Chapter 1071 - Stark Differences

Miranda scanned the latest reports from some of the officials she’d stationed on other planets and sighed after only going over a few. It was an odd thing to say, but she kind of missed the days when they were all at war. War did suck in many ways, yes, but in others, it was also a lot simpler.

In war, you had the option to just crush opposition, but it generally wasn’t viewed as very acceptable to kill people for what was the equivalent of a property line dispute. Not that she often encountered property line disputes. In fact, many of the problems she faced came from the fact that no one could agree on basic things.

It was easy to forget at times, but each planet had its own storied history. While seeing all these planets on a map, they only looked like strategic positions to occupy or allied locations, but now that the war was done, she and everyone else were forced to actually deal with how these planets operated beyond what they could contribute to the war effort.

This proved a lot more annoying than she’d hoped.

Cultural norms and each world’s leadership structures varied widely. Depending on how technologically advanced the planets had been, the difference only grew starker. Trying to make a few universal rules in the galaxy was a must should there be any kind of actual relationship forming between the different planets.

Like… they had to at least agree that murder was illegal, right? Because on one planet, murder was only considered a minor offense that would result in a minor fine. Unless the person murdered was of nobility, of course… and yes, it was also a massive problem making all the different races get along.

The system and Nevermore had helped make all the different cultures at least a little more similar, but there were still so many damn problems and things that had to be defined down to the most basic of levels.

Is violence allowed? What constitutes violence? Who does the law apply to? Sometimes, more importantly, who doesn’t it apply to? Are there any exceptions?

Reading the reports, there were so many examples of commonly accepted norms elsewhere she just couldn’t wrap her head around. Not in that she couldn’t understand the laws or norms themselves, but how the hell they could lead to a productive society. Like, on a planet of primarily beastfolk with a very tribalistic society, the way of ”courting” a mate was to beat them in a fight… and needless to say, the average Earthling didn’t consider getting jumped from behind and getting beaten up a romantic proposal.

Then again, thinking back, Earth also had a lot of messed up laws just a few hundred years ago… actually, they still had a lot of messed up laws. Laws and norms that other planets simply couldn’t make any sense of either.

Oh yeah, and none of these issues included the fact that the same planets could have several countries or territories with widely varying cultures and histories. The system had helped a lot to unify planets, but history was not that easily erased. Their best hope truly was time for more generations to be born into the system and this new world. That’s why Miranda wanted to craft some baseline laws that everyone could agree on.

Miranda wasn’t a lawyer, and right now, she was really happy she wasn’t. There were a lot of people smarter than her trying to work on these basic laws, but it was hard to find out what they all had to agree on, and even sometimes what the word ”basic” meant.

Needless to say, there were some things that were non-negotiable. As she looked over the reports, Miranda was also relieved that while there had been some instances of slavery in the galaxy, it was actually a lot less than she’d expected. What’s more, there was very little pushback to dismantling these institutions… perhaps because many of the current leaders had all just been crushed by a superior force and feared being made slaves themselves.

Miranda also had to admit that now, of all times, was perhaps the best to make all these very fundamental changes. The entire galaxy had just gone through a massive war and lots of turmoil with the Prima Guardians. It was a time of rebuilding, and leaders had died or been ousted. Change was in the air and Miranda was more than keen to take advantage.

As the saying goes, one should hammer when the iron is hot… though it was still hard, especially when dealing with the more underdeveloped civilizations. This was not to say that any civilization was easy.

One example in the opposite direction was the one ruled by Kindroth. They were much more technologically advanced than Earth, which helped explain their massive population and much of their culture. They were big on solidarity, and as they had an utter abundance of resources, they had barely any economic system that could be compared to Earth. In fact, according to Kindroth, the mere act of excessive greed was considered a criminal offense before the system.

Miranda could easily see why the Great Bright One, who was closely affiliated with the Holy Church, found them appealing. Anyway, for Kindroth, becoming the man in charge through pure regular leadership would have never been possible, so he ended up using religion.

His planet had a weird relationship with religion before the system arrived, which the elf exploited to get influence. Even then, he was smart enough not to try and obtain total control but went the route of having a council do everything. His role had ended up as more of a spiritual guide than an actual World Leader, and the only reason he got elected was because the system required them to elect someone.

