In my neat ecosystem, which was divided into certain zones according to latitude, such obvious regional divisions have now disappeared.
Although the shape has become extremely complex and even inefficient, the various landforms are not conveniently grouped together, but are scattered across a mere 60,000 kilometers squared of land.
This is my optimal layout, following the advice of Wahwando, and considering the efficiency and diversity of the ecosystem, as well as the harmony between adjacent ecosystems, but it may actually change a bit as you play the game.
I will also grow as I gradually gain knowledge, and the ecosystem will constantly change.
Thanks to 『Creation of Heaven and Earth』, it's great that I can edit the terrain with just a few clicks, no matter how drastic the changes are.
As the world grew in size, the consumption of divine power for terrain editing became extremely intense even by my standards, but『Creation of Heaven and Earth』greatly reduced that consumption and overcame its limitations.
Therefore, the current terrain is so twisted that even I can't describe it, so it's better to look at it broadly.
— — —
The first thing you should see is the Nectar Spring area.
At Level 13. It is the base of my ecosystem, with the highest terrain.
Abhojuice, as the fairy of this land, transforms all the currents gathered in the world into nectar, which flows through the land and sky along Syrup and Creamland. Its area is approximately 800 kilometers squared, but considering my entire ecosystem currently consists of 66,000 kilometers squared, this represents only about 1.2%.
Not long ago, the nectar springs took up close to a third of my ecosystem. So the nectar used to always overflow from the outside of the pit, forcing the rock jellies to dig up the ground, but now that's not enough, the gummy corals are crawling up the ground and coming onto the surface.
So, I filled the nectar lake with magic stones I received from other players and fed them to the Abhojuice to force the flow.
"Wow. Do you say 'I received'?"
Then how do you say that? If someone hears it, they'll think I'm threatening them with a knife and demanding they hand over the magic stone.
"I didn't threaten anyone with a knife, though. Yeah. Let's say it was a fair deal."
There's no way a 300,000 point magic stone is worth 300,000 Mystery points. They have to sell the magic stones to make a profit.
However, by collecting millions of points worth of magic stones from eight people, I was able to provide a fairly high level of flow.
The total amount of magical power in my world just increased, and I collected it without regard for type, but I found out from Abhojuice that she had the ability to roughly digest any magical power flow and use it to produce nectar, so the level of the nectar lake rose rapidly.
Currently at level 15. It covers an area of approximately 3,000 kilometers squared, accounting for approximately 4.5% of the total.
As mentioned earlier, I added four 'island' terrains within the Nectar Spring. Combining these with the newly acquired terrain has further strengthened the system, and six more islands have been added, resulting in ten new ecosystems within the Nectar Spring itself.
And it's even more dramatic in terms of the lake's depth. Abhojuice has been managing the lake well, as it has grown, but isn't it still too big?
So, different ecosystems appeared depending on the depth and location of the lake, and fish, amphibians, reptiles, and squids that evolved in different ways appeared, and they specialized in their habitats and played a great role as defenders of the nectar spring.
The number of Bisyakheet has increased dramatically. Some Bisyakheet live inside the lake, while others live outside, and speciation has occurred among them.
There were even Bisyakheets that could enter the lake. These monster Bisyakheets, now aquatic, would undoubtedly serve as an incredibly powerful defender when the Nectar Spring was attacked.
The leader of the Gummy Coral, who manages the Nectar Spring along with the Gummy Bear Reef and Abhojuice, created small bear-shaped creatures to act as sentinels resisting against the Bisyakheets who attacked her.
I didn't intentionally stop the increase in combat power, but the Bisyakheets became more vicious, threatening to eat the coral or crush it.
The inside of the Nectar Spring looks like this, and the Nectar Spring basin is quite interesting to look at.
The spring basin is filled with gummies and jellies that drink nectar and release endless magical powers, giant puddings that crush and eat gummies, giant squids, and giant sugarcanes.
Gummies are producers that have completely lost the ability to move, while Jelly is a producer that still has the ability to move and eats nectar, water, and rocks to release magic power. In a way, these can truly be considered the core species of my ecosystem.
Once all the gummies and jellies are dead, there is no one left to release magic power.
