Chapter 295: War in the Sanctuary

Chapter 295: War in the Sanctuary

“We got a big delivery,” Isaac announced as a literal metric ton of materials was dropped onto the square outside the [System], “No one touches it until it’s been checked over.”

Jason wasn’t being subtle, having literally just dumped out all the stuff in padded boxes, making sure to remove it from his storage devices a meter above the floor to ensure there was a loud clatter.

But being obvious was kinda the point. The louder he was, the more quickly Isaac could “notice” without seeming suspicious or revealing the full capabilities of his senses.

Isaac strode out of the building, once again proclaiming that everyone should back the hell away from the boxes until they’d been checked over. They’d gotten a few anonymous “donations” over the years, most of them coming from him, but never something as massive, or as suited for their current plans.

So Isaac was going to play the surly advocatus diaboli, thoroughly checking over every inch of the stuff, the suspicion of them getting the exact stuff they needed being directed towards the sender of the crates instead of him.

Up first was a thorough scan of the crates with his [Aura], then he poked certain spots with a remotely wielded Kabar, and then, the bomb squad he’d sent for arrived.

All in all, he wasted a good hour of everyone’s time, but that was fine.

Every crate had been checked, and enough snippets of conversation had been overheard that the possible uses for this stuff had become public knowledge, so the already massive crowd that had gathered to watch the bomb squad had swelled to absurd proportions.

“We’re not doing this here,” Isaac announced, “There won’t be enough space for everyone to watch, but we’ll broadcast it.”

And with that, he strode off northwards, stepping on the air a few times to get past the crowd, using his [Aura] to poke the rest of the team.

The area with all the greenhouses and crafting workshops had grown vastly in the last few years, to the point where it was larger than the original campus, but with a far more planned layout. After all, it had been built up over seven years, rather than seventy.

Most spots either held buildings and paths or were designated for greenery.

But there was a street that had one side that was just empty lots, waiting for stuff to be placed within.

Part of the reason it had taken so long to get anything done here was that it really wasn’t a priority to create animal sanctuaries, as long as Isaac had the stuff for it, they could make them at any point.

But the other problem was that when they did something that required the body parts of several severely endangered animals, someone was bound to throw a hissy fit. They needed a proper explanation for where they’d gotten that stuff from, and arranging for them to be “stolen” by Jason had also been very low on the priority list.

But things were in place, and now, they had to work their way through the summoning list.

Summoning List (Wildlife Sanctuary)

Name

Material Cost (Note: All parts must be wild-caught)Ñøv€l--ß1n hosted the premiere release of this chapter.

Mana Cost

Savanah Safari

Tier 8 Circle, 1 Lion Pelt, 5 Lion Skulls, 5 African Elephant Tusks, Impala Pelt, 12 Cheeta Claws, 4 Rhino Horns, ...

250,000 mana (max. 125 people)

Savanah Sanctuary

Tier 9 Circle, 10 Rhino Horns, 200 Lion Teeth, 30 Painted Dog Skulls, ...

500,000 mana (max. 200 people)

Rainforest Restored

Tier 8 Circle, 3 Silverback Pelts, Cobra Venom Fang, 10 Flora Samples from the Desired Rainforest, ...

250,000 mana (max. 125 people)

Rainforest Sanctuary

Tier 9 Circle, 15 Jaguar Pelts, 10 Anaconda Skins, 10 Indian Elephant Tusks, Complete Set of Chimpanzee Teeth, 20 Flora Samples from the Desired Rainforest, ...

500,000 mana (max. 200 people)

Arctic Ocean Floes

Tier 8 Circle, 15 Polar Bear Pelts, 1 Arctic Fox Skull, 5 Barrels of Crude Oil ...

250,000 mana (max. 125 people)

Arctic Sanctuary

Tier 9 Circle, Fossil Walrus Ivory, 5 Narwhal Horn, 30 Polar Bear Pelts, 5 Baby Seal Pelts, 50 kg Whale Blubber, ...

500,000 mana (max. 200 people)

A rapid flurry of spells and blades took out most of those that remained outside of it while Karl and Raul obliterated everything caught in the pit. No cooldown [Skills] needed, or [Skills] with a cost more than a couple of thousand points of mana for that matter.

The sanctuary was absolutely stuffed with crap, ranging from a rather irritating herd of unnaturally aggressive impala to, well the big five.

Lions, both as individuals and hunting parties.

Leopards plunging out of the trees from hundreds of meters up.

Water Buffalos proving why they were some of the most dangerous creatures in the world.

Immense Rhinos the size of trucks, with razor-sharp obsidian horns as long as Isaac was tall, who created massive shockwaves whenever they charged.

And worst of all, house-sized elephants that caused earthquakes by stomping, unleashed literal storms with their trumpeting, and had tusks that a mammoth would have been jealous of.

Sure, there was also the occasional wildfire, but the danger they posed was less than nothing with Isaac around, he just took control of them and hurled them at the monsters.

