Dual Realm Exchange System

For several seconds, Damian simply stood in the middle of the frozen crater and looked between Roland Hammond and Selene Vael.

The steam rising around them had already begun thinning, revealing more of the destruction left behind by his .

Blackened trees lay flattened beyond the crater, huge chunks of earth had melted into glass, and Selene’s magical snow continued drifting across terrain that had been forest barely half an hour ago.

Honestly, if somebody wanted to explain why people with Legend-level power needed rules...

The visual aid was excellent.

Damian rubbed his chin. ”So what you’re saying is that once someone gets strong enough to accidentally delete a neighborhood, the government starts asking uncomfortable questions?”

Roland’s golden eyes narrowed slightly. ”That is an extremely crude way of explaining several thousand years of history.”

”But not inaccurate.” Selene added sweetly.

The Lionman glanced at her.

Selene smiled.

Roland sighed.

”Unfortunately, no. Not inaccurate.”

Damian chuckled, but Roland’s expression remained serious as he looked around the crater.

”To understand why these restrictions exist, young man, you must first understand what Valoria actually is. It is not what you already know, like Rastia Kingdom, Rosewood Town, or the Adventurer’s Guild, but the world itself.”

Damian raised an eyebrow.

Well then.

Apparently tonight’s itinerary included defeating a Great Fey, creating a small nuclear event and receiving an unsolicited history lecture.

What a productive evening!

Roland slowly began walking toward the crater’s edge, and Damian followed beside Selene.

”Valoria wasn’t always called Valoria. In the oldest records still recognized by the World Stones, this world possessed another name.” Roland began.

”Phantasia.” Selene supplied.

Damian blinked.

”...That’s incredibly on the nose.”

Neither understood what he meant, naturally.

Roland continued. ”Nobody knows exactly how old Phantasia was. Tens of thousands of years? Hundreds of thousands? Perhaps considerably more. Even the oldest Divine Spirits rarely give direct answers concerning those periods.”

What was remembered instead was the beginning of ordered life.

According to the oldest creation traditions, Phantasia had originally developed beneath four beings later called the Pillar Gods.

Ifrit, the ancient divinity of Fire.

Sylph, the ancient divinity of Wind.

Undine, the ancient divinity of Water.

And Terra, the ancient divinity of Earth.

Whether those four had literally created the world from nothing or merely shaped something that already existed remained one of those theological arguments scholars could apparently argue about until retirement.

What mattered was that every surviving ancient tradition agreed upon their presence.

Back then, Phantasia was not a world of towns, cities, institutions and kingdoms.

It was wild and untamed, with Mana pouring through the world in absurd abundance while species appeared, mutated, adapted and slaughtered one another for the right to continue existing.

Great Beasts claimed entire regions, Fey crossed freely through unstable pathways, elemental creatures formed where natural Mana accumulated too heavily, and early intelligent races fought over land that could change hands three times within the same generation.

”The world was in a primordial state, and everything was rising simultaneously. This included various species, environments, magical phenomena, even the world’s own capacity for power.” Roland described after searching for the right word.

Damian nodded slowly.

Essentially...

Evolution with magic enabled and absolutely no parental controls.

”Mana accelerated development tremendously. A civilization did not need to spend thousands of years mastering metallurgy before discovering methods capable of changing its surroundings. A sufficiently talented creature could learn to manipulate heat, wind, stone or water simply because the energy was there and responded.” Selene continued.

That naturally meant Phantasia’s races developed far faster than ordinary civilization should have.

But there was one enormous difference between that era and today.

There had been no Valorian Overworld System, Character Sheets, Levels, nor neat lists of Skills, Feats or Classes.

Everything had to be discovered the old-fashioned way.

Someone noticed that repeated magical practice strengthened their ability while another person realized certain actions made their body more powerful.

A tribe developed a breathing technique to make their warriors stronger, while a Mage discovered a spell by accident and spent thirty years teaching the incomplete version to students.

Even the idea of Classes had existed only as practical professions rather than something formally recognized and measured.

”Then how did they judge strength?” Damian asked.

”Poorly.” Selene replied.

Damian laughed.

Roland’s mouth twitched. ”Mostly through experience and broad stages. Apprentice, veteran, elder, great warrior, archmage, transcendent... every region and race possessed its own language. A title considered terrifying in one kingdom might mean almost nothing two thousand kilometers away.”

