Pov The Captain of the 82nd Surveillance Division

  We approached the three representatives of this world. All of them gave me shivers. They felt different—somehow more dense. Even the people behind them.

  They tried to speak, but we didn't understand their language, so I showed them the bracelets and then pointed at my mouth, mimicking speech.

  They seemed to understand, and I felt a force try to pull the bracelets away from me—and I let it do so. The human was the one who pulled them in and then started to cast some magic. So he was a mage.

  Being a mage is incredibly hard, but I shouldn’t be surprised that there were some here.

  They spoke a little bit in their language, but to my surprise, they didn't put on the bracelets. Instead, the human once again cast some sort of spell—a new one—over all three of them.

  “Quite crude artifacts. You would need to have both parties wearing them for you to understand. Who are you, and what are you doing here?” the human said.

  We all looked at each other, confused, but then I figured he must have used some spell to mimic what the bracelets did. But why would anyone spend so much time learning such a spell?

  “We are from the world under the Celestial Government. Our home is about two galaxies away. My name is Shi Merdin Wicker, the great-great-grandson of my family patriarch. We're here to investigate why this world has reached the white realm before any of the nearby planets have—and why a star has gone missing. Well, two stars.”

  “I was kinda expecting more of a ‘you are now conquered and you’ll have to join the Celestial Government’ kind of speech,” the person who looked like an underwater creature said.

  It was hard to keep my face from twitching at that, because that’s actually how things are supposed to go—but I was trying to be diplomatic.

  Unfortunately, some of us here are a bit more loyal to the Celestial Government, so to my horror, one of the other party leaders spoke up.

  "That's a given. The Celestial Government rules over more than a thousand worlds. Every known intelligent species is a member. Why would you think you could be the exception?"

  The sea-creature-looking person started laughing quite genuinely before he spoke.

  "This is good. At least this is more in line with what we expected. To say clearly we’re not exactly against joining any government out there, but if the terms are not good enough, we will be willing to fight to the end." Those last words were said with true meaning, and my party member who spoke up actually took a step back.

  "Let's relax for a moment. First of all, this world is quite outside the regular circle, so we do not exactly know what the Celestial Government would want to do with you. But we have a more serious problem—that of the missing stars. And everyone wants to know how this planet is already in the white realm."

  "I think by white realm he means diamond rank?" the bear-looking person said, and the others seemed to agree. He was also the one who seemed to want to ask the next question.

  "How long does it normally take for a world to advance to this stage?"

  Once again, we looked at each other, not knowing if we should answer, but I decided I would.

  "When there are magical creatures on it, it takes about a million years for the beginning ranks—and a lot more when the worlds reach the realms. The white, the green, the red, and so on."

  They all looked at each other and then started discussing in a language we didn’t understand.

  "Did the spell wear off?" the other member of this expedition asked—the one who had spoken before. Both of us looked at him like he was an idiot, and he shut up. That was a stupid question. Obviously, they just didn’t want us to overhear their discussion.

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  “As for the stars, that is technically not our doing but the consequence of our hubris. We did not think it will be too big of a program. I assure you, the stars are most likely not being destroyed.”

  “As for this planet being at such a realm as you say—we are willing to divulge this secret but also share a way to accomplish this. In exchange, we would be technically a part of the celestial government, but really, we just want to be left alone. And believe me, you won’t care about us when you receive the knowledge we hold.”

  I stopped the others from speaking. This was not something we could just argue against, but I needed some clarification.

  “I need more than that. How long did it take your world to reach this realm?”

  “Well, at the start it took quite a while. But ever since this method was discovered—about 20,000 years—and that’s only because we didn’t know any better before now.”

  That was something none of us expected. This was unheard of. This would change everything.

  “Is that also the same reason this world is so large and why it seems to have so many resources? There’s so many of you who have reached the realms—how is this planet not a wasteland?”

  Instead of answering, they simply smiled. But eventually, they did answer.

  “The same reason.”

  It was our time to speak quietly, but I was certain they could still understand us.

  “They cannot defy the Celestial Government. There’s no reason to do what they say.”

  “Are you stupid? Never mind—yes, you are. It is not our decision to dictate what the Celestial Government would want to do. We will go back to my scout ship, and we will contact the Celestial Government, and we will see what their decision will be.”

