NOVEL WEB I Somehow Got Tasked With Managing A Realm – Chapter 22
There were only 18 days left until the battle. I sat looking at my domain displayed on the screen.
My realm had developed considerably over the last three hundred and forty-two thousand mortal years. It was to the point where my realm was nearly unrecognizable compared to how it looked on my last in-depth examination.
To start with, the continent itself had undergone some major changes.
The most obvious of these had to do with the massive river that separated the two halves of the continent. Instead of being practically a straight split to the ocean, it now took a much more curved path through the western section. A small delta formed where the river met the sea and the frequent overflows from the river created a mudflat in the southwest of the continent. The river also split not far from the mountain range taking a horizontal path to the eastern gulf.
While this was not anything too crazy, it would have a major impact on how my early humans would be able to travel. With the west and north sections of the continent blocked off by rivers, their expansion would be drastically slowed.
Surprisingly, my small experiment of forming islands through volcanic activity had actually come to fruition! Of course, the fact that these islands existed was a major risk, as one of the requirements when we first made our realms was for there to only be one connected land mass. The islands had been slowly emerging from the sea over the course of the year, but I had not heard anything from the sheep instructor nor Tatton, so either I made it through their screening phase or they were not alerted to it yet.
Maybe it might become a problem if my humans settle on them, but there's nothing I can really do about it now.
This was a gamble I made when I was first building my realm and before I knew about the severity of the academy's punishments. Even if I wanted to cancel on it, I had no resource points to destory the islands.
The volcanic activity formed three islands off the southern coast, but none had yet to become inhabited by any creatures probably due to their remoteness. This included even the basic lifeforms such as moss.
Speaking of moss, even after all of this time, the moss that covered the continent was unable to spread past the northern mountain range due to the cold conditions. Since the last time examination, the moss had actually lost land due to the desert expanding in the southeast.
I was honestly a bit disappointed in the lack of drive for what should have been my pioneering creatures... or I was until I noticed that a subspecies had managed to begin spreading in shallow waters. It seemed that the small fish would have a new source of nutrition other than phytoplankton to munch on.
Putting this aside, the cherry trees were a bit more daring in their growth which now leveled off roughly seventy feet in height throughout most of the continent. There were two exceptions to this, however: those in the mudflat and those in the north.
The trees in these two areas seemed to split into distinct species. For the ones inhabiting the mudflats, they sported much deeper roots, wider trunks, and lower heights. They closely resembled mangrove trees from Earth, except with the signature cherries that one would expect from their lineage.
It seemed that the trees in the cold north quickly became a bit different than the ones further south. Their cherries were extremely small, their bark was extremely thick, and after observing a fallen tree, it seemed that there was a decent amount of sap inside. These were all adaptations that one would expect from a tree in a cold environment.
Of course, such small changes are nowhere near enough for the trees to survive in the arctic conditions over the mountain range.
Any invader would need to pass all through glaciers and two mountain ranges before they ever even caught a glimpse of a tree trunk, so honestly, this was a great development for my defensive plan.
I turned my attention to the mushrooms.
There had not been any new speciation since the last in-depth examination. Rather, it seemed the mushrooms continued down their evolutionary development for their respective niches.
One example of this was with the giant mushrooms that easily doubled from two feet to four feet tall. The fairy ring mushrooms on the ground pretty much remained unchanged from a visual standpoint, but those on the trees became much flatter for some reason.
In the mushroom world, the biggest changes took place with the poisonous mushrooms on the west side of the continent. These mushrooms became much deadlier and it was even made clear from a visual standpoint. Their slight yellowish coloring on their caps had since become a mixture of bright yellow and purple giving off a warning of "don't you dare try to eat me".
Despite this, the chickens were apparently not too keen on heeding their warning and continued to evolve to eat these spicy fungi. It was clear that the chickens in this region had undergone some major changes internally to deal with the toxins, but it was not something that I could observe from my position in the domain, so I was stuck looking at physical changes. In this regard, they had become noticeably bigger reaching upwards of 4 feet. A sharper and thinner beak helped them pick apart the mushrooms while avoiding areas overly crowded with spores. They also now had claw-like features on their feet to help them dig in the mud to find buried cherries and worms that could help support their size.
