BIOLOGICAL SUPERCOMPUTER SYSTEM

Erik walked back to the shelter, his feet instinctively finding silent paths between the carpet of the fallen leaves. The forest floor was damp from recent rain, and the temperature was very low, albeit higher than on Mannard.

Although this part of the continent was not very south and was very close to Hin, the difference in temperature was a lot. It might have been because of some thaid, or because of some natural phenomenon, but Erik had no way to know.

Even though Erik knew he could beat the Thaid, he decided not to fight it. It was a smart choice—they had only just arrived in Mur, and starting a fight now would be pointless.

Erik needed to focus on more pressing matters—finding his friends, securing food and water. The Thaid could wait; their survival needs came first. Besides, unnecessary combat would only drain his energy and draw unwanted attention from other creatures lurking in the forest.

The journey back didn't take much. Erik walked down the hidden downward stairs and entered the building. Inside the shelter, Erik found his clone lying on one of the wooden beds, breathing heavily.

Both of them were completely worn out. The endless need to stay alert, the scary environment of Mur, the dreadful journey through the ocean, and the worry about their missing friends had left them exhausted. Erik could see his own tiredness reflected in his clone's state, yet he wasn't going to rest.

The clone desperately needed rest. While Erik had been unconscious during his healing, the clone hadn't slept for days. Despite Erik's attempts to make him rest during their journey, the clone had barely gotten any meaningful sleep.

Erik sat on another bed frame. There were many thoughts racing through his mind, yet few of them were reassuring. He was trying to understand how many were the chances that Amber and the others landed, and based on their approximate position before the split, where they could have done so.

Logic suggested his friends must have landed relatively close by, assuming they had stayed on their planned course before getting separated. Of course, that also depended on the fact they survived.

Sure, the clone brought him to a small patch of earth in the middle of nowhere, but it must not have been that far from their original path. Not given the state in which the clone was in when Erik woke up.

Erik turned to the system. <What lies west and east of our position?>

[Based on data extracted from Maynard Island's records, the western territories have many ancient cities lost to forest growth. The region also has extensive cave networks and notable geological formations. To the east, we find similar ruins, but aside from forests and beaches, there is not much, at least until we stay in the south.]

<Where would they most likely have landed?> Erik was hoping the system had already calculated where the most likely place was. Luckily, it didn't disappoint him.

[My analysis suggests the western region.] Yet the system's answer had a touch of caution within.

[However, if they survived and found shelter in one of the caves, as they should have, finding them will be much more challenging.]

"Shit…" However, Erik was more interested in the chances of them having survived, and what were the chances of them surviving on land if they did on the sea already?

<What about their survival chances? Could you estimate them if they reached the caves?>

[The cave networks provide excellent protection from Thaids and other threats, though they also offer plenty of hiding spots and escape routes.]

The system paused, analyzing the data. [Assuming they avoided serious injuries during landing, their survival probability is over 70% if they made shelter there.]

Erik sighed in relief.

<And the chances they actually reached that area?>

[Given our flight trajectory before getting separated, the wind patterns based on what the clone told us, and the three-headed void ravager's attack vector, I think they should have had a 63% probability they veered westward. The attack's impact would have pushed them in that direction rather than east, but that is still assuming they didn't get steered by anything else.]

Erik's fingers unconsciously tapped against his knee. The Blackguards had much information about Mur and its dangers. For some reason, they refrained from deleting them, only destroying whatever was linked to them, but the rest was on the servers they left behind. This also meant that Erik could get a vague idea of the creatures that could be there, but not an exhaustive one.

The blackguards most likely wrote about what they found, but they couldn't have possibly matched whatever had been made on Mannard during the centuries in which scientists had studied the fauna on Mannard.

They could, and most likely did, miss many of the creatures, meaning that Erik would be in a lot of trouble if he ended up facing one that no human had ever seen.

[What about the Thaids in that area? Any particularly dangerous species we should watch for?]

[The western territories host several high-threat specimens. Based on the records, the most dangerous creatures would be Frost Behemoths in the higher elevations and Stone Wyrms, but we should be unlucky to find them. Really. If we are careful, we should be able to avoid them. The other thaids are not particularly problematic.]

The system showed Erik the data.

Frost Behemoths were massive beasts standing fifteen feet tall, with blue-white fur and ice-like crystals along their spine. They had two pairs of tusks and glowing blue eyes.

Stone Wyrms were twenty-foot serpentine creatures with granite-like plating. They moved swiftly through caves and forests and had multiple eyes and expandable jaws for swallowing prey.

Both creatures dominated their territories but rarely strayed from them.

[Keep in mind that most caves are filled with bug-like thaids.]

Erik nodded. <So we're looking at a search area dominated by ruins and cave networks, with multiple apex predators to consider. The caves offer protection but make tracking nearly impossible.>

[Correct.]

<Then we better make something to allow them to find our base in case I fail to find them, or if they are lucky.>

He started thinking.
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"We need a signal," Erik said to himself. "Something they can't miss." He already had several ideas about how to mark his position for the others.

Erik's words must have woken up the Chimaeric Demon, because it soon gave a suggestion. "The White Desert's tree?"

Erik nodded. "Yeah, I was thinking about that, but thanks for confirming my idea was viable," Erik thanked the clone. However, that wasn't the only problem at hand.

<We also need food, master.>

Erik didn't have the time to do that yet. He first wanted to make sure the immediate area was safe. Besides stocking and preparing for Amber and those who survived from the army,.

Sure, they could hunt, but in a place such as Mur, hunting would not be a trifling matter, and most importantly, the smell of blood could attract stronger thaids.

Erik needed to make crops, but these might get destroyed by the passing thaids.

<I should make a barricade or something like that…>

The problem was that without a barrier master among them, traditional defensive structures would offer very limited protection against thaids, especially if they were from Mur.

They had been useless for centuries, and that against Mannard's thaids. What could a wall of stone and wood do against the powerful creatures of this cursed land?

Yet Erik didn't really need defenses. What he needed was a way to conceal the crops. <A barrier would still work well. The only problem is that if a thaid stumbles at the crops, I will have to make everything again.>

Yet that wasn't a problem. Food was the easiest thing Erik could make thanks to his powers.

<I will also need to make water collectors, and for sure, Chimaeric Demons. They will all have barrier masters' brain crystal powers, and when they mature, I should be able to make a real foothold into this monster infested place.>

He paused.

"I'm going to make the tree," Erik said to the clone. "It should help the others find us."

The clone nodded, and Erik arose from the bed and climbed back to the surface.

Erik looked at the gigantic trees around their shelter. These trees were enormous—their trunks stretched up over 200 feet high, with thick brown bark full of grooves.

The first branches didn't appear until about 50 feet up, where they spread out into thick leafy tops that made the ground below dark and shady.

These trees were much bigger than anything Erik had seen back home in Mannard, where trees usually only grew to about 100 feet tall.

<Well, I don't think it should be hard to make these things even bigger…>

Erik placed his hand against the largest trunk, feeling the pulse of mana flowing through its living wood.

The mana concentration on Mur far exceeded anything he'd seen on Mannard—this was true not just for the environment but for the vegetation as well. He closed his eyes and channeled his mana through the Verdant Architect's neural links.

The tree reacted right away. Its trunk grew bigger and wider. New branches shot up into the air. Erik made sure to control its growth carefully, even though there were plenty of manas available.