-Roy T. Bennett

"Hey Sophia, good timing." John smiled, seeing the Harpy depositing an armful of freshly harvested fruit into his Abyssal Chest to preserve it. "I see you've been keeping yourself busy."

"Indeed. We were running a bit low since my harvest ended early yesterday, and everyone was quite famished after the extended training yesterday. I did not wish for us to run out after harvesting those golems again today."

"Good thinking," John agreed, opening up his menus. "Actually, that was kind of why I went into town this morning. You know it's alright to take a break every now and then though… right?"

"Indeed. Picking fruit is quite relaxing. I am afraid I am… somewhat unfamiliar with the concept of a 'day off' that you seem to insist is so necessary. If I do not perform at least one or two tasks per day, I feel quite unsettled."

"Your instincts are probably telling you that if you don't work, you don't eat… or whatever the Abyssal equivalent of that would be," John agreed, nodding his head slowly. "No need to worry about that today, though. I got us a bunch of stuff, from the grocery store and the hardware store."

"Hard wear? More armor?" Sophia's eyes were glittering, which only made John feel worse for laughing as he did.

"No, no, nothing like that. Tools, utensils, whatever you prefer to call them. Gardening instruments, mostly." John flicked through his menus and dumped the contents of his inventory out around them, several sacks filled with dried and canned goods on his left, while the rest landed on the right.

"The rest" consisted of several bags filled with nothing but seeds - for bushes, vines, plants, and more - as well as a few dozen tools. Hoes, rakes, shears, and spades among other tools, as well as bags of fertilizer and mulch deposited individually beside those. John had little experience with growing things on his own, but a quick trip to the library had given him a cursory knowledge of such things… hopefully they wouldn't question why a book on beginner's gardening had entirely blank pages, probably years after the book was added to the shelves.

"Food for us to feast upon, and seeds to grow our future? Truly, Father, you provide us with a vast bounty," Sophia said, her voice so respectful it was almost reverent.

"They're… probably a bit easier to come by than you think, at least in my world," John said, chuckling. He was at least grateful that Harpies seemed to be familiar with the concept of farming; he supposed that if they were nested creatures, they probably had to be, to feed themselves in the lean seasons and when prey moved on from their lands.

"Still, it is quite a relief. Though you bore an entire forest for us, I fear I would pick it clean in the coming weeks if we were solely reliant on it."

"I have no intentions of making us reliant on only what we can grow, but if it comes to that, I want us to be able to take care of ourselves. Until then, though, Springfield will always have a bounty all its own," John laughed as he picked up his deposited sacks and carried them over to the chest.

They still didn't have a reliable way to cook things apart from a basic campfire, something he intended to fix, so for now most of the things he had were pre-cooked or safe raw, relying mostly on the Abyssal Chest to ward away disease and rot. Though it still registered as a comfort item, cuisine was high on his list of things to improve about his private world…

"Even if we were cut off from the world, I believe the trees could sustain us for quite some time. This place has shown no signs of changing seasons, although the trees I have picked free have not yet shown any signs of bearing more fruit. They bloom flowers but they only wilt."

"That's-"

John paused considering what he was about to say. He had been ready to interject that the lack of fruits on the trees was odd given this world's eternal spring/summer season mixture with the temperature virtually unchanging, but when he considered the root causes, John grew uncertain. His realm had no insects, and in fact as far as he was aware, contained no living beings except for his creations. There was no mold or algae growing in the lake, no moss or fungi growing on or around the many trees of his forest, and certainly no insects or other pollinators growing in any crevice through his realm that he had yet discovered. The trees he had created during the zone spawning were very specifically fruit trees he was familiar with, which meant they were ones from his world, ones that required pollination. They had spawned with fruit, they hadn't grown them. Without bees and other insects, perhaps that no longer worked the way he hoped?

"That's understandable... let me see what I can do."

John grappled with how to approach things. On the one hand, he could simply make some pollinators - on the other hand, was genetic reproduction even viable in his world for such a limited plant base? Well… maybe. He didn't have any diseases or pests that would decimate a genetically identical set of plants, that much was true, and he had no intentions of making such, and although he had no idea how his creations might evolve… evolution (if it even happened to Purified creatures or those he conjured with his ZCP spending) took thousands of years, and he'd have plenty of time to build up more points and spells to deal with unforeseen complications. Given that magic could halt aging, or even reverse it, he wasn't sure genetic mutations were even possible, much less likely.

