Chapter 127. The Wild Demon King Fled!
While watching Catherina's team approach the demon king, Cedric suddenly remembered the Automatic Armor's description and had a realization, "Wait, what does 'defend against any Level 4 attack' actually mean? What level of defense is necessary to prevent the demon king's flesh and blood from touching Catherina and the others?"
The description indicated it could handle Level 4 attacks, but Cedric felt the infection wasn't really an active attack by the demon king.
[Because the NE in the demon king's remnant flesh and blood only becomes active upon contact with other creatures' flesh. Until then, it's considered normal flesh and blood. Therefore, based on its velocity, different levels of defense may be needed.
"Doesn't that mean the Level 1 Automatic Armor would work if it's just meant to protect others from the flesh and blood falling from the demon king when it gets injured?"
[...]
"Stop sending ellipses, and answer me."
[Damn it, he has gotten smarter]
That screen flashed for an instant before another screen appeared.
[Yes.]
Cedric immediately purchased forty Level 1 'Automatic Barrier (Technological)' and sent them to Catherina's team with an explanation of their function.
He might not even need that many, as the main reason the demon king's flesh and blood caused significant casualties among Catherina's team is that they were unaware of how dangerous the demon king's blood and flesh are. Once they understand, they'll likely raise their defenses or avoid the demon king's body parts flying through the air. However, it's better to be safe than sorry. Level 3 blessings are important combat assets in his current world.
Focusing back on the Crystal Cube world, Cedric saw that Catherina's team had shared the Automatic Barrier he provided and was now confronting the demon king.
Because of the demon king's extremely fast rolling speed and the delay caused by handling their zombified teammates, by the time Catherina's team arrives, the demon king has already destroyed a quarter of the remaining area.
When they arrive, the city, which should be filled with buildings, has already been flattened. As the wind carries the dust and debris it releases, the demon king continues rolling through the buildings, demolishing them and effectively killing all creatures inside.
Although most of the corpses it killed merged with its body to increase its mass, the few that hadn't merged began to develop tumors that exploded and killed them, before being reanimated as wandering zombies in the post-apocalyptic landscape.
Since they came from civilians, these zombies are much weaker than those created from a Level 3 blessed's body. Still, their large numbers caused Catherina's team to tremble.
After eliminating a few zombified civilians, they finally regrouped before the demon king. The team leader promptly issued a command: "All of you, use earth magic to bury at least half of the demon king's body!"
While they hurried to the demon king's location, they had discussed their battle plan and sent a request for reinforcements to the armies around Grey Coal City. Now, they just needed to execute their strategy while awaiting backup.
After tens of Level 3 blessed used their powers or earth magic to create a large sinkhole beneath the demon king, it immediately fell into the ground, with only about one-third of its body still visible.
The demon king wriggled like an amoeba, shooting wind and water jets as it tried to climb out, but the earth element blessed kept their focus on it, altering the terrain to keep the demon king buried as long as possible.
With the demon king pinned in place, the other blessed cast their blessed power from a long range. Except for the healers, even those with Divine Strength either used processed materials to cast magics and attack from a distance or throw building debris toward the demon king.
After five minutes of bombardment, the demon king escaped from the hole.
But under the dwarf's lead, the team once again successfully buried it after combining all their power.
Nevertheless, the good news is short-lived. Ten minutes after the battle started, one of the Level 3 earth element blessed shouted, "I am running out of mana!"
A few seconds later, other blessed also declared they were running low on mana.
The demon king seized this opportunity to unleash a sudden burst of wind and water jets, which immediately propelled it out of the sinkhole created by everyone.
At this critical moment, Catherina finally spoke with a heroic tone, "Everyone, go and restore your mana. I will hold him off until reinforcements arrive. Go as far as possible and seek shelter in any remaining building. My fight with the demon king will likely get messy."
Before heading into a one-on-one duel with the demon king, Cedric sent her a message.
[As a Level 4 individual, your resistance to infection from the demon king is very high. However, you're not completely immune, so I will alert you if you're at risk of infection. When that happens, I want you to quickly retreat from the demon king.]
"Alright, thank you."
[No. Thank you. Afterall you're betting your life for my world.]
After a brief exchange, Catherina quickly activated one charge from her Level 4 Wind Lance, releasing a massive transparent wind spear that shattered into multiple smaller wind blades after penetrating the demon king.
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These blades inflicted further damage, causing the demon king to wail and attempt to escape. However, before it could retreat, Catherina used her last charge in the Level 4 Earth Lance to conjure several spikes from the ground, trapping the demon king.
With the earth spikes piercing and immobilizing it, the demon king couldn't escape. So, it tried to reshape itself to flee while summoning wind blades and water jets to break through the reinforced earth spikes Catherina had created.
Watching the demon king struggle, Catherina doesn't stop. She finally activates the effect of 'Welcome To The Land Of Giants,' returning to her original size.
She then enters the melee, holding the Level 4 Wind Blade with one charge remaining in her tail. While trying to hold back her disgust, Catherina continues to punch and slash the demon king with her claws. In response, the demon king wailed, attacking with wind blades and water jets directed at Catherina.
Freed from the constraints of the underground tunnels, Catherina reveals her true strength as a Level 4 blessed with Divine Strength.
By flapping her wing, she generated a strong wind that instantly propelled her massive body to the sky.
Except for some injuries on her scales from the demon king's wind blades, Catherina has successfully evaded most of the demon king's attacks and counterattacked by once again beating the demon king.
Catherina and the demon king continuously exchanged blows until the demon king finally freed itself from the earth spikes that pinned it.
When the demon king finally broke free from the earth spikes she created, Catherina activated the Level 4 Wind Lance and launched another wind projectile at her. The demon king attempted to dodge by releasing water jets at the wind lance, but Catherina's Level 4 Wind Lance was just too swift.
The water jets nearly destabilized the enormous wind lance, but it still reached the demon king, triggering an explosion upon impact.
As Catherina watched the rain of blood and flesh from the demon king's dismembered body parts, she dodged and shouted at the sky, "Hey, can you give me something to pin it in place? I've run out of weapons."
Hearing her shout, Cedric, who is watching from the Divine Space, felt she was calling to him. So, he bought another Level 4 Earth Lance and an additional Level 4 Wind Lance, then sent them to Catherina.
This time, the System issued a warning.
[Please stop affecting the world. Your world's stability has greatly decreased and will soon reach a critical point, causing disasters to fill the world.]
"Can it still handle the two Level 4 Lances I am sending to Catherina?"
[Yes. But you shouldn't send anything worth more than 100 GP, as it will reach the critical point.]
"Alright." Cedric responded to the System while sending a message to Catherina.
[That's the last support I can give you, unless you want disasters to befall the world.]
With the newly sent Wind and Earth Lance, Catherina continued her one-on-one fight against the demon king.
After consuming two of the Earth and Wind Lances, reinforcements arrived. They consisted of several thousand dwarves and elves, all at least Level 1.
Fortunately, the demon king fled toward the city's outskirts, near the main road where most people were evacuating. Although some buildings had to be flattened, the reinforcements arrived in time.
The Level 3 blessed, who had been hiding to recover their mana, also came out to explain the situation to the armies.
After understanding the situation, the commander of the elven and dwarven army immediately started grinding the demon king's health.
The thousands of Level 1 and 2 blessed formed three groups, taking turns to create sinkholes to trap the demon king before attacking it.
They also have specialized teams dedicated to building defenses to prevent scattered body parts from infecting the army. Although a few unfortunate souls still got affected, everyone nearby quickly put the zombified individuals to their final rest.
