I Somehow Got Tasked With Managing A Realm

Smack! Smack! Smack!

Roll! Roll! Roll!

Dents formed on the training dummy's torso as Mr. Flippers could be heard playing near the wall behind me.

"You gotta be careful with that thing, Mr. Flippers. Tatton won't be happy if you break his crystal ball thing."

"Squawk~"

Despite my warning, the penguin continued rolling the glassy orb behind me.

"If you break it, I'm putting you in the barrel until we leave."

"Squawk!"

This penguin caused such a fuss when I tried to put him in it before, but I might regret letting him stay out.

We went to the training ground as per Tatton's recommendation following the delay in receiving our prize.

"Hah..." a sigh escaped my lips as I looked at the orb he was playing with.

Man, this is a weird feeling.

Since the ball had yet to turn green, it meant Rynn was still alive. Though I needed it to turn green to move on with getting my prize, I found myself dreading seeing the color change every time I turned around.

Ayla and Rathok are probably long gone by now... hopefully he's doing alright.

Smack!

I decided to silence my worries through training, but like usual, my mind couldn't stay quiet for long.

Tatton told me I needed to get as strong as possible, yet he couldn't tell me what I needed the strength for.

Smack!

A new dent appeared on the dummy which rapidly began to regenerate.

"Telling me to get stronger is one thing, but why did he have to say that?" I muttered with my brows furrowed.

What really had me stressing was his advice to use the time difference in my domain to my advantage.

One thousand years passes at mortal time for every day that passes in the Academy. Does whatever he wants me training for really warrant that much time?

Of course, I could adjust the rate of time in my domain to some value between the two extremes, but even at a middle point, hundreds of years could pass between every battle phase. Training for so long without any idea regarding the reasoning behind it was not something I was willing to do; I wasn't someone with unlimited motivation and there were people who I wanted to see. And besides-

There has to be a limit on how far training can take me, right?

Even when just dealing with my body, I expected there to be some sort of upper limit on how much muscle I could obtain. Sure, I had divinity and whatnot, but I was still a human at the end of the day.

With this in mind, I figured Tatton was more-so referring to obtaining strength through enhancing my skills.

But how the heck am I supposed to do that?

I knew practically nothing about martial arts, so whatever technique I threw together would be self-taught and likely extremely subpar, as evident by my basic swings at the training dummy.

Why are the only weapon options here so basic, anyway? This would be so much easier if I had a gun... wait can I make a gun?

Using domain creation, making one shouldn't be impossible. Although, I only had an extremely primitive idea of how one even functioned, let alone how to make one, I was sure I'd be able to come up with something given enough time.

But what's the point of making one if I can't even bring it out of my domain?

That was both the key limitation and the main problem holding me back from most of my experimenting: things made with domain creation couldn't be brought into the Academy. 

Unless they add something new, only training with weapons already in the Academy would translate to anything meaningful.

I should probably ask Tatton about it-

"Squawk!"

I turned around at Mr. Flipper's call.

"Ah-"

My heart tightened as a bright green glow terminating from the orb at the penguin's feet entered my eyes.

"I guess it's time," I announced while feigning composure.

Rest in peace, Rynn. Thank you for everything.

After tossing the wooden sword I was using into a barrel, I picked up Mr. Flippers who was tightly holding onto the green-glowing crystal ball.

"Come on; let's go get our prize."

"Squawk!"

.

..

...

It only took a few minutes for us to arrive back at the audience hall and start walking to the stage where a familiar face was waiting.

"Welcome back, Jacob."

"Thank you, Tatton. I know I was gone for a bit, but hopefully you didn't miss me too much," I joked as I stepped onto the stage, "We're good to get our prize now, right?"

"Correct. The early completion request was granted," he nodded, "Please claim your prize when you are ready."

"Got it."

With a forced smile, I approached the chest on the left and lowered Mr. Flippers down in front of it.

"I'll let the lucky one handle this. Are you ready?"

"Squawk!"

A green glow emanated from inside the chest as the penguin flung open its lid. Once the light subsided, I spotted a familiar white card laying at the bottom.