Still, he felt as if any system he came up with was likely to be flawed in some unforeseeable way. Something that would have major drawbacks or flaws he wouldn't see until much later. Creating one's own life would not only cost him ZCP, but it could potentially cost him a lot more, if he created an invasive, toxic, or outright lethal species by somehow screwing up its ability to reproduce.

"Evellyn, I'm really gonna need your help on this one. I don't suppose you can run some kind of simulations on my creations, see what happens in the world?"

"Negative, Master Newman," Evellyn said, bowing apologetically as she appeared before him. "I am afraid you lack the power for me to run such complicated estimations with any measurable accuracy."

"Yeah I didn't think so," John sighed in defeat. "Could I just alter the existing trees so that they produce fruit continuously whenever it's removed? Maybe even make them eternal somehow, so they don't wither and die in a few decades?"

"As separate answers, making the trees 'eternal', as you put it, would require a great deal of ZCP as the trees would have to be altered to produce their own magical energies capable of halting growth at a specified point and preventing any cellular damage. You do not currently have enough ZCP to perform this task. As to the first part of your question, yes. However, doing so would either require further magical enhancement, similar to the 'eternal' requirements, or it would require a constant replenishment of soil nutrients."

"That makes sense, I guess. The energy has to come from somewhere."

"Indeed. Magic often defies your mortal understanding of physics, but any mundane creations you make, no matter how foreign, will largely obey them."

"So… in theory… could I make a plant with a mixture of the two?" John asked, eyes toward the forest. "Would it be possible to make a plant that feeds on magical energy? Non-lethally, you know - totally controllable, something that can't take mana by ****, only receive it, and then use that energy to grow fruit, or to expand when its fruit-bearing extensions are full."

"That would be possible. Difficult, but possible," Evellyn agreed, nodding her head. "However, it would require approximately 500 ZCP in order for you to both create a species template and to then spawn one in the world. Any further members of that species would require 200 ZCP to spawn individually. Species specifications such as whether this new plant would be a vine, bush, or tree have no impact on cost, and the variance in space required vs yield provided would be minimal."

"Brilliant. Let's do bushes, just to mix things up."

"Excellent. What color of fruit would you prefer?"

"Err… well…"

John got lost in the minutiae of creating a new species, something he hadn't actually ever fully thought through. He ended up being quizzed on everything from the size of the leaves to the thickness of the supporting stems for the fruit, provided with ranges for "acceptable" physics where he did not accurately guess what the world would require. Evellyn even asked if he would prefer the fruit be nutritious, poisonous, or both… a question that almost had him making a sarcastic remark before he remembered that Evellyn was little more than a glorified VI or a very intentionally restrained AI, and he might regret that remark when his stomach was churning later that day.

Before long, John had created large, red-colored, heart-shaped fruits borne by bushes of small, numerous leaves. He had hoped the variance in size would make the fruits easier to see, but his theory proved pointless. The fruits were hung below each outstretched branch, largely visible despite the thick patches of leaves dotting each branch.

"And how often do these need fresh nutrients?"

"Given that this world as of yet has no winter months, I would suggest four to six applications of fertilizer, between two and three months apart, with the exact amount depending on the concentration of nitrogen in the fertilizer. Pick up a book on home gardening and I should be able to assimilate enough of the information to know dosage - or you could Observe it yourself."

"Myaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasteeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrr, you're getting so boorrrrinnng again," Maera grumbled, growling a little as she only half-playfully pawed at John's leggings. John had gotten so involved in his creation that at some point Sophia had actually gone off to harvest more fruit, and Maera was now probably well under a minute from treating his pants - and leg - like a proper scratching post. Seras and Mithra were the only ones seeming to entertain themselves, playing in the grass with the overly energetic newborns, Seras' rifle lying in the grass nearby freshly cleaned and (thankfully) unloaded for now.

"Alright, alright, we'll get going," John laughed, patting Maera on the head. "I think we'll start off with something a little more fun this time, too. No more rocks you can't eat."

"Maera gets to eat something?!" Maera said, smiling deviously as she put her paws up on John's knees and glared hungrily into his eyes.

"I mean, maybe… but didn't you just-"

"MAERA WANT MORE!"

That settled the matter. John sighed as he brought up his Dungeon Barrier screen, setting everything as he wanted it. Knowing Mithra would be busy with the Neko kittens for at least a while, John set his Dungeon Barrier to level 16, and then changed up the enemies from the Arcane Golems they had been dealing with to a different type.

