Infinitium

Congratulations, You have earned a new title, God Smacked!

Effect: When interacting with any God that knows your true Identity Charisma is 100% more effective as are the skills of Intimidation and Subdue

Adam laughed as the General, Major, and Captain looked at him quizzically. He’d just received a new title for telling the gods to fuck off. Damn if the SYSTEM didn’t have a sense of humor.

Adam was pulled back from his thoughts when Captain Baker asked, “Gods?”

Adam smiled, “Don’t worry about it, they shouldn’t bother me anymore.”

“Be that as it may, what are your plans for the immediate future?” General Duvall asked.

“Well, I need to look over the changes that happened to me, probably hit the SYSTEM Shop and then I need to see about solving the Entropy problem,” Adam said.

“Entropy?” Major Clarkson asked, “Care to explain?”

Adam’s expression changed as he thought about all the ways to explain the problem and then he settled on a very simple explanation, “This is the nitty-gritty explanation. First, Souls exist. You have a soul; all sentients have souls. In those souls, there is an anchor point which is often referred to as the animae. As far as the information I’ve come across explains A soul is eternal until it isn’t.”

“What does that mean?” Captain Baker asked.

“That means that infinity is an extremely long time and eventually some souls get bored and let go,”

“Let go?” Major Clarkson asked.

“Will you two let the man speak? He’s never going to finish if you keep interrupting him,” General Duvall said.

“Yes, Sir!” both the Major and the Captain replied in union.

“Thank you, General. Now where was I? Oh yes. Eventually, the individual gives up and releases their memories into the ether, and the Animae that acts as the anchor for that soul returns to where it came from. It may be the foundation of another soul or it could be used in a Complex Animae like mine…” Adam’s thoughts trailed off as he considered what he’d just said. Could it be that simple?

“Adam?” General Duvall asked.

“I had an idea. I need to go check something after we’re done here. Anyway, back to entropy. What I just explained about souls doesn’t have anything to do with the Entropy problem, other than it’s really hard for souls to survive through the end of an iteration. Before you ask, an iteration is what the beings that have existed for a long time consider the beginning of the multiverse to the end of a multiverse. When everything starts again, this is a new iteration.”

“How many iterations have there been?” Captain Baker asked with a bit of wonder in her voice.

“The beings I’ve spoken with say they know of nine. There could be more, “ Adam said.

“Nine?” Captain Baker said as her eyes glazed over and she became lost in her thoughts.

“The problem I’m working on is the fact that no matter what normal people do, eventually they give up, the iteration ends, and then everything starts over. How do we prevent this from happening? How do we convince individuals that existing for eternity doesn’t become boring,” Adam asked rhetorically.

General Duvall looked thoughtful for a moment before he said, “It sounds like there is someone that continues to exist through these iterations if someone remembers nine of them.”

“There are individuals that have survived iterations but it is my understanding that some of those that make it to the lifeboat have given up on living for eternity,” Adam said.

“Living forever?” General Duvall said as he thought about it for a moment, “I don’t know if I would want to live forever either?”

“Which begs the existential question, what is the point of living?” Adam replied.

“To fight for that which love and hold dear. To hold the line for them and ensure they can grow up…” Major Clarkson started to say before he finished with, “I see what you mean. If everyone is going to disappear forever in the end, why bother?”

“Indeed,” Adam affirmed.

“What’s the alternative?” Captain Baker asked with a little heat in her voice, “I don’t know about you but I don’t want to die and I doubt that I would give up my existence so easily.”

“And your reason for feeling that way?” Adam asked neutrally.

“I want to live and grow. I want to have children and watch them grow up. I want to know how the story ends. Fade to black sounds like a shitty ending,” Captain Baker said with a hint of anger in her voice.

“And what if you’d lived countless lives, had countless children, and watched all of them fail or die as you continued to exist when they decided to let go, why would you want to go on then? Please understand, I’m not questioning your motive, I’m trying to find an answer to the question I’ve asked for those who do decide to continue on,” Adam asked as compassionately as he could.

Captain Baker considered Adam’s question and asked, “These Animae you speak of, do they exist forever?”

