I Somehow Got Tasked With Managing A Realm

Clank! Clank!

I sat at a borrowed desk, steadily copying things down into a notebook, not giving any mind to the mechanical noises echoing behind me.

"Squawk sqauwk."

A new noise joined the party, one purposely spoken by a penguin. As expected, a calm and mature voice followed the penguin's squawks.

"What did it say, Jacob?"

"He said the shaft is too long and that he wants some lubricant." I translated for Tatton without looking up from the page.

"Huh!?"

Julia, who was sitting next to me, laser-focused on examining her newly acquired divine weapon, snapped out of her trance and turned her head in the direction of the pair.

"It's engine stuff. He wants Tatton to cut the end of the crankshaft and get some lubricant to let the flywheel spin easier," I explained, smirking at the flustered elf I saw out of the corner of my eye, "What did you think they were talking about?"

"N-nothing! It was just a weird thing to say!"

"Right..." I purposely grimaced at her defense, "He's literally a penguin- I don't know why you're thinking such things."

"That's why I was concerned!"

"Pffft!"

I couldn't contain my laughter anymore as Julia's expression devolved into a pout.

She's so fun to tease~

I likely would've gotten super seriously punched if I let those thoughts escape my lips, so I kept them locked in my head for the time being.

"You're really liking that bow, though, Julia- you've been so focused on it that you didn't even notice what Tatton and Mr. Flippers were up to."

"... It is an amazing weapon," Julia agreed, her expression softening as she looked down at the bow in her hands, "With the abilities this has, I don't see how my realm can ever lose another battle phase."

A sigh naturally followed, "That's a big flag you're waving, Julia."

"... But I'm not waving any flag?" she tilted her head in confusion.

"It's a saying- like you're setting yourself up to be proven wrong," I explained.

The elf girl took a second to think.

"No... I really don't think we can lose in any normal combat with this."

Such confidence!

Honestly, I didn't think her belief was unwarranted. After claiming our prizes, we visited the training ground to test out her divine weapon while we waited for Tatton to finish his prize-giving duties.

It was there that we discovered the sheer power her divine weapon wielded.

The bow itself was extremely powerful before any special abilities were factored in; its arrows were strong enough to pierce through the reinforced targets in the training ground that most Seedlings struggled to dent.

Maybe it's premature to give all of the credit to the bow. Is it the magic arrows that let it do so much damage?

What Julia would do for arrows initially left me confused since I didn't notice the bow coming with any. Once we got to the training ground, however, a glowing arrow made from mana appeared on the bow's string as she got ready to aim.

Still, I thought she wasn't able to use magic in the Academy. Is it the bow that's letting her... actually, why am I even thinking about this? I can literally just ask.

Snapping out of my thoughts, I placed my pencil down and turned toward Julia.

"By the way, how do your bow's magic arrows work exactly? I thought you couldn't control magic in the Academy."

"Hm? Oh, usually I can't, but it feels like my bow is acting as a medium and letting me channel mana through it," she revealed, confirming my suspicions.

"I thought so," I replied, leaning back in the chair, "So you said the mana in the Academy is like crazy dense, right? Are the arrows stronger because you made them here?"

Julia's eyes became wide, and she looked at her bow almost panicky, "I-I don't know! Is my bow only that strong in the Academy!?"

Before she had the chance to spiral into doubt, Tatton returned to our section of the lab with a new crankshaft in hand.

"You do not need to worry much about that," he stated, overhearing our conversation, "Unless there is a specific ability that allows for you to alter the strength of the arrows, they should all have the same power. The mana density would only change how many or how frequently arrows can be created."

"Phew... that's good," Julia breathed a sigh of relief at his explanation, "When I used the bow, it didn't feel like I was using any of the mana inside of me. Does that mean it directly uses mana from around me?"

"That's correct," he nodded as he kneeled down next to Mr. Flippers, "It will use the mana in the area first, but if it becomes temporarily depleted or too thin, it will then switch to using any mana stored in the user. Special abilities are not included in this, as you know."

"That's because they use divinity instead of mana, right?" I checked.

"Precisely," Tatton affirmed, handing the crankshaft and a small vial over to Mr. Flippers, "That is the reason why only Seedlings or Oracles will be able to use a divine weapon's abilities."

That makes sense. With how strong the abilities are, it would kind of be absurd if anyone could use them.

Julia's bow had two different abilities: Boar's Eye and Split Shot.