"This is-"

"Oh, it looks like you got a lifefrom."

I nodded as I reached down and picked up the card, "It's been a while since I've seen one of these."

Judging by the markings, it looked to be a basic lifeform card.

"You can use it just as you did when you first chose the seven starting lifeforms for your realm," Tatton explained, "I have the authority to approve your selection, so feel free to select one if you have one in mind."

"Alright. Thank you."

A sigh escaped my lips as I looked down at the card in my hand.

I guess it's finally time, isn't it?

"Squawk?"

"No, it's a great prize- you did a good job, Mr. Flippers,"

"Squawk~"

My expression lightened as I tapped his penguin head.

"I just didn't think I would get this so soon."

After seeing the benefits of agriculture firsthand when Uunga invaded Levon's realm, I resolved myself to choose a good farming crop the next time I had the opportunity to do so. Of course, I knew about agriculture's importance prior to Uunga's counterattack, but Levon's capital only served to reinforce what I assumed; the only reason why I was a bit apprehensive about getting this chance was because I knew its impact on my realm would be absolutely massive.

Cities weren't really possible in my realm because of the low food density that the forests provide. Once I introduce farming, this limitation will be removed.

If human history on Earth was anything to go by, the world that I had spent so long building and looking over would never be the same.

Well, I guess you can't have progress without having change."

With that thought, I closed my eyes and focused.

Although I had only just received the card, I had already extensively thought over which lifeform I would choose when this time came. I eventually settled on some sort of grain as my basic lifeform.

Back on Earth, there were three types of grains that dominated over the rest of their peers- each forming a foundation that humanity built off of in their global conquest.

No one could deny the popularity of rice in the East, nor discount the empires built off of wheat in the West, but what I ultimately settled on when debating this choice in the past was the third option: corn.

These beautiful, yellow, and somewhat cylindrical vegetables resting on thick, leafy stalks represented, in my opinion, what was the pinnacle of a crop. In terms of caloric efficiency, utility, and farmability, corn was unmatched.

It also tastes really freaking good.

Even with my personal memories being wiped upon becoming a ruler, the taste of corn still could be replayed in my mind when I thought about it.

Cornbread, chips, popcorn... they are all so good~

Although types of bread and chips could be made with rice and wheat, the existence of popcorn made corn the incomparably better choice, in my opinion. There were also just so many uses for corn outside of food that it was hard to name them all.

I mean, it's even a great source of ethanol. Well, it will be a long time before my humans can figure out what that even is, though."

A faint glow could be seen beyond my closed eyelids as my thoughts were translated onto the card in my hands. Once the glow subsided, I opened my eyes and looked at the card with a smile.

"Squawk?"

"Yep, it worked. You'll love it, trust me."

Still grinning, I walked over to Tatton's desk and handed him the card, and after looking over it, his reaction could only be described as astonished.

"How is it possible for a basic lifeform to produce this much food without mana? It is still simple enough to fall into the basic lifeform category, yet it completely out classes most of the moderate lifeforms of this cycle! It's as though the lifeform was created for the sole purpose of producing food!"

"Well... you're not too wrong about that."

When humans first crossed the Bering Straight and made their way through the Americas, there was nothing even comparable to the lifeform Tatton was now raving over. What they found instead were skinny plants that produced only a few kernels which were protected by an annoying, hard coating. It took thousands of years of selective breeding for these small amounts of tough kernels to morph into the modern masterpiece consisting of hundreds of yummy and easy-to-eat kernels around a massive, yellow cob.

Corn had gone through such massive change at the hands of humans that without being manually planted, corn everywhere would cease to exist. The husks of modern corn trap the kernels together; even if they were to be exposed to soil, the hundreds of individual kernels would compete against one another and likely starve each other out. With this in mind, it made perfect sense for Tatton to be so awestruck; a plant so perfectly tailored to the needs of another lifeform at the cost of its own survivability went against the very laws of nature that life was based upon.