As time flowed forward, Humanity eventually rose.

Of course they did.

Damian had read enough Earth history to know that Humans possessed an almost supernatural talent for seeing a hostile world filled with stronger creatures and deciding that this was somehow a real-estate problem.

Early tribes became settlements, settlements became fortified territories, and those territories grew into the ancestors of proper kingdoms.

Humans did not dominate everything, not remotely, but they multiplied, organized, cooperated, betrayed one another, invented better methods of killing things and gradually forced themselves into the list of species that could no longer be ignored.

Eventually the word ’Legend’ entered common use.

At that time, it was simply what people called those rare individuals who had crossed beyond anything ordinary warriors and Mages could reasonably understand.

The problem was that nobody knew how to become one reliably.

”Some succeeded by accident while others forced their bodies, souls or magic beyond natural limits and survived in... unusual states.” Selene explained.

”Unusual?” Damian repeated suspiciously.

Roland grimaced. ”One ancient Human warrior supposedly became incapable of sleeping because his body no longer understood unconsciousness. Another Mage permanently fused himself with the magical phenomenon he used to advance and could never again leave a particular mountain range.”

Damian stared. ”...Botched evolutions.”

”Essentially.” Selene agreed.

Legends existed and were public knowledge, but the process of becoming one was closer to surviving experimental surgery performed by a blind doctor than following a proper progression route.

Then Phantasia received its first Otherworlder.

Valor.

Even Roland’s tone changed slightly when saying the name.

Valor had apparently been an enigma even by Otherworlder standards.

He came from a world of extremely advanced technology, although the surviving accounts were frustratingly vague concerning exactly how advanced, and arrived in Phantasia carrying a Special Power nobody native to the world properly understood.

Valor himself had called it...

”Gamification.” Roland said.

Damian stopped walking.

Selene glanced toward him. ”That word means something to you?”

Damian coughed.

”A little.”

A little?!

That explained practically everything!

Some bastard from a technological world had landed in an unstructured fantasy setting with the ability to turn reality into game mechanics!

Of course he became overpowered!

This was protagonist behavior of the highest fucking order!

”What did the ability actually do?” Damian asked, suddenly considerably more interested.

”From surviving descriptions, Valor could interpret growth through measurable values. He assigned numbers to physical ability, categorized techniques, compared enemies through consistent measurements and apparently understood his own advancement as though reality possessed rules only he could see.” Selene explained.

Damian’s lips twitched.

Oh yes, standard level up system protagonist, just the ancient edition.

Valor charged through Phantasia’s chaotic power structure at a speed that terrified practically everyone around him.

But unlike many powerful individuals of that age, he did not travel alone.

He gathered companions, friends, lovers, and rivals who eventually became friends.

There were people from several races and cultures who followed him through battles, discoveries and whatever insanity characterized that era.

Many of those names survived today among the greatest Divine Spirits known to Valoria.

Valor himself eventually crossed beyond Legend and became a Divine Spirit.

And that was where the world changed permanently.

”After his ascension, Valor communed directly with the will of Phantasia. Nobody alive knows exactly what occurred during that communion, only the result.” Roland explained.

Valor used his own power and understanding to help elevate the world itself.

The principles behind his strange Gamification ability spread outward, and concepts that had previously existed only as vague intuition became concrete laws.

Classes, Levels, Attributes, Skills, Feats, Experience, and Challenge Ratings.

Everything came together to form a framework of structured advancement.

As such, the Valorian Overworld System was born!

Damian stared at Roland. ”So Valor renamed the world after himself?”

Roland shook his head immediately.

”No.”

Damian blinked.

Selene smiled faintly. ”That is one of history’s great mysteries. Valor never publicly declared that Phantasia should become Valoria. There is no proclamation, decree or surviving statement from him claiming the name.”

”Then where did it come from?”

”When the System first manifested. Every sentient being above the Age of Understanding received an explanation of the new laws governing their existence.” Roland answered.

He glanced toward Damian.

”And every single display identified the world as ’Valoria’.”

Damian became silent.

Okay, that was... actually a little creepy.

Valor himself hadn’t changed the name.

Reality itself did.

