Eilistraee hummed, tilting her head as she observed a small creature materialize out of thin air right in front of her.
The entity resembled a pink bipedal cat, and it immediately started walking around aimlessly, entirely oblivious to the literal god standing nearby.
Eilistraee raised her hand, her fingers curling slightly. The very next instant, the pink creature was suspended in the air, dangling helplessly in her invisible grasp as its limbs flailed around in a strange, repetitive, and rhythmic pattern.
"You could be a little gentle with it," Aaric pointed out, stepping forward to give the struggling creature a little physical support under its feet.
"They do not possess souls," Eilistraee muttered, completely ignoring his chiding statement as she observed the squirming pink feline with her analytical silver eyes.
Aaric tilted his head in sheer curiosity at her declaration. He leaned in and observed the suspended creature much more closely.
He then looked past her shoulder and noticed several more of these little creatures spawning around them.
They walked around the grassy landscape in strictly fixed paths. A few of them were just walking in endless, perfect circles, never breaking their repetitive stride.
"I recognize this," Aaric muttered, a dawn of realization hitting him. "These creatures are from a game I know of," he added.
Eilistraee raised an eyebrow at his statement. She looked back at the creature held in her grasp.
A moment later, the pink cat simply dissolved into scattered motes of digital light, all of which seamlessly entered her open palm.
"Was the game named Palworld?" Eilistraee asked Aaric, placing a hand on her chin. She had just absorbed and processed all the inherent data the creature possessed upon its dissolution.
"Yes, that is the one. Is this entire world functioning like a program? As if the game has turned real, but it still operates strictly as a game?" Aaric asked the goddess, looking around at the looping animations of the distant animals.
"Exactly. These creatures are akin to a basic program based on the game you mentioned. They do not have souls, and they just move in the exact direction they were programmed to move in," Eilistraee answered.
She took Aaric's hand, and the scenery around them warped instantly. They found themselves in a completely different location, yet clearly still within the boundaries of the same bizarre world.
They now floated high above a sprawling desert, positioned directly in front of a giant monument depicting a jackal-like humanoid being.
The statue featured a glowing treasure chest nestled between its large stone ears, along with a massive egg resting upon its tail.
"This particular pal is called Anubis. It operates as a world boss," Aaric explained.
He then teleported them directly in front of the glowing chest, and Aaric unceremoniously pushed the lid open.
Inside the container, they found three green metallic spheres, a small pile of gold coins, and a bunch of red berries.
Aaric picked up the three spheres and kicked the chest closed, not caring about the gold or the berries left inside.
"I believe these objects are called pal spheres," Eilistraee noted aloud, and Aaric nodded in confirmation.
"Will things respawn in this world exactly as they do in the game?" Aaric asked her, wanting to clarify the rules of this reality.
He received a simple, confirming nod from the goddess in return.
Aaric nodded back before inspecting the green spheres resting in his hands, activating his own skill.
{Object identified: Megasphere. Function: pokeball}
Aaric could not help but chuckle to himself at the blunt description.
{Recommendation: The spheres can be taken in the waking realms and used for data to form identical worlds in the waking realm.} The system added, giving Aaric some food for thought.
"Can we take this entire world and add it to our personal dimension?" Aaric asked the goddess standing beside him.
Eilistraee hummed thoughtfully and looked around the vast desert landscape with her piercing silver eyes before providing an answer.
"That action would bring it under our pantheon, and the process would naturally give the creatures inside real, functional souls," Eilistraee said.
Adding the world directly to their dimension would place it in close proximity to Hades, thereby infusing the digital world with genuine soul power on a passive, constant basis.
"Would that be a bad thing?" Aaric asked, seeking her perspective.
The goddess responded with a slow shake of her head.
"Although, I must admit these creatures are inherently powerful," she muttered, placing a hand back on her chin in contemplation.
"I sense that because of the truly extraordinary circumstances that led to the spontaneous birth of this world, with enough time, the stronger creatures here would become comparable to actual gods."
She then teleported herself and Aaric just a short distance away, landing them softly on the desert sand.
"With enough nurturing and time, a select few of them may even harbor the potential to reach the level of the void gods," she said, her gaze now fixed as she observed the world boss Anubis running around in the dunes right in front of them.
She was deeply interested in the very real possibility that the pals or the unique resources from this world might be able to help her fellow gods reach her current level of power, and perhaps even elevate her own divine standing.
She knew perfectly well that Aaric already possessed his own elaborate plans to reach that pinnacle of strength, so she was not worried about his progression in the slightest.
