Nate leaned back in the comfortable chair, ready to be regaled by Jak on the nature of World Reaping when he noticed how quiet Wulfgar was being. Holding up his hand to wait, Nate moved over to join the old Lesser Divine and see what was going on.

“You’ve been awfully silent,” Nate whispered. “Something bothering you?”

“Don’t understand a word of what they’re saying,” mumbled Wulfgar.

Nate blinked in surprise. He hadn’t considered it might be an issue because he and Kiri both had Divine Translation spells active on them.

“But you answered the Identification questions all perfectly for the bureaucrat,” Nate commented.

“You and Kiri went first. I just paid attention to what you answered or did at each line and copied them. I may be a warrior but I ain’t an idiot.”

Nate tried not to laugh. That was hilarious.

“We’re just talking about the World Reaping. I’ll have Frick translate for you. When we’re on our own I will come up with a fix for this problem.”

Wulfgar nodded his thanks and Frick was by his side in the blink of an eye, butler uniform back on, now with the addition of a monocle.

Nate just shook his head at his Familiar’s antics and sat back in his chair.

“Apologies for the interruption, Jak.”

“Ha! Not a problem. Your bodyguard looks a little long in the tusk but I reckon he’d give me a good fight if it came down to it! Anyways, a World Reaping. How much detail do you want?”

“Assume I am from the hinterlands and this is my first taste of normal society.”

Kiri snorted off to the side which earned a curious look from Jak. A moment later she was back to what Nate could only assume was attempting to seduce Gwen. As for Fili, the pintsize Divine was stuffing her face with every kind of meat dish she could get her hands on.

“A backwater eh? Bit unusual given your equipment but never let it be said that Hrung’Jak the Eclipsing Blade wasn’t willing to accommodate new friends! Where to start… Where to start… hmm, suppose faction holdings are as good a place as any. In the Heartlands, a faction's wealth can be measured by three things. Firstly, the number of worlds they control. Secondly, the amount of Divine Artifacts in their vaults and empowerment chambers. Finally, the power and skill of their Divines. The three tend to be intertwined, though not always.”

Jak paused, raising green clawed hands as he started to get into his explanation.

“Think about it like this, the more worlds you control, the more land you have to farm. Not food though. Shit, a single farming world could feed ten heavily populated ones with the right Classes and Skills. No, what the big factions farm is talent and Divine Artifacts. If one in a billion is a Seed-level talent, then it makes sense that a faction with twenty billion people would have twice as many Seed-level talents as one with ten billion people. And it really is a numbers game with most of these factions. Motivation to compete at that elevated tier is just as important as the actual skill to do so.”

Jak leaned forward, tapping the table and Nate mirrored him, enjoying the details of Heartlands… what… economics? Empire management? Whatever it was, he was finding it fascinating.

“But here is where it gets interesting. The balancing game they play. So one faction has twice as many Seed-level talents? Good for them. Doesn’t mean shit if they don’t have the Divine Energy to develop and advance at a solid speed. They start marinating for too long…”

Jak grabbed a piece of marinated meat with his clawed fingers to demonstrate, before shoving it into his mouth and talking as he chewed.

“And all of a sudden those Seed-level talents might start losing motivation, or worse, looking for fresher battlefields, if you catch my meaning. So that’s where the second type of farming comes in. Divine Artifacts. The things grow on trees, if you leave the trees alone long enough and with enough ambient mana. And there are plenty of things you can do with a naturally forming Divine Artifact. Consume them for a quick jump in power, turn them into a powerful item, like your armours. That robe feels solid as my abs, Nate. And Kiri’s armour, fuck, I ain’t seen a Wyvernscale Divine Armour in… ever. Heard rumours of a couple out there but sensing the real thing is giving me tingles. And not the good kind. That beast must’ve been a right bastard to take down. Anyway, you only do those kinds of things if you’re flush with Divine Energy though. What most of them will do is shove them in an Empowerment Chamber. Then let their people go in as a reward and drain them. ‘Course they take time to recharge but you end up getting more Divine Energy in the long run than simply consuming things.”

“Should’ve told you to skip that bit,” explained Nate, acting as if he knew those answers.

