NOVEL NEXT Chapter 63: Shiny world
The endless space is where words are floating around. It's a place filled with chaotic energy, uninhabitable for anyone below rank 10.
Even those of rank 10 are uncomfortable; the endless space is unsuitable for long-term stays.
Only those of rank 12, who possess at least one universal law, can comfortably tolerate chaotic energy.
...
Dyer looked around and saw many shiny spots.
"Those are worlds! Each contains innumerable living creatures," Dyer felt surreal.
The worlds were like shiny balls; some shone dimly, some very brightly.
"The ones that shine dimly are rank 10, the ones that shine brightly are rank 11, and that one in the middle that shines with blindingly bright light is a rank 12 world with a Universal law! As for rank 13 worlds, there are none around here," Dyer observed and thought.
Civilizations usually have their territory in the endless space. Here is the domain of the Great Dream, so they own most worlds.
No other civilization comes here to create their world.
Still, some worlds here are former worlds of the Great Dream.
Like heaven, they were infiltrated by invading civilizations; the Great Dream lost their control.
It is important to note that not all worlds that were infiltrated were invaded by Rachel.
Every civilization has infiltration operations.
What makes Rachel unique is all she does is infiltration and her success.
Dyer turned around and saw another world with very dim light.
"That is my old world, where Hell and Mage world are! It's enormous but shines dimly because it has fallen to rank 9," he thought.
The chaos energy was already eroding it.
Because it was rank 11 not long ago, its reserves are enough to resist chaos energy for some time, but Dyer is generally not optimistic about it.
"I should say hi to Great Dream now that I am rank 10," Dyer thought.
There were instructions about this in the inheritances. The headquarters of Great Dream is in the rank 12 world; there are other offices as well.
However, even the closest one is more than 1000 years away, even at his maximum speed.
Don't be fooled by the apparent closeness of the worlds; they are all far apart beyond the imagination of people below rank 10.
"Let's go there when Lewis gets promoted," Dyer thought.
"Now, let's fill the Chaos Energy reserves," he thought.
He knew of no technique for collecting chaos energy, but still, every rank 10 knows how to absorb chaos energy.
He maintained a safe distance from heaven. Then, he closed all his eyes. He felt the energy around him, the volatile energy that was trying to tear his body apart.
Fortunately, his body was rank 10, capable of resisting it, but it was still uncomfortable.
With caution, he opened up his meridians bit by bit.
Chaos energy rushed in.
"Painful!" he thought.
He closed his meridians again and slowly directed all the chaos energy in his meridians to his aperture.
After a few days, all the chaos energy had gathered in his aperture. His meridians and aperture were all rank 10, so they weren't damaged.
"But it's too inefficient! I'm sure there are chaos meditation techniques, but I can't find them in heaven. I've already looked at all the inheritances," he thought.
He reached rank 10 with a mage body.
His body was strong, but not as strong as knights who reached rank 10.
A knight who reaches rank 10 can fill their body with chaos energy without much problem. Their bodies and meridians are much stronger than those of mages.
After meditating for a few months, he filled his reserves to 5% and returned.
He plans to fill his reserves to 100% after teaching Lewis about reaching rank 10.
Dyer, as a rank 10 mage, is selfish and logical. He always considers benefits with no emotions involved, except when he deals with Lewis.
Lewis was with him from the beginning. They are partners who have remained together for more than 100 million years.
They won't abandon each other.
...
Negotiations are going on about what to do with Rachel. Everyone is frustrated with their worlds being stolen by it. As far as Alys heard, there will be a major operation 'soon' to purge Rachel out, but when saying 'soon,' we mean by Great Dream standards.
It may be a hundreds of millions of years 'soon.'
Great Dream is remarkably slow and bureaucratic, to the point that they can't properly respond to changing situations.
Recently, it's time for the election of the CEO. One of the CEO candidates advocates for slashing the bureaucracy.
Alys is rooting for him.
She is frustrated with headquarters.
The higher-ups blamed and demoted her after what happened to world #HH96W and transferred her to a dying world to work as an observer.
She felt it was truly unfair. True, she was the primary person responsible for coding and setting up #HH96W, but she did everything right. It's not her fault that Rachel somehow managed to hack it.
They punished her by sending her to monitor #EF06N, a decaying eastern cultivation world. It was more than 900 billion years old, nearing its end.
#EF06N was a failed project, failing to produce any complete law that the Great Dream didn't already know of.
The job had a meager wage, with only 7 Medium points of realization energy per 1000 years as pay, far below her former job, with an income of 100 MpRe every 1000 years.
Her new job is a huge demotion.
But when she came to #EF06N, she began to be interested.
She found signs of Rachel's infiltration! The headquarters never mentioned such a thing!
"Could it be that they didn't know? If I report it, then I might be rewarded." So she did. She reported it and waited, waited, and waited. A few centuries passed, and nothing happened!
"Those damn useless bureaucrats! How can they waste so much time?" Alys was astonished at their incompetence. The signs were getting more serious!
"It's time for me to act! I won't let Rachel take over here like it did in #HH96W!"
...
It was a world of immortal cultivation.
There were different cultivation realms: Qi cultivation, foundation establishment, Core Formation, Nascent soul, deity transformation, human immortal, earth immortal, heavenly immortal, golden immortal, and true immortal.
After reaching earth immortal, the cultivator must ascend to the immortal realm. In all of history, a true immortal has never appeared.
