Author’s Corner: Thanks all for your help in putting World Seed back in the top 50 active stories, #1 Weekly, and Top 5 Monthly! Never thought it’d get any of those, let alone all three! Also, yay for the first one thousand followers benchmark!

Before going back to the game, I did another search to look up any important news. Turns out, there WAS a dragon. Thankfully, so far the only dragon sightings have been in Europe and China. However, they were all but immune to anything short of an orbital cannon blast, which is not really an option until after it’s done eating a city’s worth of people…

There was also some more information about the Seeds, as well. Some people tried to break them, but ended up only breaking whatever tool they were using without leaving a scratch. Even a building demolished by a dragon still had the Seeds within floating in midair, their positions completely unchanged after losing any physical supports. I might not understand the science behind it, but I had to assume that they were physically linked to their own versions three thousand years in the future, preventing them from being tampered with through outside methods.

This of course raised the question of how someone wheeled mine into my house to hook it up. My only explanation for that was blaming magic and gods. Unfortunately, this meant a number of things, including that the Seeds could not be taken into space. Once we left Earth, we had one life. “Well…. there might be other ways to create a life insurance in the game’s network. I’ll have my body take a look once we get back.” Celeste offered up, but all I could think about was maybe clones? Wasn’t sure how it’d work, though.

“Yeah…” I shook my head and went back into the game, finding Sharon still cultivating the Metal Affinity. Although we had pretty much all the metal we needed for now, it was still a good idea to have her cultivate it, so I didn’t stop her. No doubt we’d eventually move up to a bigger ship, so having a supply of metal would be good. Besides, I had seen the schematic being used for our ship… it was woefully under-equipped. There were only two guns! We definitely needed more weaponry if we were going to defend ourselves against whatever was out there.

The mere thought of running into something like the lunar titan with a tiny light transport ship was suicidal. However, since it left without attacking, it’s probably not very hostile. That doesn’t mean any other moons we encounter won’t try to eat us. I made a mental note to avoid Saturn. If any moon was going to turn into an actual titan… it’d be Titan. Knowing my luck, at least.

Anyways, walking through town with the others, I made my way towards the general store. The man behind the counter greeted me with a smile and asked me how he could help, as normal. “I need rubber, lots of rubber.”

He raised a curious brow at that, but shrugged. “Don’t really find it around here, much. Petroleum products haven’t been used on a large scale in centuries. What do you need it for? Maybe I can suggest an alternative.”

I thought about it, and there was really no harm in letting someone on this side know what we were doing. “We’re building a ship, one of the older models to save money.”

“Oh, that so? Well, I don’t know much about that, but if it’s just a synthetic polymer for construction purposes, I can suggest a few places that sell them cheap.” With that, he sent us off to what seemed like a small town Home Depot. There were several things that I was sure were cutting edge construction tools… but I had no idea what they were for. As such, I let Celeste handle the purchases, since she knew how much was needed.

In the end, it cost fifty silver, over half of our remaining funds to buy the rest of what we needed. Still, if that was all that we had to pay to get our own ship, it’d be a good deal. “Too bad you can’t just have one of your pets be a ship…”

Celeste chuckled slightly at that comment as we were heading back. “Well, I could if I keep upgrading my mana capacity for about the next fifty levels, but at that point I’d still only be able to summon one pet big enough to be a ship. It’d be well armed, maneuverable, basically the perfect small ship for a light crew, but it takes a lot of investment to get.”

“Ah… well, that would be a problem. How big is your ‘big summon’?”

“About two meters tall, with my medium sized summons being half that, and my small ones being further reduced to half a meter tall. If I increase my mana capacity to a thousand points, I’ll be able to unlock the next grade of summon, which is about four meters. For the most part, though, there isn’t a difference in their ability. The larger summons have stronger attacks, and can take more damage, while having access to a few more powerful upgrades.”

Thinking about it, I furrowed my brows together while realizing something. “With just four drones of that size, you can’t really do any of the lifting you need to do for the ship, can you?”

“Ah, that’s where I come in! I made sure to get a few strength upgrades when I was synchronizing my aura, so I can lift most of the pieces needed while they do the work. Still, though.. if I can get another level or two, I will be able to get more mana so that I can summon more drones.”

“So… we’re going hunting again soon, then?” I glanced over to her and asked as we arrived in front of the hotel, and she nodded her head.

“It would be a good idea. Since we have more people now, we can conduct a bigger hunting operation than before. If we form a party, the experience will be evenly shared between us. I’ll level more slowly, since I am technically a higher level, but it will help you and Sharon as well.”

“How many levels would you need to get enough pets for the construction?”

She seemed to do a few quick calculations in her head. “Well, I can technically do it with what I have, but it will take quite a while. If I get ten more levels, I can get enough mana upgrades to summon a small army of construction drones. It would even be possible for me to assign a few of my pets as turrets for the ship.”

I honestly didn’t want to go hunting again. I wanted to hurry up the construction process and get out of Earth as soon as I could. However, doing so would now seem to require leveling up first. “Alright, let’s go tell Sharon the plan, then. I haven’t actually seen what her animal army’s like since we met up.”

