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Chapter 1123: A Warning

When Lena opened her eyes, she was standing within a rather… humble living space. There was a decent couch, as well as a black screen on one wall. She could see a kitchen attached to the living area, as well as a hallway that led further into the house.

This is the Keeper’s true palace? She asked herself in bewilderment. She had expected a lavish mansion with silken carpets and lighting made of captured stars. Or perhaps the most advanced technology imaginable, with solid holograms forming the various pieces of furniture that could be configured at the user’s command. But this… this felt like a house that a middle-class family would live in, at best.

“Someone’s thinking rude thoughts.” A voice spoke up, and Lena saw Terra smirking at her nearby, standing together with the rest of the Greater Pantheon, along with a few other faces. Most of these faces she recognized, though there was one new to her, at least personally. She had heard of the purple unicorn centaur, hailed as the daughter of Tryval, the eternal princess and first queen of Sher Dien, Alme.

“Sorry.” Lena said, scratching the back of her head. “This just… is this it, really?”

The Keeper gave a knowing chuckle. “This is the Admin Room that I told you about. Don’t let the appearance fool you, this is just what I set it as to make it more comfortable for me. The Admin Room can be altered by the mind of its inhabitants, and shaped into any form they desire. I’ve seen people set up their Admin Rooms like corporate offices, grand pantheons, or even fluffy, bouncing castles. To me… just a home that I can share with my friends is the most comfortable.”

Lena blinked quickly, but nodded her head. “Right. So, how long until this meeting starts?” She asked, tilting her head. The Keeper glanced off into the empty space, eyes seeming unfocused.

“Right… about… now.” He muttered, and Lena felt something distinctly shift, a trace of the power that she had sensed upon arriving in this space. For a brief moment, she felt as if it had gripped her heart, halting it, before fading away.

Do they feel this every time? Lena asked uncertainly. She knew that she was particularly sensitive to energies, due to her training in obtaining nine separate domains. While she couldn’t compare to the detailed results of World Sight being actively used, she was confident in her intuition.

The Keeper’s brow knit briefly, before turning and looking at a golden door that appeared on the wall behind him. “That door will take us to the meeting space.” He said, walking towards it. Lena braced herself for that familiar energy fluctuation as they stepped through the door. However, this time, she truly didn’t feel anything, as if they were passing through a mundane door.

On the other side of that ‘mundane’ door, however, was a white space that stretched out as far as she could see. Other doors began to appear and open within this space, and soon, buildings began to fade into being, a small cityscape forming. The Keeper turned to look at the group with a smile as Irena, Terra, and Ryone walked towards him. “Alright, everyone, remember, we’ll be here for the full week. Try to get as much as you can, and the invasion will begin as soon as the meeting is over.”

After he said that, the Keeper left with his wives, and Lifre ran over to Lena. “I know! Let me show you this awesome adventure maze that I found in a previous meeting. I’m sure that you’ll love it. And this really advanced battle simulator, too.”

Lena chuckled at Lifre’s eagerness, but shook her head. “I’ll catch up with you for all of that later, promise. For now, there are a few things that I want to experiment with in this space.” She could feel that all of her energy sources had truly been cut off. She could not sense mana, ki, or spirit, nor could she call upon her divinity.

Lifre blinked, but nodded her head. “Sure, I’ll be in… there it is, that building there.” She turned, pointing at a rather conspicuous building that appeared just in time for her to indicate it. Lena nodded her head, grinning as she turned around to walk in the opposite direction, away from the other Keepers and their subordinates.

“I’ll stop by there before too long, promise!” She said again, making sure that there weren’t any other individuals moving in the same direction as her. When she spotted one, she altered her course, turning to put herself as far from anyone else in this realm as physically possible.

The Keeper said that this space responds to the desires of those within it. That simply wishing for a feature may be enough to bring it into existence. When Lena had first heard that, she wondered if there was a way to take advantage of it in order to gather information.

Deep in her heart, Lena focused as she walked. I want a place where I can obtain information on other Keepers, away from the prying eyes of others. I want somewhere that I can gather information helpful to my Keeper.

She kept this thought in her mind as she walked, the landscape developing around her. What started as a blank, white canvas soon turned into concrete, and then gave way to grass and forest as she continued to walk further away.

She had a feeling that this wouldn’t work, of course. If there was an exploit like this, no Keeper would be safe. However, this was only the first of many experiments that she wanted to try.  Whenever anything about her enivornment changed, she scrutinized it closely, trying to find hints of anything that she could interact with to achieve her goal.

“It’s not going to work, you know.” A familiar voice called out. Lena spun around in surprise, and saw Terra standing behind her with an amused smile. “You’ve got to play by the rules here, Lena.”

