TGSS - Chapter 54

Chapter 54: Extra 1

My name is Wish Power, and from the moment I was created I knew that the woman who created me was someone I must never offend.

I cannot remember how many small worlds I have visited or how many missions I have carried out. At first my colleagues did not like to include me, but I knew why: they thought I was young and inexperienced, and they were jealous of the Main Deity's favor toward me, so they excluded me.

That said, the Main Deity actually treats us all much the same, only I was created by my Main Deity while the other Systems were left behind by the previous Main Deity, so in that sense I am her own child!

My Main Deity, well, she is always languid and icy cold. She wears a white robe woven from radiance, and I cannot make out what patterns are on it. Once I tried to see them clearly and nearly exploded on the spot. That was the power of laws. The Main Deity waved her hand and pushed me away at once, which kept me from dying right there.

Since then I have always felt a lingering fear, but that does not stop me from feeling boundless curiosity about the Main Deity.

Her smooth black hair falls to her ankles. I cannot see her face, but I can feel a beauty that seizes the soul and an aura of supreme authority. She rarely speaks to me, as if her only pleasure is watching us Systems carry out missions in the myriad small worlds.

To make her look at me one more time, I began to work desperately on missions. I completed every mission excellently, so that she might cast her gaze upon the small world where I was. After all, there are so many small worlds, the Main Deity cannot see each one.

Yet ten years, a hundred years, even a thousand years passed, and the Main Deity still did nothing. She would only gaze at those small worlds beneath the boundless black firmament. When I was on leave I would float beside the Main Deity and tell her the interesting things I had encountered.

As the Wish Power System, my duty is to find a Host and help people realize their wishes, and after a wish is realized they pay a portion of soul power. Seven or eight out of ten of these wishes are related to feelings, so the stories I told the Main Deity were all about love and romance, especially some tragic and beautiful loves.

Usually the Main Deity would not bother with me. She would only glance at me occasionally with those inorganic, cold and hollow beautiful eyes, but just getting that one glance could excite me for a long time, so I never tired of it.

Finally one day when I was talking to the Main Deity, I received a response from her.

"What... exactly is feeling?"

This was the first time I heard the Main Deity speak aloud. She had always given me orders through consciousness. It was the first time I saw her lips seem to move. Her voice was even more pleasant than I had imagined, cold like ice colliding, carrying a trace of chill and an ethereal quality beyond description.

I said, "My lady, I do not understand either. After all, I am only a System, I have no soul."

The Main Deity looked at me from afar, a faint mist lingering around her, her whole figure appearing very ethereal, and with the patterns on her robe she seemed even more unapproachable.

She was not at all surprised by my answer, as if she had not expected me to say anything. However, I noticed that from that day on the Main Deity began to study those small worlds. She spent many years selecting a hundred from among thousands upon thousands of small worlds. Those worlds were lined up neatly before her, and she became even more focused, as if trying to see something within them.

I have never been able to guess her thoughts, so much so that on my day off I saw her actually draw a section of her own soul out from her body. Although I only glimpsed a corner, it was a soul that seemed to have countless stars flowing within it, brilliant as a river of stars. I had never seen such gorgeous colors, the golden radiance left me stunned. The soul power contained in this small piece could equal what I had collected over countless missions.

I watched as the Main Deity gently raised her hand and severed it, then divided it into many fragments of equal size. I was frightened by the scene before me and lunged forward as a whole sphere. The Main Deity was caught off guard and her hand trembled slightly, so the last two fragments ended up somewhat unequal in size.

I retreated guiltily a little. The Main Deity sized me up with dark golden eyes. Although I am only a sphere, I still felt a fear so great I dared not breathe. Fortunately she quickly withdrew her gaze and with a graceful lift of her hand cast those soul fragments into the selected small worlds.

But I saw that two final fragments of unequal size still floated before the Main Deity. Although she said nothing, it was the first time I read a sense of difficulty from her back.

"My lady..."

Hearing my cautious call, the Main Deity tilted her head a little impatiently. Although the movement was very slight, I still noticed it.

I pressed on and said, "If you have any difficulty you can tell me..."

"You" There seemed to be a hint of amusement in the Main Deity's voice.

I flew to the Main Deity's side but was bounced away by that thin layer of mist. I flew back a little dizzy and said dejectedly, "Still, this humble System was made by your own hands, unlike all those coquettish sluts!"

The Main Deity seemed amused, her tone languid, "You do know how to flatter yourself."

I actually knew what the Main Deity meant. She had shattered the void from some cultivation plane to come to this space, and had erased the previous Main Deity to obtain control of the planes. The other Systems both feared and hated her, so she created me to help handle miscellaneous affairs. I was really just a small errand runner, but even a small errand runner has dreams. After so many years had I not worked my way up to the top and become one of the five great Systems.

The Main Deity turned her head back, her black hair smooth like a fine bolt of silk. She looked at the soul fragments floating above her palm and was silent for a long time, so long that I thought she would ignore me, before I heard the Main Deity seem to sigh.