Boar's Eye was pretty much a sure-hit ability that turned an arrow into a tracking arrow. According to her, as long as the target was in her sight when she fired the arrow, and there was a reasonable path toward the target, the arrow was guaranteed to hit exactly where she wanted.

She practically has a homing missile as an arrow...

The second skill, Split Shot, was also fairly self-explanatory. When used, her arrow would duplicate into multiple different arrows with the same level of power, the number of which depended on how much divinity was allocated in the process.

Julia even said she thinks the two abilities could be used simultaneously.

A scene of thousands of tracking arrows decimating an army flashed in my head.

It's no wonder she's so confident.

I raised my hand, ignoring the cold sweat dripping down my neck.

"How exactly does using divinity work? Is it like how we use some when we use domain creation?"

"It feels similar," Julia added, now having experience using abilities.

"Yes, it is the same principle," Tatton agreed, "When Oracles are chosen, they get a portion of their Seedling's divinity. The vast majority of this divinity is ingrained in the physical bodies of the new Oracle; however, a small amount is left over for additional use. When an Oracle uses a divine weapon's abilities, for example, they utilize this withdrawable divinity."

With this topic being of key interest, Julia focused on Tatton's explanations.

"What happens when they use up all of the extra divinity?"

I glanced over at her keen eyes, wondering the same thing.

If it's just a limited supply of divinity, that means the abilities really have to be reserved as trump cards. Forget training with them or using them in small battles- they'd need to be saved until the Oracles themselves are facing each other!

Luckily, Tatton stepped in before our thoughts wandered too far.

"Divinity is not a fully finite resource," he reassured, "Oracles are connected to their Seedlings through a line of divinity. As they use the supply of withdrawable divinity stored within them, more divinity is taken from the Seedling to replace it."

Tatton stood up from the engine and grabbed a small mana stone from a nearby shelf, holding it out in front of us.

"It might help to think of it as a mana stone, but specifically for divinity,' he elaborated, "When you first choose a Seedling, their bodies are full of divinity."

Tatton inputted his mana as he said this, making the mana stone brightly glow.

"Then, as the Seedlings use up their divinity for abilities, this storage empties," he continued, withdrawing some mana and making the stone dim, "Over time, the connection of divinity between the Oracle and the Seedling will replenish this storage to be used once more."

He ended his explanation by slowly adding more mana until the stone shone brightly again.

"Hmmm..."

"Interesting..."

So it's kind of like a battery?

It was a great explanation that allowed me to reach such an easy comparison- one so efficient that it made me internally question why Tatton wasn't the one teaching us in place of the sheep instructor. Of course, that was a question for another time; there was still more I wanted to find out about this topic.

"Is there a limit on it?" I questioned, glancing at the mana stone that Tatton was placing back on the shelf, "Like, is there a certain amount we can give before we're not able to anymore?"

Tatton paused for a second, turning back toward me, "Theoretically, yes, but practically, no. Seedlings are constantly gaining divinity from their lifeforms, and the speed at which the Oracles recover their divinity is directly tied to this rate of production. As long as there is still a source of divinity for the Seedling, their Oracle will eventually regain the ability to use their abilities."

I tilted my head, "Aren't we stuck waiting until the end of class to get our new divinity, though? How would they recover in the middle of the battle phases?"

The robed figure swayed slightly at my question; I could feel his amusement from under his hood.

"That is a great question, Jacob! You are truly teetering on the line of what I can reveal," he complimented before continuing, "Before each battle phase, the amount of divinity each Seedling has is noted and set as their maximum for that period. Seedlings can use however much they want, and they can use what their lifeforms produce to recover it. After every class, the divinity you gained above this amount is added to your total divinity pool, and this benchmark is then updated for the next battle phase."

Huh... that makes sense.

Despite the reasonable explanation, I couldn't help but feel a sense of unease, as if something was missing or that there were some dots I wasn't connecting. I chopped it up to the Academy censoring some specifics, and pushed the doubt aside, however.

Julia also seemed to agree with his description and nodded.

"Does it take a long time to recover completely, then? And how many times can they use the abilities before they run out of divinity?"

"That depends on the abilities themselves and the population of the Seedling's realm," he replied, looking back toward the engine, "Different abilities require different amounts of divinity to use, so it can be as low as one use or as many as ten before the withdrawable divinity is depleted. With the current population of most of the realms, it should take on average five to seven days to fully replenish this supply."

