The Pantheon of Life was a relatively unique faction in the multiverse.
Most huge Primordial factions strived to increase the territory they controlled, wanted to expand their power, and actively recruited gods to join them in order to compete with other factions for resources. Even the Order of the Malefic Viper was part of this eternal competition, as to them, increasing the power of the faction was the most important thing.
Meanwhile, the Pantheon of Life had its primary objective elsewhere. It was in the name that the faction was all about the concept of life. While the Risen also cared about the death affinity, they did so mainly because of the importance of the concept to their power. The Pantheon of Life, on the other hand, strived to merely allow and push the existence of life.
Despite life seemingly being incredibly prevalent in the multiverse, it was actually quite rare. For every planet in existence with life, thousands existed devoid of it. All these planets were still filled with creatures, primarily elementals, which also resulted in elementals being the most numerous archetype of creature in the entire multiverse, and it wasn’t even a close competition. However, seeing as elementals were also one of the few types of creatures that could get incredibly powerful while still not becoming sapient–or even sentient in some instances–their ability to evolve tended to be near-nonexistent.
That’s also why few factions tended to care about these dead planets. Sure, they technically had creatures living on them, but more than anything, they were nothing more than hunting locations or places to harvest resources. Even if all the elementals were killed on these planets, new ones would simply appear with time due to the mana in the air gathering and giving birth to them.
The same most certainly couldn’t be said about actual lifeforms. In many instances, the way life even came to other planets was through meteorites carrying biological material or even living creatures. These creatures could then grow, evolve, and reproduce. In addition, life led to more life, as when the life affinity on a planet got stronger, plants could begin to appear simply due the the environment, and if the conditions were right, a feedback loop would begin.
This was a process that took many years, and a lot of things had to go right. The ecosystems that appeared had to be balanced, allowing the creatures there to grow and not stagnate, and if it didn’t, the environment could quickly fall apart.
Life itself was an incredibly fragile thing, especially in its infancy. Once life was eliminated from a planet, it was borderline impossible for it to return without outside influence. What’s more, in many instances, it was the ecosystem itself that gave birth to what would eventually be the downfall of all life on a planet.
The Malefic Viper himself was a great example of this. He had solely been responsible for wiping out all life on his planet. He had been born as part of the ecosystem of the world, but he was too powerful for it and ended up destroying it entirely. While he could have most certainly left the planet behind and taken to the universe earlier, he hadn’t even known that was an option in the first place, which was, surprisingly enough, far from a unique case.
A powerful monster born on a planet without any outside influence was like a frog in a well. All it knew was the environment it was born into. The monster wouldn’t know taking to the stars was even an option. The planet was its entire world, and through its instinct to grow stronger, it would eventually find and kill everything... unless there was outside interference.This was where the Pantheon of Life usually stepped in.
As a faction, their goal was to preserve and encourage the flourishing of life. They didn’t merely train in the concept of life, but everything that surrounded life. Everything that helped create and nourish life. The ecosystem, the environment, the creatures within it, and the tight balance that had to be maintained. That’s also why some questioned if the Pantheon of Life was even a fitting name for them or if perhaps calling them the Pantheon of Nature would be more accurate.
Nature and life were heavily intertwined, and one was a prerequisite for the other. Like many other affinities similar to it, the nature affinity was also a fusion between life, earth, water, and several other powerful affinities, but what truly made it an affinity was how nature mana acted.
Too much life energy would lead to what was effectively a tumorous growth. It was actively harmful in too high doses and could cause many unwanted things, something Jake had seen first-hand in the Undergrowth dungeon.
The nature affinity, on the other hand, possessed an inherent concept of balance. Too much nature mana wouldn’t cause mutations, but simply growth. If a barren world were flooded with nature mana, plants would grow and begin spreading, and no matter how much one increased the intensity and quantity of nature mana, the newly grown plants wouldn’t die. Instead, more would grow, or the existing life would absorb as much nature affinity mana as it could. In some instances, the nature mana would even disperse on its own, turning into affinity-less mana simply because nothing was around that it could nurture. It would rather self-destruct than ruin the natural balance.
Of course, for nature to exist in any capacity, there had to be life in the first place. Nature was merely the requirement for life to grow and flourish on its own. That’s also why the Pantheon of Life perhaps wasn’t an entirely inaccurate name for the Primordial faction, as while nature was important to them, the very concept of life itself took precedence.