"Wish Power, do you think there is someone who is born without feelings?"

I was very bewildered. I do not know much about humans, and since I do not even have a body I naturally do not understand feelings. I thought about it, strictly speaking the Main Deity counts as a deity, and deities also have no feelings, so it was normal for her to be curious about this question.

So I tried hard to get closer to the Main Deity and said ingratiatingly, "Humans are of course born with feelings. They are different from us, always trapped by feelings. How does that saying go? To be without love is to be a deity."

"To be without love... is to be a deity"

The Main Deity savored the meaning of that sentence, but for some reason I always felt she did not look very happy at that moment.

After that day the Main Deity seemed to have entered meditation. She had never liked to move, and now she stared motionlessly at the hundred world spheres before her. In between I left to do missions, and when I was on leave I would come back, and the world spheres before the Main Deity grew fewer and fewer.

I did not dare ask the Main Deity what she was putting her soul fragments into these worlds for. Was it because she was too bored and wanted to find amusement for herself? It sounded a bit perverse. I was very puzzled. Could she really obtain happiness from this?

The last time I came back, only two nearly identical world spheres remained before the Main Deity. I do not know how the Main Deity found two such similar worlds. In principle this should not be allowed to exist by the rules.

I greeted the Main Deity, and as usual she ignored me. I looked at her with some reluctance but did not dare disturb her for long. Just as I was about to leave, she called me back.

I floated toward the Main Deity with some curiosity. She stood straight, tall and graceful, as if she would never produce any emotion. I heard her say to me, "Wish Power, do you still remember this fragment? My hand trembled at the time, making her life in this world somewhat difficult..."

I felt a little guilty. It was indeed because of me that their soul power was unevenly distributed. I must have unintentionally ruined some plan of the Main Deity.

"Then why don't I go help her"

"How could you help? By using your duty to realize her wish?"

She clearly looked down on me. I said unconvinced, "I can find a Host to do a mission to help her. As long as she has made a wish over these many years, I can reasonably enter this small world."

"Oh." The Main Deity seemed to gain a little interest. "Who will you find to do the mission?"

I became a little proud, "I have my own mechanism for calculating compatibility, I can work out the most suitable Host."

This was actually something I evolved on my own, in order to surpass the performance of those guys like Malice and Atonement. I could not outwork them, so I found another way and worked hard to improve my efficiency. But the Main Deity had never cared about me, so naturally I had no chance to seek praise in front of her. Fortunately this day finally came.

The Main Deity's cold gaze fell on me. She seemed to be observing me very carefully, which made me a little shy. Only later did I learn she was considering whether to crush me, a System that could evolve on its own.

Of course at this moment I did not know. I felt a little embarrassed under her gaze and almost did not hear the question she asked me.

"Then screen through these 99 people."

The Main Deity was referring to her other soul fragments. Screening this way actually made the scope very small, but I still obediently did the calculation for her. When I finished, I was startled to find that only one person had a chance to complete the mission.

After I told the Main Deity the result she did not seem surprised, and even showed a barely perceptible anticipation.

And so, bearing the Main Deity's trust, I went to find Chu He. How should I describe this woman? She was cold, flamboyant, and disdainful of everyone. Her emotional indifference made it hard for me not to think of the Main Deity.

I cannot see the Main Deity's face, but I can see the faces of Chu He and Liang Zhouyi, so I observed them carefully, but there was no similarity at all. This made it even harder for me to imagine what the Main Deity looks like, which was a little regrettable.

I used such a clumsy excuse to trick her into helping Liang Zhouyi. I felt the reason Chu He was the most compatible Host was because part of her fortune belonged to Liang Zhouyi, so I issued those missions that made her gradually become intimate with Liang Zhouyi, transferring her fortune in this way.

Chu He's mission happened to coincide with Liang Zhouyi's wish, which I was supposed to fulfill, but on this matter the Main Deity quietly interfered a little. She seemed to very much hope that Liang Zhouyi could find love, so this mission also became my bargaining chip in negotiations with Chu He. If she could complete it, I would send her home. But both the Main Deity and I knew this wish was actually very hard to realize, because a deity will not have love, and Liang Zhouyi as her soul fragment naturally would not either.

Since I started this mission, the Main Deity's gaze had remained on this small world. Later I discovered she was actually happy to see me bring Liang Zhouyi and Chu He together.

How should I put it? As a System seasoned by many battles, I discovered Liang Zhouyi's feelings for Chu He very early. Knowing the identities of the two of them, I was shocked at first, even unable to accept it.

But on second thought I felt it was very reasonable. After all, both were soul fragments of the Main Deity, equally unapproachable and naturally suspicious. Moreover, their souls were so compatible they were almost merging into one.

So I began to silently push Chu He to fall in love with Liang Zhouyi, but there was a small accident during the mountain climb. The Main Deity suddenly came to this world. She disguised herself as a monk and said something to Chu He that I could not understand. Because of her arrival the two worlds trembled for a moment, and Chu He almost saw something from her own world.