It took several hours, but by the end, they’d gathered so many tokens that they wouldn’t have fit in all their pockets combined, for a grand total of over two thousand. Considering that each of them would also add an entire square kilometer to the final pocket dimension, they’d end up with a huge area by the end of this.

Of course, they needed to deal with the final boss first.

It was meant to be some kind of incarnation of the savannah at forty meters tall, made largely of the dried and cracked soil of the wasteland, four elephantine tusks wrapping a leonine face, four arms tipped with obsidian claws ready to start tearing into the beast’s unfortunate victims.

The monster charged, great strides tearing up the ground, boosting its speed above that of sound in seconds.

But no matter how powerful the beast was, it was still “just” a Tier 9 [Field Boss].

Amy’s ability to combine spells had been dangerous in a group of regular mages. When it was her, Patrick, and Raul casting the individual components, the destructiveness was off the charts. An actual nuke could have more raw power, sure, but the spell outclassed even a Tsar Bomb in penetrative capacity and power concentration by a couple of orders of magnitude.

Most spells did, for the most part. The sheer power of the atom, harnessed for destruction, was not to be underestimated, but compared to even the crudest spell, it was a stone-age era sledgehammer.

In addition, the [System] did not like nukes. It didn’t prohibit them, it didn’t weaken them, but it did not particularly empower them either. Doubling the output was, as far as Isaac knew, the limit. Well, that, and a few other boons like creating some approximation of a shaped blast, reducing radiation output, and a few tricks that basically amounted to very limited friendly fire protection.

So no, the monster did not get erased from existence along with a large chunk of its surroundings. Instead, the basketball-sized sphere tore through its chest as if it were butter and detonated, spraying slowly disintegrating gore all over the place.

In the place where the largest amount of viscera had landed, a token rose to hover at chest height. It was larger, around the size of an adult’s palm, and depicted an idyllic ranch perfectly suited to the African Savannah. Really, it looked like a child’s playset.

The opposite side spelled out how this token added another five square kilometers to the sanctuary, as well as a base camp that would be safe even if the final design was as “dangerous” as the basic Savannah Safari had been.

“Unless anyone has a problem with it, can I take care of this?” Raul said, but of course, no one had anything to say about it. He was more than qualified, and everyone else decidedly wasn’t.

***

After six hours, Raul decided he was ready for the big show and tell, so everyone else joined him in the pocket dimension once more.

The ranch had been dropped onto the portal, with the entrance to the dimension sitting snugly in the central courtyard, the building rising three stories tall on every side.

A large gate led outside on one wall, revealing a healthy-looking savannah. And within that gate stood Raul, grinning ear to ear, some of the world’s most adorable creatures all around him.

“What’s up with all the baby animals?” Isaac asked as he hastily jerked his foot out of the way of an exuberant baby rhino. He’d have been fine, of course, an entire herd of adults could tap dance over his shoes without him feeling a thing, but he doubted the baby would enjoy stepping on an armored combat boot.

“Figured you guys would enjoy being around them,” Raul said, “The animals here are only as wild as I want them to be, and until I send them out, they’ll essentially act like they’ve been around people their entire lives. In fact, I could make it so that they’ve basically been tamed, like normal pets.”

“So I could keep her?” Amy asked, picking up a lion cub and scratching it under the chin.

“Absolutely not,” Raul said, only to grin after a long second, “Lions are extremely social animals, you can’t just have one. But what about a leopard?”

He pointed to another adorable creature padding across the floor near Patrick.

“Wait, seriously?” Amy exclaimed. Clearly, she’d never realized that there was a chance she’d actually get a pet big cat.

“Like I said, they’re only as wild as I want them to be. If I wanted to, it’d be just as domesticated as any regular cat,” Raul shrugged.

Amy put down the baby lion and started petting the leopard. Isaac, meanwhile, had sat down and pulled a baby cheetah onto his lap and was feeding it ground beef from his storage space. It had meant to be for dinner, but oh well, kitten-eyes could be described as a higher power.

It was a peaceful time, peaceful and relaxing. Adorable animals, most of the troubles of the world locked outside.

And then Amy planted herself right in front of Bailey, offering him the leopard cub and asking if maybe, just maybe, the team needed a mascot?

It didn’t even take much convincing. The cub was cute, a mascot would be nice, and there’d be plenty of people to take care of it. And let’s be honest, a cute mascot could help with visibility even for an already famous research team.

Raul released the rest of the animals into the wild, and giving them the same starting position as the rest of the creatures. Comfortable with humans, and not aggressive with them, but still decidedly wild animals, and aged up a few years to the point where they were considered adults for their species.

In the end, there was just one problem. A leopard was a big cat. And a big cat was a cat. So when the leopard decided that Isaac’s armchair in the conference room was now her seat, and absolutely refused to be moved.

... Isaac gave up after three tries.