Author’s Corner: Sorry for the delayed chapter, all! Had some RL things to take care of the last couple days!

So, you’re probably wondering if anything special happened while we were doing the training this time around, right? Well… as much as I would love to say that it did, and there was some epic battle, honestly it was really boring. I did learn a few things about the Ha’vosh though, which were quite interesting.

First of all, their ‘network’ was an organic computer that projected a psychic link over the planet. Anyone that knew how could access it, and once inside it worked somewhat similar to the VR internet on Earth, navigated by thought. I even learned how to tap into it myself, and turned into a Ha’vosh to do so. Once inside their network, I was able to gradually ‘upload’ the information that we had been unable to simply give them due to the compatibility issues.

Unsurprisingly, my psychic powers were not strong enough to maintain the link for too long, even after I shapeshifted. The Ha’vosh essentially train their abilities every day of their lives, so even if I transform into one and get the racial boost, I won’t be able to match up in terms of actual ability. Since I could only connect for about ten minutes at a time, and then have to take a break for an hour, it took me about a week to upload the necessary information.

According to Jimmy, my name for the leader of the Ha’vosh, the organic computer had been showing problems ever since the system was put in place. Several people believed that it was going to crash, which would cause the psychic network to fall. However, the problems were mostly just slowing down the speed of information transfers. I asked Celeste if she could investigate it, but since she doesn’t have the equipment to interface with an organic computer that is based on psychic input, she was only able to do preliminary scans. Of course, these scans didn’t reveal anything structurally wrong with the device.

I was tempted to do my own scan of the organic computer, to add it to my list of reckless brain surgeries. Doing so might even give me a major boost to my psychic ability. However… it was just too alien. Since I did not know how the technology worked, I could not isolate the parts that I would need for the surgery. I could only take comfort in knowing that my repeated connections to the network had strengthened my control to some degree.

In total, we stayed at the Ha’vosh planet for one month, during which time we trained them as best as we could. Thankfully, our ‘training crew’ this time was more than just Sharon and myself, since we had representatives from the other classes in the crew. The only real downside was that we still had to use our clones to do the training. At one point, one of the ‘classes’ had been interrupted by a curious Ha’vosh that wasn’t wearing an inhibitor, and it killed the teacher.

So, as I was saying, we spent a month training them to get them to understand the basics, and helped them construct three more temples on the planet. Given that we were busy, we didn’t bother going back to the Shadow Realm dungeon while we were here, but we did let the Ha’vosh know of its existence. They seemed to appreciate the information, as the dungeon offered an easy way for them to level up. Or it would, once they trained a bit more. Right now, they would be useless against anything that was immune to psychic attacks, and a darkness dungeon might just have something like that.

After that month passed, we were finally ready to leave and head back towards the elven worlds to meet up with my parents. Jimmy told us that a few of the Ha’vosh had indeed decided to join us, so we had brought down the shuttle to ferry them up. We probably could have just teleported them, but this way they get to see their world as they leave it for the first, and possibly last, time.

Unfortunately… there were not nearly as many Ha’vosh as I had been expecting. I had thought that there might be a hundred, maybe even two hundred or more Ha’vosh. I was prepared to ferry them in small batches so that they could enjoy their first trip to space. But… when we brought the shuttle down to the designated location, there were… only five Ha’vosh waiting there for us.

Demona was our shuttle pilot, as she had become quite adept at flying the small craft, and when she saw the small number of people she cast a suspicious glance in my direction. “You got the right coordinates, didn’t you?”

“I did… I think.” I got out of the shuttle after it landed, and looked at the five Ha’vosh. Each one was wearing nametags, something that we had to insist on because there were almost no distinguishing characteristics between them aside from height. Every now and then one would have different eye colors, but otherwise they all looked the same.

The five Ha’vosh lined up in front of me were Bob, Mark, Greg, Sam, and Alex. Yes, they were all ones I had met personally and named over these last few months. Greg, the only priest of the group, stepped forward and spoke. “Hello, Captain.” His speech, as well as everyone else’s, have gotten quite better over the last month. And yes, they were all wearing inhibitors. “Sir Jimmy has told us that we would be able to travel with you if we waited here.” Thankfully, they had recently taken up the habit of adding ‘Sir’, ‘Miss’, or so on in front of names to help distinguish them for us, since they could tell we had problems.

I nodded my head at that. “That’s right. I’ll be taking anyone interested up to my ship, and then we’ll be leaving.” Just like with Talia, I had added Jimmy to my friends list, but I had not been asked to give regular updates with him.

“Understood.” Greg shook his head and looked to the others. “We can get on now, it seems.” At his words, the other four Ha’vosh all proceeded forward to board the shuttle, aside from Bob who just kept staring at it. “Sister Bob, is there a problem?”

“Huh?” Bob looked at Greg, before nodding. “I am alright.” Bob then proceeded to head onto the ship as--wait, sister? Did I accidentally stick a female with a definitively male name? And how confusing was this going to get in the long run?

Though.. I guess it didn’t matter much. Maybe from now on, Bob would be a female name for the Ha’vosh… I’m sorry in advance. “Right… well, let’s get going, then.” I said with a slight sigh. “I guess that there won’t be any others coming?”

Greg nodded his head at that. We were really going to have to work on that. “Only us, Captain. Ha’vosh have never left Alkrax. Many do not wish to do so. Others do not wish to leave their families without knowing that they can return.”

Well… I guess that is understandable… Still, surprised they haven’t even gone to their moon yet. I suppose that they just didn’t have much interest in leaving their world. Kind of ironic to me that the elves had already left their homeworld and colonized multiple planets in their system by the time we show up, but the psychic race hasn’t even been to the moon yet.