On the opposite side of the continent, a group of chickens had decided to make use of the untapped breadbasket that was the ocean and started hunting fish. These chickens quickly spread along the coast and developed to the point where they were more duck than chicken. The quasi-ducks had much slimmer feathers, webbed feet, and a widened and flatter beak. They could easily dive down to thirty feet under the water to hunt for fish, which was not difficult in the slightest due to their abundance. When not hunting for food, these quasi-ducks hung out mostly around the shores relaxing on the beaches and forest entrances.
While the quasi-ducks were by far the greatest change in lifeforms since the last examination, there was another group that was not too far behind: the mountain chickens. These creatures evolved from the predator chickens that once dominated the continent. In fact, they had become much more deadly and specialized over the last three hundred thousand years, now reaching over five feet in height. Yet despite this, their territory shrunk immensely after a chicken rebellion targetting their eggs forced most of the creatures to nest in the mountains up north.
It seemed that a social structure had formed between the mountain chickens in a way that resembled different tribes or gangs inhabiting various sections of mountains. The species became extremely territorial and frequent fights would break out between different families.
The mountain chickens operated on both a daily and a yearly cycle. Throughout most of the year, the mountain chickens would actually be running around the main continent to eat prey in a manner that was reminiscent of their period of dominance tens of thousands of years prior.
Although the chickens that they hunted did develop green and brown-colored feathers to help evade their predators, it was not nearly enough to spare them completely. Their main method of retaliation against the predators lay in their destruction of eggs, but this was useless once they hatched.
Winter being their mating season meant that the mountain chickens would return to the mountains and nest in various caves throughout the range. During the nesting period, the males would run down from the mountains to hunt, while the females would watch over the nests.
In order for them to return by nightfall, their hunting ground was restricted to areas near the mountains, which let most of the normal chickens have time to also mate during this same period. Of course, there were still a few predator chickens roaming around who found spots to hide their eggs, as well as mountain chickens who did not find a mate, but their numbers were relatively small compared to the summer.
Mountain chickens would normally hunt in groups of 3-5 members during non-mating periods, but it was not uncommon to see random solo mountain chickens wandering around further from the mountains. A good portion of these were those who got exiled from their chicken community.
Unlike the mountain chickens which evolved both socially and physically, the fish only seemed to do the latter. A variety of species dotted the lakes, rivers, and oceans, with an extremely healthy and thriving ecosystem being established. A few types of giant fish acted at the top of the food chain- the most notable of which resembled a porbeagle shark in terms of both appearance and niche. These were only present in the warm ocean to the south and rarely got close to the shore, however.
The oceans seemed to thrive the most near the shallow reefs that I constructed to reduce the warm water flowing north. These reefs, now covered in underwater moss, acted as perfect places for millions of tiny fish to scatter their eggs. The large amount of reef area that covered a decent portion of the ocean allowed for fish cities to blossom.
If only I could move some of those fish to other parts of the realm...
I was referring to the lakes.
Some lakes had popped up randomly throughout the continent. Although I tried to make my own watersheds, the uneven terrain caused by the massive destruction when I first added mass to the realm pretty much ruined my efforts and caused these anomalies. Sadly, since they gradually developed after thousands of years of rainfall, they were not noticeable until well after I finished adding phytoplankton and fish. They were essentially giant empty puddles with no life inside.
Not all of the new lakes were empty though. Those that formed as a result of the river shifting or overflowing naturally exchanged life during the process and boasted plenty of fish in their waters.
I was honestly thankful for these lakes- they brought a valuable source of food to areas that might never have had access to it.
A smile slowly appeared on my face as I looked over my realm.
It really has developed well, hasn't it?
It was beautiful; from towering mountains to deep blue seas. Chickens pranced through the cherry tree forests, fish swam peacefully in the calm seas, and mushrooms spread their spoors across the green moss-covered landscape. It was a massive and thriving realm built by my hands.
I made this... I really freaking made something this gorgeous.
I could not suppress the feeling of pride and accomplishment that washed over me whenever I gazed upon my realm.
... Hopefully my future humans will treat it well.
*Updated map!
