Chapter 65 – Exploring Subspace

I wonder if that minotaur is still hanging around?

There used to be a minotaur living in this region. It was back when I was still wandering around searching for someone strong to tame. I still remembered when Haelley was craving for minotaur steak.

Thinking back, I used to be super weak. A single punch would have knocked me out. Even now, if I confronted someone strong, the result wouldn't be too different. That was because my physical stat was below 200. Unless I went through evolution, I doubted I would ever reach the stat cap even if I matched the level cap. I kind of wished I had a way to rapidly increase physical stats.

Anyhow, while I wandered around in the wilderness, I accidentally ended up reminiscing of the past.

Am I getting senile? Nope. I wonder if those critters are doing well?

There used to be a fire breathing dog and some strange wasps in this region as well. They were somehow fey beings just like me. However, they didn't have any notable intelligence so they were off my recruitment list. They weren't different from other forms of wildlife.

Let's put my |tactician| to the test. Area scan!

I scattered around a hundred clones around me within my control range. The radius of one kilometer wasn't too impressive but it seemed that |tactician| was made to operate in nighttimes.

Roasted-beef-to-be, where are you?!

As I moved, so too did my clones, hovering at equal interval just above the forest.

It has to be in this region right? Did I mix it up with another one?

I searched for several hours and found no minotaur. At some point, I nearly decided to burn down the entire forest just to drive something interesting out. However, I realized if I did that, I would have to replant all my clones in this region; that would be too much of a hassle.

It wasn't like I was completely fruitless. While I was scouring a region of approximately four hundred square kilometers, I picked some medicinal looking plants to absorb and integrate. In addition, I captured some super tiny fey beings in a transparent jar. They were probably the weakest fey beings in this world.

Originally I thought they were fireflies or insects, but upon closer inspection, they were Graslings. Since I didn't know which plant was their original body, I didn't bother matching them to take their plant body as well.

Fun, fun. I wonder if Smoothie will like them? Children like insects in jars, right? Ahh... Wait, they like to catch bugs too... I hope she won't get angry that I left her out on this trip.

Uhh, I'm an adult! I can do whatever I want. Yep, my defense is solid.

I actually ended up releasing the Graslings I caught because I thought they would end up dead before my trip was done.

After I gave up on the search for minotaur, I hid myself in a remote valley. It was already morning but sunlight had yet to reach where I was. Here I tried to use up as much resources as I could stored in [subspace] first by synthesizing and destroying plant matter continuously. That mostly just used up mana since my absorption efficiency had was nearly a hundred percent. It was mostly just the ability itself using mana.

With the excess mana I had stored up in my subspace I rushed my level up to sixty-nine, one away from level seventy. Levelling that quickly was such a thrilling experience. The only down side to this was that I didn't gain any new abilities or traits. Basically, it was just a numerical gain. Still, a gain was a gain.

[Yes].

I opened my subspace gate after using as much resources in my storage as I could. A large container encompassing a large area of the valley was set up since I didn't know how much resources were stored away. This way I wouldn't pollute this place too much.

The amount of resources inside wasn't that great. Mineral dusts made up majority of the content with carbon based molecules following after, of course, that was if I didn't consider air as part of it.

After all of the stuff were dumped into the container, I anxiously stepped into the subspace.

"Alright, so there's air in here. Great!"

The only problem was that it was completely dark.

"Hmm... There should be mana here."

I scanned my [creation] menu to see if I could illuminate this place with the mana available.

"Ah, there it is!"

It seemed that I had unlocked a new panel just for my subspace. There were functions that weren't available outside of my subspace. I could now adjust different parameters such as time, various forces, and etcetera. There was also a function to coalesce materials to replicate rocks, metals, and things of that nature. Basically it was a world creation tool without the part where I could generate materials. Yes, the function that allowed me to generate things from nothing was locked, unfortunately.

Honestly, there were actually some parameters I didn't understand at all so I left them untouched. I didn't want my subspace to suddenly collapse and kill me because I accidentally removed the fabric of space or something. Many parameters were actually locked which was a relief for me. Of which, one of them was "dimension" and it was currently set to three plus one with three being spatial and one being temporal. It kind of made me wonder how high those numbers could go.

Currently there was no light nor gravity inside. I was just floating in complete darkness. The flow of time inside was currently at the same rate as the outside.

I guess I should copy the outside world. Yeah, let's do that.

After I added some lighting, I gathered the resources I had dumped outside to create solid ground in my subspace. It wouldn't make sense to add gravity without having a place to stand on. Given how there was nothing, this made it difficult for me to decide on a layout.

"Perhaps Mr. Gravity will have to wait. This is more difficult than I anticipated. Hmm..." I brooded over my options.  

I contemplated for what felt like hours before I came to a conclusion. It was because I was aware that a proper foundation for any creation was vital, especially for a project this enormous. A bad foundation would be disastrous later on.

"I'm taking too much time! Maybe I should adjust the flow of time in here. Eh, how about one minute outside equals to one day inside? Yep, that's fine. I can take as much time as I like! If I eat food and play around in here, no one will ever find out! I'm a genius!" I grinned smugly while carefully making those adjustments. Though, it wouldn't be funny if I mixed it up and thousands of years passed in the outside world. Thankfully, there was a limit to the adjustment of time.

For now, I decided to map out the current boundaries of my subspace using mineral dusts. Those mineral dusts were then formed into hardened rocks in jigsaw patterns. While I was mapping it, I ran out of minerals so I began extracting resources using my clones from outside. But of course, with the time flow difference, they could never keep up with the speed which I was using those minerals.

Oh crap, now I'm short on minerals. Who knew my subspace was this large?

Currently, the walls of my subspace formed a curvature of a sphere. And based on my visual estimate, the whole space was the size of a small moon. In other words, I was creating the thin crust of a moon, or something like that.

I wonder if this process can be set to automatic...

Let's see...

Yes, there it is. Phew!

To ensure my resources didn't randomly mix together, I partitioned my subspace. Resources gathered were automatically categorized into these subspaces as they came in.

Since I didn't want to run into another situation where I might be short on other resources, I had one pocket of subspace specifically for gasses collected. They were to be condensed into frozen solids to conserve space but also to prevent them from flowing out the moment I opened my subspace.

That trait |hoarder| that was gobbled up by |creator| perfectly described the current me. I collected anything and everything! My playground needed to be nothing short of amazing.

"Water, check! Air, check! Automatic creation, check! Light, check! Mana... mana? Wait, where does mana get stored? Where is it?"

I flipped through the [creation] menu and its different panels. If mana was used to keep this place lit then its consumption couldn't be neglected. After searching for a bit, I finally found the counter in a corner.

Ah, I'm running red on mana!

There was one thing I didn't understand about mana. How was it created? Outside, the environment would constantly generate a small amount of mana. At least, that was based on my observations. However, if there was a source and if it was finite then eventually mana would dry up over time unless it was being recycled.

Should I concern myself with it? Why not just keep them all in my subspace...? Yeah, let's do that. Who cares about the world? They just won't be able to use magic anymore without mana.

In the end, I couldn't find exactly where mana was stored within the subspace. I instead figured it was probably somehow integrated with my [creation] ability. That was the most suitable explanation I could come up with. Perhaps in the future, I would unlock the feature to see mana or maybe it was hidden in a separately subspace altogether. No one knew, at least not me.

Before I left my subspace, I returned the flow of time to synchronize with the world. Otherwise, my mana wouldn't be able to keep up with how fast it was being used.

By the time I was done with my work here, Mr. Gravity remained unemployed within my subspace.