I nodded my head in approval as I stared at the five rings. They were perfect, and I wouldn't be changing them. But did I want to alter the planet? I wasn’t sure, and I wanted to talk to Helios first to get his feedback before I made that choice. Almost on cue, I felt a hand yank me back into my administration building.
With a thud, I fell onto the solid metal flooring. “Ow.” I hissed out as I rubbed my head. It didn’t actually hurt. I just wanted him to feel bad for ruining my fun.
“Sorry my liege. I detected you needed my help, so I brought you back in.” He gave me a small bow, but I knew he wasn’t sorry. I could feel it in his voice.
“It’s fine. I was just adding rings onto my capital planet. What do you think so far?” I asked as I dusted myself off. I didn’t have to do that, since I knew that my skin would repel everything. But old habits die hard, I suppose.
"They look good. It adds a mystical flare." As he spoke, he walked over to the windows and stared out into space wistfully. His eyes glimmered as he looked at what I did, and it filled me with warmth. I’m glad he was enjoying what I was doing.
I glanced over and saw the bar hovering right at eighty-five percent. This was a precious resource, and I didn’t want to dip too far into it at the moment. So I would hold off for now. "Okay, Helios, how long will it take for my Creation Mana to regenerate?"
"A standard cycle in the administration room, or a thousand years on the planet in real time, my liege." I saw a faint smile flash across his lips as he gazed at Ouradia that vanished just as fast it came.
"How long would that be?"
"Thirty-six rotations, or in earth time, it would be about forty-five days." He stepped back from the glass and clasped his hands behind his back.
"Ahh, alright.” So well over a month and a half if I was on Earth. God, that was such a steep waiting period. Note to self: don’t blow this on any frivolous. “Anyway, what should my next step be?”
“Well, we can travel down to the planet’s surface and get started on crafting it as you see fit. It would give us both a reason to get some fresh air.” As he spoke, I couldn’t help but laugh. He looked like an eager puppy wanting to go for a walk. Though to be fair I was in the same boat. I reached out and placed my hand on his shoulder, and just like last time, imagined where I wanted to go, which was the planet’s surface.
Welcome to Ouradia Administrator Kairos. Would you like to customize your planet before implementing life?
In the blink of an eye, we appeared on the planet's surface. We stood in a massive forest that was eerily quiet outside of the creaking of tree trunks and the whispering wind that shook the tree leaves. The air here was hot and humid, and it felt suffocating. Furthermore the trees here looked odd. It was like someone copied them from earth, but somewhere along the way they were modified. It was minute details like leaves were split near the top into three smaller leaves, or pine needles being thicker, and curling up like bananas.
The canopy here was so thick that the sunlight struggled to reach where we were, so we stood in the shadows and looked around. But as much as I’d love sight seeing, I had a mission I was here for! So I accessed my planet's status page.
Planetary Status Page
Planet Name: Ouradia
Planet type: Gaia World (Capital World)
Size: 1 (1x standard)
Occupants: 0
Condition: Non-Contested
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
System Name: Undecided
"Alright, let's do this." I brought up the customization menu and selected planetary customization. It would seem that being down here offered more options than it did in space. Was it because I was closer to the planet now than earlier? How did that even work?
Planetary Customization
Randomize
Terraform
Naming Function
Gravity Equalizer
Transmute
Planetary Alignment
[1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9]
With a quick gesture, a map of the world appeared in my vision. The planet was currently one giant continent, but I don’t think that would be good in the long term for things. I wanted stuff to grow independently of each other, and eventually come into contact organically.. Granted, it would be unique no matter how I seeded them.
I selected terraform, and then planned on the shape of the world. For starters, I wanted to break them into two vast continents apiece. Potentially into four if I think a problem was on the horizon. I studied the map for a second, and decided that the best play to split the planet was going to be close to where I stood, so that was going to be exciting to witness.
“Helios, before I do this, what will happen to the plant life here?” I pulled my eyes away from what I was looking at and walked over to one of the closest trees and touched its bark. I’d hate it if everything died because of my desire to change this planet.
“Most likely, a large portion of it will die as the environment changes. A shame really.” He mirrored me, and walked over to a small fern looking plant, and touched it[s leaves.
“Is there a way to catalog everything?” My hand fell away from the tree and I felt a deep sense of sadness build in my chest. I didn’t imagine that plants had lives like I did. In fact, I wasn’t even looking at it like that. Instead, I saw it as a shame that everything here would die and be forgotten. Nothing deserved that fate.
“Yes, but it would take some time. You can either do a scan with the control room, which costs a sizable chunk of creation mana, or you can analyze everything by hand. Both options take time of course.” The leaves of the ferns he was playing with seemed to shudder as his fingers left them, almost like they were happy. But that was odd. Plants couldn’t be happy, could they?
“Ah, in that case, I’ll let the control room do the heavy lifting. As much as I’d like walking around scanning everything, something tells me we don’t quite have the time for that. How do I access it?” On instinct, I brought up my screen and looked through everything.
“It's a few pages in on the planet customizing tab. The second I believe.” He murmured as he moved over to a small vine-like bush that was creeping up the side of a tree.
“Got it.” With that information, I flicked over to the second page and found the planetary scan.
A split second after I clicked it, an orange burst of light appeared in the sky. It dropped through the canopy like a giant curtain and crawled down the length of the forest. It looked like it was torn out of a sci-fi film honestly with how it appeared. But I couldn’t see through much of the canopy to see where it came from.
“I took the liberty of hiding all the notifications while they came in so you don’t get overwhelmed.”
My eyes shot back to Helios, as he was tending to what looked to be the sprouting of a small tree. How something like that could form in a forest as dark as this was strange. But it was trying its best from the looks of it. How thoughtful of him. Maybe he is a kind soul deep down.
“Thank you Helios. How long will the scan take?” I brought my menu back up and went back to the terraform action and started to sculpt. I was still set on two continents, but I wanted something grandiose! A few bays, some water locked spaces, maybe even a land bridge or two! Truly, the options here were limitless.
“About ten minutes for everything to be finished processing. Once it’s done, you should be able to terraform whenever you’d like.” Helios used a rock to dig out the small sapling that he was tending to. Worry was clear on his face as he gently clasped the roots and brought it out of the ground. “My lord, do you mind if I take this back home with me?”
“Go for it.” I didn’t really care. I was just happy that he found something to take care of. It couldn’t have been easy being born to a life where you know so little of yourself. So whatever steps he needed to take to where he wanted to go, he could take freely. I was the Silent Overseer, after all, and I would not force people to take a path.
My eyes drifted back towards the map of Ouradia as I patiently waited for the scan to finish. My idea for two continents changed a bit while I mulled it over. I wanted a north and south pole, as well as two central continents. While I still wanted them to grow independently, it gave me an idea of sorts. What if on both continents I put each race together, and see how they grow? While I didn’t have a control group on the matter, I could still use this for testing. Plus, since I had two more continents, I could still throw some races there and see how they perform as single entities. But we will see. All I had to do now was wait for this scan to finish and then I could start.