This was not a valid reason for rejecting the lifeform, however, so after checking it over a bit more, Tatton pulled out a stamp from under his robe and marked the card as 'approved'.

"You certainly keep showing me interesting things," he amused while handing me back the card.

"I have a lot more in my pocket, so look forward to it," I smiled as I put the card away, "By the way, I wanted to ask you about what you said earlier. Did you really want me to train at mortal time? Also, should I limit myself to the weapons already in the training ground, or-"

"Mortal time might be a bit excessive, but I recommend training as much as you can. As for your second question, I am extremely limited in what I can say, so let me just say this: training with what is in the Academy may be more valuable in the short term, but your efforts will not be wasted regardless of what you practice using."

'Hmmm... Alright, thank you."

It was actually really good information despite his claim that he couldn't say much.

"If I'm gonna be spending so much time training, I at least want to be able to talk to people so I won't go crazy," I took the crystal ball out of the penguin's flippers and placed it on the desk, ignoring his sad squawk of protest, "Does this thing have a call function by any chance?"

"A call function?"

"Yeah, like a way for someone to talk into one and have their voice come through a different orb thing."

"... I do have some magic devices capable of such, but they would not work for what you are intending," Tatton leaned back in his chair, "To put it simply, they need a solid connection of mana to function. This works fine in this dense mana environment of the Academy, but this path would be interrupted when trying to cross the boundary between domains."

"I guess that makes sense..." I sighed.

It looks like magic has its limitations, too. A boundary between domains, though...

This was something we clearly hadn't been told about, yet looking back, it made sense for there to be something separating the domains from the Academy.

I originally figured we were just teleporting to like a hidden dorm-room type thing, but it's clearly something different.

Even after being a Seedling for over a year in heavenly time, there was still way too much about the Academy that was clouded in mystery. Still, it was precisely because of my lack of knowledge about how things worked here that I was unwilling to simply give up on my calling-orb idea.

"If it isn't possible to cross this boundary with mana, is there something on the science route that could do it?" I asked.

Tatton looked at me puzzled, "Do you have something particular in mind?"

"Well, I mean, can't we just make something like a phone?"

I reached into my pocket and pulled out one of my few connections to my life back on Earth.

"That is your painting-creating device, is it not?"

"... You've been spying on me a bit more than I thought."

"... It is my job to observe. Putting that aside, please elaborate on how that relates."

"Okay, so to start with, although this can take pictures, that isn't its main function; its real purpose is to call people from far away."

Despite not being able to see him under his hood, I could feel Tatton's eyes widen.

"You came from a world devoid of mana, did you not? So how could-"

"We used radio waves instead of mana," I answered, seeing where his question was leading.

"... Radiowaves?"

"Yeah, basically they're these... actually it might take a bit to explain."

Tatton's gaze shifted past me, as if finally realizing how long our conversation was taking.

"I see. It won't be long before we get a wave of Seedlings with the battle phase reaching its conclusion," he sighed while turning his attention back to me, "Do you remember where my office is?"

"I think so," I nodded.

"Then please stop by sometime before your class today. You can bring the girl if you desire," he offered, waving me off.

"Got it. I'll see you later then, Tatton."

"I will await your company, Jacob."

Rather than get off the stage, I spoke aloud after returning my phone to my pocket to be snug with my basic lifeform card.

"Return to domain!"

In an instant, a familiar dark room half-filled by a giant ice palace appeared before me.

"Squawk!?"

"I know, I'm not too thrilled to be back here either."

"... Squawk?"

I lowered the confused penguin onto the ground and pulled out my newly acquired prize.

"I want to get this in my realm as soon as possible to give my humans time to get used to it. There's still a bit of time before Julia finishes her battle phase, anyway."

I made my way over to my desk and slowed down the time to match that of my realm, "Let's see what they think of the fruits of their victory!"

"Squawk!"

Just as I was about to place down the card, I paused.

"... Would it be better to call it the vegetables of their victory?"

"Squawk!"

"Ow- don't peck me! It was a valid question! Okay, okay- I'm placing it."