After half a day of relentless bombardment, the demon king's strength was reduced to only 20% of its initial NE, and its body shrank to a small fleshball about one meter tall. This demonstrates just how resilient the demon king's health is.
Half an hour later, as everyone grew tired and distracted, the demon king suddenly unleashed all its power to escape. The fleshball, barely larger than a basketball, suddenly shot out a powerful jet of wind.
The strong wind that pushed it away, combined with its size and the dark sky, made it difficult for anyone to deal real damage.
Catherina even used her last charge of the Wind Lance to summon a huge blade of wind targeting the demon king, but it managed to dodge out of range after shrinking to volleyball size. This allowed the demon king to escape death and fly away at high speed, with Catherina keeping a watchful distance behind.
***
Inside the Divine Space, after Cedric saw the demon king escape and follow the refugee, he groaned in frustration, saying, "Damn it, I never planned to rely on this Plan B. But now, I guess I'll need to warn Elisa that the demon king is heading her way."
His Plan B involves using the refugee as bait to lure the demon king into Elisa's attack range.
"Sigh... I guess I've been losing more of my humanity," Cedric murmured.
After all, he's capable of reducing the mortality rate from the demon king's attack. He just needs to call Lacius for help. But Cedric chooses not to, feeling that asking Lacius for assistance with the elves' problems would only create more issues than dealing with the demon king's threat.
While sighing and contemplating his life choice, Cedric isn't idle.
Once Cedric confirmed that the demon king was indeed tracking the refugee fleeing from Grey Coal City to Elisa's city, he sent a message to Elisa.
[Prepare for combat. The demon king is following the refugee towards your location.]
After issuing this warning, Cedric also provided some details about the demon king's abilities before messaging Catherina, who was pursuing the demon king.
[Try to lead it to Elisa's city, and ensure it doesn't kill too many refugees, or it'll be strengthened.]
Most of the high-level blessed have gathered in the elves' and dwarves' armies to chip away at the demon king's NE 'health bar'. Consequently, the army protecting the refugees won't be able to confront the demon king even if it's weakened. This means Catherina is the only one who can effectively handle the demon king.
"It's easier said than done," Catherina muttered after reading Cedric's message.
"That tiny ball of shit is flying even faster than I am. Even if I manage to catch up when it attacks a fleeing refugee group, I wouldn't be able to save them in time."
[It's alright, you only need to keep chasing it, and the demon king will be too busy trying to escape from you to kill the refugee. This will make sure the demon king stay as weakened as possible.]
Catherina rolled her eyes. "I've been meaning to ask, but aren't you a pretty heartless god? From what you said, it seems you only care about the refugees so they won't strengthen the demon king."
[Once you see millions of people die as the years pass by, perhaps you'll slowly become like me. Well, if you can even live as long as I do, that is.]
There's also something Cedric didn't tell Catherina.
After living so long and being separated from other humans, Cedric kinda feels like the world is a sandbox game. That's also why he's pretty chill about whatever insane shit Lacius is doing, as long as it doesn't affect his world's overall situation too much.
After he thought so, Cedric sighed, "Perhaps I need to visit a therapist.'
Amidst the cat and mouse chase between Catherina and the demon king, both of them soon could see Elisa's city in the distance.
Right now, the demon king's size has already increased several times from killing some refugees and animals before absorbing their corpses into its own body.
The refugees it killed also released NE upon death, which slightly restored the demon king's NE 'health bar', allowing it to recover a few more times.
Meanwhile, in the city far away, Elisa is busy controlling plants to evacuate its inhabitants.
With her Level 4 blessed power and the fact that most city buildings are made of plants, her solo evacuation is progressing rapidly.
By the time Catherina and the demon king arrive at the city, Elisa has already evacuated most residents. To ensure everyone's safety, Elisa chose not to make them leave the city. Instead, with the help of many earth and nature element blessed individuals, she created an underground bunker filled with special plants capable of providing enough oxygen for all.
Still, it didn't mean she'd let the demon king wreak havoc in the empty city.
At her current level, a few hundred meters around Elisa's city were actually within her activity range.
Whenever there were seeds, branches, or even leaves, as long as they still had even the tiniest life force, Elisa could control them to move or make them grow at almost instantaneous speed.
The instant the demon king entered her activity range, Elisa launched her attack. She controlled a wave of vines, trees, and bushes to grow into a towering pillar of plants that restricted the flying demon king and pulled it to the ground.
Because most of the plants Elisa managed were normal plants without supernatural power, upon touching the demon king, they became infected and turned strange before falling under the demon king's NE, transforming into zombified plants she couldn't directly control.
Seeing these infected plants, Elisa quickly trimmed the affected ones and turned them into weapons for other plants to use in attacking the demon king. The infected plants acted as barriers; although some plants she controlled still got infected, the infection spread slowed significantly.
Sensing it was being restricted by the wave of plants Elisa controlled, the flesh ball released jets of water in all directions. It also infused the water jets with some of its body parts, which infected the plants Elisa controlled, limiting her ability and allowing it to regain its freedom.
With its newly regained freedom, the demon king didn't choose to escape this time. Instead, it moved closer to Elisa's location by releasing a jet of air and flying into the sky.
Once in the sky above Elisa's city, the demon king released its ability and shot jets of water, creating a rain imbued with some of its body parts.
The water contaminated with the demon king's body part touched the buildings made entirely of plants, infecting them and turning them into a zombified plant house.
As it kept flying toward Elisa, it released rain filled with pieces of its body to infect any plants.
The demon king began to show that perhaps sending it into Elisa's place might be a bad idea.
Still, Elisa is unwilling to become a sitting duck, or a sitting tree in this case.
She controlled plants to grow inside houses made of living trees that had been infected. Using the infected plant house as protection against the demon king's infection rain, Elisa controlled the plants to dismantle the buildings and used the dismantled infected buildings as cover while the non-infected plants continued to grow into a towering pillar that reached the sky.
Soon, hundreds of towering pillars made of plants waved like massive tendrils growing from the ground.
Those tendrils grabbed the infected plants and used them as their 'skin', thereby protecting the non-infected plants in the center of each tendril.
Once they took form, the hundreds of hundred-meter-tall plant pillars whipped the demon king who flew in the sky. Those far in the distance slowly crawled closer like a snake and joined the other plant pillar to whip at the demon king.
To escape being smacked like a volleyball in an insane match involving a hundred players, the demon king shot a stronger jet of wind to fly higher.
The plant pillars wanted to stop the demon king from fleeing by enveloping it. But the demon king madly shot wind blades and infected water to destroy the plants surrounding it.
With it, the demon king flew higher and higher until it flew directly above Catherina and shot a strong jet of wind upward to push itself down at high speed.
Just like a meteor, the ball of flesh shot down toward Elisa's position.
Elisa didn't have enough time to protect herself. So, she got directly hit by the demon king's flesh meteor attack.
The demon king instantly exploded from the sheer amount of impact, while Elisa became partially bald and lose considerable amount of her branches.
The injuries she hadn't felt in a long time shocked Elisa, making her pause. This short pause gave the demon king enough time to reconstruct its body and launch another attack.
The demon king, having regained most of its body, flew toward Elisa's main trunk and began firing wind blades.
Feeling the attack, Elisa responded in kind. With such a short distance, Elisa no longer needed to control plants to attack the demon king and could fight the demon king in melee.
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Elisa used her branches as whips and attacked the demon king that's busy attacking her. Every single branch's attack generated a strong wind sound that even shot some wind blades from the sheer pressure.
Perhaps the several hours of beating it endured have taught the demon king, because it seems its intelligence and movement have risen several levels.
Even after Elisa sent net-like whip attacks, the demon king could still occasionally evade by flying through the openings in Elisa's attacks.
