World Seed_Expansion

by Justin Miller

  As the vision faded, I nodded towards Sharon. “Looks like their physical defense isn’t that great. Though, the fight was too fast to see if they have any other tricks.”

  Sharon nodded with a slight smile. She then turned and spoke to Bob. “We’ve killed one of the mist walkers now.” Just as she finished talking, the little fluff ball of doom arrived like a blur in front of her, and sat obediently by her feet. The blood coating its horn reminded me of my own unfortunate encounter with these creatures early on in my adventure.

  “Ah… thank you.” Bob shook his head. “Is it fine to... inspect the... body?”

  I could imagine that it would be hard to trust the words of a total stranger, no matter how hard the times were that your people were in. So naturally, I nodded my head and led the way to where the battle had taken place, with Celeste’s help. As we approached, it seemed that the creature had vanished. However, the smell of blood was still in the air, so I used a little bit of mana to disperse the mist around the body, revealing it for the others to see.

  So it is a passive skill, and it works even when they are dead. I was starting to get interested in the abilities of these mist walkers. If I could study one, and figure out how they worked, I should be able to add their stealth power to my arsenal. Maybe even adjust it like I did with the mana leech and mana breath aspects, if that is possible.

  So, while Bob knelt down to inspect the body, I casually sent my Mana Sense through it to study its aura. After a few moments, I could hear them talking to each other, but I felt it was more important to take care of this right now, so I let Sharon handle the talking. Within five minutes, I had completely memorized the aura of this mist walker.

  “John?” Sharon glanced over at me, snapping me out of my focus.

  “Hmm?” I looked over to her curiously.

  “We just got a report that two more mist walkers were found and attacked not far away.” Sharon sighed and explained, realizing that I had not been paying attention at all to what they were talking about. “One of the rabbits died. Looks like they aren’t all so easy to kill.”

  “Ah…” Celeste, how did it manage to kill one of Sharon’s rabbits?

  The AI responded after a fraction of a second. “Mostly a lucky shot. The rabbit was in the middle of a big jump and leapt right into its blade arm. Given their speed…. It pretty much cut itself in half.”

  I winced a bit as I heard that. Death by running too fast. Well, at least it was quick? Okay, even I’m cringing at how bad that pun was. “Alright.” I turned to look at Bob. “Do you have any way to teach the languages to your people? Psychic transfer or anything like that?” Man, that would be convenient.

  “Yes. We have… something that can… take care of it.” Bob shook his head again. Man, it was starting to get really annoying trying to remember that shaking his head meant yes.

  “Good. I’m going to set up a temple for you guys. That way, you can start working on getting your classes.” I looked around, seeing the fog on all sides. “Where would be a good place to put it?”

  “You… are standing in the street. So… not there. Back where you appeared…. Two kilometers south. Outside the city. Out of the way.” He took his time to slowly answer, of course.

  “Understood. We’ll go get started on that.” I nodded, and then headed off to the south with Sharon, leaving the Ha’vosh to communicate telepathically behind us.

  “Well… that went better than planned.” Sharon gave me a small smile, expanding her own anti-mist area. Hers was only roughly ten meters wide, but that was plenty to hold the two of us.

  “True… By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask something. And since we’re walking for about a mile, I’ve got time now.”

  “Hmm?” She raised a curious brow, leaning in to listen to what I wanted to ask her.

  “Well… it’s been a year now, at least. You’ve had your animal companions just as long as I have, pretty much. And both of mine already evolved to humanoid forms. I was wondering why yours haven’t seemed to have gotten that far yet?”

  “Ahh..” Sharon grinned playfully, grabbing my arm. “They have. I’ve got a couple of dozen that can go humanoid by now.” The number made my eye twitch slightly.

  “A couple… dozen…? How come you never told us?” She had only ever called out animals in the earlier evolution stages, so I was sure that she had been stopping them from evolving to a human form or something.

  “Nobody ever asked.” She shrugged slightly. “They stay in my grove to serve as elders for their races. Some even started families, though we haven’t seen the results of that yet.”

  I nodded my head. What she said made sense, as the evolved animals are part of a ‘clan’, so would want to stick around and help their own people. “Still, thought about introducing some to serve on the Ariadne?”

  Sharon seemed to think about it for a moment. “I think some of the rabbitkin would be good for the tavern. Bunny girl maids, you know?” She winked teasingly at me as she said that. Though I had to admit, she was right. “As for other positions, they don’t really have any training. Maybe I’ll send some over to Celeste when we get back so that they can be trained for the easier positions?”

  I nodded again. “Alright. I think it’d be good for Yo and Yang to meet them too. Did any of yours become demi, or did they all take the long path?”

  “Hmm..” She closed her eyes and focused. “I’ve got three demis. Two from the rabbit tribe, and one from the wolves. If I’m measuring them right, I should be getting another one soon from the snakes. I planned to train all of the demis as druids, since they already have Nature Magic, and most of them can already cultivate.”

