Once I was aware again, I decided to make a habit of checking my mana levels before did anything else.
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I wasn't the best at maths but I guessed I hadn't been out of it for as long this time, less than a quarter of the time in fact. Barely able to contain myself as I felt I was finally doing something, I began to focus on Modify Terrain and my suroundings. Stopping myself at the last minute, I decided to use Matter conversion instead.
I discovered that it would automatically use the mana it converted to claim the space it freed up. I decided to leave any rocks that contained precious stones or ore. Leaving them cost more mana to claim but after I could move them around my territory at an almost negligible cost. The more common ores were distributed at ground level with copper at the front and as they went towards the back, tin and a couple of iron veins. The rare ores were along the rear most walls at varying heights. If someone came to mine them, they would have to work for it.
One ore I placed almost exclusively on the ceiling: a rare combination of lightstone and electrum often called Dawnsteel since it gave of light similar to the sun at dawn and generated a small amount of heat. Incidentally I also found one called Duskiron that was a mix of moonstone and mythril, there wasn't much and I quite liked the look of it so I fashioned a holder for my core from it. That it would draw Ether towards itself was an added bonus.
Since it measured my territory in volume claimed not area covered, I made it roughly oval with a somewhat domed ceiling with the highest point at the back. Starting halfway around the edges of the room I made several smaller caves with very small openings between 30cm to anound 1m connected to the main room at uneven intervals and heights. In the larger caves I made freshwater springs fueled by ambient mana that would flow through the connecting tunnels without blocking them completely. The smaller caves had small pools along the edge filled by runoff from the larger ones.
In the main cavern, the small streams would collect into 3 rivers meeting in the middle of the front half of the room to form a deep lake. In the bottom of the lake I placed a single vein of Dawnsteel causing small amounts of mist to rise and form small clouds above the back of the cavern. Using the lakeside as a divider, I populated the front with small bushes and the occasional small spindly looking tree. After the lake the trees began to be closer together and changed into larger, healthier looking trees. The bushes also changed to more fruit bearing varieties.
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In the center if the middle river, I placed a weeping mulberry tree that I altered to collect various energies including ether, life and elemental into its fruit. I then lightly scattered seeds and spores of all the varieties of herbs and fungi the system gave me before boosting the growth of all plants. Altering the Mulberry had given me an idea, so I boosted it's growth some more till it was around 150-200m wide and hollowed out as much of the trunk as possible without killing it. Inside would be a more trap and puzzle focused area like from an old game I played as a kid in order to protect my core. It would also lead to any future floors I made.
In all, that had cost all the mana from converting the space originally and around 12,500 of my own. Nearly half of That was spent on the mulberry tree alone and another 2,000 on increasing the plants overall growth. Using the last 14,000 I started populating my forest. I started with all number of flying and crawling insect that would survive, making sure there was an abundance for my Gnolls.
Then I moved onto small animals like mice, rats and rabbits. I placed a few pairs of each in the smaller caves along the sides, implanting the knowledge, hopefully more gently that the System did to me, that though they could freely enter and leave the main cavern as they wished and that the other paths were strictly off limits. I then repeated the process with small lizards. The larger caves were housing the larger mammals such as foxes and deer.
Observing them for a few moments to gauge the limits of their sentience, I was somewhat surprised. Though they could take care of themselves, it appered as though they had no sense of danger. Foxes just walked right up to rabbits and mice with out hiding and one by one carried them off.
Picking one pair of each animal I decided to give them a manastone without designating an anchor point. Imeadietly most started to corral the rest of their kind back to the vicinity of their caves. Those that didn't paired of and avoided the rest of their kin.
Scattered around the main cavern I spawned some boarlike creature with thick, rough scales like crocodile. They also had a second set of tusks and unlike a regular boar, both sets butted downwards before one set curved around the front like a mammoths. The System called them a Western Plains Boar and said they have high strength and vitality but the lowest mental attributes of all creatures.
First I changed their scales from a red and tan pattern to an dark, mottled green on their protruding scales With a lighter olive green on their softer undersides. Then I worsesend their eyesight and sharpened their tusks. Afterwards I decided to give a stone to each of them after which they became increasingly territorial to each other. A few even picked fights with rocks and trees.
Having ran out of mana I decided to practice actively boosting my Ether Conversion until I had enough for my Gnolls And Imps.