Still, it also received several hits from Elisa, with each hit directly exploding its body into pieces.
After receiving several hits, the demon king suddenly propelled itself to the ground and began attacking Elisa's roots.
Feeling the damage in her root, Elisa's main trunk bent into a C shape, causing her tree crown to touch the ground. She then waved her branches near the damaged root and started whipping the demon king.
The buried demon king wanted to escape, but Elisa's endless beating made it unable to escape.
After enduring numerous attacks, the demon king was finally destroyed for good. However, Elisa is not uninjured from the battle. The demon king's meteor strike damaged her tree crown, and its final desperate attack destroyed part of her root system.
There are also some traces of infection on her body that have been in contact with the demon king's flesh.
***
A few seconds ago, outside the city, Catherina watched the battle scene in the middle of the city with her scaly mouth agape in shock, "Is this something a Level 4 could do? How did that old tree summon so many plant pillars? Why did I felt like a fake Level 4 here?"
Catherina wanted to join the battle, but by the time she arrived, Elisa had already thoroughly beaten the demon king, reducing it to scattered pieces of meat.
Catherina watched the aftermath of Elisa's battle against the demon king and asked, "Finally done?"
"Yeah. It's thoroughly dead now. I even saw my exp rising madly, and I'll soon advance in level." Elisa replied casually.
"Are you injured?" Catherina asked after seeing Elisa's damaged root and balding tree crown.
Elisa fell silent for a moment before replying, "Girl, you're a dragon with a pair of eyes. Can't you see for yourself whether I'm injured? Even I, a tree without eyes, can tell if others are injured."
Catherina fell silent at Elisa's sharp reply.
"Alright, leave for now. I still need to repair the damage from the demon king's attack and recall the people I evacuated underground. You should also take care of the zombies infected by the demon king outside."
Hearing Elisa's advice, Catherina left the city to kill the zombified creatures infected by the demon king.
Meanwhile, Elisa began to busy herself. First, she used her blessed power to tell everyone in the temporary underground bunker she had created that the disaster had passed.
Then, Elisa used her blessed power to dig a path between the bunker and the surface.
While the elves left the bunkers and slowly returned to the city, Elisa began destroying the plants infected by the demon king and repairing the buildings damaged in her battle.
Although the buildings she repaired might be missing a few doors or windows, or even be converted from an inn into a blacksmith, it would be for the building's owner to take care.
Once the city was repaired and the elves had mostly returned to their homes, Elisa began fixing the soil around her that the demon king had dug to attack her root.
Elisa used her blessed power to control the surrounding plants and place some soil to bury her exposed root, while gently patting the place where Ghiana was buried with her branch. "Phew, that demon king almost reached here. Luckily, I killed it in time."
***
Inside the Divine Space, Cedric also finally feels relieved that Elisa has successfully killed the demon king.
Honestly, he feels a bit concerned when the demon king's abilities seem to suppress Elisa.
The demon king's wind power gives it extremely high mobility, while the water and the ability to infect others who touch its body parts severely suppress Elisa's ability to control plants.
Cedric has a gut feeling that, if it weren't for the hours spent by several thousand blessed people grinding the demon king's power, it might have successfully killed or at least escaped from Elisa.
"Well, at least now it no longer exists," Cedric decided to forget about those negative what-if events and shifted his focus to other issues.
For instance, the chaos left behind by the demon king. Although the demon king has been killed, it didn't do so without leaving a huge mess.
Cedric realized that all the lands the demon king passed through had been infected with NE. These infected areas cause plants to grow in bizarre shapes. Some even gain mobility and attack nearby animals.
Cedric sent his mental power to observe the infected land and asked a question, "Is this infection something similar to the cursed land that the first demon king in my world, Gratian's clone, made?"
[It's a bit different, but essentially, yes.]
Cedric recalled how the previous cursed land had been purified with a general energy called virtuous energy. "Then, does it mean I need to gather good people to purify the land with the virtuous energy?"
[Yes. But unlike the cursed land before, this one will also spawn monsters and even infect the people purifying the land. So, it's recommended for the virtuous person purifying the land to at least be a blessed and also accompanied by some strong blessed.]
Cedric nodded. He sent a message to the dwarven council, the current elven queen, and Elisa.
[Congratulations on defeating the demon king. Although the demon king has been defeated, your fight hasn't ended. The land the demon king passed through has been infected with negative energy and now requires purification. Please send virtuous people or those who've done many good deeds and earned others' gratitude. They must be at least Level 0, with a few strong guards to accompany them as they travel through the infected land and purify it.]
Along with the message, Cedric also sent a map highlighting the route taken by the demon king. The map mainly covered Grey Coal City and some surrounding areas near Elisa's city.
While reviewing the area he had marked, Cedric noticed that the residents of Elisa's city had returned to their homes, which are located in several infected zones.
He initially wanted to warn Elisa to prevent her citizens from entering these infected areas. However, upon closer inspection, he observed that the infected zones within Elisa's city were gradually shrinking.
Cedric opened his Divine Sight and saw the cause.
In the city center, Elisa is enveloped by a massive amount of virtuous energy that flows through her roots and cleanses the surrounding land.
Cedric remembered a description of virtuous energy from a conversation with the System a while back. At that time, the System explained that virtuous energy either originates from people who have received a lot of others' gratefulness or from individuals who have consistently practiced virtue throughout their lives.
After hundreds of years, Cedric couldn't claim to fully understand Elisa. However, he can confidently say that Elisa does not qualify as virtuous. Which means, others' sense of gratitude is the primary source of Elisa's virtuous energy.
Cedric checked the city's residents and found them grateful for Elisa's protection. Their gratitude became fuel, and when they saw the twisted, distorted plants that had been affected by the demon king's infection slowly return to normal under the effect of Elisa's virtuous energy, they became even more grateful to Elisa, which gave her another surge of virtuous energy.
That lasted for a whole day until finally the area around Elisa's city was thoroughly clean.
Cedric looked at it with satisfaction. "This means only the Grey Coal City and the road between Grey Coal City and Elisa's City are left."
Gathering virtuous people and people who've done a lot of good deeds for others isn't easy.
The dwarves and elves only successfully recruited the first wave of participants after two whole days.
Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, the decisive dwarf team leader who once led Catherina's team and the Level 3 blessed from the dwarf and elf army against the demon king is actually one of the virtuous people involved.
A long time ago, the System told Cedric that virtuous energy can be generated by people who've received gratitude from many others and by those who've practiced virtue.
Those who received others' gratitude absorbed virtues condensed from it. Meanwhile, those who practiced virtue could generate virtuous energy from within themselves because they produced much less NE and much more GP than normal people. This caused the excess GP to begin leaking and automatically turned into virtuous energy even before their death.
The dwarf team leader is one of the few who has somehow practiced virtue and has begun releasing virtuous energy from their own soul. Not only that, he also managed an orphanage that gathered young dwarves whose parents either died in accidents, such as mine collapses or attacks by giant ants, or from stupidity, such as experiments that blew them up.
Thanks to those two sources of virtuous energy, the dwarf team leader is currently among the people with the most virtuous energy. His virtuous energy is second only to Elisa, who has just monopolized the gratitude of a whole city's residents after killing the demon king without any casualties among the city's residents.
Once the dwarf team leader and the others arrived at the infected area, they found the surrounding ecosystem had turned extremely weird. The plants were either twisting into freakish, distorted shapes or looked extremely beautiful and colorful.
The distorted, twisted plants were still all right. But they had all seen how the beautiful, colorful plants seemed to surround them as their number kept increasing, then screeched as the colorful flower petals on their branches opened, revealing rows of serrated teeth.
