As I watched the merkins making a true first contact with the other races, one that had the potential to last more than just a few days, I felt a smile tugging at my lips. This race had been hidden in the depths of the ocean since long ago. Long enough that I had almost given up hope that they would one day step into the ranks of the civilized races.

I also learned something quite interesting about them through my observations. While their attention span was quite low, they had a very good memory for things that they have personally heard, such as their ‘songs’. Those sonar maps were detailed enough to capture the image of other walking merkins, although they had been distorted over the years to a certain degree.

The Queen of Songs appeared to realize this as well. She at first wanted to ask them to gather at a specific location later for future trade, but realized that she wasn’t able to give them such a good map. It wasn’t that her own ability was lacking, but rather that she did not use her echolocation and memorize her path everywhere she went.

Instead, she consulted with her partner, before the two came up with a solution. I watched as the Queen of Songs created a sculpture of a spell diagram out of ice, and then proceeded to map it with her sound waves. Then, just as the merkin had given her a song, she gave him one as well.

The spell that she had handed over was a beacon spell. After using it, their position would be sent to the party in charge of the other half of the spell. Naturally, this other party was the captain of the ship. Like this, they would be able to communicate further in the future.

I was quite proud about the fact that the merkin could be uplifted into a proper society, even if it could only be done with the help of another race. My only real regret was that they would still be unable to move beyond the ocean.

Even if they were able to advance to the next stage, they clearly required an aquatic environment. In the best case scenario, they have their own special ships that can leave the planet, filled with water. It would be… unusual, admittedly, but better than nothing at all.

Shaking my head, I stood up from my computer and went towards the living room, deciding to spend some time with the others. There were only a few days left before the others were sent off, and I had little left to do aside from occasionally checking in on the various worlds. Might as well spend my time enjoying myself while I wait, right?

Seven days passed by rather quickly on Earth, the invading force having been pulled out of their training right on schedule. When they emerged, they were once again standing within the courtyard of the Sky Citadel, standing before the Keeper and his two servants.

“You’ve done well in mastering your power and your artifacts in these last few days.” Tsubaki said with a serious nod. “These will prove vital in what is to come. After you leave here, you will be traveling within an unknown world. Nobody can tell you what to expect, or what kind of dangers you may face. However, you were all chosen because you were the best at what you do.”

“With perseverance, and any degree of luck, you will find yourselves capable of overcoming this challenge. I hope that I’ll be able to see all of you again, someday.” As Tsubaki said that, she turned to look at the Keeper, who had been standing nearby with his eyes closed, seeming to silently measure the time.

“I believe everything that should be said has been said.” The Keeper told them, opening his eyes to gaze at the seven figures. “This will be a valuable experience for you, should you return alive. Until then, I have only a single word to give you. Persevere.”

With that, he lifted his hand to the sky, and clenched his fist. A beam of light fell down from above, silently passing through the citadel’s barrier and engulfing the seven people chosen to invade the other world. They felt a warmth flowing through their bodies as the light became brighter and brighter by the moment.

Once their figures had been entirely obscured by the light, it vanished, and so too did they. As of that moment, there were seven less gods within the realm of Earth. Tsubaki offered a small nod, her body relaxing as she realized that it was just the three of them left within the citadel. “I hope that this was to your satisfaction, my Keeper.”

The Keeper offered a small smile, nodding his head. His hand stretched out to lightly pat her head, causing the kitsune to momentarily stiffen again. “You did great, Tsubaki. I’ll let you know when we have the results, one way or the other.”

Dana grinned off to the side, looking towards the Keeper. “Got any other jobs for us now, boss?”

He thought it over for a long moment, before shaking his head. “Nothing that I can immediately come up with. For now, the two of you can get back to your normal routine. I’ll let you know when there is something else on my end that requires your action. Speaking of… how has your progress come with the refinery?”

Feeling his gaze, Dana chuckled playfully. “I’ve sent the blueprints out to the Magic Towers after testing its efficiency myself. It takes about two hundred thousand mana to produce a small mana brick. However, if you extract the energy carefully, you can get more of the energy out of it than if you used the same amount of raw or liquid mana.”

“Unfortunately, the bricks are more cumbersome than the same amount of liquid mana, since it grows as it solidifies. And there are only a handful of mages alive that can produce that much mana on their own. So this will become a large-scale product of the towers.”

“With how they’ve distributed themselves, most towers would need two or three bricks a day to sustain their territory without relying on auxiliary energy. Those in charge of bigger cities could need up to ten, but will also have more mages to contribute. I’m just not sure if their current extraction methods will be enough to get that level of output…”

I nodded my head, thinking about it as well. “Certainly, we could produce as many bricks as we wanted if you used the scepters to power the refineries. Would there be any dangers in doing that, and selling the bricks to the towers that need them?”

