Instead of asking for help and making the wisp even more irritated, Gem tried to figure it out himself. He just needed to find the context clues.

Gem surmised he likely needed an unaligned Heart for each mob. He vaguely remembered Chesu mentioning once that Hearts were really called Mob Hearts, even though they were used for Pylons as well. If he assumed it were the same as creating a Pylon, he’d need to create the Heart and then transfer the image of the creature over the heart.

But how would that work with the Plantling? Each one was different.

Perhaps I will get to decide. Maybe the system doesn’t randomize appearances, but I can choose different colors or shapes depending on what I need.

Gem created a new unaligned Mob Heart. When he was finished, he noted that his mana was getting a little full again, so he dumped some of it into generating stone blocks. When that was done, he tried making his first Plantling.

For a long moment, nothing happened. He was just staring between his menus and the floating unaligned Mob Heart. Gem shifted his gaze back and forth, trying to get the world to do what he wanted.

It felt hopeless.

Futile.

When he was about to give up hope and ask Chesu for help, the Heart suddenly shrunk down. Drastically. It became encased in twigs and vines in the shape of a humanoid body. Gem had designed this particular Plantling to have two legs, two arms, and a head made of a brilliant violet flower. Its eyes were all a vibrant green like fresh grass.

The small creature blinked as it looked around.

Gem had tried to keep his mental voice calm and friendly. But regardless of his efforts, the little Plantling whipped its head around, moving the flower as if it were trying to lay its dozens of eyes on the source of the sounds.

The little Plantling’s eyes immediately locked in on the Core Room. It walked forward a handful of uneasy steps, and then suddenly was bounding across the room on legs that seemed to move faster than the wind.

Gem followed the creature and saw that it stopped at the edge of his Core Room, peering inside.

The creature seemed to pause as if considering Gem’s question. After a moment it threw its arms up in the air and let out a high-pitched, wordless shriek: “AAAAAAAAAAAAIEEEEEEEEEE!”

Hm. Gem really didn’t know what to make of that. Was the shriek its way of communicating? Was it angry or upset?

The creature didn’t seem to be in any sort of discomfort. Instead, it curiously perused Gem’s Core Room as if there were more inside than an odd crystal inside a curved metal stand.

But if Chesu could name him Gem...

The Plantling looked directly at Gem’s core and made another wordless cry. It seemed… pleased.

He sent the Plantling an image of a gem with a friendly smile spread across its surface.

Gem wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but he felt accomplished. After setting Shriek up at a generator, Gem went about creating the Plantling some friends. Screech, Squawk, Bellow, and Roar were similar in design to Shriek, but he made sure each one had slightly different design elements.

Bellow was by far his favorite. The little Plantling was made almost entirely of vines, and its limbs moved free of rigidity. It seemed the creature flexed its lower vines to be able to walk upright on them, but it seemed to prefer gaiting around on all fours. The vibrant pink flower that acted like its head had wide petals and its eyes were pitch black.

Each Plantling was set up at its own generator. It took a while for Gem to explain to Shriek how to use the menus, but once it figured it out, Shriek was able to teach the other Plantlings with ease. They weren’t as quick at generating blocks as Gem was, but because there were five of them, the amount of blocks produced was quite decent.

As they worked, they screamed at one another. While annoying at first, it quickly became background noise as Gem focused on his own generator.

Together, he and the Plantlings had created well over four stacks of cobblestone and it seemed to be somewhere around mid afternoon.

All in all, Gem was pleased with what he had done. It was a veritable operation, and one he felt had a chance at actually doing what they needed.

But the wisp was gone.