Five to seven days? Isn't that pretty long?

Tatton apparently noticed my expression and continued speaking.

"Remember, we are still very early in the competition. As you Seedlings grow stronger, both the amount of withdrawable divinity in the Oracles and the rate at which they recover will grow larger," he noted from under his robe, "There is a limit on how strong we can physically enhance the Oracles with divinity before the competition itself begins to lose meaning. It's only natural that the daily increase in divinity cap is eventually allocated solely to this withdrawable divinity."

Julia and I looked toward Tatton with shock on our faces.

That... seems like extremely important information. Is it really alright that he told us that?

When I went to cautiously ask him this, however, he simply waved off my question and reasoned that it should have been common sense with the information we already had.

"Alright... well, thank you, Tatton. That all really helps us a ton."

"Yes, thank you very much!"

The robed figure simply nodded at our gratitude, "It was my pleasure. Especially after you gave me such great teachings on this science."

What he was referring to was the engine he was working on.

After reflecting on our conversation about phones that we had before the last battle phase, Tatton seemed to be extremely interested in Earth's technology. Although I really had limited knowledge about most of the advanced or computerized stuff from Earth, I thought it would be nice to at least teach him how to make the engine that Mr. Flippers and I constructed in our domain. Given his current efforts, it seemed my assumption about his interest was spot on.

I guess it was a fair trade: information for information. Still, this kind of changes my plans with this thing.

I glanced back toward the desk where a small red orb was placed in front of a half-filled notebook- none other than the Mutation Orb that I just won as a result of the previous battle phase.

Regaining my focus, I once again lifted the orb in my palm and began combing through the seemingly endless descriptions plastered in my vision on a transparent screen reminiscent of a video game interface. The sudden pop-up was something that initially brought me a ton of questions, but they were quickly resolved once Tatton revealed that the display of the Mutation Orb options would take a form we were personally familiar with, similar to the desks in our domains.

Grabbing my pencil, I resumed my writing.

As stated before, there was a seemingly endless list of possibilities on how I could use the Mutation Orb.

Seriously, there are way too many options...

It was almost as though every single aspect of my humans could be upgraded, downgraded, or changed in some way. The last couple of hours had been spent exclusively on finding options that I felt could be useful and then sorting them into categories. So far, I had organized them into groups of offensive physical enhancements, defensive physical enhancements, appearance modifications, and other miscellaneous changes.

Every modification varied in its potential tiers, impact, and effects. It seemed there was no set rule that the modifications had to follow. Some even had different results when in mana and non-mana environments and others underwent changes or had additional effects for those with divinity.

I glanced down at my notebook.

It's so convoluted that it's a bit hard to follow.

An example of a single-tier modification was altering the height of my humans. With just one Mutation Orb, I could pretty much change my human's average height to whatever I wanted between 4ft and 8ft. I didn't really feel a need to go with this option, but I wrote it in the 'appearance modification' section anyway.

Compared to that, there were more drastic modifications that could require multiple Mutation Orbs to fully implement. Out of curiosity, I checked out the possibility of giving my humans wings since that was what the sheep instructor brought up during our last lecture. It was a process that required a total of 4 Mutation Orbs to complete- each orb being represented by one tier labeled with descriptions. The first tier would alter my humans' skeletal and muscular structures to be more compatible with flight, the second tier would sprout the limbs that would connect the wings to my humans' backs and further change skeletal and muscle structures, the third would finally form the first small wings on the back, and the fourth would enlarge and strengthen the wings to potentailly make them capable of lifting a human off of the ground.

It was a process that would be both long and insanely resource-heavy to achieve, so wings were obviously not a route I wanted to invest into.

Honestly, I probably should just ignore modifications that take multiple Mutation Orbs to get a meaningful effect. I have no idea how long it will take before I get another one, after all.

Rather than using an orb on a change that might not help my realm for potentially many battle phases down the line, I wanted to focus on choosing a mutation that could have a decent effect immediately. Luckily, there were a ton of great options.

I plopped down the orb and began flipping through some of the mutations I drew a star next to.

