Note: Revamped on 19/3/25, at 3:45am

  Kuan Yin stood, dusting plods of mist off her hanfu as she walked towards the man who had been constructed several feet ahead of her. With a smile on her face matching his own, she performed a slight bow.

  “My name is Kuan Yin.” The dragon shifted back into human form easily, the now-much taller man, around 183cm, bowed deeply and introduced himself as well.

  “I am called Kuan Tianyi.” She smiled. ‘Broad Heaven’s Will.’ It seemed somewhat apt.

  Now that introductions were done, she wasted no time moving on to the next portion she previously did not have access to. “Options.” Her voice intoned, and the system responded quickly.

  Tianyi spoke to her as she selected the World Designer tab. “There are several components required to design a world successfully and cohesively. Firstly, is budgeting. The Keeper System operates on a unit of currency titled simply as points. New Keepers start with 500.”

  I listened to him talk as a menu opened.

  Tianyi looked over her shoulder, and decided it would be a good idea to go through all of the choices even though she felt my option was pretty solidly locked in already. “Mutant Worlds have two key components. A smaller world size, comparable to that of Earth. The power system built into this to make it worthwhile though, is Randomized Mutation. Effectively speaking, this power system in general isn’t amazing – but the peaks it can reach are insurmountable when it comes to a default first world. From birth, the rarest and most powerful mutations are like that of a fully mastered Dao.”

  Kuan Yin’s jaw slackened a tad. “From birth? That’s…” Tianyi noticed her expression and smiled gently.

  “That’s why the world size is so small; a maximum population around thirteen billion. Out of that many, even just two or three at the same time would be a stretch.” Even still, that’s… a pretty large initial strength level. I can see why it's priced like that.

  “Technological Worlds are… somewhat different. Usually, these civilizations tend to have a meteoric rise in technological expertise, collapsing their home planet and becoming an interstellar civilization, devouring solar systems for their resources. They would typically advance around a dozen times faster than Humanity did.”

  She frowned. A force like that is only worth 70 points? Without voicing her confusion, she signaled Tianyi to continue.

  “Fantasy worlds are similar to many of your homeworld’s novels. Lord of The Rings, for example, is based on the true events of another world. I’m not allowed to say anything else regarding this topic yet.” Seeing Yin wave him to continue, he did so gladly. She rolled her eyes. This guy really loves to talk.

  “Cultivation Worlds, and I’m only guessing here, is what you’ve based me and your own self on.” She nodded, letting the man talk himself dry. “World Size 7 is the second largest world size available to purchase a new world at. It’s comparable to around twice the size of Jupiter. For reference, it would take just under a year for one of your civilizations cars to travel across its circumference at around 130kmh.”

  “That’s huge–” she was cut off by Tianyi.

  “Which isn’t necessarily a good thing. It could take multiple millennia for your civilizations to grow advanced enough, through technology or cultivation, to contact each other. The System maintains a dominant balance on all planets that aren’t custom made, ensuring that life is habitable. Whichever species you choose to inhabit it will determine the physics of how the planet works.”

  WIth a scowl, Kuan Yin spoke. “That’s absurd and unscientific. Won’t it confuse the population?”

  Tianyi looked at her for a few seconds before speaking slowly. “Absurd and unscientific? Did your science tell you you’d arrive in God’s position if you killed him?

  She shook her head in confusion. “I killed God? What?”

  “The old man. The car crash. Yes, you killed God. That’s why you’re here. If one of the species you populate your universe with kill you, they will usurp you as God.”

  She took a deep breath in, holding it for a second or two before releasing. “I’m going to ignore that. Whatever. Broken physics. I don’t care. Continue, please.”

  Tianyi huffed in exasperation, but agreed to do so. “The rest of the modifiers on a World’s presets are only enough to cover a primitive and archaic power system. It’s recommended to purchase a followup power system before actually populating your world. For now, this doesn’t matter too much. You can just think of them as beneficial laws solidifying what you can and can't mess with on a template world.”

  She nodded, one hand on her temple trying her best not to get a headache at all the nonsense. “Alright. Cultivation World.” The system recognized her choice, and the next menu popped up.

  She didn’t need Tianyi’s help for this one, simply reading through the list and acknowledging the ones she liked. Firstly, Immortal Bestiary was crossed off immediately. She wasn’t a fan of that, personally. General Wuxia and Xianxia were decent options, and she kept in mind Limited System and Sons of Heaven as potential options as well. She was tempted to cross off Custom System to narrow it down.

  “Tianyi, can you explain Custom System more?” He looked like he was mulling the idea around for a second before answering.

