Syrup 2: The Neural Pathways of a New World

I've made an incredible invention.

By fusing the two primitive life forms—Gel and Topping—into Syrup, I had achieved the monumental feat of linking the material realm and the spiritual realm.

Of course, according to Sesaisa it wasn't an impossible technology. The tech tree had simply progressed at an absurd speed. In his world, inventing circuits and techniques that connected the material realm and spiritual realm so conveniently had taken at least two thousand years.

Yet here I was, yanking that entire tech tree forward like a madman.

But how should I put it? It doesn't feel all that impressive. When you actually examine the principle, it's the sort of trivial thing that makes you wonder, They really couldn't manage that in Sesaisa's world for thousands of years?

The principle is straightforward.

The material realm is a space that generates spiritual flow from the physical world.

The brain, where mental activity occurs, sits at the midpoint between the physical realm and the spiritual flow realm.

The spiritual realm is a space that generates the mysteries acting upon matter from the spiritual flow realm.

So this Syrup is essentially a nerve cell, a nerve, a ganglion, a brain—all of it. The Toppings embedded within the Gel create those primitive flows.

Therefore, if you simply spray a large quantity of Syrup between the material realm and the spiritual realm, the creatures react to the surrounding flows on their own. The end result is a circuit that directly connects the two realms.

These Gels and Toppings then absorb the flowing mana and spiritual currents along the circuit, gradually multiply, reinforce the pathways, and naturally repair and expand the entire structure.

I transferred this technology to Sesaisa in exchange for a more detailed analysis of the spiritual and material flows, erasing every last bit of his contribution in the process.

“Mercy! If something like this could be done with mere meats, what in the world have our spiritual architects been suffering through all this time! No, no—but how does this even work???”

“I already explained the principle.”

“No! But I just can’t understand these ‘meats’ called Gel and Topping! I can’t analyze their structure at all!”

“That’s because I’m keeping it confidential.”

“How did you make them!”

“That’s… a secret I can never sell.”

“Ah! Praise be!!!”

I had revealed the principle. Sesaisa would probably create something similar after bashing his head against the problem a few times.

Of course, since he would understand the flows far better than I did, he would craft a much more sophisticated circuit.

But the foundational life form itself? It would likely remain vastly inferior to mine forever.

“Uuuuugh……”

“Shall I install it for you?”

“No. I can’t even guess how many points ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that would cost me. I’ll handle it myself. This connection between the material realm and spiritual realm is… objectively extremely crude, sloppy, and primitive in the eyes of an expert. However, considering the effort invested and the current technological level? It is nothing short of a miracle. There will be tremendous room for improvement……”

I see.

“I no longer have the luxury to pay attention to your world. By the next collision, I will definitely create something similar. I sincerely hope you do not lose in the next collision, Biin.”

“Same here, Sesaisa. Let’s meet after that.”

At any rate, it was true that Sesaisa had improved my ecosystem with genuine passion and dedication. His advice had been excellent, and with the organizer’s guarantee, none of it was false.

Then it was time to comprehensively inspect my ecosystem.

There was no need to gather the clones. All egos were shared anyway.

Thanks to the recent surge in faith points through the Syrup, I currently possessed eight clones. Adding the two linked to Sesaisa and the one that had been spying on the community for real-time updates, I could now examine my ecosystem at full capacity.

Let’s assign one task to each.

Good. Right now I am Clone 8. In other words, the central personality. I compile information obtained from the community in real time and construct a grand strategy from the data my other clones bring back.

Let’s begin the status check with Clone 1.

I am responsible for the Nectar Oasis. And I felt incredibly awkward.

Even if I overlook Abhojuth growing uncontrollably as it absorbed Nectar, the spring’s capacity had suddenly doubled, turning the entire ecosystem into chaos.

