“Stupid, Sav! Please, just one more new type of food!” Liliam begged, calling Nordan by her supposed nickname. He believed that she was shortening the word savior and just calling him Sav.

Reluctantly, Nordan sent another one of his classic red flowers to relay to Liliam that he would not in fact be doing that, at least not for another hour. He needed to save up for the next level.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t really relay this to her so she continued to complain about not getting her tree.

“Sav! Please!” she said with a pout.

When he didn’t respond as fast as he usually did, Liliam frowned and sat down angrily. “Now, you’re gonna take forever to respond! I hate you!”

Nordan felt bad but couldn’t help but laugh as Liliam pouted in the corner. He had expanded her living space to around the size of two gyms. He had also given her plenty of plants to entertain and feed her. That along with talking with her for the past few weeks had taken up most of Nordan’s astral energy. However, he had finally decided to start expanding on his level again.

Considering that the only one who could actually ask questions was Liliam, Nordan had no way to tell her what he was doing. So he felt bad, but it was unfortunately necessary to improve himself. He also figured whatever he got when he upgraded would make it better for Liliam.

After another hour of listening to Liliam complain, he finally had enough to upgrade to the next level. He did so without hesitation.

-100,000 Astral Energy

Level Up!

Astral Rate x10

New Upgrade Unlocked: Materials

Nordan immediately pulled up his new upgrade screen with a big smile on his face. He should have leveled up so much longer ago! He was now making ten times the amount of astral energy he was making previously.

* Materials: 1 type

* Cost: 100,000 Astral Energy

* Astral Rate: 0/second

It seemed that he could also create different materials besides just dirt which was certainly something he would need if he wanted to make an actual world.

“Sav… please. You’re scaring me,” Liliam whimpered in her corner.

Nordan snapped his attention back to her and frowned upon seeing tears falling from her eyes. Now that he was making so much astral energy, it took him no time at all to create a green flower in front of her.

Her eyes lit up as the flower grew in front of her. However, her eagerness soon turned to anger as she shouted, “What were you doing? You’re such a jerk!”

A red flower quickly rose in front of Liliam who stomped it. Nordan thought that was a little harsh and Liliam seemed to as well as she frowned.

“I’m sorry. That was mean of me,” she said.

Nordan couldn’t help but smile… or at least he would have if he could. Anyway, now that he could create different materials, it would be time to start renovating the place.

After creating a small pool near some of the plants and attracting Liliam’s attention, Nordan spent the 100,000 astral energy to fill it up with water. Surprised, Lilium quickly jumped inside.

“Woah, is this that plant stuff?” she asked.

Nordan sent a green flower to portray his response. Upon seeing it, Lilian jumped up and down in the water.

“How did you make it on your own!” she exclaimed. Although, she asked the question she was well aware that she wasn’t going to get an answer.

“After spending time in the water and splashing around, Liliam jumped out and started yawning against a particular soft plant Nordan created for her sleeping situation.

“I’m tired now, Sav. I’m going to go to sleep, okay?” she said.

In response, Nordan sent a green flower to acknowledge her. Upon seeing it, Liliam nodded her head and closed her eyes.

Now that Liliam was unable to distract him, he decided to pull up his status to see how he was doing.

Nordan Sanus

Tier: Simple Being

Astral Energy: 11,000

Total Astral Rate: 200/second

Upgrades:

* Level: 3

* Cost: 10 Astral Essences

* Astral Rate: 100 Astral Energy/second

* Land: 4000 Square Meters

* Cost: 1,000 Astral Energy per Square Meter

* Astral Rate: 0/second

* Life: 100 Life Forms

* Cost: 10,000 Astral Energy per Creation

* Astral Rate: 1 Astral Energy/second per life form

* Materials: 1 type

* Cost: 100,000 Astral Energy

* Astral Rate: 0/second

Everything looked normal besides one thing. His next level upgrade called for something called astral essences. He wasn’t exactly sure what these were but he had a few guesses. His primary one was that after reaching a certain number of astral energy, it morphed into one of the next tiers of whatever this astral system was.

He didn’t have much data to go off but considering that the upgrade from level one to two increased the required energy by 100x, Nordan believed it was safe to believe that the same happened here, especially since his astral rate increased by the same ten times.

This led to him believing that his next required astral energy rate would be 100x 100,000 which was a whopping ten million astral energy or in this case, ten astral essences.

At first, Nordan was terrified of this since it seemed like it would take forever to level up. Thankfully, after a few calculations, Nordan figured out that it would actually only take around half a day of no spending to save up for the next level. However, this would mean that he would have to tell Liliam that he would be out of touch with her for that long He couldn’t bear it if she sat in a corner and cried for that long.

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The problem was that he had no idea how to do this. He had barely figured out how to communicate with her through flowers but now he needed to portray his own thoughts to her somehow. He would never get to his goal if he constantly spent all his energy on flowers after all.

That’s when a thought hit him. He could still use plants. Instead of simply creating flowers to portray yes or no, what if he created a plant that could make noise? Specifically, a noise replicating the exact words he wants to portray?

Such an idea was quickly turned to mush as soon as he created his first one. The plant made a noise but it was so high-pitched that Liliam couldn’t hear it.

“What are you doing, Sav?” Liliam asked, wondering what this new plant was.

“Is it food?” she continued.

A red flower appeared next to her answering her question. She frowned as she inspected it.