"Leporidae Ninja"

"Oooh, Leopards? Or maybe just some kind of big cat?" John thought to himself, it being one of the few words he sort of recognized as a word for a real species. He didn't want to go fully realistic like he had when fighting the vampire bats, but he also didn't want to conjure any imaginary species like the Gnolls that had resulted in Lunaya, or something like the Dwarves and bandits he'd fought in other dungeons. John wanted a solid mixture of reality and fantasy so that he could mold it to his desires and see just how much of an effect his own thoughts had on the creation. Something he could mold and see his own touch upon…

John locked it in at level 16 so his new creation would be battle-ready and then dismissed the menu, happily spending the next several minutes torn between scratching Maera behind her ears and playing with his adorable sons and daughters, awaiting the arrival of Sophia. His instincts rebelled at what he perceived as wasted grinding time, but John could not count any moment spent with his adorable litter as anything less than worthwhile. Every time he stared into their eyes, he saw a growing intelligence and playfulness that reminded him so much of Maera and Mithra after their initial Purification, it was all he could do not to cuddle them and never let go.

Alas, all good things eventually had to end, and Sophia's return was at least a solidly happy way to end things. Though the kittens mewled some mild disapproval as everyone but Mithra got ready to go, John gave each of them one last hair tousling before he departed, and they quickly lost interest as their mother distracted them with as many belly scratches as she could hand out with only two arms.

"Alright, everyone, let's group up. Maera, are you ready? Seras?"

"Locked and loaded!"

"Maera gonna eat everyone!"

"Let's… try not to dwell on that," John said, shaking his head as he mashed the button to form the barrier.

---

One very traumatizing minute later

---

"Does anyone have a visual?!"

"These lil' buggers are fast, I only clipped that one," Seras cried out, still aiming down the iron sights of her rifle as she tried to track the mobile white blurs surrounding them.

"By Gaia's fucking tits, why wasn't there a stat weighting menu?!" John growled, trying to point two fingers at one of the mobile cretins long enough to get off a lightning bolt. His foolish - downright stupid - assumption that Leporidae was the latin basis for some group of large cats had been proven wrong instantly on their arrival into the Barrier. Mere seconds after their entry, they were assaulted by, of all things, sharpened fucking carrots. The oddly lethal vegetables were weak, taking off at best a few hit points at a time even from Seras and not even capable of harming John, Maera, or Sophia when they broke on their armor pieces, but the creatures were incredibly fast and relentlessly determined - to the point that even Seras, still several levels above John, could barely get a shot off on one of them when they attacked.

"Father, my feathers are not making contact. I can protect the others but I'm not able to damage our foes. Should we fall back?"

"Not yet," John grunted, putting his hand on Maera and replenishing the few hit points she'd lost with a quick Heal spell. The Neko didn't even seem bothered by the damage, her borderline ADHD attention span not only enjoying but absolutely ecstatic at the rapid bursts of movement that kept crossing in front of her eyes. If she were a few levels higher, she probably would've been having a field day tracking and catching each of the mobile targets in front of her.

"Well, I'm open to suggestions," Seras grunted, firing off another round, only for it to scatter the dirt and grass that a very furry paw had been touching on an instant before it landed. Another trio of carrots headed for her, but by the time they arrived, Sophia had managed to throw herself in front of her mother and the carrots crumbled on her armor, dealing no damage.

"Right, gotta get you faster…" John grumbled, eyeing his Siphon ability. Since the skills rework it was only for health and mana again, due to him not having another Skill Point to put into the Stat Siphon addon to transfer stats in his new system. John had no way to directly improve anyone's stats, except for spending his Creation XP, which was something he had been trying to avoid…

"Or, just a thought, I could make them slower…"

John couldn't move his hand fast enough to really keep up with the rabbits and be sure he'd hit his mark on a lightning bolt, but that didn't mean that he couldn't use something he didn't have to aim. He just needed to trip up their feet, and even if his hands didn't travel that fast, mana did…

John threw mana out of his body and made use of a skill he hadn't thought about in quite a while - Elemental Control. While terrible for dealing damage to creatures at this level, he didn't have to damage them to disrupt their momentum.

Catching a glimpse of one of the white blurs as its feet were about to touch down, John used that mana to burst the ground several feet into the sky at the last second, bringing it up at a jagged diagonal. The little ninja-star throwing pest was thrown off kilter, and its jump and momentum carried it about a dozen feet into the air higher than it had been aiming for, while also slowing its forward speed drastically.

