Madman’s Retirement

Grant chuckled, eager to see how the young students would react to the inheritances. Grant had not expected Natalie to choose that book, but the more he thought about it, the more it fit her.

Grant had long been aware of how clever Natalie was. His appraisal did allow him to gain a greater insight of people at first glance, and when combined with experience, Grant knew what kind of person she was. She was quick witted and talented and was only a d rank adventurer because she wanted to remain with Dain. She had no intention of moving ahead of him. That was dedication. Adventuring was clearly something important to her, and yet she held on achieving her dream so she could stay with Dain. It’s a shame Dain was so thickheaded. Seriously, Grant had been picking through all his books on how to flirt with people to help Natalie on her quest. Not even lifetimes of experience helped. That would be dealt with in due time of course, even if he had to give him the talk.

Now that Dain had an opportunity to move up in this world, Natalie would not hesitate, and Grant looked forward to the talent she would demonstrate.

Talent that Grant himself could not develop.

Frankly speaking, Grant was not capable of teaching them what they needed to know. He could teach them base to mid-level martial arts regarding their choice of weapons, but that was where it ended. He didn’t specialize in either of those classes.

Thank goodness for inheritances huh?

The thing that makes an inheritance unique compared to your average manual from the same sect is that these inheritances are usually imbued with a fragment of the teacher’s soul. Usually cultivators only do this once they believe they are nearing the ed of their lifespan, or that they will fail the next tribulation, so they leave behind inheritances in the world for people to find and one day follow in their footsteps.

Of course, usually inheritances have treasure. Grant would deal with that.

So why would someone give their inheritance to him? Well first off, the two that they chose had been good friends of his. Some of the inheritance's ho found and others he borrowed. His friends didn’t mind though, as being an amazing alchemist meant he gave them pills that returned their soul to full mast.

Grant found himself back in his divine realm, deciding to give it some attention. He’d already reached the 10th realm by now, so he had enough energy to make more. So he decided to make:

Normal environments.

Of course, he could’ve made something amazingly unique like the mushroom forest, but not everything could be made extremely unique or else nothing was unique. Besides, not many creatures could be like shrooms and live in any environment. A wolf needs prey, and shrooms just don’t quite cut it.

So, he began making forests and desserts, as well as preparing the location for the sea. The sea would take multiple realm foundations worth of energy before it could become a real big body of water. He would have to settle for lakes for now.

Grant wouldn’t tell the two yet, but one realm foundation doesn’t necessarily equate to one item or environment in a divine realm. Depending on your skill you could use the energy to produce multiple items relevant to your realm, or even create 1 rather high value item. However, this isn’t something you teach a low-level cultivator. It’s better to wait till they understand laws and concepts first. Since they would be separating first, Grant would have them travel for the next year as they cultivate, so that they could grow some more before they come back to him.

Only then would he explain laws to them. Another benefit of the divine earth technique. You learn faster, and unlike a normal cultivator's divine realm, needs no laws or concepts to create it. Merely your imagination.

So, within minutes, entire forests and 2 or 3 deserts rose up, with the occasional lake in between, each close to one another, ready to be connected into streams and oceans one day.

After that he began creating life to inhabit his biomes, from (canine) kobolds to screecher squirrels, wolves, sapient goblins, bats, birds, owl snatchers, and more. He decided to stick with lower-level monsters for now. Not only were they cheaper, but they would slowly evolve and grow as he supplemented the biome over time with his mental energy. Even if a cultivator doesn’t go up in rank, beings in living in their divine realm can grow naturally.

They aren’t stuck there after all. They can leave at any moment, and even after a cultivator dies the beings born in a divine realm can survive afterwards.

He decided to create some sapient goblins because their later evolutions, onis and titans, make for good warriors in battles. Onis are not only great with weapons and infiltration, passing themselves off as demi-humans, but they can also adapt to a lot of bloodlines thanks to Raiden and Fujian’s chaotic bloodline.

