World Seed_Expansion

by Justin Miller

  There would need to be some kind of screening process… I didn’t want to bring in any of the supremacists. If I did, they were more likely to try and start a mutiny. Maybe I could have one of the Ha’vosh sit in and serve as a lie detector to make sure that it all worked out?

  I nodded to myself at that idea, and sent the plan to Celeste so that she could transmit it up to the ship. In the meantime, I walked around the castle, using my Cybernetic eye to peer through the walls, trying to find someone. When I found Tessa’s mom, I saw that she was watching Tessa and Yo playing together in the courtyard. To my surprise, there appeared to be a small unicorn running around the little girl’s feet as she spoke, a trail of sparkling light following behind it.

  Making my way to their location, I kept an eye on the developments. Soon, a miniature dragon came in and did battle with the palm-sized unicorn, who shot out beams of light in response. Meanwhile, Tessa just continued happily talking while Yo watched in awe. It didn’t take long before I arrived where they were at, and as soon as I did, Tessa whipped her head in my direction. Now that she had stopped talking, the battling creatures vanished into thin air, much to the dismay of a certain slime girl.

  “And? What happened? Did the unicorn princess slay the evil dragon? Did they all live happily ever after?” Yo held her hands together, looking at Tessa in desperation, wanting to know what came next in the story. However, the little girl didn’t seem to pay attention to her.

  “Hello, Mr. Hulett!” She said with a wide smile while giving a big wave in my direction. I could only chuckle and nod, waving back to her as I walked over towards her mother.

  “Do you have a minute to talk?” I asked curiously, wanting to fill her in on my plan.

  She nodded, and I told her what I had come up with. I was including her for this part because I needed someone that came with the colony ship to spread the word, and my parents were a bit busy at the moment. Thankfully, she accepted, on the condition that her and Tessa be allowed to go with us.

  “Our daughters seem to have grown quite fond of one another.” She smirked as she looked towards the two of them, where Yo was tossing Tessa into the air, and using her own body as a trampoline so that the other girl could bounce on top of her. “And I don’t think she’d forgive me so easily if I didn’t ask.”

  I nodded my head again. I really had no reason not to accept them. After all, I knew that she was not a supremacist, so what harm would having an extra druid do for me? “Out of curiosity, have you gotten your advanced class yet?”

  Beth looked at me for a moment, before shaking her head. “I haven’t. I managed to get a sub-class before we had to get ready to leave, and my instructor told me how I should train, but I haven’t had many chances to do so yet.”

  “What sub-class did you get?” Given that we were talking about druids, I naturally became more interested. Her class might hold a secret for future development after all!

  “Element Druid. It’s the Sub-class of the Element Avatar path. According to my trainer, after I get 25% in all of the base elements, I’ll have the chance to advance. I’m still a bit away from that, though.”

  I furrowed my brows slightly, not knowing anything about this class. When I asked her, she said that the Element Avatar was a master of manipulating the elements. Just like how a Xeno-Shifter focuses on transforming, or a Colony Druid focuses on gathering animal companions, an Element Avatar gathers affinities. Honestly, this was sounding like it matched my current abilities fairly well. Especially when she said that communicating with elemental entities was a typical class ability of the Element Avatar.

  Does that make me a cross between a Xeno-Shifter and that class? Though really, I’ve been neglecting my own class abilities a bit in favor of that. Would be nice to have a guide I could reference at times like this!

  Apparently, Beth chose this path because she believed it would be the easiest one to advance her grove enough to allow more people inside of it. And with that being the case, it would improve her chances of being able to choose the colony ship she wanted to get on. If she knew about the Colony Druid’s abilities to have their animal companions expand their grove, no doubt she would have chosen that one instead.

  Anyways, with her agreement we would begin the recruitment process! The interviews were scheduled to start after three days, and last one week. After that, we would be leaving Gerin again to return to Hydra. That gave us ten days to enjoy this planet. Also, I would never have enough time to interview all those people by myself, so Celeste and Sharon are also each taking a Ha’vosh to run some interviews. Between the three of us, we should be able to get plenty of people.

  Or so I hoped.

  “Nya, what is it that your crew does?” In one of my first interviews, a woman with cat ears, fur, and a long tail was sitting on a chair across from me. Though, rather than sitting, she was more crouched down on top of it. She said that she gained a few habits after changing her race.

  “In short, we explore other worlds, and help races adapt to the new system for now.” I had prepared a list of responses to questions people might have, and that was naturally on the list. Maybe I could print this out as a brochure, and pass it to people as they come in?

  “Eh? But what about after all that? You can’t get to every world before they either learn to take care of themselves or die, right?” She tilted her head curiously as she asked that.

  “Well… I’m hoping that those who manage to persevere would begin to grow outside of their own world and help others. Once that starts, we will be able to focus on exploration more.” I nodded my head to the catgirl. “But anyways, what is your specialty?”

