After getting back to the ship, I had Yo report to Celeste in order to have those memories extracted and searched for relevant information. While I could probably do so myself, Celeste is a better obvious choice for this, given that she would be able to better understand any technical information uncovered. As for myself, after ‘dying’, I made my way to the bridge.

“Damage report.” I said as I arrived, looking at the crew members who were busily looking at their terminals.

“Three shield emitters were damaged in the fight, captain. We have the materials to repair them, but it will take time.”

After hearing the report, I nodded my head. “How long?” We were on a rather tight schedule as things were, if I wanted to have this all wrapped up before my grove underwent its next evolution.

“If we get the Deus Ex to help us with converting the raw materials into the proper components and have them help with installation… three days, maybe.” I felt my eyes twitch slightly when I heard that.

“Alright… Do it.” I said with a low groan. We didn’t know when we would be finding their true main base, but any base that we went to through their warp gate would likely be heavily defended. We couldn’t afford to go in without all of our systems working at their top performance, especially not our shields.

Receiving the order, they began placing calls to the various nearby ships to ask for help in expediting the repairs. As for me, I gave a slight glance to the countdown for my grove. I wanted to be sure to know just how close we were cutting it.

8:12:34:21 Remaining until Grove Evolution

I was just about to breathe out a sigh of relief when another window appeared, which almost literally made me cough up blood.

Oh great, the God of Writing got depressed again, so any time-based notifications may be a bit screwy. Sorry everyone, we’re sending out the correct information now!

What… how does that even happen?! I thought the system was automated. Don’t tell me that one god in particular is responsible for managing the entire timeline for every system notification. That would be ridiculous.

Of course not, John, that would be silly. He does, however, have to keep track of the different variables that alter major plot points-- I mean, major events in history. And when he forgets one… well, things can get a bit wonky. You can’t really blame him, it’s your own fault this time! That ring and staff combination was an unseen variable that he completely forgot about because you never do anything special with them!

My ring and staff? Well, obviously he wasn’t talking about Lex. So, I looked down to my finger, and remembered the ring that Yin had given me from her first patron mission. I had really had it for so long that even I had forgotten about it. Not to mention the staff that combined with it to allow me to cultivate mana at a constant rate without needing to meditate.

Shaking my head, I checked the countdown once again. Given the amount of mana being pulled from the staff and ring into my grove, that notification from before was obviously meant for me. I didn’t know how much time it shaved off, so it was better to check it myself.

0:02:31:18 Remaining until Grove Evolution

Honestly, I felt like crying at this point… From over a week remaining, I now had barely two and a half hours!? “Sharon, meet me at Airlock B as quickly as possible.” I sent the message over comms, before turning and running out of the bridge, leaving more than a few surprised gazes behind.

“John, what’s going… oh, my…” I heard Celeste’s voice in my mind, no doubt she either overheard my transmission or felt my mental distress. “Be safe, John.” She said in a softer tone, likely knowing what I was about to do.

“I will. You keep the ship safe while we’re gone.” I said aloud as I ran, not caring at this point if anyone heard me talking to myself. By the time I got to the airlock, which I chose because it was the closest one to the bridge, Sharon was already there waiting for me. Judging by her rough breathing, and the slight sweat on her forehead, she had ran straight here as soon as she got my message.

“What’s going on, John?” She asked hurriedly, while I pulled her forward with me into the airlock. “You know I can’t breathe in space, right?!”

“I’ll explain on the way.” I said quickly, activating my aura sight to temporarily change Sharon’s race, and my own, to a void elf, in order to allow her to survive in the vacuum that we were about to enter. Only once that was taken care of, and the airlock was opened did I begin explaining what had happened to Sharon.

“Malthan fucked up my grove timer.” I told her, speaking through void mana so that she could hear me. “My grove evolution is coming now, not next week.”

Hey, it wasn’t me! It was Author-sama’s fault! He forgot about your extra absorption passive!

When I said that, ignoring the complaining window that appeared, I saw her face visibly pale, realizing the implications behind it. “Why’d you pull me along, then? I thought you had to do this alone, like all your other evolutions?” She sent back, her tone panicked.

“Malthan told me before that it would be best if you were with me when this happened.” Though how much I wanted to believe him, I wasn’t sure. So far, he hadn’t strictly lied to me as far as I could tell, but he never really told me the whole truth either. “He said that it wouldn’t hurt you, but we need to get as far away from the fleet as possible.”

When she heard that, Sharon’s face grew calmer, and she nodded her head. With her assistance, we increased the speed that we were flying away from the fleet. If possible, I would have liked to take us through subspace to get farther away, but Sharon did not have a way to protect herself in there like I did.

As we flew, the ship gradually became smaller and smaller behind us, though even after two hours we could still easily see our fleet in the distance. When two and a half hours passed, the countdown finally hit zero. While feeling a surge of mana from within me, I saw another message appear in front of me.

0:00:00:00 Remaining until Grove Evolution. Please stand by while the big bang commences.