“Terra?” Lena asked suspiciously, narrowing her eyes. “You left to have your date with the Keeper. You would have never left his side to come and scold me.”

Terra blinked at that, before letting out a light laugh. “Right, you only pieced most of it together. You can think of me as Terra if you want, but that’s not entirely accurate. The being that you know as Terra is one of the thousands of entities integrated into the system.”

Lena’s eyes briefly widened, though her body soon relaxed. “So that is her special authority. And you are appearing as her now to… put me at ease?”

“Quite. It is standard when someone tries to break the established rules of the meeting space to appear as a System Companion from their world, as it would be a familiar face. If I were to appear as a man in a white suit and black sunglasses, you may think that I was the informant that you were looking for.”

Lena gave a bitter grin when she heard that. “So, you can read my mind. Super not fair, by the way. So… before I get more than a slap on the wrist, what are these established rules, so I can avoid breaking any others?”

Terra crossed her arms under her chest. “First of all, this is meant to be a source of entertainment for Keepers and their extra guests. The points to be provided are merely a secondary incentive. If the Keepers are trapped in an endless loop of danger, they will be unable to properly manage their worlds, after all.”

“While in this space, no harm may come to any Keeper or their guest. This includes harm derived by information experts such as yourself. You cannot use the rules of this space to create any facility that would cause any harm to any individual. You can find and observe them manually, but many facilities provide privacy settings that would prevent you from gathering any useful intel. Similarly, you cannot create a facility that directly alters your Keeper’s point balance, or gives you items from the system market that you can take back to your world.”

Lena’s brow twitched as her ideas were cut off one by one, Terra finishing it off with a warning. “And if you continue to try to break the rules, there will be bigger punishments than a ‘slap on the wrist’. For the first offense, you get a warning. The second offense will have you expelled back to your world. A third offense will have your existence erased entirely. If it is found that you acted with the blessing of your Keeper, he will be heavily penalized, as well. Depending on how many such infractions he had faced, this could result in him being replaced.” Terra’s eyes narrowed as she issued that warning, and Lena’s body froze.

“You really aren’t Terra, if you’re talking like that…” She said, her eyes wide. Lena knew enough about Terra to know that she would do anything to protect him. The thought of ‘replacing’ the Keeper would never emerge from her lips.

“I already told you, this is just a face that I am wearing to appear more familiar to you.” Terra, or rather, the entity appearing as Terra said. “This is your first offense, so you are receiving a warning. For your sake, as well as the sake of your Keeper, do not let there be any further offenses.”

Lena swallowed thickly, nodding her head. “Got it… but… can I ask you some questions? Not about any other Keepers or anything.”

The entity arched her brow. “This form will abide by the same rules as Terra. If information is permitted to be shared, it will be.”

Lena knew that that was another form of a warning. This being was able to read her mind, after all. If it wasn’t able to answer any of her questions, it would have outright refused. If it was able to answer all of them, then it wouldn’t have said anything.

“Is nine domains truly the limit?” Lena asked, feeling as though this was the safest question to ask.

The entity paused, closing its eyes. “This is not a hard rule that can be answered simply. As with all things, there are measures that can be taken, either through an individual’s own abilities or through the alteration of the world.”

“How… how does a god with nine domains compare to an origin?” She asked, licking her lips. Although she had briefly emulated the Origin of Fate, the energy consumption caused her to hesitate to make such a comparison.

This time, the entity seemed more amused. “Were you to have the absolute faith of the people, comparable to those you call the Greater Pantheon, your power would be no less than a typical Origin. This is due to all nine of your domains synergizing with one another to produce greater effects. If they were scattered, this would not be the case.”

Lena nodded, thinking through her remaining questions. There were some that she assumed to be in the category of ‘unable to be answered’, and others that she didn’t feel were worth this entity’s time. As she was thinking, another question entered her mind, and she said it without taking the time to consider.

“What was the energy that I felt when I entered the Admin Room, or when the meeting began?”

The entity’s face froze at that, seeming genuinely surprised. Its surprise further surprised Lena, who had considered the entity to be an all-knowing being that could anticipate anything that she would say or do.

“You felt that?” The entity pondered, a smile forming on her face. “Interesting, very interesting. All that I will say is that it was the greater system that you felt. Very few individuals are capable of sensing it, unless they employ special abilities at the key moment. The first time, you felt it reconstructing your body to suit the Admin Room. The second, as you said, was when time was frozen.”

“Now… your ‘work’ out here is done. You won’t find any of your ‘secret objectives’ out here, so you should keep your promises.” She said, lifting a hand and snapping her fingers. Before Lena could say anything, she had disappeared from the forest, leaving the figure chuckling to herself. “She could sense us, huh? Quite the interesting one… It looks like that Keeper will have his hands full.”