  “I’m a hunter, level thirty eight.” She said, puffing out her flat chest in pride. “Strong, nya? I fight with my beasts all the time so that we can improve our abilities. I’d be great as a bodyguard or tracker.”

  I nodded again, satisfied with the answer. Honestly, a level approaching forty was pretty average, since people from Earth had access to NeoLife, giving them five times the ability to level up. “And what’s your view on other races, aside from humans?”

  “They’re neat!” She said with a wide grin. “I mean, we thought we were alone for so long, and then boom, here’s the neighbors!” As she said that last part, she punched the palm of her hand with a fist. “And being like this is fun.” She looked down at herself, and let out a happy purr.

  I glanced back to Bob, the Ha’vosh I brought with me. She nodded towards me, indicating that Delilah, the catgirl, was being honest. “One last question. Do you have any training that would be of benefit on the ship, or will you be requiring some.”

  “Hmm… I wasn’t on any ships in the future, and they wouldn’t let civilians look at the controls on the way here. Does it work like in other games?” When she tilted her head curiously, I had to shake my head. Naturally, there would be differences between things that were only games and reality. “Then I’ll need some training, nya. I could be a security officer or something.”

  Seeing her give a confident nod, I smiled slightly. Well, at least she was someone who matched what we wanted. After dismissing her, the next person came in. This one was a human male, who looked roughly fifty years old, with the color of his hair just starting to fade. When he came in, he looked at Bob behind me, and snarled slightly. “What’s that thing doing here?”

  “You can leave now.” I said with a sigh, catching the man off guard.

  “What? I came here for an interview, dammit.”

  “Yeah.” I replied, nodding my head. “And you failed. Get out.”

  Before he could say anything else, I ‘nudged’ him with a gust of wind, throwing him head first out of the small tent we had set up for these interviews. Unfortunately, responses like his were not uncommon. About half of the people I interviewed on the first day seemed to hold either myself or Bob in contempt. Each one was asked just as politely to leave, before being helped to do so.

  Starting on the second day, less people beg
an showing up. Thankfully, that also meant less racist remarks, so I was not bothered. There was one interview, on the third day, which was particularly interesting.

  “So what’s your specialty?” I asked the same question I had dozens of times to the man across from me. He was thin, wearing glasses on his head that seemed to radiate some kind of magic. No doubt that meant he was some kind of enchanter, or knew someone that was.

  “Ah… well… it’d be easier to show you.” He said, before closing his eyes and holding up a hand. I watched as mana began condensing, to the point where it was visible with the naked eye. It wove together above his fingers, becoming a sheet of white paper. “I’m a talisman caster. Though my class is actually Rune Scholar, I prefer that instead.”

  To demonstrate, he pulled out a thick, leather bound book and opened it up. To my surprise, there was actually not a single trace of magic from the book. I had expected his ‘grimoire’ to be heavily warded. “Hmm, here we go.” He began drawing patterns on the paper, using his book as a reference. After that, he handed it to me.

  The slip of paper was about four inches wide, and a foot long. At the top and bottom were circles, each one broken in four different places. Within the circles were runes, and by reading the runes I was able to tell that they were the design for a gust of wind. “Just put some mana into that to activate it.”

  Following his instruction, I put in some mana, causing the ink on the paper to glow brightly. In an instant, the paper crumbled to dust, while a strong burst of wind spread out in front of me, nearly toppling the other person over.

  “Hah… stronger than I expected…” He said with an awkward smile. “I use Origin Magic to make the paper and ink, specialty materials that are highly mana-conductive. Though they are one-use items, I can put almost any spell I want on them… within reason, of course.” As he said that, he patted the leather book with a proud smile.

  I had to admit, it was impressive. It only took a small amount of mana to activate the talisman, as if I were working with a scroll. That could have also been because the effect was weaker, but still.. “What other kinds of talismans have you experimented with?” I could see him joining the main team, with this level of ability.

  “Hmm… I’ve done some barriers and sealing talismans, but most of them are one-use attack spells. I actually got the skill ‘Throwing Weapon Mastery’ because of them.” As if to demonstrate, he pulled out four more pieces of paper from his inventory, and placed them on the corners of the table. Activating them with some mana, the table was covered by a blue, cubic barrier that was being emitted from the four talismans. Though, as the barrier faded, so did the talismans.

  I’d have to talk with Sharon and the others, but I could definitely see this guy being a useful addition in an advanced party. “Just curious… but what is the book for?” I asked as I looked towards his book. It was definitely not small, and had at least a thousand pages.

  “Ah, this?” He smiled wide again, opening the book up and showing me. “This is my rune guide. I basically spent the entire time in NeoLife trying to memorize these runes, so that I could add them to my journal. I even had to make sure that the journal was made out of a material that blocked out mana so that they don’t activate by mistake.”

