After installing the new upgrades to his one and only income source, Augus went back home and suddenly found himself with nothing to do. He couldn’t cultivate without a proper technique and didn’t have new upgrades to work on for the “Siphon raid” world. Augus was suddenly pretty free and he decided that just for today, instead of looking for ways to busy himself he would actually relax. He would get out of his room and spend time with his family and friends.

  Augus had to admit that the surprise on his mother’s face actually hurt a bit when he told her he would take the day off. Did she see him as a workaholic?… He actually didn’t have a retort for that, he did start working the day he was out of school. But not today, today would be nothing but relaxation. And it mostly was, he helped his mother cook lunch then he went out and met with some school friends. He even went to the karaoke after one of the group insisted, though insisted might be a big word for it, he only really asked twice. But Augus was really easy to convince, for this stuff at least, and the bastard knew it, one couldn’t really explain his shit-eating grin otherwise. So Augus sung his heart out, the guys had a pained expression while he did so but, he didn’t sing that badly, right?

  One of them muttered – “You could wake up a coma patient with that voice.”

  He had to hold in the need to smack him. He was a civil person, so when he got to sing Augus put his most pained expression, even though the guy didn’t sing that badly. It was out of pure spite. The rest of the guys just laughed at the entire interaction, just happy that they could all meet up after graduating.

  After a few drinks the group dispersed and each went their way, Augus and the rude one, Bob, lived in the same direction so they went together.

  “So, John Doe, what have you been up to?”

  “You will keep calling me that even after school?”

  “It’s your nickname and you will own it. Besides, we still wouldn’t be able to recognize you from other Bobs.” The laugh at the end was the cherry on top.

  “Ha, ha, good one, God”

  “Oh you fucker.”

  “I still can vividly remember your speech that day. The day you told us your dreams of becoming such a great World Maker people wouldn’t hesitate to compare you to the God of Creation.”

  “I was fourteen!”

  “Is my nickname still John Doe?”

  “Always” There are things friends just can’t concede about, even when it’s detrimental to them.

  “The yours will always be God”

  The kick in the butt that followed was indeed meant to hurt.

  After another while walking and their usual bickering John Doe changed the subject.

  “I heard you talking about advancing your cultivation back there, what level you at now?”

  “Golden World baby.”

  “Show off.”

  “Yeah, yeah, the great World Maker is so far above us simple Artifact Makers.”

  “I’m better than all of you not because I’m a World Maker.”

  “Why then?” John Doe entertained.

  “Because I’m just made different.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Hahaha”

  “Anyway, that’s not why I brought it up. I heard that from Golden realm you have to consider the elements that will enter your cultivation because of something in a higher realm.”

  “Heard the same, they didn’t tell me at what stage though.”

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  “They never do. So, have you thought about it?”

  “Yeah, I even have the cultivation technique down and everything.”

  “And?”

  “The "Stormbound manual" cultivation technique.”

  “And why the fuck would you need a lightning based cultivation technique, mister Maker?”

  “Because, I heard something else about that nebulose realm. The elements you choose help you specially enhance a specific part (or aspect) of your body, lightning is all about the brain.”

  “Oh and the psycho wants to mess with his brain, of course.”

  “If you can upgrade your thinking capacity as a Maker, the only ones who wouldn’t do it are those scared of brain damage.”

  “Of course there’s risk of brain damage.”

  “You are messing with your brain so…”

  In response Augus got a deadpan face followed by a sigh. “Haaa, if you want to end as a vegetable, be my guest.”

  The conversation fizzled out from there as they were at the point of going to their own houses. They said their own unique goodbyes and went to their houses.

  “Farewell, oh my God.”

  “Goodbye, uh, what was your name?”

  Finally in his home, Augus greeted his parents who were about to get to bed. Afterwards he checked for the first time how his upgraded World performed. It did exceptionally well as he only needed to wait until next Monday to get his new cultivation technique. So, what would Augus do in his weekend? Pull from his numerous brainstorming sessions and make a new World.

  * * *

  The next day, Augus got into his notes and made a list of the Worlds he came up with. Of that list he eliminated the ones that he felt were too similar to “Siphon raid” and was left with quite the outlandish list. Almost none he could even consider at this current cultivation level, like, how could a Golden World cultivator expect to create a cultivation techniques simulator? No, the only one slightly feasible he could try was one he got by talking with his friends. As they were all from different departments in the Maker division they had obviously fantasied about combining their expertise but never got to anything concrete. Well, now he had the time and space to try to do so, as such, he started contacting his friends about what would they need for a good research on fusing their departments. Alchemy was as expected, a good supply of weird and unique materials to test with the other disciplines. Beast taming was just husbandry, of magical beast yes, but husbandry, so food and space. Formations was the easiest yet, space and simple supplies. Talisman inscription would need just supplies but an unending amount of them. Artifact crafting was the most diverse of all as it needed a workshop, a smithy, a testing space and obviously, materials. He would just put the Machinists besides the Artifact crafts, where they always were (even they departments were just next to each other). Battle arrays would need people, but as he could not create living beings inside a World (he hoped so at least), puppets would do. Augus could include Cultivation research but as neither him nor his friends new how it worked he couldn’t really do much.

  With the requirements established Augus had to think how to actually meet them. He would need to keep the materials in a simulated state, because not even the government could provide the spiritual energy required to maintain such an amount of diverse and expensive materials real. The only downside would be that the cultivators could not take their physical fruits of their labor and instead only the knowledge of it. Unlike other similar Worlds that allowed it at the downside of limited amount and cheapness of materials.

  The facilities and cultivators themselves would need to be able to interact and alter the simulated materials though, it was feasible just a pain in the ass to implement. Was he missing something? … Right, the space, too wide of a terrain would not be approved as other Worlds also needed the space. He theoretically could make mini worlds inside his World but that was outside the capabilities of a Golden World cultivator. What to do… what to do…

  . . .

  The small worlds were spherical, right? He checked, they were. So, he could design the World to be like two levels tall and really wide, that way he would use a really small volume in comparison to the area of his prospective slab of a World. The first level would be the actual testing area so that the different cultivators could interact with each other. While the second level would be the “storage area” where the simulated materials would be created and stored.

  He also had to make a system so people wouldn’t abuse the infinite materials he would provide, even if they were cheap. For that he would set up somewhat of an AI to check not for the feasibility of a project but it’s material cost, if it was too big it would scale it down. Also, it should put a limit to projects, three to five strikes (depending on how catastrophic the failure was), and then the cultivators would have to make substantial changes to the research project in order to get more materials.

  Now, the magic beasts, he could simulate them, yes, but even simulated they were quite expensive. Therefore every “death” of a magical beast during an experiment would be accompanied by a penalty, in spiritual energy of course. Cultivators could supply their own spiritual energy to remake a magical beast if they didn’t want to pay in crystals. Talking about crystals, he would need to set up a port to send them back to the DWM for these cases and a terminal in the Beast taming “ranch” to supply spiritual energy.

  With all covered all that was left was to choose a name.