Published at 12th of January 2022 12:11 pm

Chapter 678: Energy Crisis

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James sat at his desk, his forehead creased as he read through a series of reports. As Dana had expected, there were signs that numerous shields across almost all testing fields had been silently disabled. Or rather, they had been overcome with such power that they had been entirely erased.

“This is too much for a natural occurrence, but also…” James knew that there was likely to be some level of sabotage within the shields, otherwise they would have not experienced such widespread failure. For instance, there were cases when the physical shields failed, but no entity came through.

However, there were also situations where completely isolated tests experienced unforeseen failure that could not be attributed to sabotage. One such example was Dana’s experience, where she had created her spell diagram entirely on her own, based on James’s own explanations. Thus, it became obvious to James that there was indeed sabotage, but the shields themselves were also lacking.

“But, I know that these numbers are right.” He muttered to himself, looking over his calculations. He had created many of these shielding mechanisms in his original time as a Keeper, and was very familiar with how they operated. Even though units of measurement were bound to differ from one world to the next, he had confirmed the calculations through numerous personal experiments.

“It doesn’t make sense for the void monsters to just be stronger in this Keeper’s world than mine. And the ones that were reported so far did not show any exaggerated abilities that would surprise me.” In his time, he had seen many powerful void monsters, some capable of erasing all life on a planet had they been allowed to roam free.

Comparatively, what they were currently seeing was only the normal ranks among void monsters. Admittedly, a spirit being caught in the void during the process of rebirth was rare, it was not unheard of. Such often became the source of horror stories involving ghosts and monsters in a normal world.

When James thought to that point, his hand tapping against the keyboard suddenly stopped. A normal world… He thought to himself, comparing the world he was currently in with those he was familiar with.

The researcher glanced over to his side, where Chel was now peacefully sleeping, and began to type away at the holographic display. There are three primary differences between this world and those I possessed in my previous life. The first difference is the abundance of mystical energies. However, this change would not affect the world at a void-level any more than a single grain of sand would affect the rising tide.

The second difference is the presence of Dimensium. As this is an ore created specifically within this universe, its properties have not fully been explored. With its ability to influence dimensional properties, there is a certain chance that it could influence the void within its ambient energy range. I should schedule a test with this material later to verify this theory.

Finally, the third difference is the world size. Of the current worlds that exist within this Keeper’s domain, only one primary world matches the size I am familiar with, and that is Desbar. It is possible that larger worlds require stronger shielding mechanisms when dealing with the void. I will request to run tests in Desbar with my current devices in order to confirm this theory.

With this, James had created two plausible theories as to why his shields had been failing. However, he was leaning more towards the issue being related to the size of the world itself, after giving it some more thought. Ultimately, the Keeper system maintains balance. A larger world provides additional resources that can be taken advantage of. Dale might have bypassed a couple of stages by seeking to harvest unlimited energy early, but I can’t really blame him there.

If this is how it is set up, then larger worlds likely require stronger shields as a compensation for the additional starter resources. Until they are at a stage where they can create those shields, it is best to focus on alternative methods of power generation.

Naturally, there was a simple way to bypass this restriction, but it would not work forever. By having an energy-generation plant in a world like Desbar, where normal shield strength was required, they could pump out and package additional energy. This packaged energy would be then sent to larger worlds to be consumed.

Doing this was highly inefficient, as smaller worlds had more limited space for such establishments. In order to supply enough energy for a larger world, they would need between ten and a hundred times what their own world would consume, drastically limiting the amount of territory that the smaller world could maintain.

Unless someone was willing to create smaller worlds that existed purely for energy production, this would not be a feasible plan. And at that point, they would essentially be creating Tsubaki’s reality gems… Though, she admittedly took her plan a step further by mass producing them. Had the energy been properly extracted and refined from the beginning, those orbs would have been able to last a lot longer than they had.

“Well, then… let’s get to work.” James gave a small grin, having reached his own conclusions on this matter. In order to get this technology to its infancy stage, he had only invented the bare minimum needed to make it work thus far. His world might not have needed more powerful shielding technology for these void generators, but they still used them in other fields, such as to protect ships that were navigating the void.

“It’s a bit of a waste, but let’s give it a shot. First up, we need a micro-element chaos drive. Explaining the principles to the other so that they can be mass produced… will probably take a few months. If I do it myself, I can probably have a working prototype in a week. For the full generator… let’s give it a three month time window.”

