Second World

Chapter 1982: Chapter 1982. Without Question

"What exactly are you trying to say...?" Jack asked.

"Trial and error method, of course," Peniel answered.

"Are you nuts? Are you asking me to draw a shape randomly when connecting the lights and hope to God I drew the correct shape by luck?"

"This is why you should have taken a basic class in creating a rune diagram. If you pay attention to the runic symbols inside a spell formation or a rune diagram, you will find that many of them are composed of the same shapes of lines. They are simply arranged differently. You can consider these lines as letters of power. When these letters were put together, they form a sentence, or in this case, form a runic symbol."

"The same argument stands. It's too late for me to take this basic class. Should I draw a line randomly until I hit the jackpot?"

"You don't need to draw randomly. Although you don't know these letters of power, I do," Peniel said.

"Why didn't you say that earlier? You make me worry for nothing," Jack scolded.

"I didn't because I know you will look down your nose at it! Do not think just because you know the letters of power, then everything will be easy. Learning the letters of power manually and learning them through a proper method had different applications. If you join the Runecraft Society, one of the things you can exchange faction points is this letter of power. If you gain the letter of power through this method, it can automatically show which letter of power is the most suitable to use when creating a rune diagram. The higher your runecraft skill is, the more likely this automatic guide takes effect. By learning manually, there is no guide. You must try each letter to find the correct one."

"Hm...," Jack pondered the explanation.

"Hey, do you understand what I just told you?" Peniel asked.

"I do. It has the same concept as the cooking system in some other games. If I have a recipe, I can use the ingredients following the recipe. If I don't, I can still cook the same thing, but the process will take me longer because I must try one ingredient after another until I find the -correct ones."

"I have no idea what you are referring to," Peniel said.

"Never mind that. Show me these letters of power."

"Close your eyes. I will project the images into your mind."

Jack did as Peniel asked. After he closed his eyes, strange lines started appearing in his mind. It was a few at first, but more and more continued to appear.

"Holy shit... Why are there so many?" Jack complained.

"How many do you expect?" Peniel asked.

"Uh... Twenty-six...," Jack answered.

Peniel didn't say another word. She continued to project the letters of power onto Jack's mind. After a while, new letters stopped appearing. Jack counted the various lines shown to him. There were one-hundred-and-thirty-six.

"F*ck the designer of this game," Jack cursed.

"You are welcome to exit this training cave and say it directly to his face," Peniel offered. This time, it was Jack who opted for silence. He studied the various strange lines in his mind. Thanks to his high intelligence stat, it wasn't hard for him to memorize these letters of power, even when the number was rather overwhelming for a crash course.

Jack opened his eyes after around one minute. He had all the letters memorized.

"Time to put it to the test," he uttered.

He focused on the light with the strongest mana intensity. He tried drawing it using the first letter of power. When the letter ended at the second light, another burst of flame hit him. He was prepared, but it didn't make the experience less unpleasant.

He sighed. There were a-hundred-and-thirty-six possibilities. This meant he had a 0.73% chance of hitting the right letter on his first try. Although his next attempt pulled that probability down, it was not by much. He had to prepare to get roasted a bucketload of times.

"Oh, right. I need to warn you about something," he heard Peniel's voice. "The flames that burn you will get stronger the more mistakes you make."

"F*cking great...," Jack cursed.

Linda was inside Thereath palace. Master teleported her here after his declaration to the world. He brought her here with a portion of his demon and zombie army. The demons were now in charge of the security within the capital while the zombies were on standby outside. The few Themisphere soldiers stationed in the capital were powerless to do anything about it, nor did they dare to.

Linda acted as Master's regent. She was allowed access to Themisphere's monarch system because she still had the royal advisor status she borrowed from John. Master tasked her to rule the country under his name.

Under the world system, Jack was still the legal king. Master could have Linda destroy the throne and place her as the new sovereign, but he didn't do that. The reason was that he wanted to try altering the sovereign status using his Godly power. He learned that Jack had reached the maximum sovereign levels and had a lot of ruling powers. If he could hack into the system and transfer the sovereign status, he supposed he could also transfer the sovereign level and ruling powers.

He failed after trying, but he didn't give up. He believed his Godly power would grow with time. He just needed to experiment more with it.

Aside from experimenting with the sovereign status, he also spent his time browsing the non-standard skills. While browsing, he learned all the non-standard skills he could learn. Since he had five elite classes, the number of skills available to him was massive.

He didn't need these skills since he was already the most powerful being in the world. He still learned them, though, because he was a perfectionist.

After searching the whole list, he frowned. He didn't find any spells that affected time the way Jack's spell did.

'Could it be Jack was not using non-standard spells...?' Master wondered.

If that was the case, it meant Jack had an unknown class. This didn't bode well. He at first attributed his unfamiliarity with Jack's time spells because he had missed these spells when he studied the game. There were too many spells. It was impossible to learn them all even with his extreme intellect. Classes, however, were more limited. He was sure he memorized all the available classes. He was sure there was no special class with spells that toy around with time the way Jack's spells did.

To learn more unknown things about this game world unsettled him. This world was his! He was the master of this new world. Everything in this world should be under his control and knowledge. The existence of unknown variables posed a challenge to his authority.

"Do you have any command for me?" Linda asked.

Master was sitting on Jack's throne. The throne was powerless to repel him. He couldn't access the monarch system, though. He had been on that throne for more than an hour without saying anything. Linda knew Master was not an idle person. Little did she know he was hacking the non-standard skill list.

"Govern this country," Master answered. "I will formulate the regulations for everyone to follow. Make sure everyone follows them. In the meantime, form a force composed of the native soldiers, players, and faction members to begin reconstruction of the settlements in Hydrurond. We will start from there and slowly rebuild the other wrecked countries. Xugguth will provide demon soldiers to act as overseers to ensure everyone is in line. If anyone is unwilling, slay them. If they are too powerful, mark them. I will deal with them personally." Linda wanted to comment that this was no different than slavery, but she stopped herself. She avoided offending Master by asking differently, "Wouldn't it be faster if you use your power to reconstruct the settlements."

Master was silent upon the question. In fact, he had given it a try. After his declaration and teleporting his force to Thereath, he went to Messephyria. He used his divine power to reassemble the broken buildings. He had two problems, though. Firstly, he never cared for those buildings, so he didn't have an impression or detailed memories of them. Secondly, he lacked imagination. When he tried rebuilding the buildings following his whim, they ended

up as plain cubes.

In his frustration, he destroyed the buildings he had just built and went away.

"That is not a job for God," Master answered Linda's question, to which Linda responded with

a nod.

"Once we rebuild Hydrurond, will we be relocating our base there?" Linda asked. "Hydrurond

is the center of this continent. That location will be a better testament to showcase your

dominance over this world."

"No. We will continue to rule from Thereath."

"Why?" Linda asked, to which Master responded with a glare.

"I apologize," Linda hurriedly said.

"You should," Master chided. "Please remember you no longer speak with a mortal. I'm a God

now! You mortals should obey my every command without question. Do you understand?"

"I understand," Linda bowed.

Master stood and said, "I will be out for a bit. Take care of the things here in my absence."

"When will you return?" Linda asked.

"When I return," Master answered. He then vanished.