"This could really be a tough matchup," I sighed as I made my way over to my desk and turned off the alarm.
The previously flashing red lights that reflected wildly off the giant ice palace's walls ceased with my actions, now leaving my domain in its usual muted darkness. Only the glowing lights from my monitors and the giant screen above my head gave any sort of inclination that my eyes weren't closed.
It really feels so dull after spending fifty years in the Academy.
Darkness aside, the lack of people would definitely take a bit to get used to.
Well, I guess I'm not completely alone, right?
Forcing a smile, I looked back up at the Seedling displayed on my massive screen.
"Yeah, that's a sirin, all right."
While the picture displayed was definitely enough to give a general idea of what I'd be facing, actually seeing the Seedling in person was much more helpful to .
Luckily, she gave a lot of information for free~
I reflected on when the Seedling declared she'd invade , back during the whole toad-induced disaster that happened while I was waiting in line to get my prize. Despite that toad Seedling screaming out that my portal was in the arctic, the sirin confidently declared that her lifeforms could handle the cold.
So right off the bat, I can eliminate the possibility of them being wiped out by the cold, like Levon's initial invasion or the toads. But even if the cold won't kill them, that doesn't an they can actually get past the invader buffer zone.
The portal, aside from being freezing and covered in snow, was located in the center of my both massive and isolated invader buffer zone. As per the regulations when I was first designing my realm, the invader buffer zone was in the shape of a giant octagon with a 500-mile diater. Since I designed it as a peninsula that only connects to the rest of my continent on one of its eight sides, it ant that nearly every direction they went would lead an uninford invader to seemingly endless ocean. Even if they ended up marching directly to the connection between the invader buffer zone and the northern part of my continent, it was still a 250-mile journey to that connecting land.
I opened the calculator on my phone as I thought.
"That's about 2,262,857 chickens lined up next to each other," I nodded in satisfaction.
Honestly, the distance isn't too crazy. Back on Earth, it would be about the distance between Los Angeles and Las Vegas... or Houston, Texas to Dallas, Texas... or I guess sothing like Paris to Amsterdam in Europe.
While it would still definitely take a while to cross, it wasn't anything too major if the invaders knew which direction to go in.
But good luck marching at a normal speed through snow that could bury two chickens stacked on top of one another.
Walking through it was enough of a nightmare; actually getting supplies through it was an even greater hurdle, and since there were no trees or really any source of food that far up north, invaders would need a lot of supplies to avoid starving on their march.
To be fair, the difficulty gets a lot easier in the sumrti when the snow layer is thin. And with the proper knowledge and planning, moving supplies can be made pretty efficient.
During Ruglace's counterattack in the previous battle phase, my humans had a great conveyor-like strategy that worked pretty well, so I knew it was possible.
In addition to that, things were a bit kinder to the invaders once they escaped the invader buffer zone. The path to the second mountain passage wasn't nearly as deep in snow, though it was many tis longer than the invader buffer zone's radius, so it would take a long ti to cross.
With all things being considered, I estimated it would take around 2 months for an invading force to cross from the portal to the mountain passageway, assuming they knew where they were going, the snow wasn't too bad, and they marched for about half the day. Considering the ti it took for Ferguson's army to reach the passage, it seed my estimate was pretty accurate.
I glanced up at the sirin on the screen, "But for you... I really don't know whether I can rely on that estimate or not."
The reason was as obvious as the two giant wings the Seedling had; in fact, those wings were the very reason. There would be no hindrance from the snow if they could simply fly right over it.
Not only that...
A part of was worried they could bypass the passage altogether and fly over the mountain range instead.
I could feel my head throb a bit just at the thought of it; I'd completely lose any terrain advantages that my humans had, and my humans would be completely vulnerable to guerrilla aerial attacks or even just a random invasion where I don't have people stationed.
In the worst-case scenario, they could just fly around the northern area entirely and completely pillage the rest of my realm.