Syrup? Of course, syrup does generate flow, and it generates a lot of magical power, but rather than releasing it externally, it acts like a conduit, transporting the magical power to other terrain.
The direct producers of my ecosystem, past and present, are nectar jellies and gummies. They eat nectar, soak up sunlight, drink water and rocks, and spit out magical energy to sustain the nectar fountains.
As the number of predators that ate these jellies and gummies increased, their size gradually increased. The gummies, which had originally been replacing trees and corals, were enormous, but the jellies also grew like crazy.
How big is it? A two-ton rhinoceros? No.
An elephant that weighs about 5 tons? No. No.
These guys have now grown to be as huge as a triceratops weighing about 10 tons.
The jellies have six to eight legs, or none at all.
It seems that it either crawls like a snail without running or is fixed in one of three ways, but its entire back is covered in a carapace of insane durability that would make it untouchable even if a grenade exploded, let alone an axe or hammer by human standards, and its sharp knees and protruding head are covered in thorns and horns that simply crush those who attack it.
Now that the world is so much bigger, these jellies could probably grow to be as big as the ancient sauropods… or just become plain stupid land animals, like 30 meters and 50 tons, or maybe they could get magical powers to grow even bigger, like 200 tons or more.
Wow. So these are really living things? They're practically whales that crawl on land.
The immobile gnomes were able to build stronger bodies and grow larger. Even trees are usually much larger than animals.
Now, the large sequoia trees have grown to the size of giant sequoias. They haven't grown much because there's no benefit to growing taller, but in terms of volume, they're about the same size. So, there are plenty of them that are over 100 meters in diameter.
What's truly astonishing is this. Aren't gummies actually related to jelly-like creatures like jelly and pudding? That's why they turned into a type of snail.
"What do you mean, 'it became like a snail'?"
What I mean is, when they were young, they ate a lot of nectar and dug up the ground like normal herbivores.
They grow by eating and licking syrup, as this increases their survival rate compared to growing as small seedlings.
And when they grow old and are no longer vulnerable to attacks, they take root in the ground and grow even larger. In the process, they digest unnecessary sensory organs like eyes, ears, and brains, remaining as fixed feeders who simply suck energy.
"Wow. I heard that last time."
Anyway, these giant sequoias gummi trees are monsters that eat up the nectar and nutrients that have seeped into the ground, and all the magical energy flowing around them. These giant trees, which grow to be almost 20 meters tall and hundreds of meters wide, fill the Nectar Spring basin...
Sometimes they extend their roots near the spring and suck up the nectar glands, but this is just left alone. There are a lot of creatures that eat the sticky lumps that these guys spread as a mating aid.
And of course, the meat pudding also grew larger to accommodate these monstrously large jellies and gummies.
As creatures that can only live in the Nectar Spring basin, they are predators with incredibly strong tentacles, hammer-like weapons, and formidable jaws, although they are only found near the Nectar Spring.
These are the guardians of the Nectar Spring. Since the lake's cessation would halt my entire ecosystem, and since nectar is a universal resource capable of supplying immense amounts of energy, these creatures will always be the most powerful and massive of the beasts.
It's great to be scared.
"Do you like that they are being scared?"
"Herbivores are timid, which means that if you invade their territory, they are 'scared' and will tear you to pieces."
"Ah."
"There are puddings that crawl in to get nectar or eat jellies, and there are also quite active puddings, but… well, what should I say? Since the equation of something they see for the first time = a bad guy who steals nectar has become, they are insanely hostile to anything that enters their territory."
It's not useful for attacking. It's too dependent on terrain.
Rather than eating nectar as their main food because nectar is an all-purpose resource, they evolved to be unable to eat anything else.
But when they are young, they are different from other animals that they hunt, like Bisyakheet.
Because nectar is such a versatile resource, the Nectar Springs and the countless creatures that inhabit their basins have completely taken over this place. Does that mean other creatures are just sitting idle? Of course not.
Plants and insects easily infiltrated this ecosystem. These grasses and insects, created by Nyaltartep, parasitize not only the nectar but also the jellies, sucking their sap.
