《Info on Andar's Worlds》 {The Sphere} System: Description of the Sphere System File: Description of the Sphere (Version 1, 1st May 2019) This description might be updated later to reflect additional info gained during the stories Physical Description: Basically the Sphere is a hollow world that has been constructed in a very special place ¨C it is neither a regular planet nor is it a virtual world despite the fact that everyone inside it is administered by a ¡°system¡± that creates virtual screens to handle everything including inventory in a way extremely similar to a MMORPG. The Sphere is larger than a regular planet, but much smaller than something like a Dyson Sphere ¨C the landscape on the inside is about ten to fifteen times the surface of Earth. The group of entities that created the sphere sometimes pose as gods inside it, but no one really knows if every one of the sphere¡¯s gods is one of the creators. It is quite possible that some of the gods are constructs and/or that some of the creator entities haven¡¯t revealed themselves yet. The highest point of the sphere is its center, the place where the suncore hangs. To the people of the sphere this is the normal sight ¨C a silver ball that has circular ¡°windows¡± through which they can see a smaller silver ball with more circular windows, through which they can again see an even smaller ball ¨C like a fractal becoming smaller with every layer inside. The different windows or balls even rotate against each other, sometimes revealing more or less of the inner balls at any position. This is how every core looks to them, only varying in color depending on the type of core. And destroying the core of a living being kills that being, but as long as the core exist it can be revived even if the body is destroyed. Additionally they don¡¯t wonder why they can see the core clearly despite it being a radiant light source that should blind them if looked at¡­ This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. The next object lower than the suncore is a black half-sphere that is only knowns as the ¡°Darknight¡±. It rotates around the suncore once per day, absorbing all light from half the core and effectively creating a day/night-cycle for most of the sphere (with the exception being the areas around the poles). Nothing is really known about this object. Below those two center objects, about halfway between the suncore and the surface area, is something that is called ?the mists¡° or ?the clouds¡° by the inhabitants of the sphere: tiny and barely visible dots in clusters of white. This is because they are lacking any indications of how far above those dots are ¨C only very few scholars know that each of these tiny dots are large rocks floating there in clusters. Nothing is known of the mists either. And then there is the inner surface, the place of the lands and the dark water. This is where a comparison with a regular planet completely fails. The ¡°Lands¡± are swimming on the ¡°Dark Waters¡±. The size of each of those lands is between a very large island (like Madagascar) and a small continent (like Australia). Their drift on the water is rather slow ¨C if a bridge is built between lands, then that bridge is usually stable for five to ten years before it needs to be shortened, lengthened or abandoned. The Water (or what is called water in the sphere) is black instead of transparent and slightly acidic, requiring purifying before it can be used (including drinking it). There is no difference between the water of the ¡°Ocean¡± and regular water (no saltwater) ¨C in fact the river water is pushed up from the ocean below due to some unknown effect inside the lands. Below the waters is the realm of the demons ¨C depraved and low creatures that need to consume cores to live and that can be summoned to the inside of the sphere ¨C usually by sacrificing cores from plants, animals or intelligent beings. Sometimes a demon even finds its way up from their tunnels without being summoned first, but that requires the power to survive surfacing from the deeps of the dark waters. And then there are the legends of the Xenotics ¨C creatures that live in areas even lower than the demons and are even more depraved, regularly focusing of things that are so low that even the lowest demon shudders when thinking about it¡­ Author¡¯s comment: The tunnels and halls of the demons are basically the hull of the sphere, and what the people of the sphere call lower than that is simply the outside with regular life ¨C but they don¡¯t know that. They have been raised in believing the good things are in the light and the high points, with the suncore as the highest point of the sphere ¨C and that if you go low, bad things accumulate ¨C first the Dark Waters of the ocean (which is acidic and not life-giving and travelling by ship is very risky), then the demons (who demand sacrifices to live on and don¡¯t care about simple life) and then the xenotics that they can¡¯t even start to describe. So yes, the people summoned from different Earth-Variants into the sphere have an added problem as they are not heralded as heroes¡­ {The Sphere} System: The Rankings System File: The Rankings Anyone reading my stories will soon see that they don¡¯t use the common GFEDCBAS-ranking system of most other LitRPG- and dungeon-stories, but my own system. I developed my 15 ranks about ten or fifteen years ago for the fifth version of my PnP-RPG-rules, long before the computer games introduced that other ranking. I decided to keep my own ranking even for the new story and system of the Sphere, but to help readers understand and reference it, I¡¯m giving an extended description here (no need to fill up every story I write with walls of text explaining this). There are a total of fifteen ranks in five groups of three each, with the groups identified by color. Each rank has names, a number and a short form ¨C and it depends on the context which one will be used. That context can be the rank of a class, of an item, of a skill or similar objects. For example the first rank has the names [Limited] and [Broken] ¨C if the context is of an item then it is often called of [Broken] quality, but a skill or a spell on the other hand would be of [Limited] effect or power. The short form is one to three star symbols in the color appropriate to the rank The Ranks are:
Rank # Star display Color Rank/Quality name Level Range
1 1 dark star dark black Limited broken 1- 10
2 2 dark star dark black very low very bad 11- 20
3 3 dark star dark black low bad 21- 30
4 1 copper star copper orange below average below average 31- 40
5 2 copper star copper orange average average 41- 50
6 3 copper star copper orange above average above average 51- 60
7 1 silver star silver grey good high 61- 70
8 2 silver star silver grey very good very high 71- 80
9 3 silver star silver grey master rare 81- 90
10 1 gold star gold yellow heroic heroic 91-100
11 2 gold star gold yellow legendary legendary 101-110
12 3 gold star gold yellow mythical mythical 111-120
13 1 light star light white immortal holy 121-130
14 2 light star light white divine divine 131-140
15 3 light star light white infinite unique 141-150
The effect and strength of each ranking is relative to the object and it¡¯s function it refers to.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. A [unique] butter knife would (if used in combat) only have a damage like an [average] sword, but it would have some truly extreme powers in the area of food preparations, like summoning a ton of bread and half a ton of butter each day. A [unique] sword on the other hand would one-hit-kill most beings and be able to harm even a God¡¯s avatars or one of the demon emperors. People also have ranks, and they can raise through them through experience, special circumstances or luck. Most people start at [Limited] as babies and slowly raise to a usual maximum around [Average] (or copper-ranked) at the age of forty. This is especially true if they decide to remain civilian as that is only a slow rising rank with experience levels. Adventurers and Explorers on the other hand go into their risky lives in hope of finding or fulfilling special conditions to get a skill, ability or class of a much higher rank as early as possible. Dozens of them die as unknowns for everyone that succeeds, but the stories of those who succeed are a potent lure. The main reason for this is the so-called ¡°Maximum Rank Bonus¡±. This bonus applies to every point value (Health, Endurance, Astral, Soul for people or Health, Mana, Influence and Dungeon for Dungeons) and goes especially high beginning at the silver ranks, so getting a silver rank early will drastically improve survival rates for adventurers. The rank of a person depends on the maximum rank attained in anything, which is why people sometimes have skills or spells that don¡¯t fit their style ¨C they just had the chance to learn them on a higher rank when they themselves were of a lower rank early in their career. The people of the sphere are of the opinion that dungeon cores cannot increase their rankings and that all legends of that happening are just legends or cases of wrong class assignments on the first dungeon survey. While that opinion was true for the past, it came from the fact that the past dungeon cores were basically computer programs that could not learn and not due to any restriction. So with the new dungeon cores that contain souls this no longer applies, although it will remain a very rare case due to the requirements for advancing at high ranks. Dungeon cores can start at any rank according to chance (Info: Bareen just took an existing rare core for the General, she couldn¡¯t create it directly), so a rank-advancement is much more likely for low rank souled dungeons than for high ranked ones. To get an overview of the numbers and ranks of the dungeon cores: The largest floating lands of the sphere are about the size of Australia and usually contain around 1500 dungeons ¨C with the distance between two dungeons averaging about 70 km or a few days travel (without magic). However because dungeons prefer certain environments there are clusters with much lower distances and areas with fewer dungeons. Upon creation, only about