My face darkened as I reflected on that horrifying thought.
Slap!
"No, get it together, . That might not even be possible."
I took my hands off my now-reddened face and slipped back into thought.
"I still don't even know if they can fly in my realm."
It's a question I've been asking myself ever since I was first challenged by the sirin Seedling. And it was for a good reason; the future of my realm could very well be determined by the answer to this question. While I was fairly certain her lifeforms could fly in her own realm, I wasn't so sure it would be possible in mine.
For starters, it was already clear that nearly all of the Seedlings used magic in so form. Logically speaking, it would make sense that flying creatures would use so sort of wind magic to help them out.
But since my realm doesn't have mana, they wouldn't be able to use any... assuming they don't have a mana core, of course.
Even if they did have an organ that stores mana, I couldn't imagine the mana in there would last very long- especially not for flying. For all intents and purposes, I could safely assu wind magic wouldn't be much of an issue for my humans.
"And then there's my gravity."
Mana aside, my realm's gravity was the main reason why I was so conflicted on the possibility of the sirins being able to fly. Flying isn't easy; it takes a lot of energy to fight the force of gravity and stay afloat. Most creatures that can manage it need to be very small and lightweight, such as butterflies and bees, though the latter may be looked at with scorn by the laws of aviation. Larger birds, ranging from a hawk to a condor, have special traits to make them lighter, such as semi-hollow bones.
But having hollow bones isn't sothing I can figure out just by looking at her.
I thought back to my encounter with the sirin Seedling in line.
She seed kind of like a fusion between a person and an owl. Her face was definitely more human-like, though she sported absolutely massive wings, which seed to be fused with sowhat human-like arms. Her legs were definitely mostly owl-like and sported what resembled sharp talons on her feet. In addition to that, her whole body was covered in a thick layer of feathers that definitely seed to be pretty warm.
There's no wonder she's not worried about the cold.
Putting those thoughts aside, her figure definitely made cautious about simply writing off the possibility of flight purely because of the gravity in my realm.
Her body was small, barely reaching five feet, yet her wingspan seed even longer than mine.
I widened my arms and closed my eyes, reflecting on when she did a similar pose to show off while we were in line.
Yeah, it's honestly kind of ridiculous; her wings are probably one and a half tis longer than my arms. It's no wonder she keeps them folded up.
She had the ideal body to make flight possible in higher-gravity environnts.
And it's not like my realm's gravity is anything too crazy to begin with.
If I rembered correctly, the starting gravitational pull in my realm was about 3,72m/s^2. Despite all of the platinum and other minerals I added, I was only able to increase the gravity to about 7.43m/s^2. While this was about double the gravity on other planets, it was still less than the gravity on Earth, which was 9.8m/s^2. That was a big difference.
Even with her big wings, I still doubt she'd really be able to fly on Earth... but if it's on my realm, it might be possible.
It would take a lot of energy and maybe training, but I was really beginning to think it might be possible.
"I guess I need to prepare for the worst-case scenario either way."
As I began brainstorming a few possibilities, I finally closed the sirin popup on my screen and started looking at the display of my realm hidden behind it.
“Okay, it doesn’t look like it’s blown up or anything.”
With the basic glance out of the way, I first decided to check out my islands.
I had three islands in total that I prepared way back when u first created my realm. I mainly planned for them to be a way to allow so of my lifeforms to evolve in isolation, but that was a very slow process.
It’s a long-term investnt, so as long as I’m seeing progress, I’ll take it as a win.
The islands did serve a second purpose, which was to preserve so of my species in case there was a disaster on the continent or if they were over-hunted, but I ideally wouldn’t have to resort to relying on them for that.
I also just have to make sure none of my humans are living on them, so the Academy doesn’t throw a Tier-whatever punishnt at .
Now that my humans had canoes and rafts, such an event was actually sothing that I had to watch out for.
