Chapter 13: High Fiber

  After another few hours of browsing menus and prototyping ideas, I finally settled on something for the plants.

  Putting restrictions on living things wasn’t that difficult. But limiting what they could develop into… that was the hard part.

  I stretched my arms and sat up, causing Orpheus to perk up and alight on my shoulder again.

  I glanced at her curiously. “Are you getting more interested in what I’m doing?”

  The fairy nodded her head.

  “Not in the way you might think. I always enjoy watching new Administrators figure out how to solve problems. Call it a type of entertainment. I’m wishing you well, but I’m more hoping that you have a creative solution I haven’t seen before.”

  I grinned at her. “Well, I might not have a solution you haven’t seen before yet, but we’ll have to see. I think I might have at least a few surprises.”

  I expanded my interface until it covered my entire vision and went to work.

  This time, I narrated some of my logic aloud to Orpheus.

  “I think I have a plan for how to have plants use magic… without just letting magical species take over the world. To do this, I’m starting with a prototype.”

  I stopped speaking, since I knew she could see what I was doing in the interface.

  I chose a very fibrous, woody mushroom I didn’t recognize as my base. Maybe it had existed in Earth’s past, maybe not. I didn’t really care. It suited what I wanted well enough.

  Into this, I added two kinds of special fibers.

  The first kind could draw in Mana and use it for an enhancement effect of some kind. The effect would have to be subtle, but I left it relatively open to interpretation… or at least I was going to. For everything else, yes – but for my prototype, I’d already locked in what it would do.

  It needed to reinforce the structure so the mushroom could grow huge over time.

  Since it was already long-lived, I made it biologically immortal and capable of regeneration from a stump. It would only spread spores if there was enough Mana in the area to support a new growth.

  I also specified that it respirated Mana only. That was unique to this specific growth. Air was toxic to it.

  The second kind of fiber was an effect fiber. This would allow it to perform some magical function.

  Each fiber was linked to only one function, which could evolve… but the fiber itself could never support more than one function. It also took in energy based on the size of the organism.

  That had been the tricky part. I tapped the interface and said aloud:

  “This way, no plant can ever really support more than one effect fiber network. Any magical plant will only have one ability… and one ability only.”

  In this case: a field of light?absorbing darkness.

  Orpheus didn’t say anything, but her head tilted in a way that told me she was paying more attention to this than most of my antics.

  I named it the Darkness Mushroom, and then locked its mutation rate at zero when I discovered I could do that.

  That made my choice much easier. The global mutation rate was still very high, but this thing would never change… unless I went back and changed it myself.

  It was a fairly expensive mushroom, but I didn’t need many.

  I used them to top the mountains that poked out of the atmosphere at the center of the cylinder, right at the midpoint between the two halves, where the sun would pass.

  I’d noticed there had been some light leakage from the opening during night. These mushrooms would make the night much darker, forming a barrier that would block the sun once it passed through. The collection of mushrooms would take on a custom life role. Something between atmosphere, flora, and celestial mechanism.

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  It was an expensive endeavor, but with its limited placement, it only cost me 12 Reality Points.

  Finally, Orpheus had something to say.

  “You’re using the ecosystem to control the actual day and night cycle. I’ve seen something like that before… but this specific solution, while a relatively simple one, is interesting.”

  That gave me a sense of satisfaction.

  I’d been pretty happy with this little problem-solving bit, even if I hadn’t intended it from the start. It was just a patch for a slight design flaw in my original idea.

  I added some of the fibers into variations of other plants – bushes, flowers, trees, vines, even some grasses.

  I didn’t go crazy with it, but I did want to have a nice spread. I had plenty of world space to work with, after all.

  The trick I’d settled on to keep magical plants from overwhelming mundane ones was to tie mutation rate to local Mana saturation.

  Only in areas where saturation remained high – on average – would the mutation rate rise. The higher the saturation, the more likely a plant was to mutate. That meant these magical variants would only develop in high-Mana areas and generally stay there. To spread beyond those zones, they’d actually have to evolve to use less magic.

  I wasn’t sure this limitation would work perfectly, but I didn’t plan on moving so fast I couldn’t course correct.

  Just to be safe, I also made magical propagation harder in low-Mana zones. If there were a lot of magic fibers present, the reproduction chance dropped dramatically.

