Well, that’s interesting… I thought to myself as I continued looking through the shopping interface. There was one thing in particular that caught my eye, though I had no intention of buying it.

Sapient NPCBase Price: 1000 Gold, 10 Gold UpkeepRobotic NPCBase Price: 10000 Gold

Out of curiosity, I tapped on a button for more information. At least they don’t try to get you to buy things without knowing what you’re getting. From the information, the NPCs were artificial entities created by the system for the cash market. There were various parameters that could increase their cost, such as starting abilities, appearance, and personality.

There seemed to be a lot of room for abuse there, but I imagined that having an NPC become stronger would increase their upkeep cost. So gold farming with them might not be profitable, depending how that works. Next, I checked various other items and abilities that were on sale. I was completely unable to think of anything that was not on the market, from the ability to sense the time of day, to guessing how many hairs are on a creature.

In total, I only made one purchase, aside from the information presentation about making money. And that was two thousand gold coins for ‘Information about grove evolution’. I decided it was okay to splurge a little bit, seeing as this was something I had been curious about for a while. I’ll summarize what I learned below.

Groves start out at the most basic, ‘primal’ stage, at which point they are just barely starting to take in the elements. Then, after acquiring certain elements--you should know which ones, as I already did this part--the grove evolves into the Stellar stage. At this stage, the grove experiences its first true growth spurt.

After the Stellar stage comes the Nebula stage, which requires at least ten functioning solar systems in the grove. Once again, the grove experiences another growth spurt upon entering this new stage. Unfortunately, this information didn’t include the abilities each stage gave, just how to reach them.

After the Nebula stage, when the grove possesses at least a thousand solar systems, the next stage unlocked is Galactic. To get to this one, it is also required to have a high affinity with gravity as well, because a black hole is created at the center. This is the second to last stage, and unlike previously, the grove begins shrinking after reaching this stage.

Finally, the last stage is the Universal grove. This one is created only when the black hole of the Galactic stage fully consumes the entire grove, and also requires a high affinity with time, plant, animal, luck, and order. According to the information, the Universal stage is literally the big bang, and creates an entire new universe within the grove. At this point, there is no need to measure the grove in terms of size, because it is constantly expanding on its own.

I found this information rather enlightening, as I finally knew how to evolve my grove further. However, at the same time, it made me curious. If I reach the Galactic stage… would Sharon’s grove be pulled into the black hole through the portal we have set up? If so, would the new, Universal grove be shared between us, or would I be completely destroying her grove?

I decided that I’d look for answers on that when I was closer to unlocking the Galactic stage. Right now, I still only had one solar system in my grove, though I should be able to set up the second during this journey.

Time Mana surge detected, synchronizing. Mana flow redirected. Time flow stabilized.

Suddenly, I felt someone latching onto me, and heard quiet sobs coming from my side. Unsurprisingly, when I looked down, I found Tokemi clinging to me. “You… you were gone.”

I shook my head with a small smile, reaching down and petting her head gently. She relaxed slightly at the touch, and I could feel the time mana slowly dispersing. “It’s okay, Tokemi. I just had to come here to look at something. Didn’t I leave Sharon there for you to play with when you woke up?”

The little fox girl looked up at me with watery eyes, before those eyes widened, and a regretful look appeared on her face. “Sorry… I didn’t notice…”

“It’s alright. You can go apologize to her when we get back, okay?” When I said that, she nodded her head slowly. Soon, the gathered time mana had dispersed, returning to normal levels. Seconds later, a panicked message came in over the comm.

“John?! John, are you there? Tokemi vanished!”

“It’s alright, Sharon.” I couldn’t help but chuckle lightly. “She’s here with me.”

“Aww… and here I was wanting to welcome her with a nice meal…” She spoke with a pouting voice, and I shook my head again.

“Well, we’ll head back that way now. I’ve got something to discuss with you anyways.” After saying so, I gently grabbed Tokemi’s hand and left the temple. From what I could see, the priest was still clutching that gold coin and staring at something. Likely he was quite interested in the gold market.

Maybe I can use this to give my crew a salary, once I have a reliable method for harvesting gold. I thought about it, then nodded my head. That would be a good way to reward everyone, I think. Maybe get some merchants to set up a trading hall or something to buy items people don’t need anymore.

Anyways, when I got back to the room, there really was a hot meal waiting for Tokemi, and she tearfully apologized for leaving Sharon like that. Naturally, Sharon couldn’t stay upset at the little girl, and helped her with her meal. Meanwhile, I explained to Sharon what I learned about the gold market, and she seemed just as surprised as I had been.

However, she didn’t seem as eager to go look at what the possibilities were, likely because of a certain fluffy girl that was sitting in her arms. Like this, the day slowly passed, one of many. Soon, I had trained my Animal Affinity to 10%, and got the manipulation ability that went along with it. Like the plant one, this would allow me to change and influence animals, though I did not think Sharon used it often.

After a couple of months of passively training, I had acquired the materials I needed to make Tokemi’s ring. This was, quite simply, an item that would disperse time mana whenever it gathered unnaturally. Although it is not a perfect fix, it proved to help with her time hiccup problem. Gradually, she began to play with others more and more, though she would still have more fun when I was around.