Unable to tell just how much of that was serious, I soon felt another surge of mana. This one, however, was not coming from me. Instead, it was coming from Sharon, and seemed to resonate perfectly with my own energy. Light began to warp around us as the mana distorted everything.

This is the best part. Go watch your grove, you two lovebirds.

When I saw that message, my eye once again twitched. Glancing off to the side, I saw that Sharon had a surprised reaction on her face, likely meaning that the window had appeared for her to. She looked up to me, giving a faint nod as she closed her eyes. For some reason, I could almost feel her looking into my grove, so I decided to join her.

What we saw when we looked in was… beautiful, to say the least. The black hole that had condensed the entire grove into a single ball of matter had erupted. In its wake was stardust, scattered as far as the eye could see. And seeing as we could see everything in the grove, that was quite a distance. A distance which was constantly expanding, moving outwards at a speed we could barely even comprehend.

Within that mass of stardust, we could still sense the mana of the universe, but there was so much more than normal. I could sense mana types that I had never felt before. Not only of Order and Chaos, of Light and Dark, but there were other mana types hidden within the streams of glittering dust. Yet, that was far from the end of the show.

The last mana type that I felt released from the black hole, the one that had been pulled to its very core, was time mana. And when it washed out to cover this new universe, everything changed. Sharon and I could see as whirlpools of light seemed to pull the stardust together, condensing it into spheres of fire and stone. It was like watching the creation of the universe in fast forward, as more and more rocks collided with one another to form planets.

But that wasn’t all. The mana of the universe kept expanding outwards, further and further. It didn’t stop at one solar system, or even one galaxy. The entire scene was captured within mine and Sharon’s view, as we watched the cosmos itself taking shape. Galaxies formed and collapsed, planets burned, and life took root.

I couldn’t even count the number of planets within our grove that contained life, but not just because there were too many. Time was still moving forward, faster and faster. Species were born and went extinct in the next second. Billions of years seemed to pass as we watched, before finally everything settled down. Time slowed to a crawl, and we were finally able to get a good look at our grove.

Even counting the number of galaxies seemed impossible, as they dotted the vast expanse. Each galaxy holding over tens of billions of stars, many of which had their own planets revolving around them. “Wow…” I heard off from my side, surprising me. I had never heard Sharon’s voice like this when we were both looking into our groves before.

Floating next to me in the emptiness above the center of creation, was an ethereal, and very naked Sharon. She was looking down at a nearby galaxy, which seemed just so small from our perspective. When she looked up, and found me next to her, her eyes were as wide as saucers. “Does this mean… both of us?” She seemed to ask, before a message as large as a dwarf star appeared some distance away from us, a hanging blue panel in the sky.

Congratulations! Sharon and John Hulett, you are now the proud owners of your own universe. Due to your connected groves, both of you are treated as equal owners of this new universe, and are able to control all that exists within it. But that’s not all! With great power, comes even more great powers.

As owners of a Universe Grove, each of you have access to three perks.

Universe Ownership: Within your universe, you can be seen as a God.

Universe Mana: All mana types have been compressed into one, granting access to the manipulation of all things, in and out of the grove. Your mastery of this new mana type will be based on the mana types you had mastered until now, and their affinities.

Universe Reserves: By burning the endless void of your universe, you can receive a limitless supply of mana from your grove.

Two of those perks, I had expected. I had burned my grove before to provide extra mana, and an infinite universe would give me infinite space to burn… As for being a god within my universe, that just seemed obvious. Even before, in a normal grove, the druid who owns it is all but a deity.

However, the new mana type surprised me… Without hesitation, I opened up my character sheet, in order to see these new changes for myself.

Name

John Hulett

Race

Void Elf

Titles

Vengeful Heart, Amateur Brain Surgeon, Spider Slaughterer, Starship Captain, Creator of Baishiro, Universe Ruler

Fame

100,000

Level 208

21%

Class

Druid

Advanced Class

Xeno-Shifter

Deity

Malthan

Health

2000/2000

Health Regen

0

Mana

4500/4500

Mana Regen

9000

Strength

100

Wisdom

300

Agility

74

Intelligence

450

Dexterity

70

Charisma

35

Vitality

200

Luck

25

Points Remaining

Universe 57%

The first thing that I noticed was obviously that my list of elemental affinities had decreased to one. However, soon I noticed my mana regeneration… A full nine thousand mana every second. That meant I could refill my mana twice every second. And that was probably only because it was the limit on how fast I could take energy from my grove.

Glancing over to Sharon, I saw that her cheeks had puffed up cutely, her arms crossed in front of her. “12%...” She mumbled to herself, likely reading her own affinity. I couldn’t help but smile. Sharon had never had the number of affinities I had, nor the level of mastery with them, so it wasn’t surprising that her affinity with this new element was so low.

“Let’s go.” I said with a smile, holding my hand out for her. Now that this situation was taken care of, we had friends to get back to, and new changes to explore. Now… we could finally be considered to have the strength to win this war.