Shepherd Wizard

Chapter 238

Translator: Pai_

‘Ah.......’

Turan, who had converted the existing laws into essence and absorbed them, shuddered as he felt the immense power filling his inner self.

An overwhelming sense of omnipotence born from the certainty that he could manipulate this world as he pleased.

Perhaps if he wished, he could collapse a mountain range or dry up the sea with just a gesture.

Turning the Enril Desert into a green grassland, or the Frostwind Forest into a blazing desert, would likely be possible too.

‘Just a little more.......’

How sweet it would be to lift one region with this power and reduce it back to essence.

Turan shook off the sudden temptation with a slight shake of his head.

Instead, he began the task he needed to do by manipulating the absorbed laws.

“Set law.”

When he clearly designated the information to be translated into language, the vast amount of essence began to move accordingly.

The first thing to change was the system for acquiring magic power.

Although the potential based on bloodline would remain the same as before, from now on, magic power could no longer be seized by killing one another.

When all magical beings died, their magic power would return to the sea of spirit form along with their souls and revert to essence.

Instead, all magical beings would be given the opportunity to gain stronger power based on their proficiency in handling magic power.

Those who reflect on their strength, contemplate, and refine it would naturally be able to handle more magic power.

Next, he adjusted matters related to bloodline abilities.

While the innate aspects remained, additional abilities could now be acquired by achieving specific Quests.

It would be easiest for someone with none to acquire one, and hardest for someone with three to gain a fourth.

As a bonus, knights born with a bloodline but unable to manifest it would find it slightly easier.

These conditions were added because this world did not look kindly on acquiring four bloodline abilities without reason.

Such restrictions were necessary to substitute for the countless human souls otherwise consumed.

The third change was the removal of principles for abnormal material combinations.

He changed the previous rules that made it impossible to produce or store substances like gunpowder or electricity through chemical methods, replacing them with Earth-like principles.

This was an essential measure to properly build a scientific civilization.

Since their world lacked a "universe”, he wasn’t sure whether they could launch things like artificial satellites or not.

Having completed all the changes he planned, Turan considered briefly altering the ‘terrain’ but decided to abandon the idea.

The current situation, where the world is divided into 11 terrains, was not entirely natural, but the aftermath of forcibly restoring it was too unpredictable.

Besides, such terrain fixation had its own advantages.

It could help suppress climate anomalies caused by environmental destruction, which was a chronic disease of Earthlings.

Having taken all these measures, Turan still felt a considerable amount of essence remaining inside him and smiled.

This meant that the laws he had rewritten were more “natural” than the previous ones.

***

Solif and Berit arrived in Kalamaf exactly three days after the laws had changed.

Coincidentally, Turan had just finished work and was having tea with Meisa and Luska in the garden, so he was able to welcome them.

"You came quickly."

“How have you been, Meisa? But what is this scent? It's amazing.”

“I washed with something I brought from Earth this time. So did Turan, and I guess it smells really good to someone with the Zahar bloodline.”

“Well, our sense of smell is pretty sensitive. Wow, Luska’s all grown up! He looks like he’ll be walking soon.”

“Rida nim said the same. She thinks he’ll be walking in less than five months.”

While the young women exchanged such conversation, Turan and Solif simply exchanged glances and nods as greetings.

"I thought you were busy with the goblin subjugation."

“It ended today. I need to rest a bit now.”

"You don't have time to rest, do you? You need to obtain the Healer bloodline."

“I’ll do it later. I’m just a bit over sixty now, still young.”

Solif, sprawled out on the sofa, spoke in a tone that suggested he was sulking, rolling around restlessly.

But only for a moment, he suddenly sprang up at Turan’s words.

“Then you won’t be able to go to Earth. What a shame.”

“Damn it, can’t you just let me go? It’s not like I’m going to die the moment I get there.......”

“Still, it’s better to be safe if we can help it.”

In truth, part of the reason Turan wasn’t allowing Solif to go was because he wanted to manage their image on Earth.

Only beings that felt overwhelmingly powerful and omnipotent should come and go, so that the reverence people held for this side could be maintained.

It was, so to speak, a kind of mystique marketing.

“So try healing about ten thousand to twenty thousand people quickly and lead them to a new life.”

“I think I’ve already done about five hundred... Huh, just hearing that makes it feel overwhelming. Can’t I complete it on Earth?”

“Hmm, that might not be a bad method either. If there’s a chance, I’ll talk to their president. Or maybe another country wouldn't be bad either.”

They chatted for a bit, saying how China seemed to have such a large population, then shifted their gaze to Meisa and Berit, who were playing with Luska in the middle.