The sheer horrors caused some blessed to respond instinctively by burning or burying them.
Luckily, the plants only have a weird appearance, but actually have weak power. After being burned, buried, cut by wind blades, frozen, and even accidentally healed by some panicked healers, they finally escaped and stopped bothering the team.
With the dwarf team leader as the commander, they began the operation to thoroughly purify the land.
Along the way, more and more people were sent to help advance land purification. Even so, it took everyone several months for the Grey Coal City and the path between the city and Elisa's city to be purified.
Occasionally, some zombified animals that had escaped the purification process could be seen. But the elves and dwarves also sent several teams to kill them.
As a reward for his contribution to the battle against the demon king and the restoration of the city, the dwarf team leader was elected by the dwarf council as the representative of the Grey Coal City, but he declined and chose to retire in his village instead.
With the purification of the infected land and the death of the demon king, the Crystal Cube world finally entered a long, peaceful era.
Five years after the demon king's death, Lacius finally stopped the Temple from preparing for a fight against the demon king. After sending his order, Lacius didn't immediately petrify himself. Instead, he read Hars's notes, including whatever notes Hellion had failed to bring during his escape a long time ago.
Since Hellion successfully escaped, Lacius initially doesn't care too much about Helion's research, and just petrified himself to decrease his lifespan consumption. But since he saw Catherina, he mostly stay in unpetrified state in case there's an emergency.
To not waste his unpetrified state, Lacius decided to spend most of his time researching the method Hellion used to use the blessed power from other elements.
After so long, he finally succeeded.
In a wide hall he newly created in the underground, Lacius held a bottle of alchemical compound and imbued it with his mana.
The moment it activated, a storm-like wind blade appeared and ravaged the room.
Watching the carnage caused by the wind blades, the corner of Lacius's lip slightly tilted upwards, "Is this what Hellion calls magic? This thing is pretty useful."
Lacius thoughtfully looked at the shattered glass bottle in his hand, "I can feel it. Just like the alchemy I invented, this so called magic must've been the future trend. From the potential it currently shows, I believe it might surpass the power of alchemy in a few centuries."
After ruminating for a moment, Lacius decided on something.
Summoning the current High Priest of the temple, Lacius gave his research note to the High Priest, "This is my gift to this world. Inside, there's knowledge pertaining magic, a more advanced form of alchemy. Spread it to the world and show me the fruit of human wisdom."
"May your glory light up this world." The High Priest knelt as he received Lacius's Research notes. Once the High Priest stood up, he said, "I shall record everything and offer it to you."
Lacius nodded and asked another question, "What is the situation of Level 3 blessed in the world right now?"
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The High Priest bowed, "The Temple already has twelve Upper Level 3 blessed and three Peak Level 3 as the strongest combatant, while the surrounding kingdoms and empires have at least one Low Level Level 3 blessed and hiding another Low Level 3 blessed or a Mid Level 3 blessed, while each empires shows a Mid Level 3 blessed while hiding two to three Mid Level 3 blessed."
Lacius nodded, "Good."
The Lacius asked something he almost forgotten about, "How are the twenty elves and dwarves I brought a long time ago?"
'What experiment did I tell them to do again?' Lacius recalled that around three hundred years ago, he had brought ten elves and ten dwarves from beyond the mountain range. But it had been quite a long time, and he had kind of forgotten what experiment he had told them to do. All he recalled was that the experiment would take a long time.
The High Priest answered, "As you intended, we have made the elves and dwarves continue to increase their population while having them bear children with humans. Although it's quite difficult, but those children born from humans and other races indeed have longer lifespans. But it became extremely difficult for those of mixed race to marry humans, elves, or dwarves."
Lacius nodded slowly. Then, he changed the topic, "Recently, I've attained a deeper understanding of the world, and my divine title has changed. From now on, on every Temple statue, address me as the god of magic."
"You may leave." Lacius casually waved his hand.
The High Priest bowed and left Lacius's secret room.
Soon, with the Temple at its center, knowledge of magic began to spread among the human races.
The statue of the god of alchemy, worshiped in all temples, was renamed the god of magic.
When the knowledge of magic propagated to every corner of the human territory, the Magic Association already knew how Lacius took credit for their teacher Hellion's invention.
Although Lacius's method, in which he turns the magic-casting materials into alchemical potions rather than just processing them seems slightly different from Hellion's method, it's still clear as day that he used Hellion's research results as the basis for his invention of magic.
Even so, the Magic Association can do nothing about it except try its best to keep up with the times.
But their efforts are for naught. Compared with the Temple, which controls resources from half the continent, the Magic Association's resources are pitifully small.
It's estimated that, after a few decades, the Temple will be able to catch up to the Magic Association's current level.
***
Inside the Divine Space. When Cedric, who took a break from designing species to observe the world, saw Lacius's experiment through his Past Observation, he began to get a headache.
If this continues, his plan to establish three forces that check and balance each other will likely fail. After all, the Temple's research on magic before and after is on entirely different levels.
"Guess I'll need to get involved if I want my plan to succeed," Cedric decided as he set aside his study of creating a species and started to analyze his world's magic system in depth.
He first collected data on all magic types, their casting materials, processing methods, and ways to activate them.
After gathering the data, Cedric began his experiment by creating a copy of the magic materials and processing them himself.
With a wave of his hand, precious materials like flowers that bloom in winter, magic metals from deep underground, fire from lightning strikes, leaves blown by storms, and other strange materials endlessly appear from thin air before falling to the floor.
With the help of godhood, Cedric's calculation power is far greater than that of normal creatures. Thanks to that, he never fails during the material processing step.
Processing magic materials is pretty simple. In essence, it's pretty similar to alchemy that Lacius found.
But unlike alchemy, where the goal is to create an item or potions, the goal of processing the material is to make the specific elemental mana inside it become active.
Once the element inside is active, anyone can simply imbue their mana in a certain way to activate the spell.
Honestly, activating magic isn't much different from pulling the pin from a grenade and throwing it.
Using a grenade as a metaphor, imbuing a processed material with mana is like pulling the pin on a grenade. But this pin is password-protected, so unless it's pulled in a specific way, it won't come out.
Then, casting the magic is like throwing the grenade and watching it explode. But in the case of magic, the amount and quality of mana imbued into the material also affect the spell's effect. So, the harder someone pulls the 'pin', the bigger the resulting explosion will be.
Also, the amount of explosives in the grenade matters. Depending on the mana contained in the processed material, the magic spell's power could be much stronger or weaker than the user.
Cedric has done the test himself by copying five exact processed materials and triggering them with the quantity and quality of mana found in Level 0,1,2,3 and 4 blessed respectively.
The same material when activated by a Peak Level 0 mana can almost reach Level 2 in power, using Peak Level 1 mana can release power equal to a Upper Level 2, Peak Level 2 mana can release power equal to Lower Level 3, while using Peak Level 3 mana can release power equal to Upper Level 3, and Peak Level 4 can only release power equal to Mid Level 4.
The material he used for the test is a magic material processed from something called 'Darkest ash from the red river'.
It's a special, mana-dense ash from magma found in one of the dwarves' mining tunnels. To create the ash, a magic metal that contains a certain amount of mana density must be thrown into the magma until it turns to ash.
This process takes months and has a certain chance of failure.
As for the usage, the processed 'Darkest ash from the red river' can be used to cast fire-element blessed power.
Due to their sheer explosive power, it's usually kept as a trump card by those at Level 2 and below, and becomes the main staple for those at Level 3 to cast fire-element magic.
As for how everyone found they could use those things as magic materials, it's thanks to the trend of creating new magic a few decades ago.
