Grant chuckled, eager to see how the young students would react to the inheritances. Grant had not expected Natalie to choose that book, but the more he thought about it, the more it fit her.

Grant had long been aware of how clever Natalie was. His appraisal did allow him to gain a greater insight of people at first glance, and when combined with experience, Grant knew what kind of person she was. She was quick witted and talented and was only a d rank adventurer because she wanted to remain with Dain. She had no intention of moving ahead of him. That was dedication. Adventuring was clearly something important to her, and yet she held on achieving her dream so she could stay with Dain. It’s a shame Dain was so thickheaded. Seriously, Grant had been picking through all his books on how to flirt with people to help Natalie on her quest. Not even lifetimes of experience helped. That would be dealt with in due time of course, even if he had to give him the talk.

Now that Dain had an opportunity to move up in this world, Natalie would not hesitate, and Grant looked forward to the talent she would demonstrate.

Talent that Grant himself could not develop.

Frankly speaking, Grant was not capable of teaching them what they needed to know. He could teach them base to mid-level martial arts regarding their choice of weapons, but that was where it ended. He didn’t specialize in either of those classes.

Thank goodness for inheritances huh?

The thing that makes an inheritance unique compared to your average manual from the same sect is that these inheritances are usually imbued with a fragment of the teacher’s soul. Usually cultivators only do this once they believe they are nearing the ed of their lifespan, or that they will fail the next tribulation, so they leave behind inheritances in the world for people to find and one day follow in their footsteps.

Of course, usually inheritances have treasure. Grant would deal with that.

So why would someone give their inheritance to him? Well first off, the two that they chose had been good friends of his. Some of the inheritance's ho found and others he borrowed. His friends didn’t mind though, as being an amazing alchemist meant he gave them pills that returned their soul to full mast.

Grant found himself back in his divine realm, deciding to give it some attention. He’d already reached the 10th realm by now, so he had enough energy to make more. So he decided to make:

Normal environments.

Of course, he could’ve made something amazingly unique like the mushroom forest, but not everything could be made extremely unique or else nothing was unique. Besides, not many creatures could be like shrooms and live in any environment. A wolf needs prey, and shrooms just don’t quite cut it.

So, he began making forests and desserts, as well as preparing the location for the sea. The sea would take multiple realm foundations worth of energy before it could become a real big body of water. He would have to settle for lakes for now.

Grant wouldn’t tell the two yet, but one realm foundation doesn’t necessarily equate to one item or environment in a divine realm. Depending on your skill you could use the energy to produce multiple items relevant to your realm, or even create 1 rather high value item. However, this isn’t something you teach a low-level cultivator. It’s better to wait till they understand laws and concepts first. Since they would be separating first, Grant would have them travel for the next year as they cultivate, so that they could grow some more before they come back to him.

Only then would he explain laws to them. Another benefit of the divine earth technique. You learn faster, and unlike a normal cultivator's divine realm, needs no laws or concepts to create it. Merely your imagination.

So, within minutes, entire forests and 2 or 3 deserts rose up, with the occasional lake in between, each close to one another, ready to be connected into streams and oceans one day.

After that he began creating life to inhabit his biomes, from (canine) kobolds to screecher squirrels, wolves, sapient goblins, bats, birds, owl snatchers, and more. He decided to stick with lower-level monsters for now. Not only were they cheaper, but they would slowly evolve and grow as he supplemented the biome over time with his mental energy. Even if a cultivator doesn’t go up in rank, beings in living in their divine realm can grow naturally.

They aren’t stuck there after all. They can leave at any moment, and even after a cultivator dies the beings born in a divine realm can survive afterwards.

He decided to create some sapient goblins because their later evolutions, onis and titans, make for good warriors in battles. Onis are not only great with weapons and infiltration, passing themselves off as demi-humans, but they can also adapt to a lot of bloodlines thanks to Raiden and Fujian’s chaotic bloodline.

Titans, as descended from their mythical name sakes, can either evolve from goblins-giants-titans, but can also evolve from golems, though depending on which you evolve it from, the titan in question takes a different form. Creatures with titan in their names are technically titans too, but in their case, titan is not their main race.

They’re great in combat due to titanic size and power and are favored by giants. Just as dwarves almost never evolve into high dwarves, nor elves to high-elves, giants rarely evolve into titans, because they usually don’t go through enough conflict or live in mana potent areas, since many giants prefer living amongst men.

Grant would make draconic kobolds at some point, but he would need caves for that first, which have not been made yet. But he did have space for canine kobolds.

