Surprisingly, the devil race does not do anything stupid.
It has been two weeks since the energy plant was constructed in the Underworld, and so far, nothing has happened. The people of the Sitri Clan are very welcoming. They are happy that they can focus on medicine instead of splitting their budget in two.
It turns out the previous energy provider decided to charge the Sitri Clan five times the price we charge.
Now I understand why less than half of Sitri's territory has electricity. I ask Lord Sitri why they do not build their own power plant. His answer? An old agreement. After the Civil War, the remaining Noble Houses chose which businesses they would handle.
Sitri and Phenex took healing, with Sitri taking medicine and Phenex taking magical healing. Vassago and Barbatos took energy as their primary business.
Because of this old agreement, there is no other energy company in the Underworld other than the one owned by the Vassago and Barbatos clans. Sadly, many factions outside of us are unwilling to use mundane energy sources.
The Gods use their divine energy to power their realms; they do not need electricity. Monster-like races? They do not need electricity and prefer old-fashioned methods.
There are not many races that use mundane electricity. Among them are Devils, Fallen Angels, and Youkai.
Why not go to the Fallen Angels? Well, technically, Devils and Fallen Angels are at war. Not an active one, but at war nonetheless. Only recently have they signed a peace treaty. Even then, the Fallen Angels want a lot of money to create a power plant, and they hesitate to build one in the Underworld because it is not their main base.
So, yeah. With us entering the Underworld market, demand is high. We are the sole power source for the entire Sitri Territory. How big is it? It is roughly the size of Iceland. We do not power the entire area because it would require additional infrastructure—not only because of a lack of manpower, but also because it would pose a threat to our security, as we would need to secure many more areas.
We are not ready to expand just yet and have decided to hold back. Let the other devils move out if they want electricity.
There is also the fact that Yasaka thinks expanding this early is a bad decision. This time, it is a political move. We do not want to be seen as a threat to the Devil Noble Houses. Expanding too fast will be seen as us taking over their income.
One or two power plants will not be a problem because we only power a small part of the Underworld. However, as we continue to expand, they will do something stupid, and this time they will have a reason.
We are a threat to their livelihood, after all.
So, yeah. We cannot and will not expand just yet. At least not in the Underworld. The mundane world? We keep expanding. It turns out there are many political leaders among mundane humans who know about the supernatural world.
They want cheap and clean energy—not only because it gives them support from pro-green groups, but also from regular people who are more than happy to accept massive cuts in their electricity costs.
So far, we have spread to Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and Southern Europe. We now have agreements with twenty countries. We have power plants in every Southeast Asian country. It turns out that those born in that region place a lot of trust in their own people.
Especially when you have a good word from one of the leaders of a high-ranking faction in Asia. Yasaka is relatively well-known on the continent because the Youkai can compete with other factions in Asia in terms of overall power.
And the rank of the Youkai faction steadily grows. Sadly, we will not compete for first place. The Hindu Faction will always be number one because it has the strongest and oldest Gods.
Those old monsters will not be dethroned.
Anyway, with the entire Youkai faction backing me, many governments are more than willing to work with me. We expand and ensure that we create magical contracts that prevent anyone from working as spies if they want to work with us.
What? There are many workers, and we do not have enough personnel to monitor them all. It is better to create contracts that prevent them from spying on us or revealing our secrets to others.
|It has been a week! Your gift is ready! Do you want to take it?|
|Accept?| |Y/N|
I press the Y button and watch it spin. After a few seconds, it stops, and something awakens within me.
"ARGH!"
I grunt in pain as I feel something hot coursing through my body. I fall to the ground, groaning, and I see White running toward me in panic. I want to tell her to leave, as I know what kind of power I have received from the system.
|Congratulations! You are now a Planeswalker!|
|Your Spark has ignited, one that the Pre-Mending Planeswalkers once held. You can planeswalk through the multiverse at your leisure. You can easily target any plane you have already visited, but accessing a precise destination blindly will require practice. In the meantime, you will jump to semi-random destinations each time.
Your body is now a projection of your soul. In time, you will be able to alter your appearance at will and even replicate the abilities of other creatures. Your soul is also a powerful source of mana. While you can cast spells, you do not yet have the knowledge to do so.
In time, as you grow in power and familiarity with your abilities, you will be able to create your own pocket dimensions and planes.|
I use all my strength to hug her before the void swallows us whole as my Spark throws us somewhere.
A force greater than anything I have ever known rips me away from reality. My body is no longer my own—no, my body is no longer here. The world I know collapses in on itself as a surge of impossible energy engulfs me, hurling me forward, through, beyond.
I am falling, but not through space. Space is irrelevant here. I tumble through an endless void of shifting colors and distant, swirling stars.
The Blind Eternities. I know this place from instinct, from something buried deep within my soul that is only now waking up. It is the space between spaces, a howling storm of raw energy that no mortal should ever see.
Planes flash before my burning eyes, layered like pages in a book, like echoes of worlds that exist parallel to one another. I see glimpses: a moon hollowed into a colony ship, a ring that kills a galaxy, a garden that blooms into tomorrow and yesterday. I see infinity, and I am a speck of dust hurtling through it at impossible speeds.
I try to reach for something, anything. I hope to slow down, and to my surprise, it works. White and I slow down, and I see a massive star approaching us. No. It is not a star. It is a destination. I can feel it pulling me, like a star's gravity.
My vision goes white, and the impact is sudden and violent.
One moment, I am weightless, formless, adrift in a sea of energy. Next, I slam into solid ground with enough force to drive the air from my lungs.
I cough and grunt in pain. I look down and see that White is okay, looking at me in worry. I pat her head and say,
"I am okay."
She helps me stand up, and we look around. We are in the middle of a forest, and the mana around me feels like oil. It is thick, slimy, and smells bad.
I blink for a second when I feel my soul pulling at something. A massive amount of mana enters my soul, forming five orbs of mana: two green and three black. I have just claimed the land and harvested its mana for myself.
Not only that, but I also gained some basic knowledge of the land I claimed and even the language used in this place.
This place is called the Forest of Darkness, and it is located in the Roan Kingdom of the Western Continent. I do not know what kind of world this is. I have never read or watched any fiction with those names.
That sucks. It looks like we need to gather information the old-fashioned way.
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