.....................

After Valor came others.

There were no predictable schedules, but Otherworlders continued appearing across successive eras.

A handful disappeared without leaving much behind, and others became famous locally.

But several changed Valoria so profoundly that their names became attached to entire ages.

The first major successor was Alexander Smith.

”Alex Smith?” Damian repeated.

”Alexander Smith.” Roland corrected with reverence.

A man with the most aggressively ordinary earthling name imaginable had apparently altered civilization.

Alexander had looked at the scattered mercenary bands, monster hunters, independent explorers and local quest offices spread across Valoria and decided the entire arrangement was inefficient.

So he standardized it into ranks, quest classifications, verified rewards, adventurer identification, regional branches, and information sharing using his Special Power.

He established rules for accepting work and procedures for handling monster materials, exploration records and emergency requests.

The Adventurer’s Guild was born from that framework.

”And its success changed more than adventuring. Once people saw that a transnational institution could operate across kingdoms without directly replacing their governments, everyone copied the model.” Roland added.

The Mages Association, Trade and Commerce Guild, Merchant’s Guild, Noble’s Council, etc.

Damian suddenly understood why the entire world sometimes felt suspiciously organized despite being medieval in appearance.

One Otherworlder had essentially introduced scalable bureaucracy.

Truly terrifying!

Next came Elias Rosenfeld.

Elias apparently looked at Valoria’s economic system and experienced what Damian could only imagine was physical pain.

Thousands of local currencies existed, and coins drastically changed value at borders.

Some kingdoms based money upon precious metals, others upon magical materials, while several major races used systems that sounded closer to barter with extra paperwork.

So Elias created a standardized monetary framework with universally recognized value.

Copper, Silve, and Gold.

He established common measurements, foreign exchange rules, and banking principles.

Soon, he made an economic network capable of moving wealth between kingdoms without requiring a merchant to carry five different currency chests because he crossed three borders.

”Goddess Caurelia eventually became one of his closest companions. Their influence upon commerce remains... extensive.” Selene mentioned with an amused smile.

Damian wisely said nothing.

He suddenly understood several divine relationship dynamics considerably better.

Then came Winona Montoya, and even Roland’s expression changed at the name.

”She was... less gentle.”

”That is a charitable description.” Selene muttered.

Before Winona’s era, organized Human territory represented approximately ten percent of Valoria’s usable surface.

Everything else was monster domains, Great Beast territories, hostile races, and unclaimed magical wilderness.

There had been entire regions where civilization technically existed on a map but only because nobody brave enough had visited recently to correct it.

Winona changed that violently, brutally, and systematically.

She conquered, then kept conquering.

Cities appeared where monster nests once stood, roads cut through wilderness, and fortresses moved borders outward.

Entire hostile populations were exterminated, displaced or forced into treaties.

By the time Winona eventually became a Divine Spirit, the ratio had shifted from roughly ten-to-ninety in favor of monsters and dangerous wilderness...

To forty-to-sixty.

Globally!

Damian exhaled softly in shock, his heart trembling.

One woman had effectively conquered thirty percent of a planet’s usable territory for civilization!

No wonder countless non-Human races still treated her name like an inherited trauma!

Finally came Junpei Hoshino.

If Alexander Smith had built institutions, Elias had built economics and Winona had expanded civilization’s living space...

Junpei dragged Valoria’s technology forward.

He was the father of Magitech, and had created communication networks, data transmission, identification crystals, and modern magical infrastructure.

Many of the bizarre conveniences Damian kept encountering, things that looked hilariously advanced beside horse carriages and swords, traced back directly or indirectly to Junpei’s work.

Damian glanced toward his own Guild Card.

”...That explains so much.”

Selene laughed.

Each major Otherworlder had created an era.

But more importantly...

Each one had changed Valoria most dramatically after reaching the Legend levels.

That was the part Roland had been building toward.

.....................

By the modern era, the original supercontinent of ancient Phantasia no longer existed as one continuous landmass.

The world now possessed five major continents, and across them stood more than thirty-three kingdoms and empires officially recognized both politically and through the Valorian Overworld System.

Some were ancient, some enormous, and some possessed histories stretching back longer than Rastia Kingdom had existed as an idea.

As for the current Rastia Kingdom though, it was young in comparison, far too young.