"Pull!" John called out, resisting the urge to laugh at his own joke as a heavy-caliber round pumped through the rabbit, sending it crashing to the ground with a squeal.

"Got 'em," Seras said grinning as she loaded another round.

Though the rabbits grew a bit harder to hit after their first ally fell to John's technique, he was able to adjust his tactics a bit to catch them off guard. One by one the rabbits fell after being launched into the air, colliding with a wall that emerged from nowhere, and once by leaping directly into a ball of water that John had raised out of a nearby puddle and being held in place by the liquid prison.

"Never doing this dungeon again, but I definitely need to remember how important utility and crowd control are," John admitted, shaking his head as the last round from Seras' rifle rang out and splattered one of the rabbits.

"Maera didn't get to do annyythiiing," Maera complained, falling onto her back in overplayed exasperation.

"Well, it's not over yet, I mean- what about the-"

John heard a set of steps approaching, with an unusual metal clanking. From out of a cluster of nearby trees, John spotted movement, as a great red and white figure began to emerge.

"The hell is- oh, come on, really?" John muttered. "The rabbit ninjas were bad enough, but this…"

Before John stood what appeared to be an approximately twelve-foot tall, anthropomorphic rabbit, wearing full samurai armor, with one hand on the hilt of a sword that was only about a foot shorter than John himself was.

"Maera's gonna eat it."

"Well, watch out for the- wait, don't eat all of it, we need to Purify it!"

"Aww, but it looks taaasty!"

"An' pretty miffed. Ain't ninjas and samurai supposed to hate each other? Didn' we do 'em a favor? I mean this 'ole thin' is pretty ridiculous, so…"

"It's a bit more complicated than that. When I say so, everyone try to get clear of it. I need to focus up and try to Purify this thing so I can figure out how far I can control what comes out of it."

"Myyyaaaasterrrr…"

"No, Maera, you cannot eat it after I-"

"Are you gonna make a playboy bunny?" Maera said, her eyes narrowing with suspicion of John's inner lewdness. She looked at him like a proper degenerate, a sly smile coming across her face.

Had John been drinking anything it surely would've sprayed forth; as it was, he still spewed a bit as he sputtered and coughed mid-sentence. John had been caught totally off-guard by not only the question, but the knowledge that it implied.

"Who taught you about those?!"

"Nice lady-Knight Glenna!" Maera said proudly. "She was yelling it at one of Maera's sparring partners after Maera caught them. Said to stop treating Maera like one, but she wouldn't tell Maera what it meant. Seemed pervy though. Just like Myaster."

"I am- you know what, I'll let you have that one," John sighed in defeat as he shook his head. "Anyway, just stay safe, everyone? This is a pretty high-level dungeon."

John's concerns were almost unnecessary. Seras actually had several levels on the great, hulking rabbit. Maera was still a bit behind but her training with the Order and their recent grinding sessions had nearly caught her up. Three against one, even the mini-boss didn't stand a chance; John never even had to step into the fight, so furiously did they attack. Sophia's feathers glowed and flew with lethal precision, perhaps feeling a need to make up for being unable to strike the other foes they had faced. Maera just seemed to be having fun, until she took a slice to her midsection that actually cut open her Order armor and gave her a rough-looking gash in her abdomen.

"Hold it off, it's…"

Leporidae Samurai
Level 17 Honorable Bun-Bun
<Creature of the Abyss>
97 / 585 HP
Relationship: N/A
Alignment: 45

"Yeah, it's almost dead! Everyone, fall back!"

All three of John's battle companions started falling back, but he didn't wait for them to clear. Though slower than his smaller, more agile companions, the Samurai was charging forward, and wasn't far behind Seras, now carrying Maera to both speed her retreat and prevent the over-eager Neko from charging back into the fight. John did his best to steel himself in the heat of battle, thinking not of the blade swinging just feet behind his retreating companions, not of the harm he was about to place himself in the way of, but rather to consider what he wanted to create.

"Free will… free will… doesn't have to bend themselves to my desires, doesn't have to do what I say, but isn't hostile," John murmured, an image slowly molding in his mind like clay. "I want her to be strong, though. Strong, reliable, confident, but… friendly. Not a statue. Not a mindless warrior. I'd like it if she got along with everyone, and…"

Lunaya's white hair flashed in John's mind, but he **** the image - and the rising emotions within him - away, burning the image of the demon butler before it even appeared. It was easier than he thought. Like a negative against the positive, it gave John things he didn't want to do.