“Sell, rather than freely give?” Tsubaki asked curiously, looking to me with a hint of surprise.

“Yes. If we freely hand out the bricks, they will likely take it for granted, and rely only on what we produce. Like that, the mages that typically go to the towers for business would lose their source of income, because they would no longer need to spend any money on hiring anyone. If we are going with this method, we will need to make sure to charge more per brick than the towers would spend to hire enough mages to get the same amount of mana.”

Dana nodded her head at my explanation, muttering softly to herself. “Hmm, if we do that, they’ll only come to us for what they really need, is that the plan? Well… I guess it could work, there’s just one problem with it.”

Seeing my curious gaze, she explained with an awkward smile. “A certain amount of mana is leaked from the refineries every time a brick is produced. For a normal refinery like at the tower, this would be a negligible amount. But if we were to use the orbs, that small amount of mana would be able to quickly build up, until…”

“A mana siphon.” My brows furrowed as I completed her thought, seeing her nod her head in agreement. “Do you have a way to resolve the siphon?”

Dana let out a sigh, crossing her arms over her chest. “Well, maybe? Dispersing the mana will still make it gather outside the dispersal area, and probably form into a much larger siphon. If we vent the excess mana into the void, or a similarly empty world, we would prevent the siphon itself from affecting the facilities for the most part.”

“For the most part?” I asked with a raised brow.

“Right. A siphon is triggered by two things, as you know. First, it is the concentration of ambient mana. After that, it is the thoughts of living creatures within the area of concentration. These thoughts come together and react with the mana to create a singularity, or mana siphon. If the world that we send the mana to doesn’t have any living creatures, it naturally shouldn’t be able to produce a siphon.”

“However, the refineries will require fairly regular maintenance. I’d need at least twenty built in order to produce all of the bricks we need, so I’d have to make weekly visits to the production site even if I set everything to be fully automated. At that time, my own ambient mana and thoughts could mix with the mana being vented and potentially create a siphon.”

“Now, to vent the mana in the first place, we would need a node to act as the vent. Either a portal or a crystal that absorbs the mana and transports it. Either way, if we’re unlucky, a siphon might be able to slip back through this node and into the production area. Or the siphon could produce some type of monster, and that monster’s thoughts become the catalyst for producing more siphons in the supposedly empty worlds.”

As she explained her reasoning, I couldn’t help but nod my head. Although I had just given the idea, she was able to look at it from different angles to discover possible problems that could be faced. “Well, do what you can. The more we can transition to using only mana as an energy source, the less we’ll have to worry in the long run.”

Of course, I knew now that mana had its own form of pollution as well. However, polluting an empty world with random mana siphons was preferable to polluting the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. Especially when we had an unlimited supply of mana to work with. I’d be willing to bet that a single marble could power all twenty of the refineries that Dana mentioned needing.

“By the way, before I go, how has Fafnir been lately?” I hadn’t checked on him again since shortly after the incident of him being attacked, so I only knew that he was still alive. I wasn’t entirely sure of his progress with his own training.

Tsubaki offered a small smile, nodding her head. “He is getting ready to create his divine body. However, he has run into some worries regarding that. Given his size, the amount of work he has to undergo for a full conversion is quite a bit more than a normal person. Thankfully, he has already achieved perfection of the body, so he does not have to worry about shedding his fleshy form. Only in whether he will be able to convert everything to divinity in time.”

When I heard that, I somewhat envied those who only pursued the path of divinity after gaining the Perfect Self class. In my case, I had to manually shatter my entire body, piece by piece while reforming it with divine energy. However, I supposed that they had a similar experience when it came to creating their own divine souls.

Part of me wondered what it would be like for someone to ascend after reaching perfection in both the body and soul. And even if there was such a thing as the Perfect Mind. Things to look into for the future. “And the man that had attacked him previously?”

Tsubaki’s ears drooped slightly when she heard my question. “I am still searching for him, my Keeper. I fear that he fled to Fyor in order to avoid the registry, or has developed a power to avoid its detection. For the time being, I have been unable to locate anyone practicing the ‘ruin’ domain.”

It wasn’t really that big of an issue to me, as I could easily locate him through the system once I returned to the Admin Room. As such, I wasn’t all that concerned with her answer. “That’s alright. I just wanted to make sure that he hadn’t come back to challenge Fafnir again. When he advances next time, I’d like to ask you to be by his side to guard him, just to be safe.”

“I was already planning to do so, and Scarlet had similarly volunteered to join me.” That caught me by surprise, an expression that Tsubaki seemed to read on my face. “She suffered an injury from him in his last appearance, and feels that she must return the favor.”

I gave a small nod, relieved that there would be two gods protecting Fafnir when he decided to advance. Even if the man appeared, he wouldn’t be able to easily disrupt the process this time.