Tanuki removed a patch of grass near the Gaia Core to conduct the ritual. He drew the figures in the sand, and when it came to drawing the human, he based it on himself. Even though a stick was his instrument, he masterfully transferred his likeness into the sand.

As the last step suggested, he summoned the small healing potion and felt a slight urge to taste it. He wanted to know what it was like, as judging by the colour it was akin to raspberry juice. A hard battle was fought, but his intelligence valiantly defeated his gluttony. He opened the jar and poured it onto the ritual circle.

The liquid travelled through the tunnels carved into dust and painted its veins red. The circle glowed. Tanuki stepped back and watched as a strong wind descended to raise the twigs and weave the grass. A humanoid creature formed from the chaos and slowly built itself up, twigs building its balance like bones.

In appearance, it resembled the other soulless husk, though this one bore no face, no holes. Tanuki thought it looked a lot like a mummy, just green instead of sand-coloured.

As the last of the grass met its place and the healing potion became one with the minion, the magical wind disappeared and Tanuki was left with a motionless husk.

He stared at the husk, waiting for it to move.

“Hello?” Tanuki spoke, but when the husk did not answer, he changed his strategy. “Walk over there,” he ordered, pointing a few meters away.

Suddenly, the husk turned around and slowly walked to the desired place.

“Holy shit,” Tanuki whispered with awe, “I have a soulless minion. Does… Does that mean I am a necromancer?”

His grin grew ear to ear.

“Fuck yes!”

The ritual took him a few hours to set up. It was almost noon by the time he finished, and he had six more hours until the next wave.

Tanuki turned to his minion, “Hey, you! I got two more healing potions in my pocket. How about we make you a few brothers?”

Though he did not mean sexual reproduction, he could not help but blush upon realizing what he just asked. Still, it made him wonder about the husk. Was it a boy or a girl? Perhaps neither. Could he make them a boy or a girl? Probably, sadly, not. That did not mean he would not try.

The presence of the minion made gathering materials less tedious. Though it could not do complex things such as count ingredients or draw the circle, the basic tasks it could carry out were a great help.

Tanuki summoned the second minion in just two hours and the third even faster. He could have cut it down to just one hour with the last minion, but he gathered extra materials for this one, hoping that if he drew a girl in the circle with significant breasts, the summoned husk would retain those attributes. It did not. He wasted half an hour and a chip of his pride.

[ Maximum number of followers reached . ]

By the time he finished, it was already the middle of the afternoon. Only a few hours remained till the next wave. Though he had the aid of three helpful husks, he had not yet made any preparations for the next attack.

He thought up a plan.

“Maybe I shouldn’t use my husks for the next wave. They were pretty expensive and I’m not sure how to get more health potions.”

In the end, he decided that the husks would remain in the backline during the attack, so if the situation was to become dire, they could jump in to assist him.

For the remaining time he wanted to focus on improving his equipment, and if possible, creating armour.

This proved to be a more ambitious task than he thought. Even the making of basic tools caused him problems and after about an hour, he bitterly gave up.

However, not all was lost. While he tried to figure out the armour, he ordered the husks to start cutting down trees. He made each a small axe that though weak, when three of those started chopping down the same tree, they had an impact.

The research on the giant husk centipede also concluded. The corpse was consumed and in return, Tanuki was granted his very first spell.

[ Acid Spit ]

[ Cost: 2.5 Mana ]

[ Projectile ]

[ + 2 Acid DMG ]

[ Applies ‘Acid’ to the target, burning it for 1 DMG / 3 Seconds ]

The spell has been added to Tanuki’s spellbook. Furthermore, he had unlocked a new stat, mana.

[ --- Stats --- ]

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

[ HP: 7/7 ]

[ MP: 5/5 ]

[ Strength: 6 ]

[ Agility: 4 ]

[ Intelligence: 11 ]

As a second-level bonus, the [Staffbearer] class increased his intelligence by one up to eleven. The mana stat considered half of this value rounded down.

Upon selecting the ‘Acid Spit’ spell, his staff began to glow, and with careful concentration, Tanuki could conjure acid atop the staff. With a target selected, he could shoot this projectile within a five-meter range.

He chose a patch of grass as his target. When the acid shot through it, some grass was immediately burnt up, and the remaining acid puddle melted the ground with black smoke before eventually evaporating.

Tanuki burst with joy thanks to his new power. He cast magic. It was not just a trick of the eye, no, this was the real deal.

He chuckled. Suddenly, the next wave seemed a lot less scary.

When he was about to move back to the Gaia Core, Tanuki heard a loud boom as something heavy hit the ground. His three minions successfully felled a tree.

He ran over to investigate. Thankfully his husks were not caught in the falling wood’s way and all of them were healthily working on another.

Tanuki had an idea and ordered the husks to help. They cut off the fallen tree’s branches until only the trunk remained, which they rolled onto the road. Now, Tanuki had a line of defence that could halt his opponents.