After Hellion taught his disciples about magic, the basic rules for creating magic materials slowly became known and popularized.
Choosing magic materials is actually extremely simple. The more mana it contains, the more likely it is to be used as a magic material. The result of the magic will depend on what kind of item it is and where it came from.
For example, if it's a magic metal, it can usually be refined into a material for casting earth magic. If it's something like a rock that splits a river into two, it most likely can be used for water magic because it has absorbed a lot of mana from the water. There are also materials like the first winter snow that can be used for ice magic, or items struck by thunder from broad daylight that can be used for lightning magic.
During that time, some elves often went to chase after tornadoes that rarely appeared in the hope of getting materials suitable for wind magic, while the dwarves had invented lightning rod to harvest lightning.
After several years of study, Cedric's understanding of his world's own magic system deepened, and he feels he'll soon achieve a breakthrough in his understanding.
When Cedric feels he has nearly achieved a breakthrough in his magic studies, he begins planning to bolster the Magic Association so it can stand on equal footing with other forces.
His first step is straightforward; he aims to provide them with top-tier combat power at Level 4, similar to the other two forces led by Lacius and Elisa.
Holding a [Divine Intervention: Urge] he just purchased, Cedric looked for Catherina.
It didn't take long before he spotted a giant dragon nesting inside her grand tree house, or rather, tree mansion, in Grey Coal City.
After the dwarf team leader declined the opportunity to become the council representative of the rebuilt Grey Coal City, Catherina, who then lacked a home, looked at the recently destroyed city and used her payment from defeating the demon king to purchase a large amount of land.
The city gladly accepted her money to expedite the repair work, while Catherina also waited patiently for the city to be restored.
After several years, the reconstruction was complete. Thanks to her investment, Catherina held a quarter of the city's land deed. She then sold some highly valued land, paid dwarves and elves to build her a mansion on half of it, and developed a shopping district with the other half.
Thanks to her otherworldly marketing strategy, hero status, and personal strength, Catherina successfully attracted many merchants to her shopping district, transforming it into the hub where items from across the continent are available.
Thanks to her agreement with the Magic Association, the organization controlling several safe routes between the northern and southern regions of the continent. Even specialty items from the human territory can be found here.
The shopping district also helped Grey Coal City's economy swiftly recover to pre-evacuation levels, with signs of growth beyond its previous state.
With income from her shopping district venture, occasional land and real estate transactions, and a few other barely legal activities, Catherina finally achieved her dream of a leisurely, luxurious life surrounded by many handsome butlers from various races.
Honestly, Cedric is amazed at how effortlessly Catherina ends up controlling a city's economy.
Anyway, with Catherina in sight, Cedric activated the [Divine Intervention: Urge], giving Catherina the idea of joining the Magic Association.
Shortly after, the [Divine Intervention: Urge] activated, and Catherina, who had been browsing the elf's internet, suddenly called her head butler to summon a representative from the Magic Association.
During the long trade deals between Catherina and the Magic Association, the latter has actually sent an invitation to Catherina. They wanted to make her one of their council members.
After all, for them, exchanging a council member position for inviting a rich Level 4 blessed is definitely worth it.
But Catherina hasn't been answering their invitation until Cedric used the [Divine Intervention: Urge] just now.
Once the Magic Association received Catherina's message, they immediately sent a council member as their representative to meet with Catherina.
After a discussion that lasted for a whole day and night, they finally achieved a satisfying conclusion for both sides, with Catherina joining the Magic Association with a lot of special perks given.
A few of the perks include the right to dispatch a certain percentage of the Magic Association members to do her bidding as long as she pays sufficient salaries for them, access to any magic material processing and activation methods that the Magic Association has, the right to purchase magical materials cheaply, and other special perks.
All she needs to do is invest a certain amount of money in the Magic Association every month and lend a helping hand no more than thrice a year. Even then, they'll still pay her for her help.
Both sides are incredibly satisfied with the deal.
Catherina is happy because she found many high-level workers for her upcoming plans, while the Magic Association is pleased to finally have a strong thug.
As both sides collaborate, Cedric refocuses on studying his world's magic system. Over several years, he finally makes an unprecedented breakthrough. He discovered how to combine two elements into one spell.
This process took years of research, aided by his godhood's rapid calculations and the infinite materials he can conjure in the Divine Space. Actually, most of the time is spent taking a few detours after realizing his research has gone off course. This demonstrates just how challenging it is to develop a magic system.
To clarify, creating a magic that combines two elements is different from simply casting two different spells or blessed powers simultaneously. It's like the difference between carbon, oxygen, and carbon monoxide.
This represents a significant leap in the existence of the spell itself.
With this new knowledge, Cedric prepared to send the theory on how to create dual-element magic to Catherina, so she could pass it to the Magic Association.
Sending his mental power to check the Crystal Cube world, Cedric soon saw Catherina's location.
Currently, she's swimming in an artificial lake she built in front of her new mansion, which is a few kilometers away from the Grey Coal City.
Unlike her city mansion, this one is almost as big as half the Grey Coal City itself, which is why she built it a few kilometers away from the Grey Coal City.
Cedric got a bit curious about how Catherina got the money to build such a massive mansion, so before he gave his theory on dual-element magic, Cedric used his Past Observation on Catherina to check what she's been doing over the past few years.
Based on what he seen from Past Observation, Cedric noticed that after Catherina agreed to join the Magic Association, she expanded her real estate investments to other cities. She also treated city development like a real-life city management game by creating a new city that is still under construction.
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However, these are not her primary income sources. While they generate significant income for Catherina, they also incur substantial expenses.
What make hear riches soar to high heaven is that she used her right to hire some Magic Association members to open a fantasy-esque adventurers guild where blessed could take missions like procuring magical materials, gathering materials for alchemy, killing demons, or other things.
Although there's some resistance, Catherina has thrown enough money to finally spread her adventurer guild throughout the elven, dwarven, and even the human territory.
Thanks to it, her Adventurer Guild rose quickly in strength until it almost rivalled the Magic Association.
The Adventurer Guild, acting as the platform for those requests, took a small percentage of each commission. Over time, this accumulated into a substantial sum. Enough for Catherina to build a mansion the size of a city within a few years.
After observing this, Cedric can only praise Catherina for her ingenuity. She not only established the Adventurer Guild, a staple in fantasy stories, but also turned it into a lucrative enterprise that generated significant profits.
Because the Adventurer Guild helped the researcher type blessed to collect magical materials for their experiment, it indirectly advanced the world's magic at the same time. So, Cedric honestly has no complaints about it.
Well, except for the fact that one of the top three forces he planned has changed from the Temple, the Elves and Dwarf Alliance, and the Magic Association. into the Temple, Elves and Dwarf Alliance, and Magic Association plus the Adventurer Guild.
After learning how Catherina acquired her riches, Cedric turned off the Past Observation and greeted her.
[Long time no see.]
Seeing the familiar screen that hadn't appeared in a few years, Catherina opened her eyes wide. "Is there a new demon king?"
[No.]
"I don't think you're the type of person, or god, who will greet someone unnecessarily." As someone who've talked the most with Cedric in the past century, Catherina knew that Cedric would usually only sent message whenever there's something pretty important going on.
[Well. I actually came here to share a knowledge with you.]
"What knowledge?" Catherina curiously asked.
[Theory on how to create a magic spell with mixed elements.]
"What?" Catherina opened her eyes wide.
As a Level 4 blessed with Divine Strength blessing, she needs to use magic to cast supernatural powers.
Although her knowledge isn't as extensive as that of those who specialize in magic research, she understands that the theory behind creating a mixed-element magic spell is groundbreaking.
