Chapter 132. Introducing: Kraken, Mermaid, Dragons, and Fairies
Cedric designed the kraken to be the aquatic equivalent of Dragon V.1, a powerful creature that has difficulty reproducing. Thus, He decided to splurge and create 20 krakens, each with Peak Level 3 strength, at 2 GP apiece, for a total of 40 GP.
Afterwards, he contacted the System, saying, “Hey, I want to purchase some custom souls for the krakens.”
[Do you wish to imbue soul into your creature?
Note 1: As the kraken’s body contains a lot of special characteristics, the soul required to control the body is a bit complicated and may result in a cost increase.
Note 2: As the body has reached Peak Level 3, the soul required to control it has increased to Level 1, which will increase the costs.
Note 3: As the body has reached Peak Level 3, the soul’s minimum potential is Peak Level 3, which will increase the cost.
Note 4: You may spend more GP to increase the maximum potential of the souls that are created. As you have reached world Level 3 and the maximum level of creatures in your world has reached Peak Level 6, you may grant potential up to Lower Level 4 to creatures you created.
Note 5: The exception for Note 4 is when you added the trait of hero to the creature, which will greatly raise the creature's potential, but also increase the cost at the same time. But as your world is unable to create a hero, you can just ignore this note.]
Cedric reviewed the message from the System and remembered seeing a similar one back when he first bought custom soul and made dragons V.1.
He paused for a moment and then asked, “What is the cost to create a Peak Level 3 soul with Peak Level 3 potential, and a Peak Level 3 soul with Lower Level 4 potential?”
[Peak Level 3 soul with Peak Level 3 will cost you 4 GP each, while Peak Level 3 soul with Lower Level 4 potential will cost you 29 GP each. Furthermore, the stability cost of creating a creature with Level 4 potential will be much higher.]
“What the hell? Why is the cost for Lower Level 4 potential seven times higher than for creating a soul with Peak Level 3 potential?" Initially, Cedric thought he had misread the 29 GP cost. However, after rereading it twice, the number remained the same.
[Every three levels represent a significant leap. It's normal for the price to increase several times accordingly. Haven’t you noticed this when trying to create Level 4 creatures before?]
Cedric recalled it and realized that the energy required to copy a Level 4 creature is indeed several times greater than that for a Level 3. However, he hadn't expected it to be this high.
It seems the Divine Space’s ability to let him endlessly create things has made his senses a bit duller to the point of not realizing such a massive difference in cost.
After some thought, Cedric decided to give 5 kraken with Lower Level 4 potential, while the remaining 15 have Peak Level 3 potentials.
Looking at the kraken sleeping on the ocean floor, Cedric felt their number was still a bit too small. So he decided to add another batch of kraken.
After creating another 30 krakens, there are now 50 krakens sleeping on the ocean floor. Ten of them have Lower Level 4 potential, while the remaining 40 have Peak Level 3 potential. In total, it cost him 550 GP to create the krakens.
With the krakens finished, Cedric began to create the mermaids.
Unlike the krakens, Mermaid’s fertility is quite considerable. So, Cedric didn’t make all of them reach Peak Level 3. Instead, he focused on quantity.
After some thought, Cedric created a total of 1.000 mermaids, most at Level 0, with some at Level 1 and 2. Finally, he also created 10 Level 3 mermaids with Lower Level 4 potential. In total, the group of mermaids cost him 1.500 GP.
Cedric spread the 1.000 mermaids across the two underwater resource areas, with each area having 500 mermaids.
Looking at the sleeping mermaids, Cedric nodded his head while marveling at how incredible it was to successfully create a mermaid.
Aside from their fin-shaped legs, another noteworthy part of mermaids is their abs. Whether male or female, all mermaids have insanely strong abs. The kind that can crack open a walnut by contracting their six-pack.
Cedric has actually tried to make the female mermaid’s abs smoother, like in those movies, but in his experiments at the Divine Space, they usually start showing muscle after a few years of swimming, no matter how hard he tries.
He has also tried creating a mermaid that won’t develop too much muscle in their stomach, but after several months, their weak abdominal muscles will snap, leaving them a cripple.
The only way he found to hide those abs was to give the mermaids extra layers of skin to smooth their stomachs. But that would make them look extra bulky instead.
So Cedric finally decided not to force nature and let the muscled mermaid become the final version of mermaids in his world.
Soon, the kraken and the mermaids woke up. Once Cedric made sure there was nothing wrong with them, Cedric moved to the recently created big island located northwest of the continent.
