Chapter 41 (1/2)

Vremya stood in the void. Not too far away, there was a shining speck—the world he had created before. He didn’t want to place the faster-time world too far away, but at the same time, he didn’t want it to be too close to where he lived. Thus, he found the perfect spot. Behind him, Karta and Pravos were glaring at each other. Well, Karta was glaring at Pravos, and Pravos was looking at Vremya’s back with bright eyes. The old man waved his hand, and a huge landmass appeared before him. He waved his other hand, and a blue sphere appeared around the land. He furrowed his brow and flicked a few times with his fingers. A burning sun appeared in the landmass’ sky. It was flat, sticking to the blue sphere like a wet piece of paper. Underneath the landmass, stars and a bright moon cropped up; they were flat as well. “That should do it,” Vremya said, nodding his head.

“Wow!” Pravos clapped her hands, applauding the primordial god. “I didn’t think you’d be so skilled in creation!”

Vremya rubbed his nose and sniffed. “It was nothing.” Although he made it look easy, he wasn’t actually that skilled in creation. He had merely taken out a landmass from his bellybutton and added a bit of flair to make it seem like he had created it himself. “Now, I’ll set up a system over the whole thing.” Since he didn’t want to have to monitor the place himself, he had to create a method for Pravos to control his powers, and what better way to do that than by using a system? All gods were using systems anyway.

“It looks like a microwave,” Karta said upon seeing Vremya’s user interface.

“Well, it’s basically the same thing,” Vremya said and patted the boxlike display that had appeared in front of him. “You put whatever you want to speed up inside the world and select how long you want to speed it up for. Then, you hit enter. I’ve calibrated the time to a million years a second.”

“Is it operational already?” Pravos asked, raising an eyebrow. Primordial gods sure were amazing. If she wanted to construct a project like this, who knew how many years it’d take to get the resources to even begin? Pravos pursed her lips and couldn’t help but compare Vremya to Blagora. Although Blagora seemed more serious and reliable, Vremya actually got things done instead of hemming and hawing. “Can I test it out?”

“Sure,” Vremya said, gesturing towards the world. “Place something inside, and when you’re ready, put in how long you want to brew it for.”

Pravos waved her hand, and a seed appeared in her palm. “Can I grow this?”

Vremya nodded, gesturing towards the world with his head.

Pravos flew through the blue sphere and landed in the center of the landmass. She buried the seed, made sure it was in a good position, and flew back up. She went to the boxlike display and punched in the number one hundred. “This is in years, right?”

“Mhm.”

Pravos hit confirm. The sun and the moon rotated at blinding speeds until they were just one streak of light on the blue sphere. In the blink of an eye, a green sprout shot up out of the ground and … died. Pravos stared at the dead plant before turning her head towards Vremya. “What happened?”

“You didn’t water it for a hundred years,” Vremya said and rolled his eyes. “What did you expect would happen?”

Pravos scratched her head. “So…, how are you going to fix that?”

“I’ll throw in a caretaker golem,” Vremya said and shrugged.

“What about bacteria and other microbes?” Pravos asked and pointed at the dead plant. Even though a hundred years had passed, the plant was still there, not decomposing in the slightest. “Even with water, there’ll still need to be bacteria in the soil to produce nutrients, or it’ll all be used up.”

Vremya rubbed his chin.

“And what about plants that grow in different climates?” Pravos asked, her brow furrowing. “If a plant can only grow in the snow or on mountaintops, this landmass won’t be able to cultivate them.”

Vremya exhaled through his nose. He placed a hand on Pravos’ shoulder. “You said you wanted to help me, right?”

“Of course!” Pravos said, her face bright red.