The two women squealed with delight over Luska, who had just started babbling, there was nothing more heartwarming.

“Come to think of it, when’s the wedding going to be?”

“Next year, around the time of the empire proclamation. Judging by how things are going, it seems that’s about when the foundation will be ready.”

Currently, the House Parsha was steadily taking over the world.

The main reason was that the replicated jade mirrors allowed them to project influence easily.

Even faraway places like the western wastelands, the Frostwind Forest, and the Grassy Plains, areas that would take an ordinary person six months to reach on foot, could now be accessed like one’s front yard. So how could anyone resist submitting?

Turan was even considering replicating more mirrors once more essence was gathered.

Although those who manipulate essence can technically use all abilities well, there was still such a thing as specialization, and since Meisa was originally an Enchanter, she seemed best suited to handle it.

“So in Kalamaf, we install one mirror for each regional capital, and in each capital, we install several mirrors to other cities within that region.”

“Shouldn’t Kalamaf also have a mirror connected to the cities in the Gray Zone?”

“That’s already there.”

“When did you make it?”

“This morning.”

Solif clicked his tongue, saying it was hard to keep up with how fast things were changing every day.

“So you’re going to send us mirrors to install in each region too?”

"Of course. So hurry up and—"

“Alright, I said I’ll do it.”

Reading the incoming nagging, Solif groaned and shook his head.

“Anyway, next year, huh... It’s going to be magnificent.”

“Exactly. A lot has happened, but since it’s been delayed, we might as well have the most glamorous wedding in the world.”

“And the emperor’s coronation as a bonus?”

Turan answered with a smile.

***

Five months after the law changes.

The changes in the world led by Turan were felt so intensely by the wizards that they were almost sick of it.

In truth, no explanation was needed, everyone could feel it.

There were plenty who felt their magic power, which should have reached its limit, suddenly increase just from normal training.

“I really did get stronger!”

"I told you, didn't I? Try starting from basic magic practice again."

“I don’t even remember the last time I did that......”

This phenomenon was especially pronounced among the knights, and understandably so, nobles already possessed more magic power than their skill levels warranted.

Of course, the changed laws didn’t strip anyone of their original magic power, but just the fact that they couldn’t grow stronger anymore was enough to make them anxious.

Still, it wasn't as if they could scold people and tell them not to train in magic.

House Parsha, the world's rulers, was encouraging magic practice and the advancement that came through it.

To support such individuals, a new building had been constructed in Kalamaf.

Made of a mixture of blue-green stone and nearly translucent white marble, this building was named the Ascension Altar.

Anyone who had enjoyed playing games would likely have called it a Job Change Center.

“...Did I hear that right?”

“A knight can become a noble?”

“Not only that, but even nobles can awaken a second or third bloodline ability, as long as they’re qualified.”

“Damn it, what are we waiting for! Let’s get to Kalamaf right now!”

Once Turan informed the various wizard houses of the building's existence and purpose, it didn’t take long before it became crowded with wizards from all over the world.

Even though he gave each house the authority to select limited entrants, allowing only a set number to enter, it was already this crowded, had he not done so, the place would have been bursting at the seams.

Tomen Varaha, a knight from the House Varaha, was one of those who had gained entry thanks to a selection ticket granted to Varaha.

As a knight, the reason he obtained the ticket was because his noble wife had a close relationship with Berit, the current de facto leader of Varaha.

Thinking that most of the participants would be nobles made him feel intimidated, but Tomen forced himself to stand tall.

If he succeeded in advancing here, he too could become a noble.

“So this is the place.......”

“Tomen Varaha?”

“Y-yes, that’s me.”

“Enter.”

At the call of someone who appeared to be a wizard of Parsha, Tomen swallowed hard and stepped inside.

Inside, there were others who had seemingly entered through different doors, all looking around in awe and tension.

The building’s interior was worthy of such a reaction.

As was typical of structures made by gods, there wasn’t the slightest trace of joints in the walls or floor.

Even though they understood with their minds that this building was a collaboration between Turan Parsha and Meisa Aravion, accepting it emotionally was a different matter.

Wasn’t this truly a time when they lived alongside gods in the flesh?

He let out a breath heavy with reverence, but only for a moment, the guide who had led him came back in and addressed everyone.

“Come in, all of you.”

“Is it alright not to go in order?”

“All will proceed in the natural order anyway. One piece of advice: never lie. A polite lie is worse than an honest bad answer.”

It was hard to grasp the meaning, but no one here was foolish enough to go against his words or run away.