“Good job guys, now go back and chop down a few more trees until sunset!”

The husks returned to their work and Tanuki was left alone. He opened his inventory to look at the last remaining thing he had yet to check out. Completing the wave rewarded him with a ‘Wave 1 Rewards Box’. He had ignored it until now, judging that if the game was willing to betray him by lying about the opponents in the first wave, it would not gift him with anything of real help.

A gift box fell before his legs, looking like something from Christmas Eve. The lid blew off with white light shining within, from which items emerged.

The first was a grey robe. Its hood and neck area connected by a golden ring.

[ Staffbearer Robes ]

[ +0.5 MP / 5 seconds ]

This item reminded Tanuki of the clothes Gandalf wore in Lord of the Rings. He liked those movies and this gift was already his favourite. Before it could have entered his inventory, Tanuki took and equipped it.

The robe was made thin. A bad move and it could easily tear. But as a positive consequence, its lightness made it rather comfortable which made up for its weakness.

The next item appeared.

[ Green Fauna Token ]

[ Description: Casting the token on a [Green] grid allows the user to choose one of two creatures. The chosen creature will periodically spawn on grids of the same type. ]

Tanuki found the token amusing. After looting the box, he wanted to use it on the field. He had two of them and thinking ahead had him conclude that a lot more fields will be placed in this world. Thus, the more fields, the higher the chance of animals spawning, aka more resources.

The last item followed.

[ Green Flora Token ]

This one did the same thing as the one before, though it added plant life into Tanuki’s realm. He was less enthusiastic about that, but still welcomed the gift.

Thus, the box disappeared, and two tokens arrived in his pocket.

It took him very little time to connect the dots. He was not stupid, after all.

He was not the focus of these rewards, rather they were given so the world could be expanded and diversified. He felt less like a god of his dimension and more like a gardener stuck in the jungle. If he wanted things to be the other way around and for him to command the realm, he needed to play his hand smart. Whatever the game bestowed upon him to use for cultivating the realm he needed to abuse to the fullest extent. Only then could he truly become a god.

So, he took the two coins into hand. As his first choice, he cast the [Green Flora Token], arguing that with more plant diversity, more animals could follow.

The token broke apart in the air and became two constellations, showing him two choices.

[ Choose one ! ]

[ > Red Flowers ]

[ > Blue Flowers ]

The two had no descriptions. Maybe later his Gaia Core would grow smart enough to provide him with help, but right now, he was all alone.

Tanuki did not care for flowers, he wanted to find something that he could cultivate. Something like wheat.

Tanuki reached into his inventory and pulled out the [Lucky Coin] from the first day. Though he was not sure what it did, he felt like this was the right time to use it.

And so, he cast the coin into the air, where it turned into a shower of gold dust that rained down upon the constellations.

[ Reroll selection ? ]

[ Yes ] – [ No ]

Tanuki chose yes and the constellations changed. Two more options presented themselves.

Unfortunately, he failed to calculate that a reroll did not necessarily mean better results.

[ Choose one ! ]

[ > Yellow Flowers ]

[ > Red Flowers ]

He wanted to scream. One was the same, while the other not any better.

“The hell am I supposed to do with flowers? Make a bundle and go on a date? With who? The husks?”

The female husk appeared in his mind and he got lost in the daydream. He snapped out of it only when he realized he was drooling with lust. He wiped it away and looked around as if anyone was there to see him.

“God damn it, I need to behave.”

In the end, this was an utter failure. He could not waste tokens on purely cosmetic features, and he needed something that would present new materials for his exposal. But this was not it.

With a heavy heart, he chose red flowers.

Before he could have grown sadder, he cast the other token. Like the one before, it broke into a cloud of stars and formed constellations, representing the different choices.

[ Choose one ! ]

[ > Green Slime ]

[ > Small Hog ]

This one is more interesting, he thought. The hog would be a no-brainer, as those provide leather and food.

“But the slime is way cooler…”

He wanted to rationalize choosing slime. Maybe if he kills enough that levels up the Gaia Core? No, it did not seem like that was the way to gain experience. Perhaps researching it would yield useful results?

“Ah, yes! Surely, they must be magical in nature, so researching them would improve my spellcasting.”

That thought made him feel good. Yes, this was a good choice, so he picked slimes before he would think twice.

The constellations disappeared. The field looked like before but Tanuki felt a difference in soil. Things would grow. They only required time.

He turned his attention to the husks. Unfortunately, they could not fell another tree.

“No problem,” Tanuki thought, “Even a single line of defence is enough. It will stall the attackers while my acid spell burns them away.”

He thought about the progress he made since yesterday. Though his situation was absurd, he managed to make the most out of it, and he did not plan to stop anytime soon.

He looked around and saw the great void surrounding his realm. On the first day, he looked at it with fear, but now, he had come to appreciate it.

The sea of emptiness was a blank canvas. It was his by right, and he foresaw a great rainbow within. That was his dream, and his dream shall come true.

Thus began the second wave.