“As far as I know, yes,” Adam answered.

“They never break down?” Captain Baker asked.

“Never is a long time so a more accurate answer would be that I’m not sure.”

“Could you find out?”

“Perhaps,” Adam said as he wondered if the Forge of Creation might be able to answer the question, “If they don’t break down, what are you thinking?” Adam asked.

“If Animae doesn’t break down, maybe there’s something else going on that no one understands. If the Animae does break down, but more slowly than anyone thought that means entropy comes for everything. In which case, what are you trying to do?” Captain Baker asked.

“There has to be more to this than just going away and coming back over and over again,” I need to find out what that is while also trying to preserve those I care about,” Adam said.

“How are you going to do that?” General Duvall asked.

“I have a few ideas,” Adam hedged and then continued, “I’m going to step out for a bit. I need to look over something and then institute some changes for others. I’ll check in once in a while but you three are in charge, with Ray’s help, of course. You all should be safe enough from any natural disaster.”

“We’ve got this covered,” General Duvall called out, “though we will probably need to look at establishing some form of world government.”

“I leave what comes next here in your very capable hands,” Adam said as he opened a portal to Entropy and stepped through.

Adam’s portal deposited him on the sidewalk next to one of the main streets in the middle of town. With Sense Chaos he knew the layout and direction of the Forge in seconds but he wasn’t going there. First, he needed to look at what becoming ascended had done to him.

It only took a few moments for Adam to pull up the basic information and figure out what 1,272 levels as an Ascendant garnered him.

127,200 Attributes which were evenly distributed among his eleven attributes, which raised each by 10,600. Mana, Stamina, and Psychic Energy were all increased by 84,800. That meant that each time he leveled each of those attributes increased by 66 points per level. Psionic Skill Slots and Spell Slots increased by 15 per level which increased both by 19,080. Skill Slots increased by 9 per level or 11,448 total.

Adam immediately understood that the individual-level upgrades were incredible. Attributes were increased by 100 points per level. Mana, Stamina, and Psychic Energy were collectively increased by approximately 200 points per level. Skill Slots were increased by 9 per level and Spell and Psionic slots were increased collectively by 15 per level. When comparing them to rare class upgrades; 4 attributes per level, 15 total points split between Mana, Stamina, and Psychic Energy, and only 1 point for either spells or psionic slots, it seemed that Ascendant progression increased his stats by an incredible amount. He could only imagine what would happen if he attained the status of a God.

Even so, Adam knew that his attributes were far outside of the expected norms and that he could compete with the supposed Gods. Though his ability to Shape Reality already seemed to put him at that power level. He couldn’t be sure, but it did seem like the Classes Reality Editor and Creator were serious game-changers.

Adam looked for any other changes to his attributes, skills, or perks, but couldn’t find anything. It looked like becoming Ascendent only improved that which you already had, as well as putting limits on how you could use that power to interact with mortals. Adam considered that to be one of the primary problems with the way the SYSTEM handled that increase in power level. If a caste or system separated and dehumanized others, those that ascended might look at those that hadn’t yet as lesser, even if they were from the same race or background. Adam wondered how hard it would be to change that.

Adam walked up to the entrance to the Forge of Creation and was waved through by Serro and Talis. He moved over to one of the empty nodes and touched it. After a few moments, he’d pulled up the information on the universe he was linked to and reviewed the Beta settings. Next, he pulled up the Universe Adaline was in and added it to the Beta as well. One thing he noted was that the cost to himself had reduced. It only required 1,000,000 Chaos to add a Universe to the Beta.

Of course, as he went through the information he found the vague definitions for Universe, Dimension, Reality, and Multiverse. Without clear definitions things were never going to get better so he decided it was time to do something about the terminology that was in use. The terms Universe and Dimension seemed to be interchangeable so he further defined them. A Universe is a grouping of dimensions centered on a physical or digital universe. Any place that was adjacent to that Universe would be considered a Dimension and dimensions could connect Universes.

So, the area Earth resided in would be a Universe. There could be alternate dimensions attached to that Universe and even acted as a conduit between universes, but they were not Universe unto themselves. A great example of this was the idea of the Astral Plane which connected to multiple universes. Magical sphere-based dimensions that were attached to a Universe were also reclassified as dimensions and not full universes.