Luckily, it doesn’t look like they made it over here.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I examined my two islands just south of the mudflats. If any were at risk of being settled on, those were the two I’d most expect it to happen to.
Oh! It looks like so stuff did change!
The first island was originally a sort of quasi-duck tropical island. While it didn’t look like the quasi-ducks changed much, aside from a few looking a bit leaner, the trees were another story.
“They really are starting to resemble palm trees!”
During the last battle phase, I could already see a trend of the coastal cherry trees losing their lower branches and beginning to fan out on their tops. It seed this trend was still gradually continuing.
Aside from their leaf structure, it was the change in their cherries that really made the resemblance clear.
The cherries are way larger than when I last saw them… and it sort of looks like they have a harder skin? It’s a bit hard to tell from the screen, though. Maybe it’s to prevent the quasi-ducks from eating all of them?
There were a few other small differences, such as the moss covering the ground looking a bit fluffier than I rembered. While I wasn’t really sure about the reason for the changes, nor did I know the purpose they had, it was still interesting to look over.
It’s all just a passion project, anyway! Now onto the second island… you’ve been busy, haven’t you?
The second island changed a lot since I last checked on it, mainly because this was the first ti I've actually seen life on it!
“I'm not too surprised about the quasi-ducks since they could’ve just swum or flown over, but how did you get over here, Mr. Cherry Trees? Did your cherries float over here or did the quasi-ducks poop them out?”
It was another mystery I likely wouldn’t know the answer to, but it wasn’t a change I was disappointed about.
I always figured there would be exchanges between these two islands because of how close they were. I’m just surprised it happened all at once… I an, there’s even moss covering it now. Still, the two islands look way too similar now.
After resolving myself to spice it up with so other species the next ti I got resource points, I finally took a look at my third and final island.
"... This is just disgusting at this point."
Before I could even look at the details of my final island, which I had originally covered with various types of mushrooms from my realm, I first had to zoom through the thick layer of floating spores that would likely suffocate a person in a single breath if they were to visit.
Unlike the other two, I don't think I'll ever have to worry about my humans settling on this island.
Still, as I zood into the mushroom island, I quickly ca to realize an interesting fact. Despite this island starting with the least amount of biodiversity, the intense spore-filled competition seed to be pushing it to evolve and diversify much faster than the other two. Even just over the last thousand years, there were multiple large changes taking place that I could see- the most obvious of which were the giant mushrooms.
The giant mushrooms were originally only a few chickens tall when I first brought them onto the island.
I think the ones on the island were averaging about six feet tall the last ti I checked, but these ones are clearly around ten feet tall now!
"They're gonna be taller than your ice palace at this rate, Mr. Flippers."
I turned around with a smirk, only for it to quickly drain off my face at the sight of my empty room.
"Ah, right... You stayed behind."
Sighing inwardly, I focused back on the island.
"Seriously, though. How are you guys getting so big?"
I couldn't help but wonder this as I gazed at these mushroom-y behemoths. While the massive amount of spores they were releasing told about their motivation for the growth, I simply didn't know how they could get the energy to support their size.
Mushrooms are decomposers, so they don't get their energy from the sun; they break down organic matter for it instead. I know they've been decomposing each other, but the island should be slowly losing energy, not gaining it.
This was sothing I had thought about back when I first had the idea to make a mushroom island. Since these islands naturally rose out of the ocean over the course of roughly 360,000 years, I was sure its soil was rich with organic matter from old fishies swimming over it. That's what gave the confidence to plop a pure decomposer species on it in the first place. I knew the mushrooms would have enough to get a footing on the island.
I was going to put other species on the island to help the mushrooms out once they started getting starved, but they really just seem more prosperous than last ti... how is that even possible?
It was an odd mystery for . The island was definitely not a closed system, and it should've been losing a ton of energy and organic material; the thick layer of spore floating on the water off the island's coast was enough of a sign of this.
I zood onto the spore-filled water as I was reflecting on this, only for sothing to catch my eye.