one in 2000 dungeons will have a [unique] rank, and one in 350 will be Light-ranked (including the unique one). One in fifty will be gold-ranked, one in a dozen will be silver-ranked and one in four will have a copper-rank. And more than half of the dungeons will be black-ranked. Just for info on the General: [Mythical] is the highest gold-rank and while the chance for a gold-rank is one in fifty for all three ranks total, the chance for a mythical core is lesser than one in two hundred. However, these numbers only apply to the creation chance ¨C the number of dungeons that really exist are much more geared toward copper and silver ranks. This is due to the two facts that at one end the black-ranked dungeons are considered useless and often destroyed for their cores, while on the other end the requirements for dungeons to really grow into gold- and light-ranked sizes (100+ floors) are difficult to fulfill. {The Sphere} System: The Mana Cycle (updated 7th May 2019) System: The Mana Cycle There are three different but connected energy forces that rule the way how the dungeons work. Together they form the Mana Cycle, and understanding of this is vital both for adventurers that want to survive and control a dungeon and for the dungeon cores that want to squeeze energy out of them. The first energy is Mana (sometimes called Dungeon-Mana), the energy that is used by dungeon cores to extract their floors and to create spawns, traps, plagues, swarms or other defenses. If the dungeon has a template and enough mana, anything can be created ¨C but at a cost. And that cost is not only the loss of mana, but on using mana that energy is converted into a different energy. Some Xenotics might compare it with breathing ¨C when breathing in you take the oxygen as a need and it gets converted into CO2 on breathing out. The second energy that is created on the use of mana is Lifeforce (sometimes called World-Mana). This energy is dangerous to any dungeon spawn ¨C if it stays in the dungeon most spawns and swarms would die within hours. That is why dungeons need open entrances to get rid of this energy. However the Lifeforce has the opposite effect on all people of the sphere ¨C it revitalizes them, closing their wounds and replenishes their endurance and astral power. So if there are wounded adventurers in a dungeon and the dungeon then creates more spawns to fight them, this mana use will heal the adventurers before the spawns are ready to fight. Sometimes this might still work, but most of the time a dungeon that tries to create more obstaclles from mana recharges the adventurers more than what the new spawns can cost them in the added fights. The combination of the energies that are recharged by the Lifeforce is however the third and last energy of the mana cycle. Be it called Endurance or Health or Astral Power ¨C it doesn¡¯t matter, that is what the third form of energy is. And as soon as the adventurers use those energies with their skills or spells or abilities, that energy use converts it back into Mana, the power of the dungeons. Outside of dungeons that mana quickly disperses ¨C but any skill or spell used inside a dungeon immediately recharges its mana reserves. Living or walking in a dungeon doesn¡¯t matter, but as soon as an adventurer uses a skill then it will recharge the dungeon. Each of these energy conversions is an increase in energy ¨C which is the reason why the use of mana recharges the adventurers a lot and on the other hand why even a small fight with skill-using adventurers gives the dungeon a lot of mana. The keys to success is to consider ones maximum storage. A dungeon that respawns its monsters the moment adventurers enter the dungeon both empties its mana limits in preparation for the mana gains from skill use and can hope that the created Lifeforce passes the adventurers that are near maximum on their capacities. On the other hand a lot of adventurers risk entering a dungeon with wounds from the previous visit exactly expecting that ¨C who ends up better depends on a guessing of relative strengths. Inside a dungeon, the Lifeforce always moves up and out ¨C there is no problem respawning monsters on higher floors in preparation for the next party after a party of adventurers has passed deeper. This is is also a reason why every better adventurer makes sure to have an escape portal ready before entering. Because they would have to fight the respawned enemies without the benefit of a Lifeforce recharging if they need to leave by going up again. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. In this regard, magic gates and transfer portals work for both sides ¨C they will allow any adventurer to leave directly, but also allow the Lifeforce to skip the floors between the gates on moving out. If a 20-floor-dungeon has a transfer portal on floor 1 and on floor 11, then adventurers could skip fighting the monsters on the levels 2-10 ¨C but on the other hand a respawn on floor 15 would have the Lifeforce skip the floors 2-10 as well. Only mana-use on floor 10 or higher would have Lifeforce recharging adventurers on the higher floors. That is the reason why most of the larger dungeons have transfer portals that allow adventurers to skip floors once they have passed them ¨C those transfers allow them to respawn for several different groups of adventurers, especially since low level spawns are no obstacles for adventurers that can stand the deeper levels. The Floor Crystal This Mana Cycle creates a problem for new dungeon cores - as soon as they use mana to create their dungeon, it will create LifeForce that will poison their spawns if it does not leave the dungeon. And the dungeon would have to open up to release the LifeForce before it could create any spawn. But opening up that early would mean that the dungeon is incomplete and vulnerable to anyone wh just happen to reach it in the first weeks - especially considering the slow natural mana regeneration. To solve this problem, each core also starts with a floor crystal that has three abilities - one of them single use only. The first ability is to plan a single floor before creating it - that floor needs to be placed and created or the plans deleted before another floor can be planned. The Crystal also checks the planned floor for mistakes or system-errors where the floor doesn''t follow the system''s rules on dungeons. Very few cores get their first floors correct on first try as they need to be trained on their programmed rules. The second ability is a dedicated mana storage. The crystal can receive up to 3000 MP from the dungeon core and store them to be used for the floor creation.This ability is especially vital for low-ranked cores as they would not have enough mana storage themselves to create some of the more expensive structures otherwise. If a higher level floor would cost more MP later, it could only be partially planned and has to be completed in reality after the first part is created. The third ability is the one-time ability. If the floor is placed while the dungeon is still new and closed, the mana storage turns into a lifeforce storage keeping the lifeforce from poisoning the spawns placed. This will block that part of the mana storage, but the dungeon core can continue floor planning and creation as long as some mana storage is available in the crystal. Upon first opening the dungeon, all this stored LifeForce is released and rushes out of the dungeon in an energy spike easily detected by mages. After that the crystal regains the full mana storage but can no longer hold lifeforce. Dungeons can close up again, but if they do any mana use will create LifeForce poisoning (one level of poisoning for each 10% of their maximum mana used). Example: If a dungeon creates a small floor for 250 MP and places it but does not open, then it can plan and create a second floor after that, but has only 2750 MP storage remaining. Low-ranked dungeons with their small size limits for their floors might create up to 10 floors before opening, but higher ranked dungeons with larger floors often have to open when only two or three floors are created. Most adventurers and scholars never understood the differences or the reasons for them, especially since there is no direct relation between mana cost and floor size (some small structures cost a lot of mana to create) and no crystal ever found had the third ability left (even breaking into a dungeon counts as opening it and loosing that ability). Tool: Creating Tables on RoyalRoad Creating tables for a LitRPG story here on RoyalRoad can be a pain - those who remember the first version of my "General Core" will remember that it took me some time to sort it out. What I have done is creating several excel files where I just enter the texts I want and have them create HTML-code from that (my variant, not by that idiotic MS save function). Then I simply paste that code into the source window of the chapter where I need it. In the post-chapter-notes you''ll find a link to one of those files that I uploaded to share. You are allowed to modify it for your own use as long as you keep the copyright notice and links I placed on its first tab. I will update it from time to time, so you can also use it to see some of the dungeon story details there. The first table I made with it is this one:
Floor Details
Floor Number 1
Floor Name not set
Details A name and Details will give advice to Adventurers about the floor. As such it is usually set by adventurers by repeating a name over and over while discussing it. If a dungeon sets a name, it needs to be a truthfull description (only possible to set this with [Sapient] ability of the core)
Floor Environment Medieval Cellar
Environment Rank [Limited]
Details Rough stone masonry walls with functioning torches. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.No effect other than Light
Floor Effect [Safe]
Effect Rank [Limited]
Details One [Safe] effect is required for each rank of 10 floors. The dungeon cannot place traps or plagues on this floor. All Spawns and Swarms get the [Timid] Effect if they see anyone not belonging to the dungeon. Enables Placement of several special room structures that cannot work on a floor without [Safe] effect.