Aaric nodded in agreement. He drew his wand from his side and casually fired a small, condensed fireball directly at the roaming world boss.
He had deliberately made sure to keep the spell weak, as he merely wanted to draw the creature's aggression, and the tactic worked flawlessly.
Loud, dramatic boss music literally started playing out of thin air in the background, and a glowing red health bar abruptly appeared at the top of Aaric's vision just as the Anubis sharply turned its jackal head to face him.
The creature moved rapidly, strafing across the sand before waving its clawed hands. In response, two towering tornados materialized and barreled toward Aaric at an incredibly high speed.
The boy simply bypassed the elemental attack, teleporting seamlessly to appear right behind the towering creature.
He immediately fired a severing charm towards its exposed back, and this time, his magical attack was serious.
The charm struck the creature at point blank range. Aaric could clearly see its floating health bar dropping significantly, although there was absolutely no physical injury visible on the creature's body.
The boss responded to the damage by charging toward Aaric like a blinding flash of sand and fur, letting out a devastating, energy infused punch just as it closed the distance to the boy.
The sheer speed of the counterattack surprised even Aaric, and his instincts flared as he sensed the massive physical power concentrated behind that incoming punch.
He decided to dodge via another quick teleportation, fading away just before impact. He made sure to leave behind a lingering wisp of silver flame in his wake, which immediately latched itself onto the arm of the creature.
Aaric stood a few paces away and observed calmly as the creature's health bar rapidly depleted right in front of his eyes.
The boss did not possess much health left anyway after the severing charm, and the silver fire took mere moments to cause the giant creature to go completely limp.
Its large body fell and lay motionless on the sandy ground, looking almost weightless, while a thick book and some large, pristine bones magically materialized and laid themselves neatly beside the defeated creature.
{The world seems to have a system involving leveling and building, would you like to allow the system interface to integrate itself with you?}
Aaric answered his skill's prompt with a firm, immediate no.
"He was not really that strong," Aaric muttered, looking back over his shoulder to address the goddess standing quietly behind him.
"I told you, these beings will need to be nurtured first before they reach their true potential," Eilistraee replied with a casual shrug of her shoulders.
"Why did you not try to capture it with those spheres?" she asked, gesturing toward the three green orbs now hanging securely at Aaric's belt.
"I have Chaya and Dune already. I do not need to collect any more pets," Aaric answered with a definitive shake of his head.
He then bent his neck down to plant a soft kiss on top of Chaya's head just as the little serpent poked her head out from the collar of his shirt.
"Let us just add this entire world to our dimension and be done with it," he added, receiving an approving nod from the goddess.
Aaric transported himself back to Syntheia, leaving Eilistraee behind in the desert to do her divine work of moving the world into their domain.
Once he was settled, he retrieved the pulsing paradox seed from his dimension. He did this right as he heard his skill chime in his mind, announcing that its analysis of the cosmic object was finally complete.
He spent the next few quiet moments simply standing there and listening as his skill comprehensively told him exactly what the seed was capable of and precisely how he could go about using it to fix their earlier mistake.
"Easy peasy," he muttered to himself with a confident smirk.
Without wasting another second, he teleported himself directly to the surface of a completely barren, rocky planet located within his galaxy.
Once his boots touched the dusty ground, he reached into his inventory and took out his celestial gourd.
He walked until he found a suitably deep impact crater on the dead planet. He uncorked the gourd and poured it out, entirely filling the large crater with pure, shimmering moonlight essence.
Once the glowing pool settled, he carefully proceeded to throw the paradox seed directly into the center of the liquid.
"Now for the last part," he whispered into the silent void.
He focused his will and brought out Jörmungandr, forcing the world ending serpent to manifest in a vastly smaller, more manageable form.
He swiftly extracted a measure of blood from the subdued serpent and let the heavy crimson drops fall, adding them to the glowing silver pool.
He then reached into his storage and unceremoniously chucked in the large bones he had just obtained from defeating the Anubis boss.
The concoction began to react, swirling with unstable divine energy. Aaric turned his back, fully intending to leave the mixture to gestate, but he suddenly stopped in his tracks when a novel idea entered his mind.
He reached down and took the enchanted pouch from his belt. He plunged his hand deep inside the magical bag, his fingers searching blindly through his vast collection of rare items.
When he finally pulled his hand out, he held several bloodline fruits resting in his palm.
Deciding to push the limits of the paradox he was brewing, he proceeded to chuck the fruits straight into the bubbling pool as well, watching as the liquid flared with blinding new colors.