Chapter 15

Changing the environment of my universe was going to be very helpful. I’d suspected there was a possibility that my universe didn’t have any light or gravity. If it did, where would it have come from? My universe needed light for any plants to grow. They also would need some type of atmosphere to engage in photosynthesis and grow. As for temperature and gravity they weren’t as vital. Obviously high or low temperatures would kill the plants. So far I hadn’t seen any indication that items stored in my universe were subjected to any temperature extremes. Just because they weren’t vital didn’t mean I was going to ignore them though.

I mentally issued the changes I wanted done. “Make the light, gravity, air, and temperature of my universe somewhere between a temperate and tropical climate on Earth. Change the shape to a rectangle with a height of one foot. Gravity should pull towards the bottom of this rectangle and the plants should be arranged at the bottom. Continue to expand the width and length of the universe as the universe grows but keep the height at one foot.”

Quest completed - Change the environment of your universe and adjust the shape of your universe.

I was a little bit surprised when a new quest didn’t appear. Usually whenever I finished a quest there was a new quest. Although I did still have two more quests to complete first. Thinking about it I decided now was a good time to finish another of those quests.

The next plant I stored I tried to store mentally instead of with a spoken command. It took nearly a minute but the plant finally disappeared. I then spent another couple minutes before I made the plant reappear.

Quest completed - Mentally store and retrieve an item.

Once again a new quest didn’t appear. Which meant the only quest I currently had was growing my universe to 50,000 cubic inches of space. I couldn’t help but wince after doing some mental math. I’d have to spend two entire days with elder Yui to complete the quest. Probably more since I doubted he would let me sleep next to him. Although that was significantly better than my expectations when I first received the quest.

I spent another few minutes storing plants until I had reached twenty nine of them. The reason for the extra plants was because my universe was still growing quickly. Turning to elder Yui I couldn’t help but smile a bit. “I think this is going to work. However, I need to grow my universe a lot more. Which means I need to stay near you for quite a bit of time.”

Elder Yui looked thoughtful for a moment. “I think we can come up with a better solution.”

I couldn’t help but feel curious. “What would be a better solution? I’m absorbing over a thousand energy an hour from just being near you.” I said.

“Just follow me. You’ll know soon enough.” Elder Yui said.

About fifteen minutes later we reached the edge of the farm. There was an entire series of barns in this area and numerous stone fences. Although really they were more like small walls. I was surprised to see nearly a dozen guards patrolling those fences.

Elder Yui walked into one of the barns and up to a servant. “I need you to kill a hundred magic beasts. Where would be the best place to do this? Also you will need to call the butchers and anybody you need to make sure the meat isn’t wasted.” He said to the servant.

The servant gave the elder a shocked look. “But sir. The clan usually only slaughters a handful of magic beasts every day for meals. What will we do with the extra meat?”

Elder Yui shrugged. “Serve it to the guards. Sell it to a merchant. Or just give it away to the citizens in our territory. I don’t care what you do with it.”

For a second I thought the servant was just going to do what elder Yui told him. However, he made another attempt to protest. “In order to kill that many magic beasts I’ll have to get permission from the elder in charge of managing the ranch.”

“Very well. Have him come see me. I’m sure he will agree. Meanwhile, have the people needed for this assembled.” Elder Yui said.

The servant agreed and then quickly fled. I was pretty sure that he was afraid Elder Yui would make some other outrageous demand. I was surprised when in less than thirty minutes we were in a different barn and there were dozens of guards and nearly as many butchers assembled. More were still arriving when the elder in charge of the ranch finally arrived.

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“Elder Yui. What is the meaning of this? One of my ranch hands told me that you are demanding to kill a hundred magic beasts?” The elder said.

“Don’t be so stingy elder Imani. We have a few thousand magic beasts in the pastures. A hundred of them is just a fraction of them.” Elder Yui said.

“And how do I explain this to the clan head and the elder council? You know they will hear about it. Killing more than one percent of all our magic beasts is unprecedented.” Elder Imani countered.

Elder Yui shrugged and then pulled a bottle out of one of the pockets of his robe. Then he tossed it to elder Imani. “Give them that. The pills inside are worth more than a mere one hundred magic beasts.”

