It had taken a little time and energy but Malakai now had some small fish swimming in a pool at the end of the stream running through his office. What had started as a pet project; he laughed at his own pun; was now growing into a hobby. The illusionary glade and wood had been infused with magic to make them real; the cost of maintaining the space well worth the calming effect it had on him. While he could return to the material world at any time; monitoring the spawning was not possible there. If he was stuck, then he would take the opportunity to make things as comfortable as possible while on duty.

He added some reeds at the edge of the pool and considered whether the croak of a frog would add to the ambience or just be distracting. Deciding on the latter he turned back to his desk and the abbreviated list of worlds. Filling and developing worlds was a mammoth task meaning after spawing the Seven dedicated most of their focus on their primary worlds. This left the tinkering of the secondaries to those lower in the heirarchy; people like Malakai. The list he had been given to review after the first observation had been shortened once more as he was tasked to focus in on a subset of the secondaries.

On creation there was a standard ecosystem of animals; fish; monsters and creatures that would inhabit any given world. Any more complex elementals and the main sapient race of each world was determined by the pact. Any races with a natural bias were confined to primary worlds. While Ignis had tried to argue for the idea, you would not find a secondary with the Efreet residing on it. Despite removing one key advantage the Seven all bent the rules as far as possible exerting their will at the point of creation to find others. As Malakai absorbed the update since his last observation the more obvious trump cards were already coming to play.

He crossed M037 off the list. Nero's will must have been dominant while it was formed. Not only was it an island world with reduced land mass but the key race were elves. Since elves would bond with the most prevalent element the combination of elves on an island world would favour Nero. Already, at this early stage, the power dynamics were skewed too far to be worth any further monitoring. Aeon had to be more subtle than most the others in her choices; she did not have a base element that she could increase on a world to make it hers. It was only once he was over two thirds through the second observation that Malakai noticed a pattern start to form.

He made notes as he crossed through a few more entries and checked back over some of the previous entries in more detail. In adding the transcedence candidates from science worlds not directly under their control she had added an element of chance to the mix. It was this, rather than individual worlds, that Aeon had bent to her will.

Humans from Earth; Swarm from Hive and Artificers from Exo were all wildcards who knew nothing of the Seven or their roles. Malakai shook his head as he considered the foolish naming of their home planets. With a galaxy full of thousands; starting with such an illogical naming system would only get confusing. Anyway, the pattern. Introducing new races to their realm had been pushed heavily at the grand council by both Aeon and Thana. The two sisters obviously had a hidden reason but gave enough concessions elsewhere that the other five agreed. Unsure of the secret benefit that the newcomers might give; all of the Seven had an equal number allocated as candidates across the new worlds.

Malakai could see the cleverness of the plan now. Aeon and Thana had not been arguing for an advantage but intentionally creating a disadvantage they could exploit. Five of the Seven had allowed the new races to be seeded randomly at the spawning - unsure of what benefit they might produce. Without any prior knowledge of the system the new races were not faring well. So Aeon and Thana had placed them intentionally on worlds they were unlikely to secure anyway. Others in the group had lost their advantage in worlds that would normally be uncontested. It was a masterful plan but if Malakai could already see the pattern then others would have noticed too.

M142 caught his eye again. With the overspill of the new races a few had ended up on worlds in balance. These were normally the most interesting contests as all candidates had to work as hard as one another to survive. Securing these worlds would be key in the greater battle to come. Malakai snickered as he saw the candidate on M142 had not even left the starting area. His look of disdain changed slowly to one of interest as he focused in to establish more details.

Adam - level 3. Malakai vaguely remembered the odd designation from the first observation. What was he doing though? He had made links to several of the creatures in the starting area and was building something around his initial campsite. As odd as this was Malakai held little hope for much further development; moving past the entry without crossing it through.