It was one of the newest officially recognized kingdoms and remained developmentally behind many older powers.

”That isn’t because our people are incompetent. We simply possess less accumulated foundation.” Roland clarified.

Fewer ancient institutions, inherited artifacts, high-level bloodlines, infrastructure, and most importantly...

No Divine Spirit had originated from Rastia, not one.

Heck, the entire kingdom possessed fewer than ten Legends in total!

Damian glanced between Roland and Selene.

”So where do Legends actually live?”

Roland gave him a confused look.

”Wherever they want.”

Damian paused.

”...That’s it?”

Selene laughed. ”Did you think there was a Legend continent?”

”Honestly? Maybe.”

Apparently, there wasn’t a secret sky realm, legendary mountain where everyone above Level 20 received free property, nor magical plane reserved for people who had become too powerful for normal society.

Legends had always lived among ordinary people.

Some ruled kingdoms, some taught the next generation, some disappeared into forests, some managed organizations, and some even spent their time babysitting suspiciously fast-growing Otherworlders.

Selene smiled at Damian, but he ignored her with twitching lips.

The problem was not where Legends lived.

The problem was what happened when several thousand people capable of doing what Damian had just done decided they had arguments.

Roland stopped walking, his claws gesturing toward the frozen crater.

”Imagine this in Rosewood Town.”

Damian’s amusement disappeared.

”Now imagine another Legend answers, seeking revenge or glory. Then another Legend and their allies join. Then someone’s full power attack misses, or someone’s defense redirects a spell. Imagine if someone becomes angry enough to stop caring about collateral damage.” Roland continued.

Damian looked around.

One upcast had erased a massive section of forest, and he was merely an Adept borrowing Legend-level output!

A proper Legend could probably do things like this repeatedly.

”Winona’s era taught the world that lesson rather thoroughly.” Selene remarked with a shake of her head.

”Her conquests advanced civilization enormously, but the conflicts surrounding that period also killed countless people and destroyed territory on a scale modern kingdoms would consider unforgivable.” She added grimly.

Eventually, the rulers, institutions and surviving Legends agreed that unrestricted power at that level could no longer be treated as a personal matter.

A new law was established, and every individual who crossed into the Legend ranks had to register through a World Stone, registering with the Valorian Overworld System itself.

And during that registration...

They undertook an ’Oath of Restriction’.

Damian’s eyes narrowed. ”What does it stop you from doing?”

”Nothing absolute.” Roland replied slowly.

That surprised him.

Selene explained in a faint voice. ”A Legend must still be able to act during emergencies. If a Great Beast attacks a city, nobody wants the nearest Legend standing there saying their oath prevents them from fighting.”

Well... it was reasonable?

The restriction instead governed unjustified use of power.

A Legend could still unleash devastating magic, destroy terrain, fight another Legend, kill thousands of monsters, or even flatten a settlement if some truly extreme circumstance required it.

But afterward...

The Valorian Overworld System would autonomously review the act, assessing the context, necessity, intent, threat, and collateral damage.

Damian slowly looked around the crater.

”...Oh.”

Roland nodded and folded his arms. ”If the use was justified, nothing happens.”

”And if it wasn’t?” Damian asked with furrowed brows.

Selene’s smile became particularly gentle. ”Then the same system that granted you your Levels, Skills, Feats and structured progression can take back what it gave.”

Damian froze, slowly raising his head to glance at them.

Naturally, the Valorian Overworld System wasn’t merely an interface sitting politely in someone’s vision, but was woven into the world’s very fundamental power system!

A Legend who casually decided to erase towns because someone annoyed them could potentially discover that the power they spent decades accumulating was no longer theirs to command.

Damian closed his eyes with a stern expression, his mind whirring like never before.

Roland saw the young man’s turmoil and sighed, his expression softening slightly.

”You aren’t a Legend yet young man, but tonight you proved capable of producing Legend-level power.”

”That means the distinction is becoming less important than you might like.” Roland continued.

Selene nodded. ”And before you grow powerful enough to make this sort of thing routine, Little Damian, you need to understand something many talented people learn far too late.”

She tapped the frozen ground lightly with the end of her staff.

”Power does not eliminate the existence of rules, only that enough power simply changes which rules applied to you.”