My whole ecosystem spanned three hundred and twenty square kilometers, yet the Nectar Oasis alone now covered a hundred square kilometers… Of course, that referred to the overflowing volume. Inside, rock jelly-type organisms and coral gummies were proliferating at insane speeds, devouring bedrock to deepen the waters, while toppings multiplied wildly and supplied heat and light like lunatics.

The lake had grown so large that the gummy trees, jellies, and puddings originally nearby suffered a catastrophe, becoming fully submerged in Nectar. Fortunately the jellies were originally aquatic and could swim fairly well.

Even the gummy trees—which were trees in name only but animals at their core—were moving faster than the rate of ground collapse, migrating out of the submerged lake.

And when Nectar increased and jellies thrived? The puddings and gamchi that preyed on them naturally flourished as well.

The increased gamchi left the gummy forests near the Nectar Oasis and became migratory birds traveling to the freshwater lakes and the desert beyond. The puddings grew more numerous and stronger. The gummy trees were also evolving toward greater size.

“The jelly-type life forms really do grow well.”

To Angel’s murmur, I had only one reply.

“Honestly, I find it fascinating too.”

“Huh?”

“Living creatures normally have limits to how large or small they can grow depending on their species.”

Take humans as an example.

Among human-defined diseases there is ‘gigantism.’ For some reason, excessive growth hormone causes height, bulk, hands, and feet to grow enormously.

But people with gigantism… are in terrible shape. The same reason steroid-using bodybuilders have poor health.

The body grows as commanded by the flood of growth hormone, but the body’s infrastructure simply cannot support the increased size.

And no matter how much growth hormone you administer, you cannot grow to four or five meters. You would die first. The tallest person in human history reached two hundred and seventy centimeters after a botched brain surgery. His knees could not support his physique, so his health was extremely poor.

“Shrinking in size works the same way. While environment and nutrition have some influence, every species still has upper and lower limits to height and build. Yet from what I’ve observed, the jelly-type life forms seem to have extremely loose constraints on size even within the same species.”

In short, a parent pudding fifty centimeters in diameter could produce offspring that were one and a half meters—or even five centimeters.

Of course dogs range from over a hundred kilograms to under five, but the phenotypic expression among these jelly creatures seems excessively diverse.

I was shocked to discover that the five-meter-tall giant gummy tree over there and the thirty-centimeter gummy tree below were siblings. Even with such size differences within the same species, their bodies showed no particular strain…?

“Is that a good thing?”

“It’s both good and bad… Controlling the changes will be difficult.”

At any rate, both jellies and puddings were visibly striving to adapt to the environment by violently altering their size with each generation.

One change that astonished me was the Anomalocaris Pudding, whose eyes had clearly degenerated, regenerating them. It had crawled onto land and begun smashing gummy trees apart with two hard tentacles before devouring them.

The puddings might soon evolve into the main legion—as predatory beasts filling the ‘infantry’ role that directly hunt enemy life forms.

I guided the puddings, jellies, and gummies along clear evolutionary paths while managing the overflowing Nectar Oasis.

What impressed me most was that the Syrups connected between the Nectar Spring and Creamland were sucking up Nectar and transporting it, creating what looked like a Nectar river—or rather, a stream flowing upward from below.

Creatures that fed on that flow had appeared, and since the direction seemed positive I left them alone.

I am responsible for the freshwater lakes, rivers, and swamps.

At the same time, I am responsible for the mountains and forests.

I am also responsible for the desert forests.

In short, this side had been completely fucked.

“Eh. You’re making weaker noises than I expected.”

That damn Shikadoz bastard. With that cursed teleportation laser beam he had persistently wrecked the rest of the ecosystem, so I couldn’t even get a grasp on how to fix it.

First, the freshwater lake was beyond recovery. It had literally boiled, killing every life form inside. I was replanting aquatic vegetation from scratch, creating fish, frogs, alligators, capybaras, and every other creature, plus manufacturing freshwater jellies, but there was a limit.

“You keep making freshwater jellies.”