Due to this planet being so different from all the others culturally, it was hard to integrate them with any other societies. The people from there also tended to be overly naive and trusting… honestly, there were so many problems with the natives of that planet and having them interact with anyone else. Considering their close relationship with the Holy Church and Kindroth still being a bit in the doghouse, having them mostly stick to themselves, for now, was perhaps the best.

She had enough stuff to deal with. In the reports, there were also many instances of natives from different planets getting into altercations. They were trying to handle it, and things were getting better by the day, but something like what she was planning couldn’t be done in just a few years.

Miranda was glad they had completed the system event and achieved relative peace in the galaxy this quickly, as it gave her time to create a good foundation before travel and contact between the different planets would be made more difficult again upon the event’s end. Hopefully, given the time she had now, she would be able to fully solidify her position as the number two of the entire galaxy, with the number one being an absent alchemist who was more busy blowing up his lab than actually getting involved as a leader.

Speaking of, Miranda had never directly talked about it with Jake, but she assumed they were on the same page when it came to the Milky Way Galaxy. Jake had expressed that he wasn’t interested in directly taking it over, so Miranda would respect that… but she did fully plan on ruling the galaxy as the head of whatever Galactic Council was bound to form.

Every other planet would be a self-governing vassal under Earth, much like the independent territories currently on Earth. Some would have more self-governance and independence than others. Still, in the end, the ultimate authority in the galaxy would be Earth, and seeing as she was viewed by many as the current de-facto leader of the planet, thus her.

As Miranda had these thoughts, she couldn’t help but take a moment to herself as she put down the papers she’d been scanning. She looked at the office she was sitting in for a moment. She saw how simple it was, and if not for the magical elements, such as crystals containing information and the faint magical sigils placed here and there, one could easily confuse it for a pre-system room.

Thinking back, Miranda used to have a small office a lot like it. She was a manager of a mid-size company, mainly overseeing manufacturing. Back then, the biggest challenge of her career had been when a machine broke down on the same day an important subcontractor failed to deliver on time. Even now, she vividly remembered the stress. How trying to handle a single truck being late while the customer support for the machine manufacturer didn’t pick up their phone felt like the end of the world…

Now, she was casually considering how to eradicate unwanted parts of entire cultures while taking control of the galaxy, fully aware things wouldn’t stop there. She’d gone from a mid-level manager to someone standing at the peak of the new universe… from an overworked office worker to an even more overworked witch.

At first, Miranda had been apprehensive about her role. In her defense, it was scary suddenly having a guy wearing a mask tell her to manage his ”city,” with it not being any help meeting literal gods, giving her more context about who she was dealing with.

Slowly, she’d gotten used to her new life, and now, she was looking to the future. She was looking forward to expanding her influence and increasing the size of her domain. The methods she was willing to deploy had also changed dramatically. In the old world, Miranda felt dread having to reprimand, much less fire someone, while now, she’d casually killed people without thinking twice.

I guess this is what they mean when they say that power corrupts, Miranda thought to herself before sighing.

Miranda had changed a lot. She wasn’t the same anymore, but neither was the world. Even so, as she saw another document get teleported into her paper pile demanding more mushrooms, Miranda was reminded that at least one thing in her life hadn’t changed…

She still had a pain-in-the-ass boss.

--

”Thanks, mate,” Jake said as the large creature handed him a basket full of mushrooms, all of them giving off a good aura. They weren’t the best ingredients, but considering he hadn’t been able to go back to the Order to restock, they were more than good enough. Especially considering he was still experimenting, and wasting any of his truly expensive materials wasn’t worth it.

The large creature in front of him pointed to the basket and showed two fingers, making Jake smile. ”You got more?”

With a nod, the large monster confirmed before motioning for Jake to follow, which he promptly did. They entered another cave and proceeded further down as Jake inspected the troll walking ahead of him.

[Troll Grove Keeper – lvl 256]

Rick had made a lot of progress since Jake last checked, and he was even wearing a new pair of pants and an over-the-shoulder bag with spatial storage. From his understanding, part of the reason for his increased progress was the recent system event having helped monsters get a bit of a boost the same way all those of the enlightened did. Plus, Rick was hard-working, no doubt about that.

This only became clearer when Jake entered a new massive cavern that had definitely grown in size since the last time he was there. What’s more, when Jake entered it, he instantly felt the powerful death affinity in the air released by all the deathly mushrooms within.