“Yeah, you’re right. Sorry! Was just getting too into it. Anyway, that’s what brings us to World Reaping. These factions set aside a bunch of their worlds and they keep people off them. Heard they send in teams to clear out any Dungeons that form as well. They want that ambient mana cranked to the max! And then they leave them alone for a few decades. Let the beasts go wild. Ends up producing a few Divine buggers in the process, but those beasts ain’t stupid either. They might consume a couple of Divine Artifacts, but they also tend to gather a bunch of them as well. Making their own little versions of Empowerment Chambers. Then, once that world is ripe for the picking, they open up a World Reaping.”

“Why would they let anyone else take part besides their own faction then?” asked Kiri.

“The Reapers Accord,” muttered Fili as she chewed on some of the rainbow serpent steak.

“Aye, The Reapers Accord. Figured even in the outer zones of the Heartlands you’d have heard of that?” asked Jak.

Nate shook his head.

“Jeez, you two been cooped up in some hidden monastery in the middle of nowhere or something?”

Nate just raised an eyebrow at the orc’s fishing for information and Jak held up his hands immediately in surrender.

“Alright! I’ll stop asking! The Reapers Accord is pretty simple. Lays down some ground rules for any World Reaping that takes place. Basically, thirty percent of the spots go to the faction that owns the world. No questions asked. Another thirty percent they HAVE to sell at auction. Anyone can buy them, including the faction that owns the world. The last forty percent are open slots that can be gained by competing in various tournaments. Single combat, team combat, and crafting.”

“Crafting?” asked Nate in surprise.

“Yeah. It has the least slots. It’s like ten percent, twenty-five percent, and five percent respectively. But plenty of smaller teams have members who are hybrid crafters. If you’re a team of three with a hybrid-crafter, you probably don’t want to enter into the team combat tournament and fight into five or six man teams. You’re better off having your two combatants enter into the single combat tournament and your hybrid-crafter into the crafting tournament.”

“What sort of crafters do these teams usually have?” asked Kiri.

“Alchemists and Enchanters are the most common. A World Reaping isn’t over quickly. Heard of one that lasted two years. And they don’t let you take much in. So having an Alchemist that can brew you things from what they find on the world is a huge boon in the long term. Enchanters are great for defensive emplacements, various wards, and even information gathering. There are other less common ones but those are the ones you’ll see the most.”

Nate held up a hand, “Two questions. Why would any faction agree to this Reapers Accord… and how do the tournaments work?”

Fili shot a sneer at Nate before answering.

“They agree to the Reapers Accord because it’s the only thing that keeps them from being overrun. Every faction in The Heartlands is eyeing every single other one and looking for weakness. The moment one of them attacked another they would in turn be attacked. Distance matters little when Spatial Magics get involved. They’d be stealing from each other constantly, if not going to outright war. Plus, The System doesn’t like all out war. That’s what we’re told anyway. So, it incentivises them all to play a little nice. The fact that you don’t know any of this makes me wonder if your Master was an idiot or if he kept you in the dark on purpose.”

“Grind your axe elsewhere, Fili,” grumbled Jak, which mollified the angry-looking Kiri. “We’re all friends here. Ignore her lad. She’s just envious of the Divine Artifacts you two have. But, she covered most of it. The only other thing is that The System keeps a score for how well the competing factions do in each World Reaping. They earn points for various tasks. How many Divine Artifacts they accumulate, any advancements they make on world, some other challenges it throws into the mix. Factions can use those points to purchase things from The System or their rivals, including worlds. It’s how they expand or lose ground.”

Jak paused to take a swig from his drink, smacking his lips once he was done.

“Now, I ain’t forgotten your question, but first, I’ll talk about the last thing. Farming talent. Just told you why the factions need people with talent and skill. They lose at too many World Reapings and they’ll start losing worlds. Lose too many worlds and all of a sudden they got less talents or not enough resources to support the ones they have. Heard of factions selling off worlds outside of World Reapings just because they couldn’t support them and needed the System points elsewhere.”

Jak leaned back into his chair, “Anyway, the tournaments are triple elimination. Lose three times and you’re out. Usually people don’t die but accidents happen and all that. Just surrender if you get in a tight spot. It ain’t worth your life.”

“Even the crafting tournaments?”

“Couldn’t tell you much about them. I know they make stuff. That’s about it. This is only our second World Reaping and we compete in the team combat portion. Would’ve asked if you wanted to join up with us but we’d be one too many. Maximum team size is six.”