“It’s the easiest way to destroy the opponent’s farmland. They eat rocks, gravel, and fertile soil then excrete worthless sand. But with Nectar flowing in here, it seems the freshwater jellies are trying to consume only Nectar according to their ancestral habits.”

Nectar was simply too superior a substance. If they focused solely on Nectar synthesis their population would replicate, so why wouldn’t they?

Yet that would make them overly dependent on Nectar, ultimately preventing the strategy of destroying ecosystems that lacked it.

In the end I needed to create ‘normal’ jellies. Jellies that could adapt anywhere, not just the Dessert Desert, and therefore could destroy any ecosystem.

But starting from zero felt daunting.

Actually, there was a more fundamental problem.

The Nectar spring had grown so wide that Nectar kept flowing into the freshwater lake. The watershed occupied by the lake, swamp, and river was itself no small area.

It seemed to cover roughly one-sixth of the world, yet the Nectar spring alone took up half. And even from that half, Nectar kept overflowing because of the syrups.

“The water depth is gradually increasing, so eventually it won’t overflow anymore.”

A temporary measure. The wetlands would keep expanding too. Was I supposed to keep relocating adjacent wetlands and mountains every time the Nectar Oasis grew? There was no greater waste.

Better to perform fundamental construction.

“Hmm… The words sound good, but what exactly do you plan to do?”

I summoned the clone responsible for terrain editing, concentrated enormous divine power, and completely tore apart and remade the world’s geography.

Now, let’s assume the world is spherical.

First, the Nectar spring sits at what we might call the polar region—or the ‘ceiling.’

The polar Nectar spring is surrounded by the northern hemisphere regions: the Desert Forest, the Valley, the Sand Desert, and the Gravel Desert.

Encirled in a ring, correct? Then from the equator through the southern hemisphere we encircle it again in a ring of wetland zones including the Mountains, Rivers, Swamps, and Aquifers.

And below the southern hemisphere region, on the opposite side of the Nectar spring, lies another polar region. There we place the Steppe Grasslands, the Spacetime Boundary, the Constellations, the Open-Pit Mine, and so on.

“In other words, you’ve divided the world into four layers.”

Correct. Here, when the Nectar spring overflows, the Nectar first flows to the cacti, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠then into the valley, sand, and gravel deserts.

The enormous quantity of Nectar that enters there is consumed by the life forms present, and almost none reaches the upper wetland regions.

“But then what about Creamland? The long syrup passage connects the Nectar spring and the Open-Pit Mine.”

About that—we let the syrup flow continuously past the Desert.

Water descending from the Mountains flows along rivers to the Aquifer, but since the world is spherical the Mountains and Aquifer are actually right next to each other. In other words, there is a point that appears as Aquifer—empty space—Mountains.

Passing through there, the syrup flows onward to the grasslands, then through Creamland, creating a massive syrup river that penetrates the Spacetime Boundary, the Constellations, and the Open-Pit Mine.

This syrup river is also partially connected ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to the mountains and aquifer to link the ‘flows,’ directing every drop of Nectar to the Creamland installed in the Open-Pit Mine without leakage elsewhere.

“So in the end the syrup originating from the Nectar spring connects the entire world? How fascinating.”

“It’s fascinating enough to raise the level. How about it? Don’t you feel like you’re getting drunk on the explosively increasing divine power?”

It feels like drinking liquor made from syrup.

Everything is proceeding very smoothly. Now I simply need to manage the ecosystem like hell until the Life score—which had only just passed fifteen thousand—reaches at least eighty thousand.

With that much Life, it should be more than enough to handle whatever comes during the ‘disaster section.’

“Really?”

…I thought Angel was saying something ominous, but on second thought I was the one who had spoken even more ominously.

In most games this is exactly when you let your guard down thinking ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it’s enough, only to get blindsided by a meteor and fall flat on your face…

Deciding to focus on internal development instead of new experiments, I prepared for the disaster section.

For starters, should I assign the new traits that came with the level increase?