NOVEL WEB I Somehow Got Tasked With Managing A Realm – Chapter 18
Nom Nom Nom
I shoveled another spoonful of amino acids into my mouth. It had been 61 days since I had become a ruler, yet my routine had not changed much- in between classes and training I usually passed the time by watching over my realm.
Today was no different as I looked up at the screen eating the bowl of white powder as if it were cereal.
"You know... this actually isn't as bad as it sounds."
That was a lie.
Every bite made me want to throw up, but I kept going for the off-chance that it was actually helping my muscles.
I tried to feed some to Mr. Flippers, but it didn't seem to fit his tastes. After one bite, the bowl went flying across the room. Apparently, that was not enough punishment for souring his tastebuds and I had the misfortune of witnessing the penguin jumping angrily on top of it for an hour straight after that.
Such innocent proteins were being mercilessly abused... all they wanted were to make him healthy and strong.
Despite the pain in my chest, I still made half-hearted attempts to get the penguin to give it another shot.
Mr. Flippers hasn't had anything to eat since I brought him here. I want to feed him, but it's not like I could make fish with domain creation.
Speaking of the tiny penguin, he started working on making a tiny igloo in the corner of the room. I tried to help him several times, but he continued to reject my help. It seemed he had a vision for what he wanted it to look like, so I simply accepted my role as his personal snowmaker. Plus, I figured that since I made the entire realm on my own, he deserved to have his own project too.
As for my realm, there had been a lot of changes over the half-centum millennium that had passed there. Although some evolution was expected, I did not anticipate just how fast it was already occurring.
Putting evolution aside, the first and most obvious change was with the landscape itself- specifically with the major river that separated the east and west sides of the continent. It had grown much curvier since I first created it and a small canyon had begun to form as it eroded the land. I was already a bit concerned about how my humans would be able to cross the river given how wide it is, but this canyon only heightened my fears.
My future humans would be limited to half of the continent with this barrier in place.
Keeping the humans close together might be beneficial in the beginning, but the major problem was that the area where the invaders would come from was on the other side of the river. This would mean that whatever force my oracle is leading would need to cross this river to deal with them. Until they invented semi-reliable boats, I had no idea if they would be able to cross it.
Yes, it would be as big of a hassle for invaders as it would be for my lifeforms, but I still didn't want them to just roam free on half of my realm.
Well... I guess it's too late now to do anything about it.
Given that I was completely out of Resource Points, there was nothing that I could do to make a path. Then again, even if I could do something, the fact that there were still roughly 300,000 years in mortal time before the competition meant that there was still a ton of time for more changes to occur.
Evolution really is unpredictable.
The fastest change in terms of my lifeforms took place with the sweetheart cherry trees which normally grow to a height of 35 feet and produce typical small cherries. I had no idea whether it was due to the lower gravity or some other factor, but the cherry trees I planted quickly grew way passed that. Each generation seemed to reach higher heights; most of the trees now averaged around 55 feet in height and their trunks became as thick as an oak's. On top of that, the cherries themselves grew too, now resembling something closer to a plum in terms of size.
It was mainly on the east side of the continent, but many of these trees had small brown mushrooms growing on their outer bark. Including these, there were now four main types of mushrooms growing in the realm.
The first of these was a group of the original fairy ring mushrooms that did not seem to change much since their introduction. At some point, a portion of these mushrooms began to grow up the side of the cherry trees and they eventually began to specialize in that niche and yielding the second species. I could not tell whether they were harming the trees or not, but there did not seem to be any notable difference in their lifespan.
It appeared that the last two mushroom species evolved to avoid the army of chickens running around the continent. In the east, they took the route of becoming too big for the chickens to eat. These giant mushrooms were close to 2 feet tall and had a hardened stems that proved difficult for the chickens to peck through. Unlike their fairy ring ancestors, they usually grew alone scattered throughout the cherry tree forests.
The mushrooms in the southwest of the continent took a different approach.
On the screen, I watched as a chicken pranced over to a mushroom with a yellowish top and took a few pecks out of its cap. Eventually, the chicken began to wobble away before plopping onto the moss-covered ground a few moments later with white foam dripping out of its mouth.
Through pure chance, it seemed the mushrooms in this area developed a poisonous adaptation.
Luckily these mushrooms are fairly contained.
I was originally extremely worried when I first noticed the creation of these poisonous shrooms. If they were to out-compete their fairy ring brothers, my humans would lose an extremely valuable food source. Fortunately, two factors prevented my fears from coming true: their location and their fitness.
Unlike the fairy ring mushrooms that were slowly able to build up a tolerance to the colder north of the continent, these poisonous mushrooms only seemed to thrive in the warmer south. Since the massive river prevented their expansion to the east, they were extremely limited on where they could expand to.
Despite their small territory and poisonous body, the chickens were still relentless in their hunger and continued to try to eat these mushrooms.
Another chicken slightly larger than the last showed up on the screen and took a bite out of a similar yellowish mushroom. It staggered, yet it happily trotted away with a full belly after a few moments passed paying no mind to its fallen comrade.
It appeared that an evolutionary arms race had begun between the chickens and the mushrooms.
Nothing from the outside was much different between these new poison-resistant chickens other than their slightly larger size, so I was not sure whether to count them as a new species at this point, rather I characterized them as a variant. The same could not be said for a different type of chicken back in the East.
The heavy competition for food mixed with the massive overpopulation of chickens quickly triggered a change in some of the feathery creatures.
A group of chickens began hunting their brethren for nutrients during a particularly bad famine a while back. Gradually, their beaks began to recede and were replaced with what resembled something closer to a snout containing jagged teeth that excelled in ripping flesh. These predator chickens were noticeably larger than the others and had much thicker legs and smaller wings. From what I could tell, they hunted in small packs as they grew up before hunting solo when they reached maturity. They would stay solo until they found a mate and at that point, the partners would hunt together with their newly born predator chicks and restart the cycle.
Thanks to these predators, the overwhelming chicken population finally started to get regulated and the moss in the area could once again gain its foothold.
The fish developed in a similar way to the chickens with both new predator and prey species being developed in the now phytoplankton-rich waters. There were already well over five distinct species that I could see and I only expected this number to grow. Sadly, none of these were really worth mentioning- they were simply fish of different colors and sizes. This was in complete opposition to the earthworms which pretty much stayed the same throughout all of these years. The only slight change was that the earthworms in the west were a few inches longer than their eastern counterparts.
I think that they are actually helping... I haven't seen anything rotting on the ground and the trees all look extremely healthy. Still, they could definitely use a stick.
With a sigh, I looked back towards the igloo Mr. Flippers was building.
300,000 years to go... there's no telling what will happen in that time.
I slipped into thought as another block of snow was stacked upon the icy wall.
Updated Map
