Chapter thirty one: Ecosystem
After the new year celebration the night before, Caelum couldn't even try to get up early. The cold weather made up sleep like He was dead, sprawled beneath his blanket like he was a bear.
It wasn't until his stomach roared in protest for food, that he finally stirred.
"Mmmhmm~" an unintentional groaned let him, rubbing his eyes like a child and he ser up with his hair pointing in every possible direction.
Caelum habitually looked at the clock on the wall. "Huh? Twelve already?"
He slowly stepped out of his bedroom, making a unpleasant sound as he dragged his feet across the floor.
Caelum shuffled into the bathroom and turned on the tap, splashing cold water over his face with a sigh.
"I slept like a polar bear in hibernation… huuua~" he yawned again in a scratchy voice, staring at the half-sleep man in the mirror. His eyes looked heavy and unfocused with sleep.
Grabbing his toothbrush, he muttered, "Well, at least I slept a lot than usual."
He brushed slowly, leaned against the sink, and stared blankly out the window, the cold morning light making everything outside look lazy and calm, perfect to sleep all day.
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Caelum took his time, and moved through his morning routine with the grace of a half-awake sloth.
He brushed, washed up, and stood under the shower, as the warm water did most of the work waking him up.
After drying off and tossing on his usual home clothes, he headed to his room again to change and picked up the quill.
"Alright," he cracked his neck as he thought. "what to eat today...."
He walked to the kitchen and took out a large plate, along with a glass and went for the dining table.
With a stroke of the quill, he drew two grilled cheese sandwiches and a glass of chocolate milk.
Within seconds, the food shimmered into reality, the sandwiches appeared on the plate and the chocklet milk formed on the glasd he had prepared beforehand. Looking exactly like the food he envisoned.
He Set cross-legged in his chair, took a bite of the sandwich and spoke through a mouthful, "Compared to when I first used the quill, my willpower reserve feels like it's increased exponentially."
Setting the plate aside, Caelum walked back to his bedroom and glanced at the painting hanging on his wall.
He placed a hand over its surface and let out a slow breath, a pulse of willpower surged from within him, flowing into the canvas like water through a channel. In the blink of an eye, his body vanished from the room.
When caelum had experienced that unexpected willpower breakthrough last time, he noticed something strange—a faint sensation of a connection, running between himself and the quill. It was like a silver thread.
At the time, he had been so caught up trying to figure out why it appeared, he hadn't even stopped to acknowledge the massive spike in his willpower.
but now, he came to realise how much he had grown, how much his control over the quill has deepened.
Within a few heartbeats, Caelum's body began to reform in the silent white room of the painting space. The pure white room that floated gently above Dharti.
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The moment his body reformed, caelum made his way toward the table tucked in the corner of the room, the one with the glass tubes lined across it.
It wasn't as big as the bronze table in the middle of the white room, where he would sit and write down his ideas.
It was a workbench for caelum.
He meant to start this experiment yesterday, but the new year celebrations had taken all his evening and night time.
One by one, he opened the tubes on the table and used the quill to create a layer of soil inside each. It settled neatly at the bottom, forming a dark and packed layer enough to hold a plant in each tube.
He poured willpower quickly, and used the quill again. And in the blink of an eye, three different plants appeared inside the tubes.
In one stroke, a vivid red flower appeared, its petals tipped with yellow. In another, a pale gray one took shape, the third flower was a soft and quiet white—its petals smooth, nearly translucent under the soft light of the room.
They rooted themselves into the soil like any natural plant would.
"They're just flowers for now," Caelum said, leaning in to observe them more closely. "I defined them in this way, unless there is a energy source, there will be no reaction in them."
He tapped the side of one of the tubes and leaned in, speaking put his own thoughts like a researcher.
What he created wasn't just flowers, but a plant that could absorb light and store it as energy. Afterall they were part of his plan to create a micro ecosystem on dharti.
'Technically, they're pretty unnatural,' he thought, tilting his head slightly. 'These are designed to absorb sunlight or moonlight, and store that energy internally. Living as a natural plant while storing raw filtering raw energy inside them.'
"Hmmm," a hummm left his mouth. 'It isn't photosynthesis in the traditional sense, if i have to word it properly, its More like… a slow charge of raw energy.'
He stood still considering the next step. Then, gripped the quill tightly and poured in a bit more willpower again.
Caelum moved the quill gently, and a small glass case began to take shape on the table beside the tubes. It wasn't large, just big enough to cover the setup, like a makeshift terrarium.
It settled in place with a soft thud.