Nate nodded, letting the conversation drift back to topics of battles. Nate told the one about Kiri riding a gryphon into the ground which got some hoots from Jak and a raised eyebrow from Fili. Gwen didn’t seem to care, though Kiri’s charm was working overtime there anyway. Nate was just glad he didn’t need to tell his sister to be careful.

Then Kiri told the story about how Nate saved them from an assassination by shattering space. She didn’t go into details about how he’d done it and Nate supposed that his use of spatial magics might make him seem less dangerous rather than more. After all, the clone of a Seed within the Wild Realm Dungeon had effectively called such users servants or thieves.

Lunch wrapped up not too long afterwards and they found accommodation quickly, given once again the choices were limited. The Divine sector of Jungpo was, after all, only a few blocks in diameter and serving a small number of Lesser Divines. The demand just wasn’t there.

The apartment they rented was almost as big as the house Nate kept in his spatial zone, and being richly decorated with comfort was the name of the game along with a two-tone colour scheme that made the place feel crisp and clean.

Kiri had stayed only long enough to check they were settled in before leaving to go meet Gwen. Nate was honestly just happy to see his sister finally moving on after Coralie. As for himself, well, he had a few things he needed to work on, starting with Wulfgar and Jemima’s language barrier.

Nate sat out on the patio under a large tree, with purple, blooming flowers that reminded him of the scent of lavender. Closing his eyes, he focused within himself and went searching for the Divine Translation Spell. It didn’t take long to find it. Arikanvil had placed it over two years ago and the clever True Divine had woven it around Nate’s mana reserve, with a snaking arm that reached towards his Class Core and interacted with his Soul Energy there. The drain on his mana had always been minimal and really wasn’t a concern. Recreating the understanding embedded within it might be.

Nate had expected he would be at the examination for quite a while but within a few minutes he understood how it worked. The Spell effectively functioned as a container for a small amount of Soul Energy. That Soul Energy was what contained the understanding of languages. It then interacted with Nate’s own Soul Energy, with meaning passing across. It was like having a second, much smaller mind, that only contained information without the ability to process it. A soul-based hard-drive. Nate rolled his eyes. No wonder he’d understood it so quickly. He had plenty of time working with Soul-based Runes and arguably the one that allowed mental communication with Kiri was quite similar in idea, if not structure, to the Divine Translation Spell.

Using the Copy and Soul Sigils Nate created a rune that could copy the core Soul Energy that contained the information he was interested in. Recreating the Spell was less easy. It was using at least one Concept that Nate was unfamiliar with but tasted like battery acid in his senses. Like the white noise of malfunctioning electronics. He couldn’t pinpoint it and so he instead started coming up with his own solution. The final rune used Soul, Connection, Shape, Durability, Transfer, and Recall. Then, with a thought, he imbued his new rune into two blobs of his Divine Paint, forming them into tokens with a stylised golden dragon, wings spread, roaring at the sun.

An achievement message popped up from The System and Nate dismissed it just as quickly, before calling Wulfgar and Jemima out onto the patio.

“Here. As long as these are touching your skin you should be able to understand the local language. Let me know if you have any issues.”

Nate was already looking away, thinking of the next thing to work on.

He sensed Wulfgar looking from the small disc of solidified paint and back to him, “Is this a fucking Divine Artifact?”

Nate glanced back up, “Yes.”

Wulfgar spluttered for a second before walking off muttering something about golden phoenixes raining from the heavens. Jemima stayed a moment longer.

“Why?” she asked quietly.

Nate looked up at the leaves of the purple flowering tree above him.

“Kiri told me of the things that you did. As far as I am concerned, you deserve to die.”

Jemima shivered at his words but said nothing, head downcast.

“I don’t think you can be forgiven. But you’re useful to my sister. So long as you keep being useful, I will keep my opinion to myself. That gift is to help you be useful to her and because it means almost nothing to me. Do you understand that? I could throw a hundred of those off this building to rain down below and be barely inconvenienced.”

“I will be useful to Mistress Kiri. I swear!” whispered Jemima fearfully, before glancing back up at Nate.

He’d stood and moved away, not even wanting to be close to the woman. He sensed her scurry away to her room and the cauldron she set up within. Kiri had brought along the woman's equipment and supplies. Nate wasn’t convinced they shouldn’t have simply ended Jemima, but he trusted his sister, so he would live with her choices.

Reaching into his own spatial zone he pulled out three rings once worn by Severen, Emperor of the Severed Empire. Each one was a Divine Artifact and Nate was curious to see just how useful they might be.