The child sent out the same krill swarm with their mana strings attached to the iceberg five metres away. With no problems in the journey, the swarm made it to the iceberg safely, and they connected the mana strings to the iceberg and pulled.

They pulled the iceberg just enough into the territory and went exploring. Unlike the previous iceberg, this one was solid. There were no hiding holes or tunnels for any animals or creatures. Even when they searched, there were no creatures or plants. Still, they did find chunks of rock, the smallest ten centimetres long and five centimetres wide, and the largest around 79 centimetres long and 50 centimetres wide. The stone was a deep black with some silver flecks throughout it, and the child knew they wanted them.

Using the mana strings, the child pulled the iceberg further into their territory, just enough so that all of the rocks were fully in their territory.

To actually fit all of the rocks into their iceberg, the child dug out a separate two-metre by two-metre room underneath the water close to the edge of the iceberg. Once the room was done, they opened a separate entrance, one metre by one metre, to the outside of the dungeon.

Once that was in order, the child began removing the stones.

Unlike with their own iceberg, the child hasn’t added the iceberg to their territory yet, so when they went to make a tunnel like they have done many times with their own iceberg, it did not work.

The strings don’t work… I wonder if the ice strings will?

The child went through the same method using one of their two ice mana strings. And it worked.

The child was able to quickly dig tunnels to each stone, and once they reached the stone, the child then started weaving a net of their mana strings around and covering each of the smaller stones.

When the pathways were built and the stones netted, the child pulled all of the smaller rocks out of the tunnel into open water. As soon as the stone exited the iceberg, the stones plummeted to the ocean’s depths. But the child’s grip on the string nets prevented them from dropping outside of their territory.

The child pulled the strings with the nets into the room and set the stones down. They quickly undid the nets and started netting the bigger stones.

The child carefully carried the larger stones from the iceberg into the room, one by one.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Once all the stones were out of the iceberg and in the room, the child closed the room and pushed the iceberg out of their territory.

They sent the swarm out again, but it did not go as smoothly this time.

The krill only got two-quarters of the way to the iceberg when they were ambushed. Not from the ocean like the child expected, but a flying white thing from the sky dived into the swarm and scooped up almost all of the krill. With their mana strings still attached to the krill but broken off from the rest of their strings in the being’s stomach, the child tried to make the creature their own. But it did not work as intended.

The bird still had their mana in it, and the child could consider the creature theirs, but not in the same way they could consider the same with the other animals within their territory. Before they could ponder anything else, three more white flying things dove from the sky and into their territory. The child watched in seconds as the flying things started to scoop and eat large chunks of krill. They lay floating on the water as they ate.

The child quickly took the mana strings that were severed when the flying thing ate the swarm going to the iceberg and inserted them into the three flying things. As they were inserting the strings, they also called back the remaining crystal krill to their territory.

Just as they inserted them into the flying things, it seemed to spook the flying things, and they took off into the air. But the child didn’t let them get away. They inserted more mana strings and quickly pushed as many golden flecks into the flying things as possible. Very quickly, the flying things that they now know as birds became theirs.

The child studied their new birds. They had white feathers all over their body, but their skin was black. A small area around their eyes was black, and their feet and beak were black. Two things really interested the child. The first was their beak; it was long and had a sharp curve. The second was that as the child watched the birds float and fly around their territory, they noticed that the bird’s wingspan was large, just over one metre. The birds are the largest creature currently living in their territory.

After studying the birds, the child remained alert and scanned the sky as far as they could see. But no birds came.

They didn’t know where the birds came from. The child hadn’t seen any bird in the sky before, and all that surrounded them was water and icebergs that broke off with their own iceberg.

Due to this, the child decided to call these birds “sharp bill.”

Looking at the sharp bill that was still outside their territory. They tried calling the bird into their territory without using their mana strings, and it worked. Once inside, the bird did not feel like it didn’t belong, it didn’t bug the child, and it appeared that the bird had no problems entering their territory. So they directed the bird to go outside, and once again, the bird followed their direction without a mana string, and they had no problem exiting.

Can this be done again if something eats their creatures or plants that are connected with mana strings outside of their territory?

Either way, this sharp bill will probably be the most helpful out of the other three birds.

Looking at this bird, the child decided to give it an individual name. Not a name for its type, but a name specifically for that one bird. It would be easier than calling it the outside bird or the sharp bill.

The child studied the bird and found it was female, so they also considered it during the naming progress.

Hmmm, thought the child. I think I’ll call you Ivory for your white feathers.

The bird, now named Ivory, just tilted their head at the child. With nothing else the child wanted to do with the bird currently, the child let the bird go off on their own, with directions to stay close to their territory for safety. Once the bird flew off, out of their territory and onto a nearby iceberg, the child turned their attention back onto trying to pull in the closest unexplored iceberg.

They chose another crystal krill swarm of the same size, attached mana strings to them, and sent them out.