Chapter 14

All the dryads turned and looked at a dryad that was half hidden behind a tree. Since the tree covered her in shadows I never would have seen her if she hadn’t spoken. I could instantly tell that she was shy. It surprised me a bit. The other dryads were so outgoing that I had thought that all dryads were like that.

“Can you explain Rubi?” Elder Yui’s wife said gently.

“Father said that he can also absorb death energy. When something dies it gives off a large amount of death energy. Equal to several months of life energy.” The shy dryad said.

“Are you saying we should put the herbs inside the space and then kill them? It would certainly be faster but also wasteful. The best of them have been growing and maturing for hundreds of years.” One of the older dryads said.

Rubi shook her head. Although I could barely tell due to the shade of the tree. “No, I’m saying that you should consider other types of plants. I don’t think a powerful herb is the best choice at all. They take too long to grow. There are a lot of plants humans grow and kill after just a month or two.”

Most of the dryads looked confused at what she was saying. I had a suspicion that dryads weren’t the most adventurous species. Likely they just paid attention to their grove and the surrounding area.

“Are you talking about crops? Plants that humans grow for food?” I asked.

“Oh I’ve heard of those.” One of the older dryads said.

“Yeah it still seems so weird. Instead of taking food from soil, water, and air they have other plants do it for them and then eat the plants.” Another dryad said.

“I’ve heard they sometimes even feed the plants to an animal. And then they eat the animal.” A third dryad said, sounding scandalized at the entire idea. That statement set all the dryads atwitter.

I had to struggle to keep from laughing at just how outrageous dryads seemed to think farms were. Eventually I found myself grinning at Elder Yui. “Shelter your daughters much?”

Elder Yui gave a long suffering sigh. “They can’t leave the grove without scaring the clan. I’ve tried to teach them. But dryads aren’t human. Their brains aren’t wired the same way humans are. You should have seen me trying to teach them how to read. Most of them still seem to think it’s a form of magic. And numbers are impossible. Rubi is the only one that actually enjoys reading and understands numbers. Compared to the average dryad she’s probably a genius. Compared to humans she would be considered average.”

I actually felt a bit chagrined after elder Yui explained. I hadn’t thought about the fact that dryads may not be as intelligent as humans. I quickly revised that opinion when I thought of the garden. It took intelligence to do something so artistic. It was just a different type of intelligence than most humans had. Then again everyone had their strengths and weaknesses. Dryads may not know how to read, write, and do math. They were obviously natural geniuses when it came to plants though.

“I think Rubi may be a bit higher than average. Neither of us thought of that solution after all.” I said to Elder Yui.

Elder Yui smiled. “I suppose that’s true. I’m glad at least one of my daughters isn’t a gossiping ninny.” That last was said a bit loudly. All the dryads turned to him and looked a bit embarrassed. Especially when they saw me and remembered that more than just their family was present.

“So Rubi. Do you have any idea what plant Adam should put in his space?” Elder Yui said.

Rubi shook her head. “I’ve never been to a farm so I don’t know what the options are. Higher grade plants will give off more energy though. Also he should pick plants that grow fast. That way he gets the death energy sooner and can plant even more.” She said.

“I guess that means we are going to have to visit a farm. The clan's main farm would probably be best. They grow magic vegetables that are served to the cultivators of the clan.” Elder Yui said.

Elder Yui said goodbye to his family. Surprisingly the dryads let me leave with him. Although they insisted that I promise I’d come back and visit them later. Elder Yui wasn’t exactly happy with them practically throwing themselves at me. Then again he seemed to be resigned to the fact that there was little he could do about the situation. Especially if I was going to help him find a new home for the grove.

The guards were relieved when we met them again. They weren’t ecstatic about visiting the clan farm. It was outside of the walls. Which meant my entourage of guards more than tripled.

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I was excited to see the farm. Zhao’s memories gave me an idea of what he meant by magic vegetables. A cultivator would die of old age long before they reached the ninth level. Even if they spent all day every day cultivating. Instead they had to seek out ways to increase the energy they gained while cultivating.

These methods varied greatly. The cheapest was to simply find a place with concentrated energy. Some areas had higher energy density and this could be increased further with special enchantments and formations. Unfortunately that was also the most difficult. Anywhere with high energy density would be controlled by one of the clans. That was one of the biggest differences between the central clans and the border clans. The closer to the center of the kingdom the higher the average energy density was.