Potential Offensive Physical Enhancements

• Increased Muscle Density
• Increased Rate of Gaining Muscle
• Additional Arms
• Ambidextrous Humans

Potential Defensive Physical Enhancements

• Tougher Skin
• Denser Bones
• Stronger Tendons and Joints
• Faster Reflexes / Reaction Time
• Sharper Senses

Miscellaneous Changes

• Higher Oxygen Usage Efficiency (Stamina)
• Increased Metabolic Efficiency
• Better Immune System
• Improved Vision
• Highened Memory
• More Efficient Sleep
• Personality Adjustments
• Slower Aging
• Regeneration
• Mana Core?

Although the options I starred were the ones that I was considering the most, this was still a massive list to sort through. I could only select one, however, so I had to weigh these options heavily.

To start, I once again glanced through my candidates for the physical enhancements.

Honestly, the vast majority of the offensive options did not suit my humans well. Things like giving them claws or a stronger bite really didn't feel necessary now that they were steadily building their own weapons. This really only left more general modifications dealing with gaining muscle as decent options in my eyes. As a bit of a curveball, I also slapped on giving my humans an extra arm into this category and making them ambidextrous, which I figured could give them some interesting advantages in combat.

Before I started thinking, I silently crossed off the extra arm option. Until I got a second Mutation Orb, my humans would be stuck with 3 arms. The thought of the terrifying asymmetry of their potential torsos was enough to make me shiver.

Any of the rest of those would be pretty good additions, but I'm not sure if they'd really be the best use of the Mutation Orb. Muscles can already be gained well with effort, and my humans are already going to be naturally stronger than most of the other lifeforms because of the stronger gravity in my realm. Being ambidextrous, on the other hand, might have a bit more value even outside of combat...

Deciding to shelve that for now, I looked back at the defensive enhancements.

These enhancement candidates mostly followed the same trends as the offensive ones, namely, reinforcing existing traits. Tougher skin, stronger joints, and denser bones were bound to help prevent injuries in combat or everyday life.

They're all simple upgrades, but that doesn't mean they're bad.

As with the muscle upgrades, however, these options all seemed a bit too boring to go with.

Faster reflexes are a bit more interesting at least. It might not change anything about reducing the severity of injuries, but if it can help my humans avoid taking hits, then I think it might be an even better choice.

I viewed the 'sharper senses' option in the same light, though it was even more indirect at reducing potential damage than having faster reflexes. Even so, I readily crossed it off my list.

It would be one thing if I could universally heighten all of my humans' senses, but I can only pick one with this upgrade. Hearing, seeing, smelling... it would honestly be better to upgrade their ears, eyes, or nose than simply increasing their sensitivity.

Upgrading my humans' eyes was actually something I had in the last category- the miscellaneous enhancements. Even more so than the offense or defensive categories, I felt the options I laid out here could have an extraordinary impact on my humans and realm as a whole. In other words, many of the upgrades in the miscellaneous category would benefit my humans even in areas outside of combat.

My eyes scanned over the list.

Better lungs would give my humans more stamina, a heightened memory would help with their learning and training, and slower aging would mean my humans would spend more time in their prime.

Putting aside combat, there were upgrades like increased metabolic efficiency, which would have subtle yet massive impacts on my realm. It would pretty much lower how much food my humans need to eat.

My realm would be much more resistant to any famines if I go down the metabolic route. Supplying my armies would also probably get easier.

Of course, even a choice like this had its problems. Making it more difficult to lose passive energy might make it way easier for my humans to gain weight and way harder for them to lose it. I could definitely see a future full of obesity and health problems in the distant future if I went down that route.

As long as my humans have good self-control, it could easily be one of the best choices; I'm just not sure whether they'll have it or not. Maybe I'd have to choose one of the personality adjustments this time and pick the food one next time I get another Mutation Orb?

As hinted at by my thoughts, there were a ton of different ways I could adjust the personalities of my humans with the Mutation Orbs. For example, I could make my humans tend to be less greedy or gluttonous, be more social, or even to care more about their fellow humans.

Whatever option I went with would literally change the nature of my realm. It was a decision powerful enough to make my hands tremble a bit just thinking about the possibilities.

"Hm? Are you okay, Jacob?"

A voice of curiosity mixed with worry entered my ears from beside me, snapping me out of my thoughts. Placing down the orb, I lightly smiled at the elf girl.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just thinking about one of the options."

"Which one?"

I slid the open notebook across the desk, to which the elf tilted her head.

"You know I can't read this, right?"