Titans, as descended from their mythical name sakes, can either evolve from goblins-giants-titans, but can also evolve from golems, though depending on which you evolve it from, the titan in question takes a different form. Creatures with titan in their names are technically titans too, but in their case, titan is not their main race.

They’re great in combat due to titanic size and power and are favored by giants. Just as dwarves almost never evolve into high dwarves, nor elves to high-elves, giants rarely evolve into titans, because they usually don’t go through enough conflict or live in mana potent areas, since many giants prefer living amongst men.

Grant would make draconic kobolds at some point, but he would need caves for that first, which have not been made yet. But he did have space for canine kobolds.

A weird thing, how the two kobolds evolve so differently. Given proper conditions, a kobold is likely to evolve into a bipedal form of dragon, whereas canine kobolds will evolve into Fenris wolves, named after their progenitor, Fenrir himself, though wolves can do so as well. But while dragons can evolve in multiple directions depending on a whim, canine kobolds don’t have to evolve into Fenris wolves.

There are a multitude of monster gods out there, such as Anubis or Horus, Lycaon, Cerberus, etc. etc., who are willing to sponsor canine monsters like Canine Kobolds once they reach the higher stages of evolution like werewolf. And should they agree, the being in question would evolve into a special monster, considered a “son”

The sons of Anubis, Horus Gryphons, Lycan lords, Sons of Cerberus, are all special races of monsters that demand respect because of their high power and status. Draconic kobolds may have flexibility and prestige as dragons one day, but kobolds could look forward to potential sponsorships.

If they could reach that point. They still had to earn it after all.

Realizing that he was trailing off again in his mind, Grant went to go check on his Ursa Honey.

Ursa Honey was tasting honey-based products currently, as Grant convinced him of the wonders of honey on food. Like honey barbecue ribs.

Ursa Gave grunts of approval as he ate it, clearly happy with the taste. Of course, Grant had him eating something else as well.

As a honey bear, there were two different kinds of bloodlines that Grant saw as beneficial to the bear. Bear bloodlines and honey.

Now, one may point out that honey doesn’t have bloodlines, since honey isn’t alive (unless we count honey slimes and other dessert monsters, which stumbles into a whole other issue that is highly irrelevant currently) but the quality of honey and types of honey will certainly affect how the honey bear develops, as does other foods.

Although a honey bear can evolve from a normal bear monster, a honey bear can evolve from other variants, such as sugarcane bears and syrup bears, if it finds a higher revelation in honey. And this works both ways.

Depending on the quality of honey and type of honey, different revelations can be made and thus different evolutions.

If honey induces a hypnotic effect, Grant had seen some honey bears evolve into hypnotic honey bears, even later on becoming apostles to the lord of dreams, whereas bears that find joy purely in the healing effects of honey, then it may become a saint honey bear, favored by gods of healing. The type of honey affects everything.

Frankly speaking, honey beers, honey ribs, honey barbecue wings were attempts to show how well honey can be used to create. Of course, he may end up with a honey chef bear, but Grant had also expected that as what attracted the bear to honey is simply how it tasted.

So, Grant had begun giving Ursa multiple types of honey so that he could experiment and learn which was a personal favorite in regard to taste, and he handed the bear both a cookbook and an alchemist book which he rewrote in the new world. Grant had no plans to share this to the alchemists of the new world, but he did have Ursa read it.

There was one last thing Grant had to check out though, as he began heading to the mushroom groves.

Here the dinoshrooms, mushwolves and shrooms, as well as what few lizardshrooms remained had begun evolving into unique shapes. Some lizardshrooms had started growing extra appendages, while others grew larger, others developed unique forms of toxins, and most did all of the above. The mushwolves were no different, and he’d even began to witness some developing a bipedal stance, while some shrooms began walking on four legs and changing shape.

Regardless of what they chose to pursue, they were all growing stronger. Since they couldn’t die they merely viewed fighting as a way to grow stronger, and death as temporary. And since they had no main evolution path they could hone their evolutions with each death, to produce something that worked for them.

But he wasn’t here for these in particular. He was here for the nest eggs, the ones he really needed to keep an eye on them.