Author's Notes: Chapter edited and corrected by Scott Fellman.
I wrinkled my nose as I glanced at the small amount of credits that remained, 60. Really, the cost for Baiser's template had multiplied too much; I would have to get more credits or avoid accumulating more templates on myself.
I quickly claimed the rewards for the side missions that Bella had earned; she had passed the 49th floor, so there were several rewards to accept.
Mission Rewards + 235:
Ultimate Dungeon Diving by Anonymous in Danmachi
Objective 1: Reach Level 1
Reward [ Credits ] : 10
Objective 11: Reach floor 12
Reward [ Credits ] : 10
Objective 12: Reach floor 18
Reward [ Credits ] : 20
Objective 13: Reach floor 24
Reward [ Credits ] : 30
Objective 14: Reach floor 30
Reward [ Credits ] : 40
Objective 15: Reach floor 36
Reward [ Credits ] : 50
Objective 16: Reach floor 49
Reward [ Credits ] : 75
Total [300]
I nodded slightly and finally completed all transactions and purchases in the app.
The moment I finished the purchase, I felt Baiser's essence slipping away. I immediately lost the La Verita transformation, and my horns and tail suddenly disappeared.
I could feel the enormous imbalance within me that made me want to vomit for a split second before Baiser's new template settled. I took a deep breath as I grasped Baiser's familiar energy, much weaker, more contained, but I welcomed it with open arms.
"Is everything alright? Did you just... lose your horns? There was a significant decrease in your magic," Riveria asked worriedly, frowning. I nodded slowly.
"Yes, I... I just performed a power swap." I said simply, opening and closing my hands, trying to control Baiser's magic. I took a deep breath, slowly feeding Baiser's flame with my vast reserves of demonic power, constantly expanding them.
Baiser's template wasn't really complicated; there was nothing that required proper training, you just had to increase the amount of available magic, something I had plenty of.
The only significant step would be La Verita, but that had much more to do with the mindset of transformation than the training itself. I took out my new transformation star and held it tightly in front of me.
"Trans-Magia!" The words came out strangely in my mouth once again. I had lived with La Verita for months, and once I had learned to keep it permanently active, I had never transformed back.
I let the magic envelop me and let Baiser's transformation take its course. Once I finished, I took a deep breath. I could feel much of my magical energy returning and settling into something recognizable.
I looked myself over carefully and saw that everything was in place, even my tail had returned. I almost expected Fusta Dominazione to appear once more. Luckily, my transformation, my La Verita form, was so deeply ingrained within me that the transformation continued as before.
Take a deep breath and grasp the transformation star around my neck.
"La Verita!" I exclaimed loudly, the magic continued its course as usual, and I regained my previous appearance.
I sighed with relief and hugged myself as I felt La Verita settle comfortably into my body once more. I could feel that I was still weaker than before the powerswap, but the sensation was the same: I felt whole once again.
"Okay, first, you're going to have to explain what just happened because I'm very confused, and second, are you a magical girl?!" Rebecca asked with a huge, mocking smile. I rolled my eyes.
"A magical girl? I mean... is she a mage? A witch?" Riveria tried to say, confused. I snorted.
"Yes, I'm a magical girl... or something like that." I said vaguely before passing on Baiser's template and all the information to everyone, especially the definition of Magical Girl for Riveria, and I added all the information about the Pack's link to Lucy, who was surprised by the telepathic messages.
"Convenient... so, that's how they've been talking constantly." Lucy murmured to herself.
"Baiser's template was my main template. When I did the Power Swap, I lost its powers before the new Baiser template settled." Explain simply.
"Okay, but the question is, why did you change the template? What did you do a Power Swap to? " Rebecca asked, confused.
"To The Traveler." I said without hesitation. The three of them, no, actually four, even GLaDOS seemed surprised as she looked at me.
"The Traveler," Rebecca said slowly. "The Great Machine, the Gardener, the source of Light, the enormous sphere in the sky that we were defending for hundreds of hours, that... The Traveler?" Rebecca asked incredulously. I nodded.
"The same one," I said as I nodded.
"Just... why?" Rebecca asked forcefully; everyone else seemed curious about the answer as well.