"Now," he murmured, stepping back a little, "let's test it a bit first." saying so,caelum placed his hand on the quill and poured a stream of willpower into it
A layer of dark and soft soil formed instantly inside the small glass case, just enough support miniature plant life.
He set the quill down on the table and reached for one of the tubes, gently pulling out the vivid red flower. The slowly and carefully, he rooted it into the new soil.
"Hah. Feels like I'm gardening," he scoffed, brushing off the soil from his fingers.
He picked the quill up again and gave it a short stroke through the air.
Reality bent according to the quill, and then something small hovered in front of him.
It was a delicate and weightless pure white-winged insect, akin to a butterfly but much more mesmerizing. Its body was almost comically tiny compared to its wings.
Caelum leaned closer, studying it. "Not bad," he said, watching as the creature flapped its wings slowly, unsure of it's own existence.
"You'll play a vital role in the ecosystem," he said under his breath, watching the
insect hover in the same place, it was confused and aimless.
He drew a simple bug net with a quick swipe of the quill and caught the insect gently. Then, with a soft motion, he slipped it into the glass case alongside the red flower.
The insect fluttered a bit, then settled, hovering near the flower like it was instinctively drawn to it.
Caelum stepped back and watched closely.
"Let's see how this goes."
Caelum's eyes narrowed slightly as he watched the insect flutter slowly around the red petals, 'It really does seem attracted to the flower… so it worked?' Caelum folded his arms, looking at the insect drawn in to the flower, like it was chasing a scent only it could detect.
It hovered for a few seconds, then gently landed on the flower.
'Since I want this micro-ecosystem to eventually ripple out and influence the larger one on Dharti, I have to build a working food cycle properly from the start.' caelum reasoned as he fully focused on the insect before him.
When the insect settled in place, almost instantly, it began to draw energy from the flower instinctively, its tiny mouth finding a spot near the center and locking on.
'The basics are straightforward. It Doesn't matter if it's day or night, these flowers absorb both sunlight and moonlight. they're designed to pull in light and convert it into raw, raw concentrated energy that gets stored in their petals and stem.'
Caelum methodically ran through the entire chain of plan again in his mind.
First, energy was converted from light. Then, stored in the flower's body. Next, the insect, one that was specifically created to recognize that energy—feeds on it, absorbing enough to power itself.
"And this is defined in a way that, except for the ones i define to draw that stored energy out, nothing else will be able to draw it out of the flowers" he said aloud, mostly to hear the idea spoken back to him.
Right on cue, the insect's wings began to shimmer. A pale glow spread from its tiny body, soft and flickering like a candle in a jar.
Caelum's eyes widened and a smile formed on his lips.
"It's working!" His voice broke into a laugh, a sharp tone of thrill was audible.
He couldn't help it. This was no small thing to him, this was his first true step into something beyond the natural order. A creation that had no blueprint in the real world.
His first step into the supernatural.
The insect hovered over the red flower, its tiny body trembling slightly, as it fed the stored energy in the red flower. Caelum leaned in, watching with a mix of anticipation and excitement.
"…Its wings…" he muttered, noticing something he was expecting to happen.
Bit by bit, the insect's pure white wings started to lose their sheen. The color faded, dissolved, and vanished. The delicate structures seemed to blur against the air, and then—
"Gone. They're turning invisible," Caelum said, his voice rising as a smile crept across his face. "yes! It's actually working."
In just a few seconds, the transformation was complete. The insect's wings, now entirely see-through, shimmered only faintly when they caught the light. Aside from that, they were ghostly, like they weren't there at all.
Caelum let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. "That's… clean," his voice was hoarse.
He stepped back from the table, the corners of his lips twitching in satisfaction. There'd been a lingering doubt in his mind, maybe the insect's defination was lacking when he created it, maybe the energy conversion wouldn't trigger the ability.
But it played out in front of him with perfection, exactly as he defined it.
'So the definition held,' he thought. 'As long as it stores enough raw energy from the flower, it can trigger the camouflage.'
He scratched his head, still watching the insect float gently around the glass case.
'honestly, even though I gave the insect that trait of turning its wings invisible, once it sucked enough energy stored in the flower—I still wasn't sure it would activate as smoothly as I pictured it.'
Watching it now, fluttering gently with unseen wings, he couldn't help but feel satisfied. That little flicker of joy lit up in his chest.
"This is just the start," he said, tapping it against his palm. "I have to refine this micro ecosystem here, make it stable, make it self-sufficient. Then scaling it into Dharti won't be a shot in the dark."
Caelum let out a short laugh. "Little guy doesn't even know it's carrying my entire blueprint."
He held up the quill again, and the air around it rippled faintly with potential.
"Alright… time to add the next layer.."