Markets and Multiverses (A Serial Transmigration LitRPG)
Chapter 368: Time Passes

Time passed, as Anise and I buried ourselves in research and training.

Elder Veridian was more than happy to help Anise and I test the limits of ‘sunlight.’ In some respects, she actually seemed even more eager than Anise and I. While we saw it as a good way to help the sanctuary and harvest a bunch of Achievement, but Elder Veridian seemed to see it as a real hope for the future. She also conveniently ‘forgot’ to teach us about any ceremonial duties related to heroes - much to my relief. I did think that helping people raise morale was useful… but it would be a huge shame if all we could accomplish in this dimension was comfort people’s hearts as the world died. 

Regardless, our tests and experiments proceeded with exceptional support. I hadn’t yet discussed my ambition to create a small sun with her, because I thought she would take my idea much more seriously when I got older. However, given the way she had been behaving so far, I was pretty sure she would be completely on-board with the idea if I brought it up at a suitable age. Unfortunately, not everything was good news. While Elder Veridian was happy to support my testing, I had learned a few problems with my initial goal.

First of all, we had confirmed that other people couldn’t use dimensional terraforming to create artificial sunlight of their own. Elder Veridian, who was at least moderately competent in the surviving magic systems, simply couldn’t create sunlight. Even when I showed her sunlight for an hour every day, helped her understand the mechanics behind how it worked, and described every single aspect of sunlight I remembered, she was incapable of making it on her own. This was more than a little bit disappointing, because if Elder Veridian had learned how to create sunlight, I would have succeeded on the spot. I was pretty sure that Elder Veridian and a few other powerful mages could have generated more essence per second than they spent creating sunlight, allowing them to do an infinite loop of essence-generation that would utterly circumvent the need for essence crops. I probably would have gained less influence Achievement if Elder Veridian had succeeded, but halting the seven-millenia long decline of an entire civilization was still no easy feat. I suspected I would have still raked in Achievement, even if the total quantity would have been lesser. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be. 

However, oddly enough, Anise was also capable of generating sunlight. It had taken her far longer to learn the ins and outs of the dimensional magic system, since she basically only got alteration essence from my sunlight, and she wasn’t as innately talented in manipulating alteration essence. However, once she got a base level of proficiency in the dimensional magic system, she confirmed that she could also create sunlight, just like I could. Based on Anise’s results, I suspected the corporation in charge of this world had somehow blocked access to sunlight, unless one was a transmigrator. I had no idea how they could create that sort of restriction… but the corporation had obviously implemented all sorts of modifications to this world. Who knew what they had installed to keep this world functioning properly?

We also confirmed that using sunlight to regenerate essence did cost nutrients. Someone who sat in sunlight for about an hour needed to eat a slightly larger meal that day, or they would end up exhausted and hungry the next day. Based on Elder Veridian’s calculations, spending an entire day in sunlight would mean that someone would need to eat a fourth meal that day, increasing their food intake by about 33%. However, she seemed incredibly excited even though sunlight had a drawback. Apparently, the roots of the great tree had some sort of enriching effect on the soil, making it easy to have bountiful harvest after bountiful harvest for even the most temperamental of plants. This was why we had such easy access to chocolate and other ‘luxury’ foods. No matter what kind of crop it was, on the sanctuary, it grew quickly and then produced food by the bucket. Even more importantly, most pests that bothered crops hadn’t managed to hitch a ride onto the sanctuaries when people were fleeing, meaning that there weren’t many birds or other pests that killed crops.

Normally, this might have resulted in people having more kids survive to adulthood, thus resulting in more people to eat all of this surplus food. However, the sanctuaries were populated by elves and other species with similar lifespans. Active couples didn’t have very many kids here - even the ones that looked like humans had similarly low reproduction rates. It wasn’t that unusual for a couple to only have one child every 70 or 80 years. In short, there was a massive surplus of food compared to the population in the sanctuary. Nutrient costs might as well have been nonexistent.

The final thing we tested was an attempt to directly create a sun. I had never expected to produce a properly sized sun in this world. After all, suns were massive, and there was no freaking way I could create a regularly sized sun that was hundreds of thousands of times larger than most planets. However, I had thought that I could at least create a small, fist-sized sun as a test. If things went really well, I had hoped that after I created some kind of ‘sun,’ the natives of this world would be able to keep maintaining it on their own, thus creating a real way forward for this world.