  “That works. It’d be good to see new faces around the ship every now and then. And you haven’t gotten any new species in a while, have you? Not since we did your divine quest.”

  “I know… I really want some fish, now. I’ve got birds, wolves, snakes, but no fish. I’ve even got a whole water planetoid waiting for if I come across any good ones.”

  Well, that seemed pretty random to me. I mean, even if she gets fish, when will she use them? Land and air animals are easy to use for combat, tracking, or a variety of other purposes. But unless we arrive on a mermaid planet, there really won’t be much use for fish.

  “You’re thinking that fish are useless as animal companions, aren’t you?” Sharon looked to me with a wry smirk.

  “Uh… maybe?” Guess there’s a reason that I don’t have poker face or bluff as one of my skills.

  “Well… you’re right. I don’t really want them for combat potential or anything like that. Though it would be cool if I happened to evolve a water dragon from a little fish. But actually… I’ve had this quest for ages now. Get a species for every climate. I’ve gotten forest covered in spades. Mountain was covered by the boulder lizards. Giant armadillos live underground, so I got caves. Wolves kind of count for plains as well, so that one is covered. Some of my wolves evolved along an ice path, so I have tundra. A couple of rabbits went fire, so I have desert. All I’m really missing is a water animal.”

  “Huh.. what’s the reward for your quest?” I glanced over to her curiously. I can understand why she never brought it up. It’s basically just a quest to do in the background while you do other things.

  “Supposedly, a Colony Druid special ability. He was a bit vague about it.” Sharon shrugged her shoulders as we continued walking. “Said it’d be a special ability that would be more effective the wider variety of creatures I had in my grove.”

  “He as in… our original druid trainer?” I asked, and Sharon nodded her head. “Wow, you’ve had this quest a while.”

  “I know, right? I want to finally get rid of it. At this rate, I’d be happy to just have a pair of goldfish.” She chuckled under her breath as we approached the site where we’d be building the Ha’vosh’s first temple.

  In front of us, there was a slight disturbance in the mist, and I quickly shot out a stone spike with Earth Manipu
lation. As we got closer, I saw the body of another mist walker that had apparently not gotten out of our way fast enough. “Well, we’ll see if they have any interesting aquatic wildlife on this planet. Maybe we can catch you something before we go back.”

  Sharon grinned teasingly again. “You mean before we go back and you introduce both of your girlfriends and your daughter to your parents?”

  “Please.. Please no… Don’t say it like that… it’s totally accurate, but still…” I could feel a headache already forming, and it wasn’t because of a psychic broadcast.

  Chapter 47 - The Shadow Realm

  Building the temple this time was a rather simple procedure. The building itself came up pretty quickly, and the only part that actually took some effort was the creation of the three statues. There was only one god in Celeste’s data that actually looked like a Ha’vosh, and that was Krom, the god of the Ha’vosh. But… we needed three, so two other gods were also represented.

  The second god l chose to depict was the god of psychics. This one was… interesting. I had never even heard of a race like this. According to Celeste, they were called the Balorul, and are very rare among most inhabited worlds because they require a vastly different atmosphere in order to live. The ones that do co-exist with others do so with the use of large glass tanks that they move around with. Anyways, Krylor was a creature that looked like a giant brain, with tentacles coming out of the bottom. At the bottom of the brain, between the left and right hemispheres, it was able to open up and reveal a large mouth full of teeth. From Celeste’s information, the Balorul were a parasitic race that latched on to the heads of other creatures and devoured their brains.

  The last god for this temple was Narlom, the god of time. Celeste didn’t actually know what race he belonged to, as there were not many references to his origins in NeoLife. However, his appearance seemed mostly human, aside from having only three fingers and a thumb on each hand. A popular theory with this god was that he was from a long extinct race, thus it was impossible to trace what he was.

  Out of all three of them, Krylor undoubtedly took the longest to complete. Not only because of his unusual shape, but because I had to try to get his tentacles arranged in such a way that they would support the weight of his body. I probably could have done a spell array to make him perpetually float…. But I wasn’t confident in taking that cheat method.

  You have my thanks, druid. Also, Malthan says to pray more often.

  I wasn’t quite sure who that came from, but from the positioning of the window, I will assume it came from Krom. I gave a slight nod to the statue, and then walked out of the building. Outside, Sharon had the perimeter surrounded. I had somehow thought that the twenty cultivator rabbits she showed earlier were all of the ones that she had from that species, but now I saw over sixty surrounding the temple, each with their own little bubble repelling the fog.

  “Ah, you’re done now, John?” Sharon looked back at me with a smile.

  “Yeah… take it you had quite the reserve of rabbits left.” I took a glance around and the fluffy defensive line.

  Sharon giggled, nodding her head. “I had Priscilla mobilize her forces, and promised her a juicy carrot once we got back to the ship.”

  “Uh huh.. And which one is Priscilla?” I looked at the rabbits, expecting to find a demi among them.