“I wish you could talk, Sav. It would make things a lot easier…” she said sadly.

Nordan also wished he could talk and was currently working on a solution. Unfortunately, he couldn’t help it if nothing he did worked.

Yet, Nordan was not about to give up. This issue of not being able to communicate well with Liliam was bugging him and had been for a while. His next idea would utilize the idea of a plant being able to say a certain phrase; however, Nordan expanded on it. He had forgotten that plants can only make noises at extremely high frequencies. Using plants was exactly his problem.

Instead, he would create a type of creature that was able to say a certain phrase, kind of like a representative of him. After saying the phrase, it would then melt away into nothingness. He was just fine-tuning what the creature would look like and then he would employ it. He just didn’t want to scare Liliam with something unnatural.

That is exactly why he chose a small bird as the communicator. Specifically, he would create a cute green bird that couldn’t possibly be creepy in any way.

As soon as he finished conceptualizing the creature in his head, he sent it out in front of Liliam.

She immediately jumped back as soon as she saw it and hid behind a small tree.

“Hello!” the bird squealed before disappearing into a poof of feathers.

She crept out of her hiding spot with wide eyes. She wasn’t expecting the bird to speak.

“Hello? Sav?” she asked.

Another bird appeared in front of causing her to jump back once again. Thankfully, she didn’t hide this time.

“Yes, this is Sav. It is good to talk to you finally, Liliam,” the bird squawked before disappearing.

Nordan was excited at this new development. Finally, he could actually talk with Liliam.

For some reason, Liliam looked confused and asked, “Liliam? Is that… my name?”

Nordan hadn’t even realized that he had never actually called her that before. He had just been doing it for so long that it was natural in his head.

The bird once again appeared and said, “Yes… do you like it?”

Liliam thought about it for a second before slowly nodding her head. “Yes… it sounds pretty. Thank you.” She shuffled embarrassedly.

“That is good, I’m glad. I am happy that we can finally speak,” Nordan responded through bird.

Liliam happily nodded her head and said, “Me, too. Why didn’t you do this before dummy? We could have been speaking to each other a long time ago!”

“Yes, yes, I know. I just figured out I could do this myself.” Nordan responded.

Liliam nodded but soon frowned. Although she was born in a world without any resemblance to modern-day Earth, she was still quite smart. This is exactly why she figured that something motivated Nordan to create this new invention.

“Why now, though? What are you going to be doing?” she asked.

Nordan was actually able to make the bird sigh. “Every time I speak with you, I use some of my energy. I get it back over time but I also need it to upgrade myself and this small world of ours. Unfortunately, I will be unable to communicate with you for half a day to gain enough energy to upgrade my level.”

Liliam sighed, “I knew it! That’s why you wouldn’t respond sometimes. That was… scary!

“I know, I’m sorry… but if it makes you feel any better, I will be able to create more stuff when I upgrade.”

Liliam’s frown turned into a smile as soon as she heard that, “Really… will you be able to create more food?”

“Yep, and all sorts of new terrain and cool stuff. I’m sure you’ll love it…” he said.

“Fine, fine, just go then. I want new food… but how long is a half a day exactly?” Liliam asked.

Nordan was about to respond within 12 hours but realized that she wouldn’t have any clue what that meant. This would mean that he would have to figure out another way to communicate time.

He quickly figured out how much time they had spent speaking. Considering it had been around five minutes, he was able to divide that by the total number of minutes in a day.

“This conversation has taken around five minutes,” Nordan said.

Liliam nodded although it was clear she didn’t know what that meant. However, she didn’t need to.

“Think about that time multiplied by 144,” Nordan said

Lilam was clearly still confused as she didn’t know what multiplied meant so Nordan was forced to make himself even clearer.

“Hmm, think about this conversation happening 144 times in a row,” he said.

This time Liliam frowned. “I don’t think I am understanding correctly. From what I understood, you said that I would have to wait through 144 more conversations except you won’t be speaking with me. I don’t think that’s what you meant.”

Nordan sighed as that was exactly what he meant. “No, you have it right.”

“No,” she said.

“C’mon, Liliam… I have to do this,” Nordan sighed.

“Nope! I won’t let you!” she said angrily.

“I promise, if you sleep then it will go by quickly. It won’t really be as long as it sounds,” Nordan said.

“You’re just lying so I say you can do it but I won’t let you! I… I will be really lonely… I can’t be like that again.”

Nordan could tell she was referring to when she first came into this world. That loneliness was exactly why he had tried to create Raven. Unfortunately, that solution failed miserably.

“I’m sorry,” Nordan said sadly. He hadn’t even realized he said it as it was more instinctual than anything.

“What for?” Liliam asked.

“For bringing you here so early. I should have waited but I got too excited. The world… it could be a much better place.”

Liliam did something unexpected and shook her head. “No, I am grateful to be here as I am. It may not be as grand as you speak of but I don’t need that. I am happy to be here with you.”

Nordan inwardly smiled as he was about to send out another bird. Yet, Liliam wasn’t done.

“I have decided that I will wait for your half a day if it makes you happy… but that is it okay! Nothing else after that!” she said sternly.

“Okay, ma’am. That sounds like a deal.” Nordan said happily.

Liliam nodded in agreeance she shooed his bird away, “Alright, go now… before I change my mind, idiot!”

Nordan sighed, it was going to be a long day.