  Indeed, in the book, written in a small font, were runes, followed by their meaning. This… suddenly, I had a strange feeling. Is this what people feel like when I do something that has a much easier answer? I mean… he can’t even have half of the rune language here, and it already took him so much time to get it.

  “Uhm… you never considered getting an implant, or buying the language from the Skill Master’s Guild or something?”

  “The who?” He looked at me, obviously having no idea what I meant.

  “Ah… in NeoLife, there was a group of people that sold skills. You should have been able to buy the whole language from them, and they would give it to you in a way that you would directly be able to understand everything.”

  “....But… wait… seriously?! I spent months going back and forth to make this guide!” He dejectedly slammed his head into the table, covering it with his hands. “I could have learned it all myself and just had to pay some gold? Why didn’t anyone tell me that before we left?”

  “Uhm… sorry?” I chuckled, knowing exactly how he felt.

  Chapter 58 - A Date and a Discovery

  After five days, I had managed to acquire twenty people from the interviews that would be joining the crew. From what Sharon and Celeste said, the two of them together had gotten another fifty. It was not really a surprise that more people went to get interviewed by the girls.

  Anyways, right now I wasn’t doing the interviews. Why? Well… this is pretty much what happened.

  “John.” A familiar voice called out to me from outside the tent door, before Sharon made her way inside. “Come on, we’re stopping early today.” Though she said so in a way that left no room for argument, she seemed somewhat happy.

  “Uhm… what for?” It had been about ten minutes since my last interview, since people weren’t exactly lining up for it anymore.

  “We’re going on a date.” And with that, she left the tent.

  Thus, right now I am in one of the high elf cities, accompanied by Sharon. When she said we were going on a date, I had half expected Yin to be coming with us. However, Sharon told me that they had worked it out, and Yin would have her turn tomorrow. At the moment, we were sitting at a large restaurant, having a frosted dessert in the shape of a pyramid. It was surprisingly sweet, and tasted like a mix between apples and strawberries.

  “Are we doing the right thing?” Sharon finally asked.

  “What do you mean?” Was she talking about the date? We had pretty much come straight here after arriving in the city, so I didn’t exactly see what could be right or wrong about it yet.

  “With what we do. On the ship, I mean.” She had a conflicted expression on her face as she clarified.

  “We’re saving worlds, aren’t we? Not really sure how that could be considered wrong.”

  “We’re saving some, yeah. But how many are we missing? So far, we’ve been at this for over a year, and we’ve managed to actually save only two races. I’m not counting the robots, since they might destroy themselves with what we gave them. But in that time, how many races might have been wiped out because we weren’t there?”

  I reached over, putting a hand on top of hers. “Sharon, we can’t be everywhere at once. You know that, so what’s wrong?”

  “I just…” She looked up at me, with a somewhat sad expression. “I want to do more. I know I came with you as more of an impulse decision, but being out here, saving people… I want to do more to help. I know it probably seems silly, right? I mean, what more could there be than saving entire races from extinction…”

  I shook my head, smiling slightly to her. “You’re right, it is a bit silly. Come on, you help me out all the time. I’m not sure where I’d be right now if not for you.”

  At that, Sharon could only grin. “Probably sleeping with Yin, Yang, and Celeste. But seriously, John. I want to be able to help more… But I just don’t know how. No matter what we do, it feels like it’s not enough, knowing that for every race we save, five die because we couldn’t be there.”

  I nodded, thinking about her words. “I understand. But again, there’s not much we can do about it that we aren’t already. The technology to travel faster doesn’t even exist yet. The materials to make it don’t even exist.”

  She sighed, understanding but obviously not happy that I was right. “I know… hopefully we aren’t the only ones doing this.” Suddenly, she lightly slapped herself in the face. “Sorry, I invited you out here for a date, then went all mopey on you. This is supposed to be a happy day, so let’s be more happy about it. We can worry about that other stuff some other time.”

  Saying that, she quickly got up and dragged me out of the store. As for the bill… well, Maeve told us that she’d take care of any
expenses we had while here, since there was no way we’d have their currency. Our next stop surprised me, because I soon found out that Gerin had a facility similar to old movie theaters of Earth. Though they weren’t using holographic videos, it was still rather enjoyable.

  Unfortunately… the movie itself left me somewhat depressed. It was a dramatic retelling of our adventures to save Gerin. In it, I was portrayed by a particularly muscular elf, and several facts were… altered. For instance, rather than cautiously destroying the monsters from orbit, in the movie I bravely fought toe to toe with a dragon. Dragons are scary, you know?

  After the movie, we continued to wander around for a little while without running into anyone we knew. Sharon was back to her cheerful self in almost no time at all, making it seem like the talk from before had never happened. To finish off our date, she even told me something that surprised me quite a lot.