While traveling, I was doing my best to maximize our speed. I would take turns upgrading the engines and FTL shields so that we could arrive at the Qu’Lopti world as soon as possible, though there wasn’t any real problem.

Okay, so there was one problem, but we were able to take care of it. During the travel, we caught another abstract hitchhiking on the ship’s hull. Thankfully, this was the statue type, so once we dropped out of FTL to take care of it, the fight was over quick. I couldn’t really call that a problem since it took less than half an hour to resolve.

I kept my reports going to Talia back at the elven worlds, as well. Naturally, I told her what I had discovered with the gold market, and she had people set up more mines in her world with Maeve’s permission. Since minerals naturally respawn over time, there wasn’t a need to worry about it drying up like in the past.

Let’s see… I would like to say that I did something really productive with my thirteen months of free time… But I would honestly be lying. Although I spent more time interacting with the crew in order to get Tokemi acquainted with more people, most of my time was spent either playing with her, trying to teach her about magic, or enchanting random gear.

On the bright side, my passive cultivation had plenty of time to increase while we were heading for the Qu’Lopti world! Roughly a week before we were scheduled to arrive, this is what my stats looked like.

NameJohn HulettRaceWood ElfTitlesVengeful Heart, Amateur Brain Surgeon, Spider Slaughterer, Starship CaptainFame25,000Level 1201%ClassDruidAdvanced ClassXeno-ShifterDeityMalthanHealth1000/1000Health Regen0Mana3000/3000Mana Regen35.8Strength30Wisdom200Agility62Intelligence300Dexterity62Charisma35Vitality100Luck25Points Remaining0Earth 51%Fire 49%Wind 49%Water 49%Lightning 46%Light 46%Dark 49%Plant 46%Void 46%Metal 46%Magnetism 46%Plasma 46%Gravity 46%Time 21%Animal 30%

When I got 50% in the Earth Affinity, I received another ability, labeled Earth Resistance. As the name implies, it gave me a passive resistance against earth related attacks. What that all qualifies as, I’m not sure. However, at the same time, the increase from passive cultivation also slowed down further. Most likely, the higher it got, the slower it would increase, even with the ring and staff combo.

However, there was another reason I was using this as a benchmark for showing off my stats. My grove finally got to the size where I could add in a second star without their gravity fields heavily interfering with each other. And I wouldn’t even have to steal away from the current star, as there was plasma just floating around in the empty space.

Grabbing that plasma, I pulled it together at the edge of the void area. While doing so, I was able to watch as streams of light merged together to form a new star. Although it could still not be considered on the same scale as the one in the starting area of my grove, it was large enough to become self-sustaining. I’d need to make sure to fuel it with more plasma later to help it grow.

Next, I grabbed several of the wandering comets of various elements to begin constructing the first two planets that would orbit this star. On them, I planted several trees from the other area, intending to use this as an experimental ground in the near future. I wanted to test the limits of my abilities far away from anywhere that it could do real damage.

Speaking of the starting area, Sharon’s animals had really done a number on it… I actually had to entirely rearrange the planets, because they were getting too big. Right now, the largest one was almost half the size of mars, nearly two thousand miles in diameter. This was the planet where I had placed the portal, so it was the one that all of the animals cultivated on. Naturally, this also meant that it was the one to absorb the most mana to grow.

I actually started to see settlements appearing on this planet, where the sapient beings from Sharon’s grove would come together and build small villages. Although they were still Sharon’s animal companions, they would spend a lot of their time in my grove. I was concerned about this, so I went to talk with Sharon when I discovered it.

“Sharon?” I asked, finding her talking with one of the female crewmembers.

“Hmm? What is it?” She looked at me curiously, unsure why I was interrupting her conversation.

“Uhm… could I have a minute?” I glanced at the other woman, who smiled slightly.

“It’s alright, Aelsgwynn. I’ll get back to you about it later.” Sharon nodded to the woman, who I recognized now as one of the chefs for the crew. After she left, Sharon looked at me. “What’s the matter?”

“Sorry, did I come at a bad time?”

When I asked that, she shook her head. “No, it’s alright. But again, what’s up?”

“Ah, did you know that the sapient animals from your grove are… well, I guess you could say they are migrating?”

Sharon, hearing my question, couldn’t help but laugh. “Ah, so that’s what this is about. You worried that I’ll think you are stealing them away or something?” When I didn’t respond, she continued with a smile. “Don’t worry, it was my idea. Some of them were tired of living around all of the fighting, so I suggested they move to your area. This way, they can visit their descendants whenever they want, but don’t have to watch the regular battles for food. I was meaning to ask if you could get some livestock from the gold market for them to raise.”

I thought about it, and nodded my head. She made sense, it just surprised me to find them suddenly making a settlement. And really, there were more benefits to getting livestock for my grove than just feeding the ‘refugees’. “Alright, I’ll see how much they cost.” If I could get a reliable source of meat, and maybe even a surplus, I could use them to help with my experiments in the second solar system.