Another solution was to find a higher quality cultivation technique. This could also be difficult. Powerful cultivation techniques were guarded jealously by the clans. Even if you managed to get a powerful cultivation technique that didn’t mean that it was the best fit for you. Everyone was a little bit different and how effective a technique was varied by person. That was part of the reason why there were level nine cultivators that weren’t mages. In most cases they were extremely lucky and had found a technique that fit them perfectly.

Pills were another obvious solution. Taking a pill could multiply energy gains while cultivating. Of course this was expensive. Especially considering that it was only a temporary effect. Because of the expense clans only provided pills to their most talented cultivators.

Food was the last common method to increase cultivation gains. It was also cheap and easy. Similar to the herbs used for pills, the edible plants accumulated energy from their environment. In fact eating a magic plant was very similar to eating a pill. It wasn’t as beneficial. But since an alchemist didn’t need to process the plant first they were significantly cheaper. Over centuries of breeding farmers had found edible plants that had high concentrations of energy, grew fast, and tasted good.

I could grow those plants in my space. Since they were magic plants they would produce far more energy than a regular plant. And when I harvested them and they died it would produce large amounts of death energy. As for the produce, I could probably find someone that would buy it.

Despite the farms being just outside the walls it took us nearly an hour to reach them. Mostly because I was still weak and had to take a couple of breaks to rest. Hopefully I’d be able to recover all my strength soon. Unfortunately life magic and alchemy pills couldn’t do much for atrophied muscles.

When we finally reached the farm elder Yui took me to one of the fields. We stopped there and stared at the field in silence. Finally elder Yui broke the silence. “I don’t think I really thought this through all the way. We are at the farm. What do we do now? Just transport the plants to your space? How do they get sunlight and water? Won’t they need a certain amount of soil? Suddenly I’m not sure this is going to work.”

I nodded in agreement. “I think I’m going to have to experiment with my ability and this is going to take some time. Can I do anything I want in this field?” I asked.

Elder Yui shrugged. “Nobody will begrudge me experimenting with a single field of plants. A handful of my pills are worth more than this entire field. So even if you destroy the entire field they won’t mind.” I reached out and stored one of the plants.

A living item has been stored in your universe. You will gain life energy passively from this item while it is in your universe and death energy if it dies while in your universe. This item passively produces less than one life energy per day. Upon death this item will release four death energy.

I was a little disappointed in that message. The plant elder Yui had me store earlier had been far more powerful. Then again these plants were about half the size. Still even if I stored two it would produce less passive energy. Although like Rubi had pointed out the death energy was going to be more significant than the passive life energy.

That reminded me that I had no idea how big my space was now. Including the walk to the farm I had been absorbing energy from elder Yui for over two hours. Unfortunately I couldn’t start asking my questions out loud. I wasn’t willing to bet on elder Yui thinking I was just talking to myself. I did remember that I could control the space with mental commands. With some luck I could do the same to ask the tutorial questions.

“How much can I currently store inside my universe?” I thought concentrating on it being a question I was asking.

You can currently store 2,583 cubic inches worth of items in your universe.

I breathed a sigh of relief when the answering message appeared. The message took about ten seconds to disappear and as I watched that number increased by one every three or four seconds. I couldn’t help but feel a bit surprised at just how fast it was increasing. I was going to have to make an effort to spend as much time with elder Yui as possible.

Looking at the plants I estimated that each couldn’t be more than a hundred cubic inches in size. And that was being generous and giving them plenty of room for their leaves and roots. I could probably squish each down to the size of my fist. Of course they wouldn’t be able to survive that.

With a shrug I decided I’d start by storing twenty six of the plants. Once I stored the eighteenth I was surprised when a new message appeared in front of me. I had forgotten that I had a quest to increase the passive life energy generated inside my space.

Quest completed. - Increase the passive energy gain from living items in your universe to one energy a day.

Passive energy generated inside your universe can be used to generate light, gravity, temperature and breathable air in your universe. It can also be used to change the shape of your universe. Universes naturally have no light or gravity and are spherical. One energy is required daily for every ten thousand cubic inches. Energy used in this way will be spent and will not increase the size of the universe.

New quest - Change the environment of your universe and adjust the shape of your universe.