Explorer Details
Explorers on Floor 0
Best Explorer Rank none
Best Explorer Class none
Phases available 1
Phases occupied 0
Floor Status none
{The Sphere} Concept of Sphere and KuorTel (partial spoiler) Spoiler: The hidden concept behind the construction of the Sphere What is the Multiverse? The idea of the multiverse is based on the assumption that for everything imaginable there is one reality where it is real. That for every decision ever made, there is one reality where the opposite choice was made. But to protect everything, the barriers between realities are strong - so strong that even the most powerful beings need a lot of their strenght to bypass them. Bareen, Rolandro (R.O.B. from Shaleen''s story) and their associates are strong and experienced Powers of their world, but not yet up to the levels needed to bypass those barriers on their own. But they had an idea on how to bypass the last bit of resistence: What if they build a base at a place where Reality itself was already stressed and strained to the limits? And so the Sphere was build on the inside of a Singularity - on the inside of the largest and strongest Black Hole that they could find in their own universe. The only place where Reality was already twisted by the gravitic forces of the singularity to the point that just a "minor" energy expenditure (at least minor for god-like Powers) was needed to bypass the barriers of reality and access the uncountable possibilities of the multiverse. But while building the Sphere they realised that the sphere needs a very fragile balance to give them the access they wanted. The sphere had to be stable enough to prevent the chaos of every reality imposing itself on the constructs (thereby destroying everything and going back to the original singularity), but on the other hand it has to be variable enough to become a base for accessing the impossible probabilities of the multiverse. The living being inhabitating the sphere give them the variability of changing access (as expressed by Kuor''Tel), and the dungeon cores were the original controlling mechanism to keep some stability. The people of the Sphere know that their greatest ability, Kuor''Tel, doesn''t work inside dungeons - which is one reason why they try to conquer and contain them. What they don''t realise is that the dungeon cores also stabilise the floating lands they are living on. Without that minor stability effect created by the cores outside of their dungeons, the lands themselves would dissolve and only the black sea of condensed gravity particles would remain (as it was originally). What is Kuor''Tel? Basically Kuor''Tel is the energy of the multiverse seeping in through the cracks in reality, condensing the concept of "What if?". The people can''t even explain it themselves, but they know that they can change local reality by putting their energy behind their wishes. "What if the rabbit jumps left as his next step?" - resulting in knowing where to shoot the arrow. "What if the core didn''t give the command to dig that tunnel?" - resulting in the tunnel vanishing This goes even to the use of the gods and the system - like way back when it decided to re-translate "Aura" into "Plague", which is only for some parts a better translation. The true effect is that of an energy aura/potential jumping from one object to the next as there are no germs inside the sphere - the same way as there is no air. But the System decided that "Plague" would be a better translation to describe the effect for the Xenotics. And that is also the biggest problem with Kuor''Tel: If you change reality, other beings usually no longer remember things that never happened. Briar had to touch Gunny and expend four or five times the regular energy to make Gunny remember the other reality before his change to the tunnels. Another example was back in the first interlude, where they discussed that they don''t know exactly what happened and could only assume that Markus Ohannus used Kuor''Tel because everyone else had exhaused their energy fighting the change that Markus wanted. And during the fight on the safe floor, when he realised that the attack command was a mistake, Markus panicked and tried to "what if I never gave that idiotic command" instead of calling his soldiers to stop (which command would have been obeyed but would leave him to face his error instead of erasing it). Too bad that the stabilisation inside the dungeon prevents all regular Kuor''Tel, causing the insanity overload and him still having to face his mistakes. When Bareen originally told the General that they made several attempts to change the rules for a more stable balance, he (and the readers) automatically assumed that those changes were one after another in linear time. But each of these changes was a reality-rewrite by the creators of the sphere, and while they did their best to have themselves remember the reasons for the change and what they tried before (like Briar did with Gunny), that effect was also limited to the most important points (or rather what they considered to be important at the time of change).You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. This is another reason why they are running low on energy and are desperate to find solutions to the problem of balancing the Sphere. And several of the inconsistencies that the General has already found were caused by the fact that they didn''t change everything between the different rewrites. So why didn''t Bareen simply tell all of this to the General? A hint to that can be found in the sneak peak that the General gained into the God''s communications with the "Tachion net" during the insanity overload (chapter 2.2.1 and 2.2.2) - it actually contains quite a number of hints for different parts like the fact that it uses Tachions - Faster-than-light-particles. Any Power or any being with sufficient additional energy can access the multiverse from the sphere. And there are already several Powers that gained access without being part of the original group of creators. That was what the comment "you don''t belong here" was about. But everyone who imposes its own ideas of what should happen creates another force and power drain that needs to be balanced for the sphere to continue to exist. And that could already be described as trying to balance a brick on a needle (the general brick broken out of a house, not one carefully designed for balancing). If Bareen had told the General what this was about, he would have realised that she doesn''t need to do anything to give him his reward - if the General gets enough power he himself can create a gate to his original homeworld and send his spawn there to fight the zombies. In fact he has already accessed the multiverse during his insanity overload - that is where a lot of the completely new environments and spawns inside that floor come from. And once he gets similar power levels without the overload problems (around level 80 to 100), he could do that without causing a problem for himself (other than risking the balance of the Sphere). But Bareen didn''t want to risk that his wish to save his home world might cause him to intentionally risk overloads and divert energy from saving the Sphere. Only after the Sphere is at least a bit better stabilized it would have no problems to handle the General using that energy to help his own homeworld. And yes, that is the main reason why the original dungeon cores were computer programs - that way they could be programmed to never use the access they have. And only after those cores have proven to be insufficient the Powers decided to risk handing the cores to regular souls with free will. What are the layers of the Sphere? Back to the way the sphere is build. The lowest level that is called the "Layer of the Xenotics" is of course the real universe of regular living beings. The system has been designed to give every Xenotic its extra points as a compensation to being unable to use Kuor''Tel inside the sphere, which is a big disadvantage. That includes the "Gods" who are all Xenotics as well, even if they hide that fact and can use an improved form of Kuor''Tel due to their direct access to the System they created. The next layer, the "Layer of the demons", is basically the regular black hole matter. It is ultra-dense, but has already caverns in it where the demons live. The task of the demons is to keep the few intentional access points between the outside and the sphere closed and isolate the outside and the inside from each other. The System has been programmed to describe the Demons and Xenotics as bad in order to prevent the inhabitants of the sphere from digging out, as that would create a lot of problems. The third layer is the "Black Ocean". In reality the water is a condensed form of gravity particles created where the chaotic energies of the multiverse are influencing the black hole matter that is already as dense as physically possible. It is black and opaque because it is still too strong for normal light to escape it (the "sight" of everyone in the sphere uses tachions, that is faster-than-light-particles, instead of regular light waves). The regular water is called "slightly poisonous and slightly acidic" by the system because those natural gravity particles have irregular ''gravity energy spikes'' that can harm people. And the ''Distillers'' used to make the water drinable are in reality gravity manipulators that harmonice the energy of the particles. After that it is needed as an energy source to keep the people alive. The "Rainstorms" as described in 2.3.3 (the incomplete part) are in reality gravity storms where the ''water'' is out of control and throws everything around. That is why the raingear of the sphere is mostly ropes to bind yourself to some stronger and heavier obstacle. Above the ocean float the lands where the people live. Because they are really floating those lands change position and you''ll need two aligned long half-bridges (see interlude 2.1) to travel from one land to the other - ships to sail the black ocean are an insanely risky proposition for a lot of reasons (including the acidic water destroying the ship''s hull within months by simple contact). Unknown to everyone (see above) those lands are protected from the effects of the water by the minor outer stabilisation effect of the dungeon cores. The dungeons also create the matter (treasure) of the sphere lands, the people would not be able to replace lost matter if not for the dungeons (their few mines have to be very carefull not to dig down below the floating land they''re on, and that limits output a lot). The fogs far above the lands (or asteroid fields if you can go nearer to check) are basically leftover construction materials from the first stage. They can be used to repair some specific damage until they are used up (later Briar will find some history texts in an academy telling that earlier times had more fogs). The black half-sphere orbiting the suncore to create day and night is just that - the Powers simply wanted to have some difference in time instead of an eternal day. And the suncore itself (which is also the point of weakest reality) emits a tachion-based light instead of regular light to the sphere as regular electromagnetic light could not escape the gravity of the Black Ocean. OK, please keep any discussion of the truth about the sphere in this chapter, unless it''s something the General officially learned of in the past. And everyone who doesn''t like spoilers: don''t read the comments here if you haven''t read the inside of the spoiler above either.