Alternate Realities simply referred to Universes that were very similar to another Universe. Multiverse referred to all the Universes and their attached Dimensions and Iteration was a term utilized to refer to the Multiverse life and death cycle. While it wasn’t a major change and didn’t change the functionality of the SYSTEM it would make referencing various locations throughout the Multiverse a little easier.

With those changes made, it was time to bring Pandora’s Universe into the Beta test. Adam reached out through his Animae to make sure she was back in the Universe with his mother and his father froze. It took Adam a few moments to count the number of linkages that exited himself, entered the Forge of Creation, and then exploded into the Multiverse, A significant amount of which exited SYSTEM-controlled universes. 23,842,865,854,210,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,001, or 2.38E+37, Universes to be exact. The number of Pandora’s that existed seemed to be fluctuating but that was to be expected as it seemed she could make clones of herself.

There was only one SYSTEM-controlled Universe with Pandora in it. The other Pandoras were all in the universe outside of designated SYSTEM universes. One in each known adjacent universe to be exact. Adam did a quick check and noted that Pandora seemed to be adapting to the environment of the Universe she was in. In some cases, she seemed to be living a normal life. In other, less hospitable universes, she assumed forms compatible with the environment and waited.

Adam had no idea what she was doing but knew that whatever this was, something or someone else set her on this path and she seemed to be doing okay so he would leave her alone. The entropy problem was universal and he hadn’t been contacted or warned off about going through with the beta and working on the problem that way so he was going to proceed. Besides, what he did next should generate some goodwill from the SYSTEM toward himself

Adam spent the 2.38429E+43 Chaos required to add the Non-SYSTEM Universes to the Beta test with a few tweaks. Mana integration would proceed at a rate of 1% per year to give the inhabitants time to adjust, otherwise, everything else about the Beta Test would remain the same.

WARNING!

Cascade Error!

SYSTEM Conversion Commencing

Additional Cost to Creator 4.76857E+45

Cost with Creator limits

Cost paid.

Conversion Implemented

Congratulations!

SYSTEM Controlled Universe has increased by 415%

You have been awarded 2.38429E+45 Divine Energy

Minimum of 1 Million Divine Energy Accrued. Would you like to start your Journey along the Path of a God, Yes or No?

Adam read the prompts. Well, Shit. That had taken a huge chunk of his Chaos. He looked over his Status Screen and was relieved to see that he still had 1.10E+48 Chaos. He’d also just received a huge windfall of Divine Energy which could now elevate him into the realms of Deities. Adam activated Reality Editor and looked at how leveling for Gods worked. As he looked at the information he had available which was simply a chart with the cost in Divine Energy per level, it looked like each level would cost 1 million DE multiplied by the next level which meant that leveling for Gods must be rare as it would cost 55 million DE just to reach level 10.

Adam looked at how much DE he currently had, smiled, and chose “Yes”.

ERROR!

Notification Buffer Full

Ascendent Levels and God Level adjusted.

Adam opened his SYSTEM Status and cleared the Notification Buffer. It seemed that it couldn’t hold more than 100 Trillion notifications. When he looked at his Ascendent Level and God Level he understood why. His ascendant level had increased to a scientific number with 21 zeros. His God level was 4.88E+19. It also looked like the DE he’d earned had been split evenly between both his Ascendent and God Level

Honestly, it didn’t matter. He was doing just fine. His levels were ridiculous and his attributes had increased again. Nope, he wasn’t worried about his Status Screen. He wasn’t even worried about the benefits he received from attaining God levels because being a Creator seemed to be a trump card for those levels.

Adam activated Reality Editor and removed the restrictions that forced gods to pay Divine Energy to interact with mortals. Instead, he reversed the cost. If a God did something for a mortal or ascendent the cost came from the mortal, or mortals. A cost that could be shared. This included answering questions. If the god freely shared information the cost would come from them but if the mortal asked a question and the God answered the cost would be paid in whatever currency the god required. Credits, Health, Stamina, Mana, Divine Energy if possible.