Then, Catherina remembered she was essentially speaking to the god and creator of the world, and her shock quickly faded.
Seeing that Catherina had calmed down, Cedric told her to pick some paper and pens to write down the theory he was going to share.
Cedric never planned to immediately tell the full method. He just gave the theory, partially because the world's balance is still on the edge of falling after he sent several divine items during the battle against the demon king. But there's also the fact that Cedric wants the creature to work hard on its own as much as possible.
If the Magic Association still fails to raise even after he gave them this groundbreaking research, then Cedric will give up on the plan to create three top forces to balance each other.
After Catherina's butler collected a stack of papers and pens, Cedric sent her the theory on creating a magic that combines two elements. Once he finished, Cedric left a message for Catherina.
[You can use it as you see fit, but please spread it to the Magic Association first.]
Seeing the stack of papers filled with theory, Catherina briefly read through them before instructing her butler to send a letter to the Magic Association's council. In her message, she mentioned receiving a revelation from the creator, who instructed her to share a gift with the Magic Association.
Upon receiving Catherina's letter, the council of the Magic Association promptly paid her a visit.
Without much nonsense, Catherina gave a copy of the theory on creating mixed-element magic.
After reading the theory, some of the council members even cried from happiness, "This is one of the most beautiful knowledge I've ever read in my life. I even recalled the moment when I first learned magic under teacher Hellion's guidance."
One of the few who still have their reason asked Catherina, "Lady Catherina, may I ask if you've shared this theory with others?"
When Catherina heard that question, she immediately guessed what that person wanted, "I have just received the revelation from the creator. So, all of you here are the only ones who've known about this."
The councillor nodding at Catherina said, "Could you please refrain from sharing this with other forces? We're willing to offer some benefits in exchange for Lady Catherina not revealing this theory elsewhere. I can't speak for others, but I believe they'd agree."
For a moment, the councillor even briefly considered killing Catherina to keep the secret, but he immediately dismissed the idea. The gap between them is just too vast. Even if all the council members at Catherina's mansion joined the fight, they wouldn't be able to stop her from leaving.
In that case, they would turn their greatest supporter into their worst enemy.
Catherina didn't immediately nod, and instead wore a thoughtful look.
The councillor feels a bit nervous until Catherina seemingly reluctantly says, "Let me hear your offer first."
After a series of negotiations, both parties agreed that Catherina would refrain from sharing the knowledge of magic theory in exchange for additional special rights.
Although the Magic Association essentially sacrificed part of its influence in the deal with Catherina, it ensured its future stability. With the theory now in their possession, the council members of the Magic Association started studying it together with a select few trusted subordinates.
They kept extremely tight guard against leaks of the mixed-element magic theory. The chance to ask for Catherina's move was mostly spent on killing anyone stupid enough to try to leak the method.
After two years, the Magic Association successfully created a two-element magic called magma magic, combining earth and fire magic. At the same time, they also created tree magic, which combined the elements of earth and nature.
The magma magic, as the name implies, allows the user to create a field of magma. While tree magic is a branch of nature magic that specializes in growing strong, massive trees.
Having achieved initial success with the two magic, the Magic Association eagerly invests all its resources into researching the two-element spell, while tightly guarding against any leaks.
After two hundred years and several generations passing away within the Magic Council, the knowledge of mixed-element magic was accidentally leaked from the Magic Association and fell into Lacius's hands.
When Lacius got his hand on that knowledge, he unpetrified himself and studied it seriously.
Leveraging the Temple's knowledge-gathering ability, Lacius effortlessly crafted several dual-element magics.
As the foremost expert on the earth element, he pioneered same-element mixed magic, combining two earth magic spells to enhance their power, which led to the development of metal magic, born of two combined earth spells.
Perhaps feeling pressure from the Temple's massive advancement in magic, the Magic Association finally achieved a new breakthrough.
With centuries of accumulation, they successfully created a three-element magic involving fire, wind, and earth. The creator of that magic, a Magic Association council member at the Peak of Level 3, named it the meteor summoning spell. A spell that can create a flaming boulder that shoots at insane speed.
It's an unprecedented three-element spell that requires someone at Level 4 to trigger the mana inside the processed magic materials.
Actually, those at Level 3 could trigger it, but it requires a few special processes and the help of some potions to temporarily raise the user's mana quality and quantity to barely be comparable to a Level 4 blessed. Even then, there'll be a danger of being sucked dry after casting the spell.
At the same time as the official creation of the meteor summoning spell, inside the Divine Space, Cedric received a notification from the System.
[Congratulations, your world has fulfilled the requirements to level up!]
Congratulations, your world has fulfilled the requirements to level up!]
[The process of levelling from Level 2 world to Level 3 will take approximately 7 days. During this time, your world's stability will be greatly increased, and you may directly intervene in your world. Please note, the increase in stability isn't infinite, and your world can still be destroyed upon excessive intervention.]
[The operation law and rules inside your world will slowly be strengthened and perfected.]
[The stability of your world will slowly increase.]
[The amount of maximum annual GP gain will be increased.]
[The chance for your world to give birth to creatures with high potential has increased.]
[The maximum level of creatures in your world has been increased to Level 6]
[Your world's resistance against NE has increased.]
[The speed of expelling NE has increased.]
[The …]
[The ... has increased.]
[Warning! Your world's advancement has caused fluctuation in the surrounding void that might alarm surrounding creatures.]
[As you're still under the System's protective period, the System has removed the fluctuation released by your world and properly hid your world from outside interference.]
[The universe has rewarded the gods for their hard work. You'll receive a small amount of extremely pure mysterious energy.]
[Once again, congratulations on your world's advancement.]
After a spam-like message telling him that the Crystal Cube world was getting stronger, and a few other messages, Cedric once again felt a comfortable energy coursing through his body.
That energy should be the extremely pure, mysterious energy the System mentioned.
Cedric's eyes squinted as he tried his best to keep from moaning because of the energy's comforting sensation.
Honestly, that feeling is beyond any pleasure the mortal senses could bring. Even drugs wouldn't be as satisfying as the feeling of that mysterious energy coursing through his body. The most important point is that the energy is not addictive and instead brings him great benefit.
After the feeling disappeared, Cedric opened his eyes and checked his screen.
[Name: Cedric Hills
Level: Pseudo Lesser Divinity (Actual level: Peak Level 6)
Law: None.
World: Crystal Cube World
World Level: 3
World's Average Potential: Peak Level 0
GP: 9.649
Annual GP income: 16]
After the world leveled up, Cedric's real level also increased from Peak Level 3 to Peak Level 6.
Honestly, there isn't much difference for him. The increase in life level brought a slight rise in calculation power, physical strength, and other attributes. But the calculation power from his godhood is simply too massive, so the increased calculation power from his life level is negligible.
Aside from that, the second important point is that the world's average potential has risen to Peak Level 0.
Actually, the average potential in his world had increased to Mid Level 0 around the time his world almost advanced. When it reached Level 3, the average life level skipped Upper Level 0 and directly hit Peak Level 0. Additionally, his yearly GP limit finally broke through 10 GP and reached 16.
Cedric noticed this and asked, "Hey, what's the maximum annual GP income at world Level 3?" At world Level 1, the cap was 1 GP, and at Level 2, it increased to 10 GP. Cedric could reasonably guess the maximum GP at Level 3, but he asked to confirm.
[As you've guessed, the maximum annual GP income at world Level 3 is indeed 100 GP. But starting at this level, there are rarely any gods who can reach the maximum GP income, except those following a min-max world build.]
The System's message gives a lot of information to Cedric. He actually just planned to ask casually before he started modifying his world. But now the System has successfully piqued his curiosity.