A weird thing, how the two kobolds evolve so differently. Given proper conditions, a kobold is likely to evolve into a bipedal form of dragon, whereas canine kobolds will evolve into Fenris wolves, named after their progenitor, Fenrir himself, though wolves can do so as well. But while dragons can evolve in multiple directions depending on a whim, canine kobolds don’t have to evolve into Fenris wolves.

There are a multitude of monster gods out there, such as Anubis or Horus, Lycaon, Cerberus, etc. etc., who are willing to sponsor canine monsters like Canine Kobolds once they reach the higher stages of evolution like werewolf. And should they agree, the being in question would evolve into a special monster, considered a “son”

The sons of Anubis, Horus Gryphons, Lycan lords, Sons of Cerberus, are all special races of monsters that demand respect because of their high power and status. Draconic kobolds may have flexibility and prestige as dragons one day, but kobolds could look forward to potential sponsorships.

If they could reach that point. They still had to earn it after all.

Realizing that he was trailing off again in his mind, Grant went to go check on his Ursa Honey.

Ursa Honey was tasting honey-based products currently, as Grant convinced him of the wonders of honey on food. Like honey barbecue ribs.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Ursa Gave grunts of approval as he ate it, clearly happy with the taste. Of course, Grant had him eating something else as well.

As a honey bear, there were two different kinds of bloodlines that Grant saw as beneficial to the bear. Bear bloodlines and honey.

Now, one may point out that honey doesn’t have bloodlines, since honey isn’t alive (unless we count honey slimes and other dessert monsters, which stumbles into a whole other issue that is highly irrelevant currently) but the quality of honey and types of honey will certainly affect how the honey bear develops, as does other foods.

Although a honey bear can evolve from a normal bear monster, a honey bear can evolve from other variants, such as sugarcane bears and syrup bears, if it finds a higher revelation in honey. And this works both ways.

Depending on the quality of honey and type of honey, different revelations can be made and thus different evolutions.

If honey induces a hypnotic effect, Grant had seen some honey bears evolve into hypnotic honey bears, even later on becoming apostles to the lord of dreams, whereas bears that find joy purely in the healing effects of honey, then it may become a saint honey bear, favored by gods of healing. The type of honey affects everything.

Frankly speaking, honey beers, honey ribs, honey barbecue wings were attempts to show how well honey can be used to create. Of course, he may end up with a honey chef bear, but Grant had also expected that as what attracted the bear to honey is simply how it tasted.

So, Grant had begun giving Ursa multiple types of honey so that he could experiment and learn which was a personal favorite in regard to taste, and he handed the bear both a cookbook and an alchemist book which he rewrote in the new world. Grant had no plans to share this to the alchemists of the new world, but he did have Ursa read it.

There was one last thing Grant had to check out though, as he began heading to the mushroom groves.

Here the dinoshrooms, mushwolves and shrooms, as well as what few lizardshrooms remained had begun evolving into unique shapes. Some lizardshrooms had started growing extra appendages, while others grew larger, others developed unique forms of toxins, and most did all of the above. The mushwolves were no different, and he’d even began to witness some developing a bipedal stance, while some shrooms began walking on four legs and changing shape.

Regardless of what they chose to pursue, they were all growing stronger. Since they couldn’t die they merely viewed fighting as a way to grow stronger, and death as temporary. And since they had no main evolution path they could hone their evolutions with each death, to produce something that worked for them.

But he wasn’t here for these in particular. He was here for the nest eggs, the ones he really needed to keep an eye on them.

What is a progenitor? Many monsters in this world aim to be the strongest through their own individual strengths. Dragons, leviathans, phoenixes, kaiju, so on and so forth.

But progenitors are the unique exception. Progenitors are the guardians of their race, as the first of their kind, they see to their race’s growth, and intervene when they see the need. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that progenitors are basically god’s where their power is dependent on their people, rather than believers.

A progenitor’s power is dependent on their race’s growth, the more of the race there is, the stronger the progenitor’s divinity is. In a sense, normal monsters focus on their own individual growth, while progenitor’s focused on the growth of the race.

A sub-progenitor is one that serves the progenitor and is an evolution of the main race. A perfect example is goblins and orcs, with the progenitor of orcs being a sub-progenitor of the progenitor of goblins. Of course, one is not exclusive of the other, as the progenitor of goblins has long since evolved into a higher monster race. He merely holds the title of both progenitor of goblins and the higher race he is currently, with the other positions being held by whatever monster evolved into said race first minus the goblin progenitor himself.

Why’s this important? Because Grant himself cannot compete with the gods solely on his own. Gods of faith are strong because their worshippers make them strong. Grant has never had any interest in becoming a god but must be prepared to fight one.