"It turns out that it's quite possible for the Evil Pieces to function like Ghosts, so they're able to revive and do other things, but they need a substantial source of Light to function. I was just going to get Add Power, and then, from there, I'd have to train and cultivate The Light to make it strong enough to work, especially if I want to place it on all my Evil Pieces."
"It would take some time, but I would be able to achieve it, but then I thought about it and just... The Traveler." I said with a crooked smile. They just stared at me without understanding. I mean, it was an impulse of the moment, so I didn't fully understand it either.
"So... does that mean you'll be as strong as The Traveler? Capable of terraforming planets? " Riveria asked, her eyes wide.
"Of course not." I immediately snorted. "At least not right away. The cost to place the full The Traveler template is ridiculously expensive. No, I had to lower it to the level I'm already at, a T7, but eventually I'll get there... although it might take a long time." I added with a grimace.
"The same level as the Guardian template you just bought for me?" Rebecca asked, frowning.
"Why didn't you just buy it as a normal template?" Lucy asked, confused.
" Yes, the same level as The Guardian, but The Traveler is the primary source of The Light. The amount of The Light I would be able to handle is much greater than what a Guardian could handle, even at the same level. And I didn't buy their template because it's not possible." I replied to both of them. I quickly relayed all the information about the Imaginary Tiers.
"So, if you're now The Traveler, and you're going to manipulate our Evil Pieces like the Ghosts to create a link with The Light, were the Added Powers to give us The Light wasted credits?" Lucy asked, frowning. I hummed softly.
"Maybe yes, maybe no," I said, shrugging. "I mean, for starters, it wasn't even expensive, so it's not a problem. But also, you'll be able to use your Evil Pieces as a link to me and use Light to push your own Light sources, but they'd still be considered two separate sources. In the rare event that you lose the connection to me, you should still be able to use your own Light." I said with a grimace.
"I mean... don't you need areas with a high concentration of Darkness to extinguish and disable The Light? But that way it would completely nullify any source of Light, including ours," Riveria asked, frowning.
"In the Destiny universe? Of course, and yes, it would nullify both. And maybe, in other universes, where there are hundreds of power nullifiers, it could nullify The Light. Still, I was thinking more about the rare case of someone trying to manipulate their souls and managing to remove their Evil Pieces or disable them in some way." I said, wrinkling my nose.
"Is it possible? Is it really common for this to happen? " Lucy asked worriedly, frowning.
"Not as common as you might expect, but still enough to be a real concern, especially since there's no Soul Defense to prevent soul manipulation and attacks when buying from The Company; that's the only significant loophole." I added solemnly.
There were some defenses related to the soul, such as Fatality Defense that prevented the soul from being destroyed immediately, or Drain Defense to prevent the soul from being drained, or similar things, but manipulation of the soul itself? That defense did not exist.
Many of the manipulations of the soul were covered by the other defenses, but some finer details were lost in the gaps, making it a real threat for the future.
Soul manipulators that were truly accurate enough to exploit the gaps in other defenses were really rare; most soul-attacking abilities were stopped by defenses such as Mind, Corruption, Fatality, Polymorph, and Possession.
Even so, they remained a concern.
"That's good to know," Riveria said with a nod.
"So, we wait a week for the Power Swap?" Rebecca asked after a few moments. "You have to wait too, right? " she added quickly. I nodded.
"Yes, I was thinking of putting myself in a time bubble, then forcing myself to sleep with a sleep-inducing potion that lasts for a week, or with the metal that forces me to sleep." I said with a nod.
"Do we have to do something?" Riveria asked immediately, and I shook my head.
"Don't worry, I'll set everything up to break down completely in a week, so there shouldn't be any problem," I said immediately. Riveria simply nodded. "But before I do anything... GLaDOS, what are you doing?" I asked, confused.
GLaDOS had been passing through the portal for a while, bringing tools and machines from elsewhere, and then she began preparing a kind of operating room.
"Preparing for an eye transplant," GLaDOS said, as if it were obvious.
"Oh yes, the Six Eyes." I murmured, then pulled the tube with a pair of floating eyes from my inventory.