"Why is it rare to reach the maximum annual GP? And what is this min-maxing build you talked about?"
[It's difficult to reach the maximum annual income for several reasons, but for worlds at level 3, there are two main reasons. First, the world requires some GP to maintain itself. The higher the level, the more GP is automatically consumed to maintain the world. But don't worry, the GP that the world consumes doesn't decrease the maximum GP income. Second, the main source of GP comes from those sentient creatures at lower levels. Which means unless you max out your population, filling the whole world with humans and other sentient creatures, it's close to impossible to reach the maximum GP income limit.]
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"So, the min-maxing you mentioned is to fill the world with sentient creature so they can generate a lot of GP?"
[Indeed. but min-maxing requires a lot of subtlety and serious understanding, which you obviously lacked. Maxing a world's population will cause many complications, such as decreasing the number of high- and mid-ranked experts, because the amount of special energy in the world is limited. With a larger population, special energies, such as mana, spirit qi, and others, become dispersed among everyone, leading to a shortage of resources to nurture experts in the world. It'll also increase the speed of NE generation and the demon king's birth rate. Not only that, but there's also a technological requirement to stop plagues and fulfill the consumption needs of the living creatures, and many other things.]
"Why don't you tell me about these before? Especially the part that a world is constantly consuming GP to maintain itself?"
[The System never mentioned it because that knowledge is only relevant for those controlling a world that's at Level 4 or at least Level 3. At levels 1 and 2, the world's stability is held naturally by the universe. So, asking before Level 3 means you'll need to pay GP to receive the answer]
"Then what is the average annual income for Level 3 world?"
[By the time the world leveled up to Level 4, the average world already had 80 annual GP income.]
"How long does it take to reach Level 3 to Level 4?"
[The average time to reach Level 4 from world Level 3 is 5.000 years. This is also a benchmark, as the System's protection period lasted only 10.000 years. Those who failed to advance to Level 4 within 10.000 years usually perished in the battle between worlds once the protection period ended, unless they came from a high-level world and had a sufficiently strong backer to protect them during their weakest period.]
"Can you explain about the battle between world more thoroughly?" Cedric asked.
[Insufficient level, do you wish to spend GP to receive the answer?]
He thought for a moment before shaking his head. From how the System said 'insufficient level', he realized the information about the world battle would be revealed when he reached a higher level. Furthermore, the System's protection seemed to work by shielding noobs like him from being targeted in a world battle.
What's important for him is to reach Level 4 ASAP, so he won't get killed once the System's protection ends.
"By the way, how long does it usually take to reach Level 1 world to Level 3?" Cedric got curious because it took him approximately 1.5 millennia to reach his current level.
[Level 1 to Level 2 usually took 1.000 years on average. Level 2 to 3 took 2.000 years.]
'It seems I am a genius!' Before Cedric could gloat for long, the System sent another message.
[You aren't a genius. The only reason you can advance that quickly is how weak you are. Compared to other real gods, who'll need to spend a ton of GP and fear their world destabilizing just from sending a few short sentences, you can send a whole research paper for a few hundred GP, thanks to your low level.]
Cedric felt speechless. He started working to forget the System's sarcastic-but-true remarks.
He focused his mental power on the Crystal Cube world and immediately began the first step of his plan.
First and foremost, he planned to expand the world's land area.
When the Crystal Cube world was first created, it consisted of 8 million square kilometers of water and 8 million square meters of land. Then, at level 2, he added one million square kilometers of land, bringing the world's total area to 17 million square kilometers.
Right now, he plans to expand the world's area by another 3 million square kilometers, with one million square kilometers of water and 2 million square kilometers of land.
During the few centuries between when he sent the multi-element magic and when his world finally leveled up, Cedric had already prepared a few plans for his expansion, including those that expand the world by only 3 million square kilometers.
Just as he was about to send his GP to mold the world's terrain and space, the System sent an advertisement.
[Do you wish to spend 10 GP for the System to show the amount of stability and balance remaining in your world? This function will only last while the world is in the midst of upgrading.]
[Please note that it's highly recommended you purchase this function.]
"Oh, almost forgot about this one. I'll buy it."
[Stability: 100%
Note: Please stop intervening when your world's stability reaches 5%, as it might cause lasting damage to your world that persists even after the upgrade process is complete.
After seeing the stability screen, he immediately gets to work, expanding his world by a million square kilometers and filling the newly expanded area with ocean water.
Finally, Cedric expanded the world by another 2 million square kilometers.
Instead of expanding the continent, he created several small islands around it and two massive islands to the northeast and northwest.
He also added plants and animals, both normal and magical variants, to fill the newly created islands and the ocean.
Once he finished filling the small and large islands with their own ecosystems, Cedric focused on the mountain range that separated the dwarves and elves from humans.
Using some GP, he found two relatively empty areas and flattened them into two flat roads that respectively connect the human with the dwarf and the elf area.
In total, expanding the world by 3 million square kilometers, filling the islands and the ocean's ecosystem, and creating two roads to connect humans with the elves and dwarves cost him 3.100 GP and considerable world stability.
But he isn't finished yet. Actually, he still hasn't reached the most-awaited part.
First, Cedric focused on the east and southeast areas of his world.
The east and southeast areas of the Crystal Cube world rarely have any islands. He designed it that way because that's where he planned to place the mermaids and krakens.
Focusing on the ocean, Cedric looked for a rich area with many ocean plants and corals, where schools of fish often migrate.
After an hour, he found three suitable areas with the richest resources.
"Well, only children choose. I am a mature guy who's more than a millennium old, so I'll choose all three areas." Cedric decided to make the three locations the birthplaces for mermaids and kraken.
For the kraken, he selected an area closer to the continent, farther southeast of it, neighboring the water area near the mountain range separating the continent.
As for the mermaids, he let them stay in the two areas east of the continent, neighboring the elves' location.
After he decided, Cedric immediately got to work.
He first created a kraken's body. Cedric wanted to create a body beyond Level 4, but all attempts failed. Whether it was Level 6, 5, or 4, the body he created failed to materialize. Only when he created a body at Peak Level 3 did it successfully materialize in the world.
Recalling that he could only create a body at Peak Level 1 when his world upgraded from Level 1 to Level 2, Cedric concluded that the body he could directly create in the world is limited by the world's maximum level. More specifically, it's capped at three levels below the maximum level.
When the world upgraded from Level 1 to Level 2, the maximum level in the world was Level 4, and he could only create creatures at Level 1. Meanwhile, he can now create creatures at Level 3 because the maximum level in the world has reached Level 6.
Cedric designed the kraken to be the aquatic equivalent of Dragon V.1, a powerful creature that has difficulty reproducing. Thus, He decided to splurge and create 20 krakens, each with Peak Level 3 strength, at 2 GP apiece, for a total of 40 GP.
Afterwards, he contacted the System, saying, "Hey, I want to purchase some custom souls for the krakens."
[Do you wish to imbue soul into your creature?
Note 1: As the kraken's body contains a lot of special characteristics, the soul required to control the body is a bit complicated and may result in a cost increase.
Note 2: As the body has reached Peak Level 3, the soul required to control it has increased to Level 1, which will increase the costs.
Note 3: As the body has reached Peak Level 3, the soul's minimum potential is Peak Level 3, which will increase the cost.
Note 4: You may spend more GP to increase the maximum potential of the souls that are created. As you have reached world Level 3 and the maximum level of creatures in your world has reached Peak Level 6, you may grant potential up to Lower Level 4 to creatures you created.
Note 5: The exception for Note 4 is when you added the trait of hero to the creature, which will greatly raise the creature's potential, but also increase the cost at the same time. But as your world is unable to create a hero, you can just ignore this note.]