"Oh, yeah! Sorry, it's been so long that I forgot it's only our speech getting translated by this place," I shook off the slight embarrassment and quickly summarized the pages, "Basically, these are all a bunch of options for using the Mutation Orb to alter the personalities of my humans. I can pretty much use it to do things like make them less greedy or make them more willing to work together."

Julia looked surprised about my explanation, "You can really use the Mutation Orb for that?"

"Apparently. This thing has like a billion different options to choose from," I confirmed with a sigh, "Still, I think it's kind of risky using the Mutation Orb for this kind of thing. I mean, it was humans' mentality that separated them from the rest of the life on Earth and sparked their dominance; changing it might be more risky than it's worth."

"It's really that risky?" she asked.

"It could be," I nodded, leaning back in the chair, "I mean, if I could remove sins from my humans, would they even really be humans anymore?"

"... What?"

Julia was completely confused, yet I continued anyway.

"Like, if I made my humans less greedy, would they still have the desire to innovate? Why design a spear that can fly further if they are content with the ones they have now? If they have no problems walking a million miles, would they ever feel the need to make a cart? Before that, if I got rid of their laziness, would they have any reason to pave a path through the moss, grass, and trees to make the trip easier in the future? If I lower their lust, could my realm's population vanish in a generation? Obviously, that would be a stupid thing to use the Mutation Orb on, so what if I tried to satiate their gluttony instead? Could my realm remain mostly an undeveloped, primitive land with a mountain of resources just sitting there waiting to be used for their development? If I got rid of envy, how do I know that my humans can have the motivation to better themselves for what they want? If they had no pride, would they be willing to sacrifice themselves for those things or to protect what they have? Without wrath, they might not even have the desire to defend themselves or fight back in the battle phases, to begin with."

As I finished my tangent, I noticed the three others in the room all staring at me. Tatton quickly spoke before I could feel awkward, however.

"Aside from those qualities, that still allows for your other idea of making your humans more caring of one another."

"Well, that could cause problems, too," I sighed, "My realm has been fairly peaceful so far- actually, it's a bit weird how little fighting there's been outside of the battle phases, but that won't last forever. As bad as it might be, I would slightly prefer there to be some small conflicts. At least on Earth, it was in times of war that the most progress was made. If fighting can get them more prepared for the big battle phases, then I kind of need it to happen. Obviously, I won't force it since I care about them, but going with that option might outright prevent it entirely."

"How interesting..." Tatton seemed to nod in satisfaction before turning back toward the engine and letting me continue.

"Aside from that, there was also the incident during my counterattack, where Ruglace became permanently crippled trying to save some soldiers. If more people became selfless enough to the point of complete recklessness, battles would become way too wild. Or maybe it would make them too cautious about losing one another to even participate in things like counterattacks in the first place? Either way, that option is off the table, too."

Besides, it just feels wrong to play with the minds of my humans. I can't go with this one.

As I crossed those off the list, Tatton's earlier comments about Oracles flashed through my head, likely due to me reminiscing about Ruglace's fight.

These battle phases really have boiled down to the Oracles, haven't they? And it seems like that'll only become more of the case in the future... maybe I'm just wasting my time analyzing the more general enhancements when I should be zoning in on those specifically for Oracle combat.

Still, when I looked back at my offensive and defensive enhancement candidates, none of them seemed to be overly appealing.

The main threat that my Oracles will be dealing with would definitely be magic; I mean, they should be physically stronger than most of the other creatures, thanks to my realm's gravity.

I knew this was the case back when I first started looking through the Mutation Orb's options, yet although I found many enhancement pathways to make my humans more synergized with using certain types of magic, there was not a single option that focused on actually defending against it.

Curiously, I picked up the Mutation Orb and continued scrolling through the options.

"Hey, Tatton. Is there a way to make my humans more resistant to magic?"

The robed figure paused as he went to attach a rope to the engine's flywheel.

"More resistant to magic? No, that is impossible," he flatly answered.

"Well, that explains why I can't find an option for it... but why isn't it possible?"

"You seem to be fundamentally misunderstanding what magic is," he declared, standing from the floor, "Magic is essentially mana that has been temporarily transformed to exercise the will of the user. For example, one can use magic to make mana take the form of an arrow, but after some time passes, the will embedded in that mana will fade, and the arrow will lose its form, turning back into pure mana-"

As he explained, a robotic arm from the penguin next to him snatched the rope from his hand. Glancing longingly at the rope, Tatton continued.

