I Somehow Got Tasked With Managing A Realm

I Somehow Got Tasked With Managing A Realm – Chapter 7

The three of us sat down and waited another few minutes for the instructor to arrive.

As I had already removed a few layers as well as my heavy jacket back in my domain the previous night, sitting in the chair was a lot more comfortable than before.

It would be a lot better if my clothes weren't still soaked, though.

Possibly because of a dislike of my damp clothing, or maybe due to the fact that I wasn't wearing my fluffy jacket anymore, Mr. Flippers sat on Julia's lap this time.

Though I felt a bit jealous, I could not pinpoint whether it was aimed at Julia for getting to hold the cute penguin or at the tiny creature himself for getting such a comfortable seat.

My thoughts were cut short with the entry of the sheep instructor who promptly set up some materials and spoke to the class.

"On my way here, I was stopped no less than 6 times regarding the cost of mana. If this was a concern for you, please raise your hand."

Every single creature raised their hand, or whatever was their closest equivalent, except for the penguin and me. Blending in was not a big concern for me, as I sat in the top row.

I had a hunch based on what Julia said, but is mana really this common? I mean what the heck does that blob thing need mana for?

"Although I apologize for the disappointment, the toll of creating mana can not be lessened by me. Not even the Founder can change how many Resource Points are required to form mana or any other resource for that manner. You may be relieved to know that even though your mana densities may be unsatisfactory in their current state, you will have plenty of opportunities to gain more Resource Points through positive performances during the competitions.

Since mana makes up roughly 70% of the universe, it may feel unfair for it to be so difficult to create, but I can assure you that a large quantity of a material does not necessarily correlate to the ease of its formation. It even takes the death of stars to form the seats we sit in," she explained.

"Excuse me, instructor," Julia stood and spoke, "would it be possible for lifeforms to exist that don't use mana?" 

"There are plenty of species that do not utilize mana, though most are primary and basic lifeforms. There are certainly a few moderate lifeforms that are not complex enough to use it either, but once they become an advanced lifeform like you all here, it would be extremely improbable, but theoretically, it's not impossible. Like I said before, mana makes up a rather large portion of the universe, so unless an advanced lifeform is isolated in one of the few regions with little, or for some reason it was never exposed to it, mana would be too great of a resource to pass on utilizing," the sheep instructor answered.

Julia thanked the teacher and sat down again. Mr. Flippers hopped back onto her lap when she whispered to me.

"I wanted to double-check check you weren't using mana without realizing it. I would've kept pushing you to use your Resource Points on mana if she said it was impossible to not use it,"

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She clearly asked that question out of concern for me, so I was not really concerned about her reasoning. Of course, it would be a lie to say there wasn't a bit of cold sweat on my back when she first spoke.

The instructor continued her lessons, which this class was focused on the process of terrain design and its uses both environmentally and strategically. It was actually a very interesting lesson, but as I already knew most of it, I didn't take many notes and instead spent the class playing with Mr. Flippers and thinking of how to spend my points.

Julia and I talked for a bit about our designs for our planets after the class ended before saying goodbye and heading back to our domains for the night.

Once greeted by a familiar dark room, I took off my wet shirt and began doing some pushups.

I ignored Mr. Flipper's look of confusion, while I sorted my thoughts out loud.

"If I go the no mana route, everyone will be fighting with purely their physical abilities alone on my planet. Until my humans get decent weapons, they'd be at a major disadvantage, since some of these other creatures have natural weapons like claws or spikes or whatever. We'd probably be fighting with sticks and stones for a bit, which would require pure muscle to do damage."

Mr. Flippers hopped onto my back as I continued my workout, clearly having fun moving up and down.

"The sheep instructor girl thing said that the main lifeforms will take after us, so wouldn't getting a bit stronger naturally give them a boost? I mean the more muscle they have the-"

"Squawk!"

Slam!

I immediately shot up, sending the poor penguin zooming across the room and crashing into a distant wall.

