Chapter 58

Enemy soldiers who had ascended the mountainous path to conquer the temple above, none of them survived. I didn't know what but something powerful obliterated them. At some point, the clouds were no different than dense fog, obscuring my vision.

Burnt corpses revealed themselves as the dense fog slowly retreated above.

I didn't bother cleaning them up since I was busy marveling at my new status after levelling up to level 61. I kind of cheated. Since I had plenty of mana and too much resources, I used [synthesis] and [absorption] simultaneously and cyclically for continuous quick growth without making a mess.

It was a cheat but no one cared! So, here was my new status.

[Level 61 Fey (plant);

Species: Strawberry Phantasm;

Physical: 157/157;

Spiritual: 375/375;

Traits: Bewitching, Devious, Parallel Bodies, Escapist, Tactician, Creator, Enhanced Spiritual, Enhanced Resistances, Enhanced Physical;

Abilities: Charm, Subspace, Creation, Strawberry Substitution;

Description: An elusive plant fey shrouded in mystery.]

There was a quantitative and qualitative change to both my traits and abilities. It seemed that several traits had been combined into this new trait, |creator|. In lieu with that came with the [creation] ability which also seemed to have absorbed several abilities that I commonly used.

In the future, I expected not to being able gain many new traits and abilities since the ones I gained this time seemed quite encompassing. Honestly, I expected this trait and ability combo to be obscenely powerful.  

There was also this new trait I gained, |enhanced physical|, something that I didn't expect to gain. Perhaps, it was a bonus. I would probably have to ask Smoothie's [Soothsayer] to find out.

Wahaha, let's play with our new menu. Finally, a worthy upgrade for a mighty king like me!

I browsed through my menu. Just from the appearance, a few new options were added plus a visual upgrade, or perhaps a software upgrade. As usual, I could still interface with the menu with intention alone. I didn't have to use my fingers or anything. Although I described it as a menu, it wasn't just a two-dimensional screen, at least not anymore, it was now a three-dimensional or holographic projection. This was something only I could see, of course.

In addition to having this menu in front of me, I could project it to everything visible to me. And, if I was to combine it with |tactician| trait, my range of control was quite expansive. That being the case, it was literally not that different from how it used to be.

I could still use [absorption] and [synthesis] even though they weren't explicitly showing in my status. However, the difference was that I was no longer limited to physical or touch. I could create and destroy things within a certain range as long as they were visible to me. That being said, this part of the ability would only be unlocked once I evolved and met certain undisclosed criteria. This meant that for now, things weren't that different from before.  

Furthermore, there were several other screens that had the same issue where it was telling me that my access was restricted.

What a bummer, getting my hopes up for nothing! That god is such a tease. He should have waited until I met the all the criteria first.

On the plus side, I could create things more efficiently. Whereas before, my mass produced clones all varied slightly in appearances, now they could be replicated perfectly. If I liked a model or a chemical that I created, I could even save it and recreate it at a later date. No extra thought process was involved. If I wanted twenty of something made, I just had to intend it and they would be made perfectly. I tested it out with creating miniature mobile plant suits, and they came out just fine. They were basically toys, made out of plant matter.

Speaking of plant matter, it didn't constitute leaves, branches, and such. Anything that originated from plants could be used as long as I had absorbed and integrated them. This was probably the best part of the [creation] ability so far. I no longer had to follow the traditional growth structure of plants like creating vines and modified leaves and whatnot.

I was liberated!

Super compressed wooden glass and plates tougher than steel? Strawberry flavored ice cream? Many things were no longer out of reach. I could now create my first bulletproof vest. Well, whether it worked against those energy based rifles wasn't my concern. My point was, I could start applying more of the technologies used in my previous world to make my life easier.

Ice cream... Vegan ice cream is still ice cream. I wish I could eat. But, I think I can make a good profit selling ice cream! I'll be filthy rich! Uhh... I mean deliciously rich!

Strawberries used to be a problem with their addiction and deadly effects. Yes, it used to have that problem. Today was a happy day. I could now toggle those effects off and share strawberries with the world. However, I decided to keep the addictives and minimize the original |reaper| trait for ones harvested by De Planck just to spite him. I wouldn't want him to catch wind of my upgrades that quickly.

As of today, strawberries were only very mild addictive and could only reap one mana point for every ten strawberries eaten. In addition, the seedless strawberries had retired. The new strawberries were now with empty seeds to give them the authentic and original strawberry texture.

I'm such a genius. Yum.

I could actually remove the status off of the strawberries. It was an onetime thing at the moment of creation which couldn't be changed afterwards. By doing this, the strawberry, or anything else that I created at that moment, would no longer be part of my body. Once that happened, I would no longer be able to control them directly with fey magic. This also prevented others from examining any status of many things I create in the future.

All in all, I now had multiple versions of strawberries. There was one for De Planck the rabbit demon, one for the public, and various ones for other things like that strawberry grenade thing.

Now, this [subspace] probably means that, right? I should be able to use it to open it. It should have been just included into [creation]. That would have been easier.

Looking at my mana stock, they were mostly all stored away automatically into my storage ability.

With my intent, I tried to access a subspace by opening a hole in front of me.

"Open sesame?"

There was a shimmer in the air and then the [creation] menu popped up.

[Opening the subspace will release uncontained non-solid materials into the main space. Yes or no?]

It's like that? Ahh... Thanks for the warning. I guess that means if I stored gas and liquids in there, they had to be in containers. Leaving the excess mana in there is fine, I guess?

Wait, wouldn't that mean I wouldn't be able to withdraw anything? They don't mix in there, do they? Probably not? Things soaked in dense mana, I don't even know what would happen to them.

For now, I selected [no].

I wish I can organize my subspace with [creation].

It would be even better if I can build a house and live in there. A personal subspace would make the perfect place to hide from this world. If I remembered correctly, in my previous world, we were super close to commercialize the use of subspaces for storage and travel purposes. Since I had plenty of mana, using this ability shouldn't be too expensive for me.

I sighed, "I guess I'll start from scratch and compress all my mana further until I use up all the excess mana in my subspace."

As I meditated within the rain to super compress my mana, I also gathered lots of water and stored them in containers manufactured through [creation]. This helped me use up my mana and excess resources.

My plan was to eventually empty my subspace so that I could turn it into a proper storage facility. Whether it had a limit or not, I didn't know. I wasn't a scientist and I didn't study subspaces. At the end of the day, I only had little knowledge with me. It was too late to regret how little I studied in my previous life.