  “The best I can say is that it’s recommended for experienced Keeper’s.” With a frown, she decided to cross it off and trust the man. Why is that the best he can say?

  Her mind flashed back to Tianyi’s words prior about her killing God, apparently, and that if one of her own people killed her they’d become God next. A dream for all cultivation world denizens. With a shiver, she crossed off General Xianxia. She was a bit too scared of that idea at the moment.

  Sons of Heavens was, frankly, too expensive at the moment. She crossed that one off as well. Hesitantly querying the Limited System, she piled on General Wuxia.

  She thought about it. At the highest level of cultivation, when one’s prowess has been completely maxed out, they will immediately face Heavenly Tribulation Lightning. If they die, their bloodline will grow weaker, and future members of their lineage will have reduced body cultivation abilities. If they live, they can choose to either stay or immediately ascend to a Xianxia-based world, and their bloodline will grow stronger, and future members of their lineage will have increased body and spiritual cultivation abilities.

  She blinked. Behind her, Tianyi blinked. Somewhere in the System, they’re both positive that when such a limit had been placed, even it had blinked. Tianyi spoke slowly.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Kuan Yin, to her credit, did not immediately agree.

  “What exactly does this mean?”

  The man opened his mouth for several seconds, choosing his words carefully. “I’m hard pressed to give a proper answer. Basically, this only really applies to Cultivators. If you create, say, a technological world later – they can cross into both without issue. Same for fantasy, and anything else. However, the problem lies in that one portion of cultivators, either Wuxia or Xianxia, will never be able to access some worlds because they’re on separate planes – the Xianxia plane and the Wuxia plane. Thankfully this only applies to your universe, or I’d have to strongly encourage you not to agree. As it is now, it’s not actually… that bad. If I were you, I’d just change your limitation to include the fact that you can change the boundaries of the Wuxia and Xianxia planes.”

  She quickly added that stipulation, and the price rose from 85 to 205, meaning she’d have already spent 315/500 points… With a deep breath she accepted it. The next set of menus was to set up a list of cultivation realms, and a generalized description for each and the process in which one would complete it. There was a price tag of 5 for one realm, which doubled with each subsequent realm thereafter. Kuan Yin’s shortest iteration of Wuxia realms ended up at 5, which was still 80 points of cost.

  She was hesitant on the final realm for a couple reasons, but decided that she needed to have a simple realm be the last one just to ensure that it was possible for even a decent amount of cultivators to advance to the Xianxia plane. What she was most worried about was too many getting there before it was created. If necessary, she could create a followup to this that required one to already be at the All Returns to One cultivation stage to begin cultivating in the Xianxia plane, alongside a Xianxia Realm structure. Satisfied with her thought process, and Tianyi nodding encouragingly behind her, she clicked accept.

  The next menu was fairly standard, in her mind at least. A cultural determinant – essentially how she wanted cultures to pan out. Without much thought in mind, she wrote down a basic description as it asked her to.

  “That’s really all you need for this section.” Tianyi provided helpfully. Kuan Yin snorted, agreeing as she confirmed it.

  “Ah, the Pantheon Menu. Right, this one requires a little bit of explaining. Right now, you’ve only got a single free slot to name a God. To expand this, everytime your world goes up a rank naturally it will increase, or a direct increase can be bought with points. Assigning a God will unlock a Domain, which will give them essentially partial access over reality that pertains to it. Think of Poseidon and the Sea, or Zeus and his storms. Whether or not it’s open or closed to Ascension means that at the pinnacle of cultivation, whether or not someone can ascend to fill the role. You would have to create a position such as: God’s Domain, Lightning, and the person who wishes to ascend must have their cultivation and dao focus as lightning. If they don’t, they can’t fill that slot. If it’s closed, it means whoever has that slot when assigned will keep it until you motion otherwise. You can also leave it empty until someone you believe worthy shows up.”

  I nodded, mostly following along with his explanation. Without much thought, I filled in my only God.

  Kuan Tianyi – Heavenly Dao – Closed to Ascension.

  “Thinking about the meaning behind the domain will work for what it encompasses, right?” Tianyi, slightly dumbfounded, just nodded. “Great. You’re now the God of Tribulations, Fate, Oaths, and Justice. If someone does something reprehensible, you can worsen their fate if you want. If someone breaks an Oath sworn on your name, you must punish them. When one wishes to ascend, you must give them a tribulation to pass and prove their worth.”

  She saw his face twitch and smiled. That’s right. I just gave you all the tedious work. Nonetheless, he bowed deeply and held a smile on his face. “Thank you for bestowing me with such an honorable position. I will not fail your trust, Kuan Yin.”