And as strong as the divine earth technique is, it has the crucial weakness of being in the end, not a good counter to true gods. Even with his understanding of laws being greater than most beings on earth, that still falls before mid-high rank gods.

So if he won’t become a god through faith or cultivation, what does he do to cover the gap? He may still hold the authority Flamel and other old gods lent him, but now that authority is being lent to him by their counterparts in this world. Gods can be fickle.

It’s simple really, super easy, barely an inconvenience.

He makes his own gods.

Yes, one of Grant’s greatest weapons was his ability to create, so he used it to create races. Drows and Dravens, wyvents and decaflys, and even the pitcher plants, Grant made a multitude of races, each with their own progenitors.

All of them loyal to him. All of them ready to serve him. Grant always had an army at standby, enough to ensure no one would pick a fight with him.

And that’s what Grant came to check out. His new progenitors.

The first shroom had already begun developing, changing into a horrifying being. The cute eyes remained, but it was far harder to call it cute when it now had multiple sets of eyes attached to multiple sets of heads.

What does one call a mushroom hecatoncheires? Grant was trying to think of a pun name, but frankly he couldn’t think of one. The first progenitor of his had a multitude of arms just like the beast in mythology, with about 20 arms, most of them being lithe and whip-like, with the exception of 4 arms, being huge, as large as the main body.

The main body was a rather weirdly shaped thing, with the body ending in a huge main mushroom head, with the miniature heads sprouting all over the body, with some even appearing on its legs. The main portion of the body was vaguely human shaped if that meant anything, while off in certain spots. At the abdomen though was a rip in the body, with vaguely defined fangs protruding at the stomach.

It had a stomach mouth. How had it decided that was a good idea? Grant wasn’t quite sure, but if it worked for it, whatever. What really mattered was the faint glow of divinity that was starting to radiate off it. Of course, it wasn’t that strong, as counting dinoshrooms, mushwolves, and the lizardshrooms, there were only a few hundreds, maybe one or two thousand of the general race, but that was fine. He’d already sensed one or two shrooms begin to exist outside of his divine realm and on Earth, meaning that number was likely to increase soon.

His mushwolf progenitor had also begun to change, bearing less of a resemblance to a wolf, and more of a jaguar. An eight-legged jaguar. He was if it had bean made out of real flesh, then it would have been jacked. It already looked the part.

It was also on fire.

When Grant asked, he received an image of burning mushrooms, causing suffocation as well as hallucinations, during which the wolf pack attacked, causing the attacks to be deadlier than before. That explained why many mushwolves had also begun evolving into fire-based forms.

Whatever allows them to kill good, Grant supposes.

The first dinoshroom he’d created, the anxious ankylosaurus, had also begun changing. Even though the omnisaurus blood ran through the dinoshrooms, that did not mean they had to stay within the mainstream dinosaur form, and it was obvious in their leader.

From the neck down, the dinoshroom progenitor still resembled the ankylosaurus, though it now seemed like a mix of triceratops with ankylosaurus, and while it retained the shell of the ankylosaurus, being hard and crunchy on top, the legs were more like the triceratops, meant for charging.

The neck up, was where things had changed. No longer was it a mushroom-like dinosaur head, but now it was a humanoid shape from the neck up. It’s arms were large, ending in long serrated claws that seemed like sharpened wood, modeled after the claws of a therizenosaurus. Out of it’s back a pair of monkeydactyl wings emerges, and a pair of opposable thumbs attached as well, and the sub-progenitor uses them well, for each arm bears a weapon, one a mace, the other a spear. Grant doubted that these wings could actually, fly, he suspected that the monster had chosen monkeydactyl wings merely because they were the only dinosaur that had opposable thumbs that it could find. There weren’t many of those after all.

The lizardshroom had taken a weird route, bearing a resemblance to a dragon. When Grant asked it where it had copied the design from, the creature brought him one of his… magazines that Grant had of dragons. He took that quickly, coughing, quite embarrassed, and assured the innocent progenitor that he had better, less vivid material for the monster to study. Grant also promptly locked away all of his promiscuous material. The last thing he wanted was more shrooms getting funny thoughts.

The lizardshroom could not fly. The wings it had created were just simply incompatible with flight, as was it’s whole body. The lizardshroom wasn’t using them for this purpose however, instead it was more like the creature had an extra pair of arms. It did however, breathe fire and acid, which it could also do through its tail. Afterall, technically shrooms didn’t have organs in fixed places. The lizardshroom had created 4 acid and flame sacs, with the other 2 of each respective placed in its wings.

Overall, Grant was satisfied with their work so far, and felt confident in leaving them to be, as his other species would require more hands-on action. For now, he had to talk to the system.

He’d been neglecting it so far.