“Alright… Well, sit down and strap in. Demona, take us back.” I shook my head slightly, sitting down in the front of the shuttle. This was kind of a disappointment. Even if it was just for political reasons, I had expected that they would send no less than fifty Ha’vosh. To only get five… well, it’s not like I was helping people just to get a bigger crew.

Hearing my instruction, Demona quickly launched the shuttle, moving to take us back up to the Ariadne. I looked back towards Alkrax, somewhat regretful. During this month, I had taken the chance to train a new element almost exclusively. Originally, I had planned to train Dural next, as it was a good conductor for mana, so that would make it a valuable resource. However… arriving on a planet with a higher gravity, I couldn’t help myself from taking the Gravity Affinity. I even went ahead and added it to my grove after getting the required 5%.

After putting this new element inside my grove, a series of changes began taking place. The different planetoids inside the grove, which had all been immobile, began moving. The sun that had occupied the center of the daytime sky gained a large gravitational pull, and the other planetoids began to orbit it. Of course, when this happened I had to make some changes in order for the planets to not crash into each other.

Now, each of my grove planets were orbiting the sun within my grove. There was no longer a ‘night’ and ‘day’ side for me to play around with, as the light was emitted solely from this sun. At the same time, the void area increased explosively, as if feeding off some relationship between itself and the gravity mana to expand. I was not sure exactly how far it had reached, but I was confident in saying that the total radius of my grove, including the void area, was at least several hundred miles. At the same time, this message appeared for me.

Stellar Grove UnlockedDue to possessing the Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Light, Dark, Plasma, Gravity, and Void affinities within your grove, it has upgraded from 'Primal' status to 'Stellar' status.

Stellar groves follow a system similar to solar systems. While passing through areas that have dense mana of a type within your grove, it is possible for an 'asteroid' of the element to emerge within your grove. This will not impact your cultivation speed, but will increase the rate at which your grove increases in size.

That was… not something I had expected. I mean, the message didn’t really have much impact, as the only thing it really meant was that I would randomly get a boost to the elements inside my grove. I had to wonder if adding in other elements would upgrade it again. Or maybe I just needed to expand it wide enough. If I make a few dozen other areas like the small solar system, it might upgrade to a ‘Nebula’ or something? Then, train gravity high enough and put a black hole in the center, maybe that would upgrade it to ‘Galaxy’?

I honestly had no idea, but I figured I would find out eventually. For now, I was simply absorbing mana passively while training my new affinity, hoping to get it to match with the others. Maybe Sharon would be able to unlock different combinations and upgrade her grove down a different path? Given the affinities I’ve seen her practice, maybe her grove would eventually become a living being with a mind of its own?

Anyways, once we got onto the ship, we immediately left the system. Unlock when we acquired the elves, these five Ha’vosh had no prior training that would grant them an immediate position on board the ship. As such, I had to assign them to different trainers in order to prepare them for to take on a post.

“That’s really all of them?” Sharon looked at me doubtfully. “You didn’t just forget to make a second trip, or something?”

“Nope.. that was everyone that wanted to leave their planet.” I shook my head, sighing again. “Apparently, the Ha’vosh aren’t that big on space travel right now. Maybe, if we hadn’t shown up, they might have never considered the possibility.”

“Well… that sucks. But, at least this way there won’t be too many running around that could potentially harm the crew, right?”

I nodded at that, agreeing. “Speaking of which, how’s Kismet doing?”

Sharon’s brows furrowed slightly at the question. “It’s… going slowly. He is not maturing as rapidly as Yang or Yo did at first, according to Celeste’s estimates. It might be because he didn’t evolve into this form, or because he’s always been alone, but he is honestly just a little kid.”

“A little kid with the power of a final dungeon boss…” I reminded her with a slight smile.

That earned me a laugh. “Right, how could I forget that part? I’ve started training his skills a bit, but mostly I am having him learn common sense, right and wrong and all that. Priscilla and the others are helping a lot with that, and he’s been making friends with them.”

I smiled, thanking her. Kismet could potentially be an extremely powerful ally if he was raised properly. I also took the time to tell her about my grove being upgraded from ‘Primal’ to ‘Stellar’, and how it happened.

“Huh… Maybe different systems get added to the groves based on the elements in them? Evolution might not be possible inside the grove without the Animal Affinity, for instance… I wouldn’t really know since I didn’t get a message, and I had that affinity before any of my animals were strong enough to evolve in the first place.”

I thought about that, and then suggested my own theory. “Maybe there are different paths of advancement for groves? Like, someone making a World Tree in theirs instead of a standard solar system.”

However, Sharon brought up a completely valid point that negated that theory. “Wouldn’t you have already gotten something like that since you had the Plant Affinity from ages ago? I’m sure people can probably make stuff like that if they want to, but it wouldn’t be how the grove evolves. Most likely the grove evolves strictly along the expansion of space, but more systems can be added in with different affinities.”

Thinking about it for a few moments longer, Sharon seemed to have an idea. “For example, what if you added the time element to your grove. Then, condense everything into one spot and make your own personal big bang. After that, accelerate time inside the grove until planets and stars begin to form. Worst case scenario, your grove collapses and you just have to make it again. But it might also be the secret to an endless grove.”

“Huh…” I never really thought about it like that. If I did it that way, there was also the possibility of various species evolving inside the grove. But before I even thought about doing that, I would need more of the advanced elements like Animal, otherwise the new ‘universe grove’ wouldn’t get very far. Though, this is for far in the future. Right now, even if I added the Animal Affinity, I don’t have enough mass in the grove to cause the kind of explosion I would need for a big bang. And even if I did, my Time Affinity is nowhere near strong enough to accelerate by the several billion times it would need in order for the universe to settle.

Though, maybe this was the start of a greater path? It would be ridiculous if we all just turned out to be living in a grove shared by a pantheon of ‘gods’.