So, in summary... the Pantheon of Life consisted of a bunch of nature-freak hippies. At least, that was Jake’s assessment after he properly read up on the faction during the last day of the voyage. Originally, he hadn’t really planned on reading up on anything but just learn about the Pantheon of Life by going there. However, he’d gotten kind of curious after they’d stopped by a particular planet. There, Jake saw an A-grade expert approach a newly evolved B-grade beast with the intent of having it leave for somewhere it wouldn’t become a disaster to the local ecosystem.
In some ways, it seemed unnatural to interfere like that, which was perhaps also why the Pantheon of Life wasn’t called the Pantheon of Nature... because if leaving nature alone to do its thing would lead to the loss of all life, the faction would gladly step in. Which was exactly what Jake saw with that newly evolved B-grade beast.
This beast in question was one of the dark affinity, and it had already begun to cover the skies of its planet in black smog by the time the A-grade appeared. This dark energy would block out the rays of the sun, which would inevitably lead to the death of most life on the planet, if not all of it. Jake had watched and expected the B-grade beast to agree to leave, but instead, it had refused and claimed itself as the owner of the planet.
The A-grade tried to convince the beast but ultimately failed. After failing, the expert merely left, which made Jake wonder if the planet was just fucked... until around half an hour later when a party of peak C-grades appeared to hunt down the beast.
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That was when Jake realized that the Pantheon of Life was fully willing to interfere with the natural order of things if the natural order threatened too much life. Or, more accurately, if it threatened the fragile balance that allowed life to continue existing.
They didn’t seem to care overly much about the will of the actual creatures there, only the big picture. It did get a bit weird when Jake read that the Pantheon of Life was also the multiverse’s top exporter of wood.
On that note, Jake had kind of assumed wood to be a very normal resource, considering how darn much of it they had on Earth and many other planets he’d gone to. However, surprisingly enough, wood was considered a quite valuable resource in most instances.
It took a lot of time to grow if one wanted high-quality wood, and second of all, for wood to exist, there had to be life – outside of a few fringe cases, that is. Meanwhile, for stuff like metals, one could find near-infinite amounts by just exploring a few asteroid belts or so-called dead planets.
So from an economical standpoint, it made sense the Pantheon of Life sold a lot of wood, but Jake wasn’t sure if the logic tracked.
Jake admittedly found the entire doctrine of the faction a bit confusing despite having studied it, but in his defense... they didn’t really have an official doctrine per-se. It all seemed very much up to interpretation, which, in retrospect, perhaps was the point.
He also remembered his talks with Artemis during the Challenge Dungeon. She clearly had her own interpretation and cared about fitting into nature as a hunter. Jake could even agree with her and the Pantheon of Life about many things, including that threatened ecosystems were probably a bad idea.
Unless said ecosystem consisted of mushroom men. In that case, Jake found it obligatory to step in and be the arbiter of justice by wiping out every single one of them, no matter what.
I do wonder what kind of hunting grounds the Pantheon of Life has, considering their ideology... Jake thought as he decided it was time to exit his little cabin on the spaceship. About half an hour prior, the voice of the god called Linea had echoed throughout the vessel, letting them all know they would arrive at their final destination in roughly an hour.
Jake didn’t have a lot of preparations to make, but he’d still cleaned himself up a bit and even put on clothing that wasn’t his regular armor... only to put back on his armor again as he felt that was more fitting for this kind of meeting. Besides, he thought he looked better wearing it.
Walking up through the corridors inside the ship, Jake passed by Sylphie’s cabin and knocked. Inside, he could already see Sylphie in the midst of using wind magic to juggle all the bedding, and the moment she heard him, she expertly controlled all the things and made them gently fall back where they belonged.
The door opened a second later, and Jake found Sylphie sitting on the floor right inside, looking up at him with big eyes. She was looking nice in her little spatial storage vest that she’d made visible for the occasion, something he got a strong feeling she wanted him to acknowledge.
“Looking good,” Jake smiled as he squatted down and scratched her on the top of her head. “And you did great during the trip.”
“Ree!” Sylphie screeched cheerfully as she kept looking up at Jake. He knew what she wanted and sighed as he picked her up in a hug and stood up to carry the little hawk, who was happily snuggling in his embrace.
“People are gonna look at us weird if we meet the representatives from the Pantheon of Life like this,” Jake said.
“Ree?”
“No, I don’t think sitting on top of my head is a good idea either... how about we compromise and agree on the shoulder this time around? That way, you can stand perched and really show off,” Jake said in a convincing tone.
