Fang Yuan used the World Fruit to calculate and discovered that over the past century, Qingyou had given birth to more than three hundred children, with multiple births being a common occurrence.
At this moment, Fang Yuan couldn't help but recall what Qingyou had said once, that as she grew older, the number of children would increase...
At that time, Fang Yuan didn't think much of it, but now he realized that Qingyou had indeed made something truly incredible happen.
It was known that humans could start having children at the age of thirteen or fourteen, and Qingyou's children, as they grew older, began having children of their own. Over the course of a hundred years, one generation birthed the next, resulting in a total of over ten thousand people.
In other words, Qingyou's descendants had surpassed ten thousand, and most of them were still alive. This was an astonishing achievement.
For comparison, a human population exceeding five hundred thousand was already considered magnificent.
Fang Yuan thought that when he had the time, he might visit his world in person.
However, he decided to wait until the seeds of the world were ready to bear fruit before taking action.
A century had passed, and on the Creation Mountain, the tree had grown to over 110 meters in height, bearing hundreds of large fruit, glowing with a soft green light.
This tree was truly large and sturdy; otherwise, the weight of so many fruits would have caused it to break.
Finally, one day, nine fruits, which were the first to ripen, fell from the tree, cracking open. A three or four-year-old girl crawled out from one of them.
"Bang, bang, bang..."
One by one, more fruits fell from the tree, splitting open, and more boys and girls crawled out, their innocent eyes gazing at the world.
These children had pointed ears, their eyes were a faint green, and they already had green hair when they emerged.
Fang Yuan was once again astonished. The seeds had borne fruit, and after maturing, they gave birth to these lifeforms—truly incredible.
This race appeared to resemble elves.
Fang Yuan appeared, exuding a powerful aura of divine authority, and offered food to the newly born lifeforms. He soon discovered that these beings had no interest in meat but preferred fruit.
"It looks like I really have created an elven race," Fang Yuan thought to himself, pleased.
Earlier, when he observed the seeds, he had thought they had failed.
However, the jade egg, stone egg, and iron egg still hadn't produced life. If not for the presence of life energy within, Fang Yuan would have thought they were failures.
Perhaps it would take more time for those materials to give birth to life, Fang Yuan could only guess.
...
In the years that followed, seven or eight little elves were born each year, and they had a natural affinity for plants.
The elven race was very cute, with handsome boys and beautiful girls.
As time passed, they gradually grew up, though their growth rate was not as fast as that of the divine beings. They were similar to humans in that they only reached their full adult size at around twenty, with their height resembling that of humans.
However, what puzzled Fang Yuan was that even though the first generation of elves had grown to be twenty years old, there were still no signs of mating or reproduction. It seemed they lacked that animal instinct.
This made Fang Yuan frown. If they didn't mate, how would they reproduce?
He couldn't rely solely on the tree to produce offspring, could he?
After all, a tree would eventually wither away.
But Fang Yuan decided to observe slowly, not in a rush.
At this point, the source of the world had surpassed 18 million drops, signaling the start of the fifth world expansion.
With the population of humans growing rapidly, the Steel Ball World was beginning to feel a bit small. Fang Yuan knew it was time to expand the world once again.
Based on previous experience, Fang Yuan knew that each world expansion would multiply the size by one hundred, and his mental power would be stretched tenfold.
This meant that after the next world expansion, the Steel Ball World would have a diameter of one hundred thousand miles, and Fang Yuan's mental coverage would reach a thousand meters in radius.
...
On the surface of the moon, Fang Yuan arrived at the sun-facing side and opened the world passage to its maximum.
A world passage with a hundred-meter diameter, visible only to him, appeared out of thin air, and an unmatched force of devouring emerged.
Fang Yuan directed this devouring force toward outer space. The next moment, the sky darkened, and the entire moon was shrouded in darkness.
Even certain areas in space near Earth were engulfed in darkness, resembling the appearance of a black hole.
All light was devoured, including not only sunlight but also various cosmic radiation, all consumed by the world passage.
At this moment, it was the night of the full moon on Earth. Many people who were gazing at the moon suddenly noticed that the moon had disappeared. The entire world was left in light, with a vast expanse of darkness in the distance.
At the same time, in the Steel Ball World, the moment the world passage opened, the edge of the world began to churn.
"Boom, boom, boom..."
The entire world shook slightly, and then the edge of the world began to expand at an incredible speed.
The entire world trembled as the force of expansion spread.
The edge of the world seemed to be shaking, although most could not see it clearly, they could still vaguely sense that something was happening there.
The various cosmic radiations devoured by the world passage were broken down into their most primal energy, which was then absorbed and became a part of the world's power.
Materials like soil and stone randomly formed, and the continent expanded wildly, with mountains and rivers forming automatically.
The sun and moon began to absorb primal energy, growing larger, and their height increased, allowing their light to cover the entire world.
During this process, Fang Yuan felt his mental power being stretched and extended. The sensation was as if his brain was being torn apart, but whenever it felt unbearable, a constant stream of energy would soothe his mental power.
This integration of energy didn't forcibly strengthen his mental power; it only allowed his mental range to expand, while the weight his mind could carry didn't change.
Of course, this mental power only applied to the external world. In the Steel Ball World, there was no such thing as mental power; the world itself was his mind. With a single thought, he could overturn the world.
After the world expanded and grew larger, Fang Yuan continued to merge with the world, maintaining control over a greater area.
During this process, Fang Yuan could clearly sense that as the world grew, the strength of the world's power seemed to increase as well.
While it was hard to observe the strengthening of his mental power in the external world, the increase in world power was evident within the Steel Ball World.
It wasn't just that there was more world power; it was a qualitative change. It was as if the aggregation of infinite fruits had produced a force, and the more fruits there were, the stronger the force became.
This process lasted a full hour before everything finally concluded, and the world expansion was complete.
Fang Yuan closed the world passage, feeling a sense of lightness in his mind. The discomfort of his mental expansion had completely disappeared, leaving only an extreme sense of relaxation and pleasure.
After the mental range increased tenfold, his thinking speed also improved, seemingly in direct proportion to the expansion of the world.
Fang Yuan was glad this was the case, as otherwise, with the world gradually growing larger, even though he could cover the entire world with a thought, he wouldn't be able to observe multiple areas at once.
In the external world, he could now multitask, while in the Steel Ball World, he could focus on billions of things at once, observing the movements of millions of creatures.
Of course, this ability required mental energy and could lead to fatigue. If there was nothing important to monitor, he wouldn't be so bored as to observe the entire world at all times.