"Wow... those fishies really like those spores!"
The surface of the water, which was thick with floating spores from the island, had hundreds of fish gliding across the water's surface to feed on them. Their cravings were even more pronounced on the actual shore of the island, where so fish were even flopping themselves onto the sand and dirt to chomp on the spore layers built up by the waves.
"... Maybe they like those spores a bit too much."
I watched as fish persistently flopped out of the water; they were so determined that they didn't seem to mind flopping over their dead fish friends just to nibble on the concentrated line of spores. As I examined this frenzy taking place, I noticed that a new small mushroom seed to be growing out of these fallen fishies.
Ah- so that's how energy is getting back into the island!
This was one of the fun traits about fungi. Mushrooms have insanely long root structures that extend through the ground called mycelium. It's in this gigantic mycelium network where the fungi actually gather nutrients by breaking down organic matter in the soil; the part of the fungi that blooms into the iconic mushroom shape above the soil is just a thod for spreading spores.
"Those giant mushrooms probably have roots that reach all the way to the beach!" I concluded as I looked over the scene, "But it's definitely not a pleasant way of getting energy."
If the spores weren't enough of a deterrent for any future humans that happen to find the place while sailing, I was sure the hundreds of decomposing fish lining the beaches would be more than enough to ward them away.
It was while I was thinking this that I noticed a particular fish that started to flop back toward the water after filling its belly on the shore. Unlike its fallen fishy friends, this one didn't seem to want to permanently beach itself just for another mouthful and skillfully started wiggling its tail until it could flop into a retreating wave and swim away.
Interesting... maybe this island will create so mudskippers in the future.
I couldn't help but smile as I thought of the possibilities. My islands were doing exactly what I wanted them to do.
I spent a bit more ti looking over the rest of the mushroom island that was still slowly growing thanks to nurous lava flows flowing into the ocean water from the island's interior. It was on the edge of these lava flows where a reddish mushroom was flourishing. Although I spotted these last ti I checked out the island, their coloring now looked a lot redder, and their spores produced a bit more of a visible fla compared to the other mushrooms when they floated into the lava. It was just sothing cool I noted down.
There were a few other mushroom variants that seed interesting, such as one that appeared to have a nearly transparent top, but I ultimately decided to bring my island inspection to a conclusion with that.
"Alright, those islands out of the way, where should I start on my actual continent?"
Things were a lot simpler back when my realm was concentrated in the plateau. Now that my humans had spread around both halves of the continent, actually investigating all of the changes that happened while I was at the Academy was not a quick process.
Obviously, I'm going to check the temple, but maybe I can get a hint about where else to look?
For the first ti in a while, I opened up my Prayer Log on the computer- a feature that let keep track of everyone in my realm who was trying to talk to . Since I couldn't really spare any resource points to help out my humans anymore, it wasn't a feature that I used often, but it was still interesting to occasionally read through, and it had its uses in situations like this.
My eyes scanned over the countless ssages that popped up on the log.
[When are you returning, Creator of the World? Is it not nearly ti for invaders to threaten us again?]
[Creator of the World, I request you send so rain to water our corn!]
[Our village does not have enough won, Creator of the World! Please send so here before I lose my heart to desperation!]
[Please tell the rgos to bring so more of those popping kernels next ti they visit our village, Creator of the World! I really want to try them!]
Everything seed pretty typical for the first part, yet my eyes grew curious at the final ssage I read.
"Popping kernels? Did they finally get popcorn!?"
I nearly jumped out of my chair with excitent for my humans, but my enthusiasm was quickly muffled by confusion. There was clearly a lot of context I was missing; it appeared things had escalated past the point where I could figure things out by a single line.
".... Who the heck are the rgos?"
Map of Jacob's Realm:
Mudskipper Shoutout:
-Yes, the mudskipper idea is from just over a year ago lol. Thank you so much again, Jaba / Mold :D !
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