"Not stoic. Not silent. Shares all- no, doesn't have to share all her emotions. She can do whatever she wants."

John ignored that he had already started thinking of his creation as a she, but he didn't have much more time before the samurai was upon him. After one last failed slash that missed Sophia just as she took to the air, John became the rabbit's new target, and he readied his blade to intercept the oncoming strike. The massive rabbit came down hard with its blow, but John was thrilled - giddy, in a childish way he couldn't spare the mental effort to appreciate - to see the massive blade stop as it met his own, holding back the Leporidae's strike with a great personal effort.

"No family. No prior connections to miss. Memories are fine, but nothing that would make her sad. Let her be independent, but… not antisocial, not a loner. Make her want to form connections, even if she doesn't need them. Make her a good person, generally speaking, and make sure she gets along with all of us. Then…"

John wrapped his fingers around the rabbit's armored wrist. He wasn't sure whether the creature's armor counted as a part of itself, so he made sure at least part of his palm was touching its furry wrist before he chanted in his mind.

"Purify."

The light began to erupt from his hand and consume the creature, but before it had fully formed, before the magic took effect, John let his guard down. One last thought occurred to him, a very recent memory that his slightly calmed mind let play through his head without request or desire.

"Myyyaaaasterrrr… Are you gonna make a playboy bunny?"

Had anyone seen his face in the moment, they would have noticed John physically wince as Maera's voice echoed around his head. All the same it was far too late to silence, and the light that had now fully engulfed the rabbit samurai began to shimmer slowly toward fading. John stepped back and let the magic work, hoping against hope that he would be able to see some measure of what he'd been trying for.

The figure that appeared was certainly striking. A woman's form, that much at least was accurate, with heavily tanned skin and a musculature that lit a fire within John he hadn't been anticipating. The woman's skin was taut around her toned abdomen and arms, and even her sizable chest was defined well enough to accentuate the rock-hard muscle around it. As the light finished fading, John got a good look at the woman's face - and a beautiful one it was.

She had long, ivory hair, not unlike Maera's own, with two long and pointed ears covered in white tufts sticking straight up from both sides. Her eyes were a glowing red, lighter and more playful than Seras' crimson pools, and her hair was nearly as long as Lunaya's, hanging down to just about ass level.

Perhaps one of the most shocking things was that she was wearing clothes, something none of John's other creations had gotten the benefit of - save perhaps the butler, who could change his appearance at will anyway. She wore a blue sports bra that was tight enough to contain and yet so revealing that it gave away almost all of her moderate assets. Her lower half was clad in a darker blue piece somewhere between spandex exercise pants and booty shorts, not revealing anything but being so tight and well-fitted that it might as well not have been covering her taut, muscular ass at all.

The woman herself seemed a bit dazed for a moment, glancing around in confusion. John wasn't sure how to expect her to react, especially since he'd taken an active role in forming her, so he braced himself as he raised a hand in greeting.

"Hey, I'm John Newman. I can answer any questions you might have, about who we are and-"

"Tch, like I care about who you are," the woman scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Dumbass! I've got better things to worry about. Where can a gal find a good fight around this place? I've been trying to find something worthy of an ass kicking for weeks!"

"I- uh, I mean, we fight a lot, we can probably find something worthwhile," John answered, a bit caught off guard. So much for the 'getting along' part of his instructions…

"Good! Oh, and how about something to eat? I mean, something I can cook. Not like I'd trust you, pipsqueak!"

"Pipsqueak?" John asked, raising an eyebrow. The woman actually was taller than him, standing at what John guessed to be about six and a half feet, but that was barely noticeable from this distance. "Sorry, how about your name?"

"L-like I'd give you my name out of the blue. What, I'm supposed to introduce myself and we all get to be friends just 'cause you happened to be around? Dumbass."

"Hang on a second," John thought, narrowing his eyes. Observe brought up a display screen that briefly paused the half-angry response that was already on the tip of his tongue. That died entirely when he got to one particular stat of hers.

Lerianna
Level 17 Honorable Bun-Bun Rabbit Brawler
<John Newman's Creation>
520 / 520 HP
Relationship: 147
Alignment: 20
Status Effects: N/A