My biggest mistake dawned on me. I had overlooked something so obvious that I couldn't believe I spent my time even thinking of mana when something so much more important needed my attention.

I dashed over to the computer, and after pulling out my phone and starting a timer, I dropped a stone exactly 10 meters off of the ground. It took about 2.32 seconds to hit the land. Even before plugging it into any equation, it was already easy to tell it wasn't a good result.

"Come on, physics! Don't fail me now!"

I quickly grabbed my notebook and opened a calculator app on my phone.

It started at rest, so I can use the simplified equation of  x=(1/2)(a)(t^2). With 'x' being 10 meters, 't' being 2.32 seconds, and 'a' representing the stone's acceleration... that would mean the gravity of this planet is roughly 3.72 m/s^2. It could be a bit larger since I wasn't exact with the timer, but that's still really bad.

To put it into perspective, Earth's gravity is roughly 9.8 m/s^2.

Human anatomy wasn't designed for such low pull. I had no idea what the result would be if left like this and although the instructor said some modifications will be made to the lifeforms to guarantee they could survive in the environment, I did not want to take such a risk.

Luckily I still have over 2/3 of my points remaining. Seriously, how could mana be expensive enough to spend all of this on?

The gravity problem made me think of some other related issues, so I double-checked the magnetic field. It seemed to be operational, but I planned to add some more iron and nickel to the outer core just in case. Pulling out my notes on the material composition of the inside of the planet, I brainstormed ways to increase the gravity.

Obviously, gravity correlates to mass, so would adding denser materials be the best way to increase it? I got to make sure it doesn't mess with the planet's stability- if the whole thing implodes, I'll be completely out of luck. What material should I use though? If I use something that'll be crazy reactive with other stuff inside the planet, that might not end well.

After spending some time debating what element to use, I settled on lead. Not only was it extremely massive and heavy, but it also shouldn't cause too many problems deep inside the planet.

I gradually added more and more lead inside of the planet. Although I was as careful as possible, the sheer amount of resources I was adding was wreaking havoc on the surface. Massive earthquakes and tsunamis were completely decimating the continent that I had built, but as there was no life present on it, the damage was nothing I could not fix.

Getting bored of lead, I also added some denser elements, but as their cost per gram was higher than lead and most would just decay back into lead anyway, I did not add too much before switching back. My Resource Points drained like crazy as the crust began to split apart and swell with massive lava plums spewing out from the oceans and volcanic dust clogging the atmosphere. Paying it no mind, I continued to add heavy material to the planet until roughly 5% of my total points remained.

Using these remaining points, I closed up all of the fissures caused by my actions, removed the metals and toxins from the atmosphere, repaired the mountain range which suffered massive damage from the earthquakes, adjusted and expanded the underwater ridges, and finally filled the now shallow ocean with some water again. As a lot of the water had turned into vapor during the event, I did not add too much since most would rain back down in the future. After everything was done, only about 0.1% of the Resource Points I was given remained, but the planet was once again stable.

Although I repaired the coastline, the actual landscape of the continent was now a lot more varied with hills, valleys, and odd rock formations resulting from the earthquakes and lava. Before I even began to test the gravity again, I could already see that the planet was very noticeably larger, which gave me hope. This added surface area just went towards expanding the ocean- I connected the torn apart continent back together which kept it roughly the same shape porportional to its greater size.

I repeated the same experiment as before, this time getting a time of 1.64 seconds. That meant the gravitational pull was now roughly 7.43 m/s^2, which is a bit over double what it was previously! It was still noticeably less than Earth's pull, but it was incomparably better than the previous situation.

Man, that was a lot of work. Still, I am so glad I realized the gravity situation before the competition started.

I let out a sigh of relief followed by a smirk once I pictured the invaders who would have to fight in an environment with twice the gravity they were used to.

Turning away from the computer, I looked back to see a tiny penguin glaring at me with a small bump on its head.

"Eh- what happened to you, Mr. Flippers? Did you try to fly or something?"

I spent the next few hours running from an enraged penguin, whose anger stemmed from a source unknown to me.