'Improving' the Code

Corey was sad.

Alys, that evil woman, told him that he would soon taken to another world.

Corey didn't like it here at all.

He had suffered from the moment of his birth. He always disliked it here.

But still, here is definitely better than anywhere Alys will take him.

He wanted to run, but he failed.

He used everything, including his system, which is now mostly broken thanks to the continuous hacking by that woman.

He tried many times, but that woman always found him.

"I don't know what I did to deserve this!" he thought. He wasn't a bad person.

On Earth, he died while saving the life of a child.

Before his death by truck-sama, his life was great.

He is not like your typical transmigrator who doesn't have any family.

"I wish I could return." he thought with longing.

With this thought, he continued lying down on his bed, depressed.

He had given up and didn't care anymore.

"If I'm going to die, so be it. Maybe I will be reborn again," he thought, then took a 'space' pill and crushed it.

Then, he snorted it up.

A 'space' pill is basically like meth in the mage world. That's right, to cope with all his problems, Corey is now a demon junkie.

...

Red was learning how to fly. He was outside, above a tall mountain.

These days, his mother was away most of the time. The demon kings called all dragons, ordering them to look for something.

After hell merged with the mage world, it slowly began losing its dark energy, and pure energy began appearing.

It started harming demons after the first few decades.

Fortunately, the demon kings released a new meditation technique based on pure energy. Red also learned it and can now use pure energy for meditation.

Dragons are mostly immune to the corruption of the dark element, so they are not evil by nature. As for how they react to pure energy, nobody knows.

"Just jump! Even if you crash to the ground, with your physique, you will be fine!" said Rachel.

Red struggled.

Even though he is a dragon, he is afraid of heights.

After a lot of struggling, he finally gave up.

"Aren't you a dragon? How is it possible for you to fear heights?" Rachel asked in astonishment.

  "I'm talented in other areas," said Red, while hiding his shame.

"Never mind. Don't you want a child? You are hundreds of years old. Go and mate," said Rachel.

Dragons are a unique race that can mate with all other races.

It seems unbelievable, but even insects can give birth to dragon children. Only, they would be infertile and short-lived.

Only humanoids and demons can give birth to hybrid dragons who can reproduce.

Red's face got even redder, and he didn't answer.

Rachel smiled and continued persuading. She wasn't going to give up until Red became a father.

...

Rachel #1 was concentrating on the symbols.

"Very interesting! I feel like I can change everything I want!" she thought.

After becoming a rank 1 administrator, a lot of information about 'limited modification' became available to her.

Combined with her instinct, she can now 'edit' the code to some extent.

Before, she did just random things, so the results would be uncertain.

For example, removing hell's barrier was an accident.

Now, she can purposefully edit the code.

Aside from editing, she can perfectly read the code.

For example, the medium-level protagonist's luck is a last-ditch effort by the world to save itself. The world will be saved once the protagonist makes another rank 10 complete law.

It's all done by the code, which, in turn, is made by the great dream.

All is in the code.

"Editing it is difficult, especially with that damn elf girl here!" Rachel thought.

With her here, anything she does might expose her location.

If exposed, she might not be able to escape unless the main body helps.

But that's not on the table. So, she just decided to wait.

...

Alys collected all the 'jump ranks' she found in hell and the mage world and left with Corey and Tom.

With her and Tom gone, mages breathed a sigh of relief.

As for demons, they had a shared mind and were under Alys's control. Still, the shared mind was very uneasy about Alys, so it also felt relieved when she left.

After all, the shared mind is a combination of all demon kings, so it was even more distrustful of others than mages.

Interestingly, with 6 sins and the minds of two gods and one mage combined in the shared mind, it had some sort of balance.

Its calculation ability was very powerful, allowing it to analyze everything from every angle.

Nothing happened after Alys left.

Everyone knew the world was in danger of destruction, so they weren't in the mood for a fight.

Instead, the demons invited mages to join the shared mind to find a way to fix the world. The mages refused.

The shared mind is not bad in theory but is a massive weakness in practice.

For a hostile force, controlling the shared mind means controlling everyone.

Nobody wants to be controlled like this.

Nonetheless, they started cooperating on research about the world.

Everyone wants to reach rank 10.

It's best first to find a way to advance, then talk and fight about who's turn to advance.

Fighting over it now is fighting over a theoretical thing, which is very irrational.

...

Rachel finally sighed with relief!

Alys finally left.

She took most jump ranks in the world, but Rachel still hoped she might have missed some.

Jump ranks are directly from Rachel's main body. They are sent only when she wants to infiltrate a world.

Anyone who uses them can be considered a helper to her.

Now, this world is already breached and almost owned by Rachel.

So, there would be no more jump rank coming to this world.

Still, jump rank is no longer as needed as before.

With 'Limited Modification,' she can start her plans.

