The Stargazer

by Nikostar A

  The truck drivers were also stunned when they saw that their truck had already been unloaded. They could not understand what exactly happened. With confused expressions, they left one after another.

  There were many trucks to unload. Alexander kept walking from lorry to lorry and after a whole hour, he finally managed to unload the last truck. He was very tempted to enter his Space to check whether the materials would be scattered all over the place or if they would all be neatly arranged.

  However, before he could do so, he saw another long line of trucks appear. They came from a nearby organic farm, carrying a wide variety of plants and all the soil and fertilizers they had.

  "This is how the entire day is going to be..." internally complained Alexander.

  Chapter 54: The new space

  Time went by quickly. Alexander unloaded truck after truck, sending everything into his Space. There was no time to rest; Katelyn purchased everything in large amounts. Fortunately, Alexander managed to expand his space to a 1km x 1km x 1km cube, reaching the first major milestone.

  Alexander was very satisfied with his harvest. He managed to get most of what he was looking for. All that was left was the items he requested from the military: the MRP rations and the weapons. It was impressive how quickly Katelyn managed to get the items delivered. As long as one had money, they could do almost anything on Earth.

  Everything had been sent into Alexander's space, except for the few farm animals he ordered. There were cows, sheep, and hens that were all waiting in separate pens. Alexander had planned to send them into his space but as he was about to do so, he realized the flaw in his idea. He would need to look after the animals and would also need to provide them with food and water. Both of which were currently lacking in the space.

  The animals would have to wait. Alexander did not want them to roam around the Space, pooping everywhere while eating the few plants he had sent there. Once he would arrive on Loha, he would make proper arrangements for them.

  "Owner, that is everything for today. I can order more tomorrow, is there anything you need?" politely asked Katelyn.

  "No. That is all. Let us return to the mansion. I am curious to see if everything is arranged as I want it to."

  Katelyn and Rosie did not understand Alexander's meaning but they quietly followed behind him. Once inside, Alexander turned toward the two girls. "I'll bring you to a special place. Get ready."

  He placed his hands on their shoulders and waited for a moment before sending them into his Space. The entrance of the Space was already large enough for a person to go through. Alexander sent the two girls in one by one before following behind them.

  "This... What is this place?" exclaimed Rosie. She wore a genuinely astonished expression instead of her usual stern one as she looked around her.

  Katelyn reacted more subtly but was still visibly surprised by the event.

  "This is my space," commented Alexander. He did not mind showing the space to the girls. Both of them were his slaves and could not betray him. Besides, it was the only wait he would be able to bring them with him to Loha. It was highly unlikely that the authorities would allow eight random slaves to return to Loha.

  Alexander looked around him and immediately smiled. Most of the items he sent in the space were neatly arranged in a pile. It was just like Alexander had first sent in a large amount of water in his space; the space understood Alexander's intention and did not randomly scatter the items. Unfortunately, the Space was not omnipotent and did not automatically assemble all the houses; the Space still had limits to what it could do.

  There were several containers filled with clothes and seeds. Next to the pile of items, Alexander saw a plot of land waiting to be sowed. The color of the soil there was darker, the soil was alive and rich in nutrients. It was different from the rock hard ground of the space.

  The fertile soil had been ordered by Katelyn to help in developing the agriculture of the Space. Countless trucks full of bags of soil came to the Mansion today. It was not much compared to the area of the Space but it was definitely enough to create a small plot of arable land.

  "This space is amazing! The space is so large and living things can even enter the space! You can turn this place into a small paradise! Was that your plan all along, owner?" asked Katelyn, her eyes shone brightly.

  "Yes but the Space need a lot more things to become habitable. First, it needs a lot of water, soil, and rocks. Despite the appearance, the space is not very deep at the moment; I'll need to build up a stable ground. Then, we need a lot of water for the plants and for ourselves; ideally, I should bring in enough water to form a small lake."

  Alexander was not shy of sharing his goals with the girls. It was possible that they might even give him a few ideas to improve the Space.

  "Are you planning to turn this place into a village? Or even a city and maybe even a real kingdom?" asked Katelyn.

  Alexander lightly frowned and turned toward Katelyn. He knew what she was thinking, "Don't get the wrong idea. My goal is just to turn this place into a habitable village for my mother. I want this place to be sustainable and have everything she will need for her retirement. I do not plan on fighting the forces of Loha."

  "There is no harm in telling you. In two years time, the Xals will invade Earth and the Blue Planet will be conquered. Then, they will once again turn their attention to Loha and the whole world will once again be at war. Small people like us will only end up being used as cannon fodder by the major forces."

  "I just plan to turn this Space into a refuge for myself but I know that it is not a small task. Sustainability is key but I don't want to live too poorly either."

