After following Imu with my floating essence as he scaled the branches down to the forest-floor, muttering long strings of expletives the entire way, we stopped near the border where my essence could go no further.

“I’m not quite sure how exactly you’re meant to build stuff,” the Myling said. “The Encyclopaedia is way too vague to be of any use.”

“What does it say?”

“Something about you being able to place a blueprint of buildings within your demesne.”

I concentrated really hard to make something appear, until I realised I had no idea what exactly what I was trying to actually create. What was a building? Was it like the burrow in the dead tree near the pond where I’d lived? If so, I needed to make a big hole.

An implosion of earth made the Boi jump nearly a metre into the air in surprise.

“What the…! Toad… why is there a hole in the grass??”

“Is that a building?” It looked pretty comfortable, albeit large, for a toad.

“No…” He held up his book and flipped it to a page with a drawing on it of what appeared to be a bunch of trees chopped down and cut in half, before being assembled onto a loose foundation of large stones into a strange shape. I suddenly remembered that I had once seen men with large oddly-shaped sticks felling trees and talking about building stuff with the wood. The squirrels who had previously lived in those trees were pretty pissed though.

I tried to concentrate on this image, and then, with a strangely-wet pop, a blurry see-through outline of my mental image now stood next to the hole I’d made.

“I did it!”

Imu looked around in confusion, then lifted his hand and formed that weird bubble thing. As he looked through it, he sighed in annoyance.

“Curse it!”

“What? Is it wrong?”

“No… you did well. The System is what is wrong.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re working with a Blueprint Construction System, meaning, you need to make your creatures build your structures, which is not only a logistical nightmare, but also highly ineffective. Normally, you would be able to just wish things into being and poof there they are, but no…”

“So I should make a whomen now?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“Same way as the building, although imagine that you are pushing part of yourself into it, like breaking a biscuit in half and keeping only one part, while giving the other to your creation.”

“What’s a biscuit?”

“…” Imu seemed to contemplate how to word his advice, before settling on something: “Imagine splitting a… mosquito… with a neighbouring frog.”

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing!”

“What!? Why is that such a bad thing?”

“A toad sharing a meal with a frog, with a frog!? If my friends heard you even say something like this, they would croak! Croak I say!”

“Frogs and toads don’t get along?”

“Let’s just say, when my third twice-removed cousin married a frog, she was ousted from our pond forever. Banished! Exiled! My great toadcestors didn’t fight seventeen wars for that pond against the cunning frogs, just so we toads could live side-by-side with them!”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Imu started massaging his large forehead. “You’re giving me an ulcer. Just create the damned human, okay?”

Though I was still incensed, I followed his guidance, channelling my indignation into the task at hand.

Like a vicious mole, a mound of earth grew out of the grass, before exploding in a shower of tufts and dirt, a single naked weird-looking frog standing on all fours before us.

“What the Hell is that?”

“A whomen?”

“Why is his face so…?”

“Handsome?”

“Revolting, more like. Have you never seen a human before?”

“That’s really mean,” I complained. “And I have seen them before, but their eyes are so small and their lips so thin, so I just imagined them looking more normal.”

“We have very conflicting ideas of what normal is supposed to look like. Change it.”

“No.”

Imu sighed. “Fine, leave it then. This thing will get killed and burnt at the stake, and I will laugh when it happens.”

The Whomen remained on all fours, alternating between staring at Imu and me, even though I should be invisible. It blinked its beautiful moist eyelids and then ran its long tongue over its cornea to give it moisture.

“…I think I’m gonna be sick. Make it stop doing that.”

“The tongue thing?”

“Yes. Please. Also, humans don’t crawl like that. They stand on two legs. Like me.”

“Hmm. Isn’t it better this way?”

“Absolutely not.”

Whomen, stand, I demanded with my thoughts.

“…Why is it doing a handstand?”

Whomen, stand on your back legs, not your front legs.

“That’s better. Now make another one.”

I concentrated really hard, but nothing happened. I was also starting to feel very fatigued again.

When another whomen didn’t burst from the ground mole-style, the boy pulled up his bubble and stared at my floating essence.

“Hm, you’re all spent, just making that one creature.”

“How can you tell?”

“Your essence is like a glass of water, and currently yours is less than half-full.”

“Why can’t I see my own essence?”

“You should be able to. Just imagine that you have the ability to see it and the System should accommodate you accordingly.”

I imagined that I could see my essence and suddenly a tiny pond appeared in my vision, its water at about two-fifths.

“I can see it now.”

“Good. You know, for being a toad, you’ve got a pretty decent grasp on this.”

“For being a toad?”

“Sorry, that came out wrong. What I meant to say was, ‘Good Job!’”

“Thank you.”

“…Anyway, tell your new minion to complete the blueprint of the house you made.”

With a thought, the Whomen got into action, bending down on all fours and hopping towards the ghostly outline of the construction.

“Stop!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Why the Hell is it hopping?? Humans walk! They walk!”

“Hopping is superior.”

“Listen here… your job is to make a human settlement, not a freakshow! The weird face is one thing, but if real humans see your minions moving around like this, they’ll either avoid them or crucify them!”

If I could twist my lips into a grimace, I would’ve, but alas. “Fine.”

Walking, on two legs, the last few metres, the whomen got to the translucent building and then scratched his bald dome and looked back at us.

“I don’t think he knows what to do.”

“Hell damn it.”

“What?”

“You also have to collect the resources to make your structures…”

“So I have to chop down trees?”

“And find large stones and dry grass. Basically, we’re screwed. This went from logistical nightmare to plain torture.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, for starters, you’ll need way more minions than normal, because you have to harvest everything you need, such as wood, stone, ore, and so on. This also means that you’ll have to specialise your workers, so they become proficient with their tasks, which in turn means that most of them will be terrible at actually defending your Core.

“When I told my Lord that I could use a challenge, he really did not hold back, huh?”

“I think I can make another whomen now,” I announced, noticing my essence reservoir go above three-fifths. With a concentrated burst, I called forth another whomen from the dirt, but immediately felt drained and out-of-breath afterwards, my essence pond going empty.

“This one is identical,” Imu commented. “Also, where are their geni—”

He stopped himself and looked at me through the bubble between his fingers.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“I’m tired.”

“Exhausting all of your essence is a bad idea,” he advised. “It will take longer to recharge and you won’t be able to do anything until you’re back to full.”

“I’m gonna take a nap.”

“Cores don’t sleep.”

I didn’t listen, as my essences was reeled back into my shiny pebble within the cave at the top of the tree and my consciousness faded.

“Toad! Toad! Wake up! Toad!”

With a burst of energy, my essence shot out of the cave like a furious owl disturbed by migrating squirrels.

“What’s wrong!?”

I looked around and didn’t spot the Boi anywhere on the grass near the translucent building, nor did I see either of my two whomens.

“I’m here!” Imu yelled and I found him hanging from a branch two metres off the ground, the corpses of my two creations below him.

“What happened??”

“That damned goose attacked while you were resting and killed both of your minions!”

“Not again…”