Chapter 17

It was complicated but eventually I managed to get the universe to create a kind of cylinder shape for me to stand in. Then at the bottom it extended out creating the one foot tall field with all the plants. It wasn’t pretty but would let me accomplish the quest. I then spent the next fifteen minutes figuring out how to transport myself with a mental instead of verbal command. The ability would be far more useful if I didn’t need to speak to go to my universe. When it finally worked the expected quest completion notice appeared.

Quest completed. Transport yourself to your universe.

New quest. Grow your universe. 105,983/100,000,000

New quest. Create dirt and water for your universe.

Before I really thought about the quests, I marvelled about how much better I felt while in my universe. Being a level six cultivator completely counteracted my atrophied muscles. The energy flowing through my body also increased how quickly I was healing.

Looking around I couldn’t help but grimace though. I couldn’t see anything. The edge of the universe was just an opaque white I couldn’t see through. Touching it I found that it was also hard. I doubted it was an edge I could break. Besides, it would probably be bad if I did break it.

Kneeling down I was able to see my plants. They were completely scrunched up next to each other. There was far less room to spread them out than there had been outside my universe. Hopefully the plants would be alright and keep on growing. Although the worst case was that they died early. In that case I’d get my death energy early but not magic vegetables.

There also wasn’t nearly enough dirt, and the plants looked like they were starting to wilt. Which was understandable since they hadn’t been watered. Which was the perfect chance for me to test the ability to create dirt and water. It took some tries but eventually I succeeded. Sadly it also used up a little bit of my energy. Although not enough to be noticeable.

Quest completed. Create dirt and water for your universe.

New quest. Create a biosphere in your universe. This requires having a full food chain containing at least plants, herbivores, and carnivores.

Well that was a different type of quest. And one at first glance I wasn’t sure I wanted to accomplish. Then I remembered that I didn’t necessarily have to use monsters. I could use something like a mouse as an herbivore and a cat as a carnivore. Although I’d have to find something more useful. Introducing mice that would eat my crops seemed like a terrible idea.

I looked around for anything else to do and decided against it. Heading back out I decided to leave my universe how it was. If something happened and I needed a quick escape I didn’t want to have to spend time adjusting the shape again.

With that decided I went to bed. I’d work on the biosphere quest tomorrow. And keep on working on growing my universe. Hopefully elder Yui would have an idea about better sources of energy by then.

The next morning I woke to a light knocking on my door. “Come in.” I said. The door opened and a team of maids came in and set up a bathtub and clothing for me. Once they were done it took me a moment to realize they weren’t planning on leaving.

“If you don’t mind, I'd like to bathe alone.” I said.

I noticed a couple of them pouting a bit as they filed out of the room. Apparently at least a few had been interested in seeing me naked. Even if they had been ordered that I was off limits until I had fully recovered.

After taking a bath and getting dressed the maids came back in with breakfast. I was a bit surprised to see elder Yui following them. Apparently he planned to eat breakfast with me. This time it was elder Yui that ordered the maids to leave us alone.

“I talked to my family yesterday. We overlooked a few things that should speed this process up. First there is no reason we can’t start with a few herbs to increase your passive energy gain. It won’t fill up a large space but your space isn’t very large right now. After that we can fill in additional space with farm plants.” Elder Yui said.

I couldn’t help but feel like I was an idiot. Like elder Yui was saying there were plenty of powerful plants we could use to fill up the space I currently had. The farm plants had been a good choice for what to do after that. Mostly because herbs took far longer to grow. Especially the powerful ones, some of them could take decades to grow as powerful as the ones in the garden.

“The second idea was that now that your range has expanded we should have you spend time in the grove. Or somewhere with a concentrated group of powerful cultivators. I’m not the only level nine you have access to. There are also a handful of level eights and quite a few level sevens you can absorb energy from.” Elder Yui said.

I looked at the elder in surprise. “Another level nine cultivator?”

Elder Yui shook his head. “My wife isn’t a cultivator. However, her power is equal to a level nine cultivator. In fact in a fight she’s more powerful than I am since dryads have some innate nature abilities. Some of my daughters have also reached the early level eights and the rest are at level seven.”

After I got over my surprise I couldn’t help but feel a bit frightened. Elder Yui’s dryad daughters had definitely wanted to jump me. Considering they were all level seven and level eights that was a scary thought. Even if I was in my universe I was only equal to an early level six cultivator. A level seven was at least ten times more powerful. As for an early level eight, they were a hundred times more powerful.

I was just fortunate that I was their friend instead of their enemy. Which meant it would be the perfect place to collect more energy. Although it would be difficult to control myself around so many beautiful dryads.

“With me there you will be able to gain a massive amount of passive energy.” Elder Yui said, making me rethink my earlier thoughts. With a level nine father standing over me I doubted I’d have any problems resisting his daughters. After all just a wave of his hand and I’d be gone. Hopefully his daughters would also control themselves and wouldn’t get me in trouble.

After finishing breakfast we headed towards the garden again. The guards were upset about me going to the center of the garden again. However, they couldn’t really argue. I was accompanied by elder Yui, and yesterday I came back without a scratch.

This time when I entered the center of the garden I could feel the difference in life energy. That was something I had started to notice the day before. I had also figured out how to turn off the messages telling me how much life energy I was absorbing. Otherwise due to my expanded range my vision would have constantly been filled with messages.

I found myself sitting in the center of the grove. Surrounded by elder Yui and the thirty nine members of his family. His wife generated almost three quarters as much life energy as elder Yui. His daughters generated far less each. However, I was surprised to realize that combined they actually produced more than their mother.

In total I was absorbing 73,624 energy a day. Just over three thousand energy an hour. While I was absorbing energy I worked on replacing the plants in my space. I was tempted to just leave them all inside and just add the herbs as I gained more space. However that wouldn’t be very efficient and I wasn’t doing anything else.

Five hundred farm plants were taken out and the dryads stored them around the grove for when I had room to put them back in my space. They then proceeded to bring me herbs to replace those plants and fill up the new area in my universe.

I was a bit shocked at how much life energy I gained from those herbs. None were as powerful as the dryads. There were some that were close though. By lunch time I had nearly six hundred herbs stored in my space. The last couple hundred had reached the point where each provided less than ten energy. As I continued to put more in my space that number continued to drop.

However, just the herbs I had put in my space were producing almost as much energy as elder Yui. Which made me a bit angry at myself for not realizing that possibility the day before. I could have been absorbing all that energy overnight.

After just over four hours I had to leave to meet Emma for lunch. By that point I was at just a bit over a hundred and twenty five thousand energy. Part of me wanted to stay and absorb more energy. Another part was looking forward to having lunch with Emma. And a third part knew that I’d have time to absorb energy later and it would be suspicious if I cancelled my lunch plans.

Once again I was eating lunch in my room. Also once again the meal was heavy on meat. I wondered just how many such meals it would take before that went back to normal.