  Seeing Katelyn biting her lips, Rosie decided to intervene, "Owner, whatever you have planned, we will do our best to help you."

  Alexander nodded, "Tomorrow, I will bring your sisters here. They will need to start assembling a house. Once we arrive on Loha, I will buy a few other slaves to do the labor work. I already said that I do not want direct conflict with the forces of Loha but I know that some conflicts will be inevitable. I will need to gather resources for the Space but we will see what will happen then."

  Alexander brought the two girls out of the Space and guided them to the dining room. He was unwilling to continue the conversation on this topic. Furthermore, Alexander was starving!

  At the table, Alexander sat in the seat of honor and asked Katelyn, "Any reply from Commander Hitori or the other officials?"

  "They are still discussing it. Because of the time difference, they did not have much time to make a decision yet. We should get a reply in a few hours. When exactly do you want to go through the rift?" asked Katelyn.

  "The earlier the better. I don't want people to start coming here physically. It is especially true for Takeshi's wife. Although we made her stay away, who knows if she will come here by force. We have to be careful. One of you should keep guard here while we sleep."

  He proceeded in explaining to the other girls their task for tomorrow. The dinner went on peacefully and after the dessert, Alexander finally stepped out of the Mansion and jumped in the pool.

  Without hesitation, he fully opened the entrance of his Space, sending all the water from the pool inside. At the same time, Rosie fully opened the valve, allowing a stream of water to flow into the pool. She came up with this idea to quickly sent a large amount of water into the Space.

  The pool had to be quickly emptied and cleaned up before doing so as the water originally contained a lot of chlorine. However, after the girls cleaned it up, only freshwater would now flow into Alexander's Space.

  The flowrate of the water could not be compared with anything Alexander had done before. With the valve fully open, the pool was actually filling up quicker than Alexander was able to send the water in his Space. The Space greedily absorbed all the water automatically.

  All Alexander had to do was to float in the middle of the pool while keeping the entrance open. He was holding the small metallic ladder of
the pool to avoid being swept by the whirlpool created by the strong flow of water.

  Absorbing resources was not a very tedious task but it was very time-consuming. He was collecting a lot of water but Alexander also needed to collect some soil. For that, he was planning to go out on a walk and send all the ground around the mansion into the Space. It was the only way he could fill it up. If he did not constantly send in more soil, the layer of soil would gradually become thinner and thinner as the space expanded.

  This was one of the drawbacks of the Anterlope Clan's technique. The clansmen would constantly need to gather more and more resources to fill up their space. It was a neverending task. Furthermore, as they took away resources from the outside world, it inevitably had an impact on the world. The other worlds did not have modern water distribution channels, if someone suddenly absorbed an entire source of water, in the worst scenario, it might lead to a period of drought in some locations.

  Alexander was excited at first when he saw how fast the water was flowing into his Space but soon, he felt bored as he could not really move. The girls were all busy with their own tasks; only Rosie sat on a sunbathing chair next to the pool, ready to attend to Alexander if needed.

  "Owner, may I ask a question?"

  "What is it?" asked Alexander. He had long noticed Rosie waiting for him behind.

  "Are we not pretty enough for you?"

  Alexander froze. Of all the questions Rosie could ask, Alexander had never expected something like that. "Why do you ask this?"

  "You have been surrounded by eight beautiful girls for almost two days now but you have yet to make any move on us. We are all different and have our own forte but you never requested anything from us. In fact, you don't even look at us lustfully. After all, we are first of all sex slaves but you do not use us like that? Is it because we have already been tainted by other men before? You know, we come from Loha. Our appearance is natural. We did not undergo any form of surgery..."

  "Cough cough," Alexander coughed in embarrassment. Of all the girls, Rosie was the last person from which Alexander was expecting this type of questions.

  "You don't have to worry about it. I won't do anything to you or your sisters and I will be grateful if you don't bring up this topic again. For now, my only goal is to build up a habitable place in my Space. Naturally, you will be welcomed to settle there."

  Rosie silently looked at Alexander. He was one of the few men that did not seem to have any ill intentions toward them. Despite his cold and merciless behavior, he was in fact very kind to her and her sisters. She saw Alexander's expression change as he spoke. Melancholy, regret and sadness; those three emotions could be clearly seen on Alexander's face despite his best attempt at hiding it.

  "My goal is to protect Katelyn at all cost. Even if we are now slaves, my oath to protect her is still valid. I was brought up by her family and acted as her personal maid since as far as I can remember. If you ever need something please request it from me rather than her."

  The two fell silent for a moment. Alexander closed his eyes and leaned his head against the metallic ladder.

  "Owner, may I borrow a few spirit stones from you?"

