As I appeared in the southernmost part of Florida, I was greeted by the tentacle monster full of eyes that I had stopped from destroying an island in the South Atlantic. He was accompanied by a smaller octopus-looking creature. It was altered a little by mana, but besides the extremely large see-through head, it looked normal. Its brain was about four times as large as a standard human's and lit up in the area being utilized with a pale blue light, indicative of extreme mental mana usage.
“Hello, Admin. My name is Edward. I apologize for not seeking you out sooner, but I needed to grow this form and increase its capabilities.
I am from a race of cephalopods that have lived at the bottom of the ocean for millions of years. We were unable to communicate prior to a spout of plasma mana hitting our entire brood just after hatching. I have slowly been processing the mana and directing it to objectively alter my DNA. I chose to retain this form and decided to increase its mental capabilities due to the inherent advantages of this physical body in deep water.
Some of our people have allowed their forms to be altered. This is Jonah. He informed me that there was a misunderstanding when you first met. I thank you for not destroying him. Even after he attacked you, you showed great restraint in not just obliterating him. I am truly grateful for your understanding of the situation. Jonah has expressed his regret for his actions and has vowed to repay your kindness if the opportunity presents itself. We were among the first to feel the effects of the mana. Jonah’s body began to develop quicker than his mind, so he ended up the creature you see before you now. My mind was touched, and it allowed me to guide my changes. Now that you know a little of how we came to be, I am here to warn you about Cookie.”
As soon as he mentioned Cookie's name, my eyes shot open extremely fast. “Where is she? Is she okay?”
As I became more and more anxious, I could sense that Edward was pushing out some kind of mental tone. As I studied it, I realized that it was meant to calm the mind and elicit certain chemicals to release in a human brain. He was attempting to help keep me calm. I wasn’t sure if it just didn’t work on me because my body was no longer human or because of my mental abilities but I began to get more anxious.
If he was trying to calm me, why was that needed? I was beginning to wonder if the attempt made me more anxious because my mental control far exceeded his or if it was because I feared the worst.
“Cookie has bonded with the world tree. She’s become its human vessel. The tree is still in a state of flux and has not fully activated yet.”
I remembered what I had felt when I touched the tree. I closed my eyes for a moment and started recalling the memories of exactly what I felt and sensed when I was at Yggdrasil’s base. After reviewing everything, I finally spoke with the realization of exactly where she was. “Is that why I sensed her when I touched the tree? She is actually a part of the tree now?”
“In a sense, yes. She has merged herself with the tree. She requested that I explain this to you so you have a full scope of what your options are and understand the consequences if you take certain actions.”
“Wait,” I said, “I’m confused. What do you mean by certain actions?”
“I was not told the choices you will be given or what they will involve. You will understand when the time comes. I was just given this information and nothing further.”
As I stood there completely confused with the lack of details, Edward and Jonah started swimming off. “Wait,” I yelled. But they just kept going. I decided to probe Edward's mind and found that he was not hiding anything. I could see his interactions with Cookie, and all she did was implant this message and he had relayed it exactly like she had planned.
“Sim, what the hell was that?”
Sim’s avatar appeared in front of me and began to speak. “Now that I know to look for Cookie in the tree, I can sense her. Her body is in a state of flux along with the tree. She is not quite gone but also not on our plane of existence. It appears that she is halfway through a link that Yggdrasil will make with another universe. She is in a void space. If the tree is unable to make the connection, she will never return. She’ll be stuck in the void between universes.”
“Why would she do this?” I wondered out loud.
As Sim explained her thoughts, I couldn’t help but zone out. This was too much. I just didn’t understand what all this was about. Why did she go to this much trouble to hide what she was doing and be so cryptic about everything?
“Cookie has had an agenda since her bloodline became active. There is no way of knowing why she has done anything since it activated. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens with the tree after the shield drops. I believe that’s the key to its next step. It more than likely just needs the excess mana.”
“That still doesn’t explain why she wouldn’t just ask for help. Why did she attack me with void energy and then hide all of this from me?”
Sim’s face began to show a sympathetic expression. “Good question. Hopefully, it will all make sense after we drop the shield.”
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As I stood there contemplating the information that had just been given to me and the lack of fulfillment it gave me, Sim started listing off everything we needed immediately upon the shield dropping.
“Mike, we need to finalize everything as quickly as possible. I believe we are ready to drop the shield but we need to review what all has to happen now that the tree is a variable.
First, the world might not expand like we first thought. With the excess mana set to be absorbed by the tree, the earth may not experience the full size increase. It may grow some during the initial blast and our cores we made will still absorb the needed mana, but I will have to adjust things as needed when the mana is released.”
As Sim explained about the earth's possible retention of its size, it reminded me of the moon.
“Even if the size doesn’t increase like we thought, is the funnel still going to work? Will the moon still be converted and start producing mana as planned?”