"Are those Riveria's new eyes? They look like jewels even like that," Rebecca said as she stepped closer to look. Just as Rebecca had said, the eyes, even being eyeballs floating in a tube with all their nerve endings somewhat unsettling, were truly beautiful.
The azure irises shone as brilliantly as a well-polished diamond. I gazed at them closely and could feel my Reality Marble attempting to analyze them, but it failed miserably.
My eyes widened. My eyes… were they being taken as Mystery?! My Reality Marble's automatic analysis only kicked in when I saw a Mystery, but until now, it hadn't reacted to anything biological. Vampires, devils, elves, and any supernatural race had traces of Mystery, but it had never been activated.
But I easily understood what had just happened. The eyes contained everything the Six Eyes represented; all their abilities, traits, and biology were contained in that simple pair of eyes.
And I accept it as such in my Reality Marble. But my Reality Marble couldn't replicate life. None of my abilities could replicate or modify biological things, so it was a hard limitation within my Reality Marble, even though I recognized them as Mystery.
It's a real shame.
I sighed with regret as I handed my eyes to GLaDOS.
"Wait until I wake up, I want to be there to help." I told GLaDOS. Riveria just looked nervous. Then I looked at Rebecca. "Let's go." I said simply, pointing to the nearby bed.
I started preparing everything, placing a time bubble that would burst after 7 days, with a few seconds passing outside in real time, and quickly setting up my pocket watch.
I took out a medallion for Rebecca, immediately modified it to store Vigilance for seven full days, keeping her asleep the whole time, and then wake her up. For me, it was easy to command my own power to store for seven continuous days before stopping.
Rebecca snuggled up next to me as soon as the medallion activated, and I did the same.
I opened my eyes immediately when I felt the Vigil of my bendalloy forcing me awake. It was always annoying to go from completely asleep to completely awake.
I grabbed the watch to the side and looked at the time; exactly 7 days had passed since the time bubble had been active, and a few seconds had passed outside, so it had worked correctly.
"Am I done yet?" Rebecca asked as she yawned upon waking.
"You should try using your Light." I said as I broke the time bubble.
"Did it work?" Riveria asked immediately. Rebecca didn't answer; she just got out of bed, excitedly.
She raised her hand and let The Light envelop her completely. A faint pulse of Light left Rebecca's body before her hand burst into flames thanks to the solar energy. Rebecca smiled broadly; another pulse of The Darkness surged from Rebecca, and her hand seemed to freeze with the power of Stasis.
Then Rebecca's hand began to generate lightning, the Strand's threads wrapped around her arms, and finally, a small black hole formed in the palm of her hand. Rebecca's smile widened before she crushed the black hole between her hands.
She immediately pulled out one of her favorite weapons, the Gjallarhorn, an exotic rocket launcher with homing missiles.
" Ooohhh, this feels so much better than in the game." Rebecca moaned, biting her lip as she began stroking the Gjallarhorn. GLaDOS approached, staring at her intently.
I stopped abruptly when I felt a tingle in my Reality Marble as I analyzed the Gjallarhorn. Most of the major weapons in Destiny—that is, most of the exotic and legendary weapons, if not all—were infused with paracausal energy. After all, it was the only way to damage and defeat gods.
Most of them were infused with The Light; others with The Darkness; still others bore different weapons with other paracausal energies.
That meant that the weapons in Destiny counted as magical weapons. Weapons that my Reality Marble could analyze and ultimately replicate, as I noticed when I felt a new star appear within my Reality Marble.
A star bathed in The Light.
It was a perfect copy, I noticed immediately. Unlike Noble Phantasms, where I didn't have immediate access to the knowledge of all their materials and wasn't able to replicate them, The Light came into play a lot when replicating Gjallarhorn, and I had The Light in abundance.
I would have to see the other weapons, but I was sure I could make a perfect replica of most of them. I could feel The Light enveloping my entire Reality Marble; everything within it was infused with The Light.
I closed my eyes as I focused on my Reality Marble. It was impossible to access it physically since my chant wasn't complete, but I could take a look, and I could observe it whenever I wanted.
I was almost speechless when I saw that my Reality Marble had changed again.
The Pale Heart.
