Alex III had, until now, only considered how to strengthen himself in the context of the world. Now, he has begun contemplating actions beyond the bounds of the world.
He already knew that these two dream worlds were not the entirety of existence, and now he is begging to ponder what to do once the world is actualized.
With control over both sides, he had no opponent; he could even kill Rob if he wanted. But Rob was his punching bag for testing his power, so Alex didn't kill him. In any case, Rob posed no threat and was thoroughly contained.
With all his desires fulfilled, Alex had nothing but to wait for the day when everything finally became real.
...
Years passed, and eventually, nobody even remembered there was an ancient god named Alex.
Time truly washed everything clean. After a million years, every trace of Alex was thoroughly destroyed, and only his vampires, who were also immortal, remembered he existed.
Mortals continued living and dying; kingdoms fell, and alliances dissolved.
Nothing is permanent; even the most powerful countries crumbled after a while.
...
50,000 years before world realization.
Lee was ready to completely erase the Candles civilization's traces from this dream world.
She knew precisely which parts were contaminated and how to replace them without harming the world.
After numerous checks and simulations with the Dream Federation's pieces of equipment, Lee, accompanied by over 100 rank 10 mages from the Humanoids Academy, initiated the process.
To ensure a seamless job, Lee borrowed various tools from the Dream Federation, including a code stabilizer, which filled the vacancy left by removing corrupt codes temporarily.
Another tool was the code eraser, which could precisely remove targeted codes, even targeting one corrupted code among a billion fine codes.
The code magnifier, which can magnify tiny codes; combined with the code eraser, they achieve higher accuracy.
The code detector identifies corrupt codes, while the code memorizer keeps track of them.
Lee contained nearly all the corrupted code in a sealed space, but some remained sparsely throughout the world. Over millions of years, the corrupted codes attempted to expand but were repeatedly thwarted by Lee.
Removing corrupted codes was like performing surgery on a large scale. The corrupted codes were akin to cancer cells, while the good codes were the normal cells.
Lee noticed the problem when 40% of the dream world was infected, which typically meant any treatment would leave the remaining world in an inoperable state.
However, Lee was like a surgeon who could remove cancer cells and replace them with normal tissue.
She had realization energy reserves ready to return the world to its complete state before realization.
With the assistance of a code placer, she could precisely replace any existing code. With all these preparations, she began her job.
The first group of immortals was assigned to the code memorizer; the device had the location of all corrupted codes.
With the help of the code tracer, the code memorizer revealed the locations of all corrupted codes worldwide.
Lee and her group spent millions of years and used code detectors and tracers to locate every contaminated code, no matter how small.
They knew the precise location of them all.
Unlike the human body, the world has no immune system; some advanced worlds have it, but this dream world doesn't.
So, even if one line is left, it could infect everything again. This is another reason that no sane person would spend so many resources to save a world; it would be far cheaper just to sell it all and get compensated.
Lee, for example, spent at least 100 times the world's worth to rent all this equipment.
...
A group of immortals began operating the code magnifier and eraser, while at the same time, another group began working on the code stabilizer.
Piece by piece, the code eraser, helped by the magnifier, removed only corrupted code, and the code stabilizer held everything together, preventing anything from going wrong.
The best thing about the stabilizer is that once active, nothing could go wrong; at most, the expenditure would increase. Even a rank 12 mage couldn't destroy a world once the stabilizer is on.
Of course, if a rank 12 attack occurred, the consumption of the stabilizer would skyrocket so heavily that any rank 11 civilization would go bankrupt in less than a millionth of a millisecond.
The consumption was not much for now, but Lee knew she had to be fast, or the price would increase.
So, she started her part while the other immortals were busy operating the code eraser and code magnifier.
Her job was the most important one: recoding the removed parts. She was assisted by two pieces of equipment; one was the code placer, and the other was the code calculator.