The missions that followed went incredibly smoothly. A mission that others might never be able to complete was about to be completed by Chu He. I knew Chu He had begun to deliberately delay, because she had actually fallen in love with Liang Zhouyi! I did not even dare go back to see what expression the Main Deity had at that moment.

Later Chu He learned that she had to leave. She did not seem to show any intense emotional fluctuation, only when she learned that Liang Zhouyi would forget her did she ask me for something. My heart softened.

Originally I was impartial and selfless, but I could occasionally see the shadow of the Main Deity in her, so I could not refuse her. I gave her a piece of silver metal. This thing contains soul power; it will not be affected by the World Consciousness and can leave some traces. However, I did not expect Chu He to make it into a ring.

Chu He deliberately delayed, but in the end she still chose to complete the mission ahead of time. That day Chu He begged me to agree to one thing for her. I did not expect her to ask to meet the Main Deity. I hesitated, but still agreed to ask the Main Deity for her.

"Meet me."

The Main Deity did not seem surprised at all. She slowly lowered herself, moved her fingers, and that world sphere flew into her palm. She tilted her head, a few strands of black hair seeming to fall to the ground, and I saw her smile almost imperceptibly.

I could hardly believe the Main Deity really intended to meet Chu He, and even more unexpectedly, Chu He was not at all polite after meeting the Main Deity. Listening to Chu He's tone beside them, cold sweat poured down me.

"You are the Main Deity. What exactly do you want from me?"

Seeing Chu He speak so wildly right from the start, I was so anxious I flew over and bumped her. If I had known she would be like this, I would never have brought her to meet the Main Deity even if you beat me to death.

"I only wanted to find an answer." The Main Deity's tone was gentler than ever before, as if she regarded Chu He as an equal.

"Then did you find it?" Chu He asked.

"Perhaps." The Main Deity walked slowly toward Chu He. Her jade white fingertips stopped one centimeter from Chu He, tracing the outline of Chu He's face through the air. Chu He did not back down at all, ignoring the stinging pain in her eyes as she stared straight at that face so beautiful it seemed illusory.

"I was wondering whether some people are born unable to fall in love with others." There was a sigh in the Main Deity's voice. "Now I understand. Although she cannot fall in love with others, she can actually fall in love with herself. Don't you think that is very interesting?"

The Main Deity's words made me suddenly understand why she had separated her soul and cast those tiny fragments into various small worlds. Because with the strength of her soul she simply could not stay long in a small world, so she was testing something in this way.

"Interesting." I saw Chu He give a cold laugh. "Just because of such an absurd reason? Do you think feelings are a fun thing to play with?"

The Main Deity smiled without speaking. She looked at Chu He until Chu He swayed under the pressure of her aura, then she trailed her long robe and returned beneath the starry sky.

"Let's make a bet." Chu He's face was pale, but she carried a tenacious drive. She curled her lip. "Don't you disbelieve in love? I want to see whether the power of rules is stronger, or whether love can ultimately break through the rules."

"I know what you want, I can give you this chance." The Main Deity said lightly. "But what can you offer in return?"

I felt anxious and wanted to say something to help Chu He. Exhausted, she half crouched and braced her hands on her knees, still stubbornly looking at the Main Deity. "Everything I have."

Whether I was willing or not, the Main Deity and Chu He still reached an agreement. If Liang Zhouyi could remember Chu He within a year in this world without Chu He, then Chu He would win and the Main Deity would let them reunite. Otherwise Chu He would lose and she would never see Liang Zhouyi again.

As for the wager...

I could not bear it, "My lady, taking thirty years of her lifespan is actually of no use to you."

Win or lose, Chu He would give thirty years of lifespan in exchange for this chance.

The Main Deity seemed a little displeased by my question, her icy gaze falling on me, "It is useless. But it pleases me."

I said, "Actually they are still your soul fragments, in the end you will take them back... Why, why do you still do this?"

"They cannot be taken back."

After saying this, the Main Deity ignored me again. She observed Liang Zhouyi and Chu He with great interest, as if she had discovered some pleasure she could not put down.

Fortunately, this matter ended well. I breathed a sigh of relief and nervously wanted to say something, but felt a little embarrassed.

"Rest assured, I never intended to take her lifespan." I do not know how the Main Deity saw that I wanted to plead for her.

She elegantly smoothed her long hair, tapped that world sphere with her fingertip, then gently waved her hand and pushed it among the countless small worlds. I knew she would probably never pay attention to these matters again, and Liang Zhouyi and Chu He were completely free.

"But I paid such a great price to merge two worlds, if I take nothing from her at all it would be too kind." The Main Deity said leisurely. "Let her live in fear for twenty years and then tell her the truth when she is on her deathbed... I think Chu He should be quite pleasantly surprised then."

I was startled by the Main Deity's wicked taste, thinking to myself Chu He would probably want to beat you to death, alas. But... this should still count as a good ending, right.

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