. “Well, like I said, I had this idea-”

“Skip to the bits you haven’t told me.” She said with a twitch in her brow.

James paused for a moment, before nodding his head again. “I used the energy makeup of this body to simulate the digestive process at high speeds. As the ginseng was broken down in my body, I felt the energy within it flowing. By the time it was done, I could sense a connection with a stabilized space within my chest, roughly five cubic meters.”

“Five? That means that there’s a fifty percent loss in the stabilization process.” Chel furrowed his brow, recalling how large Aznod had said that the internal space was before. “Is the space showing any signs of collapse after digestion? Do you have to maintain the energy?”

“Not at all.” James shook his head. “It feels like the space has been anchored to my body. Ah, if this avatar is dismissed, the space will likely crumble. Or, maybe it will eject everything inside? Experiment for later. Either way, it’s not connected to my main body. I might be able to transfer it by fusing the avatar back into me directly, though.”

Chel gave an idle nod, going over this information. So, the final step of the process is consumption, and then it fully refines the internal space. Is the space random per ginseng, or is five cubic meters the limit? Or does it have the ability to expand as you consume more?

She shook her head as those thoughts came to her mind. “For now, the problem is the microgates that appear in the void whenever these are growing. They may not be a problem for the moment, but they could easily turn into a disaster in the future.”

James put on a serious expression, nodding his head. “We could set up a specialized cultivation plot that supplies the void energy requirements directly. But for the ones cultivated in normal farms…” After saying that, he began to fall into thought.

“If we genetically modify this offshoot of the root, we could perhaps isolate the relevant gene. With enough effort, I could change the target of the spatial consumption to be from the local universe.”

“Maybe.” Chel muttered. “I don’t think you can get that same, unrefined space if you don’t harvest from the void directly.”

“For now, our shields should hold…” James nodded in agreement. “Would it work to just keep our shields upgrading? I know it’s not a perfect solution, but I doubt that we can just outright ban this new root, especially now that we know its effects.”

After a few moments, James looked at the herbs again. “The alternative would just be making these ginseng a restricted produce, only growable if one had a proper license stating that they knew how to responsibly manipulate void energy.”

Chel gave a bitter smile at that suggestion. “So, either we ban the root altogether, race to constantly reinforce our shields, or make void manipulation a commonly available technique? Well, fallen gods are starting to appear more and more, so there shouldn’t be anything wrong with opening the void up to the public just a bit more.”

James nodded his head, letting out a long sigh. “If you want to start drafting up an education plan for the license, I’ll let Udona know about the situation. I’m sure she’ll be interested in hearing about it.”

Chel nodded her head, already thinking about the training plan. “Sadly, the ginseng can’t be made a common household item with this restriction. With the needed license, its price will likely increase to rival other storage items.”

“That’s true.” James agreed. “On the other hand, this is a storage item that can’t be stolen. People with the proper detection skills can still search them, but the storage space itself is a part of the consumer’s body. I think there will be a fair few people that choose to take that trade.”

“Also, I’ll suggest she temporarily put a ban on growing this new ginseng, at least until the license plan is in place and we finish the necessary tests. Don’t want any unfortunate deaths from that ninth layer.” He said with a faint chuckle.

Chel nodded with a serious look in her eyes. They still had to determine the result of eating multiple of the same root, and if there were an upper limit. Now that James had consumed the first one with his avatar, it would be the most cost-effective to allow the avatar to continue the tests. “If you sense any kind of memetic influence from the tests, you have to immediately destroy your clone. Understood?” She asked, narrowing her eyes at James.

Seeing her look, James could only quickly nod his head. “Of course. I don’t have a death wish or anything like that. I won’t do something if I’m not confident.”