As Tomen walked down a short corridor following the guide, a white mist suddenly surrounded him.

Before he realized it, he was standing alone- no guide, no other participants in sight.

“Th-this is...”

[Tomen Varaha.]

A divine voice echoed from the air.

It truly sounded like the voice of a god, just as he had imagined.

“Who are you?”

[Son of Airam Kali and Belu Varaha, what power do you desire?]

“I want the power to control fire.”

[For what reason?]

Tomen almost answered immediately that it was to add strength to the great House Varaha, but he hesitated for a moment.

The guide’s warning not to lie still lingered in his mind.

“...I want to be stronger. I want to be respected by others, to earn more money, eat better food, and live longer.”

[You are honest with your desires.]

The voice muttered something unclear, whether it was praise or not, then asked again.

[To achieve that, how far are you willing to fall? Would you kill the innocent or betray humanity?]

“No!”

[Would you violate someone against their will or covet what belongs to others?]

“I would never do such things.”

The ethical questioning continued after that.

Tomen answered almost every question by saying he would never do such things, but for some more difficult ones, he hesitated and gave honest answers that he might not be able to.

Questions like, “Could you abandon your family for the sake of humanity?” or “Would you close your eyes to injustice out of fear of death?” were among them.

Just as Tomen began to doubt whether he had passed, the voice suddenly stopped asking questions and started giving explanations.

Only then did Tomen realize the trial was over.

[Each day, once at sunrise and once at sunset, bow toward the sun. When the time comes, that power shall dwell within you.]

“That’s all I have to do?”

[If you miss even once, you’ll have to start all over again.]

With that warning, Tomen found himself back in the waiting room without realizing how.

The people there were reacting in various ways.

“This is insane... How am I supposed to dive to the depths of the sea and survive an entire day?”

“I’m sorry, I swear I won’t lie again, just give me one more chance!”

“The altar can only be entered once per year. Surely you’re not planning to defy the laws of the House Parsha?”

At the guide’s sharp words, the pleading man bowed his head deeply and began to weep.

Tomen realized then that the man had lied and lost his opportunity.

Considering even the great noble houses didn’t have many selection tickets, getting a second chance wouldn’t be easy...

After exiting the altar and taking a transport gate from Kalamaf back to Helio City, Tomen soon returned home.

His wife, who had been anxiously waiting, asked him with a nervous expression,

“How did it go?”

“It doesn’t seem too hard. Though I’m not sure how long it’ll take...”

“Thank goodness!”

“I just hope it happens before I die of old age.”

As a knight, Tomen was forty-two this year.

If he took good care of his health, he could probably live to around fifty or sixty, but compared to his noble wife, that was a pitifully short lifespan.

It was why he so desperately hoped to seize this opportunity.

Several months passed.

Tomen never once forgot, bowing toward the sun each day at sunrise and sunset.

Fortunately, when he explained it as a "Quest”, both his superiors and fellow knights who were already aware of it made allowances for him.

One day, as he bowed toward the setting sun, Tomen felt something immense fill his inner self.

“Ah...”

Along with a surge in magic power came the ability to sense surrounding heat, something he had only heard about in stories.

Igniting fire with magic felt unbelievably easy, and the magic cost was nearly negligible. He wept with joy.

He had successfully ascended to nobility as a bearer of the Pyromaniac bloodline.

***

The social issues arising from the change in laws were far more intense than Turan had anticipated.

From knights becoming nobles to people with one bloodline gaining a second, the resulting incidents were no small matter.

After all, resentment almost always flowed from the weak toward the strong.

When the strong bore a grudge against the weak, they could simply deal with it and move on.

But now that the weak had gained power, their pent-up frustration began to manifest as societal upheaval, requiring significant effort to resolve.

“Still, I never thought it would get this exhausting.”

Turan muttered quietly as he looked over the list of those who had recently succeeded in ascension and registered it.

The document he held was not made of parchment like in the past, but paper made from wood.

It had started being produced recently at a factory near Kalamaf, and was considered a major contributor to the dramatic improvement of the House Parsha’s administrative capabilities.

If they had continued using parchment, they would’ve likely had to skin every sheep in the Gray Zone by now.

Across from him, Meisa, reviewing the documents, asked,

“I thought the bad ones had already been filtered out?”

“That’s why it’s only this bad. I should ask the Librarian elder to raise the standard a bit more.”

The one who judged ascension eligibility at the Ascension Altar was the Librarian.

As the spirit of the library, it was essentially a type of artificial intelligence, making it ideal for this kind of task.