The Traveler's inner world, a world created by the traveler's consciousness, a space shaped by thoughts, memories, and symbols of all living beings linked to The Traveler and The Light, a combination of impossible landscapes and fragments of known realities.
And now that had altered my Reality Marble. Oh, most of it was the same: the starry sky, the giant door in the distance, the cocoon of demonic power and lust, everything was still in its place.
Except it had grown exponentially. Before, there was a defined space, my Reality Marble, whose boundaries I could easily see. Now, it was almost impossible to see the limits of my inner world. And not only that, it was even more difficult because the landscape had changed enormously.
Behind me lay the vast expanse of grassy plain; now buildings and ruins had begun to appear, ancient buildings that I recognized as ruins from the magical world. There were also more modern buildings, but there were also buildings from Night City.
There was a jumble of buildings that seemed to have no rhyme or reason. There were also large plants, flowers, and trees spreading and growing in all directions.
To my overwhelming surprise, I was able to recognize them easily. Magical plants. There were magical plants everywhere. I could recognize all of them, from ordinary, barely magical plants to more dangerous and enormous ones.
I could see a Devil's Snare in the distance, and on the other side, I could see a huge Whomping Willow. Every plant, flower, and tree—magical and non-magical—that I knew was here, growing uncontrollably everywhere.
And I knew it, I knew I could make them bloom in the real world, that I could flex The Light so easily to create life, to create all these creations within my Reality Marble and mold them into the real world.
I… this was incredible.
"Serena!" Lucy exclaimed loudly, pulling me out of my inner world. I blinked slightly as I looked around in bewilderment.
"Yes? I was... inspecting me." I said, still surprised by my Reality Marble.
"You're... making plants grow." Lucy said, pointing to the ground where I was standing. I looked down. From the wooden floor beside my feet, plants and fungi were beginning to sprout and slowly spread, teeming with The Light.
My eyes opened slightly before I suppressed the release of The Light from my body. It almost felt unnatural, but I kept it firmly inside me.
"That... that's new." I said with a blink as I carefully backed away from the new plants on the ground.
"I guess we don't need to ask if The Traveler template worked," Rebecca said playfully. I shook my head.
"No, not yet... I need to understand everything I can do, but it's... fantastic." I said, completely amazed.
"It's incredible, The Traveler's terraforming capabilities are something wonderful." Riveria said, fascinated. "Are you able to manipulate The Light in the same way as Rebecca?" Riveria asked. My gaze fell on her, and I opened my mouth to answer before stopping myself.
My eyes widened when I felt my Reality Marble activate once more. All supernatural phenomena were Mysteries; even supernatural beings bore traces of Mysteries upon them. But it wasn't something I could replicate with my Reality Marble.
Living beings were always a hard line that I was not able to cross, but The Light didn't care in the slightest. Traveler was the Gardener; it could terraform planets, alter the biology of living beings, and manipulate life as it wished.
I could feel the entire High Elf race being grasped by my Reality Marble, effortlessly forming a constellation in the sky. I knew I could pull on it; the constellation would activate and begin projecting the High Elf traits onto myself.
At that exact moment, the rest seemed to activate, and more constellations appeared. One for the Devils, the succubi, and another for the Witches of the magical world were useless to me, but there they were, so clear against the night sky that it was fascinating to behold.
They were useless, but it was revealing.
I stared incredulously at the real world, blinking several times as I looked around in disbelief, my gaze unconsciously falling on GLaDOS, and a new constellation began to form.
Ex Machina, Prüfer, the new constellation that had appeared. I stood still before trying to look at everyone else while I finally registered what was happening.
And I understood immediately. I couldn't create or project a living being from scratch or a copy of the scanned person. No, what I could do was grab all the traits of the race whose constellation was in my Reality Marble, and let my Reality Marble modify my own biology to acquire those traits.
I could acquire the traits of a High Elf or a Prüfer whenever I wanted; if I kept scanning other races, I could keep acquiring more constellations, more biological traits to replicate.
It was… it was incredible… I could now replicate and project biology and biological traits; I could project the traits of living beings bathed in Mystery, replicated by my Reality Marble and The Light. The limit I had before was completely broken and shattered into pieces.
I… I was speechless.