“Yes,” Sim replied. “I have already adjusted the funnel to guarantee terraforming and converting the core to mana will be completed as planned.”
A look of relief crossed my face. “Okay, sweet. I’m looking forward to having our base of operations and our home up there.”
“Second,” Sim continued, “I have Jeff working in the hero facility to help guide through any issues during the hero’s upgrades.
Third, I am transporting every acceptable being to their own astral space for integration. This is when the mana concentration will be at its highest. Most of the released mana will be used to convert billions of people into the different races and species should they choose it.”
I’m sure the confused look on my face was apparent because Sim stopped and stared at me. She didn’t speak for a good twenty seconds before my eyes lit up. “Oh, you said acceptable beings because some species have gained sapience like the squid.”
“There we go! Now he’s all caught up.” Sim said while laughing at me.
“Alright, alright, shut up. I got it now.” As I tried not to feel stupid for taking longer to recognize something that should have been obvious, she continued.
“Fourth, we need to monitor the tree and see exactly what happens with Cookie as it fully activates.
Fifth, we have to monitor for dimensional breaches. I can block universal breaches as far as I can tell, but because of the tree’s inherent nature, it may connect to different realms. If this happens, we have to know so we aren’t blindsided and can try to ascertain the danger.
And lastly, all three of us need to guide any stray mana into one of the cores or storage devices. I don’t think there will be an issue because of all the cores, the tree, and the integration. But just in case, you and Peaches will need to be ready to absorb some mana. You two are the only things strong enough to absorb massive amounts of mana without any long-term negative effects.”
“Where is Peaches?” I asked.
“She is still on the moon with her fox she created,” Sim replied. “I am not calling him Baron Foxy McFox Face. That is the stupidest name I have ever heard.”
I looked at Sim’s avatar with a little disappointment showing through. “You don’t have to. I’ve just been calling him Fox. Don’t hurt either of their feelings and say his name is dumb. She’s still really sensitive and she would probably pout if you did. We don’t know the full extent of her powers and the last thing we need right now is her destroying a continent on accident.”
Sim put on a little smile as she responded. It looked more sympathetic than when she was mocking the fox’s name. “I understand. I just wanted you to know what I thought. We should probably help her grow up a little bit mentally. It sounds like a 3-year-old named him instead of a super-powerful chimera with godlike powers.”
With renewed excitement in my tone, I responded, “Agreed. Let’s get her here really fast and then let’s go activate this damn system finally.”
I mentally reached out to Peaches and asked her to come to where I was. After a few seconds, I got a reply that it would be just a minute. She had to rebuild something on the moon again. As I focused my vision, I could see that she had once again been playing around and destroyed our compound I had gotten ready for when the shield dropped and the mana was released. About 90 seconds later, both she and the fox appeared.
“Hi, Daddy,” she said in her excited tone that always accompanied her. “We were playing again and I did an oopsie, so I fixed it. What are you doing here? Can we play on the beach? Oh, oh, build me a castle and let me destroy it. I’ll show you a new trick I learned.”
Without waiting for me to even respond, Peaches’ tails started glowing. They all shot out and created a rainbow pattern behind her. Above each of the middle ten tails was a different color orb of power. As each of the orbs grew, the colors began mixing and created an actual rainbow with the ten different mana colors. There was a mixture of colors between each orb, creating the most elaborate rainbow I had ever seen. The shades of mana altered, creating at least 20 different colors. As the mana expanded, it created a shield that she pushed into a dome structure. What happened next shocked me.
“Daddy, look what I can do.”
Peaches put her head down and concentrated. She created a meteor that slammed into the shield. Then a jet of fire, a high-pressure spout of water, and a huge spike of rock all slammed into the shield, disintegrating on contact. She looked up at me and smiled.
“I made my shield turn things into the… what were they called again, Sim? Oh yeah, base elements. Sim told me that’s what they were called instead of micros.”
“That’s impressive,” I told her. “I’m so proud of how strong you’re getting. Should we activate the system and finally start creating our new home?”
“Daddy,” she responded. “Can we make sure that Baron Foxy McFox Face doesn’t go bye-bye when the system starts? Sim said he might because he was made of pure mana and if he gets hit by any mana, then he may go boom.”
Sim’s avatar gave Peaches a sympathetic look as she explained what was actually said. “Peaches, I didn’t say he would go boom. I said he may break back down into his base mana components because of how you made him.”
“I can block the mana and make sure he makes it through. You can too, Peaches. Just create a void bubble around him and if any mana comes into contact with it, you can absorb it or let it disperse.”
Peaches tilted her head with a contemplative look on her face, and then her eyes lit up. “So kinda like my rainbow shield but I only use the black one and I can absorb it if I want, right?”
I smiled at her. I still can’t believe that she is as advanced as she is. For me, it’s been mere months since she was slobbering in my kitchen staring at the door to the pantry where her food was. “You got it.”
“Okay, Sim, let’s do this!” I said with extreme excitement and trepidation at the same time.