To prevent some of the issues that might crop up, Adam added a restriction that any payments must be made freely and without coercion. If a God attempted to abuse this rule they would be confined to their Personal Domain, which all Gods had to declare. Additionally, he removed the requirement for Gods to choose domains of influence and instead set up a framework for the domain of influence to be based on the classes the Deity had. Within that framework, gods could choose how they would utilize their classes to earn Divine Energy to improve their levels and power.

Within the framework of the SYSTEM, an individual could work up the class SYSTEM until they met the prerequisites to become an Ascendant. From there they could work on earning Divine Energy until they attained the Divine Energy to become God. Normal actions would still garner them XP to improve their levels while acts would either earn them Divine Energy or Karmic Luck. Karmic Luck could be spent to increase their Ascendent level though that was a waste, now that he had time to think about it. Karmic luck was something the SYSTEM used as an arbitrary indicator to determine if an individual was working within the framework of the SYSTEM or not. Karmic luck at low or negative values was just a bad idea.

A moment later a new notification popped into his view.

SYSTEM MESSAGE.

BETA Test Successful.

SYSTEM Version 3.01 is now Live.

See the attached files for Version Changes.

The Age of the Divine is upon you. Bound by laws of old no longer, the Ascendant and the Gods may now interact freely with mortals.

The Favor of a God is now paid for by the benefactors.

Multiple Universes have also been unlocked for exploration.

Adam read over the message and was extremely satisfied that the changes had been added as a change log file instead of listing them all out. That would have been an exceptionally long notification.

Warning!

Adamantadine, You Must Choose a Domain!

It looked like the information he had about Deities needing to establish Domains was spot on. Luckily he could do more than choose a location on a plane or in a dimension. He could create a dimension or Universe, so that was what he was going to do.

Adam activated Establish Reality and decided to go with what he knew. He looked through the various options and added a pocket dimension to the Universe Racoon City was in. Adam then added an invisible Divine Portal to the Universe Racoon City was in and placed it in the middle of White Sands National Park 100 feet off the ground. No one should be able to utilize the Divine Portal unless they could detect and then access it. As the location was over 25 miles from the nearest mountain it was very unlikely that anyone would accidentally stumble across the entrance or inadvertently fly into it.

Additionally, the portal was out of phase with the Universe unless Adam willed it forth so that would also prevent someone from accidentally flying into it. As for the pocket dimension, Adam decided to keep things simple and created another Earth complete with a solar system though there were no people on the planet. Instead, he turned it into an Eden of sorts.

Adam also placed a Divine Portal on the Earth his mother and father were on with the rest of his friends and family. He was going to place the portal at Stonehenge but found that the dimensional barrier was weakened and another portal was already attached to the Universe, though it was currently closed. So Adam looked over the map of the United Kingdom and decided to put the Divine Portal near Penrith Lake 102 miles west of Scarborough. Penrith Lake was on a flat plain just west of Stony Cove Pike. It was a small lake about 2,460 feet above sea level. There were no settlements nearby so there shouldn’t be very many visitors.

The last Divine Portal Adam connected to his Domain was set near Adaline’s mountain lair north of Venoran on Primore. The last thing Adam did was remove the nanite restrictions for himself within his domain. It would just make setting up the domain a lot easier. He considered removing the nanite restrictions in the Universes he’d created but decided it would probably be a bad idea.

Adam looked at the cost and converted a good portion of his mana into Chaos to pay the 103 Trillion Chaos cost to create his Domain. Honestly, it felt like a bargain. If he was being honest, his abilities were a little broken when he could use his mana regeneration rate to convert his mana into Chaos and then utilize it to fuel his Shape Reality and Establish Reality Skills. Even as he considered that he realized he had more problems to address. With his Domain created, Adam designated it as such and received confirmation that his Domain was created and available from the SYSTEM.

Now, how was he going to solidify reality and fight entropy? Adam performed a search with the Forge of Creation. He noted that there were universes and dimensions outside those that had just been added to the Beta upgrade to the SYSTEM Universes that were not under SYSTEM control that were losing integrity. The Forge of Creation did not have the necessary energy or resources to stabilize the issue but Adam did.