"Mana acting in a physical form can, of course, be countered by physical means- yet there is a key difference between having mana take the shape of an object compared to having it impact an existing material in its raw state. An example of that would be using mana to bend wood, make a pit in the ground, or even cause something to decay. Every material has its own baseline for how much mana it takes to make it deform; substances like water and air have some of the lowest, which is why magic aimed at manipulating them is most frequently utilized by lifeforms."

At this point, even Julia was nodding along, so he readily continued.

"To put it simply, the only way to resist the effects of mana is to use mana. Mana is just the medium that lifeforms use to exert their will; it's difficult to use will on something that has the will to resist the change."

"I guess that makes sense, thank you, Tatton," I nodded at his explanation, "That does make things a bit difficult, though. Attacking will be pretty rough for my humans because of it."

Seeing how I was discouraged, Julia chimed in, "What if you use the Mutation Orb to give your humans a Mana Core? It would start filling up whenever you go into a realm with mana; then I'm sure your humans would instinctively use it to resist whatever magic is being used against them."

"Hmm..."

It wasn't a bad idea, by any means. Aside from the defensive implications, it could also give my humans an advantage if they were stationed in a foreign realm for an extended period, or, if for some reason, I ever decided to add some mana into my realm in the future.

I have no intention to do that, though.

"This sucks!"

With a loud groan, I stretched back in the chair.

Going with a mana core, like the other options, would be an upgrade- there was no doubt about that. I had it on my original list for a reason, albeit with heavy skepticism.

But this one also feels like a waste!

There was literally zero mana in my realm, making this enhancement fully useless inside it. The only possible chance to use the mana core would be when attacking other realms.

So far, I've counterattacked twice over the past 3,000 years. One lasted a few months and the other lasted just about one week. Yes, they were very important battles, but at that point, I'd rather just do one of the other basic enhancements. At least those could be used for the rest of the time.

While I thought this, I reflected on Julia's words one more time.

"Instinctually use mana..."

I quickly went back to my list and looked at an odd enhancement I put down in the notebook.

Regeneration... I was originally hesitant about it because of how its performance is tied to mana, but maybe it fits better than I thought.

Regeneration

Description: Expands what is possible to be healed naturally. Healing speed is boosted naturally and can be further enhanced by channeling mana or divinity. In mana-dense environments, regeneration speed is further boosted.

Tier I - Expands what is possible to be healed naturally (Teeth, tendons, and organs).

Tier II - Significantly increases natural healing speed. External extremities can now be naturally regrown (Fingers, toes, ears, and nose).

Tier III - Small wounds naturally heal in seconds. Severed limbs can be regrown, given enough time (arms and legs).

It was an appealing option for several reasons: it could benefit my humans both in and out of combat, and it had certain bonuses for my Oracle, since divinity could apparently also boost the healing speed.

Even if we're fighting in my realm, my Oracle would still have the boost! The first tier of regeneration is really good... it's an enhancement I could get a ton of value from with just one Mutation Orb.

It practically checked every box I had: regeneration was immediately useful in everyday life, it would benefit my humans in combat, it didn't fully require mana to utilize, it had a unique bonus for my Oracle, and it could be further upgraded if I decided to do so in the future.

Even so, I had a sense of regret when reading it.

This really would've been nice to have before.

A bittersweet feeling washed over me as I reflected on my previous Oracles.

Ruglace, my most recent Oracle, had been left permanently crippled with severe organ damage following a brutal poisoning inside the toad's realm.

Rynn, the unexpected legend who led an army in the first true invasion of my realm by Ferguson, had numerous fractures throughout his body, which left him in permanent pain and unable to use any of his Oracle strength following the battle.

Then there was Uunga, my first and most courageous Oracle, who single-handedly defended my realm from Levon and solo-conquered his temple, despite being outnumbered by tens of thousands who were led by a foreign Oracle with magic. Sadly, despite being victorious, the battle left him wounded beyond what he could recover from, and he eventually succumbed to his injuries, following a nine-month journey back into my realm fueled by nothing but sheer determination.

Every single one of them could likely have been saved if they had this enhancement.

As I thought about their pain, sacrifices, and circumstances, I was hit with a realization.

Yeah... I guess internally, I knew there was nothing else I would have picked. It was never really a choice to begin with.

For their sacrifices and for future debts, I knew I had to go this route.

With a determined smirk on my face, I locked in my choice.

"Let's regenerate, baby!"