Inside his spiritual world, Gavin sat with a troubled expression.
The Ice Wyvern hadn't given up.
For two days, it had continued circling the valley, its massive wings casting a shadow of fear over the land. It never attacked, never descended—it simply watched, waiting.
Through his spirit field, Gavin could sense the unease among the tribe. Their food stores would last one more week at most. After that, they would need to hunt—but with a relentless predator prowling the skies, leaving the valley was impossible.
His fingers curled into a fist.
"If the Ice Wyvern enters the valley, I can deal with it... but it refuses to come down."
The beast felt the danger.
Gavin's clone, the Earth Wolf, was no match for it. Though their realms were only one small rank apart, the gap felt insurmountable.
If it were any other beast, his clone could fight and win. But the Ice Wyvern's bloodline was on a different level entirely.
A fully matured Ice Wyvern could reach Golden Rank, while his Earth Wolf clone had a low-tier bloodline, only marginally stronger than the most inferior beasts. This limitation had capped his clone's strength, restricting it to the Initial Bronze Rank.
He exhaled sharply.
There was only one choice left—to complete the cultivation of the Earth Wolf.
Up until now, he had embedded separated spiritual thoughts into twenty large energy nodes, leaving seven nodes untouched.
"I planned to wait until my main spiritual core fully recovered before dividing my spirit again…"
Based on experience, it took twenty days for his spirit to regenerate. His last division had been eleven days ago, meaning he still needed nine more days before he could safely separate the remaining seven spiritual thoughts.
If he rushed the process, his spirit would suffer severe damage—possibly enough to drop his realm back to Magic Beast Rank.
But the tribe had only one week of food left.
"In just seven days, the reserves will be empty… but my spirit won't be fully restored for nine. I won't have the strength to separate the final seven thoughts in time."
That left him with two options:
First, find a way to accelerate his spirit's recovery—a risky and uncertain endeavor.
Second, find an alternative food source for the tribe—a desperate gamble.
Neither option was ideal, but doing nothing wasn't an option at all.
He clenched his fist.
He had one week to find a solution.
For the first option, he assigned the task to his clone—it would search for a way to accelerate his spirit's recovery. That left him to focus on the second option: securing an alternative food source.
With his druid spells, he could force plants to bear fruit, providing food for the tribe. But aside from the Blood Tree, there were no other food-producing plants in the valley. The land had herbs, shrubs, and wild plants, but none were abundant enough to feed 1,589 people.
The Goodberry spell was an option, but impractical.
"To sustain the entire tribe, I'd need to cast it at least 1,500 times… and that's just for two days' worth of food."
Even if he ignored the immense spiritual energy cost, the real issue was the land itself. The spell required rich fertility in the soil—if he cast it too many times, the valley would wither into a barren wasteland.
No. That wasn't a solution.
His mind shifted to another viable food source—the large lake, the scattered ponds throughout the valley, and the small beasts roaming the land.
"The fish, frogs, and snakes in those waters, along with the small beasts in the valley, could sustain the tribe."
A plan began to take shape.
He scanned the lake and ponds, assessing their resources. In total, he found around 500 creatures that could serve as food—mostly small fish, alongside frogs and snakes. The ecosystem couldn't sustain larger fish, limiting its potential as a long-term food source.
Including the small beasts in the valley, the tribe could extend their survival by one extra day—but on the ninth day, they would face hunger once again.
"This cannot happen again."
If the tribe was to thrive, they needed self-sufficiency. The valley had to become a place where they could sustain themselves for at least a month without leaving.
The answer was agriculture.
Meeting Elan became even more critical. From Willy's memories, he knew that humans possessed stable food sources. When they arrived on this continent, they brought seeds of rice, wheat, and other crops. With these seeds—and his druidic spells—he could cultivate sustainable food production.
However, this only solved part of the problem.
Hunters and shamans required energy-rich food—the higher their realm, the greater their nutritional needs. Plants alone wouldn't suffice. They needed meat.
The best solution? Domestication.
Capturing and raising herbivorous beasts would provide a steady food source. But before that could happen, one obstacle had to be removed—the Ice Wyvern. Until that threat was eliminated, large-scale agricultural and livestock development was impossible.
That left the lake and ponds as the most viable short-term solution.
The valley's water supply remained stable, replenished by melting snow in winter and seasonal rainfall. The lake's water levels rarely dropped, as the valley's snow-capped mountains shielded it from excessive evaporation.
However, there was a major limitation—the lake and scattered ponds had no connection to an underground water source. This meant that no new species of aquatic beasts would naturally migrate into them. The ecosystem remained isolated, sustaining only small fish, frogs, and snakes—all of them ordinary beasts.
The environment lacked the conditions for these creatures to grow larger or develop magic energy within their bodies.
He needed a solution—a way to enhance the ecosystem and ensure sustainability.
"If I connect all the water sources underground, it might improve the environment... but there's no time for that right now."
Activating his spirit field, he extended his perception 100 meters deep into the valley. Fifteen meters below the surface, he began constructing an underground tunnel system, using his earth element mastery to carve out the tunnels with precision.
The soil and rock he excavated were compressed and reforged into black stone, a durable, reinforced material—every 100 kilograms of ordinary soil condensed into a single kilogram of black stone. He lined the tunnel walls with this material, ensuring their stability and longevity.
Once the network of tunnels was complete, he linked them together, connecting every water source in the valley.
Immediately, water levels in the lake and ponds dipped, filling the tunnels. To restore them, he condensed spiritual energy into ice, creating massive ice chunks, which he dropped into the only lake and the scattered ponds.
Still, this wasn't enough.
To regulate water levels long-term, he expanded his project.
Between 15 and 40 meters underground, he hollowed out massive caverns, filling them 90% with ice before linking them to the tunnels. As the ice melted, it would gradually replenish the lake and ponds, ensuring a continuous water cycle.
With the final connection made, the water levels dipped once more—but this time, as the ice melted, they would stabilize naturally.
When he finally resurfaced, he realized that an entire day had passed.
"The environment for large aquatic beasts is complete. The valley's waters can now support over 10,000 aquatic creatures."
However, another problem remained—food.
For his plan to succeed, the aquatic ecosystem needed a sustainable food source.
Using his spirit field, he scanned the valley's waters, identifying the primary aquatic plants that most fish relied on for nourishment. He selected one key species and, just as Via had done before, he began transforming it.
Channeling wood-elemental spiritual energy, he infused the plant, gradually altering its nature. After several hours, the plant successfully generated magic energy within itself.
He stopped before fully evolving it into a magic plant—instead, he modified all plants of this species, enabling them to absorb wood elements and produce water-wood magic energy naturally.
With his prior experience and spirit field, he completed the transformation in just an hour, altering every plant of this species across the valley at once.
Next, he turned his focus to other aquatic plants in the ecosystem, ensuring they could absorb spiritual energy and naturally generate magic energy over time.
This process took another full day, but by the end, the valley's aquatic food web was self-sustaining.
After checking in on his Earth Wolf clone, he found that it had failed to accelerate his spirit's healing process. With only five days of food reserves left, time was running out.
"I need a way to deal with the Ice Wyvern."
The obsidian-based spells he currently wielded were insufficient—they couldn't seriously harm the wyvern. Its scales must have possessed some form of magic resistance.
"If I can't break through with what I have, I need something stronger."
With that thought, he shifted his focus, diving deep into the comprehension of the earth element. If obsidian wasn't enough, he needed to master an even stronger earth-elemental material—one capable of piercing the wyvern's defenses.
The countdown had begun.