Chapter 1841: Sidetracked Conversation
The black dragon soon realized that he had been sidetracked. "How did this turn into questioning me about the best ways to develop Fundamental Rules? You’ve all mastered one, you don’t need to practice them for quite some time."
Rue shrugged. "You have answers, and the Darklight Host loves questions. That’s just how things are here. When I arrived, they wanted my whole life story."
Karl chuckled. While that was true, it was not the whole story. He had only wanted the story because he hadn’t seen her in ten thousand years.
If he hadn’t met her before there would have been at least a few less questions for her to answer, and Karl wouldn’t have pushed to get her backstory, since so many of the Immortals had a tragic past that they would rather keep to themselves.
If he didn’t know better, he would think that those ’character building’ moments were actually necessary to reach Immortality.
And even though he did know better, he was still tempted to look into it, just in case it helped.
"Well, you were sent here to learn a bit more about the Darklight Host, so you could make sure that Lotus wasn’t going to be mistreating Tena in the future. I suppose that this is one of the many ways to introduce you to both the Guild and Lotus herself.
If you had been briefed by the Black Dragons in our Guild, it might have saved you some moments of concern, but honestly, an Avatar from the Divine Realms asking random dragons scattered across many worlds is a terribly ineffective method of intelligence gathering."
The Avatar shrugged. "I’m more surprised that they bothered to send me at all. I know that you’ve continued down a path toward bonding with a dragon for some time, and multiple visits haven’t dissuaded you. But sending a Divine Avatar seems excessive.
I’m sure that it’s something related to the Oracles and their visions, things that might happen if you were bonded to a dragon, but they insist that if I knew the future, I would change it into something unintended, and they would have to start all over."
Karl laughed. "They’re trying to guide the fate of someone who has [Randomize] as both a crafting skill and a spell modifier?
I don’t envy their job."
"You know, I’m beginning to understand why the mere mention of your Guild makes the Oracle corps day drink."
Karl chuckled. "I got that impression from the members of the other branches that I’ve met. And not just the branch that is run by a Legendary Chaos Dragon."
"You know, according to the information I have, the Darklight Host is one of the oldest Guilds in existence, as they operate across multiple different Systems. That is exceptionally rare.
Some Guilds spread between worlds, but almost always ones with compatible Systems, like your home world and this one.
When you can see the System information of both worlds, integration is easy.
But the listings that I have here for the Darklight Host include worlds that have Systems that have nothing at all in common with the others. Ones based on mythical cultivation methods, Systems created by and aligned to two different Gods, and some worlds where the growth method doesn’t even appear to be a System as most would understand the word.
It should be one, it’s just... not normal."
Lotus handed Ophelia Tifa so she could focus on the conversation.
Or on brushing Tian.
"I heard that this Guild is actually older than the World Dragon. Someone told me that the Guild originally started under the Laughing God, and then expanded to the worlds that the World Dragon gifted his Systems to."
"That could very well be true. It’s before my time, for certain. But I’m still relatively young.
What I can say is that the Dragon Gods would know. But they rarely give details or explanations for their instructions. We obey on faith."
Lotus giggled, "Well, if they were willing to answer questions, they would never get anything done. I tried to do the math of how long it would take for them to answer all the questions of just the faithful on one world, before I knew that there were other worlds.
And it’s a lot of people they’d have to answer at once."
"You gave up halfway through, didn’t you?"
"I didn’t even make it halfway. But I have a question. Do you have a Guild? Like, do you lead a whole bunch of dragons? Or do you just wander around taking care of tasks? You said that you used to be a Seeker, but do you still do seeker sorts of stuff?"
"Normally, I don’t do Seeker type things anymore. But most Avatars were never Seekers, so I still get a bit of it. One thing that you will find as you grow, there is no such thing as retirement.
Once you have done something, you will always be called upon to do it again at some point.
Take Lotus for example. She was a Priestess of the Green Dragon, so she will be called upon to heal and repair nature. But now that she has taken up the Mantle of the Beast Master, there is no changing the fact that she will be asked in the future to help beasts.
Even without spaces open to bond them, her Goddess will naturally want to take care of beast related issues now that she has volunteered.
It’s a bit like having your name written on the employee rolls with permanent ink."
Lotus laughed, and the Black Avatar patted her on the head.
"I know that sounds like a wonderful thing to you. It likely will be, given your nature. It’s more of a warning about taking future paths under pressure. Doing things that go against your nature only leads to you having to do them all the time, so be careful what path you choose in the future."
"Got it. No doing annoying things."
Ophelia sighed. "I think she missed the most important parts of that. But I will keep it in mind for her."