Adam looked over his options. While he couldn’t fix all of it, he could slow down the destruction of some of the Universes which should help protect the SYSTEM Controlled Universes. Unfortunately, he could not stabilize an infinite number because his resources were not infinite. But, if he stabilized some, maybe that would give him more time to come up with a solution to the Iteration problem.

Adam placed his second hand on the node and started channeling Chaos into the Forge of Creation. It was hard to quantify exactly how much energy was tied up in a point of Chaos, but it was a lot. As Adam channeled the energy into the node he began to glow with a pearlescent light that flooded the Forge of Creation and even caused the Singularity of Creation at the center to become infused with the pearlescent glow.

Adam realized that at that moment in time every being in every Universe, SYSTEM controlled or not, felt the energy that flooded into reality. For some, it caused a slight headache. For others, their sight was blinded by a white light that seemed to come from everywhere, even if they closed their eyes. Luckily it only lasted a moment for them. For Adam, it took a bit longer. The Forge of Creation modified the flow of time around Adam so that those in the Forge of Creation at other nodes only saw a flash of white light and the room returned to darkness.

As Adam made his choices and implemented them he decided to err on the side of caution. He chose to keep some of the bonuses that Chaos added to his attributes and to only reduce his Chaos attribute by the same amount he reduced his attributes by. That amount? 8.12E+46 per attribute plus the same amount from his Chaos attribute which amounted to 9.744E+47 Chaos. That would leave a 1 million point bonus with each attribute except Chaos. With that energy, Adam stabilized 8.12E+40 Non-SYSTEM Universes and their attached dimensions.

With everything he’d intended to do complete, Adam withdrew his hands from the node and took a few deep breaths. He may not have won the war, but he was sure he’d slowed things down for a little while at least. Adam straightened his back, floated to the exit, and left the Forge of Creation. As he exited the building Serro nodded in Adam’s direction, “You look beat Adam, You okay?”

“I think I am Serro. I just had a little bit to do inside. I’m done for now though. You two have a good day,” Adam said as he continued down the steps to the road. He wasn’t trying to be rude but he felt beat.

As Adam walked down the steps he heard Talis say, “Did you notice, he’s a God now and his level is so high I can’t even read it. How is he increasing his power so quickly?”

Serro smiled, “Don’t know! Don’t care. Whatever he just did has made some serious changes though, can’t you feel it?”

“You're right,” Talis said.

Adam ignored their conversation as he opened a portal to Racoon City and then used Chaos Step to enter his Personal Domain. The Divine Portals were for others, He could always step into his Domain. Adam decided to travel to Mount Everest and created enough nanites with Mold Chaos to mold and create a replica of Racoon City within the mountain. Near the peak, he modified the structure slightly so that a terrace stuck out of the mountain and afforded a breathtaking view of the world below.

Within a few minutes, the facility was completed, from the base of the mountain to the summit. The Facility was fully powered, contained over 1,000 portal devices, housing for at least a billion people, and every amenity known to man. He’d even included an area that could be utilized as a dragon den, well two dragon dens. If Pandora ever needed a place within his Domain, he was sure she’d want her mountain, with a little bit of perceived privacy, though nowhere in his domain was truly private from him.

Adam used Chaos Step to enter his private residence at the Summit and admired the view. While the lack of atmosphere at 28,950 feet wouldn’t affect him, the entire facility was pressurized above the 10th floor. In the design he’d thought up he put 100 feet between each floor so there would be plenty of room for expansion or machinery if something needed to be installed on any floor. That still meant there were 290 floors above sea level and quite a few below sea level. Also, most of the population would live near the base of the mountain while the upper floors were reserved for various facilities that could be adjusted with nanites as needed, including his quarters.

Adam looked out over the mountains and glaciers below. He was going to check his Status Screen to see how much had changed but decided he could do that after he woke up. He walked over to the California King-size bed, pulled back the covers, and laid down. The bed was perfect with an air cushion soft mattress and quilted covers. He laid his head back. He still had so much to do but that could wait until tomorrow. Right now, he needed to rest.