“Working?” A tired voice spoke up, causing James to pause his typing. When he looked over, he saw Chel sitting up in the bed, slowly wiping her eyes. “I swear, you never did know how to take a break. A cute girl like me, lying down within ten feet of you, and all you can manage to do is type on a keyboard.” The shorter kitsune girl commented with a small grin.

James felt his lips tugging upwards when he heard that, holding one arm out for her. Taking the invitation for what it was, Chel walked over and climbed into his lap. “What do you remember?” He asked in a gentle tone, his arms wrapping around her waist.

“Everything.” She admitted, leaning against him. “But it wasn’t your fault. Now, what’s this you’re working on and keeping me from my beauty sleep?” She asked in a playful tone, taking a look at the notes James had written out, and the diagrams he had started drawing.

“You’re bringing out high-level void shields? Don’t you think you’re taking things a step too fast?” She questioned, looking back towards James. “We can just delay the release of void energy for a few years, you know? Since they brought out Sanctum, there’s bound to be a god capable of easily supplying energy as a cheap gimmick to increase their own faith.”

James shook his head. “The world should have entered the third rank by now, or is getting close to it. Without Tsubaki’s gems serving as a power source, the fleets won’t be able to maintain their full power if anything comes knocking on our door. Before the next invasion, we need working void converters.”

“They could still go the path of fusion energy, right?” Chel suggested, taking another look at the documents.

“They’re more likely to seek power through energy fusion.” James countered with a grin. “This is an energy cultivation world, not a pure science one like we were used to.”

Chel hesitated, before offering a small nod of agreement. “Then, let’s let them do what they’re good at. It’s just creating an efficient energy core from the primary four, right?” She cracked her neck from side to side, reaching out and deleting James’s document.

“Uhm, Chel?” James blinked, staring down at her.

“Hush now, the adults are working.” She looked back, winking at him as she began rapidly typing. “You want to introduce chaos conversion, because it’s what you’re familiar with. But getting that to be the new norm of an energy cultivation world would require completely reworking their foundation from the ground up.”

“You like working with energy combinations, right? Well, look at it this way. In our world, the average human was capable of producing ten units of mana per day, fifteen units of ki, and three units of spiritual energy.”

“In this world, the average high-level individual can produce at least fifty-thousand units of mana in a single day. We created chaos conversion because we did not have a way to tap into higher quality energy through normal methods, but that is not the same here.” After Chel had finished typing, she directed James’s attention to the screen, where she had typed out a simple sentence.

What is the most cost-efficient energy source that the average individual can safely produce? James thought about that question for a long moment, before his eyes lit up. Waving a hand, he opened his desk drawer and retrieved an old, metal cube. This was the energy database that the Metong had left him long ago.

“If we’re talking about raw energy production and control, it has to be number eighty-seven.” He said, scrolling through the list. This was an energy created from a mix of ki and mana, with a small addition of natural energy. Its primary purpose seemed to be enhancing the natural bio-electric field.

“If we use your measurements earlier for energy production, and apply this electric field, we can achieve a wireless power transfer that could easily power most homes.” The more James thought about this, the more he believed that it was possible. “It was hard to use large-scale applications of wireless power transfer in our world because the physical body had a hard time withstanding this level of passive energy in the air. But, that’s not an issue for us now…”

“Now you’re getting it.” Chel grinned, watching as James took control of the keyboard again. “All you have to do is create another item to help them produce the energy, and make a wireless energy receiver that can be installed in various rooms of a house to pick up that ambient power.”

Naturally, this method had its own downsides, however it was far more suited to the current world in Chel’s opinion. For one, the world was largely used to cultivating multiple energy types, so it would not be a difficult matter for normal people to create a simple energy. The downsides were quite simple, as well. That is, they would need to create an additional energy core within their bodies, requiring them to adjust their ki paths to make room.

For a world that did not cultivate energy to this degree, establishing a ki path could take years of constant effort. For a world such as this one, it merely required the proper guidance before one could be established. Granted, there was only a limited amount of space within their bodies to create these energy cores, but most people only had one or two cores within them. Even those in the extreme would have, at most, ten.

Furthermore, James had already established a method to create external energy cores, in the form of his nine tail research. With a little modification, that research could be changed from tails to patterns on the skin. This would allow for any race to possess external energy cores of their own.

“Have I ever told you that you’re brilliant?” James asked as he quickly typed away at the holographic display. He was already designing a guidance device to establish this energy.

“Not nearly often enough.” Chel’s cheeky response drew a small laugh from the taller, dark-skinned man.

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