Chapter 4284: Civilization! III

|[Justiciar Armor - Public Model #13] is complete.|

|Analysis: This unit has achieved a peak performance rating, capable of granting its wielder a base Purity of 750 Quadrillion.|

|Observation: As you have continued this complex, repetitive act of creation, a unique evolution has been catalyzed and observed. Your Everything of [Infinite Mana] is being enriched and refined with every weave.|

He felt it. He was not just using his Mana as a fuel source, a river to turn a mill wheel. He was using its very essence, its Everything, constantly and continuously, as a thousand delicate, surgical limbs!

And with each armor he forged, he could feel his own boundless ocean becoming... denser. More potent.

The very act of creation was teaching his infinity a new, more profound, and more dangerous language!

|I will continue to analyze this process, Master. The constant, high-level application of your Everything of Mana appears to be triggering a new, unforeseen evolutionary path. The potential boons are, as of yet, unquantifiable, but I am... optimistic.|

The armor and its Modulator floated towards Forgemaster Vulcan.

The giant accepted it with a grunt of professional approval, placing it alongside the twelve others, a growing legion of silent, white armors of death.

He then waved a massive, bronze hand, and the payment was delivered.

|Payment Received.|

|[Basic Units of Everything]: 10,000.|

|[Specialized Units of Everything]:|

| - [Quantum]: 1,000 Units.|

| - [Emotive]: 1,000 Units.|

| - [Paradox]: 1,000 Units.|

|Analysis: A consistent and highly profitable business arrangement, Master. At this rate, we will have a sufficient stockpile to begin large-scale cultivation and experimentation.|

He smiled at her words as he absorbed the new wealth of Everythings and calmly began his work on the fourteenth.

At his request, the forge had been closed off.

Too many eyes, he had argued, could always cause potential issues. In truth, he simply preferred to work without a gallery of Early Creatures scrutinizing his every move, their gazes like scalpels on his very Existence.

As his tendrils of glorious blue mana began to once again transform the inert Omnichalcum, Forgemaster Vulcan began to speak.

The giant was working nearby, his own hands a blur of controlled, cataclysmic power. He was shaping the volatile, golden obsidian Tartarite Metal, weaving it into armors of his own design.

They were based on the schematics, yes, but they were different. More aggressive. More brutal. He was not making Justiciars. His were named...Arbiters!

And where Noah’s creations blazed with Purity, Vulcan’s pulsed with a dark, terrible Complexity.

He was faster, more efficient, his own finite Everything he was using being richer, purer, and more complex than Noah’s Mana.

He was a Forgemaster under Gilgamesh for a reason!

"The first thing I ever forged," Vulcan rumbled, his voice a low, melodic counterpoint to the quiet hum of creation, "was under the command of The First Leader. A simple blade, a test of my nascent skill. I presented it to him, expecting critique, perhaps a lesson. He did not praise the craftsmanship. He did not critique the design. He simply took it, and he gave me a place. A purpose."

...!

He paused, his gaze lost in the memory of a time before time, a look of profound, ancient loyalty in his starlit eyes.

"He gave me a sense of belonging. A thing I had been moving alone across the Earliest Folds in search of, without even knowing I was searching."

He turned those ancient, powerful eyes to Noah.

"For any existence, whether it be Early Creature, Fold Dweller, Living Existence, or even the mindless, hungry things you call Inevitabilities... they all seek a sense of belonging. A Way of Existence. A banner to stand under, a wall to stand behind, a fire to gather around. That... that is what makes up the core of a Civilization."

HUUM!

He turned back to his work, the obsidian-gold armor, an Arbiter, now taking a sharp, predatory shape.

"Osmont. What do you know of Civilization?"

Noah did not pause in his own work. His tendrils of Mana continued their silent, beautiful dance.

Civilization?

’A garden,’ he thought.

A garden that required a strong fence and an even stronger gardener!

"I know that a Civilization is a garden," he replied, his voice a calm, even current. "It requires fertile ground...a safe place to grow, a domain to call its own. It requires a strong fence to keep out the wolves and the weeds. And it requires a gardener, a will strong enough to tend to the plants, to prune the weak, and to decide which fruits are to be harvested for the present and which are to be replanted for the future. It is a system of controlled, directed growth, all for the sake of a greater, collective harvest."

...!

He smiled as he spoke as...he thought of his Early Veiled Shore!

Vulcan listened, and he nodded, a slow, appreciative gesture from one architect to another.

"A good ideology. A garden. And across existence, those who have found a place to belong, a garden to tend, soon after discover their Way of Existence. They become more in tune with it. And traversing one’s Way of Existence, making that their Everything... that is the way for us to get where we are. To where those on the Higher Scales of Existence are."

At his words, Noah’s own eyes pulsed with curiosity. The fourteenth Justiciar was now taking shape, a silent testament to his own, quiet harvest.

The question was a natural one, the next step on a ladder that seemed to stretch into infinity. "How far does an Early Creature have to go before they can touch the next Scale of Existence? The level of THE?"

WAA!

At his question, Vulcan paused. He turned, and he asked a question of his own, a question that was its own, terrifying answer.

"How many existences with the distinction of THE have you heard about?"

BOOM!

The question landed like a physical blow, a quiet, devastating checkmate. He thought of the list. THE Creature. THE Living Existences. A handful of names in a history that spanned eons.

A number so small it was almost a statistical anomaly!

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