  “You’re being much more careful this time,” Orpheus said, stirring from her perch on my shoulder. “I have to admit, most new Administrators have a much more disastrous mistake drilled into them before they reach this level of caution.”

  I nodded. “It sounds like most new Administrators are kind of incompetent. I don’t consider myself an expert, but most of what I’m doing is just common sense to me.”

  Orpheus fluttered her tiny wings.

  “You’re not wrong. That’s one of the downsides of random selection. Every once in a while, we get someone with some skill… but most of the time, new Administrators manage to mess things up and get caught in a downward spiral.”

  I shuddered. “Well, hopefully I won’t get stuck in that. I’m still sort of fumbling my way through. I’m just fumbling very slowly this time.”

  That actually got a chuckle from Orpheus.

  I clapped my hands together and switched to the Fauna section.

  I’d already selected some basic insects and animals… typical things like deer, wolves, and so on. The interface even had a tool that let me estimate predator?prey relationships and predation balance.

  I also introduced a non?mutating amphibian and a non?mutating bird, both designed to feed on that particular moss mutation that had caused problems earlier.

  Apparently, it cost Reality Points to eliminate a species entirely, and the moss had taken over so much that it would’ve cost over 1,000 points to just wipe it out with administrative powers.

  Instead, I spent a fraction of a point to turn off its mutation—then created predators that would naturally die off once the moss was fully eaten. It cost me a few more Reality Points to get it all in place, but compared to what I’d lost due to the last problem, this was a cheap fix.

  Orpheus spoke up again, and this time, she asked a question about what I was doing:

  “These fibers you’ve made appear to only work for plants. How are you going to handle magical animals? Or is that for later?”

  I took her curiosity as a good sign.

  Fortunately, I also had an answer.

  “Animals can get a sort of material that acts like the enhancement fibers,” I said. “I’m working on it right now.”

  And indeed, I was. I’d just opened up the interface to do exactly that. I was quietly pleased that Orpheus had been so impatient she’d asked before I’d even started the work. She wouldn’t have needed to wait long.

  I put some similar limitations on the animal version, because I didn’t want basic magic?using creatures to overwhelm the mundane ones. In this case, I tied their reproductive ability to how much magical fiber they possessed.

  This could be overridden for certain bloodlines – or at least I planned to eventually – but for now, I just wanted to get a few prototypes out there without risking runaway magical ecosystems.

  This would be a real test.

  As for the equivalent of effect fibers?

  I had a better idea. I had something special planned for the intelligent species I’d eventually be making. Unintelligent animals would use magic differently from them.

  “Are you going to limit them to only one ability like you did for the plants?” Orpheus asked.

  I shook my head. “No… but multiple abilities should be rare, you’re right. I’d love to have some very dangerous creatures with multiple abilities, but they’ll probably be stuck in the higher Mana areas.”

  I paused and added, “I noticed a lot of Mana variation in the landscape when I was scanning to figure out why the plants were dying off. I might as well use that variation, right?”

  She fluttered up from my shoulder and did a slow circle around my head.

  “Many new Administrators would see an unplanned variation and attempt to correct it. You are instead using it to make your world more interesting. This is not strange for experienced Administrators… just relatively rare for new ones.”

  I laughed. “Where I’m from, this would basically be called emergent gameplay.”

  I opened the Organ Creation screen.

  “So… would you like to see how animals use magic?”

  This time, I designated a specific rule. Even though I didn’t have the ability to create intelligent species unlocked yet, I did have the ability to place future-facing limitations related to them.

  And in this case, that’s exactly what I was doing.

  My mental “finger” hovered over a checkbox… one that would prevent the organ I was designing from ever developing inside an intelligent creature.

  But then I paused.

  That wouldn’t be nearly as interesting as the idea I’d just had.

  Instead, I reconsidered, my mind already turning over a new design.

  Orpheus verbally prodded me. “You were saying something.”

  I nodded. “Sorry… I just had a great idea. I’ll get back to it, though. It won’t matter for a little while.”

  I tapped the Organ Creation screen again and gave the new structure a name:

  Monster Core.

  For the next two weeks, at least, I’ll be doing a daily release of another chapter. After that I’ll probably cut back to either 5 day or 2 day per week, depending on what my backlog and time looks like!