While the cavern above was filled with life affinity plants, courtesy of the wellspring of mana from the Undergrowth dungeon entrance, this cavern was made to be the exact opposite. To enter the cavern, Jake had to walk through a wall of hanging moss which he quickly realized functioned as a barrier to keep all the death affinity inside.

Inspecting the soil, Jake saw a few bones stick out here and there, and as Rick entered, he even took out several large bones before quickly crushing them in his hands and sprinkling the bone dust on the ground. From that alone, it was evident that this entire cavern was carefully curated and created by the troll, and based on the bones, Rick probably also got some hunting done here and there.

Jake was brought back to reality by Rick pointing to a large rock with moss growing on it and letting out a low grunt. Following the finger, Jake went closer and saw that it wasn’t just a rock but that it had a lot of metals within. It was about five meters tall and seven meters wide, and all around it, nothing else was growing.

Getting really close, Jake breathed in the mana given off by the moss and found himself impressed as he inspected it.

[Leaden Black Moss (Epic)] – A rare type of black moss that has evolved after being in contact with a powerful death affinity metal for a period of time while under great care. This moss is extremely dangerous and will erode any vitality-based substance it comes into contact with. Due to its proximity to a powerful metal, small particles of said metal may be found within the moss.

”Pretty damn good,” Jake said genuinely after he was done inspecting the boulder. There was even a lot of moss on it, and Rick had taken care of it extremely well. He also hadn’t encountered moss mixed with what was essentially lead dust before, but he could see it had some applications. Sadly for him and Rick…

”With the thing I’m making right now, I can’t really use any of it, but just seeing it has given me some ideas,” Jake said in an encouraging tone.

Rick stared at him before grunting and shaking his head.

”Oh… well, once it’s ready for harvest, I may have an actual plan for using it, then,” Jake said after being promptly informed he wasn’t allowed to take any of the moss. Rick wanted to get it to ancient rarity before harvest, which Jake could respect.

Nodding, satisfied with Jake's answer, Rick led Jake to pick some more mushrooms while pointing and motioning for the things he wanted Jake to see. As they walked around, Jake really began to realize how little he knew about gardening and cultivating ingredients in general. He had also fully resigned himself to never really learning much about it.

There were some areas Jake had to limit himself and as a spoiled young master with unlimited resources courtesy of his Primordial sugar daddy, learning how to tend to a garden seemed like the obvious thing not to learn. That isn’t to say he couldn’t respect someone doing a banger job, though.

As they walked around with Rick in charge of picking mushrooms here and there while throwing bones and even a few carcasses with their blood drained out of his bag occasionally, Jake also decided to check his latest notifications.

Since the true death of Ell’Hakan, well over a year had passed, which wasn’t a long nor a short period of time. It was enough to get some progress on the leveling front, but it had felt really damn slow.

To be fair, any leveling pace would feel slow after the way he’d been blazing through his profession before this brief lull. From helping Villy plot to kill Yip of Yore to slaying Ell’Hakan before having a meeting with the First Sage, Jake had done quite a lot of things to gain levels that many would consider out of the ordinary. So, returning to regular experimenting and crafting did feel like he was moving at a snail’s pace.

Anomalous Soul and the fact he’d just gotten a lot of levels probably didn’t help much, either. Maybe that’s why, despite it being over a year of doing a lot of alchemy, Jake had gotten a grand total of… 1 level.

’DING!’ Profession: [Heretic-Chosen Alchemist of the Malefic Viper] has reached level 311 - Stat points allocated, +35 Free Points

Yeah, not the most impressive. Still, Jake wasn’t that sad about it.

It didn’t take long for Rick to finish gathering mushrooms, getting Jake two more full baskets for him to continue experimenting. In return, Jake also gave Rick some stuff he’d collected here and there that he didn’t need, something the troll happily accepted.

Going up to his lodge, Rick followed him as the troll wanted to have a look at Jake’s musa. After Rick had helped improve the soil after Jake’s return from Nevermore, the troll had taken the musa under his wing and was carefully taking care of it, something Jake definitely appreciated.

Reaching the musa, Rick instantly went to inspect it. Jake saw him do this as Jake sighed.

”Hey, just gonna let you know right now, I’ve had a steady stream of banana thieves coming in and out of the valley,” Jake said with a sigh.

Rick turned to look at him… before dropping the biggest plot twist imaginable.