That didn’t go as planned, because ‘suns’ seemed to go very heavily against the laws of reality in this dimension. Whatever had been done to change this world during its terraforming process, anything that resembled a sun was now a huge violation of reality. Any sun I created would instantly come under siege from its surroundings. Originally, I tried to resolve this issue by placing the new sun into a pocket dimension. However, if I created a dimensional pocket and placed my knockoff sun inside, sunlight wouldn’t be able to escape, thus negating the entire point of creating it in the first place. I had no idea how to do it, but to have any hope of creating a proper sun, I was pretty sure I needed something other than a pocket dimension - such as a pocket dimension that allowed sunlight out and essence in, without dimensional laws interfering with each other. I had no clue how to do that, though.

Even more frustrating was that, when we tried to get Elder Veridian to help sustain a fist-sized miniature sun as a test, we discovered that it didn’t work. I was pretty sure Elder Veridian could, in theory, help sustain a sun that I had already created… but only in theory. In practice, a great deal of skill and understanding of sunlight was needed, or she would accidentally destabilize the star instead of stabilizing it. Elder Veridian couldn’t create sunlight on her own, and her understanding of sunlight and stars was inherently flawed because no stars existed in this dimension anymore. It was a herculean task that I was having a hard time completing.

After all of my testing, I eventually came up with a path that might lead forward… but it would take a very, very long time to complete. I thought that we would need to start from the school system. We would need to find kids who had talent in alteration essence, teach them about the dimensional terraforming magic system, and teach them how stars and sunlight worked, while constantly exposing them to sunlight whenever my essence allowed it. If we did all of those things, we could probably get a team of people who could actually help maintain a sun I had create. From there, it would just be a math equation, in which we would need to make sure that the sun was generating more essence than it consumed on maintenance. I wasn’t entirely sure the whole endeavor would work, but I hoped it would work out.

Unfortunately, we would probably need to wait a while before we got into this plan. Nobody in this world was likely to take the suggestions of the equivalent of a child too seriously, even if we were heroes, so I decided to shelve this topic for later. I would need to have some sort of ‘proof of concept’ before anyone invested too heavily in my ideas, and I just couldn’t provide that yet.

After I made finished brainstorming ways to progress my create-a-sun idea, Anise and I contacted Felix and Sallia again, to consult with them.

<I think that your idea has merit. I just worry that your sun might consume more essence than it produces,> said Felix. <However, the idea of a pocket dimension that lets essence in and sunlight out, without allowing dimensional laws to clash… might work. I would need to think about it, but maybe I can whip something up. To do that, I would need to study your {Space Capsule} ability in more detail though, and right now I don’t have any good reason to meet with you.>

<At this point, I don’t think it’s a bad idea to expose our status as heroes as well,> said Sallia. <If the sanctuary had bad intentions, I think they would have exposed them by now. Anise and Miria have already showcased themselves as heroes, helped fight off a raid, and started learning this world’s magic systems. The Astral tides ended a few weeks ago, and raids will probably start back up soon. We could expose our identities as heroes, so that we have a legitimate reason to meet with each other again?>

<So… are you two planning on announcing yourselves soon?> I asked.

<I think Sallia made a good point. Next raid, I’ll showcase my abilities a bit and expose myself as a hero,> said Felix, after a few seconds of thought. <I’m not entirely sure I can find a good way to keep your artificial sun intact, but if we can get it working, it would instantly achieve our big goal in this world. That’s worth taking some smaller risks for.>

<I’ll do the same, I think,> said Sallia. <I still have one rune ability left. Miria, you also have one left, right? Let’s wait a bit longer, for Felix to assess your attempts at creating an artificial sun, and if he thinks it’s a good idea, we can both spend our last ability on whatever the project needs.>

I breathed a small sigh of relief. I hadn’t seen my friends in person in years now. I wanted to see Sallia and Felix again, and give them nice, big hugs. Furthermore, trying to create an artificial sun was stressful. I could share details with Sallia and Felix, and brainstorm solutions to problems I was encountering - but all of the data they could get was entirely reliant on my senses. It would be a relief to see them in person again, so that I could get some more detailed and effective feedback.

I smiled as I thought about the future. Next raid, I would finally have an excuse to reunite with my friends.

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