Elder Imani stared at the bottle of pills in shock. “A hundred third grade alchemy pills?”

Elder Yui nodded. “I think that trade is more than fair. Plus I’m not taking any of the meat of the beasts we slay. I merely want you to kill them now instead of later.”

“Yes, that is more than fair.” Elder Imani said, giving elder Yui a confused look. “Still I can’t understand why you are doing this. I’m sure that the clan head and elder council will ask.”

Elder Yui turned his head and looked at all the people standing nearby. “That is something that I can’t explain here. If you want, we can discuss it in private at a later time.” He said.

Elder Imani nodded in agreement. Then he turned to the guards, ranch workers, and butchers that were gathered. “Follow Elder Yui’s commands and slaughter one hundred magic beasts.”

He then turned back to elder Yui. “Let me know if you need anything else. Also you don’t need to tell me any secrets. The less I know the better. Although the elder council may have some questions.”

Before elder Imani left he gave me a bit of a look. I couldn’t help but think he had figured out that slaughtering the beasts had something to do with me. It was actually kind of obvious if you were observant. Although he didn’t know the exact reason.

Once elder Imani left, elder Yui turned to one of the servants that was in charge of the magic beasts. “Don’t bring any weak magic beasts. Only upper fifth rank beasts or higher.” The man nodded and then headed out to bring the first magic beast. An entire team of guards and other ranch hands followed him.

Fifteen minutes later they came back with the first magic beast. These were herbivore magic beasts that clan Ashton had captured and decided to raise for food. This practice was common among the border clans. Clan Ashton was large and consumed a great deal of energy rich food. In addition to magic vegetables, this included meat from magic beasts.

Most of this meat was obtained by hunting animals on the edge of the wilds. In addition, various parts of the animals were worth money. Some days the hunters weren’t successful though. Other days they were very successful. If there was plenty of meat then the hunters would capture the more peaceful herbivore monsters. They were then stored in the clan's pastures for times when the hunters didn’t bring home enough meat.

This was a bit different from what was done on Earth, or even what the central clans did. There wasn’t a herd of cattle that was being bred and raised. This was merely capturing some animals and keeping them to eat later. There was no lack of monsters in the nearby forests. In fact there were far too many. Except for during winter it was rare that the clan needed to slaughter these monsters for food. And over winter they would slaughter nearly all of them. During spring it would be easy to replace the entire herd.

Of course anything too powerful would be nearly impossible to capture and keep. Even with stone walls. So generally it was only monsters in the fifth level that were brought back alive.

The first animal they brought reminded me of a zebra. Or at least it had similar stripes and coloring. Shape wise it looked more like a cow of some type instead of a horse shape. Half a dozen guards had ropes holding the monster. It was trying to get free but the guards were easily able to keep it controlled.

Finally they reached the butchers and one of them struck the zebra cow in the head with a huge mallet. That didn’t actually kill the monster. It did knock it out though. Another butcher sliced into the zebra cows neck and it died soon after. A message appeared in front of me.

You have successfully found a source of death energy. 877 energy absorbed.

I was a bit surprised at how high that number was. In just a tiny bit of time I had gained almost as much energy as I gained from staying near elder Yui for an entire hour. He was right, this was a better source of energy.

Although I wasn’t as sure about the process. Part of me felt terrible seeing the zebra cow monster struggling to get free. And then it had been killed in such a gruesome way. Plus I had to be standing within five feet of the monster when it died.

I knew that this was a brutal world. I was sure I’d see far worse. I’d also probably be forced to do far worse if I wanted to survive. Seeing the butchers work on the animal oddly made me feel better. At least the zebra cow would become food and wasn’t being killed just to get me energy.

What followed was a parade of different animals. Many of them looked sort of similar to animals I had seen on Earth. Although the colors were all wrong. And I had never even imagined a green deer with what looked like a rhino horn. The weakest gave me just over seven hundred energy. The strongest gave me nearly thirteen hundred energy. Somewhere between forty and fifty I received a message that my quest had been completed.