Sylphie considered for a bit before agreeing. A minute or so later, just before they made it to the deck above, the hawk jumped up and sat on his shoulder. Through his sphere, Jake could already see that the two of them were some of the last people to arrive, though a few more were walking up elsewhere on the ship.
In general, using any kind of space magic while traveling on a ship like this was a great way to accidentally hurt or even kill yourself. Even the A and S-grades avoided teleporting despite most of them being able to. The only one who clearly didn’t care was Minaga, though considering his actual status as a god, his insight into the concept of space surpassed every other mortal on the vessel combined times a thousand... with even that being a very conservative estimate. Oh yeah, and even if he did die, he wouldn’t care much.
Walking onto the deck, Jake and Sylphie naturally attracted their fair share of attention. A few gave polite nods or bows toward the two, with only one person walking over to speak with them.
“Did you two enjoy the journey?” the Sword Saint asked. Despite being on the same ship for this entire time, the three of them hadn’t met up before this, as the old man had been in his cabin most of the time. The times he did go up, he went to the bridge, where Jake remembered seeing him paint.
Meanwhile, Jake also spent nearly all his time meditating and reading the tome left by the First Sage. He’d made some good progress, too. The few times Jake did leave his cabin the old man had remained in his. Heck, even the time Jake saw the newly evolved B-grade and that entire debacle, he’d been in his own cabin with a Minaga having snuck in after convincing Jake he just had to show him what was going on with a nearby planet.
At least Minaga hadn’t been lying about that one... anyway.
“Yeah, it was fine for the most part,” Jake answered the old man after a second of thinking.
“Ree!” Sylphie answered in the negative, having found sitting in her cabin pretty damn boring. Jake was proud she’d managed to do it, though, and from what he understood, the hawk had taken it as a challenge to prove she could meditate for a prolonged period, and she’d only woken up due to the announcement they were about to arrive.
In all honesty, Jake had not expected her to last the entire trip, much less that the hawk would have been productive. From what the hawk briefly told him, she had used this time to try and connect with her Soulspace after having heard Jake’s tales of the world he had created within himself. This also once more served as a stark reminder that Jake being able to so easily enter his Soulspace and have so much control in there wasn’t usual.
“Finding peace and solace when you only have yourself as company is a requirement for someone aiming toward the top,” the Sword Saint said to Sylphie after her complaint. “If you cannot do that, your future will be filled with needless suffering. Better to learn sooner rather than later and slowly adapt rather than one day find yourself isolated for a prolonged period.”
Jake nodded along to the old man’s words. “I gotta agree there. I know it sometimes sucks, but independence is great, and while you don’t need to go the hermit route, relying on other people too much can be dangerous when you do end up alone.”
“I don’t think your advice is the most useful in this area,” the Sword Saint said with a smile. “You’re a natural loner. Meanwhile, Sylphie is quite the opposite.”
“Gotta agree there,” a new voice suddenly joined the conversation as a certain Unique Lifeform had decided to teleport in. “You know, I watched how everyone did my solo Labyrinth in Nevermore, and a part of the difficulty for many is the pure sense of isolation they get. In all other Challenge Dungeons, there were other people to interact with, but in my Labyrinth, there was nobody. Well, besides me. Believe it or not, the main reason why I am so actively talking to people during the Labyrinth is to help those who deal badly with isolation. After I started doing it, it has helped the statistics for people quitting due to pure loneliness, which is definitely good in my mind. I want them to quit over not being able to do the actual Labyrinth.”
“I don’t believe that it’s the main reason you’re such a yapper,” Jake said in a dry tone. “You do it because you can’t help yourself and because you get bored.”
“What, me? Bored? Never!” Minaga acted all insulted. “I’m super good at keeping myself company, and I always have a clone in handy to talk to someone in case I want some social interaction. In fact, you can take pride in knowing that you are entertaining the entire All-God Legion right at this very moment with your amusing misunderstanding of my personality!”
“Ree.”
“... my Labyrinth wasn’t super easy. You were just a cheater,” Minaga muttered.
“Ree...”
“You know exactly what you did.”
“Ree.”
“I have footage,” Minaga proclaimed.
“Ree.”
“... alright, you got me, I have nothing,” the S-grade Unique Lifeform sighed in defeat.
“Ree.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Minaga waved her off before quickly changing the topic as he pointed forward. “Oh, hey, look. A tree.”
Jake was about to call out the god’s bullshit again as they were still traveling at insane speeds, making seeing anything borderline impossible... yet when Jake turned around...
That’s one giant-ass tree...