World Keeper-Chapter 1238: Beyond Belief

Lifre’s progress with evolving her own void beasts was… slow, borderline painful for the hyperactive slime. It took over an hour for just the first evolution. Given the random nature of this process, she assumed that it would take weeks to get a usable power that she could absorb.

Thankfully, she didn’t need a complete power herself, just one that she could use as a basis to understand the concept of targeting fictional works with memetic scripts. Still, this was bound to be a long process.

Meanwhile, she was still having to defend various worlds against more and more monsters. They had started to appear frequently enough that there were often two or three that had to be dealt with at the same time. Given her talk with the Keeper, it was rapidly approaching the point where she would not be able to handle it all alone.

Thelsa looked at the group of adventurers before her, sighing deep in her heart. Using the power of the adventurer’s guild, and the name of the Keeper, she had released a recruitment notice. She was gathering high level adventurers to be part of a new Shadow Calamity Response Unit.

With this notice, she specified that there would be special training for those that were underqualified, but the main purpose of the unit would be to fight off against cosmic monsters of the Calamity grade. The fact that such monsters were appearing more and more frequently had started to spread among the various worlds, but that was inevitable. With how urgent the situation was, there was no way that they would be able to keep everyone quiet, nor did they try to.

However, this piece of information ensured that a lot of people simply refused to apply for the unit, including those among the highest levels of Fyor. Initially, Thelsa had some confidence that she could rope in the old ‘Maxers’ by stimulating their desire for growth. Instead, they were far more comfortable taking the relatively safe path of training in Fyor, where they could control the level of danger they faced simply by moving to a different floor.

Those that did volunteer to join were from the middle echelon of Fyor, ranging from levels four thousand to five thousand. These were still incredibly powerful combatants in their own right, with many having completed their own legends, but they were ultimately too weak to be of any use at the moment.

Meanwhile, from outside of Fyor, there were more volunteers, but their quality was even lower. In fact, the number of volunteers from places like Deckan, Lorek, or Desbar added up to nearly fifty times as much as those from Fyor, but their average levels were just shy of three thousand. fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com

Still, this was something that she had been prepared for to some degree. That was why she had asked Blank to create a training simulation for them. “Alright, everyone. Today, we are going to be hosting our first training session. I know that this training takes the form of a game, but I hope that everyone can take it seriously. We don’t know how much time we have before the monsters become too much for Olympus to contain. Before that happens, I hope that we can create a unified army, capable of quickly responding to distress signals as they arrive.”

Before her, roughly one thousand recruits nodded their heads in agreement. Each one was standing next to a gaming chair with a built-in virtual reality helmet. With a smile, Thelsa nodded towards the group. “In that case, I wish everyone the best of luck. Keep in mind, we will have everyone’s scores visible to the public to encourage a sense of competition. Additionally, there is no time limit for this training, so attempt to improve yourself as much as you can.”

After she said that, she watched as the one thousand individuals all sat down, logging into the training game provided by Blank, the Tower of Chaos. Thelsa had not personally tried the game yet, but she had heard the basic information from Blank. The lowest level of the tower only required level five hundred overall combat power, which was an easy level for any adult with basic training to achieve. Every level of the tower would increase the difficulty level by one. Theoretically, Blank said that there could be an infinite number of levels.

However, every five hundred levels there will be a single level in which participants are required to team up. Some of these have teams competing against each other, and others have teams defending large areas. Either way, this is meant to increase their coordination as a unit.

Almost the instant that people logged in, the scoreboard behind Thelsa lit up, and she turned around to look at it. She was surprised to see how quickly some people were climbing the levels. In fact… it was utterly ridiculous. Within the first ten seconds, someone had already broken through the first five hundred levels, causing Thelsa’s eyes to widen.

Granted, the difficulty level at that point was still lower than anyone here, but the time spent just getting through those levels should have been two hours at a minimum. And this wasn’t taking into account any maze-type floors, the time spent claiming rewards, or the time spent learning the game’s mechanics or practicing skills.

Immediately, others also reached the same floor, and they broke through it effortlessly, their scores once again skyrocketing. Out of concern, Thelsa closed her eyes, focusing. Blank, are you there?

Of course. I see that you have begun the training program. I trust that there are no problems so far? He responded in a calm tone, one that made Thelsa hesitate.

It might be a problem… people are ascending the floors too quickly. In about a minute, we’ve already got some people that have made it to the thousandth floor.

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There was a brief pause, before Blank let out a small hmm. A minute, you say? Did you not have much luck with your recruiting efforts this time?

What? No, well yes, but that’s besides the point. How could they complete a thousand battles in just a minute? She questioned, knowing that it would even be impossible for her at her peak.