When we got back to the room(yes, I’m too cheap to buy a room for Sharon, too. No, sleeping on the couch is not comfortable), we told her about our plan, and she was only too happy to go along with it. After all, leveling up her pets would allow them to evolve. When we asked her what kind of animals she had now, we were in for a bit of a surprise.

Along with the birds, wolves, horned rabbits, snakes, and deer, she now had armored bears, giant armadillos, apes, and a pony. Not multiple ponies, just one. Apparently, she keeps it in its own separate part of the grove.

“But… how does your grove fit that many animals?” I had absorbed a massive amount of elemental mana from Legion to make my grove larger, and I still wouldn’t be able to support a population of all of those. At least, not without them being so cramped that they wipe each other out in a week.

“Oh, they helped me build it!” Sharon smiled widely as she explained. “After the wolves and bunnies started to learn how to cultivate, we found out that as long as they didn’t make their own groves, they could transfer the mana that they take in to me. So, whenever I need more space for my grove, I have everyone come out and cultivate for a while.”

Celeste and I both just stared dumbly at her for a while, before the robot girl amassed the courage to ask, “And… how many of your animals do you have cultivate at once…?”

“Hmm… There’s about forty of the bunnies, twelve wolves, three of the birds, and one of the apes that have managed to do it so far. So a bit over fifty?”

She… she cultivates mana fifty times as fast as normal… But, at least doing it that way shouldn’t help her affinities much. “Celeste… how is it that her animals haven’t evolved yet?”

“I… don’t know? Maybe they kill each other faster than they grow? Otherwise, she should definitely have some evolved creatures if that many know how to cultivate.”

I sighed, shaking my head and finding this girl harder and harder to understand. If I didn’t know any better, I’d assume she was the dense heroine of a novel, figuring out impossible stunts as if they were nothing. “Well, let’s go with your wolves when we go hunting. What elements can they use?”

“Ah, just the basic seven. I haven’t been able to teach them how to cultivate metal yet, sorry…” I had been expecting each one to just have one or two elements, and this girl is apologizing because they each had the basic seven…

“Well, can you take us into your grove? Need Celeste to have a look at them and find out which ones are closest to evolving.”

Sharon nodded her head happily, placing a hand on my chest, and another on Celeste’s. I didn’t have her take Yin and Yang in, because I wasn’t sure if the animals would be friendly with them. And naturally, this was my first time being brought into a grove, so it felt a bit weird having my body break down into mana and be transported. Honestly, it felt very similar to the summoning ritual that had pulled me out of the jungle planet.

When I found myself whole again, I was standing in the middle of a pack of wolves who were staring at me. Celeste appeared next to me a few moments later, formed from various strands of light weaving themselves together. However, the wolves did not attack like we expected, but just looked indifferently at us. “Celeste… you have a way to measure them, right?” I wasn’t sure if she had an upgraded version of the Identify software on her Deus Ex body, but even without it we could get vague basic information.

“Yeah, I made sure to use one of my upgrades to get a scanner.” The pink haired girl said cheerfully, taking a look at the wolves while I looked around at the scenery. This was a much bigger grove than my own, and I could even see that there were others in the sky that had movement as well. Most likely, she had far more than fifty druid animals helping her at one point, and they had died off during the regular hunts for food with the other races.

“Okay.. we’ve got three wolves at level twenty five. Unlike the birds, they don’t break through until thirty because they are a low level combat species. However, I think each of them should get a fairly powerful evolution, given that they have decent elemental affinities with all seven basic elements.” Celeste pointed to the three wolves in question. “The rest are a bit lower level, but should be able to evolve just fine over time.”

“Alright, then.. Guess we know who we’re bringing with us for the hunt.” After saying that, I felt that weird sensation again, and found myself back out of the grove with Celeste. Sharon was giving us that same cute smile that she always had, and I couldn’t help but feel like she was one of the scariest existences I’ve ever met.

“So, where are we going? Also, do you know what they’ll turn into?”

Celeste chuckled lightly, shaking her head. “We’ll be heading to the mountains to hunt cliff tigers again. As for what they will become… I can’t say with a hundred percent certainty, since I can’t read their skills, but if they evolve towards their affinities, they should become worldwolves. It’s a rare breed of magical wolves that can control all of the elements. Though, their control is still fairly weak compared to specialized creatures. If they continue down that path, they might turn into something called a genesis wolf, which is basically a druid in a wolf’s body.”

Sharon thought about that for a little while, and then pouted slightly. “Is there any way to get one to evolve into a lesser orthrus? That thing was so cute…”

My mind was still mostly blank as I listened to all of this, thinking about how she had apparently advanced so far down her path as a colony druid while I was still struggling as a Xeno-Shifter. Celeste, however, laughed as she heard that. “Well, if you train a single wolf to only cultivate water and fire, they will turn into an orthrus. They look like their lesser version, just bigger…” The next part, I felt like she added with emphasis specifically for Sharon. “And fluffier.”

Sharon’s eyes went wide, and she nodded her head rapidly before Celeste continued. “Going along that path, if the orthrus trains in wind or lightning, they can further evolve into a cerberus.”

“Ooh…. a three headed fluffy…” I could see a bit of drool running down her cheek as she imagined having a giant three headed wolf to cuddle. Though, doesn’t cerberus have a snake tail as well? As I thought that, I looked over to Celeste, and caught her sending me a playful wink. That’s just wrong...