  “Ah, she didn’t come out herself, but if you want to meet her…” Sharon closed her eyes for a moment, and before I could say anything, a blue and white light was shining from her chest. The light then gathered together in front of her, and formed into a young girl. She seemed to be in her late teens, with a petite chest and wide red eyes. Atop her head was a pair of long, fluffy rabbit ears, and an eight inch horn was sprouting from her forehead. However, what surprised me the most was that she was actually wearing maid clothes.

  Priscilla gave a light bow, smiling to me. “Pleasure to meet you. I’m Priscilla. Mistress has put me in charge of her magic rabbit squadrons.”

  I raised an eyebrow curiously at that, and looked to Sharon, who gave a tired sigh. “Don’t look at me, she refuses to call me anything else. Then again, Yang does call you Master, after all. Maybe it’s a companion thing?”

  “True… but where did you get the maid uniform?”

  “Ah…” Sharon smiled, looking away slightly. “I… kinda made it myself? I couldn’t help it, they are all so fluffy and cute. I picked up the Fur Affinity, and have been using it to make different outfits for them…”

  I couldn’t help but chuckle at that. I had expected that she would simply ask one of the crew members to make the outfits. Turns out that Sharon’s been making costumes out of rabbit and wolf fur. “Well, it was nice to finally meet you, Priscilla. I’m John. And thank you for looking after Sharon’s rabbits until now.”

  “Of course.” The rabbit girl gave another small bow, smiling a little wider. “It is my pleasure to care for my brothers and sisters.” She then turned back to look at Sharon. “Mistress, if that is all..?”

  “Right.” Sharon nodded, sending Priscilla back into the grove, followed by the other rabbits. “She’s maturing pretty well, the other evolved are all helping each other learn. Back when I first saw she had turned into a humanoid, I called her out to chat and she wouldn’t stop cuddling for over an hour.”

  “And she’s a druid now, right?” I asked curious. since Sharon had said previously that she is trying to lead most of her animal companions down that path.

  “Right. She was one of the first druid animals I trained. I don’t let them form their own grove until after they are able to take on a humanoid shape. That way, they can keep helping my grove expand to make space for the others. Also, by that time they don’t find it very difficult to create element seeds and merge them like we did.”

  I nodded at that. It made sense, because by that time they would have considerably more practice with the elements than we had when we made our own groves. “So, back to the ship, or do you want to do some more stuff down here first?”

  She seemed to be thinking about that for a little while. “Well… they said there was a dungeon on this planet. Want to go see what type it is before we head back up?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Okay. They know where we are putting the temple, so they can find it when they want to. Tomorrow we can give them some more necessary information, and see if there are any other problems that we can help out with.” I put my hand on my ear, activating my comm. “Celeste, Yin, Yo, feel like going for a dungeon dive together?”

  “I’m still busy working on this ship. I want to salvage any parts from it I can before we have to go. Will save some materials from future projects.” Celeste quickly replied, surprising me by denying the invitation.

  However, both Yin and Yo gladly accepted. They went to get in their own clone bodies, while the two of us were teleported to the dungeon entrance. Well… where the entrance will be. It appeared that this dungeon did not have a tunnel connecting to its surface yet.

  “Captain, be advised. The boss monster appears to be in one of the upper floors of the dungeon. Due to interference from the dungeon’s mana, we can’t pinpoint its exact location.” My handy dandy scanning officer on duty sent me a warning, to which I nodded.

  “Thanks. Now… I want to see what a dungeon is like!” I grinned broadly, and crouched down to put my hand on the ground. Instantly, I began absorbing all of the dirt and stone around me, making a slanted tunnel that should lead down to some part of the dungeon below.

  By the time I was done, and my makeshift tunnel connected to an opening, Yin and Yo were already standing behind us. Yin had already changed into her stormbird form, ready for battle, while Yo’s outer layer of slime had formed into a set of leather armor, a large skull helmet covering her face.

  “Let’s go, daddy!” She said as she charged first into the dungeon. In her right hand, a spear began forming out of slime. I knew what that spear represented, as it was something I had made for her after my own exp
eriment with slime weapons. This was her evolving weapon, one which she would never lose. Unlike my bokken, her spear started off with the water element. The initial power was a simple water blast, but she may have upgraded it by now.

  Sharon and Yin also had intelligent weapons, but they kept them on their main bodies, as we did not have the resources needed to bind the weapons to them in a similar manner as Yo’s spear or my bokken. According to Celeste, it would take a special ritual to do so, and cost quite a lot of mana.

  Welcome to the Shadow Realm Dungeon of Alkrax!

  After Yo charged into the dungeon, the rest of us quickly followed behind. I was a bit worried that this would turn out to be another undead dungeon, where the creatures posed an actual danger to us even if we were in our clone bodies. However, I felt like I didn’t have to really worry about that once I saw the actual monsters inside the dungeon.

  In the first room, we were completely unable to see anything with normal vision methods. Thankfully, none of us really relied on normal vision methods. Activating my Cybernetic Eye to look at the cave in night vision mode, I still failed to see anything in the room.