Ah, I see the confusion. Don’t worry, this is perfectly normal. In fact, I’m surprised that they have managed to stay in the game for so long. Before you ask, I increased the flow of time within the Tower of Chaos by a factor of one hundred thousand. In other words, one minute for you is roughly two months for them.

Thelsa’s eyes widened as she listened to this, looking towards the thousand volunteers plugged into the game. Is that safe for the players?

Technically speaking, this is the limit of what can be considered safe for a high-level individual. However, given your circumstances, I deemed this to be a necessary measure. Simple combat will provide them with experience, but not necessarily the skills to match their levels. Thus, there is a training area at the start of every floor. Players are encouraged to train and rest until they are satisfied, and then move on to the next challenge.

This way, as they reach levels where they feel that they are being properly challenged, they can use these training rooms to hone their skills, and then test those skills in actual combat. Given that some experts can take months, or even years to train their special skills, this seemed like a suitable countermeasure.

Thelsa let out a long sigh, nodding her head. Alright. But… what about the team floors? Won’t some people end up waiting for weeks or months for others to arrive?

Not to worry. Those floors operate according to the normal flow of time until all slots are filled. That way, most people will only typically have to wait a few seconds to be matched with a team.

Hearing Blank’s response did put Thelsa’s mind at ease, but it also raised another question. Why hasn’t anyone chosen to log out yet? It’s been about three minutes now at this point. That should translate to more than six months for them. Even if I said that there wasn’t a time limit, there should have been someone that logged out for one reason or another.

This time, Blank simply chuckled. Not to worry. There is a disclaimer on the first floor about the accelerated time. Additionally, everyone can check how long they have been logged in at any point, and all training rooms are equipped with a full suite of recreational activities. Given the fact that this game is free to use, the only reason why your recruits should log out early is if they are defeated on a floor, or if they wish to visit their loved ones. As for normal socialization, it is possible for players to communicate with one another through voice and video calls.

Thelsa’s brow twitched slightly, but she nodded her head. You really thought of everything, huh? She asked in a wry tone. When she asked Blank to set up this game for her, she hadn’t expected anything this… well thought out. At most, she expected a standard combat simulation that was essentially a compressed version of Fyor’s floors.

As Thelsa was thinking about that, the first of the players logged out. Unsurprisingly, it was one of the humans of Earth. When he pulled the visor off of his head, he looked around, smiling bitterly at the realization that he was the first to log out. “Miss Whitefallow, may I take a moment to make a personal call?”

Thelsa looked at the man, nodding her head. Calculating how long he had been in the game, a gentle expression came over her face. “Sure, go ahead.” She knew that many of the people she had recruited had their own families. What better motivation was there to fight monsters than to protect your loved ones?

As the man got up to walk out of the room, more and more people began to emerge for similar reasons. After a brief call to their families or friends, they would return and log in once again. However, even before the first person returned from his call, there were changes within the game.

Among those who had not logged out, some had already reached their first true challenge. Some had their scores reset from a failure, while others seemed to glow in their seats, their bodies directly leveling up as they overcame these challenges.

Thelsa watched all of this, pursing her lips. There was bound to be some improvement from those with a lower starting line, but it would still take quite a while for this group to be trained to a usable degree. Admittedly, the way Blank set things up would reduce this time to the bare minimum, but she knew form experience how hard it was to level up after a certain point.

Riley smiled as he allowed the researcher to inspect him, holding his arms out. “How is it, doc? Everything normal?”

The researcher let out a happy laugh, shaking his head. “Honestly, we don’t know! You’re the first Origin that has been created outside of the AWRG. We’re not sure what ‘normal’ is for an Origin. However, your vitals do not seem to be degrading, so you should be stable. At this point, it should be fine for you to leave the facility if you want.”

Riley was pleased to hear that. “What about you guys? Are you continuing your tests?”

“Of course!” The researcher exclaimed in excitement. “We already have our next volunteer lined up. It will take some time to go through the preliminary tests, but you are free to watch the final ascension, if you’d like.”

Riley thought about that for a moment, before nodding his head. “That should be fine. What domain are you planning to give him?”

The researcher chuckled sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. “Well, the ascension process is highly unrefined, and our information is incredibly limited. Right now, the only domain we have any information on is Metal. We plan to continue to produce Origins of Metal to ensure a stable ascension process, and then gradually expand out from there.”

Riley blinked, but nodded his head. “That makes sense.” Information about Origins was almost entirely unknown. Having seen some of the work that they did, he knew that each domain likely required considerable effort to configure, so it made sense that they wanted to make sure that their basic process was solid before expanding. It wasn’t like there was a problem with there being more than one of the same Origin, right?