Over these years, she has learned a lot more about the codes. She now understands it's impossible to fix the world completely only by improving the code.

Time and space are both incomplete.

A considerable amount of resources are required to fix those things, and there's no way to avoid it.

In theory, it is possible to fuse time and space and make the complete law of spacetime, but it would require a lot of resources, which she doesn't have.

Eventually, if this world is worth it, the real Rachel will send the required resources, but she is usually stingy.

Very rarely she invests heavily in a world.

With only local resources here, Rachel's options are limited.

But there are some interesting opinions.

It's possible to patch the holes by only improving the code. There are many advantages to this.

The Great Dream would not be able to enter again, and the world's lifespan would be extended to 50 million years, among other benefits.

It is only possible because Rachel has many more universal laws under her control. The Great Dream couldn't do it with only one Universal law it possesses.

Every universal law is a massive breakthrough.

Even knowledge of them alone can significantly improve the coding ability of civilizations.

Like here, Rachel isn't using any of the universal laws directly.

That would cost too much.

She is only using the knowledge about them to improve the code.

After all, universal laws are the same throughout the universe. Knowledge about them can be used to accomplish many things.

"Let's start," she thought.

After many modifications, she managed to patch all the holes in the world. After losing heaven, the world had many holes.

These were the main reasons the world's life is so short, only 10 million years.

Now, with the holes repaired, the world can survive for up to 50 million years before it runs out of energy.

After all, it is now a rank 9 world, which needs external support.

In fact, 50 million years for a rank 9 world is impressive.

Usually, rank 9 worlds without support in the endless space may only survive a few hundred years.

The main reason is resisting the endless space outside costs a lot of energy.

This world was a rank 11 world a while ago, so, of course, its reserves are much more.

Then she continued.

She brought hell to the same dimension as the mage world and merged it directly with it.

Previously, the mage world and hell existed in different dimensions.

There was no hell barrier, but it was still impossible to just walk to hell.

Now, to travel, one no longer needs treasures for dimensional travel.

Then, Rachel divided the world into five main areas: the south, the west, the east, the north, and the center.

She erected great barriers between each to prevent high-level mages from traveling freely.

She also adjusted the concentration of pure energy, allocating 35 percent to the central land and 15 percent each to the south, north, west, and east.

The remaining 5 percent were placed in some secret realms.

The code previously concentrated all the energy on specific areas, but Rachel changed it.

She also increased the energy output of the moon by more than 1000 percent!

It costs a lot, but it was not that high compared to resisting endless space. It decreased the life of the world by 5 million years.

As for hell, its land was distributed among all areas.

Although the most significant portion of hell was in the south, all the other areas also had their share of hell.

To stop demons from killing all mortal humans, she placed a temporary barrier between hell and the mortal continents until demons broke free from the influence of dark elements.

Then, she started changing the settings of the river of time and space.

With code, controlling space and time fundamental laws is very simple.

First, she stopped space from expanding and even made it contract.

Then, she modified the river of time to bring back longevity; this time, it was much more strict.

It was because she wanted to reduce expenditure.

Mortal humans can live up to 110 years, while elves can live 330.

Even if one is careful, after 110 years, the cells become too damaged and can't divide anymore.

She also decreased the lifespans of animals and insects to what they were before.

But the most significant change came for mages' lifespans.

Before, rank 1 mages were allowed to live up to 500 years.

Now, she drastically reduced it to 200 years! With this change, mages must innovate and find better ways.

The lifespans of demons were also aligned with those of mages. Now, a rank 1 demon can only live up to 200 years, much, much less than 5000 years before.

Rank 2 mages can live up to 650 years, rank 3 up to 2100 years, rank 4 can live up to 7000 years, rank 5 up to 20000 years, rank 6 up to 65000, rank 7 up to 200000, rank 8 up to 650000, and rank 9 mages can live up to 2 million years.

After the end of their lifespan, their energy would decay, and they would die.

She didn't count how long everyone lived until now to avoid effectively killing everyone instantly.

All start from 0.

this will reduce the world's burden a lot.

The world's most significant cost of internal operations was not mortal population.

It was the cost of high-level mages.

With this short lifespan, she predicts the world will last at least 70 million years, maybe 75.

As for rank 10, it's the realm of immortality.

You have a complete law and can even live in the endless space outside the world. In rank 10, one is no longer bound by the laws of a world. You can live as long as you survive or don't lose your complete law.

Rachel also opened up many space channels, allowing everyone to see outside the world.

With all these changes, she smiled.

She can only hope to find a jump rank for her advancement.

If there is none, she has no choice but to wait for Zag to advance normally.

She didn't make an exception for Zagronan's lifespan.

When coding the world's laws, an exception like this will likely destabilize things.

But she is not worried.

With her providing endless rank 7 pills, If Zagronan fails, nobody can succeed.

'improving' the code