Its role was to use a magic artifact that discerned truth to assess the subject’s sincerity, then assign scores based on predetermined questions to determine ascension eligibility.

Yet, despite this filtering system, the fact that so many incidents still occurred made it clear there was a serious problem.

They would probably need to assign a higher score to the question, “Will you rely on the law for revenge instead of taking it into your own hands?”

“But looking at this, the difficulty level is all over the place, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Here, this person named Tomen just had to bow toward the sun twice a day and he got his ascension, but someone else had to stand on a bonfire and endure it for a long time. Both of them were trying to get the Pyromaniac ability as their first bloodline, but it’s way too different.”

Turan looked over the document and nodded in understanding with an “Ah”.

“Tomen is from Varaha, so he probably had a natural aptitude for handling fire, which lowered the threshold. And he was probably already more familiar with fire magic. Being honest during the Q&A likely helped too.”

“So the more you’ve used a particular magic type, the easier the conditions become?”

“Exactly. The conditions the Librarian gives aren’t decided by me, but by what the world wants.”

Turan had set the laws, but not everything was completely under his control.

He had yielded a certain degree of control in the settings to minimize the loss of essence that accompanied ascension.

After hearing the explanation, Meisa nodded in understanding.

“Well, Solif did get an extremely harsh condition.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think others are getting it that bad. If you ask me, that guy just really doesn’t match well with the Healer bloodline.”

At that time, Solif was off on his long-desired journey to Earth, traveling alone.

More accurately, it should be called volunteer work.

As the first guest of the Ascension Altar, the task assigned to him was to save one million people who would otherwise die within five years.

It was almost exactly what Turan had anticipated, but the conditions for who needed to be saved were strict, and the scale was absurdly large.

Because of that, Turan broke his original standards and sent Solif on the trip as both a service mission and an Earth visit.

After all, it would’ve been nearly impossible to find and gather one million people on the verge of death within five years in the Cradle World.

To assist in the healing, Turan personally lent Solif the Mimic Sacred Relic.

Though the item had originally been bound to Turan, he had now released that binding and could lend it out.

Of course, it was only a loan, once Solif finished his work and returned, he would give it back.

“Wasn’t he supposed to return in three days?”

“He left four days ago, so yeah. He said he was just about done reaching the required number.”

Turan had personally accompanied Solif during the first transfer to Earth and met with world leaders to leave a few messages.

Something along the lines of: “This guy might be a bit inexperienced among us, but he’s a dear friend, if you don’t treat him well, I’ll be very angry.”

Fortunately, Earth’s leaders didn’t dare do anything foolish like kidnapping Solif.

They had once witnessed Turan and Meisa flatten San Francisco entirely.

All the experts had unanimously agreed that with that level of physical power, they could render an entire continent uninhabitable, and no idiot dared challenge that.

On top of that, Solif had wisely helped the powerholders first, which went a long way toward earning their cooperation.

Even though it wasn’t full rejuvenation, regaining vitality in old age and overcoming chronic illnesses had left those leaders in high spirits, and they gladly sent patients his way. On Earth, Solif was treated as nothing short of a god of healing.

“Since we already claimed the first impression, it won’t be as impactful, but after traveling that long, he must’ve gathered an enormous amount of presence. It’ll definitely help when he starts handling essence later.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Ppaya!”

In the middle of their conversation, a voice from behind made both of them turn their heads at the same time.

Of course, they had already sensed the presence long before but pretended not to notice.

The child who came striding over tugged hard on the hem of Meisa’s pants.

"Mama!"

“Oh my, is our Luska here? Did you come to see Mama and Papa working?”

“Yeah!”

Now fifteen months old, Luska had started walking in earnest and roamed freely throughout the House Parsha.

The two ordered the nanny following behind to wait, then picked up the child and played with him, rocking him gently.

“He really is growing up so fast. Feels like just yesterday he was babbling.”

“His language development is early. He might be a genius.”

"Of course he is. Whose son do you think he is?"

They chuckled briefly, and then Turan glanced at the calendar placed on one side of the office and spoke.

“It’s really not long now.”

“Yeah...”

Knowing what he meant, Meisa also turned her gaze toward the calendar.

In just three days, they would proclaim the establishment of a unified state that would rule the world, following in the footsteps of the ancient empire that had vanished thousands of years ago.

It was a declaration to dismantle the old wizard house system that had already begun crumbling due to the existence of the Ascension Altar and to rebuild everything anew.

And with the companion ceremony between Meisa and Turan taking place as well, it could, in some sense, be seen as the grandest wedding in the world.

*****

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