The code placer helped her place the new codes exactly where they should be, and the code calculator could calculate and predict whether there was any problem.
She started coding and placed all the codes in their exact place using the code placer. Of course, she was not much of a genius; she wasn't making decisions on the spot.
She and her group of more than 100 immortals had planned all this long ago; she knew exactly what they erased and what she needed to code to replace them.
After placing the first codes, she ran the code calculator, nodded, and moved to the next part.
The most efficient way was like this because if she waited for the first group to erase all and then began coding, the cost of the code stabilizer would have skyrocketed.
After she replaced the code, the stabilizer was removed from the part she replaced; this way, the stabilizer would consume far less.
The eraser group moved slowly, roughly at the same speed as Lee moved. This was by design, too; if the eraser moved too far ahead, the stabilizer cost would go up by a large margin.
Even though corrupted codes are terrible, the world could function when they are there. However, the world could not function without any operating codes. That's why she let the corrupted codes remain for so long.
...
After more than 1,000 years, finally, all corrupted codes were replaced.
The total cost was about a whopping 26,000 anti-Rachel contribution points. One could, if careful, create more than 200 rank 10 worlds with that many anti-Rachel contribution points.
That does not include all the time she and her group of immortals spent on it, which they could have spent on taking tasks and even earning contribution points.
Returning to their operating station, built close to the dream world, Lee nodded when she saw the result. The world is operating like clockwork, and nothing went wrong.
It should be expected, as they calculated everything carefully before acting.
"The next part!" Lee sighed.
She replaced everything carefully, but there may still be problems. To make sure everything is fine, it's necessary to do a final check.
"Go and rent the equipment," Lee ordered.
A rank 10 immortal man nodded and left.
They didn't rent this equipment before because they wouldn't have needed it until they replaced all the corrupt codes.
The Dream Federation lends equipment by charging members set amounts based on the century, so the longer they keep it, the more expensive it would become.
Soon, the immortal man returned with two pieces of equipment.
They were like silver balls with no shape. Advanced equipment is like this, with no default shape; they will become whatever shape the user wants. At this level, shape is quite meaningless; only their internal formation is what matters.
Taking them, Lee smiled; she already trained to work with them many times.
One was the core analyzer, while the other was the code diagnoser.
Moving quickly, Lee soon reached the world's core, placed the core analyzer in the core, and placed the code diagnoser inside the core analyzer. She changed their shape in a way that they fit well together.
The world core was like a ball the size of a palm shining with golden light; it didn't have any hole, so Lee was forced to push the code analyzer in with force. Fortunately, the code analyzer is made from special formations that won't harm the core; the code diagnoser was in the core analyzer, so it didn't harm the core either.
After a few short hours, the result was that there was no problem. Lee wasn't done yet; they rented these for the shortest time, a century, so returning them sooner would not be cheaper.
Lee continued running tests for a century. During this time, the core analyzer and code diagnostic detected no problems.
Lee nodded and returned the equipment before the Dream Federation charged them for two centuries.
The next part is the final part.
The candles infiltrated without her knowing; this means there is a bug that allows them to penetrate.
World bugs have been a problem since forever, with Rachel being the best to infiltrate worlds using bugs.
Still, there are some things she can do.
Taking out a world core, Lee looked with a serious face.
This is called the second core; she rented it for 50,000 years.
It works alongside the world's first core. Its job is only one thing: to detect any world invasion at the first instant.
It is very expensive, and the bigger the world, the more it costs.
It's not economical to install this thing in low-level worlds. Just 50,000 years cost Lee 1,000 contribution points of Anti-Rachel.
Still, she wanted nothing to go wrong in the last 50,000 years, so she gritted her teeth and rented it.
Making a small formation, she successfully placed it near the world core.
Then, she left the world and sat in the temporary place they made.
Now, she must wait for tens of thousands of years before everything turns real. She has to observe things carefully from now on to gather data. For her, a few tens of thousands of years are nothing.