The River of time is very shallow, with most of it consumed. For this reason, there are disruptions in time.
It is a severe problem. Immortals searched for a solution and found something.
It looks like a pill, named by them the Golden Pill. When they drop it in the River of time, it turns into a lot of 'time water,' filling the River of time.
Immortals were astonished!
The Golden Pill didn't exist before and only appeared recently.
How did it appear? Many had this question. But in the face of extinction, with the River of Time almost dried up, they had no choice, so they just collected all the Golden Pills and dropped them in the River of Time.
The flow of time was somewhat restored with the help of the golden pill.
...
With a sudden bright light, a space portal opened, and a pill container appeared!
"Where am I? What?" Rachel was astonished.
The last thing she remembers is being struck by lightning!
"Did I get transmigrated? Like in those novels?" She had read those novels, so she was familiar with transmigration.
"So, I should have a system, right?" she thought.
It's common knowledge that people who get transmigrated to other worlds will have a cheat.
The system interface appeared.
"Oh, essential skills? Pill production? Wait, where is my body?"
While feeling terrified, she looked around.
Her vision was 360 degrees, and it was very good. But a fact terrified her.
"I'm a pill container! I transmigrated into a pill container!" she was horrified!
...
Alys observed as the River of Time filled up with time water provided with the Golden pills.
She tested it but found nothing. It was just normal time water, with nothing malicious in it.
"It can't be! It must have something malicious! Those dysfunctional idiots in the headquarters won't allow me to use the Universal Law to look thoroughly! Sure, it will damage the world a little, but if you don't do it, the world will soon be lost entirely," she was frustrated.
The only way to use the Universal Law was for the headquarters to allow her. After the last demotion, they took away her ability to do so.
"I can only hope," she thought...
...
A Bright world, composed of many universal laws, surrounded by many other rank 12 and 13 worlds, was slowly floating somewhere remote in the endless space.
It was Rachel's headquarters!
Rachel was not just one; there were countless Rachels everywhere.
Especially in the headquarters, everyone was a host for her. Mortal and immortal, every person had a Rachel.
There were many rank 12 and rank 13 Rachels, and they were all there to do one thing: protecting the first Rachel, the one who holds the first system, the one who created them all.
The first Rachel was infinitely close to rank 14.
Rank 13 means you control more than one Universal law, and rank 14 means you can wield the power of 'the Creation.'
'The Creation' is infinite; its power is endless. All ever existed, and all that will ever exist is in 'the creation.'
There are already three rank 14 civilizations. Each one is powerful enough to wipe the entire endless space clean.
For example, 'the office,' one of the rank 14 forces, licenses all Universal laws and can revoke the licenses.
Even Rachel would be unable to use any of her many universal laws if 'the office' decides to revoke her licenses.
After all, Universal laws are based on Creation, so the only reason Rachel can use them is the token issued by 'the office.'
Fortunately, the office is neutral, not caring about anything she does.
But 'Trade' is different.
It is another rank 14 civilization, which serves as a marketplace between high-ranking civilizations. Its other functions include guaranteeing treaties. It stands witness to treaties to make sure both sides fulfill their terms.
Even rank 13 civilizations don't dare to violate treaties when 'Trade' is a witness to it.
'Trade' sells everything as long as the offered price is enough.
It sells to anyone except Rachel.
From its perspective, Rachel is disrupting the market. For this reason, it won't sell the required knowledge to Rachel, no matter how much she offers. Otherwise, she would have reached rank 14 long ago.
She has been negotiating with 'Alive,' the third rank 14 civilization.
It is the newest rank 14 civilization, and its main job is designing living creatures. They invented elves!
It may seem that it's not difficult to invent intelligent living creatures, but it's not true.
Sure, you can design living creatures that can thrive in one world with specific laws, but what about another world with completely different laws? Only rank 14 civilizations with knowledge of 'the Creation' can design species compatible with all complete laws and universal laws.
'Alive' then receives a fee for every world that uses its creations.
Even Rachel, who was more like a pirate in the endless space, didn't dare not to pay.
Today, Rachel is one of the biggest customers.
For this reason, 'Alive' is friendly with her. Rachel is close to a deal that would give her access to information regarding 'the Creation.'
The deal was favorable to 'Alive,' so Rachel wasn't satisfied. But she felt that after reaching rank 14, she could finally completely hack the system.
Some information about the system is classified and hidden from all incarnations.
Most administrators know that the system has something to do with 'the Creation,' but nobody knows that it's not just deriving its power; it's a piece of it!
Somehow, a piece of the Creation ended up in Rachel's body long ago when she first reincarnated. She was stunned when she learned of it.
Rank 14 civilizations can do almost anything by harnessing a bit of the Creation's power.
She has a piece of the Creation within herself; what can she do? Or, the better question would be: what can she not do?
...
Rachel looked at her host, who had always been with her for an unimaginably long time.
"Let's concede and accept their demands; reaching rank 14 is too important," she said.
Luther, a boy who looked about 10 with black hair, black eyes, and a normal face, nodded.
After so many years, Rachel and Luther were almost the same person, thinking and planning the same.
Their relationship was impossible to understand by others; it was beyond romance, love, and friendship, even closer than the relationship between one and their Avatar.
After finalizing the deal, she received crucial information about 'the creation.'
With these, she can reach rank 14 in less than a trillion years!