  I let—I still don’t remember his name—but the one more loyal to the Celestial Government do the speaking. That way, he would not be questioning me if we got the answer back I was expecting.

  He was in the communication realm for 20 minutes, and when he got out, he looked conflicted.

  “If what this world’s leaders say is true, and it’s a method the Celestial Government can actually use to advance our worlds, then the Celestial Government is willing to give this world the designation of an independent duchy of the Celestial Government. But they would also have to pay, per celestial year, 20,000 tonnes of A-grade mana crystals or an equivalent worth of resources."

  So they really want this knowledge. That was about how much my family was paying, and we only ruled half of a moon. I indicated for him to take the lead because I felt the offer would be more real if it came from a person who before was a bit more hostile to this world’s leadership and its wants.

  They did not accept immediately, simply because they didn’t know the value of the mana crystals we were speaking about. It took a bit, and we actually needed to bring some examples of our mana crystals for them to get the real value.

  Then they discussed it amongst themselves for quite a while. It must be a heavy price for them, but they should definitely be able to pay it with how much of this world was untouched.

  “We accept the terms, but how do we know you won’t raise it later? No, we want this deal to be permanent—forever. Is this something you could do?”

  “Most deals like this are forever, as our lifespans are in the millions of years, but we can certainly make a special note in the contract,” I answered them.

  “Good. Then let’s get this contract signed.”

  I was surprised about that. I was expecting to hear about how they were doing this before we signed, but I guess it made sense. There was always a way for the Celestial Government to back out, and that was just to say that this method didn’t do what they promised. But if it did, it would be really hard to go back on it. Still, I would not be surprised if they tried—although the better this method is, the harder that would be.

  It took two weeks for the contract to be signed, with the entire weight of every soul in the Celestial Government making it unbreakable. Then they started explaining, and I couldn’t believe what they were saying.

  Apparently, in this world, a different kind of being was born. They called them dungeons. They sounded like fantasy, but they actually had a few around that were really young—yet already, there were a few floors in each of them. The way the monsters reappeared, the way you got resources from them. Then they showed the seeds. They had so many of them. It didn’t take us long to confirm that yes, we could bring them back.

  But to me the biggest revelation were skills what we called arts. With the help of their dungeons, they are able to so easily make and exchanges skills. This might be as big of a change as the dungeons themselves.

  Then they explained about the dungeon’s life cycle. Just to hear that there were dungeons in this world not too long ago, where white realm people would struggle and could fight nearly endlessly to continue advancing, was something out of a fairy tale. Yet that fairy tale turned into a horror story when they talked about a dungeon that escaped their control.

  It seems that we would have another rogue to hunt down, but from the sound of it, it would not be an easy fight—requiring many war fleets—and that was if we could even find it. We won’t even have the opportunity to start looking for it for at least 8000 years.

  Then they explained about the wish and the making, and we were in utter shock. This could not be real, but they showed all the evidence, proved everything. It was clear to me by the end that the Celestial Government, and all the worlds under it, would be changed forever.

  At first, they would want to control it fully, but the leaders of this world already explained that most likely billions upon billions of seeds were released by this latest making. They believed because the world reached the white realm, those seeds would be flung throughout this galaxy and possibly beyond—not only to this world.

  I wasn’t so certain about that part, but if that was true, then the Celestial Government could never truly control the dungeons.

  I guess we will see how they will react, because they would be giving up a lot of power—because others would be able to get a lot more powerful quicker than they did. Yet this world’s leadership was clever. The Celestial Government couldn’t hurt this world unless they could break the contract, and I honestly don’t believe that even they could make themselves believe that this world didn’t honour their part of the contract.

  I enjoyed being in this world so much. Everything here smelled fresh, the breeze was nice, and everything was still alive. But it was time to go back. We had with us 1,000 seeds—that was all that we could carry—and we even had to leave behind a few people because even these seeds had weight.

  The people staying behind were the lucky ones, in my opinion, but I did make a bit of a deal with one of the leaders, and in a secret compartment I had five seeds of my own. And I was certain a few others on this ship had a few of their own as well.

  The people of this world were nice enough—or they just wanted us out of here—to supply us with more resources to make the recharge of our ships faster. Then I prepared for the pain.

  A moment later, we were back in the territory of the Celestial Government. Surrounding us were a lot of strong people, and I knew what was about to come was going to be long and difficult. Yet when it was over, I was certain I could finally go back home.