“We can magically enrich the water with the dust from the magical rocks. It’ll make anything you do far more effective.”

  Persephone’s words sounded Keynes’s ear. He’d been listening to the conversation about the underground river from the surface as he’d gotten delayed by Kora and her garden in the semi-soul space. During his absence, she found something to occupy her time.

  He couldn’t pinpoint it but something about the mood among the crew was different. People he passed on his way to the surface were filled with purpose he hadn’t sensed before.

  According to the visage, productivity jumped by 40 percent. A few serious projects were underway like building a training chamber and food cultivation fields; a first step to become independent from the spaceship. Most food was still hauled from orbit as the spaceship had the required technology and underlying system to sustain food production.

  The surface base had rifts which only provided wild fruits and some vegetables and herbs.

  Kora’s project was unrelated to that though. She told Keynes that she wasn’t sure where she wanted to take it yet. After their time in the Inner Sanctuary, she no longer regarded gardening the same way. Possibilities were, well, endless. Obviously it would take time and effort to cultivate something truly valuable but she seemed keen to do it. Keynes had considered lending her hand from the get go, and likely he would as gardening was something he liked, but he just felt like his calling was elsewhere right now.

  Besides, his father had offered his help to Kora and Keynes was yet to decide what he was going to do about what he’d learned about his past. While Ewan Kid knew nothing about gardening, his glyphs were very synergistic with plant cultivation.

  Things looked really positive.

  He continued to listen to the conversation about the underground river, inquiring the visage for clarification.

  “Persephone’s idea is short of revolutionary,”the visage said. “Magic is best understood as an amplifier. Obviously there is more to it than that but in this case, this is what you need to know.”

  An idea popped in his head.

  “If it’s an amplifier, could we use these rocks for plant cultivation?”

  “Certainly. But it won’t be straightforward. I know about your time in the Inner Sanctuary and I know that you’re aware how complex plant cultivation can get when magical properties are involved. But it is a good start to Kora’s project. You may turn out that her, Pierre’s and Roman’s work have much more in common than you realise.”

  “Do tell,” Keynes prompted. He sat on the highest peak near their base and watched the dark clouds. Despite the night not a single start got through the heavy clouds. The spacesuit’s visor had a function that could make the clouds invisible and show him the clear night sky but Keynes dismissed the offer. Instead he wondered about the future. Should they turn this planet into a hospitable, Earth-like place or rather search for such a planet? The visage’s answer to that question was unclear. It certainly knew the real purpose of why they were brought here. Keynes didn’t think Lem Solaris had randomly selected this solar system out of trillions available in his universe.

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  Blue Iron and the magical rocks were compelling arguments toward staying here. Both were fundamental to their continuous development. And now, an underground river. Maybe Pierre and Roman were onto something?

  “I can’t speak about specifics but let's take the air purifying moss you found in a rift.”

  “It won’t survive on the surface.” They had already tried that. The toxicity of the surface coupled with high pressure, strong winds which carried dust and other corroding particles, destroyed moss in less than a day. “But I get what you mean. We could create a plant that could survive and purify the surface.”

  “In very simplistic terms, yes. But creating a plant capable of surviving the harsh and toxic environment and on top of that purifying the very air, making it breathable and sustaining itself without water and direct sunlight is rather outside of your capabilities right now. Think outside the box.”

  Keynes did. His mind searched through his memory. All the books he read on the topic…

  “Oceans.”

  “Yes, except this planet has none.”

  “If there is an underground river, maybe there is also an underground ocean?” Keynes asked, although he wasn’t sure where he was going with this. Would an underground ocean even be useful to their terraforming efforts?

  “Perhaps, but I have not done any deep scans so I confirm that one exists here. But you’re on the right track.”

  “Is it really worth it?” Keynes asked after a few minutes of silence from the visage. “The whole terraforming effort I mean. Wouldn't it be smarter to keep a surface base instead?”

  Like before the visage took its time in replying. Keynes couldn’t tell why. Was the visage trying to say more than it was allowed or was it playing on Keynes’s emotions?

  Either way, it finally spoke.

  “What do you think?”

  That was new. Before the visage had been vague about this, now it asked him?

  “That there is some purpose for us being here and likely terraforming is part of that. Why else would she include two terraforming experts into the crew?”

  “Ah Keynes, you’re answering without giving yourself time to think about this. But you aren’t wrong, you just take it far too lightly.”

  Keynes nodded, unsure if the visage could see him, then jumped into the air and flew toward one of unopened Level 6 rifts. After spending a week binding the thunder hippogryph, he couldn’t sit still and had to move forward. Cleaning all Level 6 rifts sounded like the right thing to do.

  The ground blurred as Keynes pushed [Flight] its limits. He suspected that at the moment his top flight speed was about 300 km/h though his mana drained at substantial rate.

  Isn't it a good time to improve my skills with essence?