And the giant caramel camels have grown even larger, reaching a ridiculously large weight class that rivals the giant creatures in the Nectar Lake. Its neck has also grown longer, making it resemble an alpaca rather than a camel.
Well, actually, alpacas are part of the camel family.
And the transformation of the monsters is also interesting. Among the monsters, both the magical monsters and the martial arts monsters like to eat nectar, so they form a gang of robbers centered around the ones with some intelligence and the higher-ranking ones and hunt jellies in the nectar area, eat both the jellies and the nectar, and cut off the shells and use them as weapons.
I'm not sure how intelligent these monsters are… They obviously can't build civilizations, but they can at least make armor and wear them like these jellies.
Looking at how they weave tentacles and carapace together to make axes and spears, it doesn't seem that low…
"Surely you're not going to kill them all just because they're intelligent?"
"Are you saying I'm crazy?"
It looks like they're intelligent, but not Homo sapiens. Maybe a little less intelligent than Homo erectus? They can control fire, understand the utility and interaction of magic, and use strategic tactics.
Even chimpanzees can do that. And chimpanzees couldn't create civilization. Neither can the Sugar Lumps.
The Sugar Lumps were playing the role of 'highly intelligent animals' in my ecosystem, fighting against tribes that had become 'different species' rather than 'external tribes' due to some geographical speciation, and engaging in some level of politics with each other.
As evolution progresses, it is inevitable that such highly intelligent creatures will appear.
"Excuse me, but those monsters over there have regressed in intelligence. They used to be smarter."
Degeneration is not the opposite of evolution, but rather a sub-element of evolution.
The Sugar Lumps are quite active. In my world, they've become as prosperous as the Sweet Tooths, possessing high intelligence and group sociality.
And the elements of martial arts, magic, and mysticism that developed in both directions seem to have successfully evolved that creature.
If things continue this way, these monsters may become the mainstream species in my ecosystem, naturally taking over humanity's place without any factors and developing civilization in the dessert desert.
"You don't seem worried, do you? I thought you'd hate them."
"Do you think they could possibly improve? If so, it's probably too late, but they could build a powerful civilization based on their current, extensive ecosystem."
Okay. I won't do it consciously.
I observed the monsters closely. Among the monsters from various places, the martial monsters that hunted jellies in the Nectar Spring basin and then took their prey to a nearby valley were particularly impressive. They reminded me of primitive humans.
And the growth of these monsters, who had the potential to evolve into humans, was unstoppable. They hunted the jellies of the Nectar Spring, relying on their exceptional reflexes, strategic and tactical acumen, a certain level of communicative language ability, and powerful mystical powers.
To the point of slightly distorting the ecosystem. When I tried to evolve a countermeasure myself, it didn't work. But The Nectar Basin seemed to have come up with the solution automatically.
"We catch that."
"Good, good."
The monsters communicate with each other and cautiously approach the small jelly with their weapons. And before the small jelly can run away in surprise, they leap fiercely and dive in.
Kwasik!
They are then grabbed by something else that suddenly pops out from the side and chews it up.
"Is this Pudding using bait tactics?"
"No. I don't think so."
The puddings here don't eat meat very well. They just kill intruders.
This creature is a very meat-eating creature. Its form is also remarkably sleek and agile. It doesn't even have the shell commonly found in jelly-like creatures.
"Attack!"
"Woooo!"
The monsters rushed at him, but he dodged their attacks with maddening agility, and then, with a snap of his neck that was so flexible it was almost invisible, he struck the monsters down one by one.
A speed that even the insane reflexes of the martial arts monsters couldn't dare dodge. Instead of slow, large jellies, it seemed like an evolution created solely for catching monsters and squid.
"Isn't that interesting? That creature uses martial arts."
"Oh? Martial arts?"
"Yes. If it's a mystery originating from the body, it's a martial art in a broad sense."
Hmm.
It has four legs. It uses its neck and head like a hammer to strike or swing its enemies to death. It's an unidentified creature. While it's true that it evolved from existing pudding and jelly-like creatures, it's a completely new species.
You are chewy, so you are [Mochi].
"The names are always like that…"
The fourth Dessert Army Commander has potential. Let's take a look.
— — — — —