The island is located near the northwest end of the mountain range that separates the world.
On this island, Cedric prepared to create the dragon V.2.
Recalling his final design, Cedric immediately created 100 dragons, all of them at Peak Level 3, with 15 of them having Lower Level 4 potential.
Seeing the number of dragons he created, the System remarked.
[Aren’t you ashamed? Don’t you feel anything for those pitiful, ugly giant octopuses of yours? How can you blatantly play favor like this?]
Compared to the kraken that only have 50 members with only 10 having Lower Level 4 potential, Cedric is blatantly playing favour when it comes to the dragons, to the point the System probably felt pity for those giant octopuses.
“Yeah, I am shamelessly showing favor.”
“The dragons are created because they’re cool. Meanwhile, I just added the krakens to increase species diversity and help me block the humans from crossing the ocean en masse to reach the elves’ territory.” Cedric explained his reasoning shamelessly as he moved to the last massive island located northeast of the continent.
This island is located further northeast of the border between the dwarven and elven territories. They’re also pretty close to one of the mermaid’s birth points.
After slightly adjusting the island’s ecology, making it safer and filling it with more interesting magical plants and small animals, Cedric created the last race he planned, fairies.
To be specific, it's the winged, small-sized fairies often seen in modern culture. Something like Tink*rb*ll.
Unlike the dragons, krakens, and mermaids, which he has planned to make for a long time, these fairies are something he designed only two or three centuries ago, after he was certain that massive creatures like Elisa required more mana to level up than smaller creatures.
Unlike the dragons and krakens, whose main difficulty lies in ensuring they have enough power to move their massive bodies, or the mermaids, whom he spent a long time trying to slim down their abdominal muscles, the fairies present him with a whole different challenge.
He planned the fairies to be smaller in size, so simply scaling down a human and giving them butterfly wings won’t do.
While making the fairies, he faced several extremely difficult challenges. The first concerns the heart, lungs, and other vital organs. Merely scaling down human or elven organs won’t do. Modifying a creature is also no easy task.
After modifications, their hearts either burst, lack enough force to circulate through the entire body, or become too strong, bursting the bloodstream and causing them to explode into red fireworks.
It took him decades to make a suitable vital organ. Even then, the final version of the fairies couldn’t withstand too much impact. Otherwise, they’d burst into a bloody firework.
After the vital organs came the problem with the brains. He initially wanted them to be as smart as a normal human, but their compact bodies couldn’t support scaled-down human brains.
It took him another considerable time to redesign a suitable brain for them. Even so, those fairies’ intellect is most likely a bit stunted. The smartest might be only as smart as an average middle schooler. Furthermore, he isn’t too certain how stupid the less intellectually blessed fairies can be.
He can only hope for the best.
Finally, there’s another problem when he’s trying to give them wings on their backs.
Designing a back muscle that allows fairies to flap their wings quickly without making them so bulky that they resemble Mr. and Ms. Olympia champions is a real challenge. Actually, it's not just a challenge. It’s an utter nightmare.
Luckily, unlike the case with the mermaid’s rock-hard abs, he successfully found a way to make the fairies’ muscles relatively flat.
Even so, that’s not the end. He still needs to provide them with hollow bones and other features to make them lighter. Cedric also added the insect’s tracheae to reduce their lung size and create more space for the back muscles used for wing flapping.
Honestly, the fairy’s internal structure differs significantly from that of humans and elves.
Cedric only finalized a fairy race template that he was satisfied with five years ago.
Reflecting on how he barely finished it before his world upgraded, Cedric sighed. “Honestly, I almost didn’t complete it in time. The last issue I fixed was pretty serious. If I remember right, it caused fairies to burst into blood firework whenever their hearts raced too fast from excitement or exercise.”
While reminiscing, Cedric kept making fairies in the Crystal Cube world. By the time he finished reminiscing, there were already 1.000 fairies sleeping on the island.
“System, give these fairies souls. As for the amount, make it the same as the mermaids’”
[Alright.]
The System gave affirmative responses and filled the fairies with custom souls.
Just as creating 1.000 mermaids cost him 1.500 GP, creating 1.000 fairies also cost him 1.500 GP. Their small size doesn’t make them much cheaper to create than the mermaids.
He waited a moment until all the fairies woke up. After watching for a day and making sure no fairies ever exploded out of nowhere, Cedric finally exhaled in relief.
“After opening two roads between the mountain range; creating dragon v2, kraken, mermaids, and fairies ready, I need to proceed to my next plan.” Cedric muttered, turning his attention to Catherina.