Cedric reviewed the message from the System and remembered seeing a similar one back when he first bought custom soul and made dragons V.1.
He paused for a moment and then asked, "What is the cost to create a Peak Level 3 soul with Peak Level 3 potential, and a Peak Level 3 soul with Lower Level 4 potential?"
[Peak Level 3 soul with Peak Level 3 will cost you 4 GP each, while Peak Level 3 soul with Lower Level 4 potential will cost you 29 GP each. Furthermore, the stability cost of creating a creature with Level 4 potential will be much higher.]
"What the hell? Why is the cost for Lower Level 4 potential seven times higher than for creating a soul with Peak Level 3 potential?" Initially, Cedric thought he had misread the 29 GP cost. However, after rereading it twice, the number remained the same.
[Every three levels represent a significant leap. It's normal for the price to increase several times accordingly. Haven't you noticed this when trying to create Level 4 creatures before?]
Cedric recalled it and realized that the energy required to copy a Level 4 creature is indeed several times greater than that for a Level 3. However, he hadn't expected it to be this high.
It seems the Divine Space's ability to let him endlessly create things has made his senses a bit duller to the point of not realizing such a massive difference in cost.
After some thought, Cedric decided to give 5 kraken with Lower Level 4 potential, while the remaining 15 have Peak Level 3 potentials.
Looking at the kraken sleeping on the ocean floor, Cedric felt their number was still a bit too small. So he decided to add another batch of kraken.
After creating another 30 krakens, there are now 50 krakens sleeping on the ocean floor. Ten of them have Lower Level 4 potential, while the remaining 40 have Peak Level 3 potential. In total, it cost him 550 GP to create the krakens.
With the krakens finished, Cedric began to create the mermaids.
Unlike the krakens, Mermaid's fertility is quite considerable. So, Cedric didn't make all of them reach Peak Level 3. Instead, he focused on quantity.
After some thought, Cedric created a total of 1.000 mermaids, most at Level 0, with some at Level 1 and 2. Finally, he also created 10 Level 3 mermaids with Lower Level 4 potential. In total, the group of mermaids cost him 1.500 GP.
Cedric spread the 1.000 mermaids across the two underwater resource areas, with each area having 500 mermaids.
Looking at the sleeping mermaids, Cedric nodded his head while marveling at how incredible it was to successfully create a mermaid.
Aside from their fin-shaped legs, another noteworthy part of mermaids is their abs. Whether male or female, all mermaids have insanely strong abs. The kind that can crack open a walnut by contracting their six-pack.
Cedric has actually tried to make the female mermaid's abs smoother, like in those movies, but in his experiments at the Divine Space, they usually start showing muscle after a few years of swimming, no matter how hard he tries.
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He has also tried creating a mermaid that won't develop too much muscle in their stomach, but after several months, their weak abdominal muscles will snap, leaving them a cripple.
The only way he found to hide those abs was to give the mermaids extra layers of skin to smooth their stomachs. But that would make them look extra bulky instead.
So Cedric finally decided not to force nature and let the muscled mermaid become the final version of mermaids in his world.
Soon, the kraken and the mermaids woke up. Once Cedric made sure there was nothing wrong with them, Cedric moved to the recently created big island located northwest of the continent.
The island is located near the northwest end of the mountain range that separates the world.
On this island, Cedric prepared to create the dragon V.2.
Recalling his final design, Cedric immediately created 100 dragons, all of them at Peak Level 3, with 15 of them having Lower Level 4 potential.
Seeing the number of dragons he created, the System remarked.
[Aren't you ashamed? Don't you feel anything for those pitiful, ugly giant octopuses of yours? How can you blatantly play favor like this?]
Compared to the kraken that only have 50 members with only 10 having Lower Level 4 potential, Cedric is blatantly playing favour when it comes to the dragons, to the point the System probably felt pity for those giant octopuses.
"Yeah, I am shamelessly showing favor."
"The dragons are created because they're cool. Meanwhile, I just added the krakens to increase species diversity and help me block the humans from crossing the ocean en masse to reach the elves' territory." Cedric explained his reasoning shamelessly as he moved to the last massive island located northeast of the continent.
This island is located further northeast of the border between the dwarven and elven territories. They're also pretty close to one of the mermaid's birth points.
After slightly adjusting the island's ecology, making it safer and filling it with more interesting magical plants and small animals, Cedric created the last race he planned, fairies.
To be specific, it's the winged, small-sized fairies often seen in modern culture. Something like Tink*rb*ll.
Unlike the dragons, krakens, and mermaids, which he has planned to make for a long time, these fairies are something he designed only two or three centuries ago, after he was certain that massive creatures like Elisa required more mana to level up than smaller creatures.
Unlike the dragons and krakens, whose main difficulty lies in ensuring they have enough power to move their massive bodies, or the mermaids, whom he spent a long time trying to slim down their abdominal muscles, the fairies present him with a whole different challenge.
He planned the fairies to be smaller in size, so simply scaling down a human and giving them butterfly wings won't do.
While making the fairies, he faced several extremely difficult challenges. The first concerns the heart, lungs, and other vital organs. Merely scaling down human or elven organs won't do. Modifying a creature is also no easy task.
After modifications, their hearts either burst, lack enough force to circulate through the entire body, or become too strong, bursting the bloodstream and causing them to explode into red fireworks.
It took him decades to make a suitable vital organ. Even then, the final version of the fairies couldn't withstand too much impact. Otherwise, they'd burst into a bloody firework.
After the vital organs came the problem with the brains. He initially wanted them to be as smart as a normal human, but their compact bodies couldn't support scaled-down human brains.
It took him another considerable time to redesign a suitable brain for them. Even so, those fairies' intellect is most likely a bit stunted. The smartest might be only as smart as an average middle schooler. Furthermore, he isn't too certain how stupid the less intellectually blessed fairies can be.
He can only hope for the best.
Finally, there's another problem when he's trying to give them wings on their backs.
Designing a back muscle that allows fairies to flap their wings quickly without making them so bulky that they resemble Mr. and Ms. Olympia champions is a real challenge. Actually, it's not just a challenge. It's an utter nightmare.
Luckily, unlike the case with the mermaid's rock-hard abs, he successfully found a way to make the fairies' muscles relatively flat.
Even so, that's not the end. He still needs to provide them with hollow bones and other features to make them lighter. Cedric also added the insect's tracheae to reduce their lung size and create more space for the back muscles used for wing flapping.
Honestly, the fairy's internal structure differs significantly from that of humans and elves.
Cedric only finalized a fairy race template that he was satisfied with five years ago.
Reflecting on how he barely finished it before his world upgraded, Cedric sighed. "Honestly, I almost didn't complete it in time. The last issue I fixed was pretty serious. If I remember right, it caused fairies to burst into blood firework whenever their hearts raced too fast from excitement or exercise."
While reminiscing, Cedric kept making fairies in the Crystal Cube world. By the time he finished reminiscing, there were already 1.000 fairies sleeping on the island.
"System, give these fairies souls. As for the amount, make it the same as the mermaids'"
[Alright.]
The System gave affirmative responses and filled the fairies with custom souls.
Just as creating 1.000 mermaids cost him 1.500 GP, creating 1.000 fairies also cost him 1.500 GP. Their small size doesn't make them much cheaper to create than the mermaids.
He waited a moment until all the fairies woke up. After watching for a day and making sure no fairies ever exploded out of nowhere, Cedric finally exhaled in relief.
"After opening two roads between the mountain range; creating dragon v2, kraken, mermaids, and fairies ready, I need to proceed to my next plan." Cedric muttered, turning his attention to Catherina.