  "Spirit stones? Why do you need them?" asked Alexander.

  "Owner, you already know that Mana is equivalent to our life force. The more we use it, the shorter our life would be. To meditate and expand our mana reservoir safely, we need to use the mana in the spirit stones... My sisters and I need to become stronger to be able to defend ourselves and be useful to you. You don't have to worry about us breaking the slave seals. Because we worked directly for the royal family, special seals were used on us. To break them, we would need at least five years' worth of hard work."

  Alexander understood Rosie's point of view and he knew that she was not lying due to their master-slave relationship. As they became slaves, they were forbidden from meditating. At the moment, her mana reservoir was only as big as a newly awakened mage. Furthermore, as she never really used them, her spirit circuits shrunk to some extent.

  It is true that having a group of powerful individuals at his side would be useful but at the same time, Spirit Stones were very valuable. Alexander had two thousand three hundred spirit stones on him but that did not mean he could spend them as he wished.

  Seeing Alexander's hesitation, Rosie quickly added, "It is fine if you don't. I know how valuable they are. Even the first prince only got two hundred spirit stones per week when he was still alive. But I have one last question to ask you."

  Rosie bit her lips. It was the one question she really wanted to ask. She usually stayed behind Katelyn, helping her with all the tasks she had and naturally, she was able to read the emails between Katelyn and the organizations. The girls only made a brief summary of the emails but in reality, they also asked for the reason for the organization's interest in Alexander.

  "Are you really just a mage or did you manage to get hold of a different path of power?"

  As he heard Rosie, Alexander turned toward her. He almost lost control on the entrance of his Space. He was surprised by her question but he did not feel any ill intent coming from her. As her master, Alexander would be immediately alerted if his slaves were trying to harm him in any way.

  "Different path of power? What do you know about them?"

  "Not much... I was only a servant and Katelyn was just an innocent princess at that time. However, I did hear a few rumors while serving at the royal castle. I often overheard some conversations," answered Rosie. She smiled faintly; she had successfully attracted Alexander's attraction.

  "Tell me what you heard exactly," asked Alexander. During his time on Loha, Alexander has never heard of other types of power but with the existence of the rifts, it was not impossible for someone to have traveled to other worlds and come back.

  "Owner, I really don't know much. All I heard was the old king once saying that the only reason the Empire could rule over the majority of Loha was that they knew a different type of magic. They used the term 'class' to define the other type of power. I believe they called it Shamanism."

  "Shamanism?" Alexander quietly murmured. He was familiar with the term but he has never heard of humans being able to use this art!

  Shamanism was the power used by the Xals! Just like humans, the Xals had different tribes and ethnicities. Among them was a small group of Xal that were born with blue skin instead of their usual green one. On the battlefield, they were particularly eye-catching, both because they stood out of the crowd but also because of the powerful attacks they could unleash.

  The people of Loha studied the Xals for a long time and had a basic understanding of the Shamans but they were never able to replicate the art. To become a Shaman, one would need to go through a certain awakening ceremony just like Alexander did to become a stargazer or an elemental mage. As far as Alexander was aware, the Xals were very protective of those Shamans; it was very unlikely that humans were able to replicate the awakening process.

  Shamans used a different way to use the power of nature. They usually formed pacts with spirits. Depending on their luck and charisma, they could convince spirits to share their power in exchange for their life force. The spirit would then enter a certain recipient which was typically the bones of a dead animal. This was why the Shamans were usually covered with armors and helmets made of bones. The Xals were very careful when hunting; they made sure not to damage the spine and would often clean up the carcasses to use them as recipients.

  Alexander laughed to himself and returned to his original position. He had overreacted for nothing; Rosie did not mean him any harm and was probably just curious. "I think you probably heard them wrong. Shamanism is the power used by the Xals. As far as I am aware, it is impossible for humans to use it. I believe that you asked the question to probe me? There is no reason for me to lie to you. Yes, I do have a different kind of power; that's why I am able to use magic without being detected."

  "This..." Rosie could not believe what she was hearing.
She had her suspicions that Alexander really possessed a different kind of power but it so erroneous that she was not willing to believe it. She was very attentive by nature and in just those few days, she noticed that Alexander would always make hand seals before using magic. She herself was not an expert at magic but she knew there was no need to make hand seals to cast spells.

  Before she could say anything, Alexander spoke in a solemn voice, "Before you ask, the answer is no. I will not be sharing this power with you... At least, not for now." His voice trembled as he said the last few words. Even though he knew the girls were his slaves and would be unable to betray him, the memory of Aila backstabbing him was still fresh in his mind. She had been the one person he believed would never betray him, yet, it happened.

  He had made a terrible mistake and was not going to repeat it. He needed some time to recover from this.