If Matthias was being honest, he was a bit lost. He sat on the bench beneath the willow tree, contemplating his options. As he did, he continued expanding his influence. It had now spread far enough to reach the continental shelf off the coast.

  That thought brought him up short. A full third of the area enveloped by his influence was water. The continental shelf lay nearly three hundred miles from the shoreline. The sheer size of the territory he now covered gave him a headache just thinking about it—and yet he was still populating it with life. From bacteria to megafauna. From plants to animals. From algae to zebrafish.

  That was when Lucy slapped him.

  “Wake up!” she shouted in his ear.

  “Huh?” he responded intelligently.

  “You have been zoned out for a day and a half,” Lucy declared. “Just staring off into the distance.”

  “Is that all?” he asked. “I had longer stints like that when I was a core.”

  “But you have a body now,” Lucy reminded him. “A body that should be susceptible to distraction. Instead, you keep entering fugue states.”

  “That is just how my mind works,” he protested. “I get lost in my work. Was there something important?”

  “Not really,” Lucy admitted as she perched on his shoulder. “I was just bored, and you were not listening.”

  “So you slapped me?” he asked, one brow raised.

  “I am sure it hurt me more than you,” she sniped. “My hand still hurts.”

  Matthias snorted.

  “But what were you really thinking about?” Lucy asked.

  “How to handle deity-level problems without being a deity,” he confessed.

  “You could just wait to become a deity,” she pointed out.

  “That could take too long,” he countered. “Or it might never happen at all.”

  “Have you looked at what your expansion has done to the region?” Lucy asked.

  “Not really,” Matthias admitted.

  “Mirehold is having a massive population boom,” she informed him. “Rey said they are getting new people daily. No matter how much food they gather from your forest, there is always more. Some guy even sank his ship with how many fish he caught. You also have miners following your Primeval Hydra to gather the bone it leaves in its wake.”

  “That sounds like a lot,” Matthias admitted.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “It was—until you added brontosaurs to the surface,” she pointed out.

  “The hydra needed something bigger to eat,” he argued.

  “But now the town is hunting them too,” she continued. “Bone, meat, offal, leather. You are supercharging the local economy. The elves and the Legion finally arrived as well and have started setting up forts in the area.”

  “So it is a massive success?” Matthias asked.

  “More like a runaway train,” Lucy countered. “Everyone wants a piece. It is only a matter of time before someone important notices.”

  “And what about my beast goblins?” Matthias asked.

  “The younger ones have formed villages in the forest and trade food for goods. The older ones still throw themselves into the Crucible Swamp,” she answered.

  “So?” he asked, drawing out the word. He could feel more coming.

  “So you have created another massive population boom among your monsters,” she said. “Matthias, I do not think you realize just how much food your dungeon is producing.”

  “No matter how much it is, it is not enough,” he argued.

  “Why?” she asked, exasperated.

  “Because this world is too stagnant,” he explained. “I need to change something. I will start by changing how people live. With their food needs met, they can dedicate their time to other pursuits. And the more people who show up to gather, the more mana they feed me in the process.”

  “But gathering cannot be earning you that much,” she said skeptically.

  “I am currently getting about eight turtles’ worth of mana per hour just from people gathering,” he admitted.

  “Excuse me?” Lucy asked, her eyes widening. “That is an absurd amount!”

  “And that is eight current dragon turtles, not dire turtles,” Matthias corrected.

  “Well, as a F.I.R.S. agent, I think we will have to audit your spending,” Lucy teased. “Figure out where all that mana is going.”

  “What is going on?” Chloe asked as she glided down from her room. She was still drying her hair after a shower.

  “Matthias broke his mana economy,” Lucy blurted. “Eight dragon turtles an hour of passive gain just from people gathering food!”

  “That must be a lot of food they are gathering,” Chloe said. “What are you doing with all that mana? Does the Fairy Internal Revenue Service need to step in again?” she teased.

  “I am mostly bottling it up,” Matthias admitted. “I recently updated the fusion chamber and am running a few tests there. I have not quite gotten what I want yet. I may have to create it from scratch, but I do have an idea of what monsters I want to make next.”

  “And what would that be?” Lucy asked.

  “Cats, mostly,” Matthias said. “More animals went extinct in my world due to cats than we like to admit, if I am being honest. But I need cats of all sizes, because a ton of mythical beasts from my world used cats as a base.”

  “You are going to make monster cats?” Chloe asked skeptically. “I know cats are good hunters, but they cannot be that much of a game changer.”

  “It is either that, or I make another new breed of hydra,” Matthias offered.

  His fairies shared a long look before answering in unison, “Cats, please.”

  “But cats do not really seem like the ideal monster for swamps,” Serenia pointed out as she walked up.

  “Cats can hunt and live just about anywhere,” Matthias countered. “Besides, we need something to hunt the ever-growing bunny population.”

  “Not the bunnies!” Lucy cried. “What did they ever do?”

  “Besides endlessly reproduce and never adapt or evolve even once?” Matthias asked dryly.

  “That is because they are perfect just the way they are!” Lucy shot back.

  “What kinds of cats?” Chloe asked.

  “Nothing you would have a frame of reference for,” Matthias deflected. “There were something like forty-plus breeds of cats back home. I think they were still arguing about it when I came here. And that is just domestic cats—not even counting lions, tigers, and other wild varieties.”

  “I want to see all of them,” Lucy demanded.

  “Well, that might not be all that safe,” he countered. “Not all cats are the same. Some are extremely territorial. Some are extremely social.”

  “Can’t you control that, though?” Lucy asked.

  “And where is the fun in that?” Matthias teased.