There are 346 islands around the central one. The islands of Urtan is the official name for this place in the world, as it was an elf named Urtan that officially discovered this place long ago.

Not much is known of Urtan the explorer except that he traveled a lot.

In the process of trying to acquire information such as location,purpose of the travel, Aloris discovered that the Urtan notes were of bare minimum.

Interestingly enough the tower was never mentioned on the notes, he remembered that specific detail when he saw the tower itself.

While the tower could be seen from all directions of these isles, he noticed the eastern islands are very different from the western islands.

The islands on the eastern part of this region are small and fractured, and are filled with a dense jungle. The air is heavy and moist and the ground is wet. Most of the wildlife lives in this area.

Most of these islands have beaches, only a very of them have cliffs.

The western part of the region are bigger and have big open areas in close proximity to the forest. They contain the same biome as the eastern part but have bigger creatures that roam these lands.

These islands are mountainous and have big cliffs with rocky edges.

The central islands are a mix between both.

The Toaks and Ranas are situated in the eastern part, and they had a name for themselves.

It was unpronounceable for Aloris but if he had to describe it, it would sound like,

Rebb-iiit-Rech-Bitt-Toc-Riit or something similar, it was too weird for him.

So he decided that to call them the Toakran, after their names.

They multiplied a lot after the discovery of the spear and the fruit, making Aloris a bit curious to the rapid increase of Toakran, so he decided to investigate a bit closer.

Toaks and ranas had the same reproduction cycle, and it was a very interesting one for Aloris.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

When a female was impregnated , it layed small sized eggs at the bottom of the pond, covering them with leaves to act as a secondary layer to protect them.

Then she proceeded to make a soup of fruits and insects and pour it on the pond.

Aloris was baffled when he first saw this, he thought she was mad to waste such precious food. It was only later he realised that the pond changed and was different than before.

When she poured the soup, the lilypad slowly absorbed the soup and began to exude a slimy extract that the eggs could feed themselves.

No one was allowed to enter the ponds until the eggs matured and hatched.

This could take some weeks before happening. Once the eggs matured enough they hatch small tadpoles that swam around the ponds, eating the extract as they grew.

The females replenished the extract by pouring of the same soup in the pond.

What astonished Aloris the most was the growth rate of the tadpoles, reaching adulthood at some few months in the ponds.

“That is an amazing reproduction cycle, they could in theory mass produce themselves if they wanted” Eruvian commented

Aloris counted 743 Toakran, and if they continued in the same pace, they would be more than triple the next year.

Excitement and anticipation, those were the feelings of Aloris when he realized he was possibly seeing the creation of a civilization in front of him.

“They are a bit primitive, but with proper guidance they could become great” Aloris said

“I agree, i like these Toakran, they are cute in some way” Laroth responded

Aloris agreed. Somewhere inside of him he was still that child playing with the ants.

“Remeber why we are doing this..lets hope that The Balance has not changed drastically, we don't want to upset it.” Eruvian said

While he did not forget the primary objective, he almost forgot about The Balance. He knew that The Balance is important but it could be cruel and harsh for many species.

He learned, when he was young, that the scholar of the upper echelon of elven society discovered The Balance a long time ago, a equilibrium of nature, a state in which most of nature would thrive.

What they meant was that it was the most efficient state in which nature could be in, ushering the creation of multitude of creatures and flora as possible. It does not mean that everything will survive though, some will perish in this state but the abanduance of creation overcompensates that factor.

For the ignorant and the common people it was called The Balance, for the elites it was called Equilibrium of Nature.

This was why many of the laws were put in the first place, so to prevent people to upset it and Aloris knew that.

It still tasted wrong somehow for Aloris, to see these wonderful dull creatures die off, and he did not regret helping them. What Eruvian expressed was the worry that was already inside of him.

“If they step out of the way, we must intervene” Eruvian said slowly

He agreed. Even though he helped them, they can't be allowed to thrive while destroying for everything else, hopefully the balance would realign itself but if it did not, then they had to intervene.

Time will tell.